Better Call Saul - Season Three Discussion

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by stereoptic, Jan 16, 2017.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. mmars982

    mmars982 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pittsburgh, PA
    My two favorite shows. But I thought the next season of Fargo wasn't coming out until next year?
     
  2. Lonson

    Lonson I'm in the kitchen with the Tombstone Blues

    No it's out next month I believe; they have been showing tons of teaser ads.
     
  3. Vinyl Addict

    Vinyl Addict Forum Resident

    Location:
    MA
    April 19th at 10!!!


    There a trailer in the Fargo thread also.
    Fargo FX Original Series
     
    mmars982 likes this.
  4. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    Boy, I'm the exact opposite! I'm counting down the days. I still remember clearly all the dynamics from last season because it was so well realized and acted. Most other, lesser shows, I would need to read a season recap or something before watching, but not with this show.
     
    artfromtex likes this.
  5. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Not paying close enough attention to notice.
     
    BlueGangsta and Vinyl Addict like this.
  6. Lonson

    Lonson I'm in the kitchen with the Tombstone Blues

  7. halfjapanese

    halfjapanese Gifs moider!

  8. As I'm winding down my pre-season ritual of watching Season 2 of Better Call Saul before the new season starts, I'm struck by how much story they are able to compress into each episode without sacrificing story-flow. I'm not sure there is anyone better than the BB/BCS show runners, directors, cinematographers, and writers.

    I watched Episode 8 of Season 2 last night, and though I had seen it before, there's always something new to marvel at. Quality stuff!
     
    JimW, Deesky, mmars982 and 1 other person like this.
  9. chodad

    chodad Hodad

    Location:
    USA
    I see Chuck McGill as pretty loathsome.
     
    Gems-A-Bems and George P like this.
  10. George P

    George P Notable Member

    Location:
    NYC
    It's different. IMO, it's better.
     
    BLUESJAZZMAN likes this.
  11. George P

    George P Notable Member

    Location:
    NYC
    I was already fully enthused, but I watched the first two seasons on Netflix over the last week to refresh myself. Can't wait for Monday! (Kind of a weird thing to say on a Friday, but there it is.) :)
     
  12. George P

    George P Notable Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Yeah, I can't recall a character in recent memory that I loathe more. I hope that cheap tape player ate his tape. Or he mistakenly had the record level set to zero.
     
    Linger63, chodad and Vinyl Addict like this.
  13. Bingo Bongo

    Bingo Bongo Music gives me Eargasms

    Location:
    Ottawa, Canada
    So, BCS is starting this Monday night???
     
  14. George P

    George P Notable Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Yep. 10pm EST
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2017
    Bingo Bongo and Vinyl Addict like this.
  15. vince

    vince Stan Ricker's son-in-law

    With a big Season 2 marathon throughout the day!
     
    Bingo Bongo likes this.
  16. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    I usually like to re-watch some or all a seasons of a good show before the new season. This has become more difficult in recent years, but I'm currently doing it with "Saul" since it's only two seasons of 10 episodes each.

    I'm still re-watching Season One, and this show is still stunning. Truly one of the best ever. It's that good.
     
    George P likes this.
  17. sloaches

    sloaches Forum Resident

    Gotta say that I'm pretty geeked for the new season, especially with Gus being introduced. I recently watched a few episodes of Breaking Bad and this is one of my favorite Gus scenes (sorry that it isn't the whole scene from the top, but it's still pretty chilling).
     
  18. sberger

    sberger Dream Baby Dream

    Hulu
     
    Vinyl Addict likes this.
  19. rburly

    rburly Sitting comfortably with Item 9

    Location:
    Orlando
    Gus Fring could either be the best or worst thing to happen to Better Call Saul

    By Erik Adams @ErikMAdams
    Apr 10, 2017 12:00 AM
    [​IMG]
    Giancarlo Esposito (left), Bob Odenkirk, Jonathan Banks (Photo: Robert Trachtenberg/AMC/Sony Pictures Television)
    [​IMG]
    B
    Better Call Saul
    Season 3

