BETTER CALL SAUL

[crumbs 14,317]

I'm 100% with @Anthony  and @saulocf here. There were red flags earlier in the season with the excruciatingly drawn out Howard scam but these last two episodes have been totally perplexing to me.

 

Maybe the most depressing aspect is how little interest I have in elaborating on why this season has left me so cold and frustrated, when I would previously wax lyrical for hours about the show's beautiful details.

 

There's a combination of issues at play here, but the season's narrative structure simply hasn't worked from a dramatic standpoint for me. Did the writers get too clever for their own boots? They seem to be gleefully denying viewers payoff for long-running plot threads, nor provide context for character motivations. Instead, we're wasting entire episodes with tediously drawn-out side quests that result in little more than fairly predictable character turns, when the meat of the show was always its focus on character interactions.

 

It's an indictment on the Gene storyline that we spent 7 years establishing tension through the flash-forwards, yet after two episodes in his timeline the stakes have never felt lower. The contrast between this episode and the Breaking Bad equivalent (Ozymandias) couldn't be more stark; I've never finished an episode and uttered the words, "that's it?" until tonight, but the ending of this episode was borderline insulting.

 

I'll reserve full judgement until all is said and done but, and it pains me to say this, I think they've massively dropped the ball here.

[Anthony 572]

19 minutes ago, crumbs said:

I'll reserve full judgement until all is said and done but, and it pains me to say this, I think they've massively dropped the ball here.

 

This. I'm hoping they turn things around, but I really can't see how they can with so little time left. In a way, I'm relieved it's almost over.

 

I think it feels all the more painful because they haven't dropped the ball in 15 years.

 

I've now got the same uneasy feeling I had when I started watching things like The Last Jedi or No Time To Die. They completely destroyed stories and characters which I otherwise loved.

 

The funny thing is, you could now skip the Gene teasers from previous seasons entirely and watch up to the end of 6.09 and have a great show with a mostly satisfying ending!

[crumbs 14,317]

It's also hard to pinpoint exactly why this season has been so disappointing to me.

 

It's felt drawn out yet needlessly rushed. We've dedicated entire episodes to minutiae then glossed over (or skipped entirely) huge plot points we waited six seasons to see.

 

Structurally it's a mess. It seems the writers had a list of story points they wanted to cover across 3 different timelines, but other than Jimmy himself there's no connection between timelines. Even Walt and Jesse felt shoehorned into this episode.

 

I'm loathe to draw this comparison but, like Game of Thrones, this feels like 2-3 seasons worth of episodes smashed into one. The Nacho storyline climaxed too quickly, then the Howard scam dragged on for an eternity. The fascinating post-Howard era was glossed over in a single episode then skipped entirely, and now we have a mad rush to introduce an entire suite of new characters, new scams and new setups in the Gene timeline, with a thematic repetition of the same poor decisions Jimmy made in the past, before bringing the whole thing crashing down yet again.

 

Suffice to say, this is not a satisfying way to structure the precious final minutes of your closing act.

[Holko 9,526]

6 minutes ago, crumbs said:

The Nacho storyline climaxed too quickly

But also, if this was it, and he didn't really do anything except get back and die, then it was also way overstretched, not rushed.

[crumbs 14,317]

6 minutes ago, Holko said:

But also, if this was it, and he didn't really do anything except get back and die, then it was also way overstretched, not rushed.

 

Personally I would've preferred the Lalo/Nacho storyline to be intertwined with Gus/Mike all season, before ultimately intersecting with the Kim/Jimmy/Howard plot towards the end. Then spend a proper season fleshing out the BB/Gene timeline and provide more insight into the characters.

 

Instead the season has felt divided into three very distinct, very separate acts:

• The Nacho climax
• The Howard/Lalo climax
• The Gene climax

[saulocf 79]

19 minutes ago, Holko said:

But also, if this was it, and he didn't really do anything except get back and die, then it was also way overstretched, not rushed.

It is worth then that for me. If that was it, what was the point of the character at all? He started the series as a bandit with the heart of gold, as someone that would die for his father, and died 6 seasons later for exactly that. His character could have been a turning point for Gus and Mikes relationship. Mike could’ve convinced him that it would be the right thing to save and protect him and have him have his happy end. Would have been great for the series, for Nacho and for Gus.

