The Better Call Saul Finale Was Underwhelming

(This blog will contain SPOILERS about the Better Call Saul.)

The instant Better Call Saul introduced that Saul was now calling himself Gene and he managed a Cinnabon in the very first episode, I wanted more of that storyline. I don't typically love prequels because they can lack suspense when you know what the future holds. I wanted more of Gene than I did of Jimmy McGill. As the series kept going, the need for Gene subsided a bit because I loved the world Better Call Saul had built. But I remained curious about Gene and really wanted that storyline wrapped up.

Be careful what you wish for.

That might be unfair to some extent because the totality of the show was brilliant, even if the last four episodes didn't reach those heights for me. The first nine episodes of this final season were the show's best so it might have set an impossible standard. But I can't help but feel underwhelmed and slightly disappointed with how it all turned out.

Seeing Gene fall back into a life of crime because his ex-wife, who he hasn't talked to in years, told him to turn himself in seems impulsive for such a smart character. Jimmy/Saul always did what he wanted and I'm sure being Gene was maddeningly stifling. But I never quite bought Gene coordinating shoplifting escapades and when he actually breaks into a house, it all felt too far. This was also a character I'd grown to really like and seeing this sad course of action was tough to watch.

So while I didn't love Gene becoming a criminal, Jimmy/Saul/Gene probably should have ended up in jail. El Camino was an enjoyable enough way to spend more time with a Jesse Pinkman but the movie didn't pack the same punch as most Breaking Bad episodes did. It also really let Jesse off the hook.

I'll give Better Call Saul more credit for how it ended. You spend time with these characters and you grow to like them and bizarrely even justify their actions. As a viewer, you want them to get away with it. But Saul Goodman shouldn't have gotten away with it. He deserved to be found in a dumpster and sent to jail and it was rewarding to hear him admit that what he did with Walter White was awful and people paid the price for their actions.

All of that is true but that's not what I enjoyed while watching this show for years. I loved seeing Kim and Jimmy/Saul working together on some scheme. But inevitably, as they both grew more confident and risky, they would eventually go too far.  And that led to the brilliant Lalo storyline this final season. But is also led to the end of what I loved most about the show.

I didn't love that the last episode seemed stuffed with cameos from characters that are long gone like Walter White and Chuck McGill. Both scenes felt forced and didn't seem as necessary to the story. I know that both creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould acknowledged this would be the final episode of the Breaking Bad Universe but I don't think we needed to see these characters again. I felt the same way with the Jesse Pinkman cameos in the last couple of episodes. They seemed strange and unnecessary.

Better Call Saul was a very good show but it was not better than Breaking Bad, which was the most intense show I've ever seen. The Sopranos for example, was a deeper and richer experience. But I don't think Breaking Bad was ever going for that. BB was compact and telling a much more direct story. That's why it's the ultimate binge show. It had tremendous cliffhangers and was thrilling. Each Sopranos episode takes to some time to really process. It has so many characters and so many different motivations. 

For a show that lived more in the quiet moments, maybe this is a more appropriate ending than if the show concluded when I wanted it to after episode nine of this season. It didn't give Saul a violent end like Walt and he didn't get a heroic yet traumatic escape like Jesse. Better Call Saul was always the grounded part of the Breaking Bad universe, especially the non-cartel storylines. I would have rather been able to imagine Gene trying to evade the law and living a quiet life. But maybe for Gene, that's a fate worse than death. It was for Walt in the Granite State episode of Breaking Bad.

The ending for Better Call Saul may not have been what I wanted but maybe it's the most apt.