Better Call Saul - Season Four Discussion & Digestion

They statement you were responding to is not true. It was too long of a wait, yeah, I agree, but the wait was due to negotiations that basically ensured the series' health.

That ratings for this week's episode was at an all-time low is untrue.

 

This has been on for four seasons already? Wow, time flies.

 

Really successful shows is "having achieved popularity, profit, or distinction." So "really (which you dropped out of my quote) successful shows" would be shows like Game of Thrones, the Walking Dead, Lost, Sopranos, LOST...etc... saw numbers approaching and surpassing 10 million. Even Mad Men, American Horror Story, and Bates Motel saw numbers around 2-3 million in prime.

I agree, there is a lot of complete and utter dreck on tv that isn't worth watching and the numbers show it. But "outliers"? No, the shows are just that good.

All this isn't a slight on Better Call Saul, but it is exactly as I am calling it, at this point. Comparing the show in its 4th season to say Breaking Bad in its 4th season which repeatedly saw viewership at close to 2 million is like I stated, unremarkable. Even for Better Call Saul itself, the numbers are small compared to the first 2 seasons.

If writing like the last episode keeps up, I think this will change viewership and this is no way me putting down BCS, just calling it as I see it. I am a big fan of the show and I want to see it succeed.

You are right, it is 4th lowest rated since the show started (following lowest season opener). Let's start a party for that achievement!

List of Better Call Saul episodes - Wikipedia

 

While, like all of you, I think this season has started off great and it's nice to see the Breaking Bad world come closer and closer, I do miss the more light-hearted nature and humor of the first two seasons. I mean, a big part of what I loved about Season 1 were Jimmy's hilarious schemes such as: the billboard thing, the scamming w/the skateboard twins and running into Tuco's grandma, stumbling into "elder care", etc.

Then again, Breaking Bad is similar - the first season has the main characters hilariously stumbling into crime, while the subsequent seasons deal with the complications of diving deeper into the criminal world.

 

I feel as Jimmy becomes more and more despicable the viewership is only going to get worse. There is no doubt a trend that is on the horizon for seeing something that is uplifting. Better Call Saul just may not be enough happy story to sustain itself. While it is true that a lot of us just go all "cool" when there is a death like last episode, the facts are that looming doom that is coming with the Kim character and the black and white sneak peak at what is to come...well it doesn't make for a crowd that just can't wait to tune in.

The death of a major character doesn't help. That push and pull made for good writing and now that it is gone, is the sequel like feel of Gus and Mike going to sustain it all or are people going to start going...been there done that, and done it better before, what else is there to truly tell?

Again, this is Devil's Advocate and not indicating of how I feel about the show. For example I personally feel the ball bat to two major characters on the Walking Dead was the start of the show really going somewhere, and the impending doom of smashing of the so called brotherhood of Daryl and Rick just has me salivating.

Not to bring it over here, but sometimes man you gotta shake it up to get to something new.

 

Man, I respect you and all, but the moment when you started with The Walking Dead being a great show, I began to wonder if I had smoked that joint stashed in my sock drawer. Then I realized, no, you smoked it!

 

Each to his own bud. Great in different ways. The special effects are phenomenol the characters epic the mini stories very relateable....but I wasn't really comparing the two shows, just making an example.

The Walking Dead will be remembered much longer because it stands for something more...but that is just my opinion. In the end though I haye comparisons. They both have merits in their own ways. IMHO

 

I think while weve entered dark times in Better Call Saul, I also believe that when Jimmy does go all out Saul (maybe 3/4 into this season or sooner) we will see more humor. I know people love Jimmy, but Saul was hillarious in his own special low life way. Jimmy is the guy you laugh at and think "Man this guy is hillariously fast on his feet. What wont he do? Im pulling for him to make it on his own terms." Saul is the guy you laugh at and think "Man this guy is hillariously fast on his feet. What wont he do? Im hoping he falls flat on his face."

I dont think Jimmy turning Saul will be without that humor, nor without some strong connections. You think Chuck and Jimmy's relationship was complicated and many times uncomfortable/akward to witness? Wait until Jimmy and Kim twist and fall apart.