 

This season also had Gus, Mike and Lalo do incredibly poor decisions. It is really disappointing to say, and I am still in the denial phase (hoping as well that they fix in the next 2 episodes), but last time I had this feeling was during the last 2 seasons of GoT, and that didn’t turn out well at all. 
 

Thank god the current season of Westworld has been great so far. Couldn’t take more disappointments this year (Northman, Batman, Lightyear, Jurassic and etc)

[Anthony 572]

The last couple of episodes have felt like the Granite State of Better Call Saul. Except there are no villains left to deal with, so there's zero sense of urgency or motivation to do anything. Just wallowing.

[Alex 2,835]

Imagine comparing this season of BCS to Game of Thrones. Jesus Christ. If you’re not recognising what this show is doing, then maybe TV isn’t for you. It seems we’re watching completely different shows.

 

I enjoyed this analysis on Reddit 

 

 

 

 

 

[crumbs 14,317]

59 minutes ago, Alex said:

Imagine comparing this season of BCS to Game of Thrones. Jesus Christ. If you’re not recognising what this show is doing, then maybe TV isn’t for you. It seems we’re watching completely different shows.

 

Wow. What's with the aggressively condescending post?

 

I spelled out my reasoning for that analogy, which was purely a reference to wrapping up story threads in a limited number of episodes, when an extra season might have helped.

 

Just because people are taking issue with narrative choices doesn't mean they "don't recognise what the show is doing." I recognise exactly what the show is doing and spelled out why it's disappointing 3 replies above. They're repeating the exact same arc with Gene that happened with Jimmy, then again with Saul. It's hardly groundbreaking or some stroke of genius; I expected something more interesting from G&G.

 

And if you're going to attack other posters for having opinions you disagree with, maybe write your own thoughts instead of copy pasting others' from Reddit.

[Hurmm 91]

Damn, last week's episode was bad. But this week's was quite excruciating to sit through. It's a dreadful episode, with nary an interesting scene or idea. All the BB stuff comes across as VERY fan service, something I never thought would happen on this show.

 

Really hope they wrap this up much better in the last 2 eps. 

[Dr. Rick 1,157]

 

[Anthony 572]

So maybe the best way to watch this show will be:

 

1.01 - 5.10

6.10

6.01 - 6.09

[Edmilson 7,462]

I don't hate this season, mostly because it has some wonderful episodes, like Nacho's death and the whole three episode stretch that is 6.07 to 6.09. But it doesn't seem to be as cohesive and well-thought as the first five seasons.

 

It looks like they didn't know what to do for the final episodes besides the whole Lalo story, and when that was over (after stretching it a lot) they ran out of material. It's like the Gene storyline was a long epilogue of a story that is already over.

 

Kinda the opposite problem that GOT S8 had, where they had too much story and not enough episodes to make it satisfying.

 

And it was odd that we didn't get to see or at least hear the first dialogue between Saul and Kim after almost a decade apart. 

[Jay 37,368]

November 2010 is only 6 1/2 years after they broke up in June 2004

[SpaceCoyote 150]

10 hours ago, saulocf said:

His character could have been a turning point for Gus and Mikes relationship.

Nacho’s character is a turning point in Gus and Mike’s relationship, though. Mike tries to get Gus to let Nacho out of the game in season five and Gus refuses, so Mike tells him that he should at least rethink how he treats Nacho, because Mike doesn’t find fear to be an effective motivator (which Gus will later repeat to Walt in Breaking Bad, showing that something has changed his mind). Mike sees honor and integrity in Nacho, while Gus thinks he’s “a dog who[‘s] bit[ten] every owner he’s had.” How Nacho conducts himself after the failed hit on Lalo, especially that he goes above and beyond in clearing Gus’s name from everyone’s suspicions through his improvisations, shatters Gus’s misconception of him. You can see it on Gus’s face after Nacho blows his own brains out. That is a crucial step in Gus valuing Mike’s opinion more and more, as well as getting Gus to the point where he would be willing to invest in a person like Jesse, someone whose journey has clear similarities to Nacho’s, and who the Gus of pre-Better Call Saul season 6 would never have given the opportunities the Gus of Breaking Bad season 4 does.