    Like its predecessor, the story of Better Call Saul is the story of a process: This time, the transformation of ethically compromised attorney Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) into criminal accessory Saul Goodman. But perhaps even more than Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul loves depicting process. A motif in the first two episodes of the series’ third season finds characters taking things apart or putting them back together again, always with a meticulous attention to detail. An automobile is stripped to its bare components. Batteries are inserted and reinserted into devices, one scene going so far as to capture the awkward and never intuitive process of opening a plastic blister pack of C-cells. The elder McGill brother, Chuck (Michael McKean), instructs Jimmy on the proper method to remove an adhesive from a wall without damaging the finish underneath. We later see Jimmy taking tape off of a different wall, following Chuck’s technique for a few seconds—before finishing the job with one violent yank.

    [​IMG]
    If there’s any reason to feel anxious about Better Call Saul at this point in its run, it’s the thought that season three will represent that violent yank writ large. There’s every reason to believe that showrunners Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould will continue to practice a sense of composure and control as Jimmy’s chickens come to roost. But the biggest, most dangerous rooster in Albuquerque hangs at the fringes of season three’s first two episodes, and depending on where you stand on seasons three and four of Breaking Bad, this is either cause for celebration or a time to brace for impact. As foretold in the internet’s most storied acrostic, Gus Fring is back.

    Here’s the thing: Gus is a compelling villain, played with unsettling intensity and unnerving calm by Giancarlo Esposito. Fans of stern pronouncements laced with unbelievable malice are right to cheer the return of the man who runs his methamphetamine operation with the cleanliness and efficiency of a fast-food chain. But his re-emergence—or, really, emergence, within the Jimmy McGill chronology—suggests that the slow-motion car crash of Better Call Saul is about to gain a significant amount of speed. For the time being, Gus is just a familiar yellow dress shirt whose Los Pollos Hermanos restaurant serves as a new wrinkle in the private war Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) is waging against Hector Salamanca (Mark Margolis) and the Juarez cartel. But we already know that Gus is harboring his own grudge toward the cartel bosses, one that will reach a bloody, fiery conclusion during the events of Breaking Bad.

    [​IMG]
    Bob Odenkirk (left), Rhea Seehorn (Photo: Michele K. Short/AMC/Sony Pictures Television)
    For two years, Better Call Saul studiously skirted anything as hefty as an appearance from Esposito. Winks toward Breaking Bad were made, and minor players like Hector and his nephew Tuco were re-introduced, but there was nothing like the sharp elbow to the ribs that is season three’s first taste of Los Pollos Hermanos. Better Call Saul was—and for the time being, is—its own distinct thing with its own distinct cadre of characters whose moral quandaries felt of a piece with, but not necessarily beholden to, Breaking Bad. These people are still around, and they still have a part to play in season three: Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler, her own ambitions and sense of right and wrong increasingly torn between her feelings for Jimmy and the drip-drop of information about his wrongdoings. McKean is doing career-best dramatic work as Chuck, whose maniacal quest to catch his brother in the act might finally be having a greater impact on his mind than electromagnetic fields. In a welcome development, Brandon K. Hampton seems to be getting more screen time as Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill gofer Ernesto, the squeeze of the McGill cold war expanding his role from go-between to man who knows too much.

    But a figure who looms as large as Gus does has the potential to blot out the suns of these and other supporting Better Call Saul players. To their credit, Gilligan, Gould, and crew appear to understand this—but it’s incredible how Esposito can pull attention and create a sense of dread when he’s just the blur in the background of a tight shot on Jonathan Banks. (Those yellow shirts really are a masterstroke of costume design.) But Gus also has the gravitational pull to draw Mike—who grew increasingly adrift from the primary action in season two—back to the core of Better Call Saul. Sure, that storyline’s mostly silent Death Wish remake provides Banks the opportunity to act with his eyebrows and fiddle with instruments of death and surveillance, but it so often feels connected to Better Call Saul only because it’s connected to Breaking Bad.