If folks understand the feel and idea of what this series is about then its certainly never going to be a bore. I think this ball is just now starting to roll. And there are going to be some funny assed schemes that make the nursing home and bingo games look like childs play.

Not only do I want to see every evolution of Jimmy to Saul, I want it to be stretched and mangled as long and slow as possible. To become Saul isnt an overnight occassion.

 

Yes, I caught that too.

 

The last scene was so incredibly tense. Gus remains a truly terrifying villain. The episode flew by so quickly I was pretty shocked when the producer credits came up.

Kim going to bat for Jimmy like she does in this episode kind of breaks my heart, at least with the foreknowledge of what's to come. She's correct about much of what she says, but it's so clear that her motivation is a real underlying love for Jimmy that we know will come to some sort of a despairing end. What's funny is, I think Jimmy truly loves Kim too -- and I think that's part of what makes him resort to some of his shadier actions. Actually I'm a little scared of how much I kind of relate to him much of the time, if on a less criminal scale -- the idea that you can prove yourself as competent and worthy if you just get over this one hurdle that seems to keep moving is familiar to me. His fighting so hard last season to keep the office, convinced that he could pull enough stunts to do it, was an act of love in some way. Kim's car accident really snapped him into a focus and clarity that might well have saved him if not for Chuck's death just afterward. At least that's how it looks to me.

 

Wait 'til Kim walks into that Cinnabon in Omaha. Of all the confectionery joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into Gene's.

 

Am I the only one here who thinks Cinnabon is disgusting?

 

The first decision was whether to shoot film or digital. Breaking Bad was one of the last TV shows to be shot on film. For Better Call Saul, Albert conducted a blind test with film and a number of digital cameras to better make an objective decision. “We shot every possible situation—dark interior, bright interior, high contrast, interior-to-exterior with dark inside and bright exterior—everything I could think of that would stretch the capabilities of the cameras to the maximum,” he says. When the team looked at the final footage, it was a guessing game. “What was interesting was everyone guessed wrong about which was film and what was digital. It was really hard to tell.”

'Better Call Saul': The Formats, Framing and Film Noir Influences of the Series

 

nope.

 

Some impressions of Episode 2:

I thought it was hilarious when four adult men, having been told by the doctor to talk to Hector as part of his therapy, could not talk to Hector to save their souls. When finally two of them did, it was just to tell him a very brief summary of how their business was going. They could not even force out a pretend conversation of any length with him.

The whole idea that the hummels are so valuable is a joke. Hummels are well known to be about the most worthless collectible out there. Most sell for $20 or less on ebay.

I was startled that Gus did the hands on work of murdering Hector's man at the end of the episode, instead of leaving it to an assistant. But then again, in Breaking Bad, he did the murder himself, in the lab, when one of his assistant's was seen at the scene after Gale's murder.

It makes me wonder again who Gus really is. In Breaking Bad, in a pool scene in Mexico, Don Eladio tells Gus that he had killed his friend but spared him (Gus), because "we know you you are." Lydia told Mike last season in Better Call Saul, "if you think Gus is just a drug dealer you don't know who he is", or something close to that.

I have speculated that Gus was either the head of the Chilean secret police, or a well known assassin in Chile, or something very dangerous and violent and powerful in Chile, something that even Don Eladio had to have a healthy respect for. Gus certainly has no hesitation about committing very skillful kills himself.

I noticed that Kim put Chuck's letter to Jimmy into some of her stored filing. I wonder if it will be discovered by Jimmy at some inopportune moment which is particularly devastating to him. I wonder why Kim has not read the letter.

 

Of course it is. That is part of the impact of Saul's exile. He is stuck in a maddeningly boring existence in a terrible job in an uninspiring business in a slow paced city. It is as if a perfect private hell had been constructed for Saul Goodman.

To top it off, he has to appear before the public in an uncontrolled, large mall every day. He does not have a job where he can work at home or in a private office which he could barricade and escape from in the event of a discovery. He is as vulnerable to discovery and attack as he could be, while on the job.

