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Maybe to speed things up for some viewers, Gilligan can add some explosions or zombies.

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Nah, too many zombies and/or explosions and we lose all character development.

Did anyone notice him looking at the bright colored shirts at the suit shop?

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No mention of him looking at a shirt and tie combo that's the exact thing he wears when he is saul goodman? Orange shirt and tie.

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Setting up Saul as a lifelong scammer is great. Dude is nails.

Really enjoying it. Great development and background into Saul/Jimmy so far.

The "too slow" stuff cracks me up. Needs some more 'splosions, I guess. Don't bother me, I'm 'batin.

From a practical standpoint, the watch scam had way too much setup and risk for each guy to only collect about $250.

I thought if anything it was a bit predictable.

Then I thought about it and realized it's going to be that way. Since we already know Saul/Jimmy, what his character is becoming, and his ending then we can expect for it to be a bit predictable. This isn't Walt careening down a path in which we don't how it will end. This is Saul and we know what he ends up as and how he got there.

He had the freedom to take BB wherever he wanted, but now he has to build suspense, characters, story lines, etc that line up with an already determined end point. That alone makes this completely different from BB and it'll be interesting to see how Gilligan approaches it with that dynamic thrown in.

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From a practical standpoint, the watch scam had way too much setup and risk for each guy to only collect about $250.

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He said while hitting the pipe that it was only enough to buy beer money and wasn't really satisfied with the returns. Fatty seemed to be way more excited about it than Jimmy.

Just some foreshadowing on his wits as a con-man and his desire for more.

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I thought if anything it was a bit predictable.

Then I thought about it and realized it's going to be that way. Since we already know Saul/Jimmy, what his character is becoming, and his ending then we can expect for it to be a bit predictable. This isn't Walt careening down a path in which we don't how it will end. This is Saul and we know what he ends up as and how he got there.

He had the freedom to take BB wherever he wanted, but now he has to build suspense, characters, story lines, etc that line up with an already determined end point. That alone makes this completely different from BB and it'll be interesting to see how Gilligan approaches it with that dynamic thrown in.

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Actually we don't. We know where he is at at one point a few years from now but as shown in the first scene in episode 1 there will be events after breaking bad. I don't see the end as Walt walking into his office and they could easily go any number of ways with his character after the events of breaking bad.

I guess I'm the minority, but I'm losing interest. Saul was never a very interesting character to begin with, and his conflict with the other firm does not interest me at all. His long-windedness is a detriment, not an asset.

Mike, on the other hand.....

Agree with AgDev01. This isn't confined to being a prequel. They've said this series will take place over time before, during, and after BB. How much remains to be determined, but at this point, we only know some of the stops along the way, not necessarily the destination.

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I think the first thing many people need to do is understand that this isn't Breaking Bad. It's a different show, focusing on different characters in a different time than Breaking Bad. Just because there are characters on BrBa that are featured here, does not mean the show is going to be the same. It will have its own feel, its own soul, and its own direction.

I have absolutely loved the episodes so far. Last night was great. Honestly, as much as I loved BB, I hope they don't just feel they have to continue to keep BrBa side characters as storylines just so fanboys can fap every night at 10:05.

I know Mike and others will be featured heavily, and that's fine. But I love the dynamic they have already brought into the show and Saul's coming-of-age as the sleazy bench seat lawyer guy. Rhea Seehorn was a solid casting job. She has been great, as has the story of the big law firm.

Last night featured 2 solid Saul scams. The alley scene was great.

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I was telling my fiancee last night that I love that they used Tuco to introduce Nacho, who became the main "villain" instead of sticking with Tuco. Gave BB fans they "sweet, its Tuco," but didn't rely on another BB character to develop the BCS story.

I think what you're seeing on this thread is the reason why Odenkirk and Gilligan were so adamant in the media during development that this wasn't Breaking Bad 2.0. They were genuinely worried (and with good cause, apparently) that people were going to be tuning in to watch more of the same story, then growing disappointed when they realized they were getting an entirely different planet from that universe.

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I guess I'm the minority, but I'm losing interest. Saul was never a very interesting character to begin with, and his conflict with the other firm does not interest me at all. His long-windedness is a detriment, not an asset.

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To each his own. But Saul has been one of the best characters on tv in a long time. His gift of gab (and the contrast between him and Mike when Saul tried to start a conversation) is pretty cool.

Is there too much cucumber water? Yes, yes there is. But that's about the only complaint.

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No mention of him looking at a shirt and tie combo that's the exact thing he wears when he is saul goodman? Orange shirt and tie.

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Noticed that, too. That's what I mean.....he's slowly converting....

Agree with ce1994's post above re: people comparing 3-4 episodes of Saul to a completed product of Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad had to lay the foundation over time in order to take the story where it did.

I missed the whole "ally" scene last night, what happened?

