At this point Only Mike's story is interesting to me. And it ended on a fucking cliff hanger. I just don't care about Jimmy's family drama. I really wanted McKean to be dead by the end of this episode so Saul can come out get into some shenanigans in season 3. I would love to see the story advance some in season 3.
That's where I am at with it, having the first season set up the back story would have been fine but having the entirety of season 2 focus on family drama was a big let down, the show is called Better Call Saul and two seasons in we haven't even seen Saul. That's a mistake in my opinion, I tune in to see Saul and his law practice, not two brothers fighting.
Luckily, Vince Gilligan seems determined to create a character-driven drama instead of the the broad one-note sitcom you seem to be craving. I think that there is a serious disconnect between people who think that Better Call Saul is a comedy, destined for a happy ending, and those who think it is a tragedy with a sad ending, especially considering that we have an established starting point and an established ending point already.
This. I don't want a one note show and am all for character driven but so far the show has an excellent storyline with Mike and a boring one with the brothers bickering.
I was let down by the lack of any visceral feeling of closure for the second season. The way it ended felt as temporary as any regular episode ending. And the part where Chuck fucks Jimmy over yet again was totally telegraphed.
Retarded? This isn't two brothers sharing a house arguing over whose turn it is to cook, these are two intelligent, bordering on genius (at least Chuck) lawyer brothers who are actively going after each other while struggling to maintain their connection and affection as their life long feud approaches its apex. It's called complexity, and the show is absolutely crushing it in this regard (and pretty much all others). I get wanting to see Saul be Saul and get up to whacky hijinks each week, but Gilligan and Gould know how quickly that would turn lame (one-note sitcom is a great description). You guys do realize that Chuck is the main force driving Jimmy to become Saul, right? Or would you rather Chuck not even be in the show and it was just Jimmy conning people over and over? As viewers, Chuck's trick was certainly predictable, but the way they did it -- from the nurse hammering on to Jimmy about Chuck's mental state, and his performance in the silver room, on top of Chuck never doing anything devious -- I totally believe Jimmy believing it.
What makes you say this would be a one-note sitcom? You can still have character development, and great stories built around Saul. When you break anything down to it's simplest components you end up with something that sounds like a one-note sitcom. "A high school chemistry teacher decides to become a meth manufacturer/dealer". How much plot and character development can be built around that? Oh yeah. My main issue with this season is that there was 0 plot resolution. You know what would could have resolved the plot? Jimmy walking away from Chuck. The solution is simple. You don't even need a deus ex machina to solve the problem. There were two completely separate plots. Neither of them are anywhere close to being resolved. I don't remember Breaking Bad having cliff hangers like this. Did it? The plot took entire seasons to build and resolve, but I feel like each season ended with a significant issue being solved. This must be how people who watch The Walking Dead feel.
Exactly. Saul Goodman was mostly comic relief on Breaking Bad, and his non-Walter hijinks probably consisted mostly of chasing ambulances and getting DUI plea deals. Drama requires conflict, and a lot of sources for tension are undercut by the fact that we know Jimmy won't die and he won't get disbarred. Instead we see that he has two people in the world that he cares about. One has revealed himself as a Knight Templar willing to put himself through physical pain to screw Jimmy over, and that betrayal will most likely destroy his relationship with the other one. It's going to be significant that Jimmy said, "I did it for Kim," on that recording. It was pretty obvious that Chuck was recording the conversation, but that wasn't the important part of that scene. Chuck is now openly hostile to Jimmy, but Jimmy still loves him. He drops everything to go check on him and confesses to a felony just to make him feel better. The bit where he hesitates, then touches the grounding post anyway is a metaphor for the internal conflict Jimmy is going through. When he finds it that Chuck took advantage of his empathy, something is going to break inside him. If the fallout destroys Kim, he'll also lose his last strong tether to morality. It's a little more complex than two brothers bickering.
The Breaking Bad season finales ended with: Tuco beating his lackey to death The plane crash Jesse shooting Gail The shot of the lily of the valley plant Hank figuring out Walt is Heisenberg Walt dying And I do think that there was resolution. Chuck pulling out that tape recorder completely ended his relationship with his brother, which was the main theme of the season. They didn't need to hit us over the head with it by having Jimmy react to it right now.
Well anything is possible, sure. I'm not saying a Saul-as-Saul show would automatically suck. But this series was pitched as us watching Jimmy become Saul ("Watching a superhero gain his powers" was how Gilligan put it in one interview). So having him already be Saul, even in the second season, would completely defeat the purpose. I'm pretty picky when it comes to dramas, so maybe I'm in the dark, but that still sounds like one helluva one line pitch for a show. There's certainly a fuck ton more plot/character development -- and originality -- in that one line than there is in, "A naturally crooked lawyer is crooked". Alter it slightly to "A naturally crooked lawyer tries to play it straight in the hopes of gaining his older lawyer brother's approval", and you undoubtedly increase the drama and intrigue. Ok, so you just flat out don't want Chuck, the main driving force that turns Jimmy into Saul, which is the point of the show. Fair enough. Maybe you didn't nerd out before the show started and thought it was supposed to be Saul being Saul from the beginning. Also fair enough. But if you did know it was about how Jimmy becomes Saul, I'm not sure why you're arguing it should be Saul being Saul right now, especially since we're most likely not even half way through the series. Not sure why it has to follow Breaking Bad in terms of cliffhangers, but how was this a cliffhanger? Even without reading the interview with Gilligan where he says who left the note on Mike's car, I think it's pretty clear who did (or who had someone do it for him). We all agree the tape recorder trick was predictable, but that's a 'how' question, not a 'whether or not'. Meaning: we know definitively that Chuck has Jimmy's confession, and we're wondering how exactly he's going to use it, and how Jimmy will react to and overcome it. That's a far stretch from a show not letting us know which character they killed off by switching to a point of view camera shot for the first time ever. Also, what Clutch said.
I do wonder if Jimmy will finally at some point solve the Chuck problem by having him committed as the doctor has offered again and again. Chuck blames Jimmy for everything in life that happened, dad was a fool, blame Jimmy...to...well anything that doesn't go perfect...blame Jimmy. Eventually Jimmy is going to say "not anymore". Part of the problem is though that Jimmy is right, but not a good person overall, and Chuck is wrong but a better person overall. Just like Walter turned into a horrible drug lord and yet we were still rooting for him...why, shouldn't we hate him, well the writer does a good job of sucking us into to justification for shitty actions as being an ok move. When a show can mess with your emotions and the way this one does your moral compass it makes for interesting engaging entertainment. I am certainly interested to find how he ends up at cinnibon