Better Call Saul is back after a two-year wait – and it's more masterful than ever
Warning: contains spoilers
The one downside to Better Call Saul’s methodical brilliance – its utter devotion to quiet processes, whether the removal of tape from a mural or the slow disintegration of a man’s entire character – is that anticipation can sometimes fade a little.
This point in Breaking Bad’s history, the start of the penultimate season, was like being caught in a panic attack. Walt, on the cusp of being murdered by Gus Fring, had ordered the assassination of sweet, blameless Gale to buy him a stay of execution; the 13-month wait before the consequences were revealed felt like torture.
But Better Call Saul’s last season ended on a note that, while momentous – Jimmy McGill starts practising law under the name Saul Goodman – was much less hyperventilating. It wasn’t a surprise, because that’s how prequels work. Add to that the fact that the last episode aired in 2018, and that this enormous hiatus worked against the show during awards season, and that El Camino stole in and tugged the curtain out from underneath it, and you’re left with a show suffering from a case of diminished buzz. Bob Odenkirk has done his best, promising audiences that this new season is worth the wait, but there’s no doubt Better Call Saul has a hill to climb.
Fortunately for all of us, on the basis of today’s new episode, Better Call Saul is back on top and no momentum has been lost. Season five picks up moments after the climax of the previous episode, with McGill rubberstamping his new legal identity as Saul Goodman. And because no time has passed, Kim is still as stunned as the rest of us.
Poor Kim. For years now, we’ve wondered what will happen to her – so integral to Better Call Saul, but nowhere to be seen on Breaking Bad. Now it’s starting to look as if her fate might finally be in sight. For a while, she has been the moral ruler by which we’ve measured Jimmy McGill’s descent. But now that Saul Goodman has been legally codified, and the man she loves is transforming into a showboating snake oil salesman before her eyes, the toll it is taking on her is palpable.
And that’s bittersweet. Storywise it’s tragic, but seeing Rhea Seehorn – arguably the best actor on television – dig herself to new depths while Odenkirk falls back into Goodman’s machine-gun patter is wildly entertaining. We won’t like where Jimmy and Kim are going, but we can guarantee it’ll be fun to watch.
The rest of the show is in noticeably better shape now, too. The drug storyline, which has always felt like an anchor holding the rest of the show back, has been given a boost by the presence of Lalo Salamanca. There’s a hint of glamour to him, as if he could have been a gentleman spy had he been born into different circumstances, and this is in stark contrast to the oppressive dutybound doom of Nacho. Finally, we have a baddie as compelling as McGill.
And then we have the present-day strand, which has been kicked into high gear. At first, the black-and-white footage of ‘Gene’ serving out his days at a Nebraska Cinnabon seemed like it was just going to be an example of how the mighty have fallen. But now that he’s been recognised, by a cab driver with a decidedly opaque agenda, it might be the most exciting part of the whole show. Now, Gene is spooked enough to call for a replacement vacuum part (which meant getting a wonderful extra dose of Robert Forster, to whom the episode was dedicated), and then vow to take the matter into his own hands. This opening felt like the story of McGill might be coming to a definitive end. Death or redemption, and nothing in between.
It is so good to have Better Call Saul back. What a measured, masterful series this is. And, better yet, a second new episode will be available to watch tomorrow. Consider the momentum regained.