![]() ![]() As fun as it was to see Cranston and Paul back bickering in their Bounder, nothing will be as exciting as whatever lies ahead. Next week’s penultimate episode might be all about Gene, or all about Walter White, or maybe even Marion. So this final clutch of episodes is working from a completely blank slate. It explained exactly what happened to Jimmy, Kim, Gus and Mike. Fun and Games, the episode from a fortnight ago, pretty much wrapped things up for everyone. The episode ended with Saul Goodman ready to confront Walter White in his school (a scene which also took place in the same Breaking Bad episode as the desert encounter), so we almost certainly haven’t seen the last of the pair.īut who knows? The joy of these last few Better Call Saul episodes is that the show is already done. Of these three, we have only seen the first. Cranston has let it slip that he and Paul filmed three scenes for Better Call Saul one together then one each separately. ![]() Plus, I can’t help but feel like the Breaking Bad scenes were designed as a curveball. Was he learning something new about Kim? Was he talking to Kim? Surely this will all be resolved in the next couple of hours of television. The audio was muted, but Jimmy was visibly agitated. And let’s not forget the call in the phone booth. Carol Burnett’s character, Marion, (especially now she has access to the internet), appears to be teetering on the brink of figuring out Gene’s true identity. One of the drunks has cancer, which is absolutely not a coincidence. It feels as if something similar is at play here. For instance, Howard Hamlin’s death, as shocking as it was, came at the end of seven episodes of meticulous, translucent plotting. To love Better Call Saul is to keep an eye on the bigger picture. However, it’s important to state that this was a terrific episode. Photograph: Greg Lewis/AMC/Sony Pictures Television Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) inspects Walt and Jesse’s equipment. Anyone who came into this week’s episode blind, just to get a hit of the old propulsive Breaking Bad energy, may well have been entirely mystified by its slow adherence to process. The people who said this have had years to tune themselves into Better Call Saul’s deliberate pace. Last week’s instalment, another full-length black-and-white Takavic scam, was (wrongly) called the worst Better Call Saul episode ever by others. The Walt and Jesse scene was folded into another black-and-white flash-forward episode, with Gene Takavic slowly duping a sequence of drunks for no immediate cause. It’s hard, too, to know what long-absent Breaking Bad fans would have made of everything that surrounded it. Yes, it was a thrill to see Cranston and Paul back as their most indelible characters (especially Paul, revelling in Jesse’s snotty snarkiness after the bleakness of El Camino), but other than that it felt like flat fan service. True, it’s an important moment – it’s the Rosetta Stone for the entire arc of Better Call Saul, referencing Lalo and Nacho Salamanca for the first time – but the epilogue we were treated to amounted to little more than small talk. The Walt and Jesse scene was basically an addendum to an old Breaking Bad scene where Saul is taken out to the desert and pleads for his life. How could such an agonisingly awaited cameo be anything other than a glorious lap of honour?īut when it came, once again, it felt slightly empty. This whole thing has been a breadcrumb trail designed to destroy the internet. They even had the brass balls to name this episode Breaking Bad (as a nod to the Breaking Bad season two episode Better Call Saul), for crying out loud. And Gould and Gilligan had primed us for their arrival long in advance. The reappearance of Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul has been a fundamental piece of Better Call Saul legend. Say what you like about Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan, but they really know how to punish people. ![]() Saul had arrived, but long before we could process the grief of losing Jimmy. But when that moment finally came – in a smash-cut flash-forward at the climax of one of the most devastatingly emotional sequences of the entire series – it felt like a bereavement. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |