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Better Call Saul S2 |OT| The Truth Is Just A Point Of View - Mondays 10/9c

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Veelk

Banned
You know what I like about Gus? More hacky writers would probably have him sneak in some kind of reference to his criminal activities in the commercial.

Not Gus. He just wants to sell you fried chicken. That's it.
 
You know what I like about Gus? More hacky writers would probably have him sneak in some kind of reference to his criminal activities in the commercial.

Not Gus. He just wants to sell you fried chicken. That's it.

Yeah, I've seen too much shitty Tv and I was expecting them to put some little sinister give away at the end. Bonus points for just laying it straight.
 

SickBoy

Member
I'm really interested to see where they take the present-day vignettes of Jimmy in his new life. (If they take them anywhere — I certainly expect they're going to, whenever the show finishes its run)
 

Mariolee

Member
Sorry havent been following the news. So does that confirm Gus Fring is coming back for Season 3? I only remember last season they laid the groundwork for him to come back but a year ago they weren't sure if they could get the actor.
 

Veelk

Banned
So...as a huge fan of Breaking Bad, is this worth watching? I only ever saw the pilot and it seemed like it had a lighter tone.

It does. It's got less death and mayhem.

It it has all the characterization and intrigue that breaking bad had. I don't want to say more because that runs into spoiler territory, but you can just as easily make a character study out of the characters of BCS as with BB, and if I were in your position, that'd be all the encouragement I'd need.
 
So...as a huge fan of Breaking Bad, is this worth watching? I only ever saw the pilot and it seemed like it had a lighter tone.
Yes, definitely. It's a great show - not as flashy as BB (not as much stuff blowing up), but the character work remains fantastic. It's more grounded than BB. The quality across the board (acting, writing, direction, etc...) is terrific. Well worth your time.



EDIT: Onion A|V Club on S1
Typically when a critic says a TV show is ”still finding itself," the comment is meant as a criticism. A show that doesn't know itself is a show with a lot of loose ends, muddled characterizations, and narrative cul-de-sacs. That isn't true of Better Call Saul, which takes the process of episodic self-actualization and turns it into a moving examination of identity, self-knowledge, and how hard it is to be a good man when everyone expects you to be bad. Spinning off from one of the best loved series of the past decade, Saul had big shoes to fill, and in its first couple of episodes, it didn't shy away from referencing its past. Those references were a misnomer, however; the story of Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) and his struggle to go legit is too sprawling to fit comfortably inside the shadow of Breaking Bad. The first season spans multiple genres—gritty crime, sunny legal drama, slapstick comedy, family tragedy—and while the tonal shifts aren't always comfortable, the energy generated by switching between them gives the season an exhilarating pull. At times it's possible to feel the writers struggling to pull various threads together, and the effort of that makes it all the more satisfying when they succeed. With Odenkirk doing the best dramatic work of his career serving as a center, the show demonstrates what can happen when you take a creative team at the top of their game and let them improvise.
Onion A|V Club on S2
It still seems unbelievable that a character who first came across as unsustainable comic relief in the dark world of Breaking Bad became not only a tonal linchpin of that show but also the beating heart of its own spin-off. And Better Call Saul showed no signs of slowing its fantastic burn in season two. There's virtually no weak spot in the show, as evidenced by this year's finale, which left a pair of cliffhangers that point toward even juicier stories to come. At the end of season one, people were anxiously asking when Jimmy McGill would become Saul Goodman; now we're not so eager to get to the fireworks factory—not when there's so much to chew on in this era.
 
So...as a huge fan of Breaking Bad, is this worth watching? I only ever saw the pilot and it seemed like it had a lighter tone.

I like it better. It's more low-key, but it's great character stuff.

BB was really fantastic, but a bit too cartoonish at times. This eases up on that aspect.
 
I like it better. It's more low-key, but it's great character stuff.

BB was really fantastic, but a bit too cartoonish at times. This eases up on that aspect.

Absolutely! It really is a fantastic show. Better than Breaking Bad was 2 seasons in.

Yes, definitely. It's a great show - not as flashy as BB (not as much stuff blowing up), but the character work remains fantastic. It's more grounded than BB. The quality across the board (acting, writing, direction, etc...) is terrific. Well worth your time.



EDIT: Onion A|V Club on S1
Onion A|V Club on S2
Man, that's a lot of impressive praise. Guess I've been missing out
 

Travo

Member
I'm really interested to see where they take the present-day vignettes of Jimmy in his new life. (If they take them anywhere — I certainly expect they're going to, whenever the show finishes its run)

I certainly hope for a payoff with those. Plus I'd like to see more than one flash forward a season.
 
