Gene's Breaking Bad

Last week's Better Call Saul was a tough act to follow. But last night's episode, "Breaking Bad", gets better the more I think about it.

The title is, of course, a reference to the series of which Better Call Saul is a spin-off. But there's more to it than that. The scenes set during the events of Breaking Bad in this episode of Better Call Saul come from an episode of Breaking Bad called "Better Call Saul". So there's a kind of symmetry there. But more importantly, this episode of Better Call Saul is the one in which Gene Takavic "breaks bad".

We finally get our answer as to whether or not Kim was alive at the time of Breaking Bad's conclusion. But the phone conversation Gene has with someone who is possibly Kim is made inaudible with the camera placed on the other side of the street and the sound being covered by passing trucks. Gene ends the scene angry, so angry he kicks the glass in on the phone booth. And then he breaks bad, as the term is used by Jesse Pinkman in the first season of Breaking Bad. He goes on a crime spree. At first not a reckless one--in fact a carefully considered one. But he's definitely becoming less and less cautious 'til the episode concludes with him doing something outright foolish.

Last night's episode was written and directed by Thomas Schnauz and next week's is written and directed by Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan. So I suspect we'll hear the phone booth conversation then. My suspicion is that Gene/Saul talked to Kim and he didn't merely discover she wasn't interested in connecting with him again. I suspect she'll condemn him on moral grounds, maybe even expressing disgust. I wouldn't be surprised if she has a line like, "I'm a different person now."

It's shaping up to be a real nice tragedy. I think by the end of Breaking Bad, most viewers are rooting for Walter White. But in Better Call Saul, as entertaining and fascinating as his scams are, we're more afraid for him than anything else and just want him to stop. But the reasons why he can't have been made abundantly clear so we're along for this ride. It's pretty great. Breaking Bad was Spaghetti Western but Better Call Saul is film noir.