Due to press embargoes, I can't start talking about
Better Call Saul
right now by comparing it to the
Game of Thrones
prequel
that opens in a few days.
You know: I have promised not to post anything about
House of the Dragon
before Friday, August 19.
So on the 20th there will be a text from me about the long-awaited HBO series in which
I will be able to refer to
Better Call Saul
.
You'll see how it makes sense.
It's more original that way.
Imagine an article, a critique, a review, whatever of
Better Call Saul
without appealing to
Breaking Bad
in the first lines .
But not doing so is being an idiot: the series by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould could well have worked as an
expansion in the shadow of
Breaking
,
assuming a hierarchy in which Walter White is always the main character and Saul Goodman is secondary.
He decided not to and that was the best decision he could have made
.
Even at first it was suggested that
Better Call Saul
be a comedy of short episodes, since Goodman was still a caricature and
Bob Odenkirk, the actor in charge of giving him life, a great comedian
.
The writers (and Odenkirk) went the other way, and while the nods, bows and crossovers with
Breaking Bad
have been constant since the beginning,
Better
soon took on a personality of its own.
And he wasn't exactly crazy comedy.
It ends a few years after
a (surprisingly quiet, given what we've seen in other cases) debate arose over whether Saul's series is superior to Walt's.
It is a pertinent discussion from which neither of the two fictions comes out shorn:
Breaking Bad
is a sacred totem (perhaps too much) and
Better Call Saul
never tried to discuss that status
.
He took, I insist, his own path.
And it was the good way.
Now,
in a kind of double episode totally controlled by Peter Gould, the Jimmy/Saul story comes to an end
.
It is a closure that, unlike that of
Breaking Bad
, is not intended to be a meta-reflection on the circularity of well-told stories (or is it?), but instead challenges the viewer-fan of the series and delivers
a sentimental epilogue, rather than a sentimental one
.
The reunions follow one another in a goodbye that, supported by a beautiful black and white photograph, is
minimalist and ornamental, obvious and generous, exciting and calm.
I liked it more than
Breaking Bad
and how wonderful that something like that can be said without trolls coming out from under the stones to wish me dead.
Or many years in jail.
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