    [​IMG]
    Giancarlo Esposito (Photo: Michele K. Short/AMC/Sony Pictures Television)That’s all you can ask from a prequel, but this prequel is worth watching because it asks more of itself. And the amount of jailhouse imagery in the season three advertising campaign, coupled with the trajectory of the two episodes screened for critics, suggests that Jimmy’s and Mike’s paths will continue diverging. But there is this force that we know unites them in the future. The worst case scenario for season three of Better Call Saul

    Gus Fring could either be the best or worst thing to happen to Better Call Saul
     
    Vinyl Addict likes this.
  20. mpayan

    mpayan A Tad Rolled Off

    Well that didnt take long to draw me back in. Im in.

     
    George P likes this.
  21. vince

    vince Stan Ricker's son-in-law

    Big Season Two marathon today!
     
  22. mpayan

    mpayan A Tad Rolled Off

    Im considering it. After a 16 hr shift yesterday I doubt Im getting off the couch much. Slippin Jimmy's exploites may be a good revisit!
     
    Vinyl Addict likes this.
  23. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    Re-watched Season 1 and I'm into Season 2 now. Will probably have to wait a few more days to finish out re-watching Season 2 before I can get to the Season 3 premiere.

    Still great stuff, every episode is near-perfect.

    While I'm a bit unclear as to what the person who wrote that article above is worried about as far as Fring appearing in Season 3, but I *think* I have the same general worries that he's too sort of strong or inadvertently overbearing as a character for a show like "Saul." But I also trust the showrunners on "Saul" who have, so far, made 20 near-perfect episodes of TV out of 20. So I think they'll do it well.
     
    GentleSenator likes this.
  24. I don't see how Gus could be the "best" or "worst" thing to happen to Better Call Saul. It just is.

    At first, when Tuco was brought in to BCS I was thinking, "What the hell?" but it all makes perfect sense in the natural progression of things now. That is, we knew Gus would show up at some time, because it was through Saul that Mike was brought into the world of Breaking Bad, and then eventually Gus. In fact, if we view Saul as a conduit, it can be argued that he was responsible for hooking Walt up with some heavy hitters, albeit only after Walt let Jesse's girlfriend die.

    In other words, if Gus ends up stealing some of the show, it's only a natural order of things. After all, Breaking Bad wasn't only about Walt; many characters we're fleshed out. There's plenty of room for all.
     
  25. GregM

    GregM The expanding man

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    I had not watched BCS until this weekend, when I binge-watched my way through the first season and nearly all the 2nd. I had put it off for so long because Breaking Bad left me lukewarm. My first run through all BB seasons left me cold a couple years ago. Recently I gave it another chance and enjoyed it more.

    Part of my problem with both shows is the production. It felt amateurish in a lot of the camera choices, writing and acting, relative to other shows I was enjoying like Sopranos. Nonlinear time gimmickry, filtered or heavily stylized shots, stilted dialog and over acting really pulled me out of the story and focused me on the production.

    While BCS is a better in this regard, and Saul was my favorite character in BB (it was hard for me to relate to anyone in that show), I am still bothered a bit by the production choices. For example, Jimmy's older brother has a psychosomatic condition that causes him a lot of anxiety and pain. Ok, I get it. Do we have to see the screen go berserk with cheesy effects, buzzing audio and close-ups of his sweaty, grimacing face for extended sequences? Similar stylized scenes were done in BB.

    The viewer doesn't need to be knocked over the head with this. There are more mature ways to convey these sequences that give greater insight into the characters' mentality and psychological landscape. An opportunity missed. It would be like showing Uncle Junior on medication in his ward with the camera spinning around. A top-notch producer wouldn't allow it.

    When I get past these things, I enjoy the social commentary of the show, the dialog and dark humor, and the exploration of honor and morality among the anti-heroes. Odenkirk is really gifted and genuinely funny. It's hard to find a show that makes me laugh that much, but the cheesy production choices are tiring and I often find myself wondering why they'd be so blatantly Tarantino-esque.

    My other criticism is with fundamental characters and writing. Gus is just an unbelievable character, any way you look at it. So were many of the coincidences written into Walter White's arc, e.g., the chance encounter with the father of Jesse's girlfriend.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine