Saul Goodman ‘just the right amount of dirty’
Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul gears up for two-night debut
There’s identity theft and then there’s the opposite — assuming a new identity to hide something from one’s past.
An assumed identity — how it happened, and why — is the crux behind Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul, the new midseason drama from Breaking Bad writer-producers Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould.
Better Call Saul, one of midseason’s more anticipated new dramas, is slated for a two-night première, Feb. 8-9, on AMC. .
Bob Odenkirk reprises his Breaking Bad role as ethically challenged lawyer Saul Goodman, who, it was learned in an early-season episode, was named James “Jimmy” M. McGill in a previous life. How McGill became Goodman — and how a reputable Chicago criminal lawyer became a disreputable Mr. Fix It operating out of a shady strip mall in Albuquerque, New Mexico — lies at the heart of Better Call Saul’s mystery.
It’s a tightrope walk, Gilligan and Gould acknowledged this past summer, in Los Angeles.
Breaking Bad won back-to-back Emmys for outstanding drama, and the weight of expectation lies heavily on Better Call Saul. If it’s to succeed it has to remind viewers of both what was good about Breaking Bad, and be a self-contained series in its own right, able to stand on own merits.
“It’s a challenge,” Gilligan said. “It’s a leap of faith, or stupidity, into the unknown.”
Goodman provided much-needed comic relief in what was at times one of TV’s darkest dramas. Better Call Saul is not a comedy, though. It’s a private-detective series, with a central character who’s both lovable and irascible — the kind of character Jack Nicholson might play in the movies.
“We didn’t really know who this guy is at all, when you think about it,” Gilligan said, of his Breaking Bad creation as he first envisioned the character. “He was this really interesting supporting character, and I thought it was going to be easy going forward.”
The more Gilligan thought about it, though, the more he realized that, by making Better Call Saul a prequel, he had boxed himself into a tight corner.
“We know where this guy is going,” Gilligan said. “We can’t, for instance, have him lose an arm or an eye in the first episode. Though he could have a glass eye, I suppose.”
Goodman was a peripheral figure in Breaking Bad’s early seasons, but gained importance toward the end, when the situation facing his clients Walter White and Jesse Pinkman broke from bad to worse. Goodman could assume a new identity and put on a good front, but he could never hide the louse he truly was. “Walter never told me how lucky he was,” Goodman famously told White’s wife Skyler, on meeting her for the first time. “Clearly his taste in women is the same as his taste in lawyers: Only the best … with just the right amount of dirty.”
The key question at the core of Better Call Saul’s being is how Jimmy McGill became Saul Goodman, and what problem that solved. Goodman is a compelling character, Gilligan says, because, despite his sleazy, flamboyant personal style, he’s a sharp, more-than-competent lawyer who knows all the legal ins and outs of his trade. He has an aversion to violence — he’s both a physical and moral coward — and prefers not to be associated with murder cases, opting to go with a “cleaner” instead.
To allay clients’ qualms, Goodman proudly hangs his law-school diploma in his office — from the University of American Samoa. It’s instructive that the real-world legal resources website HG.org lists a comprehensive directory of law schools in American Samoa “in alphabetical order,” which is summarily followed by a blank page.
“The question you first asked, and I think it’s a good question — how do we do this? — is something we ask at least two or three times a week in the writers’ room now,” Gilligan said. “And I’ll be honest with you — it’s a challenge. But we’re having fun. We’re plugging away, but it’s fun. It’s like being into this Rubik’s Cube you’re trying to solve. Although, having said that, I’ve never actually solved one.”
In a previous life, Gilligan was instrumental in shepherding the short-lived, X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunmen, starring Canadian actors Tom Braidwood, Dean Haglund and Bruce Harwood.
Gilligan makes no apologies for The Lone Gunmen’s cancellation after just 13 episodes.
“Call me hard-headed or slow to learn lessons if you want, but I still maintain that The Lone Gunmen clicked. I am still proud of those 13 episodes that we made. I still think, in my heart, that Fox missed a trick by not re-upping it for a second season.
“A lot of television — a lot of life, really — is about timing. Given a different set of circumstances and a different time, it could have been a hit. It’s certainly a show I’m proud to have been associated with, and I would have loved to see it go longer.
“As far as lessons learned, the only lesson I learned was what I would have learned anyway, just as much if it had been a success. And that is work hard, do your best work, try to come up with as entertaining characters as possible and go forward with courage.
“And that’s what we’re doing here. The chips will fall where they may. We have no control over that. The only control we have is over how good a show we can give to our viewers.”