Get Saul: AMC Crime Drama 'Better Call Saul' Comes To An End

My wife and I watched and enjoyed the final episode of Better Call Saul on AMC last night. 

I thought the finale was clever and interesting and an appropriate end for the wonderfully slimy crooked lawyer James “Slipping Jimmy” McGill, aka, Saul Goodman. 

Saul Goodman was a great character, portrayed so well by actor and comedian Bob Odenkirk. He was sleazy, smart and thoroughly bent. 

Goodman was a breakout character from the many unforgettable characters created by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould in their fine crime series Breaking Bad. 

Better Call Saul looks back at how Jimmy McGill became so bent and transformed into Saul Goodman. 

Better Call Saul, their follow up series, revisited many of the great characters from Breaking Bad, such as former crooked Philly cop and enforcer Mike Ehrmantraut, portrayed by Jonathan Banks, and the brilliant and peculiar drug lord Gus Fring, portrayed by Giancarlo Esposito. 

The final episodes of Better Call Saul also brought back Breaking Bad's high school chemistry teacher turned meth dealer Walter White, portrayed by Bryan Cranston, and his partner Jesse Pinkman, portrayed by Aaron Paul. 

One particularly standout character in Better Call Saul was Goodman’s partner in crime and love, Kim Wexler, portrayed so well by Rhea Seehorn. 

Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad are two fine crime dramas infused with abundant humor. 

If you have not watched the two series, I suggest you begin at the beginning of Breaking Bad and enjoy the many hours of the best television can offer.  

Every 'Breaking Bad' Fan Should Embrace 'Better Call Saul'

Michael Starr at the New York Post offers his take on Better Call Saul, the clever, amusing and quirky crime drama that is a prequel to Breaking Bad.

Back in early 2015, I joined the chorus of TV fans lamenting the premiere of “Better Call Saul,” a prequel series starring Bob Odenkirk reprising his combed over, shyster-lawyer character from “Breaking Bad,” which ended its scorching run just 17 months before.

Sure, Odenkirk’s Saul Goodman was a charming, slippery chameleon, providing whatever comic relief managed to slow-drip into the pitch black world of “Breaking Bad.” He was fun to watch, but he was a lateral character who couldn’t carry an entire series. Why not just let “Breaking Bad” rest in peace and move on? Enough already.

I was wrong, and as “Better Call Saul” barrels toward its Season 3 finale Monday night it’s become one of my go-to series. It’s no “Breaking Bad,” but it has carved out its own unique universe (in familiar Albuquerque, no less) and has succeeded in making Saul Goodman (or Jimmy McGill, as he’s known here) a multi-layered person surrounded by equally interesting and colorful characters.

You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

http://nypost.com/2017/06/16/every-breaking-bad-fan-should-embrace-better-call-saul/ 

Breaking Bad: Bryan Cranston's Inner Killer Helped Him Create Walter White

My wife and I recently finished watching all five seasons of Breaking Bad on Netflix.

We thought this clever and unpredictable TV series was one of the best we've ever seen. Bryan Cranston was quite brilliant in the role of a high school chemistry teacher who turned into a criminal meth kingpin.

From Mr. Chips to Scarface, is how Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan described the series.

So I was interested in reading Larry Getlen's piece in the New York Post on Bryan Cranston and his new book, A Life in Parts.

The woman screamed for her life, but Bryan Cranston says he couldn’t hear her as he repeatedly slammed her head into the brick wall, in retaliation for stalking him around the country and threatening him with death.

“I was surprisingly calm,” he reveals in his candid new memoir, “A Life In Parts” (Scribner, out Tues.). “Clumps of hair and bits of skin and brain matter stuck to the brick. Blood formed on the wall and then began dribbling to the floor. The screaming had stopped, of course.”

Before you remove “Breaking Bad” from your Netflix queue in disgust, know that this scene didn’t actually happen. Cranston imagined committing the murder while his “stalker” ex-girlfriend, who had allegedly threatened his life, banged on his front door in 1983. Cranston, then in his mid-20s, curled against the wall, paralyzed with fear, and slipped into a fantasy so lifelike he thought it was real — a feeling he later called upon to find the darkness in his most iconic character, Walter White.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://nypost.com/2016/10/09/how-bryan-cranston-learned-he-was-capable-of-anything/