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    #76
    Better Call Saul

    I'm just not interested in lawyers as a dramatic species unlike, for example meth cooks and distributors.
    I'm just interested in them as human beings. They could be actuaries for all it would matter. I love this shit.

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      #77
      Better Call Saul

      I was running out out of patience by the end of series 2, although the flashbacks are kinda interesting and of course there's Tuco and the intersects with Breaking Bad. I think the problem is the love interest, which is just dull and unconvincing.

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        #78
        Better Call Saul

        Based on Episode 1 of the new series, the flash-forwards (post-BB) might be heading somewhere, which has been my hope, and the main reason I've kept watching.

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          #79
          Better Call Saul

          The latest episode starts off with a shot of a kettle boiling. At last, proof that Americans do own kettles. I recently saw another one of those online discussions where people who are not American claim that this is not the case.

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            #80
            Better Call Saul

            Gus Fring made his debut last night so that will definitely heat things up. The female lead is still a problem for me: she is implausible, far too forgiving and would surely, in real life, be looking after No. 1 rather than this fuck-up failed lawyer with the brother from Hell.

            On the slowness, forgive me but Mike's faffing about with the technology was like watching paint dry. I see no merit in that kind of detail.

            However, the photography is great, such as capturing the reflections on the ceilings.

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              #81
              Better Call Saul

              This week's episode was pivotal in that it showed how a lie keeps growing until it destroys all relationships. Dragging in Chuck's ex was a low blow from which Jimmy, in dramatic terms, has to experience some bad Karma.

              I also don't think it is possible anymore to see Jimmy and the girlfriend as sympathetic characters; they are more like toxic ones, and the girlfriend's "moral dilemma" is really the result of having made a very dark choice ethically, which her previous disadvantages resulting from the endemic sexism of the legal profession can't really excuse.

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                #82
                Better Call Saul

                I think this is the start of a long descent from Jimmy. In a way it's tragic - while not entirely above board he was usually sympathetic and redeemable. Being repeatedly ground down and betrayed by his brother seems to have tipped him over into full-on "looking out for number one" mode, althoughhis poor decision-making and inability to see and plan for the consequences of his actions is as much to blame.

                Mike's another one who's accelerating down that slope as well. I'd never watched Breaking Bad and I'm finding Giancarlo Esposito's (who I remember most prominently, oddly, in a short-lived comedy called Bakersfield PD that was on Channel 4) portrayal of Gus Fring fascinating.

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                  #83
                  Better Call Saul

                  I'm not sure Jimmy was ever sympathetic (if that's mutually exclusive with "toxic"). He's made morally bad, unprofessional, selfish calls all throughout the show (and before, it seems). Redeemable, certainly, but in need of redemption.

                  Kim's definitely had more of that traditional arc, being dragged into hell by her loyalty to Jimmy (and maybe also her dislike of Hamlin).

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                    #84
                    Better Call Saul

                    Satchmo Distel wrote: Gus Fring made his debut last night so that will definitely heat things up. The female lead is still a problem for me: she is implausible, far too forgiving and would surely, in real life, be looking after No. 1 rather than this fuck-up failed lawyer with the brother from Hell.

                    On the slowness, forgive me but Mike's faffing about with the technology was like watching paint dry. I see no merit in that kind of detail.

                    However, the photography is great, such as capturing the reflections on the ceilings.
                    I enjoyed the faffing about a lot. It took me a while to figure out what he was doing, but I got it.

                    I'd think Kim would find somebody better for her, but she's loyal and he really cares about her. I don't find that implausible. I've witnessed that sort of thing in real life. And it's not like he really mistreats her.

                    I can't recall the first season but I guess her family situation wasn't so great so she sticks with him, because he cares for her, even though he's a crook.

                    My guess is that she gets murdered before it's over.

                    I'm kinda rooting for Gus Fring. He's a much more decent and civilized gangster than Hector. And he treats his employees well at Pollo Hermanos.

                    Do we think the future Cinnabon-in-a-mall manager Saul/Jimmy will do anything or have a plot? Maybe leading up to his capture/death? Or are they just showing that as a framing device.

                    I can't imagine too many jobs I'd want less than running a Cinnabon in a mall in Omaha. I'd rather be dead. Even just working at one would be better, because at least then you could just forget about it when your shift was up.

                    Or maybe he is dead and in hell.

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                      #85
                      Better Call Saul

                      Can't really say anything without spoiling, it seems, but almost certainly framing device.

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                        #86
                        Better Call Saul

                        Jimmy gets even less sympathetic but the girlfriend is belatedly showing some remorse. Chuck was absent this week so is maybe storing something up for a comeback.

                        In the other plot, switching the pills seems too obvious, as Mike noted.

