Better Call Saul Brings Humor and Crime

Who is Saul Goodman? He was known as a comic relief and one of the best and worst criminal lawyers on Breaking Bad. He helped meth-cooking Walter White stay protected from the law and now he will give us the chance to understand how he became this quirky lawyer.

The idea of creating a show about Saul was at first a joke. They called it the “Saul Goodman” project in the writing room on the set of Breaking Bad. The creator of Breaking Bad, Peter Gould and his co-writer Vince Gilligan saw all kinds of possibilities when they first saw comedic actor Bob Odenkirk playing Goodman. Their first vision was a half-hour comedy, but then they realized they could create more sub­stance by telling his backstory from a dramatic perspective.

Gilligan reveals in Rolling Stone Magazine that Better Call Saul is a “pe­riod piece” that takes place in 2002, six years before Walter White was cooking blue meth. It focuses on the lives and crimes of the devious criminal lawyer.

On Better Call Saul, Odenkirk will be introduced as Jimmy McGill, “a small-time lawyer searching for his destiny and hustling to make ends meet,” according to Rolling Stone. The audience will be able to see how lawyer McGill, who struggles to stay between the lines, slowly turns into a criminal lawyer named Saul Goodman, a man who is more criminal than a lawyer. During this time, Walt is still a chem­istry high school teacher. Without the blazing self-confidence that comes to define him later in life, McGill gets himself into many funny and difficult situations.

McGill is a shy guy who takes more honorable pursuits by pursuing public defender work. Goodman, on the other hand, is a smack-talking criminal lawyer, who is interested in one thing: money. He is essentially a loser who can talk his way out of anything.

Gould and Gilligan have been teas­ing their audience that Breaking Bad stars may appear on the show. They claimed that the lead roles of Breaking Bad, Bryan Cranston who plays Walter White, and Aaron Paul, who plays Jesse Pinkman, will not appear in the first season of Saul. However, Jonathan Banks, the lovable hit man Mike Eh­rmantraut will have a steady role on Saul. He will be Goodman’s private investigator, and we will get to see how the lawyer and fixer first meet.

According to Variety Magazine, “Collier asserts that ‘Saul’ isn’t the 6th season of ‘Bad’—but the question is, how many viewers are going to tune in expecting just that?” Gilligan says he was scared to muck with Breaking Bad’s legacy by making a prequel, but is now feeling confident in the show’s quality.

Better Call Saul will regularly air Monday nights at 10 p.m. Although the show hasn’t even aired yet, it has already been renewed for a second season. It’s time to see a famous side character from Breaking Bad break­away from the spotlight.