1x01 Uno

7.5/10. It's really hard to grade the first episode of this show. I try to grade shows against themselves (e.g. what a 7.5/10 means is different for The Sopranos than for, say, Star Wars: The Clone Wars). The problem is that Better Call Saul has a past (or rather, a future). That means that, at least out of the gate, I'm going to underrate it for two reasons. The first is that it's a spinoff of Breaking Bad and seems to share that show's style and storytelling acumen, which means its baseline is going to be higher than most show's ceilings if it can keep that up. The second is that it needs some room to go. Sure, “Uno” would be an 8 or a 9 for a lot of series, but in the shadow of Breaking Bad, there’s an implicitly higher height that Better Call Saul is poised to be able to hit. So that means the early going of Better Call Saul exists in a strange kind of limbo between its Golden Age of Television predecessor in the past, and the expectations of quality in its future.

Which is to say that despite a rating that works out to roughly “Good”, I don’t have much, if anything to complain about in the episode. There’s a lot about it to like, and it has the same charms of its antecedent in many ways, but it doesn’t hit “wow” just yet, so the stellar work it puts in in the show’s debut episode gets a standard thumbs up, rather than an enthusiastic one.

But here’s what I liked about the first episode. The cold open, featuring Saul living as a “shnook” (in Goodfellas parlance), showing him in black and white with his old ads reflected in his glasses being the only color showed off the wonderful visual sensibilities this show has and shares with its predecessor. I loved the way that the episode, in both that segment and the episode as a whole, used blocking, framing, and color to convey information visually rather than having the characters devolve into exposition or simply stating how they feel.

That goes for the writing of the episode as well. It establishes Saul’s relationship with his brother, with the law firm and big shot partner he’s fighting against, with the lawyer at that firm he has something with, with his current position and frustration in his career, all without hitting the audience over the head with it. The pilot sets up the world of the show very well and very subtly. The position it puts Saul in, struggling to make ends meet, trying to do right by a terminally ill brother, and scraping by with his wits, charm, and ability to sniff out a con, is a compelling one, where the subtext is palpable but not obvious.

There was a similarly deft tack with the slowness of the episode. There's a very deliberate pace to the proceedings that conveys the restlessness of Saul in his circumstances, a sense in which he's frustrated at how he can't make things move better and faster that comes through in the small human moments, the seconds in between the big action and exchanges, that sets a perfect tone.

It also sets an appropriate number of hints to Jimmy McGill’s future, from the obvious ones like an appearance from Mike (and, I think, Huell?), to subtler ones like the nail salon, or his scam-wise nature in general. The episode perfectly toes the line between nodding too strongly to the huckster we see helping Walter White in the future, and presented a wholly disconnected schmuck who seems divorced from the persona Breaking Bad fans would come to know and love.

I also liked his caper with the skateboarders. It is a nice precursor to that hucksterism, and it’s well motivated both in terms of why he’s doing it (to get money and stick it to his well-heeled rivals in the process), why he would use those guys (his run-in showed that they were capable and it reminds him of his own past, though the latter part may also be a canard), and what it means (the first big step in Saul using underhanded tactics to get ahead in New Mexico). I also loved that it went completely sideways, with unexpected twist after unexpected twist right up to the big surprise at the end. It’s a great sequence, and bodes well for the series going forward.

All-in-all, it’s a fine start to the show, that did what it needed to do in order to establish its universe, gesture toward its predecessor, and chart its own, interesting path. I’m firmly on board, even if I may damn the show with faint praise due to high expectations along the way.