Prepare yourselves: The next episode of Better Call Saul is titled “Breaking Bad”
13 years after Breaking Bad aired a little episode titled "Better Call Saul," the spin-off is returning the favor
Aux News Better Call Saul
As far as TV spin-offs go, Better Call Saul has always retained a respectful distance from its parent series, Breaking Bad. Sure, the Bob Odenkirk-starring crime thriller has been happy, over the years, to introduce characters and plotlines from the original series, fulfilling its prequel duties—but showrunners Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan have always made it clear that, if the show needed a bunch of scenes of Walter White being the guy who knocks to justify its existence, it wouldn’t really be the show they wanted to make.
That being said, we should probably prepare ourselves: Next week’s episode of Better Call Saul—the third-to-last of the entire series, airing August 1—is titled “Breaking Bad,” and we have to assume that all hell (and continuity) is about to start breaking loose.
(The episode title, and description, comes from Canadian TV listings site TVPassport, but haven’t popped up on the official AMC site yet; AMC press confirmed the title when we reached out.)
One of the questions hanging over the back half of BCS’s final season has, after all, been when Gould and Gilligan might deploy the appearances by Breaking Bad stars Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston that they promised fans back in April. And, sure: Better Call Saul is a show that loves a little clever misdirection, and “Breaking Bad” might turn out to be another episode about the high-stakes drama of Gene The Cinnabon Man. (Press images for the episode suggest it’ll at least partially take place in monochrOmaha.) But at the very least, that title—and the released synopsis, “The partners escalate their enterprise to new levels”—is clearly angling to make us think we might be back in ABQ, possibly at the height of Heisenberg’s reign.
Also—as more than one person has pointed out—the episode title works as a long-delayed joke: The character of Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman was, after all, introduced in an episode of Breaking Bad titled “Better Call Saul,” more than 13 years ago at this point. Gould and Gilligan are apparently repaying the favor, creating a reciprocal relationship between the two shows. (And if it gets a few more wayward BB fans to check in on the excellent Better Call Saul, so much the better.)
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It just hit me today—-this is likely the last time we’ll ever see characters like Mike and Gus (who would both be too old to do another prequel) in original content.Dammit.I wouldn’t mind seeing a Mike origin story if they felt like it with his tenure in the Philly PD. IF they found the right guy to play him.
I would love a Gus prequel about his time in Chile.
I want a Gus prequel that focuses strictly on the Chicken restaurant aspect of things, how he went from a small little chicken shack to 14 locations? amazingly entertaining.
Ah so Breaking Lyle.
This is…acceptable.
Better Page Lyle
I’d be happy with a webseries for that one.
You can just imagine the jazzy chicken frying montages.
I’d look forward to the montage’s of Gus meticulously picking out his outfits for the week.
Franchising Bad. Not bad as in bad, but bad as in good (Run DMC).
Drug money?
I like think that since everyone raved about his chicken, he was able to franchise without the drug money on his own, plus they were owned by a larger company money really wasn’t really an issue. The whole drug thing was Gus’s pride and hubris getting in the way of his life, just like Walt.
You know what’d be funny as hell? An “episode” of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives featuring some great little local joint called Los Pollos Hermanos.
You know what’d be funny as hell? An “episode” of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, featuring this great little local joint called Los Pollos Hermanos.
You remember that the mob killed his lover-right in front of him?
That was the cartel, not the mob.
It could star the guy who played a young Stan Edgar in The Boys.
Aye I was going to say that, he did a good job in his small-ish role, I thought.Then again near-everyone is good in The Boys, give or take a wandering British accent.
Better call Saul has nearly been as much about Mike’s back story as Saul. But, Gus, there’s still so much they can explore. There’s been debate online that he may have been part of general Pinochets death squads or he fought against pinochet. There’s just so much that could be explored with a Gus prequel (his time in Chile, General Pinochet, his partner in the business whose death led him to play a 20 year long game to wipe out the Salamanca family, getting into the chicken business, getting into meth)
only worth seeing if it has gay sex scenes.
Get that guy who played young Giancarlo Esposito in the Boys! That guy was great!