 

It's good to see you here again, Mr. Attorney. You and @JimW are both lawyers, yeah? (I could be wrong, as I'm remembering discussions from Season 2 & 3).

Anyway, some very good points. I, too, thought it was awkward and kind of fun when the guys were talking to Hector at the hospital.

RE: Hummels. I'm not a hummel expert. Prior to BCS, the only thing I knew about hummels was from the film, About Schmidt (highly underrated movie). Well, sort of...as a Google search will illustrate the most expensive hummel is valued at $1600. However, going way back into my memory bank, it seems I recall a guy talking about Nazi era hummels and steins, where some of these were name-your-own-price type of affairs, that they are so rare. It's like underground hummel collecting, or something of that nature, where people in the hummel world don't talk about owning Nazi era hummels, because usually it's a game for old biddies. This came from a Nazi Germany collector, and it was just talk, so take it with as many grains of salt as you wish.

Very interesting thoughts on Gus. It makes me wonder if we'll get to know more about Gus from BCS, though I couldn't imagine a situation were Gus would discuss his past. Perhaps Don Eladio or Bolsa would tell somebody Gus' past, or perhaps even Lydia.

We do know that it was kind of explained, or implied, that they didn't need the cook (Gus' boyfriend), but they needed the brains behind the operation, Gus, himself. It was also to send a message, like, we're not going to touch you, but we can touch those around you.

Very good! It makes me want to know more about Gus (as if I didn't want to know already).

 

That just doesn't ring true to me. All Nacho had to do was flush those pills in the privacy of his own house.

 

So am I right in assuming ...

Nachos's buddy took the fall for Hector's stroke so Gus could get him out of the way and have someone (Nacho) who is "mine" in charge? Or did his "not 5 ... 6" power play have anything to do with anything (seems his death was imminent, regardless, so I'm thinking "no")? Or did Nacho's buddy do something that I missed that warranted this action (other than Gus consolidating power, which would not have been a sufficient reason for the Salamanca Family, I assume)?

 

I’m with you regarding Nacho and the placebos. I did not understand the character’s motivations and actions concerning his disposal methods.

 

It was cinematic and helped the storyline develop.

 

Good to see you back; always enjoyed your contributions (including, but not limited to your legal expertise). You were missed. I always get a little concerned when folks go missing, given the age of most of us here (not that you were gone that long).

Beat me to it. And no, I'm not a lawyer, though I do remember another one in the previous thread(s).

 

I just did not have a chance to watch Episode 2 until Thursday night!

 

I might be reading too much into it, but going back to Season 3, there were a couple of scenes were Gus looked at Nacho a little different than he looked at Hector's other goon, and vice versa. There was eye contact. I even thought at one point that Nacho secretly worked for Gus, and might be giving Gus inside information.

If I'm not reading into it, then Gus might have saw something in Nacho that he liked, or, at the very least, Gus may have noted that Nacho's heart wasn't into Hector...or maybe that Gus could use Nacho somehow in the future. Contrast Nacho with Hector's other thug, and that guy with the ponytail just doesn't look like the brightest bulb.

We know Gus to be a keen observer of character, whose only mistake in that area ended up costing him his life, when he misjudged Walter White.

So, I see it that Gus would have made his move to draft Nacho, anyway, even if Nacho hadn't screwed over Hector. Gus' guys assuredly told Gus that they had a gun pointed at Nacho during their first(?) drug exchange with Hector's people. Moreover, since Nacho was being tracked, I'm sure Gus knew that Hector was trying to muscle Nacho's father. His keen interest in Nacho allowed him to peer into Nacho's scheme at the scene of Hector's stroke.

Therefore, dum-dum gets the bag over his head, because, well...who needs to argue with a guy who's loyal to Hector, and Nacho is recruited on Gus' side, where I'm sure he'll be at play with the cousins.

It is assumed, isn't it, that Nacho doesn't die during all of this because Saul references Nacho as living during Breaking Bad?

 

I guess if we also assume that Saul is an honest upstanding man who always tells the truth.