Vince Gilligan: "Better Call Saul"

A writer generally has one story, and the story gets tweaked and repackaged several times over the course of one career.

"Better Call Saul" is, in some ways, a retelling of "Breaking Bad." Once again, we have a pseudo-biblical conflict within a family; Walt did battle with his "brother," Hank, and Saul does battle with his brother, Chuck.

Once again, we have Vince Gilligan having fun by inventing gargoyles. A memorable player in "Breaking Bad" was Ted Beneke, a privileged, idiotic, white guy who created problems for himself. He shows up as a slightly different person--"Daniel Wormald"--in "Better Call Saul." Although Wormald receives good advice from others, he seems determined to screw up his own life. Like Ted Beneke, Wormald pretends to hear reason, then acts just the way (the dumb way) he wants to act.

Finally, I'm noticing a big theme: "the banality of evil." Toward the end of "Breaking Bad," Gilligan had a shady figure regularly accessing drug money in a variety of safes. The guy would butter up the secretary near the safes; he would present cake pops, brownies, cookies. Clearly, a minute of reflection would have alerted the secretary to the cloudiness of the project she was midwifing, but it was just so, so easy to accept the cake pops with a smile. I see someone very much like this secretary--but the new person is in "Better Call Saul." She is the grandmother to Tuco, a villain; the grandmother has a "befuddled old lady" act that allows her to engineer a hit-and-run without even a moment of guilt. When the grandmother asks for Tuco's help in solving her problems, the result is a big puddle of blood on a carpet. Tuco says, "That's salsa," and Grandma nods. But we have to imagine that Grandma is at least a bit smarter than she seems.

I'm only ten hours into "Better Call Saul," but I already really admire Gilligan's sense of pacing, his way of building memorable characters, and the aura of dread in each episode. I'm hoping Rhea Seehorn wins big at the Emmys this year.

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