MovieChat Forums > Better Call Saul (2015) Discussion > "How are they Going to Get out of THIS O...

"How are they Going to Get out of THIS One?" VS "What the Heck is He Setting up THIS time?"

posted 4 years ago by ecarle (14979)
14 replies | jump to latest

The plot tempo of Breaking Bad is this: "How are they going to get out of THIS one?" Episode after episode finds our "heroes"(NOT - -they're manufacturers of the most virulent and poor-people-killing drug of all, meth) facing some sort of danger that MUST end with their death(s) -- and yet(of course), every time, they wriggle out of it, escape and (sometimes) turn the tables and kill their foes. The Sopranos pitted Tony the Boss against encroaching outsider mobsters each season, but didn't put him in life-or-death cliffhangers on a weekly basis. Breaking Bad, does.

--

Since finishing Breaking Bad, I have now watched the first five seasons of the Breaking Bad prequel series, Better Call Saul. (The sixth and final season has yet to be shot, COVID-19 postponing it.)

And it turns out -- to me -- that Better Call Saul, while having a bit of the "how are they going to get out of THIS one?" motif -- milks a DIFFERENT motif:

"What the heck is he setting up to do THIS time?

Its a different dynamic. Often it is Saul doing setting something up; sometimes it is Mike setting something up; it has even been KIM setting something up -- but we have to wait to see the payoff.

To save the bodyguard from a prison term ...why is Kim buying a bunch of colored pens?

Why is Saul filming commercials against a blue screen in the nail salon?

How is Saul going to get his client off THIS time?

reply

[–] BourbonKing (5777) 4 years ago

The finale to BCS is likely going to be about his Gene character in B&W Nebraska. We already know that he fled Elbowquirky using the Vacuum service. I'd like to think that Kim flees town in episode one because of a major transgression (accidentally killing Howard) and reunites with Jimmy in Nebraska

reply

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

"Elbowquirky." I love that. Such a hard city name to spell, otherwise.

I think a lot of us are hoping that Kim lives and appears in Nebraska and a happy ending is possible. Saul clearly has a good heart within his crookedness and did not -- to my memory -- kill anybody by the time he disappeared from ..Elbwoquirky.

PS. I do believe that there was a close-up on a clear plastic plaque with one of the proposed Mesa Verde branches -- in Nebraska.

reply

[–] Iffy762 (1334) 4 years ago

I dunno. I think Kim is going down. I would love if she lives and in the last episode of BCS we see her and Saul together, but BB and BCS are both part of a genre where I don't think there are happy endings.

reply

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Well, one can hope...but I'm feeling as much downcast as up.

Breaking Bad ended up as one of the most "moral" shows on TV. Everybody who did bad paid -- most with death, but Skylar ended up in pretty bad shape, no matter that money might be coming her way.

I'd say that Kim's survival rather depends on her ability to stay "clean."

reply

[–] Iffy762 (1334) 4 years ago

Maybe. I guess I would say one thing in Kim's favor is that everyone is expecting her to be killed, so it would be a surprise if they had her come out ok.

reply

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

True.

I'd like to point out that while there are many, many points of interest in Better Call Saul -- all those "walking dead characters" come back to life, mainly great villains -- I've come to believe that perhaps the entire series is going to hinge on "what happens to Kim."

The gimmick: clearly we don't SEE her in "Breaking Bad." (She had not been "created yet" by the writers.) But now she exists. So we are meant to wonder for a long time: what HAPPENS to her.

The entire Better Call Saul series hinges on this.

Also on what happens to Lalo. Hah.

reply

[–] Iffy762 (1334) 4 years ago

So true. Love the idea about the "walking dead characters." I agree with you, it's all about what happens to Kim.

It's a great series. The first time I watched the pilot I couldn't get into it, but the second time, I was totally hooked. Wierd.

I read in an interview with the creators, that when they started writing it, they did not anticipate how much of it would be about Saul's relationship with Chuck. That just happened organically. So maybe they did not have a plan for Kim initially and there's a tiny chance that she will make it out alive.

reply

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I read in an interview with the creators, that when they started writing it, they did not anticipate how much of it would be about Saul's relationship with Chuck. That just happened organically.