 

It’s stuff like this where it’s like I’m watching a completely different season than some of you, and I hate that you aren’t getting the same experience I am.

As for Gene’s story being confusing, a retread, or a show out of material - this guy can’t go through what he goes through in the Breaking Bad timeline and then shed all that darkness and immorality once he takes on a new identity, especially now that this latest episode has emphasized that he wasn’t just along for the ride. We’ve seen no penance from Gene, and this character throughout all his identities has only ever grown more desperate and detestable. I find the journey of self-destruction that Gene is on to be a natural progression of Jimmy and Saul’s stories, but not a retread, because it seems certain to me that we’re heading towards the point where Jimmy/Saul/Gene has to look inward for maybe the first time in his life and reckon with why he is the way he is. No more Russian nesting doll identities to hide from trauma, no more addressing his emotions only when he’s using them as a tool for the purposes of a scam, no more avoiding that he has had an active hand in the tragedies that have befallen him and everyone he’s encountered. I don’t see how the show could’ve or should’ve wrapped up already without him and it addressing that, even if it doesn’t end with self-improvement.

 

2 hours ago, Edmilson said:

It was odd that we didn't get to see or at least hear the first dialogue between Saul and Kim after almost a decade apart. 

We’ll definitely be seeing Kim before this is over, including hearing the conversation. No doubt in my mind. Tom Schnauz played coy about holding back on their conversation, but he acknowledged that it seemed to be with Kim, and that the other side was filmed (that could’ve just been for the purposes of Bob’s performance, but I think there’s more to it than that). They’re basically doing with Kim what they did with Lalo earlier this season: keeping her off the board to build mystery and suspense about where she is and what she’s doing. Your mileage may vary on the success of that approach.

[Anthony 572]

I think the main issue that I (and several others here have) is while all the things you said may be true - whether we picked up on them or not - the last two weeks haven't come across in a satisfying way. It goes to show that you might have the best actors and crew, great production value, cinematography or whatever - but it doesn't guarantee it will work.

 

New Jeff is still bugging me. I could have looked over the recasting if the portrayal was similar, but he's a completely different character now!

[Jay 37,368]

I just had an epiphany of how to make these Gene episodes sit better with people. 

 

Open the season with what we know as 610, then have what we know as 601-603 next to end the Nacho arc. 

 

Then have what we know as 611 to act as an interlude, then go on to what we know as 604-609 to wrap up the Hamlin, Lalo, and Jimmy/Kim arcs. 

 

Now we'd be sitting here with two episodes left and a lot of anticipation about what Jimmy is up to to get back to Kim without having sat through two unusual episodes in a row. 

[JohnTheBaptist 57]

15 hours ago, SpaceCoyote said:

this guy can’t go through what he goes through in the Breaking Bad timeline and then shed all that darkness and immorality once he takes on a new identit

Sure he could, they would just have to write it that way. And before Vince Gilligan went all star wars prequels on the BB-verse, that's what many fans imagined. Saying "it couldn't be any other way because this is what they went with" is circular logic.

[Anthony 572]

3 hours ago, Jay said:

I just had an epiphany of how to make these Gene episodes sit better with people.

 

Let's see how the last two wrap things up and then work this out properly. 

[SpaceCoyote 150]

1 hour ago, JohnTheBaptist said:

Sure he could, they would just have to write it that way. And before Vince Gilligan went all star wars prequels on the BB-verse, that's what many fans imagined. Saying "it couldn't be any other way because this is what they went with" is circular logic.

So we’re at the point where we’re comparing this to the Star Wars prequels? Okay. Of course they could’ve written it another way. I’m not defending it because this is how they wrote it. I’m saying the path they chose is a straight line from episode one of season one all the way through now (in character development, not in story structure). Like so much of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, they’ve made surprising choices that, when reflected upon, seem inevitable.

 

I’m going to dip for the remainder of this show because these kinds of conversations don’t do anyone any good. For the record, this show is Peter Gould’s baby. He’s the showrunner. Vince left the writers’ room during season three and only returned for season six at the request of Gould, who is still running things but felt it was fitting for Vince to help land the plane.

