The Jimmy McGill storyline on Monday's Season 4 finale felt like a full meal by itself, says Darren Franich. "This was high-level storytelling, crafted with deconstructive precision by writers Thomas Schnauz and Peter Gould," he says. "There’s an ongoing thread in Better Call Saul where Jimmy could almost be a dreamweaver from Inception. He’s a con man, sure, but his lies tilt toward the modern vogue for the word 'narrative,' the possibility of conjuring a whole believable universe of (truthy) facts and (amended) figures. The season 4 finale was his best trick yet." However, Franich says the Breaking Bad storyline was the worst part of Season 4. "So much of this Better Call Saul year felt like a profound evolution, Jimmy’s moral quagmiring rendered with style and sophistication," he says. "But across town, Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) and Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) were stuck in the prequel-iest of prequel subplots. Forget cheap Rogue One references. This was the Breaking Bad version of that old Clerks joke about the Death Star contractors, brought to life with such aesthetic refinement that the overwhelming feeling of boredom was almost an accomplishment...I guess on some level this just is the Better Call Saul experience, this weird polarity between psycho-jurisprudential inquisition and druglord demigod western. The dissonance works for some viewers. To me, it feels like Breaking Bad is starting to become a problem for Better Call Saul, an easy lever to pull when it’s been too long since a cool action scene, a little leg to show any Bad fans who aren’t interested in which ski resort Schweikart & Cokely chooses for its annual teambuilding exercise."
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TOPICS: Better Call Saul, AMC, Breaking Bad, Bob Odenkirk, Jonathan Banks, Peter Gould, Rhea Seehorn, Thomas Schnauz