OVERVIEW It's been a long time since the last time we saw Saul Goodman or anything to do with the Breaking Bad Universe, and it feel so good to relive a slight sensation of nostalgia. I hold the original series in such a high regard and it completely changed my views on how to judge a TV series or movie. You can imagine like everyone else I'm excited.
We start off with Saul with the aftermath of the events in Breaking Bad. A broken down, frightened manager of a Cinnabon in a random city. The first ten minute future scenes really emphasize the shell of a human being he now is, with his charismatic, confident, and funny personality completely taken away from him as he is constantly looking over his shoulder paranoid, and sitting at home watching an old advertisement video of himself. It really sets the dark and sinister tone for Saul dwelling into his past before it all went wrong and the audiences mirrored experience. Very well written.
In the early 2000s, Saul (in other words - Jimmy McGill) is a small fish lawyer trying to make ends meet but very unsuccessfully. The first court scene of McGill really sets a dark comedic tone as he is trying to justify to the jury that his clients are three young and stupid kids - who just so happened to have sex with the head of a woman's corpse. We also run into a familiar face when he tries to leave the car park and Mike, the car park attendant before drug enforcer, won't let him as he doesn't have enough stickers for a full day's stay. On the side of this story, his more successful brother, Chuck, is a partner of a big law firm that he is having some personal issues with. The are attempting to buy Chuck out of the company but he and Jimmy are not going to let that happen. You feel sorry for the characters as they are really struggling to fund their lives, and achieve stability.
With his career not going according to plan he decides to pursue a more forceful method of gaining clients. With the help of two young skateboarders, he tries to set up one of them to be hit by a car, catch it on tape and prosecute the driver for compensation. However, the driver has other plans and quickly drives away, making this a now hit and run. Jimmy and the two skateboarders now tail the driver to a house where they plan to confront her. With the skateboarders getting there first and going inside, McGill comes in behind and knocks on the front door, only to be greeted by a gun point at him from a Breaking Bad face, Tuco. It really sets the excitement for the next episode.
PERFORMANCES At this early stage its hard to give a justification to any of the actors for performances. But from what I seen they all carry the story along very well. With Bob Odenkirk as Jimmy McGill you have a lot more to go on as he had the most dialogue as the lead man, and he did a great job. The great comedic side of Saul from Breaking Bad has definitely come over to this series, and with one moment highlighting him having to change his professional name to courtesy to the law firm, were going to see more of McGill developing into Saul Goodman.
NOTEWORTHY MOMENTS I fell the beginning really set the tone for the series, where Saul silently reminisces on where it all went wrong. The confrontation between McGill in Mike in the car park was a nice funny scene, and when McGill bashfully walks into the law firm's board room to confront them about the under valued compensation owed to his brother in such a cringe worthy way, really made me laugh.
FINAL VERDICT This was a very slow building and character establishing episode. Because this series is a sister to Breaking Bad, it didn't need to have as much of an impact in its first episode. Fo Breaking Bad trying to find a network, the first episode had to come out all guns blazing in order to grab the audiences' attention, and it did. They then worried about character development afterwards throughout the first series. Since the creator Vince Gilligan and the writing staff are now established in AMC and have a strong core fan base, they can do they later first. They have devoted the first episode to completely establishing Jimmy McGill's motivations and struggles, and building up to the finale of this episode in the start of his venture as a criminal lawyer.
It left me very interested and wanting more, and they have succeeded in getting the audiences attention in a more subtle and slowed down fashion. Can't wait for the next one.
We start off with Saul with the aftermath of the events in Breaking Bad. A broken down, frightened manager of a Cinnabon in a random city. The first ten minute future scenes really emphasize the shell of a human being he now is, with his charismatic, confident, and funny personality completely taken away from him as he is constantly looking over his shoulder paranoid, and sitting at home watching an old advertisement video of himself. It really sets the dark and sinister tone for Saul dwelling into his past before it all went wrong and the audiences mirrored experience. Very well written.
In the early 2000s, Saul (in other words - Jimmy McGill) is a small fish lawyer trying to make ends meet but very unsuccessfully. The first court scene of McGill really sets a dark comedic tone as he is trying to justify to the jury that his clients are three young and stupid kids - who just so happened to have sex with the head of a woman's corpse. We also run into a familiar face when he tries to leave the car park and Mike, the car park attendant before drug enforcer, won't let him as he doesn't have enough stickers for a full day's stay. On the side of this story, his more successful brother, Chuck, is a partner of a big law firm that he is having some personal issues with. The are attempting to buy Chuck out of the company but he and Jimmy are not going to let that happen. You feel sorry for the characters as they are really struggling to fund their lives, and achieve stability.
With his career not going according to plan he decides to pursue a more forceful method of gaining clients. With the help of two young skateboarders, he tries to set up one of them to be hit by a car, catch it on tape and prosecute the driver for compensation. However, the driver has other plans and quickly drives away, making this a now hit and run. Jimmy and the two skateboarders now tail the driver to a house where they plan to confront her. With the skateboarders getting there first and going inside, McGill comes in behind and knocks on the front door, only to be greeted by a gun point at him from a Breaking Bad face, Tuco. It really sets the excitement for the next episode.
PERFORMANCES At this early stage its hard to give a justification to any of the actors for performances. But from what I seen they all carry the story along very well. With Bob Odenkirk as Jimmy McGill you have a lot more to go on as he had the most dialogue as the lead man, and he did a great job. The great comedic side of Saul from Breaking Bad has definitely come over to this series, and with one moment highlighting him having to change his professional name to courtesy to the law firm, were going to see more of McGill developing into Saul Goodman.
NOTEWORTHY MOMENTS I fell the beginning really set the tone for the series, where Saul silently reminisces on where it all went wrong. The confrontation between McGill in Mike in the car park was a nice funny scene, and when McGill bashfully walks into the law firm's board room to confront them about the under valued compensation owed to his brother in such a cringe worthy way, really made me laugh.
FINAL VERDICT This was a very slow building and character establishing episode. Because this series is a sister to Breaking Bad, it didn't need to have as much of an impact in its first episode. Fo Breaking Bad trying to find a network, the first episode had to come out all guns blazing in order to grab the audiences' attention, and it did. They then worried about character development afterwards throughout the first series. Since the creator Vince Gilligan and the writing staff are now established in AMC and have a strong core fan base, they can do they later first. They have devoted the first episode to completely establishing Jimmy McGill's motivations and struggles, and building up to the finale of this episode in the start of his venture as a criminal lawyer.
It left me very interested and wanting more, and they have succeeded in getting the audiences attention in a more subtle and slowed down fashion. Can't wait for the next one.