The hype for Better Call Saul Season 1 Episode 1 hit unattainable levels a couple weeks ago.
At least one website dared to say the AMC spinoff was better than Breaking Bad.
That's sheer lunacy, of course, and we aren't about to compare the premiere of one series with the entirety of the greatest series in television history.
But Better Call Saul is off to a strong start.
We opened with a quick look at what became of Saul Goodman: after getting the heck out of Walter White's Dodge, he works at a Cinnabon in Nebraska, goes by the name "Gene" and is looking over his shoulder at every turn.
We know how Saul Goodman arrived at this place. But we spent the rest of the hour learning how a man born Jimmy McGill turned into Saul Goodman.
Jimmy is desperate to make it big as an attorney. He works as a public defender. He barely gets by. His office is in the back of a beauty salon.
Bob Odenkirk is fantastic at portraying Jimmy as both vulnerable and pathetic, yet smooth talking and sure of himself when need be; like when he tries to land a potentially big client but loses them to a giant law firm.
That giant law firm includes as its partner Jimmy's brother, Chuck. He suffers from a disease in which he cannot be exposed to electromagnetic pulses of any kind.
As a result, he hasn't worked in a year and Jimmy wants him to cash out his partnership stake and pocket around $17 million... largely so Jimmy can have some of it, of course.
But Chuck is determined to beat his disease and return to the office someday. And he has the backing of his firm, who doesn't want to shell out eight figures to their ill colleague.
Jimmy is therefore in a corner. He's desperate. He sees no means to the ends of having money, which he emphasizes is totally "the point" in an argument with his brother.
So he works with two local small-time con artists to try and pull a larger con that could net them a few grand.. but it instead puts a gun in Jimmy's face to close the episode. And that gun is being held by Tuco!
Breaking Bad fans will smile broadly at that closing reveal, as well as at the opening few minutes when we catch back up with Saul.
But even those who have never heard of Heisenberg should appreciate the pace of the premiere, the story of Jimmy McGill and the journey we're about to go on to see how this WAY down on his luck attorney builds himself a legal ends up on top. For a short while at least.
What did everyone else think of the Better Call Saul premiere? Grade it now:
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