Better Call Saul
2015
Original language: English
- crime
- drama
The story
Six years before Saul Goodman meets Walter White. We meet him when 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. The series tracks Jimmy’s transformation into Saul Goodman, the man who puts “criminal” in “criminal lawyer".
What it’s like
Wide desert light and sun-bleached Albuquerque streets, shot with a patient, painterly eye: static frames of strip malls, beige stucco, and dusty parking lots under hard noon sun, then the cool blue-gray of courtrooms and nursing-home corridors. Night scenes glow with sodium-orange and fluorescent sterility, and the camera lingers on faces in quiet close-up, often holding a beat after the dialogue ends. Sound is sparse: a low, unhurried guitar score, long stretches of ambient traffic and wind, and silence that makes small gestures land. The vibe is wry melancholy, a dark comedy that sits in the discomfort of a slow moral slide, best suited to a long evening alone or a late-night binge. Pacing is deliberate, with episodes built on careful setups and payoffs. Tone runs from sly, deadpan humor to real tragedy, and the central arc follows a charming, restless man who keeps talking himself into smaller compromises. Violence is present but infrequent and often abrupt, with some graphic moments; there is brief profanity, and crime and sexual content appear in adult, non-explicit forms. For viewers who enjoy character-driven crime drama, slow-burn dread, and the bittersweet pull of watching someone become who they were always going to be.
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