Better Call Saul

[God of Nothing]

I think they just needed Saul to pull one final con and fuck off forever. He was off character so bad in the last episodes. Ironically I feel that'll always be the end result of hack writers who do these types of show. The Sopranos and Breaking Bad have the same issue (Tony being an extreme dimwit/asshole, Walt being a pussy/admitting he did it just for the shit of it)

I could've bought the ending if they set up him feeling genuine regret about the past more in the grey episodes. His relapse into crime set up him fucking over whoever was left perfectly.

You do have a good point in bringing up situational personality traits. Tony is playing 4D chess and having prophetic dreams one moment and too fucking stupid to see an obvious war on his hands the next. I feel they did a better job with Walt, but he also fell into the creator's trap of thinking the audience should hate them more instead of root for them.

 

[Odd Opossum]

It really was kind of a wet fart, wasn't it? I was iffy in the beginning, but it really was disappointing. Just seemed like they had no idea how to wrap everything up.

I can buy the ending, but the writers didn't set up well. I remember in the lead up to the finale, the two main theories for how it would end would be Saul would kill himself or Saul would somehow sell out Kim and ride off into the sunset. I think part of the reaction was due to everyone thinking that Saul just going to prison was too obvious for the finale of the franchise.

 

[RealMuthaForYa]

It really was kind of a wet fart, wasn't it? I was iffy in the beginning, but it really was disappointing. Just seemed like they had no idea how to wrap everything up.

Most classic tv endings are crap. Braking Bad was the same as was the Sopranos. The only one that had a plausible ending was The Wire.
I’m reminded of the Spitring Image sketch of Orson Wells. Before he died he made Sherry averts and he started out with Citizen Kane. The punchline was he lived his life in reverse. Same with multi-series drama. Make the ending first when everyone’s fresh and not bored shitless.

 

[TVB]

Most classic tv endings are crap. Braking Bad was the same as was the Sopranos. The only one that had a plausible ending was The Wire.
I’m reminded of the Spitring Image sketch of Orson Wells. Before he died he made Sherry averts and he started out with Citizen Kane. The punchline was he lived his life in reverse. Same with multi-series drama. Make the ending first when everyone’s fresh and not bored shitless.

I'd say this, the ending for The Shield was great as it wrapped up the whole story way better than either Breaking Bad or Sopranos

 

[RealMuthaForYa]

I'd say this, the ending for The Shield was great as it wrapped up the whole story way better than either Breaking Bad or Sopranos

Good point. Vic becoming a desk drone for ICE was delicious

 

[George Floyd Sneed]

I think Breaking Bad could’ve ended perfectly at season 4. However the show, along with The Walking Dead, was a big hit for AMC so they had to keep the show chugging along.

I'd say this, the ending for The Shield was great as it wrapped up the whole story way better than either Breaking Bad or Sopranos

Yeah it was probably the best ending I’ve seen from a show. Ultimately the Strike Team was unable to escape from their mistakes and any perceived plot armor was just an illusion.

 

[TVB]

I think Breaking Bad could’ve ended perfectly at season 4. However the show, along with The Walking Dead, was a big hit for AMC so they had to keep the show chugging along.

Mad Men was also a very popular show on AMC, but it didn't last as long. The Walking Dead was popular during the time the zombie craze was in a full cultural renaissance during the early-2010s. However, it's still on the air and it's getting worse and worse by 2014 onward that it should've ended by the third season.

 

[Arthur Morgan]

I'd say the biggest problem with the ending was they felt the need for Saul to have some consequences beyond being some schmuck in Nebraska. But also, the reveal that it's still only 2010. I thought the B/W Gene scenes were meant to be years later. Breaking Bad starts in 2008, then the ending happens two years later on Walt's birthday. That means Saul was captured only a couple of months after the end of that show. I guess they were trying to show that Jimmy/Saul/Gene cannot escape being a con artist, nor can he deny the allure of it. But it just feels too quick.

To me if you're going to go the prison route, it should have been at least five years or maybe even more. Having the Gene scenes be set in 2015 would have worked, since that's when the show started. He's a sad middle-aged man who will never attain the highs he once had, but is smart enough to not reach for them because he knows any attention will get him in trouble. When he gets arrested, no one really cares anymore. Most people have forgotten about Heisenberg, someone else took over the drug trade, and people barely remember who Saul Goodman was because the commercials have been off the air for almost six years at that point and the benches have been painted over.

You end it not with a bunch of prisoners chanting "Better Call Saul" but with Saul discovering he's basically been forgotten about and only got a good deal because he's not important enough to be a huge victory for the DA.

 

[AnOminous]

I think Breaking Bad could’ve ended perfectly at season 4. However the show, along with The Walking Dead, was a big hit for AMC so they had to keep the show chugging along.

