Why Better Call Saul Is as Brilliant as Breaking Bad

On the best spin-off in history.

Yesterday the fifth season of Better Call Saul ended — the prequel to Breaking Bad (titled 'Vo vse tyazhkie' in the Russian version and 'Pustitisya berega' in the Ukrainian one). And while the sequel film El Camino, which closed the arc of Jesse Pinkman, drew mixed reactions (from enthusiastic praise to highly negative), Saul deserves only the highest ratings.

Better Call Saul has achieved what no one has managed before — making a spin-off as brilliant as the main storyline.

The storylines of Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad fit together perfectly

The series began as a spin-off of Breaking Bad, telling only about the life of lawyer Saul Goodman during the time when he was not yet Saul Goodman but Jimmy McGill. But gradually the creator of both series, Vince Gilligan, introduces familiar characters: Mike, Gustavo Fring, Hector and Tuco Salamanca, fully revealing their storylines too.

Each character's story is perfectly drawn, and it gives the impression that the script for Better Call Saul was written before filming Breaking Bad. The plotlines match perfectly. 

For example, the prequel introduces a new character, Lalo Salamanca, nephew of Hector. In Breaking Bad he is also briefly mentioned in the second season, when Saul Goodman first crosses paths with Jesse Pinkman and Walter White. Goodman, thinking that they were sent by Lalo, is terribly frightened, and when he finds out that his guess was wrong — he sighs with relief. Back then no one understood who was being talked about, and the mention seemed like a passing one, but in the fifth season of Saul it is shown why Goodman is so afraid of Lalo Salamanca — and the scene from the main series becomes part of a huge puzzle.

If someone wants to watch both series in story chronology — first Saul, then Breaking Bad — they will not lose anything. Gilligan may not pay attention to the actors' appearance. In El Camino, Todd Alquist (actor Jesse Plemons) looks quite unlike himself in Breaking Bad, although in the film he appears only as a memory of himself from the series' time. In Better Call Saul there is no such contrast, but still Saul himself (Bob Odenkirk), Mike (Jonathan Banks) and Gustavo (Giancarlo Esposito) have aged almost a decade, and makeup does not hide the extra wrinkles, even though chronologically they are younger. But Gilligan maintains plot accuracy, carefully connecting the small pieces of the lives of nearly two dozen characters into one big whole.

And in total there are already more than a hundred episodes.

Saul has inherited all the best from Breaking Bad

The atmosphere and style of Breaking Bad can be called unique, but Gilligan and his team repeat themselves very successfully. The same camerawork style, the same Albuquerque, the same meticulousness in every frame, but most importantly — the excellent casting. 

Rhea Seehorn had not stood out in any significant way over a decade and a half of career, but during Better Call Saul she becomes a class-A actress. She plays Saul/Jimmy's life partner named Kim, and the fact that she must disappear by the time (she is absent from Breaking Bad) when Saul's storyline in both series connects makes viewers worry: what will happen to her?

Michael Mando plays the character Nacho Varga, who was only mentioned in Breaking Bad. He is a sort of analogue of Jesse Pinkman — a good-natured man who got stuck in the criminal world and cannot get out of it. 

Tony Dalton makes the criminal Lalo Salamanca charming, whose story is yet another mystery for the sixth season, which will be the final one. He immediately becomes the main antagonist, overshadowing Fring.

All three were not very well known before the series, but thanks in part to them Better Call Saul manages to maintain the high level of acting set by Breaking Bad, whose cast may have been the best in television history.

The series is spoiled in advance but keeps many mysteries

Everyone knows who dies in Breaking Bad and what happens to Saul (moreover, the intros before each season show glimpses of Saul's fate after Breaking Bad), but these natural spoilers do not get in the way. The motives behind actions and the transformation of characters are again revealed so deeply that it is interesting in itself, even without the intrigue.

If you watched Breaking Bad not in parallel with the premiere of the episodes, but after it had ended, then you almost certainly knew how Walter White would end up. And that did not stop you from enjoying watching the character develop. In Better Call Saul there are several such 'Walter Whites' at once.

At the same time, the storylines of characters not involved in Breaking Bad create a mysterious uncertainty: where will Nacho, Lalo and, above all, Kim disappear to?

Breaking Bad still confidently holds the top positions in rankings of the best series of all time, even seven years after its finale. The first seasons of Better Call Saul were not as gripping as each episode about White and Pinkman, but it gradually raised the stakes and in the end matched it in dramaturgy. 

The finale of Breaking Bad was delightful, and from Gilligan, who never grew tiresome over a hundred hours and who made two great series out of the narrow space of Albuquerque, people again expect endings of the same level — they have been trained.

The final, sixth season of Saul will be released in 2021.

Where to watch: Netflix