The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)

Another AMC, series, the acclaimed “Better Call Saul,” returns for its third season.

Third season of ‘Breaking Bad’ spin-off picks up where season two ended

- By Rob Lowman rlowman@scng.com @Roblowman1 on Twitter

The black-and-white opening episode of the third season of AMC’s “Better Call Saul” returns to the Cinnabon in Omaha, Nebraska, where the disreputab­le lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) — first introduced on “Breaking Bad” — is icing buns.

He is still hiding out under an assumed name there, and as he goes through his dreary paces, the sunny 1967 Nancy Sinatra hit “Sugar Town” plays against the mood.

Eating his bagged lunch, Gene, as he is now known, watches a teen get arrested for shopliftin­g. “Get a lawyer,” he shouts in warning as they drag him off, only to have the youth in turn insult him.

The show then returns to years before “Breaking Bad” and the story of how Jimmy McGill, a onetime New Mexico public defender, turned into Saul.

Season 3 dives into the mess left at the end of last year when Jimmy’s confession of evidence tampering was captured on tape by his elder brother Chuck (Michael McKean), who is a combinatio­n

of crazy — he believes he suffers from electromag­netic hypersensi­tivity — and crazy like a fox.

Like “Breaking Bad,” “Saul” — also created by Vince Gilligan — is filled with weird and quirky moments, which keeps it interestin­g. Gilligan, who directed the first two episodes this season, has a lowkey sense of humor that can sneak up on you.

Odenkirk is flat-out terrific at times, but the show hasn’t kicked into gear for me. On “Bad,” Bryan Cranston’s Walter White was in a desperate situation that unleashed his inner monster and diabolical genius. Meanwhile, the occasional­ly dense Saul is meandering toward his sugar-rush exile in Omaha.

 ?? MICHELE K. SHORT — AMC ?? Bob Odenkirk stars as Jimmy McGill — or in this scene, as eventual alter ego Gene — in AMC’s “Better Call Saul.”
MICHELE K. SHORT — AMC Bob Odenkirk stars as Jimmy McGill — or in this scene, as eventual alter ego Gene — in AMC’s “Better Call Saul.”

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