Better Call Saul Season 3 (2015)
Written by Vince Gilligan, Peter Gould, Thomas Schnauz, Gennifer Hutchison, Jonathan Glatzer, Gordon Smith, Ann Cherkis, Heather Marion
Directed by Vince Gilligan, John Shiban, Thomas Schnauz, Daniel Sackheim, Keith Gordon, Adam Bernstein, Minkie Spiro, Peter Gould
What does it mean to do “good”? There is so much talk about good, evil, laws, and criminals in America without any tangible examination of what these terms and their underlying concepts even mean. Season three of Better Call Saul opens with another black-and-white vignette set in Jimmy McGill’s present. He’s still working at a Nebraska Cinnabon under the alias of “Gene.” “Gene” is taking his lunch break, munching on a homemade sandwich, when he witnesses a teenage boy shoplift. The boy hides in a photo booth, and the mall security guards have no idea where the boy has gone. A beat passes. “Gene” nods towards the photobooth after making eye contact with the guards. They apprehend the boy, and he glares, knowing precisely who turned him in. The guilt suddenly washes over “Gene” as they march the boy away in handcuffs. “Gene” did what was ‘right,’ but he certainly doesn’t feel that way. Suddenly he shouts, “Don’t say anything without a lawyer present!” which garners an expletive from the guard.
The third season of Better Call Saul centers on this question. Are the actions of Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) ‘good’ and ‘lawful’ & do they have to be both. He’s positioned against older brother Chuck (Michael McKean), whose crusade against his sibling reaches its zenith here. Chuck sees the world in clear absolutes. There is the LAW; anything outside of that is wrong, bad, evil, your negative pejorative here. Jimmy sees the legal profession as a malleable tool to reach desired outcomes. Jimmy’s core motivation is not money but winning. He loves going head to head and coming out the victor. Chuck would never admit this, but it is his fundamental motivation. Instead of being open about it, as his little brother has always been, Chuck couches it in a veneer of civility & order. You see the cracks when Chuck is delivered a metaphorical killing blow in the season’s third act.
One of the biggest problems when making a prequel television series is that you risk making a static show. We know where Jimmy will end up, so how do you still deliver fresh stories showing growth when the endpoint is known? You do this by introducing new characters not present in the starting series. Chuck, Howard Hamlin, Nacho Varga, and Kim. Oh, Kim. Before watching this show, I’d seen some people refer to Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) as the “heart” of Better Call Saul. I had no context for that, but it stuck with me. I’m seeing that happening now, making my heart ache for future seasons. Kim is a glorious character, a perfect counterpoint to Jimmy & Chuck. They are angry little boys who use the Law as a cudgel in their personal family bitterness.
Kim is the audience surrogate more than Jimmy or Chuck, or Mike. She is in the middle. Kim is a person who wants to do good. Helping people makes her feel good. She likes the way she can use the law to help them. Yet, she acknowledges that the law’s mechanisms can harm and impede progress. Like all of us, she has personal ambitions; she wants to be known as a good lawyer in her community. Jimmy constantly tempts Kim to his side, not benevolence but mutually beneficial. Look at the Sandpiper Crossing case, where Jimmy wants plaintiffs to settle now so he can get paid quicker than waiting for the process to play out. The victims will get compensated, and so will Jimmy, but they may not get a fair deal. Chuck believes the case should play itself out regardless if the delay harms Jimmy personally. Kim benefits from Jimmy’s machinations; this results in the greatest internal conflict for her. But, ultimately, she does appreciate what he did.
That doesn’t mean she agrees with Jimmy entirely. His loss of income when his ability to practice is harmed, Kim says it’s OK to his face but then overburdens herself with finding additional clients to make up the gap. By the end of the season, Kim is in the hospital because of this and has to re-center herself to understand what really matters to her. Some of Jimmy did rub off, the fun-loving part, yet even then, she is still her own person. I didn’t think I would become this invested in Kim Wexler when I first started watching a show about the crooked lawyer from Breaking Bad, but here we are. Rhea Seehorn has me in awe, such a nuanced yet strong performance that results in a multi-layered character that surpasses anything I’ve seen in the Breaking Bad verse. Kim does good things and bad things, all in a realistic context. She might not become a criminal mastermind, but she will leave out a piece of evidence if she thinks it could benefit, but it is when she ultimately relents and adheres to presenting everything, even if it harms her case, that we come to love Kim. We hope she can hold onto Jimmy’s hand and keep him from going over the edge, but…we know partly how this story ends. I’m worried because Jimmy would only end up where he is now if Kim wasn’t there to pull him back.
PopCult Reviews 