Idiot Boxing: Better Call Saul, season 5 (2020)

No Spoilers - Read Away!

This show has just gotten better and better.

The fifth season of the Breaking Bad prequel series continues to tell the backstory of Saul Goodman, the professional name finally, officially adopted by hustling lawyer James McGill.

Yes, it's become as much a "Breaking Bad, season 0.5" as it has been the back story of Saul Goodman, but one can't deny just how expertly crafted it all is and how it does still manage to keep clearing the incredibly high bar that its creators have set for themselves.

At the end of season 4, Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) had reckoned with the loss of his brother, Chuck, though he narrowly managed to avoid completely losing his law license. Instead, he waits out his suspension, cons the bar into restoring his license, and he officially decides to practice law as "Saul Goodman." Season five picks up immediately after those events, with Jimmy's legal license suspended and Kim (Rhea Seahorn) trying to make her name working for a huge-name bank. Meanwhile, the illegal drug trade grows ever-more tense, with Gustavo Fring methodically attempting to build a power base from which to eventually strike back at his bosses in Mexico (a story which we saw play out in later seasons of Breaking Bad). Assisting Fring is Mike, who still remains stoic while continuing his secret life as a security expert and enforcer for the his ruthless boss. The main thorn in Fring's and Mike's side is Lalo Salamanca, the oddly cheery and lethally cunning emissary looking over the New Mexico drug scene for his family. Stuck in the middle of those large-scale shady dealing is Ignacio "Nacho" Varga, the mid-level street guy who is looking for a way out of the drug trade altogether.

This season is arguably the best yet, even if it's not quite as purely about Jimmy/Saul as the first few of seasons. Not only do we get to see Saul becoming far more like the sleazy lawyer we met in Breaking Bad, but every character interaction and dramatic beat seems firmly in place. Arguably even more than the best seasons of Breaking Bad, this show is about as tight as they come. In contrast to that brilliant show, though, Better Call Saul exhibits unbelievable patience in its execution and storytelling. It probably helps that most of us viewers know, thanks to Breaking Bad and the previous four seasons of Saul, that patience is rewarded. Scenes that may be puzzling in the moment always make sense later on. Or at the very least, they offer viewers the opportunity to put pieces together in engaging ways. It's just a blast to watch, on many levels.

As if he hadn't already done it in the previous season, Lalo
fully takes his place among the very best villains in the
world of Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul. Tony Dalton is
outstanding in his performance. 

In terms of characters, there are the obvious and familiar ones - Jimmy/Saul, Mike, Gus Fring - whose past and future stories we know. Still, that doesn't make the drama in this prequel story any less compelling. But the non-Breaking Bad characters are great as well. Kim has developed into a calm, powerful but slightly enigmatic main character, while Nacho's plight does evoke plenty of sympathy, despite his being eyeball-deep in the drug trade. The comet of this series so far, though, has been Tony Dalton's portrayal of Lalo Salamanca. Of all of the villains we've seen across the Breaking Bad universe so far, Lalo has emerged as arguably the most magnetic, entertaining one of the entire colorful rogues gallery. It's a rare thing to have a villain who can be so frighteningly smart, intimidating, and ruthless but also hilariously charismatic. In one episode or scene, I'm hoping he gets killed with extreme prejudice, but in another I'm reveling in how he's managing to have so much fun being a bad guy. The show was already great before he showed up, but Lalo has put this show right over the top.

It's been announced that the next season - to be released in 2021 - will indeed be the final one. This is as it should be, as we see the nearly-finished "Saul Goodman" at this point. And even though we know certain things about where some of these characters will be at season's end, there's still plenty we don't know. Regardless of whose story you tune in to catch, I have every confidence that this show will end in the same high-quality fashion that its root show did. It should be a great final ride. 

Idiot Boxing: Breaking Bad full rewatch (2008-2013)

I was relatively late to the Breaking Bad phenomenon. Of course I had heard about it's popularity and critical accolades during its initial rise to prominence back around 2010. But it wasn't until the series was nearly wrapped up in 2013 that I started playing catch up by working through the entire series. As most people, I found it thoroughly engaging, entertaining, and highly original. I enjoyed it enough to know that, at some point in the future, I would likely rewatch the entire series again.

Well, after three excellent seasons of the spinoff prequel Better Call Saul and recently channel surfing my way into one of the more memorable scenes from Breaking Bad earlier this year, the time came. Thanks to the marvel of modern streaming, the entire five-season, 62-episode series is sitting right there in Netflix just begging to be binged. So binge I did, not being completely sure of just how much I would enjoy the entire (roughly 46-and-a-half hour) ride on a second time.

In short, the show was even better the second time.

It speaks highly of a story, whether in literature or other media, when it is still compelling after you know the key plot points and the ultimate outcomes for the characters. Breaking Bad is a prime example of this. The first time I watched the series, it took about two seasons before I realized that Walter White was not some sort of sympathetic anti-hero who would eventually see the light. Rather, he was a warped, angry, vicious monster buried deep within the exterior of an impotent suburban schlub. Over the course of the series, he makes one decision after another which peels back another layer of the sad sack exterior to reveal a person dying to be "the man," but almost never wanting to admit his selfish urges to others or even himself. Though White commits some rather heinous acts in the first season, one could somewhat justify them as acting out of desperation. However, as the story progresses and White thrusts himself deeper into the world of mass production and distribution of the lethally addictive drug crystal meth, it becomes clearer that it is all just the means through which he hopes to upstage everyone whom he feels has slighted or underestimated him over the course of his adult life. These gradual revelations are compelling to watch, even as unsavory as they are.

