@andrewbloom It's been a pleasure and a joy to read your thoughts episode after episode. It was you who helped me getting thorough details and insights, I've gotten used to it so much it became part of the watching and I just want to say that as I'm going to miss the show I'm going to miss these reviews as well. Sincerely, thank you!
@andrewbloom I don't think I've read a better review of the episode.
I didn't think of it that way and it makes me even happier it ended this way.
@andrewbloom Thank you for taking the time to share your words about these episodes. Having used Trakt for many years, it's always a pleasure checking in and finding one of your reviews, you bring in some very interesting analyses and perspectives that complement the viewing quite well - that goes double for a show like this. Here's hoping TV continues to be this good.
@andrewbloom ... and thank you for posting your reviews! Been a pleasure reading them.
I'm not crying, you are!
Thanks for blessing us with these reviews. Not everyone can communicate the complex human emotions in a way you do.
@edrick Thank you so much, Edrick! Better Call Saul is such a rich text, and I'm glad I could help highlight some of the nuances and intricate details that Peter Gould and company injected into the show. Thank you for reading my humble little reviews!
@problematisierer Aww, thank you for the kind words. I too was bracing for the worst, and I'm glad that the show gave us something a little warmer and more uplifting in the end, partly because I didn't expect it.
@reveriecode Thank you so much, Lucas! It's a pleasure to write and think about shows as well-written and engrossing as this one. It's a tough act to follow, but I hope the rest of television can keep up too!
@sikanderx6 Thank you as always, Sikander! You rock!
@gautamhans Aw, that's very kind of you to say. It means a lot!
@andrewbloom Thank you for the detailed reviews - I always read them the day after watching the show, and it helps to sink a lot of the symbology that is there, just not obvious to each and every distracted watcher. I have to ask thou - what's next now that BCS is finished? I'm inclined to watch Narcos, Sopranos or The Wire, but was curious about what is the next show you're excited about!
@palharesf I really appreciate that, and candidly I still feel like there's tons of stuff I miss in such a dense and layered show like Better Call Saul that I only pick up through rewatches or other folks' insightful observations.
I haven't seen Narcos, but both The Wire and The Sopranos are excellent shows! Both are tough watches at times, but also really well-made, thoughtful television.
The 2 shows I'm really excited about right now are Primal, a beautiful, riveting story of two unlikely allies in prehistoric times, and Gravity Falls, a loony but heartfelt comedy about two kids solving mysteries in a small but peculiar town over their summer vacation. I'm also wrapping up season 2 of The Boys, which has gone off the rails a little bit, but which still offers some salient, thought-provoking stories that reflect both modern politics and media through a superhero lens.
@andrewbloom Now we're talking! I'm also following your reviews of Adventure Time as I watch the last season, and that show has been a wild ride for sure. Gravity Falls was the next show on my animation list, so I might wait until you get around to it for me to start :)
Can't lie - my desire to watch Sopranos and The Wire is heavily influenced by the numerous times you bring that up in your reviews hehe keep it up! :)
@palharesf Oh man, you can't go wrong with Adventure Time, and thank you for reading my little write-ups for that show as well. Be sure to watch the Distant Lands specials after you finish the series. They do a nice job of putting a few extra capstones on the show. And I'm about halfway through Gravity Falls and loving it! I think you're in for a treat if you choose to follow-up with that.
I'm glad to be able to point you to both of those shows. As you can probably guess from the number of times I mention them in other reviews, their influence (on me, and on television) is immense, and they're both well worth your time. Thank you for the encouragement!
@andrewbloom it's been a delight reading your commentary on this classic series, so thanks a lot!
You can't seriously have thought Saul was going to throw Kim under the bus though? As soon as the camera lingered on the Saul plotting face after being told Kim had confessed, it was obvious where the plot was going (but it got there so elegantly!) As Walt said, he was always like this, and always will be, and the trial was always going to be his biggest con ever.
My only slight issue is that I don't believe Saul's change of heart at all, just like I didn't believe Walt's. Both made a show of loading blame onto themselves in order to exonerate their partners. It was a noble thing for Saul to do, but I don't believe he feels contrition, just as Walt confessing his "motives" to Skylar was merely a rerun of the tapped phone call two episodes earlier: saying what needed to be said to clear her conscience.
Such a good series, and such a wonderful, time-jumping finale. Just a shame Gus and Nacho couldn't get a cameo too.
@tesbreag I might be a sucker, but I at least bought the possibility of Saul throwing Kim under the bus. I know the creators of Breaking Bad lamented how people idolized Walt and didn't see how he'd become a bad person. So I thought the intention might be to show just how contemptible Saul had become since his days as Jimmy McGill by having him betray one of the audience's other favorites. I'm very pleased that they didn't go that direction, though, and I love the ending we got!