--

I hear that things like this happen often in "the writer's room." Its like to keep the Chuck/Saul/Jimmy thing going, they had to come up with new "plot detours" to give the relationship the time it required.

Also, clearly, Chuck's impact on Jimmy BECOMING Saul turns out to be the heart of the story(even as Saul is also "the rebirth of Slippin' Jimmy, too.")

--

So maybe they did not have a plan for Kim initially and there's a tiny chance that she will make it out alive

---

Maybe. Its a helluva hook to stick around to the end(now delayed by COVID-19.) Learning so much about Kim's terrible, impoverished childhood tells us a lot about her, gives her meaning -- it would be terrible to kill her.

reply

[–] Iffy762 (1334) 4 years ago

I hear that things like this happen often in "the writer's room." Its like to keep the Chuck/Saul/Jimmy thing going, they had to come up with new "plot detours" to give the relationship the time it required.

Also, clearly, Chuck's impact on Jimmy BECOMING Saul turns out to be the heart of the story(even as Saul is also "the rebirth of Slippin' Jimmy, too.")

--
Not to mention Michael McKean is amazing.

reply

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Not to mention Michael McKean is amazing.

---

Great actor. And to think he started out as part of "Lenny and Squiggy."

McKean played a lot of comedy, but I've never forgotten McKean's one scene in a movie about TV star Bob Crane(Hogan's Heroes) and how he was murdered. The movie was called Auto Focus and Crane was played by Greg Kinnear.

In the scene, Crane's friend John Carpenter(played by Willem Dafoe) is in charge of the technical side of a 1960's demonstration of color television to a room full of big shots; McKean is leading the presentation. The colors on the TV screen are all wrong -- McKean nicely sends the VIPs out("There is coffee and Danish in the next room, gentlemen") and then gives Dafoe a reaming out("You son of a bitch! You're color blind , AREN'T YOU!!") and fires him on the spot.

I've never forgotten that bit of corporate villainy. It lurks behind McKean's work as Chuck.

reply

[–] Iffy762 (1334) 4 years ago

Wow, I never even picked up on him being Lenny.

reply

[–] Iffy762 (1334) 4 years ago

I am also surprised at how much I am invested in Lalo's fate.

reply

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I am also surprised at how much I am invested in Lalo's fate.

--

He's a classic example of a "great villain appearing out of nowhere, late."

We got that on Breaking Bad with Todd and Lydia.

Compared to the brooding, conflicted Nacho(who has a fair amount in common with Jesse BB), Lalo is older, more confident, more handsome and more flamboyant -- but obviously deadly, too.

reply

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 4 years ago

I'm not invested in Lalo's fate. He's mentioned in BB and Saul Goodman is still plenty scared of him, but we do not see him involved in cartel business in BB while the other Salamancas are involved, so something probably happens to him in BCS.

The characters most people care about are still Kim (who seems to be breaking bad in trying to put something on Howard), Nacho (who seems to want to get out of the life with his father), Gene (in his new life), and Mike. Yet, we know what happens to Mike in BB. We still see Gene in the future, but no Kim and Nacho. Nacho seems to be headed for execution by Lalo and maybe his father, too, in order to set him up.

We don't see Kim in the future, so something dramatic must happen to her unless she's a BCS MacGuffin for BB. That would trivialize a main character of BCS, so I can't see that happening.

Kim isn't in BB nor Gene's future, so it appears she is the one most likely to die after Lalo and Nacho. We just don't know for what reason. Compared to BB, there isn't as much killing in BCS but the drug wars are still heating up. Lalo would still be the enemy of Gus Fring and Juan Bolsa. Lalo would most want to get Nacho, Juan Bolsa, and Gus. It's obvious why the last episode in season 5 was go good. The Something Unforgivable episode holds clues as to what will happen and the motivations of the characters for season 6.

reply