Vince GilliganRezensionen

I think it’s enough for me to say that Better Call Saul being nominated 53 TIMES for Primetime Emmys and WINNING ZERO is more egregious than anything that happens, happened or wil happen at the Oscars , please be serious.

Whenever I see comments about series that feature "gray" characters, like Breaking Bad, I realize that people have lost the ability to read layers... For them it must be A or B. One day they will realize that human beings do break bad, being complex, contradictory, making bad decisions, being enchanted by power, etc.

A former conman wants to be a lawyer again.

2.5/4 (Okay).

With more than a year between seasons, I have no memory of half of these characters, nor of what's going on with the ones I do remember - and Vince Gilligan doesn't seem to consider that as a possibility. Meanwhile, very little happens in this season. Jimmy is waiting around, Mike is overseeing a construction site (wow, exciting), and Nacho is... wait, who?

A conman-turned-lawyer gets suspended from practicing.

Great. By this point in the show, I'm involved enough that it feels like its own story rather than just a prequel.½

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: A
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: B

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 3.1/4½

The Battle Creek, Michigan police department is an under-funded joke, limping along with broken or non-existent equipment. Detective Russ Agnew hopes for help and improvements, but FBI Special Agent Milt Chamberlain isn't what he had in mind. Milt is friendly, well-liked, and backed by FBI manpower and technology. Russ doesn't trust him and resents how instantly good he seems to be at everything. He knows there must be a story behind Milt's apparent demotion to Battle Creek. He's determined to find out as much as he can, and outdo Milt while he's at it.

I almost stopped watching this show during the first episode. Russ was too abrasive, a caricature of a tough-as-nails big city cop. He repeatedly bent or broke rules, or vocally wished he could break them. Milt, meanwhile, was somewhat intriguing, but his slickness put me off. He annoyed me almost as much as he annoyed Russ.

The second episode was better, but it was sometime during the third episode that I really got hooked. Milt appeared to be genuinely kind, despite his secretiveness and many lies. Russ still had a horrifying disregard for rules (he was the kind of cop who'd plant evidence because he just knew that a particular person was responsible for a crime even if he couldn't prove it), but there was a certain gruff sweetness to him. I wanted to see if Milt could somehow manage to keep him in line, and I wanted to know, too, why Milt felt the urge to do anything at all for Russ. After all, Russ repeatedly made it clear that he didn't like or trust him.

Episodes 7 and 10 were two of my favorites. Episode 7 introduced Russ's mother, a con artist who lied and manipulated people as easily as breathing. It gave me a better understanding of why Russ was the way he was, and, even though Russ's mother frustrated me, I still kind of liked the sweet moments at the end of the episode. In episode 10, Russ was held hostage by an escaped convict. This was another surprisingly sweet episode, although, granted, like the episode title said, Stockholm syndrome probably played a part. Regardless, I really enjoyed seeing Milt worry about Russ and seeing Russ break down for a moment when Milt found him.

The show's relationships were a big part of what kept me watching. I liked Russ and Milt's growing friendship, Russ's apparent desire to connect with people and yet inability to do so, and the slow burn romance between Russ and Holly, the office manager at the police department. Unfortunately, the pacing was often kind of weird and frustrating. Russ, for example, was given multiple opportunities to deepen his relationships with others. He even had those opportunities pointed out to him by Milt and others. Instead of taking advantage of them, he purposely turned his back on them, and I'm still not entirely sure why. His repeated excuse for not asking Holly out was that they worked together, and yet, like Milt pointed out, there were many other rules and laws that he bent or broke without hesitation. Did he build walls around himself because of his mother and the way she raised him? Because he expected the worst from everybody, including himself? It's tough to say.

Russ and Milt's relationship mostly worked for me, although the last few episodes were odd. In one, Milt did the kind of rule-breaking/bending I'd normally have expected from Russ. The rapid change in his behavior was maybe explained by some of the things revealed in the last episode, but it still seemed really odd. I also felt that Russ deciding to help Milt out, almost unquestioningly and without letting any of the people he'd known for years in on it all, was a bit off. Necessary for the story, yes, but considering how walled off Russ was, not quite believable.

Russ and Holly's romance was...less appealing to me. I loved it, at first. Holly was the polar opposite of Russ, and I guessed that part of the reason why Russ was reluctant to ask her out was because he didn't want to risk any of his faults rubbing off on her. I loved the slow burn aspect of their relationship, which was why I was dismayed when they went straight from awkwardly avoiding asking each other out to Holly throwing herself at Russ and the two of them having sex in the evidence room.

I hated the end of the last episode, and I hate it even more now that I know that the series was canceled and this one season is it. Saying “I'll be all right” isn't the same thing as actually showing it, and things were pretty clearly not all right in that particular moment.

Things went a little off the rails in the final few episodes, and I wish the last episode had been tweaked a bit to end in a more satisfying way. All in all, though, this made for mostly enjoyable if problematic binge-watching.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

A terminally ill science teacher takes up cooking meth.

Well that was fun. People might be on to something with this whole Watching TV thing that's so popular lately.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: A
Dialog: A
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: A
Acting: B
Music: B

Enjoyment: A

GPA: 3.3/4½

A former con man tries to be a lawyer.

There are a handful of great scenes. It moves very slowly - which can be nice when it's at its best, but, usually, it's just slow.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: C
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: A

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 3.0/4½

The meth-cooking odd couple tries to get their business running.

Intense and fun. The overarching plot doesn't have much direction; the story is basically a series of mechanisms to get the characters to develop the way they want. Not that there's anything wrong with that. That's just the kind of show they're making, and to say they excel at it is a huge understatement. Still, there are a lot of plot strands that seem to be building to something but are just left behind, and it's a much more episodic show than season one was.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: A
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: A
Acting: A
Music: B

Enjoyment: A

GPA: 3.4/4½

Everyone's favorite meth-cooking science teacher goes to work for a powerful boss.

When I think about it, it's a little hard to judge this season, thanks to the frustrating cliff hanger ending. I feel like I just watched the first two acts of a movie. But at least I won't have to wait a year for season four like the poor bastards who watched the show when it aired did.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: A
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: A
Acting: A
Music: B

Enjoyment: A

GPA: 3.4/4½

Everyone's favorite meth-cooking science teacher tries to kill his boss.

It's basically one giant final act to season three's set-up, which is a change from previous seasons. This one's more focused on plot - a drawn-out thriller rather than a (primarily) character-driven drama. I'd say the change is an improvement, although it wouldn't have been half as good as it is if it didn't follow three seasons of ground-breaking, awesome character development.

Concept: B
Story: A
Characters: A
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: A
Acting: A
Music: B

Enjoyment: A

GPA: 3.5/4½

A ruthless meth cook builds his empire.

It's not really as good as previous seasons (not that that's a particularly strong criticism). Skyler has turned into a helpless victim, and most of the other main characters are more or less waiting in the background for the story to get to a point where they're needed again. And now that Walt has real power and resources, a lot of what's happening is stuff that's been done already in movies. But still, I can't wait to see what happens next.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: A
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: A
Music: B

Enjoyment: A

GPA: 3.3/4½

A retired drug lord tries to avoid capture.

The finale is a little disappointing. The story arc of this season wraps up in episode six, and the final two episodes feel like an epilogue. They're still good episodes, but compared to the rest of the season (which is one of the best of the series), it's anticlimactic.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: A
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: A
Music: B

Enjoyment: A

GPA: 3.3/4½