"Better Call Saul" - pre season and Season One Discussion

Nope, I'm done. Life's too short...

 

I think Gillian took the best of the lesson's learned from Breaking Bad and applied them to this show. I feel Breaking Bad became more character-based as it proceeded.

The genius in regard to the writing/acting with Better Call Saul is that we all know, say, the last five pages of Mike's "book" -- Even though we know Mike ends up shot dead, we're all riveted by this finely written and well-acted back story.

A writer's talent to accomplish this cannot be underestimated as it takes tremendous skill to pull this off -- most of your short attention-span audience only want to hear the beginning and the end, and any material in the middle is just prelude and process to a dramatic conclusion. The writers/actors, for the most part, are currently succeeding where the odds are in the favor of failure.

 

What Gillian accomplished with this season of Better Call Saul can be put into perspective by recalling another prequel to a very popular filmed work, Episodes I, II and III of Star Wars.

 

I'm re-watching the finale and just fascinated by Mel Rodriguez's performance, and his chemistry with Odenkirk. I can't think of another show where a character showed up for just one (and just a fraction of another) episode and had such an impact. If they did another prequel spinoff with Marco & Slippin' Jimmy, I'd watch it every week.

 

Did Munchausen's syndrome come up before? If it did, I'm sorry if I skimmed over it. I think it's a fair suggestion that this would explain Chuck's actions. But I still have to wonder if someone with Munchausen's would exhibit symptoms of their made-up affliction when unobserved? Some scenes in the show could definitely support the suggestion of Munchausen's, but we have also seen Chuck suffering from his fake affliction even when he knows nobody can see him, which is why I'm skeptical that he is intentionally faking. But I've been wrong about plot points before...

 

Couldn't agree more - that was superb. I enjoyed every second of Marco and Slippin' Jimmy. Have to say Marco's reaction when he found out Jimmy had been in town years back and didn't come see him... wow... that really hit me in the heart, it was a small moment, but packed a wallop.

 

If the person has real symptoms and is in real pain, then it kind of goes beyond a mental illness. There are psychosomatic illnesses where people break out in rashes, have terrible pain, have asthma attacks, all kinds of stuff that are physiological but not caused by a germ or virus per se. It's not a scam if the person believes it 100%, but that also doesn't make an actual disease in the traditional sense.

In this case, I think Chuck is just f'in' nuts. On some level, I think he couldn't handle a day-to-day job and his mind created an illness that would force him to stay out of the office and hide inside his house. As one example of this, Joni Mitchell has Morgellons Disease, one of these weird conditions where the person believes there's insects or parasites crawling underneath their skin, making them itch uncontrollably. This has terribly affected Mitchell's life over the last few years. Is it all in her head? The doctors are saying so:

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/513241/Mental-illness-forced-Joni-Mitchell-to-quit

 

As a Junior Brown fan, I'm ashamed to admit that I was incorrect in thinking that the short intro guitar riff at the beginning of the show was actually Junior. He does a song for the show(as was posted earlier in this thread). The short riff is actually a band called LITTLE BARRIE.

Sure sounded like something Junior Brown would have done.

 

Remember Jimmy's last day with Marco? He turned on his phone and listened to his voicemails then knew it was time to go back to the life he had built for himself at Albuquerque. He had a sense of duty to his clients. It was only when Marco begged him to stay for one last scam and then died that he really reverted back to Slippin' Jimmy.

 

I loved when Marco was trying to get Jimmy to stay for one last scam: "but I've already called in sick"

 

Are there really any barroom scams like this that really work? Is there anything that might work on you? None of the featured scams seemed that enticing.

 

It could be that the people who hang out in bars such as the ones that Jimmy was frequenting are more susceptible to these scams than the readers of this forum.

 

Did anybody buy the RSD single?

 

What was it? I didn't see anything "Better Call Saul" related when I reviewed the list.

 

Better Call Saul
http://www.bullmoose.com/p/17343091/junior-brown-better-call-saul-theme
http://www.amoeba.com/better-call-saul-theme-record-store-day-7-junior-brown/albums/3465461/

7" single by Junior Brown $9

 

I just want to say that I am from Chicago, and lived there all my life until five years ago, and I have never, ever heard of a "Chicago Sunroof" prior to the last episode of Better Call Saul. I don't think this is a real thing, at least I hope it isn't.

 

I could buy the story if it was taking a piss but what the writers suggested here with this, really defies all level of grossout believability for me. But I'm not from Chicago....

 

They made it up.

http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a34250/better-call-saul-peter-gould-on-chicago-sunroof/

 

What's going to happen in the next season? Hmmmmm

http://uproxx.com/tv/2015/04/better-call-saul-cast-and-crew-speculate-on-whats-to-come-for-season-2/

 

I bet it now becomes a real thing!

 

Yeah, unfortunately it is going to give some morons the idea to do it! Keep those sunroofs closed peoples!

 

Alright, Vince Gilligan just answered a bunch of questions on Reddit and also teased what's going to happen in Season 2:

http://www.salon.com/2015/05/01/8_“...revelations_from_vince_gilligan’s_reddit_ama/

 

Vince Gilligan was on Celebrity Jeopardy this Monday and Alex asked him why they didn't have more episodes in a season. He said that AMC would like more episodes but he said it was a matter of maintaining the quality of the show...that it was difficult to keep up the quality trying to write more than ~10 episodes in a season. Most of you probably know this, but for the few (like me) who didn't, i thought i would pass it along.