[Edmilson 7,462]

1 hour ago, Anthony said:

Let's see how the last two wrap things up and then work this out properly. 

I know the last few episodes have been disappointing to the majority of fans, but I still hope the last two will help redeem the Gene story arc. I trust the show will end in a nice, satisfactorily way.

[JohnTheBaptist 57]

44 minutes ago, SpaceCoyote said:

So we’re at the point where we’re comparing this to the Star Wars prequels? Okay. Of course they could’ve written it another way. I’m not defending it because this is how they wrote it. I’m saying the path they chose is a straight line from episode one of season one all the way through now (in character development, not in story structure). Like so much of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, they’ve made surprising choices that, when reflected upon, seem inevitable.

 

I’m going to dip for the remainder of this show because these kinds of conversations don’t do anyone any good. For the record, this show is Peter Gould’s baby. He’s the showrunner. Vince left the writers’ room during season three and only returned for season six at the request of Gould, who is still running things but felt it was fitting for Vince to help land the plane.

There was nothing inevitable about a Saul Goodman spinoff in the first place, and it certainly didn't need to time jump past Breaking Bad. And yes, I'd say that El Camino and much of the BCS cartel/Gene stuff is comparable to the unnecessary overexplaining every detail of the star wars prequels and spin-offs. Darth Vader made C3PO, and look at how Hector got a bell on his wheelchair! I clapped when I saw Huell Babineaux!

 

[Glóin the Dark 1,222]

On 02/08/2022 at 8:14 PM, Anthony said:

...only for them then to say "...and then he became Saul".

 

Haha! Yeah, I felt the same about that. There seems a significant jump from the character he is at the time Kim departs to the Saul of Breaking Bad. It's not that it's an implausible development; just one I'd prefer to have seen more fully.

 

As for the Gene stuff, I've never found it particularly interesting from the very beginning, so I don't feel surprised or disappointed that it hasn't suddenly become so in these last couple of episodes. I think I may have preferred a Better Call Saul with no Gene at all, and culminating in a more thoroughly depicted metamorphosis of Jimmy into Saul.

 

Still, I'm happy to reserve judgement until the season is complete, and perhaps even until I've rewatched it. I certainly don't feel as grief-stricken by the recent episodes as other people appear to be...

 

12 minutes ago, JohnTheBaptist said:

Darth Vader made C3PO...

 

Really? That's rather funny.

[saulocf 79]

1 hour ago, SpaceCoyote said:

So we’re at the point where we’re comparing this to the Star Wars prequels? Okay.

I don’t see what is the problem here. And to be honest.. treating this show as a super intellectual piece of art does not help it. It can have layers, but it is not the greatest thing in the world. You want a “fairer” comparison? I think Succession beats it in every way.

 

10 hours ago, Anthony said:

I think the main issue that I (and several others here have) is while all the things you said may be true - whether we picked up on them or not - the last two weeks haven't come across in a satisfying way. It goes to show that you might have the best actors and crew, great production value, cinematography or whatever - but it doesn't guarantee it will work.

Adding to that.. it also goes to show then, apart from all the top notch things that you mentioned.. a smart and layered script on paper might also not work in execution. Gus in the series had plenty of smart details in the script. But by going deeper into his character, made a disservice for his Breaking Bad, exposing all his weakness. By the finale of Breaking Bad season 4, it looked like Walter had a great plan that was the only way of beating Gus, while in here, by introducing Lalo, it made me wish he was the villain of Breaking Bad. How did Gus fail on his assassination attempt on Lalo? How did he let Nacho get away? 
 

Honestly, I did like the series, and am still curious (and hopeful) of its finale, but no, I don’t think it is as great as it thinks it is, and kind of wish the series ended when his brother died at the end of Season 3.

[Jay 37,368]

Here's a neat article about how they rebuilt the RV interior set from scratch

 

https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/better-call-saul-breaking-bad-recreated-sets-rv-1235331161/

[Jay 37,368]

[JohnTheBaptist 57]

Lol that scene looks like an SNL skit, hard to believe it actually made the cut. All they need is Kenan to show up as Huell.