Yeah it was probably the best ending I’ve seen from a show. Ultimately the Strike Team was unable to escape from their mistakes and any perceived plot armor was just an illusion.

I think the finale of BB was absolutely perfect and anyone who disagrees can suck my motherfucking dick (even though it wasn't perfect).

 

[Internet War Criminal]

Yeah it was probably the best ending I’ve seen from a show. Ultimately the Strike Team was unable to escape from their mistakes and any perceived plot armor was just an illusion.

I mean, yes and no.

Vic gets away with everything.... at the cost of everything.

 

[Oilspill Battery]

I finished rewatching BCS and man, I feel really bad for Howard. Dude was a really stand up guy, probably the most good/moral person in the entire series who's worst crime was being loyal to chuck.

In hindsight it feels like Jimmy's ludicous pettyness toward howard wasn't highlighted enough, probably a side effect of the ultra compressed last season.

 

[Seventh Star]

I finished rewatching BCS and man, I feel really bad for Howard. Dude was a really stand up guy, probably the most good/moral person in the entire series who's worst crime was being loyal to chuck.

In hindsight it feels like Jimmy's ludicous pettyness toward howard wasn't highlighted enough, probably a side effect of the ultra compressed last season.

That final season killed the show in an absolutely spectacular way. I think it was the worst way for a show to end. It wasn't particularly newsworthy bad like I've heard of GoT, it was a whimper for a show that had been excellent up to that point. You can feel they didn't know where to take the plot after Nacho escaped, and I'm still sure that the ending wasn't what they had planned.

Gus killing Nacho is pretty out of character, and Howard's death was very, very jarring. They didn't know how to wrap loose ends apart from "lol he was shot to death". It's notable that of all threads this one died so quickly when the show had a lot to talk about still. I'm still not convinced at all about Jimmy's cuck out, and his bizarre detachment from Chuck went from understandable to unrealistic after a while. They rushed his downfall hard from real life pressures including the taxi guy's actor leaving (I don't care what people here said, the first actor clearly was aiming for a completely different type of role) and Odenkirk having a heart attack.

In all truth Chuck's death had no impact despite how shocking and emotional it was. You could say that Jimmy's actions were deeply affected by it and that was its legacy, but it feels more like the writer's room decided it.

 

[TheHarbinger]

In hindsight it feels like Jimmy's ludicous pettyness toward howard wasn't highlighted enough, probably a side effect of the ultra compressed last season.

No it was written that way on purpose. Even after Saul's actor had a heart attack they completed filming the scenes he had with Howard. It was written where ultimately Howard would die due to Lalo. And he would basically die just for being in Jimmy's orbit because Jimmy had cartel assassins visiting his home. Everyone predicted Howard's ending because they did the same story with Hank. Where Walt doesn't kill Hank himself, the Nazis do, so the blame cannot really be put on Walt who even begs for Hank's mercy. And Walt later revenge kills the Nazis so redditors can cheer. Howard had to die indirectly so that the audience doesn't turn on Jimmy and he can get his redemption arc.

The show never really had Jimmy or Walt massacre innocent people on purpose directly. The closest thing you saw to Walt's drug empire negatively impacting the world was Jane's death and the plane crash. The original script had Walt injecting Jane with the overdose because he hated her and wanted to watch her die. But the writers set it up so that Walt was not directly responsible because they wanted people to root for Walt in the end and make him a good guy.

If Jimmy ended up having Lalo execute Howard on purpose it would have caused the audience to hate him. And probably hate him forever. And Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are basically comfort food level writing. They want you to root for the main characters.

That final season killed the show in an absolutely spectacular way. I think it was the worst way for a show to end.

It ended with a whimper and makes the series weak on re-watches. But hardcore fans will still swear that it was the greatest show of all time even with the greatest ending of all time. It will be like Game of Thrones or Lost where the first couple of seasons are excellent but the last season or two are abysmal.

They rushed his downfall hard from real life pressures including the taxi guy's actor leaving (I don't care what people here said, the first actor clearly was aiming for a completely different type of role).

The writers swear that zero rewrites were done of the taxi character. So the ultra menacing first taxi driver was allegedly going to play the bumbling retard who steals clothing from the mall.

In all truth Chuck's death had no impact despite how shocking and emotional it was. You could say that Jimmy's actions were deeply affected by it and that was its legacy, but it feels more like the writer's room decided it.

Chuck's death can't have a long term impact because he's never mentioned in Breaking Bad. It's like the Star Wars prequels. You get these Jedi and leaders who are galaxy famous and within a few years everyone has completely forgotten about them. Like the entire universe is amnesiac. If you watch Better Call Saul first then Breaking Bad they will seem barely connected.