These things are always open to interpretation, but I buy the change of heart, if only because we saw long ago that there was decency in Jimmy, which makes it more plausible to me that, with the right motivation in the form of Kim's example, he could see the error of his ways. He's been running away from a lot of things for a long time, and having them catch up to him, Kim first and foremost, could plausibly provoke a personal reevaluation in my book. But your mileage may vary!
Thank you so much for reading and for the kind words! You're dead on -- it's such a good series and wonderful finale, with plenty left to chew on!
@andrewbloom not sure if this thought crossed your mind but I had a thought… could Saul mentioning that prison and how he hates it and doesn’t want to end up there all be part of another elaborate trick in which he knows something about this place that will allow him to easily escape and disappear? After Kim’s visit I had the thought that she has given him something they had previously figured out that he can use to get out of there… wouldn’t surprise me… I guess you can interpret this ending a couple of different ways…
@waltandmartha I don't necessarily think that was the intention of the scene, particularly since I think the show means for Jimmy's final change of heart to be a genuine one given how it's written and staged. But I think you can read it that way if you think, that deep down, Jimmy is incapable of turning off that part of him that has to scheme and find a way out of any predicament.
@andrewbloom it’s good that it can be interpreted different ways. For me the flashbacks show he is incapable of change and the colour in the cigarette shows that there is still a spark from his past is not yet extinguished…
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2022-08-16T05:49:56Z
[9.5/10] They got me. They really did. I believed that Saul would do it, that he would find a way to lie, cheat, and steal out of suffering any real consequences for all the pain and losses he is responsible for. I believed that he would trade in Kim's freedom and chance to make a clean break after baring her soul in exchange for a damn pint of ice cream. I have long clocked Better Call Saul as a tragedy, about a man who could have been good, and yet, through both circumstance and choice, lists inexorably toward becoming a terrible, arguably evil person. I thought this would be the final thud of his descent, selling out the one person on this Earth who loved him to feather his own nest.
Maybe Walt was right when he said that Jimmy was "always like this." Maybe Chuck was right that there something inherently corrupt and untrustworthy in the heart of his little brother. This post-Breaking Bad epilogue has been an object lesson in the depths to which Gene Takovic will stoop in order to feed his addiction and get what he wants. There would be no greater affirmation of the completeness of his craven selfishness and cruelty than throwing Kim under the bus to save himself.
Only, in the end, that's the feint, that's the trick, that's the con, on the feds and the audience. When Saul hears that Kim took his words to heart and turned herself in, facing the punishments that come with it, he can't sit idly by and profit from his own lies and bullshit. He doesn't want to sell her out; he wants to fall on the sword in front of her, make sure she knows that he knows what he did wrong.Despite his earlier protestations that his only regret was not making more money or avoiding knee damage, he wants to confess in a court of law that he regrets the choices that led him here and the pain he caused, and most of all he regrets that they led to losing her.
In that final act of showmanship and grace, he lives up to the advice Chuck gives him in the flashback scene here, that if he doesn't like the road that his bad choices have led him, there's no shame in taking a different path. Much as Walt did, at the end of the line, Saul admits his genuine motives, he accepts responsibility for his choices after years of blame and evasion. Most of all, he takes his name back, a conscious return to being the person that Kim once knew, in form and substance. It is late, very late, when it happens, but after so much, Jimmy uses his incredible skills to accept his consequences, rather than sidestep them, and he finds the better path that Kim always believed he could walk, one that she motivates him to tread.
It is a wonderful finale to this all-time great show. I had long believed that this series was a tragedy. It had to be, given where Jimmy started and where the audience knew Saul ended. But as it was always so good at doing, Better Call Saul surprised me, with a measured bit of earned redemption for its protagonist, and moving suggestion that with someone we care for and who cares of us, even the worst of us can become someone and something better. In its final episode, the series offered one more transformation -- from a tale of tragedy, to a story of hope.
(On a personal note, I just want to say thank you to everyone who read and commented on my reviews here over the years. There is truly no show that's been as rewarding for me to write about than Better Call Saul, and so much of that owes to the community of people who offered me the time and consideration to share my thoughts, offered their kind words, and helped me look at the series in new ways with their thoughtful comments. I don't know what the future holds, but I am so grateful to have been so fortunate as to share this time and these words with you.)
EDIT: One last time, here is my usual, extended review of the finale in case anyone's interested --
https://thespool.net/reviews/better-call-saul-series-finale-recap-saul-gone/