[LSH 969]

 

[Jay 37,368]

Better Call Saul 6x11 Breaking Bad

 

OK I'm gonna try to share my thoughts as-of just after seeing the episode, without taking articles, interviews, podcasts and posts here into consideration (but I'll speak to some of those tomorrow)

 

Well, I really liked the flashbacks!  I thought it was pretty neat to have the Walt/Jesse scene take place right after the infamous desert grave scene.  The bulky clothes and winter hats did a great job hiding Cranston and Paul's current ages, and the conversation they have in the van was actually good and made sense.  I loved how easily all three of these guys slid back into their old roles - Cranston was great as the early, pre-Heisenberg Walter, Paul let out some good "yo"s, and Odenkirk was so good as this version of Saul!

 

The later scene with Mike was also good, but to a bit of a lesser extent; I feel like there's some dots that haven't been connected from where the main BCS story ended to Mike doing random PI work for Jimmy (who he doesn't seem to like or respect very much), and exactly how much Saul knows about Gus... I dunno, maybe it's not important and I'm overthinking it.  The real point of this scene, anyway, was to make it explicit that Walt would have never gotten connected to Gus AT ALL without Saul going against Mike's advice and choosing to visit Walt in his high school, which parallels to the main story of this episode where Gene chooses to rob the cancer guy instead of leaving well enough alone, so I'll give it a pass.

Speaking of that main story, I'm really just not vibing with the Gene storyline they are doing this season.  Ok, the first part was pretty good;  Seeing 2010-era Francesca and that's she's still miserable (why didn't she leave Albuquerque, I mean really), but was still willing to do the phone call that had been set up was all nice.  I liked that she still didn't take any of his shit and was willing to hang up on him.  It was nice to learn about the fates of a couple side characters, and that she chooses to tell him that Kim called and asked about him which sets the entire rest of the episode, and presumably the end of the series, in motion.

 

OK but then where it goes from there was harder to get into.  I guess it was kind fun to see him do another scam, though the writers really thought we are dumber than we are with all the closeups and general amount of attention shown to his little device to suck the booze out of the glasses.  Man, we get it...

 

The scams were OK I guess, I liked that they weren't directly and immediately robbing these guys, just selling their IDs and investment/bank info to a third party for cash, which basically won't come back to bite them until them until months after Gene has left Omaha, I would guess.  But the montage went on for so long - does any one city really have that many investment bankers that go to the same bar and are capable of being swindled like this?

 

But then of course there's the turn where the other guys don't want to mess with a cancer guy - who wasn't even a jerk like all the others, either, and Gene knows this.  But Gene breaks bad and goes to rob him anyway, even breaking class to do so.  Oy vey.  Well, I hope it goes somewhere unexpected next week, because seeing Gene be a big scumbag is not what I wanted to see, to be honest.

[Alex 2,835]

Saul was also a big scumbag to be fair. It’s just him falling back into that persona.

[Docteur Qui 1,544]

Put me in the camp that enjoyed the latest episode. I didn't feel like Cranston/Paul's appearance was gratuitous at all - they chose a great scene to "fill in the blanks" and tie things into the Gene timeline, and, combined with the Mike scene, also reframed the character of Saul in a pretty interesting way. Rather than being the hapless crooked lawyer along for the Heisenberg ride he was actually more in control than we thought - he saw potential in Walt, who he made his "project". But that project blew up in his face in the biggest way possible, which leads us to Gene. As longtime BCS viewers when we see Gene this season it's more as Jimmy than as Saul, probably because we want him to be Jimmy again, but also because we haven't been watching Saul for the past 5.5 season, we've been watching Jimmy. Jimmy was flawed, but he had a good heart. And we almost, almost got the bittersweet ending that we wanted, which was for Jimmy to re-emerge and learn from his mistakes.

 

But then he calls Kim, and it doesn't go well. He doesn't get the love, the respect, the affection that he always needed. And now he's back on the wagon.