One consistently compelling aspect of the show was its constant focus on problem solving - a theme as old as human storytelling itself. And Breaking Bad was masterful at it. Still, this was only window dressing compared to the deeper narrative at work. The tale of Walter White himself can be seen as rollicking, eerily dark and violent American tragedy. In classic Greek tragedy fashion, White is a man possessed of true genius-level talent - in science and chemistry, to be precise. It is quite clear that he could have been, and in fact at one time nearly was, a force for exceptional good in the world. And yet, for reasons we can infer related to White's own pride, he turned his back on a chance to have a career filled with tremendous rewards, both intellectual and financial. When the show essentially picks up nearly two decades later, we eventually gets hints and clues as to how much of Walter's humanity still exists, in contrast with the bitter, vengeful, selfish, and extremely dangerous creature we see revealed. While there are plenty of moments during the course of the show when it is easy to see Walter as a thoroughly corrupted force of pure evil, there are also just enough moments when the little that is left of his compassion show through. These moments keep Walter from ever becoming a one-dimensional villain, and the story is that much stronger for it.

Jesse and Hank, two of the best-formed and best-acted
characters you're likely to find in any TV show. Actors Aaron
Paul and Dean Norris brought every bit of intensity, tragedy,
and comedy to life through these dynamic forces in the show.

While the focus on the protagonist carries much of the show's powerful story, any successful 60-plus episode drama needs compelling secondary and tertiary characters, and Breaking Bad has them in spades. On this second viewing of the series, I had a much greater appreciation for Jesse Pinkman's story arc, along with Aaron Paul's ability to bring it to life. While Pinkman is, along with virtually every other character, a damaged person, he is arguably the most well-rounded and sympathetic of a varyingly bad lot. His journey from being a burned-out, slacker druggy into and through the world of deadly-serious, top-level illegal drug manufacturing is as carefully told as Walter White's. It is eminently fascinating to see Jesse try to navigate just who he is, who he wants to be, and how he deals with some of the despicable acts he performs at the behest of the vastly more capable and domineering figures around him. In an odd way, he emerges as the closest thing to a real soul that the series has, and it is through Jesse that disturbed protagonist Walter White's story meets its complex and poetic conclusion. Almost on par with Jesse is Walter's brother-in-law Hank, whose character and story arc I appreciated even more this time through the series. Beyond Pinkman and Hank, the show boasts a treasure trove of other brilliant, if terrifying and warped, characters. Whether it was ice-cold drug kingpin Gustavo Fring, dead-eyed security expert Mike Ehrmentrout, sleazebag lawyer Saul Goodman, or any of the many other colorful players, by its third season the show is teeming with people whom you are dying to see again.

As if a great narrative and characters aren't enough to make for a great show, Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan clearly put a premium on using the medium of film to great visual effect. As we've also seen with this show's prequel series Better Call Saul, every episode features at least one segment of purely visual storytelling. These are often done with some of the most consistently excellent opening scenes in TV show history, with nearly every one coming at you from a different visual and narrative angle and asking you to figure out just what the initially bizarre or cryptic images are telling you about the greater story. It is easy to find shows that overuse dialogue and exposition to tell their stories these days, but it is far more difficult to find shows that have the patience and respect for their viewers to use the moving picture to engage the audience in the ways that Breaking Bad did from the very start, with a tidy-whitey-clad Walter White barreling along a deserted desert road in a shoddy RV, wearing a gas mask. That's the kind of imagery that begs one to keep watching to see just what the hell is happening, and the show maintained that approach to storytelling for its entire run. Nearly every episode starts with a trippy, puzzling sequence of imagery, sans dialogue, that begs you to sort it out and pulls you into that chapter like any great opening line of a well-written story.

Just one of the many vibrant and initially enigmatic images
seen in an episode's opening sequence. Such intros became
a hallmark of the show, and acted almost as primers to get
us viewers' brains warmed up.

These days, if you ask people who watch TV what the best shows of the 21st century are, chances are that Breaking Bad will be, along with The Sopranos and The Wire, among their top five. After working my way through the entire series again, I can certainly see why. While someone could nitpick here and there, the show was the work of meticulous story craft and visual tale-telling. Although it is a serious commitment to watch nearly 50 hours of an entire series, I won't be surprised if, some years down the line, I fire it all up again for a third go-round. I simply cannot come up with higher praise than that.

On a more general side note, I'm thrilled to be in a time when certain networks in the U.S., most notably HBO, AMC, and FX, have finally figured out that the greatest shows do not need to run in indefinite perpetuity, until the profits start to sag. When one looks at what most people consider the very best TV shows of this "Golden Age of Television," one notices how they had a relatively short lifespan: roughly fifty to sixty episodes. That's all. And now we're even seeing shows like Fargo, which is constructed into mostly stand-alone seasons comprised of a tight, expertly crafted ten episodes. We TV viewers are in a great spot if more networks continue to follow the example set out by shows like Breaking Bad and its brethren.