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Tag Archives: Gus Fring
Better Call Saul Leaves Its Audience to Wonder in “Smoke”
Jimmy McGill’s part in “Smoke” begins and ends with normalcy. In his first appearance in the episode, he gets up, feeds his fish, and makes coffee — the regular, mundane tasks of his new life. And in his last scene, he does the same things: joking about his fish’s appetite, tossing out coffee grounds, and seeming like a man very much returned to his routine.
Better Call Saul Becomes the Gus Fring Show in “Sabrosito”
You could be forgiven for asking, “Hey, isn’t there some guy named Saul on this show?” for much of “Sabrosito.” It’s an episode that turns over most of the proceedings to Gustavo Fring and the people in his orbit, with just enough of a narrative side dish to remind you that Jimmy and Mike are the show’s main characters.
But I’m not complaining. Giancarlo Esposito has a certain presence about him that can hold your attention in a way few other actors can muster. And the events that affect him here — the cold war brewing at Don Eladio’s compound, the mutual affronts between him and Hector, the declaration of resolve from Fring to his employees — add so much shading to what we already know about the grudges and rivalries within the cartel from Breaking Bad. “Sabrosito” serves as a direct prequel to the events that Walter White would eventually become tangled up in, in a way that the rest of Better Call Saul hasn’t really. By using Gus as a conduit for that, “Sabrosito” practically guarantees a quality outing for the show.
Better Call Saul: Whether Chuck McGill Loves his Brother in “Sunk Costs”
For a split-second, I believed him. I believed Chuck McGill when he told the Assistant District Attorney that his brother had a good heart, that Jimmy would never actually hurt him, and that maybe there was an easier way to end all of this unpleasantness. I thought that maybe Jimmy’s speech to his brother, uttered while sitting on the curb waiting for the cops to pick him up, had made an impression. Chuck might have remembered all that Jimmy has done for him, understood that his brother means well, and wanted to avoid selling him down the river.
Better Call Saul: The Careful and Deliberate Rule the Day in “Witness”
Better Call Saul is often a slower show, even by the standards of modern prestige dramas. To some degree, that is a necessary consequence of its status as a prequel. If it moves too quickly, suddenly it’s running into the series’s already known future. If it packs in too much incident, then it starts to seem all the more glaring that major events and shared histories are not mentioned or only grazed on Breaking Bad. Still, the show turns that slow burn into a feature, not a bug. It lets the events and conflicts of the series simmer while digging deep into the development of its characters and the details of their lives before things froth to a boil.
But even by Better Call Saul standards, “Witness” is a slow episode. That’s not a complaint, necessarily. Much of the proceedings center on Mike tracking down the people monitoring him, enlisting Saul in the endeavor, and there is a diligent, unhurried pace to that effort. The episode is content to play Mike’s mission out, evoking the sense of his dogged determination and the complexity and sophistication of what he’s up against.