 

[Raging Capybara]

A reminder that Gus can predict the future and laid down a gun in the middle of nowhere because he knew he would need that to kill somebody weeks later Tuco style.

It's unfathomable to me how some people can give this season a pass. Every episode is shit, nothing is salvageable.

 

[Seventh Star]

A reminder that Gus can predict the future and laid down a gun in the middle of nowhere because he knew he would need that to kill somebody weeks later Tuco style.

It's unfathomable to me how some people can give this season a pass. Every episode is shit, nothing is salvageable.

I don't think anyone gave it a pass. Unlike BB, no one talks about BCS anymore.

And Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are basically comfort food level writing. They want you to root for the main characters.

I think the opposite, they made both Jimmy and Walt way too out of character so people would dislike them in the end.

 

[CAPTAIN HAPPY]

That final season killed the show

lol
Speak for yourself.
It was awesome.

 

[Pierre D'Olnique]

I don't think anyone gave it a pass. Unlike BB, no one talks about BCS anymore.

This is because Jimmy himself is the least interesting character in the show, followed by Kim. He's fine as a secondary. Not the main. Every scene/episode that revolves around him is fucking boring as shit. Whenever I get the urge to rewatch bits of BCS I always start around Nailed because it's where it finally kind of picks up and isn't far from introducing Gus.

 

[Oilspill Battery]

No it was written that way on purpose.

You misunderstand, my problem isn't that Howard dies due to being close to Jimmy, I would still think the same problem exists even if Howard survived.

Jimmy is a bad person, Howard is a good person, Jimmy torments Howard nonstop because Jimmy is petty, but the show never really calls Jimmy out on this.

But the writers set it up so that Walt was not directly responsible because they wanted people to root for Walt in the end and make him a good guy.

This actually did bother me a lot by the end but for another reason:

The last season downgraded the villain from gus to a bunch of shallow no effort cardboard cutouts, casting nazis as your antagonists is shorthand for "I can't be fucked writing an antagonist"

I already hated the final season for making the moral dilema "walt vs nazis" so the audience can soyface and go "See? Walt isn't that bad he killed nazis at least " to try and portray in a positive light a man who has no problem poisoning children, killing people with chemicals, running them over with cars, bombing retirement homes, melting corpses in acid and distributing industrial quantities of extremely potent life ruining drugs because of his ego.

Its like if the last scene in lord of the rings was sauron rescuing a kitten from a tree before he disintegrates when the ring is dropped in the volcano.

 

[Slav Power]

In some interview for BB's S5 Vince actually said about how they had Walt buying that M60 in the first episode because "big gun cool" and then by the end of it he was in deep shit because he had no idea how to write himself out of that corner, so in a way it makes sense why Season 5 was rather weak. They really were out of ideas by the end of it, and the show was carried by having good antagonists. The Salamancas, Gus, the Cartel, and after they were all gone they had no idea how to keep going without an antagonist. So Jack Welker's gang was their copout.

Arguably the only good character from season 5 was Todd Alquist. A true psychopath, completely lacking in emotions, who was played so well people working on the show were terrified of Jesse Plemons. Though then again you can make the argument that he was lazily written because oh, he's like the perfect mirror of Walt and he's everything that Walt wanted from an assistant that Jesse wasn't.

And yeah, the sixth season of BCS went to shit as soon as it caught up to the BB timeline, after which it was all Gene timeline that was like a wet fart, but at the same time I feel like it was meant to be that way. The setup of it being in black and white with the only color in it being the Saul Goodman commercials, or Kim's lit cigarette, with the intro suffering from VHS degradation every season, implying that it was always going to end like this, that Jimmy's life post-Saul was so utterly miserable.

But I swear if people are going to start doing the "Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul was always shit" contrarianism I will lose my shit, because this thread gives me that vibe that it's inevitable before someone unironically says that. First, it's the show's ending. Then it's the entire last season. Then the goalpost gets moved further and further until people unironically yap "Vince was always a hack and his shows were always shit" because apparently people are so fucking blackpilled that they're physically unable to enjoy things and have to sour things up for others like a fucking troon.

 

[Kharash]

Honestly I liked the first three seasons and the whole Chuck arc the most by far. The more the show tried to be Breaking Bad, the more Mike and Gus they tried to force in, the worse it got.
Yeah the final season blew but I didn't find it that surprising after S4 and 5.
Then again I guess it was naive of me to ever assume it would stay that way. There was plenty of shit in the first 3 seasons too and they started with "remember Tuco?" in the pilot.
I don't really buy Vince as this "auteur" trying to move away from BB's mistakes when it's clear that he's more than happy to just make crowd pleasing slop except for when he tried to subvert expectations at the very end.