I’m still perplexed why Better Call Saul doesn’t have the buzz or the viewership of its predecessor Breaking Bad.
We’ve now reached the sixth and final season of this prequel series and, to my mind, it might even be even better than the awards-laden original.
That’s a bold claim to make, but it hasn’t put a foot wrong since starting in 2015.
Maybe people aren’t diving into Better Call Saul because they think the story trajectory doesn’t have the sensationalist pull of watching a mild-mannered high school teacher transform into Albuquerque’s foremost meth kingpin.
That would be a foolhardy assumption though, because while this is the slightly slower-paced origin story of Walter’s fast-talking lawyer, over the last five series it has been morphing into a crime epic to rival Breaking Bad.
As the new series opens, Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) has finally opened up his legal firm under the name of Saul Goodman, and his association with local drug rivals Gus Fring and Lalo Salamanca is becoming increasingly dangerous.
If I have one minor criticism of the series, it’s one that’s baked into its DNA – we all know Jimmy survives whatever life and death dramas befall him because we’ve seen him alive and well in Breaking Bad.
While you’d think that would rob some suspense from the action, it’s amazing how little it does.
That’s probably because the storylines of the supporting characters (including some Breaking Bad favourites like Gus and Mike) are so good.
The increasingly dark story arc of Jimmy’s long-suffering friend and business partner Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) is a standout and easily as strong as anything we’ve seen in Breaking Bad. We’re perhaps watching her turn to the dark side as much as Jimmy’s.
If you loved Breaking Bad and haven’t yet jumped aboard this equally good series, there’s still time. New episodes air on Netflix every Tuesday.
I’m just jealous you get to experience it all for the first time….