“Better Call Saul” is a very strange show. For starters, it’s a spinoff of a well-respected and award-winning television series starring a secondary character, a format that’s always strange and typically doesn’t work, especially with dramas. Yes, Saul Goodman, the shady lawyer with a never-ending supply of colorful neckties played by comedian Bob Odenkirk, was a fan-favorite on “Breaking Bad.” And the idea of learning more about his character, even of simply dipping back into the shared world of both shows, is a fun idea. But spinoffs tend to run out of ideas pretty quickly, especially when they are produced so hastily, and are usually just a way for a network (in this case, AMC) to extend a property — i.e. make money off of it — for as long as possible. The more a new show latches on to what it derived from, the less chance it has to exist as its own thing. But the more it breaks away, the larger the risk is of having people simply not care.What’s interesting about “Better Call Saul,” which begins its second season on February 15, is the way it balances the two extremes. Beyond the characters, it exists very much in the same universe and within the same tonal register as “Breaking Bad.” The show centers on the Goodman character, here named Jimmy McGill — at some point between the two shows he changes his name — and his life before “Breaking Bad” as a low-rent lawyer in New Mexico. Jimmy was once a young con-man, working the bars in his family’s hometown of Chicago, but eventually, after one too many skirmishes with the law, followed his brother Chuck (Michael McKean), a partner at a high-profile law firm, to the southwest and became a lawyer himself. Chuck, who remains in his home due to his sudden electromagnetic hypersensitivity, cares for his brother but is reluctant to see him succeed — sibling rivalry, maybe, but also possessiveness — which sends Jimmy ricocheting back and forth between a respectable law practice and ambulance chasing.Despite the name of the show, it’s also just as much about the life of Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), another secondary character. The scary enforcer with a heart of gold from “Breaking Bad” is working as a parking lot attendant at the city court when we’re introduced to him here, but as the show progresses he comes into focus and crosses paths more frequently with Jimmy. The two characters are living very different lives, but the seeds are planted for what is to come. Because the viewer already knows what happens to these two characters in the future — and each season begins with a short sequence that takes place after “Breaking Bad” — it removes some of the tension built into the structure of the original show. For this reason, “Better Call Saul” is also more subtle and at times more engaging than its predecessor. There was a sense with “Breaking Bad” that the show’s creators were trying to jolt the viewer out of their television-watching complacency, which led to “moments” meant to shock — sudden deaths, out-of-nowhere plot twists — and the aforementioned tension. In the world of that show it worked. Walter White, the cancer-stricken science teacher turned drug kingpin, was living a life of instability, where at any moment he could drop dead. The stakes are not so high in “Better Call Saul,” which allows the show’s writers to explore some of the interpersonal relationships more delicately, and the comedy is allowed to coexist more seamlessly. In the new season, Jimmy is finally starting to realize where his true strengths are, and that the respectable path is not always that respectable. In a world of cheaters, why not take a short cut yourself?“Better Call Saul” is a completely different kind of show in how it’s presented — “Saul” is more controlled where “Bad” was reckless — while remaining true to the world in which it exists. But the two shows will eventually come together. You would think that gives this show a limited shelf life; they can only go so far before they reach the beginning of “Breaking Bad.” But just like they’ve already done, they can continue moving by shifting the focus again. A spinoff of a spinoff, perhaps.
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