Saul wrestles with his toughest decision yet, and as a result, experiences captivating character development.
What They Say:
Better Call Saul is the prequel to the award-winning series Breaking Bad, set six years before Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) became Walter White’s lawyer. When we meet him, the man who will become Saul Goodman is known as Jimmy McGill, a small-time lawyer searching for his destiny, and, more immediately, hustling to make ends meet. Working alongside, and often against, Jimmy is “fixer” Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), a beloved character introduced in Breaking Bad. The series will track Jimmy’s transformation into Saul Goodman, the man who puts “criminal” in “criminal lawyer.”
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Admittedly, I felt uncertain coming into this episode, given we had just dealt with an entire hour-long backstory of Mike Ehrmantraut, and now the show planned to jerk back to Saul’s perspective. The beginning of episode 7 continues to deal with Mike’s status as prime suspect in the shooting of two cops, but the problem seems to get solved rather quickly. I use the word “seems” because in that solving, the show brings up issues of duplicity: what characters say to each other in confidence appears to confirm that Mike will no longer face an inquiry, but as the master scam artist Saul mentions, “How could you not recognize the mind games, the scams, the con jobs these people play?” The show constantly teases the question of whether conflicts that present themselves as wrapped up—Mike’s suspended inquiry, Chuck slowly curing his “allergy” to electricity, etc.—will actually rear their ugly heads again. Given Gilligan’s reputation as a bit cruel and the show’s back-and-forth trajectory, I’m betting on all of the cast’s problems reappearing again.
That said, the turn away from Mike back to Saul again, within such a short period of time, felt a little too tight. The material Gilligan works with looks to be expanding a bit out of his control, a problem that’s all too familiar and troubling with shows that get caught in a cycle of constantly trying to raise excitement for the audience. With each revisit to an aspect introduced in earlier episodes, more and more new discoveries get introduced at the same time, and it becomes harder to have faith that Gilligan will manage all of this information into a satisfying season finale.
Ultimately, the episode more than redeems itself with, ironically, Saul’s own redemption. The Kettlemans, a husband and wife duo who previously embezzled more than a million dollars from the husband’s employer, return again into the spotlight. After refusing a deal from their initial attorney because they insist on not being guilty, the couple goes to Saul with the caveat that he gets them no jail time. When Saul refuses, the Kettlemans threaten him with the knowledge that he took a monetary bribe from them in a much earlier episode. The show made me believe that Saul took the bait, and subsequent episodes would find him succeeding in a case otherwise doomed to failure, thus beginning his real journey towards being a criminal lawyer. Instead, we learn that Saul uses Mike’s help to find the location of the Kettlemans’ money, steal it, and return it to the district attorney’s office. The drawn-out espionage scene, complete with stake-outs, black lighting, and a pseudo-jazz soundtrack, help to increase the tension leading up to this discovery. Saul then turns the wrapping up of the case, including the filing of the original deal, over to his rival attorney and friend, Kim.
The last minute or so of the episode involves a truly spectacular scene that is more than worthy of an Emmy for Saul’s actor, Bob Odenkirk. After the well-orchestrated series of events that lead to Saul’s very calm, collected redemption, we get a moment of Saul by himself in the lavish law offices he planned to buy with the bribe money—and that he can no longer afford. At first, Saul’s expression is cranky and frustrated on a surface level, as he examines the space he could have had for himself. When Saul enters a corner office he had huge dreams for, however, he closes the door, and with the camera remaining on that outside closed door, we hear him thrashing out in his anger. In a moment, the camera returns to inside the room, and we see Saul collapsed on the floor, on the verge of tears yet still charged with anger. His phone rings. He pulls it out, takes a second to compose himself, and answers in his usual false British accent, “Offices of James McGill, how may I direct your call?”
In Summary:
“Bingo” is an episode rusty at its start and continuing to struggle with issues of plot whiplash, but its ending more than makes up for any shortcomings the series possesses. Saul’s redemption works in all of the right ways, from the acting to the writing down to the technical filmmaking components. I consider it the best episode yet and eagerly await more.
Grade: A-
