Before they went bad

In this forest of billboards advertising quick-buck lawyers and tattoo removal, Walter White is nowhere in sight, having gone down in a hail of gunfire after five seasons of Breaking Bad. What remains is the impulse to tell the story of a fictional version of this place, of the hustlers, gangsters and losers who live like coyotes on the edge of this town.

For years, there had been jokes in the writing room and on the set of Breaking Bad about the Saul Goodman project, the one that would take the indelible lawyer inhabited by Bob Odenkirk and wrap an entire show around him once Walter had sold his last barrel of meth.
Then something funny happened. The joke came true.

Sitting on the set in Albuquerque in September while filming the first season of Better Call Saul, which is to have its premiere February, Odenkirk remembers that when the bluff had been called and Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan and writer Peter Gould were actually writing the show, he still had his doubts.

“It was clear that Vince and Peter were setting the show in Albuquerque, and I would be away from my family for a long time,” he said while having a quick lunch between scenes. “I was worried about what it would do to my family and worried about whether I would end up being the guy who — um, screwed up — the legacy of Breaking Bad.”

“And then I talked to my daughter, who is 13 and, incredibly mature, she said, ‘It’s a big opportunity, we will be fine, and if it’s bad, really, how bad could it be?’.”

Given that the writers and actors feel that they found something authentic and remarkable in Saul and that the show has already been renewed for a second season, that’s a pretty good punch line for something that started as a joke.

In the increasingly cluttered marketplace of television — at a time when Amazon and Netflix are winning Golden Globes — there is a huge advantage in spinning off a storied franchise. But building on the embedded awareness of the character from Breaking Bad also means dealing with all the expectations that go with it. That tension informed everything about the execution of Better Call Saul.

For one thing, it’s a prequel, set six years before Saul and Walter became known associates. Odenkirk is not playing exactly the same character. Instead, he is Jimmy McGill, a knock-around guy with a law degree who cannot catch a break or a decent case. The series is the story of how a guy who struggled to stay between the lines and above the belt became Saul, a criminal lawyer who is more criminal than lawyer. In the time frame of the new show, Walter is still teaching high school chemistry, perhaps to Jesse Pinkman, somewhere off screen, and Odenkirk’s character, rather than guiding the events around him as Saul did, is lost, blown about by forces beyond his control.

Then again, it is about as far from a lawyer show as you can get, long on character and less concerned with classic plot lines or courtroom procedure. Without giving away spoilers, the show opens in the future, after Walter’s downfall and Saul’s dispossession of his greasy empire. Saul is in his own version of witness protection, tucked away in the kind of job no one sees in a place where everyone goes. He is a hunted shell of the smack-talking lawyer, who finds solace in running old tapes of his once ubiquitous commercials beckoning one and all to call Saul. It is grim and scary, but the vibe is as much X-Files (which Gilligan used to write for) as it is Breaking Bad.

And then the tape ends and we are back to where Saul started, as Jimmy McGill, a slip-and-fall shyster trying to walk back to more honourable pursuits by taking on public defender work. Short on real clients, he is looking after the interests of his brother, Chuck McGill (Michael McKean), a brilliant, successful lawyer who has lost his marbles and refuses to go outside. He also works hard at earning the interest of another lawyer, an icy beauty played by Rhea Seehorn, who sees right through Jimmy and still can’t stay away.

Part of the reason Gilligan and Gould are continuing to write for Odenkirk is that they have not yet gotten to the end of what he can do. Saul was conceived as a little comic leavening for Breaking Bad. They decided a fast-talking consigliere would bring some funny to the proceedings and thought of Odenkirk — they were fans of his dating to Mr Show With Bob and David, the 1990s sketch series on HBO.
And then Odenkirk got to work, and Saul became less of a sideshow.

“The more we worked with him, the more soul and depth we found,” Gilligan said.

Both Gould and Gilligan have made it clear they are making the first season of Better Call Saul, not the sixth season of Breaking Bad, and viewers should not expect to see Bryan Cranston or Aaron Paul. But we are in the same neighbourhood, so it should come as no surprise that Mike Ehrmantraut, the beloved hit man played by Jonathan Banks, rears into view, his quiet fearsomeness contained for the time being by the parking garage booth where he first meets Odenkirk’s character.

Until recently, Odenkirk was known as a comic, writer and impresario who could pull laughs out of very unlikely places. Before that, he was an Emmy-winning writer for Saturday Night Live, The Ben Stiller Show and The Larry Sanders Show. But in addition to his head-turning performance in Breaking Bad, in the past few years, he had a well-reviewed turn in the FX series Fargo, and also received great notices for his film work in Nebraska and The Spectacular Now.

On set, he admitted that even though he was filming the eighth episode of a 10-part season, he had no idea how the first year would end.
“They offered to send me outlines, but I have enough to worry about learning the dialogue that I have for each episode and to be fully present for anything in that moment,” he said, pushing back the hair that grew to be almost its own character in Breaking Bad but is now much more sedate.

At 52, he is playing a much younger version of his Breaking Bad character and has the kind of boyishness that makes it not much of a reach. There is a very un-actorly earnestness, a complete absence of vanity, to Odenkirk.

“Maybe I don’t have the reverence for Breaking Bad that I should, but I love this show and I’m crazy happy to have been a part of it,” he said. “And I already know that we are never going to repeat the social and viewing phenomenon of Breaking Bad.”

Gilligan agreed. “I would not predict for a minute that it would be as big of a hit as Breaking Bad, but I am every bit as proud of this show,” he said.

There will be a few surprises along the way, unpleasant for Jimmy but fun to watch. One trademark of the Saul writing team is rendering villains of epic proportions, and viewers might see a few familiar faces in Season 1. After all, finding compelling outlaws around here is as easy as spotting snakes in the desert.

NYT