'Better Call Saul' Pulled a Grand Scam
Better Call Saul concluded its first season on Monday night with a lovely piece of work by star Bob Odenkirk and writer-director Peter Gould, Saul’s co-creator. A series of set-pieces designed to bring us further into the desperate world of Odenkirk’s Jimmy McGill, this episode succeeded in making viewers want to know more and more about this character.
Early on, Odenkirk executed a bravura scene set in the bingo room of the elder-care center. Gould wrote Jimmy a monologue about his lowly life, framed as a series of bingo call-out numbers — with the announcement of each B-12 or B-7, another aspect of Jimmy’s state of mind was revealed.
The episode came to center on a series of scams perpetrated by McGill in his “Slippin’ Jimmy” con man mode, aided by an old barfly pal, played by Mel Rodriguez (seen regularly these days on Will Forte’s The Last Man on Earth). Gould used the commercial breaks built into the hour-plus episode to form the framework of each scene, including the beautifully presented execution of a trick involving a John F. Kennedy half-dollar. There was also an amusingly old-fashioned movie-style montage of the series of scams Jimmy and Rodriguez’s Marco pulled off over the course of a week.
Related: ‘Better Call Saul’ Season Finale Recap
Everything built to a return to Better Call Saul’s ongoing essence: The trials and temptations of James McGill. Betrayed by his brother — but even more crucially, betrayed by his own weakness for trusting others too much and his instincts too little — Jimmy was led once again to the brink of a life-changing experience (a potentially cushy new law-firm job) only to put his dented car in reverse and change career paths.
It was seeing Jimmy putter away from Jonathan Banks’s Mike in his parking-lot booth that sent him and the audience off in a new direction, one whose destination we won’t be sure of until next season.
“It’s never stopping me again,” he said of his cracked moral compass. Saul Goodman, here we come.
