Vince Gilligan
Better Call Saul

Better Call Saul - Season 1

The praise of slowness.

And Better Call Saul? No reviews on Debaser?

"But how is it possible?"

It's better see Saul!

And to think that for years TV series had not interested me and I spent my time in different ways. After all, series were not suitable for the TV channels of the last century: some viewers performed miracles not to miss even a minute of the series of the moment, for all others, the director added explanations: in fact, in TV series, cyclically, it was necessary to re-explain what happened, the plot, as the good Stanis La Rochelle teaches us.

The quality inevitably suffered. In fact, except for rare and sensational exceptions, good quality was not really an option. The TV series had to be light, and it had to have stereotypical characters, and the consistency of the plots was neither the first, nor the second, nor the third of thoughts.

Then I watched Breaking Bad. Well, I was captivated and I discovered a world: "another TV is possible". It tells the thirst for revenge, or redemption if you will, that slowly builds in the protagonist, Walter White, allowing him to reach the top but gradually devastating everything around him. The plot develops slowly and, without haste, we observe the transformation of our chemistry professor into one of the most important methamphetamine producers in North America: the transformation from Walter White to Heisenberg. All in about fifty hours of film. There was no shortage of time to show the nuances of stories and characters.

Vince Gilligan's work revealed to me the extraordinary adaptability of this form of expression to the explosion of thematic channels and online streaming.

Nothing revolutionary, obviously. Great literary works and extraordinary novels have been published in installments in dozens of magazines that were born and died between the 1800s and 1900s.

However, in the audiovisual field, the potential of serial releases had never been exploited in such a massive way. There had already been extraordinary exceptions in the last century, but only in the third millennium did the production of series become vast and involve everyone: authors, directors, and film actors have made a leap to the other side of the moon, from cinema to TV.

Better Call Saul, a spin-off of the acclaimed Breaking Bad, signed by Vince Gilligan, is a child of this proliferation of artistic and commercial products.

The story of Saul, Walter's lawyer, is picked up before he becomes, for Heisenberg, more or less what Tom Hagen was for Vito Corleone, only with an opposite personality: for one, words are like stones, the other has enviable eloquence. A client will tell him:

"wow, you've got a mouth on you!"

The story makes extensive use of flashbacks and prolepsis. Let's put some order.

The plot is very thin. James Morgan "Jimmy" McGill is a middle-aged man who lives by scamming unfortunate patrons of bars in Cicero, Illinois. He's skilled, Slippin' Jimmy.

However, due to a prank gone wrong, Jimmy risks many years in prison on charges of lewd acts in public.

Chuck, his older brother and a renowned attorney in Albuquerque, manages to secure his release; in exchange, Jimmy must abandon everything to follow him. In Albuquerque, he is hired as a mailroom clerk at HHM (The firm founded by his brother and Hamlin) and falls in love with Kim Wexler, an attorney at the firm.

After several years of study and work, he obtains his law license, but HHM decides not to hire him.

He works as a public defender for several years, shuttling between his office (which is located in the basement of a beauty salon), Chuck's house (who lives reclusively due to a strange syndrome), and the courthouse. Here he meets Mike Ehrmantraut, a former policeman, currently a parking booth attendant at the courthouse in public and a criminal in private.

In search of success, Jimmy takes on jobs that range from legal to illegal.

But, after yet another failed attempt, he initiates and sets up a potentially multimillion-dollar class action with Chuck. The necessary and painful transfer of the case to a larger firm, HHM, will be the spark that detonates Jimmy's emotional and professional world.

Everything proceeds calmly. The authors are creating characters, showing all their facets, and it takes time.

What drives Mike? Revenge, guilt, love for his son.

What drives Kim? We will find out...

And Jimmy? What drives Jimmy? Admiration for his brother, processing the trauma of separation, that of a bereavement, love for Kim, passion for cinema, his showmanship.

"It's showtime, folks!"

Jimmy lives on his stage and hides his wounds under the mask of Charlie Hustle, Elvis Presley, Ned Beatty, Kevin Costner...

In short, a beautiful story. And those shots...

...well done, mister Gilligan.

Slowness will survive.