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canyonwalkerRecently 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.
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.
