"Where do I see it ending?" Saul Goodman mused from behind bars, halfway through the finale episode of Better Call Saul. It was a good question. And one that'd also been plaguing my mind week-after-week, episode-after-episode, as the long-running series drew closer to its final curtain.
Where did I seeit ending? I dared not even hazard a guess. From the very start the philosophy of Better Call Saul, which is streaming on Neon, was to reject expectation, to not do anything you thought it would.
"When we can come up with an interesting plot twist that you just don't see coming, that delights me," co-creator and co-showrunner Vince Gilligan told me a few years ago when I was lucky enough to interview him about the series. "It delights me as a viewer and it delights me as a creator."
The show took this delight to an almost perverse level, most easily demonstrated by the fact that its titular character, the slippery and moralless lawyer Saul Goodman, didn't even show up until its third season. A bold move considering that's who everyone was tuning in for. At least, initially.
The show was a spin-off from Gilligan's brilliant crime drama Breaking Bad. The fast-talkin' lawyer Goodman was only supposed to be a bit player, but actor Bob Odenkirk's sleazy charm in the role quickly made him a fan favourite. Subsequently, his part in the show and the meth-fuelled empire of its anti-hero main character Walter White was greatly expanded.
So it was a shock, as opposed to a delight, when I tuned into the show's opening double episode back in 2015 and saw that Saul was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the prequel opened with a leap forward in time to the dreary, paranoid, life of "Cinnabon Gene", aka Saul's fugitive identity after the events of Breaking Bad. You have to admire the chutzpah of opening a prequel with a sequel's storyline.
After the opening, it rewound time to introduce us to Slippin' Jimmy McGill. The happy-go-lucky, small-time con man with a heart of gold trying to become a lawyer who'd later - much later as it'd turn out - become Saul Goodman.
In what would prove prophetic, I wrote back then in this column "Episode one is a slow burn". If only I'd known... I can't think of any other show with a fuse as slow-burning as Better Call Saul's. Its first two seasons made a snail's pace look like a sprint as Jimmy engaged in minor scams, hustled his way into a long and detailed court case dealing with the finer points of "Elder Law" and cared/feuded for/with his older brother Chuck.
Giancarlo Esposito as drug baron Gus Fring in Better Call Saul.
The stuff with Chuck was absolutely crucial for Jimmy's slipping into Saul but was often the least compelling parts of an episode. That was until the show pushed a domino over and it toppled into the long line it'd been painstakingly lining up for a dozen or so episodes to crash us into moments of unbearable intensity.
Its deliberate pace proved too much for some, many people dropped by the wayside in the wait for something to happen. But if you were paying attention - which the series demanded you do - you knew things were always happening. Better Call Saul lived in the inconsequential details, those shrugged-off lines and moments of subtle foreshadowing that would eventually reveal themselves to be big flipping deals.
Yes, it asked you to invest your time but oh boy did it reward you handsomely for doing so with episodes of exquisite tension, terrible violence or dark, comedic laughs. Let it not be forgotten that it was often very funny. And, by season three when the heavyweights of Albuquerque's criminal underbelly entered Saul's life, well, things really began to ramp up.
Jonathan Banks as fix-it-man Mike Ehrmantraut in Better Call Saul.
In an era when so many shows have misjudged their endings, Saul strode confidently towards its conclusion. Heck, the show left Saul and Jimmy behind to propel forward in time to the black and white world of Cinnabon Gene for its final few episodes, even going as far as to introduce a whole new cast of new characters as Gene spread his wings to become Saul for one final scam.
Better Call Saul sold itself as a prequel, but it became so much more with that time jump. A true tragi-comedy of a complete life that showed the rise, downfall and redemption of a man and the forces that shaped both his good and bad instincts and the reasons why - and consequences of - key decisions in his life.
There's a lot to love about the show; its stunningly inventive cinematography, its complex and uncompromising storytelling, its focused, unhurried pace, its assured intelligence and the brilliant acting that brought it all to life. But what I'll miss most is its unbridled ambition. It's commitment to showing you something new in the absolute best and most surprising way possible. Better Call Saul never, ever failed to impress.
Things aren't good for Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) and Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) in Better Call Saul.
Given all that it seemed hugely unlikely it would crash the landing. But in an era where so many great shows have fluffed their finales, I couldn't help feeling a little apprehensive as its culminating episode started.
"Where do I see it ending?" Saul Goodman mused from behind bars, before answering his own question.