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                          #87
                          Well, season four is now three episodes in.

                          Rather more dark and intense, which is probably not too surprising.

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                            #88
                            I can't believe it's nearly two and a half years - and nearly two seasons of the drama - since anyone commented on this awesome series.

                            I'm a Netflix hold-out so only get to see it when it comes out on DVD. Got the DVD of Season 5 for Christmas, and, after a memory-refreshing rewatch of all of S4, I've now semi binge-watched 9 of the 10 episodes of S5.

                            It continues to be awesome. Hope they manage to make S6, though I can imagine they might not be able to in the face of COVID.

                            I found in the first few seasons that I was really rooting for Jimmy, despite his flaws. But the ending of S4 and a few things in S5 (in particular, putting this cryptically enough to avoid any spoiler, the gratuitous maliciousness behind his bowling balls and hookers-at-lunch pranks) have really turned me off him.

                            A few things have been seriously challenging on the suspension-of-disbelief front. But nothing as fatuously so as the grotesque comic book end to Gus Fring in Breaking Bad.

                            If anyone else fees inclined to comment, let's try to keep this free of unalerted spoilers.

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                              #89
                              S5 has been discussed on the Current watching thread, go to around the end of Feb 2020 onwards.

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                                #90
                                Thanks SotS, I'll check that out when I've watched the final episode of S5.

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                                  #91
                                  Season six shooting is planned for early 2021. Albuquerque and the state of NM has seen no let up in Covid cases so probably best to be very patient.

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                                    #92
                                    Originally posted by Sean of the Shed View Post
                                    S5 has been discussed on the Current watching thread, go to around the end of Feb 2020 onwards.
                                    A good reason the Current Watching thread should be discontinued. Such threads turn the whole subforum into one long thread.

                                    As for season 5 of Better Call Saul, as good as every season is isolated, I am not really sure how much more they really can add to the story. We all know where he is headed and it only seems a question of for how long they will manage to go on before they run out of ideas. I think that is the problem with too many of the US series, they drag on for way too long. Four seasons should have sufficed to tell this story.

                                    I will still watch season 6, mind.

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                                      #93
                                      Originally posted by Belhaven View Post

                                      A good reason the Current Watching thread should be discontinued. Such threads turn the whole subforum into one long thread.
                                      Amen

                                      See also Current Reading, which is somehow even worse

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                                        #94
                                        Like Belhaven, I feel like we're getting increasingly close to the Walter White Era (and also the age of the actors is beginning to become a continuity problem). We know where it's all going in the Jimmy McGill Era, we've already seen Saul basically turn into Saul - there's not much left to learn where we haven't already filled in the gaps. I'm now most interested in what's going on in the Cinnabon Era.

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                                          #95
                                          Finished S5 yesteday night. The cliff-hanger ending could hardly have made it more obvious that they really want to do a season 6.

                                          I agree with the various posters on the Current Watching thread that Tony Dalton is absolutely electric.

                                          Edit: SB's post immediately above reminds me that there is of course a second cliff-hanger, from the Cinnabon era, set up in the pre-opening titles bit of S5 E1. And yes, I would love more action from that era.

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                                            #96
                                            SPOILER ALERT (re Season 5 ending)

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                                            It just struck me that I should have known in advance that Lalo would survive the gang assassination attempt. Not so much because that would be a reasonable guess from the laws of dramatic surprise etc. after Mike has told Saul that "Lalo is going to die tonight", but because the punctiliousness of the series writers about plot consistency required it. In the BB episode where Saul makes his first appearance (called, I think, Better Call Saul). in that scene where Walter and Jesse kidnap him to scare him into telling Badger not to co-operate, Saul asks in terror "did Lalo send you"? or something similar, which wouldn't make sense if Lalo were assumed to be dead.
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                                              #97
                                              Let's use this to discuss BCS so we don't have to wade through that mammoth thread.

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                                                #98
                                                I don't understand the plot of the first three episodes of this season but have enjoyed it anyway.

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                                                  #99
                                                  I should have gone back and rewatched at least the last season, not just because it's been so long but because BCS has a lot of plotlines. Breaking Bad was pretty simple.

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                                                    I'm looking forward to episode 3 tonight. Seeing Lalo being Lalo, and Kim slowly 'break bad' is enthralling.

                                                    The scene in the episode 2 where...



                                                    ...spoilers...



                                                    [SPOILER]...Lalo has a ready-made body double, complete with the right teeth was awesome. Gut-wrenching that he immediately went to them and killed him/them, but that's Lalo. They obviously respected and feared him there. I think I'm right in saying that the lady making him coffee was the same one who cared for Mike (and he fixed her window-sill). [/SPOILER]

                                                    /edit: I don't think I know how to make spoiler tags work.

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