Photo courtesy of AMC
Better Call Saul is currently in its fifth season on AMC.
Often as not, television spin-offs fall short of the parent program. One of the most successful in recent years emerged from the shadow of “Breaking Bad” to stand on its own. The award-winning “Better Call Saul” is now in its fifth season.
The title character, Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), is the fast-talking lawyer who endowed “Breaking Bad” with much of its comic relief. “Better Call Saul” provides significant back stories for several characters and scenarios from its parent series. It also serves as “Breaking Bad’s” prequel and is as uproariously funny and tragic as its predecessor.
In season one, Saul still goes by his given name, Jim McGill. Although his brother Charles (Michael McKean ) is a partner with Albuquerque’s largest law firm, Jim is a small-timer with a hustler’s instinct. He caged his law degree through remote classwork with the University of American Samoa and passed the bar on his third try. His office-bedroom is a closet in back of a nail salon. However, Jim’s mind is quick as his tongue and his courtroom showmanship is undergirded by hard work. He’ll even dive into filthy dumpsters if necessary to find evidence.
Season one also introduces his eventual enforcer, Mike (Jonathan Banks). Although the laconic ex-cop from Philadelphia is hard as a gut-punch, he has a heart. He takes no pleasure in killing but is good at it.
Like other shows in the great post-‘90s, post-network wave that began with “The Sopranos,” “Better Call Saul” unfolds with the leisurely digressions of a 19th century novel. It’s a satire of recent America whose serrated edge is cushioned by laughter as wily Jim-Saul sails through loopholes and somersaults over ethical boundaries. In his heart, he feels the imperative of justice, even when bargaining for the lives of a couple of skateboard rats with the narrow-eyed local head of a Mexican drug cartel. “The punishment should fit the crime,” Jim insists, talking the kingpin into breaking the skaters’ legs instead of killing them for running a car accident scam on the gangster’s beloved grandmother.
In “Better Call Saul,” as in “Breaking Bad,” even the most demonic characters have a human dimension.