 

Gene has now doubled down, breaking bad in his own right (hence the episode title); a man who is happy to scam a cancer patient because his last encounter with one destroyed the empire he'd spent so much time building up. Chuck said that people never change, but I disagree (and think the show does too) - change can happen, but it needs to be maintained through continuous choices. This season tells us that there's only two ways to get off the bad choice road: the quick way, but with dignity and on your own terms (Nacho); or the long, grinding path that it's implied Kim has taken. Jimmy either can't or won't do either of those things, and in the end proves Chuck right. That's the Shakespearean tragedy of Jimmy McGill, and that's what I think the show is leading us to.

[JohnTheBaptist 57]

There were no blanks, and if this show had never been made then you wouldn't be talking about blanks in that scene of BB. I've seen a LOT of breaking bad discussion over the years, and I've never seen anyone confused by that particular scene. 

[Anthony 572]

9 hours ago, Jay said:

I hope it goes somewhere unexpected next week, because seeing Gene be a big scumbag is not what I wanted to see, to be honest.

 

And it all comes down to this. The sympathy the audience built up for Jimmy over the years is being flushed down the toilet with Gene. Intentional or not, it isn't satisfying to watch. This show has always been a different beast to Breaking Bad, and seeing Walt turn was satisfying because that was the entire premise of the show. BCS now feels like a square peg trying to be forced through a round hole.

 

I thought the writers room process of discussing things for weeks on end was designed to weed out poor ideas like this, but in this case, it seems to have failed spectacularly.

 

The only other time I've been disappointed by the writing was El Camino, but from what I gather on that, there was no writers room - only Vince.

[Docteur Qui 1,544]

5 hours ago, JohnTheBaptist said:

There were no blanks, and if this show had never been made then you wouldn't be talking about blanks in that scene of BB. I've seen a LOT of breaking bad discussion over the years, and I've never seen anyone confused by that particular scene. 

I think you’re misconstruing what I said - I didn’t mean to imply anything about Breaking Bad having confusing plot holes that BCS has filled. I just meant that in terms of showing us scenes that weren’t in BB they chose a good place to put them. The “blank” (or gap) I’m referring to is right after Saul meets Walt and Jesse for the first time but before Saul meets Walt in the high school and offers to work with him for a cut of the profits. The new scenes don’t tell us anything more about Walt or Jesse, and not should they, as we’re not watching their story as it’s already over. But they do tell us a huge amount about Jimmy/Saul/Gene, and arguably reframes the way we see his character as depicted in BB while also setting the table for Gene’s actions. Its placement in this episode intercut with the Gene scenes deliberately highlights its significance, inviting us to understand why Gene is acting the way he is.

 

In terms of whether you like those choices or not, that’s entirely subjective. But to claim it’s anywhere near as bungled as late GOT (which I’ll also defend, while acknowledging that it’s deeply flawed) is to me missing what the show is trying to tell us about the man we’re watching.

[Jay 37,368]

4 hours ago, Anthony said:

 El Camino, but from what I gather on that, there was no writers room - only Vince.

 

Correct! 

 

https://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/23064-breaking-bad/&do=findComment&comment=1696777

[SpaceCoyote 150]

13 hours ago, Docteur Qui said:

...That's the Shakespearean tragedy of Jimmy McGill, and that's what I think the show is leading us to.

 

Jumping back in here just to say this is a great write-up that conveys my exact thoughts more concisely, and with more insightfulness, than I could manage.

 

There's certainly a couple miles missing on the bad choice road between where we leave Jimmy and where we meet Gene, and I can't argue with anyone for whom that's a problem. Those miles aren't missing, though - we're just not seeing them in this show (at least not yet). It'll probably play better if you watch Better Call Saul up to 6x09, then watch all of Breaking Bad to cover that time period and see Saul's decline in morality, and then resume BCS with 6x10 fully in Gene-land. But we may be in for more BB-era Saul flashbacks in these next two episodes that show the decline in greater detail, which could help Better Call Saul stand on its own more firmly. This feels like a hard season to judge all the way until it's over due to the unique (some would use other words!) construction.

 

Either way, while it's easy to like the guy, when you lay out everything Jimmy/Saul has done over these six seasons, he's a pretty awful person. Losing Kim - who was his moral compass - is enough to satisfy me on how Jimmy could become the guy who's advocating for killing "problem dogs" in Breaking Bad, and losing her again is enough to satisfy me on Gene being who he is and doing what he's doing. Any disappointment I have is in the character's choices, not the writers'.