Youtube copy (will still be region-locked)



Panel reports from TCA:

- ‘Better Call Saul’: Giancarlo Esposito’s Gustavo Fring Returns for Season 3
- Co-creator/exec producer Peter Gould admitted that he’s only now starting to get a real handle on how Odenkirk’s title character transforms from the earnest Jimmy McGill to the crooked Saul Goodman. McGill may have a shady side to him but he has a core sense of decency that will eventually evaporate. “This season as it progressed, I started to understand it a little bit better. You’ll see that it takes a lot of pressure to turn a lump of coal into a diamond. It takes a hell of a lot of pressure to turn a decent man into Saul Goodman.
- Michael McKean, who plays the straight-laced older brother Chuck McGill, said the actors have no long-term insights into the storyline. “None of us in this room know whether or not we’re going to die tomorrow,” he said.
- Rhea Seahorn, who plays Jimmy McGill’s love interest Kim Weller, said she enjoys getting to watch the story unfold as a fan even as she works on the show. “I don’t have to spend a lot of time thinking about (Kim’s future),” she said. She also said she’s been impressed at how fans have embraced characters such as hers who are not part of the original “Breaking Bad” canon. “It’s riveting to me to watch people hurtle toward a destiny that I know,” along with the mystery of what becomes of the new characters, she said.
- Gould hinted that time jumps could become more frequent as the show likes having the option of moving backwards and forwards in the chronology of the characters. “In some ways it’s also a sequel to ‘Breaking Bad’ — who knows what we’re going to see,” he said.
- When Gould tap-danced around a question about whether there would be more sequel material, Odenkirk jumped to the reporter’s defense. “Will you give this lady just a little tidbit of something,” he implored Gould. To which Gilligan responded: “If 2016 taught us nothing else, it’s that anything is possible.”
- EW: Giancarlo Esposito, a.k.a. Gus Fring, crashes Better Call Saul panel, delivers Los Pollos Hermanos
Esposito explained that while he was “honored to be asked to come back and recreate this character,” he had to remind himself that Gus was “a little more immature from when we left off. I’m reminding myself that he’s still finding his way, business man that he is, in regards to where we left off where he was at with the cartel.”

As for what to expect in the new batch of episodes, “we unroll it in a way that will leave you with a thirst,” says Esposito. “We’re in a show that’s very unexpected. Jimmy McGill is a character who you look at and just when you think he’s slopping off of all of those characteristics that you’ve seen, he comes right back to a place where you’re surprised by it, so I’m hoping that Gustavo Fring will be similar in that way.”
- THR: Confirmed With Chicken: Gus Fring Is Coming to 'Better Call Saul'
The panelists stated that as long as Jimmy has his two fundamental connections — Rhea Seehorn's Kim and Michael McKean's Chuck — he can't truly become Saul, but Seehorn continued to shy away from the idea that just because Kim isn't a character in Breaking Bad doesn't mean something horrible happens to her.

"I don't know where she's going," Seehorn insisted. She's absent from the points of view of story we saw on Breaking Bad. Where is she during that time? "I don't know."

And might we see more from the black-and-white world that takes place after Breaking Bad, the Gene in Omaha reality that has opened both seasons?

"I would say that if 2016 taught us anything else, it's that anything is possible," Gilligan hinted.
 
I still think Kim will be a catalyst for Jimmy becoming Saul and I use to think she'd die but after season two I hope not and it'd probably be more effective if either she flat out cuts him out to save herself from being dragged down and gets him out of her life in a way where he feels betrayed to a degree that snuffs out what decency he's got left. Either way it feels like losing the last person who believed in him will play a part in the final push.
 

SpaceWolf

Banned
I just can't see Kim dying. That would be way too obvious and melodramatic for this show (not to mention an insult to her character).
 

Niraj

I shot people I like more for less.
I just can't see Kim dying. That would be way too obvious and melodramatic for this show (not to mention an insult to her character).

I don't think she will either. I think if (when?) they do delve into the post Breaking Bad stuff, we will see him try to reunite with her in some fashion, even if from afar.
 

Servbot24

Banned
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More info from AMC, too:
Season 3 follows the twists and turns of Jimmy McGill’s devolution toward Breaking Bad’s Saul Goodman — Albuquerque’s most notorious criminal lawyer. Six years before he meets Walter White, Jimmy is a more-or-less law-abiding, small-time attorney hustling to champion his underdog clients, build his practice, and somehow make a name for himself.

As the new season begins, the repercussions of Chuck’s scheme test Jimmy and Kim’s fledgling law practices — and their romance — as never before. This imminent existential threat presses Jimmy’s faltering moral compass to the limit. Meanwhile, Mike searches for a mysterious adversary who seems to know almost everything about his business.
 
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