Tag: vincegilligan
Review: BETTER CALL SAUL S1E10, MARCO (Or, Could Be Worth A Couple Of Bucks)
The most obvious similarity between Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul is that they're both tragedies, just in very different ways. Bad was about seeing Walter White revealed as the criminal he's always been inside and how his actions doom him,...
Bob Odenkirk And David Cross Returning To Comedy For Netflix
Bob Odenkirk has been winning deserved critical plaudits lately for his excellent, nuanced, dramatic performances in the TV series Better Call Saul but he's ready to return to his comedy roots. He'll be reteaming with David Cross in a new...
Review: BETTER CALL SAUL S1E09, PIMENTO (Or, You're Not A Real Lawyer)
And, suddenly, it all makes sense. In one devastating conversation, Better Call Saul tells us everything we need to know about why Jimmy McGill becomes Saul Goodman, and in doing so it has revealed what I was so uncertain of...
Review: BETTER CALL SAUL S1E08, RICO (Or, Let's Reassess In Six Months)
For all of its strengths, one thing Better Call Saul appears to lack is a firm sense of its overall narrative. Breaking Bad seasons are like lessons in structure, but this prequel doesn't appear to have quite the same composition....
Review: BETTER CALL SAUL S1E07, BINGO (Or, Building Up An Immunity To Electromagnetism)
Theft is at the heart of "Bingo", whether it's the Kettlemans and their theft of the money in the first place, Mike's theft of it back, Jimmy's perceived theft of the Kettlemans as clients from HHM, or Mike and Jimmy's...
Review: BETTER CALL SAUL S1E05, ALPINE SHEPHERD BOY (Or, Need A Will? Call McGill!)
More than any episode of Better Call Saul so far, "Alpine Shepherd Boy" questions whether Chuck's condition is something physical that he's really suffering from, or more of a psychological affliction. It's to the show's credit that this has been...
Review: BETTER CALL SAUL S1E04, HERO (Or, The Plan Comes Together)
With its fourth impressive episode so far, we can now confidently say that Better Call Saul knows what its doing and is doing it well. It's a worthy successor to Breaking Bad, not because it slavishly mimics what that show...
Review: BETTER CALL SAUL S1E02, MIJO (Or, Talking Your Way Out Of Being Held At Gunpoint)
Better Call Saul deserves to be talked about for its own merits, so I'm going to put the Breaking Bad comparisons to one side this time around. Saul's second episode, "Mijo", throws Jimmy into a dangerous and seemingly deadly situation, but...
Review: BETTER CALL SAUL S1E01, UNO (Or, Going Back Before BREAKING BAD)
Better Call Saul was always going to struggle, like all prequels do, to feel relevant. The nature of a prequel makes it an afterthought, but it's a good start that Saul firmly places itself in the world of Breaking Bad,...
BREAKING BAD Spin Off BETTER CALL SAUL Renewed Before Premiere
It's good news / bad news for fans of Breaking Bad eagerly awaiting the arrival of spinoff Better Call Saul. The bad? The premiere has been pushed back from the originally scheduled November 2014 launch to an unspecified date in...
Destroy All Monsters: Breaking Lost And The Infancy Of Series Finales
Spoilers for Breaking Bad. The Lost haters came out in dull, predictable force within moments of the final image of Breaking Bad's last episode, which unmistakably mirrored one of the last images of Lost's torturously criticized finale. Granted, the...
TV Review: BREAKING BAD 5.08 - "Gliding All Over"
They sure montaged the hell out of this one, didn't they? Walt's effortless rise to the top of an Albuquerque meth empire (oh, and let's not forget a franchise out in the Czech Republic) is served up as one of...
TV Review: BREAKING BAD 5.07 - "Say My Name"
"Your play, Walter. You're on your own." The previous episode left the precarious balance between Walter, Jesse, and Mike, already teetering, in even more serious jeopardy. Walter (Bryan Cranston) had managed to hide 1,000 gallons of methylamine and proposed a...
TV Review: BREAKING BAD 5.06 - "Buyout"
You can understand and maybe empathize with how someone like Jess Pinkman could come to be the way he is. Some suburban life worn down by his parents' expectations and his own unwillingness to try and bam, you're in...
TV Review: BREAKING BAD 5.05 - "Dead Freight"
"Everyone sounds like Meryl Streep with a gun to their head." With the fifth season of Breaking Bad broken into two discreet eight-episode runs, pacing and structure have been issues. The first four episodes have moved deliberately, slowly establishing a...
TV Review: BREAKING BAD 5.04 - "Fifty-One"
Sorry for not catching up with last week's episode, "Hazard Pay," but as with most episodes of Breaking Bad, you can see creator Vince Gilligan and his writers building something between episodes. And what they're building is a monster in...
TV Review: BREAKING BAD 5.02 - "Madrigal"
Before I start in on this week's reaction to the second season five episode of Breaking Bad, I have to call our own Jason Gorber out who last week chided Vince Gilligan's season for having a "weak first season."...
TV Review: BREAKING BAD 5.01 - "Live Free or Die"
Once upon a time, people would gather to watch Television shows on a given time, because, well, that's the only time the show was on. Then came VCRs, and PVRs, and downloading, and other kind of stuff that resulted in...
