Better Call Saul? Better Call a More Interesting Character Instead!

Recently I watched episodes 4-5-6 in the first season of Better Call Saul. On the one hand, watching 3 "hours" at a time feels a bit like bingeing. On the other hand, these "hour" long shows are actually 42 minutes— the standard run length for a program that fits in a 60-minute slot with ads. Watching them largely without ads means I can watch 3 episodes in the time it used to take to finish 2. And watching TV for just two hours isn't bingeing. 😅

Anyway, bingeing-or-not-bingeing is not the main thing I wanted to write about here. It's my disappointment that the slow pace of the show across the first 3 episodes continues in the next 3 episodes. Yeah, we've seen some seeds of the to-be Saul get planted, like how Jimmy McGill first met members of the Salamanca drug gang— spoiler alert: he tried to con the gang leader's grandma with a staged traffic accident, and thing went sideways, badly— but it's just moving so slowly.

Episode 6, titled "Five-O" does get really interesting— but it does it by telling the backstory of supporting character Mike Ehrmantraut. It's like my frustration with the crappy writing of the Star Wars spinoff The Book of Boba Fett. The writers couldn't sustain a character-driven narrative around Fett, and they rescued the show by adding in The Mandalorian hero Din Djarin— or, as I dubbed the series at that point, Boba Fett Writes a Book About a More Interesting Character. Here it's Better Call Saul turning into Better Call a More Interesting Character: Mike.

Keep reading: Mike's fascinating back-story in Better Call Saul 1.06.

Better Call Saul 1.06: Mike's Back Story

I quipped in my previous blog that Better Call Saul improves from its ploddingly slow series start not by making Saul's story more interesting but by telling a fascinating story about a supporting character, Mike.

If you come to Better Call Saul without ever having watched Breaking Bad you wouldn't recognize the significance of the character Mike Ehrmantraut. For the first 4½ episodes he's a bit player who's part of a running gag. Mike is a taciturn parking lot attendant. He's the ticket-taker at the City Hall parking garage. Saul— who hasn't even changed his name yet and is still struggling young lawyer Jimmy McGill— never has the right number of validation stickers on his parking stub. He's always one short. And he always tries his swashbuckling best to sweet-talk Mike into letting him skate. But Mike stonily refuses every time.



Finally in episode 5 Jimmy can actually afford the parking and tries to make amends with Mike for his history of shenanigans. He even hands Mike one of his new business cards. Yes, business cards! Jimmy's finally getting a bit of traction in elder law, writing wills and such for elderly clients. His card bears the slogan in colorful print, "Need a will? Call McGill!"

And with that we go into Mike's back story— and why he needs to call a lawyer— and how and why, in Breaking Bad, he's not a parking lot ticket-taker but a bag-man, a fixer, and a hit-man for a powerful drug lord.

Mike gets a knock on his door at home in Albuquerque. Outside on the steps and front walk are four police officers. Two are in plain clothes, two are in uniform. "You're a long way from home," Mike says to the one at his door, apparently recognizing him. "Yeah, so are you," the plain-clothes detective responds.

( Spoiler: The Setup )

The episode features an extended flashback scene to Philadelphia some weeks or months earlier. 

( Spoiler: A Dark Night in Philadelphia )