 

17 hours ago, Jay said:

Does any one city really have that many investment bankers that go to the same bar and are capable of being swindled like this?

 

It was mentioned somewhere - I believe the Insider podcast? - that the corporate office of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet's holding company, is located in Omaha, Nebraska. So there are a lot of quality marks centralized in that location.

[Jay 37,368]

[crumbs 14,317]

Personally I think there's a lot of weird structural choices at play here, but the character leaps from Jimmy to Saul to Gene are hurting the most.

 

At times it felt like Jimmy's heart wasn't really in the Howard scam, unlike Kim (compare their body language in the S5 finale when the idea was first hatched). Jimmy clearly felt remorse after Howard's death, and was taken aback by Kim's cold conversation with Howard's widow.

 

Yet at the height of their relationship's devastating climax, we take a colossal leap forward to Saul in his element. And after expecting the show to settle in that timeline for an episode or two and fill in some narrative gaps, we instead leap forward yet again to the Gene timeline.

 

Now did we need to see more of the BB-era Saul, considering the entirety of Breaking Bad? Probably not. But to me something feels missing from that section between Jimmy's marriage collapsing and BB-era Saul.

 

Something also isn't working with the Gene timeline now it's transformed from tense annual teasers into (seemingly) a 4-episode epilogue. Given everything left unresolved in the Jimmy/BCS timeline, paired with everything unresolved in the Saul/post-BB timeline, spending half those episodes on Jimmy hatching/executing scams with characters we don't know (disorienting recasting notwithstanding) is underwhelming.

 

Where Gene's scenes were once anxiety-inducing due to the fear of being caught, Jimmy seemingly no longer cares and is self-sabotaging. Thematically I get what the writers are doing but it's a surprisingly anticlimactic way to end the series. Especially when these final episodes are so reliant on new characters we don't care about, while deliberately withholding characters we do care about, in a series highly regarded for deliberate narrative development.

[Jay 37,368]

Well said, you summed up how I feel pretty much

[Anthony 572]

Exactly, @crumbs I have nothing to add - that's a perfect summary.

[Jay 37,368]

I knew I recognized the first guy they scam in the last episode, and actually thought it was Buzz from Home Alone, but when I looked up the episode on IMDB after I saw it, he wasn't listed, so forgot about it until a recap podcast I listened to this week mentioned and confirmed it.  That guy is good at playing douchebags!

 

As for the final guy they scam, the cancer guy, I had seen Kevin Sussman's name in the opening credits so kept waiting to see him in the episode and thought I never did;  I mostly know him from Wet Hot American Summer so didn't know he looked different now 20 years later (I don't watch Big Bang Theory).  I do wonder what's going to happen with his character next week

[crumbs 14,317]

22 minutes ago, Jay said:

I do wonder what's going to happen with his character next week

 

Might be convoluted but I wonder if he's connected to events or people from Jimmy's past which he'll discover after breaking in, bringing the Jimmy/Gene timelines full circle. Sandpiper? HHM? Madrigal? A friend of Chuck?

 

Would be reminiscent of Grey Matter becoming the catalyst for Walt's revenge tour in the penultimate episode of BB.

 

As it stands, the Gene epilogue feels oddly disconnected from the rest of the series.

[Jay 37,368]

Well, I think what's going to happen is that something bad will happen inside the house while Saul is breaking in (what that could be, I have no idea).  And that will raise the stakes and make us worry how Gene was gonna get out of it. 

 

Meanwhile, I think Carol Burnette is going to use that fancy new laptop and google "Gene" and figure out who he is (since her and Jeff used to live in Albuquerque she'll probably remember his commercials too) and something will come from that - maybe she'll call the cops, maybe Gene will have to do something awful to evade her or something, I dunno.

 

But I think he'll barely escape Omaha without getting caught and head to Florida to see KIm.

[SpaceCoyote 150]

Regardless of where we fall on this season, there’s a good chance that tonight’s penultimate episode is the last thing Vince Gilligan will ever write or direct that’s set in this universe. Since Breaking Bad premiered on January 20, 2008, 5,314 days and over fourteen years ago, he wrote and/or directed something new in all but two years: 2014 (when there was a gap between BB ending in 2013 and BCS starting in 2015) and 2021 (when COVID delayed the production of BCS S6).
 

