Address Unknown

One of the greatest scenes I've seen in movies or prestige TV has to be the opener for Better Call Saul, Season One, Episode One.

We're in a shopping mall. A Cinnebon outlet -- an outlet so limited in its food selection that its pretty much cinnamon rolls and that's it. The footage is black and white. And we get some abstract shots of dough being prepared, cinnamon sauce being laid on the dough, rolls being cut into segments.

And then we see a man. Name tag: Gene. And he looks bored, very bored. Hating himself bored. But he gets the job done. He watches dough get served in a mixer, moves (with his foot) the rolling platform upon which the mixer sits. He wears a visor hat and he is near bald on top. He has a brushy moustache, and it is itching his nose.

Gene is..Saul Goodman.

And for all the greatness of this b/w footage, its the SONG over it that clinches the deal. Its from the 30's, by black men with oddly high pitched voices except for one deep voiced soloist.

The title is "address unknown." Not to be confused with Elvis Presley's far hipper "Return to Sender -- Address Unknown." THIS song is old and mournful and defeated. Its a song about someone mourning the disappearance of a lover -- a women, but it fits Saul.

A cut to the larger mall. The deep-voiced soloist comes on, and its FUNNY:

Its been so long and you'be been gone without a trace of ya.

I've give so much for a minute just to see the face of ya.

Each of the five Better Call Saul Seasons begins in b/w with Saul/Gene/Jimmy in that mall, and there are five different songs...but none better than "Address Unknown." Even when -- to start Season Three -- they try for another Ink Spots song from the same 30's era. Its good...but its no Address Unknown.

One other element in this first season first scene: As bored and listless and trapped as Saul/Jimmy/Gene is...he springs to attention when he sees a mean-faced young man looking at him, and then walking at him . Is this "someone" sent from some force from some where -- to kill him? Or arrest him? Nope, false alarm, the guy walks past him to family -- but the stage is further set: Saul/Gene/Jimmy maybe be "disappeared" but he will never feel safe.

The song "Address Unknown" fades out but the b/w sequence goes on, taking us to Gene's snowbound small apartment complex(cold snow -- such a counterpoint to the hot desert of ABQ.) Gene watches Home Shopping Network. Alone.

And Gene goes to the closet and pulls out a shoebox with some VHS tapes. Porn for the private viewing?

Nope. Commercials that we can only hear...but not see.

"Better Call Saul!"

Wherever this series is going to go, it can't be beat for how it started.