BACK AND 4TH
‘Better Call Saul’ finally returns for new season
IT’S been nearly 14 months in-between “Better Call Saul” ending its third season and Monday’s Season 4 return on AMC (9 p.m.) It was worth the wait. That being said, “Saul” fans would be well-advised to watch last season’s finale like I did for a quick refresher, but here’s a snapshot: Kim (Rhea Seehorn) was recovering from her car crash; Chuck (Michael McKean) was forced out of HHM by Howard (Patrick Fabian); and Hector (Mark Margolis) collapsed after a parking-lot confrontation with drug overlord Juan Bolsa (Javier Grajeda) and Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito).
Jimmy (series star Bob Odenkirk), meanwhile, moved out of his law office and tried apologizing to Chuck (it didn’t end well). In the episode’s final scene, Chuck, battling a crippling relapse of his psychosis (an aversion to electricity), torched his house — with himself inside.
As in past season openers, Sunday’s episode starts with a (blackand-white) flash-forward to Jimmy (now Gene) managing the Cinnabon in Omaha — and then it’s back to Albuquerque immediately following Chuck’s suicide, which has taken its toll on nearly everyone in his orbit. Other storylines follow Nacho (Michael Mando) after Hector’s collapse and Mike (Jonathan Banks) making his presence felt at Madrigal (in a comedic, “Undercover Boss”- type sequence) as the series’ arc inches thematically closer to “Breaking Bad,” from which it was spun off. Fans of the show will be pleased, I think, with how the Season 4 opener plays out — setting up several storylines that, if past seasons are any indication, will be woven into these 10 episodes and might even carry over into Season 5 (which was recently announced by AMC). Expect to see much more of Gus and of Howard: Gus, as his ties to the cartel and to Madrigal grow deeper, and Howard as he deals with Chuck’s death. Patrick Fabian has, in my opinion, been the show’s secret weapon since Day One, as Howard has slowly morphed from unctuous to combative to empathetic. I hope Fabian gets more screen time this season to flesh out what has proven to be an interesting, quirky, multi-faceted character.
Sunday’s episode, “Smoke,” is well-written and hews closely to the show’s mythology and tropes, including its Emmy-nominated cinematography (dark and shadowy) — which creates a world in which the bright Albuquerque sun is cast in a sinister, forbidding hue — and its innovative camera work, which can be overdone at times. Do we really need to see yet
another closeup of water circling a drain? It’s clever. We get it. But these are minor quibbles in a series that continues to thrive in its singular universe and move forward in an absorbing direction.