Opening scene. Flashback a number of years and Jimmy leaves a bar with another guy (a new "friend") and asks him if he's interested in going to an after hours bar. On a side note, Jimmy is going by a fake name - Saul. While going down an alley along the way, they stumble across a wallet with about $100 in it, and then see a drunk, fat guy who the wallet belongs to passed out by the dumpster. The drunk guy is also mumbling insults at them. The friend takes the money in the wallet, but then Jimmy says he's going to take the drunk's watch since he's an ass - which is a Rolex and Jimmy says probably worth about $3k. The "friend" says no way, that's a bad deal if he jsut gets the wallet $ while Jimmy gets the $3k watch. So Jimmy agrees to give him the watch in return for the drunk wallet money + $580 of the new "friend's" own money.

After the "friend" takes off, the drunk guy gets up and reveals it was a scam set up between he and Jimmy. They just got $580 from a guy by letting him take a fake Rolex.

Edit: And the post below is right. It was more $$$ in the wallet, but the basic point was that it wasn't enough money to make the ripoff "fair" if Jimmy got the Rolex and the "friend" just got the wallet.

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Opening scene. Flashback a number of years and Jimmy leaves a bar with another guy (a new "friend") and asks him if he's interested in going to an after hours bar. On a side note, Jimmy is going by a fake name - Saul. While going down an alley along the way, they stumble across a wallet with about $100 in it, and then see a drunk, fat guy who the wallet belongs to passed out by the dumpster. The friend takes the wallet, but then Jimmy says he's going to take the watch - which is a Rolex and Jimmy says probably worth about $3k. The "friend" says no way, that's a bad deal if he jsut gets the money while Jimmy gets the watch. So he gives Jimmy gives the guy the watch in return for $580.

After the "friend" takes off, the drunk guy gets up and reveals it was a scam set up between he and Jimmy. They just got $580 from a guy by letting him take a fake Rolex.

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Not to nitpick but the wallet had like $1500 in it

Yeah. the guy even said there must be over $1,000 in here(wallet), then he added $580 of his own to sweeten the deal.

So assume the total cash was $1500 to $2000.

Pretty tough scam to run though, in the case that the guy takes all the money(wallet included) and leaves you with the watch.

That being said...the smartest way to run that scam is to have fake bills in the wallet on the ground, that way you're only out a fake watch if everything goes wrong(which they very well could have been fake).

So they are splitting $580 of profit

hence why i said earlier that it was very high risk for little reward. granted this was amateur saul.

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"It's all good man"

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This makes me wonder, is this a joke that they had written all the way back season 3 of BB? Or did they write up all the character bios so thoroughly back then that they knew he was a con-man and the story behind that made up that name? I heard that back then Saul was not going to be anywhere near as major of a character as he ended up being. Certainly not a guy who would be the focus of a spin off show. That one line uttered by Jimmy showed how deep they think all these characters through well in advance.

Writers churn out so much material about characters in all dramas that never get used or shown.

If "It's all good man" was something that originated during BB, i'd chalk it up to an old joke that was thrown out there in a writer's meeting, or maybe even a scene in BB that never made it to air, so they just used it here. Hell, it may have been what they used when they originally created his name for BB, and we just never saw it on tv, but it was always part of his character notes.

It's good and clever, but it's also something I'd expect them to do...which would be to use all of the character notes they had on Saul from BB for this show as references and building blocks.

Can you think of another example of that?

Before this, the longest I can think of is in Arrested Develoment where in season 3 they sprung the "Analrapist" joke, but first referenced his two previous occupations in episode 1 of season 1. It was a single joke 3 years in the making.

there are countless times in shows where names, or jokes about character names fit way too perfect, and you only see it air years later in a random scene where you get a feeling of "how crazy is it, this character first appeared 5 seasons ago, and just now this was mentioned"....

I'm sure often times, when they are creating a character and throwing things out there, names and things are created around jokes or other things to easily tie them in, but they are left right there on their note pads/MacBook's, cocktail napkins, etc...

When it happens later, I don't think it's "epic and 3 years in the making"...I just think they are smart, they refer to their notes and when they built the character in order to keep it consistent, and also go back and see if something wasn't quite right for a scene years ago might be right now.

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early on in breaking bad, he mentioned that saul goodman wasn't his real name, but that it helped his law career to have a jewish sounding name. i doubt this was all some elaborate setup for a character to make a lame name joke in a spinoff that no one even contemplated back in season 2

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Exactly. They are just keeping him consistent. This was probably something funny when they wrote his character on BB originally that they never used, so they used it here.

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Agree with ce1994's post above re: people comparing 3-4 episodes of Saul to a completed product of Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad had to lay the foundation over time in order to take the story where it did.

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No episodes about catching a fly yet, so there's that...

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Salon Livin

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