Better Call Saul [SPOILERS]

Yeah. He finally did something not for personal gain.

And there was another subtle Easter Egg in last week's episode. The amount of money shown on the cancer guy's statement $737,xxx was the amount of money Walter calculated he would need to earn to leave his family.

Wow. Wow. Wow.

Fucking wow.

Leave it to Vince Gilligan to consistently defy expectations.

The title of the episode is "Saul Gone", which is obviously a play on words, but it could have been called "The Redemption of Jimmy McGill".

The redemption aspect is even brought into greater contrast by the conversations Jimmy McGill has about travelling in time. Everyone else talks about correcting past wrongs and all Jimmy can talk about is money and blowing out his knee. Walter White nails it when he says, "you've always been like this, haven't you?"

I also loved the fact that there's a bit more resolution/closure over the murders of Hank and Steve, who I thought got short shrift following their deaths in Breaking Bad.

Just wow.

I gotta say, seeing Walt one last time wasn’t that much of a surprise, though I loved it, but I sure as shit didn’t expect to see Chuck.

I didn't expect to see Marie!`

Right. Me neither.

Great review from IGN that encapsulates a lot of what I feel about the series finale, and the series in general:

https://www.ign.com/articles/better-call-saul-series-finale-review-saul-gone

They rate the final episode 10/10, and I couldn't agree more.

Now I'm depressed that it's over. I think I'll have some squat cobbler to drown my sorrows.

I did like seeing Jimmy being the Jimmy that was always there come out. Two flashbacks to the "Time Machine" question, and one to what could have been done differently. We got to the the Jimmy that was there when the assisted living facility thing started. We also got to see that Jimmy become Saul Goodman. It was never said, but it was there, Gene was thinking back and realizing there were times in his life that he could have been a different person. But through his journey from being Jimmy to Saul and then to Gene, people in his life affected who he was. There was Chuck, who never believed or supported him. Then there was Kim who both encouraged him to be Jimmy and to become Saul. Howard did see the potential in Jimmy, but let Chuck temper that. Then when he met Walter, he let his greed and need for power push him further into being Saul.

At the end, taking the stand and the fall to let Kim go on was not Saul's way of going out on top, but it was the real Jimmy's, the one that was always there, way of going out on top.

Fucking legend. Jimmy will be all right in prison.

What I think will happen. For all the criminal activity he was doing, and the scams he pulled. He is still a damn good lawyer. He'll start working with them inmates to get their sentences reduced, retried, etc..

That will make him valuable to the other inmates, and he'll be protected. That alongg with good behavior can get him out early. He can't practice law, but he can give advice and give them what they need to get started.

I thought they were orchestrating an escape in that scene.

I normally watch these in real time but a last minute assignment yesterday had me out of town overnight and I got to the hotel room too late to see either running of the episode.

Just fucking brilliant. Excellent ending to an excellent series. Every bit the equal of Breaking Bad's finale and, overall, BCS is every bit as good as BB (maybe better*).

Marie was the last character I expected to see in this show at all. I just wish her scenes could've been in color so we could've seen whether she was wearing purple.

Ditto for Saul's shiny courtroom suit.

Nice Easter egg with the airline Saul was on with the marshal and his lawyer: Wayfarer. The same airline that had the big crash in Breaking Bad.

The last shared cigarette between Jimmy and Kim in a shaft of light was perfect. Interesting to have the Zippo flame and cigarette cherry in color.










*Within the next couple of days I plan another rewatch of Breaking Bad. I want to see it again right on the heels of this final BCS season to compare Gilligan and crew's skill level from the beginning of their ABQ story until the ending.

It's a tough comparison. They're both exceptional television series.

From a technical standpoint (i.e., cinematography, etc.) I think BCS was better than BB. But, as you pointed out, it's likely because the crew and showrunners honed their skills over the last 14 years.

I liked the music selection in BB better than BCS (although BCS was no slouch).

For now, I'd say I like BCS and BB equally... essentially they form part of the same overall story, anyway.

I never thought lightning could be caught in a bottle twice... but hot damn if Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould didn't pull it off. We may never see the like again.

Agreed on both counts.

The last time I rewatched BB for the story* about five years ago, I ended up making myself a Breaking Bad Soundtrack playlist for my iTunes. There are kind souls out there who've catalogued every song used in the series (and have probably done the same with BCS) so I searched for all of them and ended up using the 104 that I liked best.

I don't normally rip music, but with that many songs it would've gotten really expensive to purchase them and, in some cases, there weren't even .mp3s or CDs to buy.

BCS has really good music, but probably not as much as BB. I have bought a few CDs, though, with some of my favorite songs I heard in Better Call Saul (like Dennis Coffee's "Scorpio" and Lee Morgan's "Sidewinder").





*A couple of years ago I rewatched Breaking Bad, but only to listen to the commentary on the Blu-ray discs. Since it's not on every episode, I ended up skipping a lot of them.

The scene where Lalo is making breakfast, I think, and Nacho walks in there’s a salsa song that I really liked. I looked it up a couple of times, but I can’t remember what it was.

Shazam is one of my most-used apps.

Another Easter egg pointed out elsewhere: in the first episode this season, a copy of The Time Machine is seen in the house when the feds are seizing all of Saul's property.

Love it! I'm not much of a dancer, but I love this music, it reminds me of a trip I took to Puerto Rico years ago.

I did the exact same thing about five years ago. It was extra awesome because I loaded the tunes in my rental car when I did the 9-hour drive from Las Vegas to Albuquerque for work.

I made sure to play Apparat's "Goodbye" as I approached the Albuquerque city limits. Not joking. I'm that much of a nerd.

To clarify, what I don't mean to imply that BCS didn't have as many "good" songs as BB but that, overall, BCS didn't use as much music as BB.

BCS didn't have as many tunes , but they had a great batting average.

First episode/last episode.

Wow.

I saw someone refer to the story arc as going from Breaking Bad to baking bread.

May or may not be another Easter Egg, Jimmy was sentenced to 86 years. The RV used in Breaking Bad was an 86 Fleetwood Bounder.

And there is still one Salamanca that is still around.

Three episodes into the Breaking Bad rewatch.

It was excellent from the pilot onward. Some minor visual stylistic differences from later in the series (and from BCS) but it was outstanding from the jump.

Seeing the RV again reminded me of an encounter I had on my way to an assignment four years ago (I could've sworn I posted about it in my Blue Room thread but apparently not).

On the drive to a neighboring town I passed this vehicle on the side of the highway.



I turned around and made a few photos. It's the same company as Walt and Jesse's rig (Bounder) but obviously is a different model since it has two doors.



It even had New Mexico plates.

Really good Vince Gilligan interview.


Vince Gilligan Wants to Write a Good Guy
After fourteen years of “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul,” the showrunner talks about how TV has changed, the sins of auteur theory, and the appeal of an old-fashioned hero.