The most recent thing he both wrote and directed was El Camino in 2019, and the most recent TV episode he both (co-)wrote and directed was the BCS S3 premiere, “Mabel,” in 2017. This will be his only solo writing credit for all of BCS.

[Jay 37,368]

I still think there would be less dissatisfaction among many viewers if "Nippy" had been the season premiere, and "Breaking Bad" had been the only episode that's aired since the jump from marriage breakup to 2005 Saul at the end of "Fun and Games"

[Jay 37,368]

Another idea I had about tonight's episode is: What if its an entirely Kim episode.

 

Like it starts with her shortly after leaving Jimmy in Albuquerque, and we occasionally get appearances from Jimmy if she meets up with him when she's back in ABQ to sign divorce papers or sometihng, or maybe if she just sees one of his Saul ads.  Maybe at some point in the episode we see her side of that phone call, and then at the very end, Saul shows up.  Then episode 13 shows us how Gene got from cancer guys's house to her, and the continues from there to the end.

[SpaceCoyote 150]

3 minutes ago, Jay said:

Another idea I had about tonight's episode is: What if its an entirely Kim episode.

 

Like it starts with her shortly after leaving Jimmy in Albuquerque, and we occasionally get appearances from Jimmy if she meets up with him when she's back in ABQ or sometihng, or maybe if she just sees one of his Saul ads.  Maybe at some point in the episode we see her side of that phone call, and then at the very end, Saul shows up.  Then episode 13 shows us how Gene got from cancer guys's house to her, and the continues from there to the end.

 

To keep things spoiler free, I'll just say that there are things from past interviews and promotional materials that confirm we'll see Gene again tonight, as well as some other characters that aren't Kim. But I could see us getting some of what you're describing, just not as the entire episode.

[Jay 37,368]

I think I just decided how to put into words what rubs me the wrong way the most about these final 4 episodes we're getting - or at least, the first 2 of them, and what it looks like we're getting more of in at least one more.

 

It's that so much of their time is spent on brand new characters that have nothing to do with the main BCS storyline or the BB storyline at all.  Jeff, Marion, Buddy, and the guys Jimmy scams get all the screentime in these episodes and it's just jarring and unsatisfying the longer they go for and the further we get from spending any time with characters from the previous 120 episodes of this world.

There's lots of BCS characters still living where that story ended, including ones still alive during interesting parts of Jimmy's life as Saul.  Primarily Kim, of course, but also Mike, Gus, Hector, Huell, Kuby, Badger, Skinny Pete, Walt, Jesse.  Instead of choosing to spend time focusing on any combination of these guys, we only get a tiny bit of Walt, Jesse, and Mike, and zero of everyone else so far. 

 

I wonder if tonight or next week will change any of that.  Obviously we're in for more Kim, but nothing else is guaranteed.

[Holko 9,526]

Well, the nazis were kinda new characters by the end of BB and still got very prominent roles. I dunno, inevitably compared to BB, which finished very satisfyingly with payoff after payoff after moment after payoff, BCS finished Nacho's story overstretched, the main Jimmy/Kim/Mike/Gus/Lalo story overall underwhelmingly and both stretched and rushed, and now in the Gene story 2 eps from the end we're still back to only setups, which, with so little time to develop or end, will probably feel small.

[Jay 37,368]

Well, the other major difference between the majority of BB & BCS episodes, and these 2 episodes, is the singular narrative.

 

In most BCS and BB episodes - especially BCS - we follow multiple main characters, so are always cutting away to different storylines about different characters, giving them their own flow, and keeping things interesting by never staying in one spot for too long.

These two Gene episodes have just told 1 single story each in them so you're just stuck watching it with no chance to cut away to anything else.

 

The final 2 episodes of BB were pretty much like that, following just Walt, but FOUR whole episodes of that about Gene, especially a Gene so distanced from everything he used to do (where Walt spent all of his final episode sharing scenes with established characters), has just been quite the jarring thing to go through.