I was honestly expecting never to see them again after Fun & Games. those brief vignettes we got of what was left of their lives outside the game kinda felt like a farewell from the writers to these challenges. I’d be happy to be wrong though!
Big farewell vibes. Their stories are both complete.
I’m inclined to agree with you about Gus having a great final scene in Fun & Games. He didn’t come into the story until season 3, and has never been the centerpiece of this show.Mike, however, I would be disappointed if we didn’t see him again. He has been there since the beginning, and was pretty much the second main character before Kim and Chuck became more developed. Plus he has a very close and complex relationship with Jimmy that could be further explored with Kim seemingly out of the picture.
I don’t know. I think Mike’s last speech to Jimmy and Kim is pretty congruent with the ill-disguised contempt he treats Saul with for most of Breaking Bad. I’m not sure there’s a lot of ground to cover there, as it seems pretty obvious that Mike watched Jimmy descend further into gleeful amorality after Howard’s death and presumably his respect for Jimmy/Saul plummeted accordingly.
I guess it comes down to how much time they’re actually spending in the Breaking Bad timeline. it sure seems like they’re setting up Gene to be the major player in this final stretch, and I’m not even sure how Jesse and Walt are gonna fit in unless they’re just a brief cameo in flashbackI’d love to see more of Mike, he’s a fantastic character and Banks’ performance is an all-timer. but I couldn’t shake the feeling most of this season that his arc was pretty much over Nacho’s death and he was mostly present as a bodyguard for Gus
I mean, Jesse is still alive in Alaska..so they could always work with that..
How about this guy:
That’s not young Jonathan Banks is it?
That’s Milo Ventimiglia. The second photo is young Banks for comparison.I think there’s enough of a passing resemblence that with a little makeup it could work. There’s certainly more of a resemblence than Joseph Gordon-Levitt had to Bruce Willis in Looper.
“That’s Milo Ventimiglia. The second photo is young Banks for comparison.”I was just going to say—-that second picture is the splitting image of Jonathan Banks, lol.
Ah, but what about Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing a younger Gus?
He’s a very good actor, but I don’t think it would work.
He’s busy with that Emmanuel The Emu series.
This is the only young Jonathan Banks I will accept.
De-age them!
Damn, young Gus is quite the looker.
And young Mike is…old Mike.
Young Gus had a tiny role in “Trading Places.” He was in the holding cell listening to Eddie Murphy’s Valentine character talking about how he was a “Karate Man” and only bruises in the inside.
The person you’re replying to must’ve been too young for Do the Right Thing or Smoke. Those are what he really looked like as a young person and this CGI doesn’t come close.
Giancarlo Esposito | TVSA
I remember him from Homicide.
Nah, young Gus looked like this:
He changed his style a lot in the last 30 years.
His Jordans are FUCKED!
Looks like Young Gus is mad that somebody stepped on his brand new Air Jordans that he JUST BOUGHT!
Young Mike looks like Megamind.
Amc certainly loves to milk a franchise, I like to see more prequels or sequels, but only if Gilligan and Co. are directly involved.
Aside from that strange “Slippin’ Jimmy” animated show (which no one seems to have much faith in since there’s very little effort to market it), I think Gilligan and Gould are very protective of the BB property and know it’s the right time to take a break from it right now. I predict little to no new BB content for the next ten years.
I predict AMC is willing to write an awfully big check to keep the ABQverse going.
Yeah, WTF is up with the Walking Dead universe? Aren’t even the diehards sick of that franchise?Considering all the complaints I hear about it (never watched an episode) it sounds like if Dexter became the lumberjack then Showtime immediately spun it off into 3 new shows.
Haha basically 🤣! I bailed about a decade ago. The series itself has become an undead shambling corpse. Only the most diehards of the diehards are still interested at this point. However, there are like 5 spinoffs in the works in addition to the original spinoff that is still airing. With BCS ending, AMC is basically TWD channel.
I wonder what happened to Matt Weiner? AMC must have begged him for a Mad Men spinoff series, lol.
He shit the bed with ‘The Romanoffs’ (cancelled after eight episodes), had a potential series scrapped during COVID, and of course, was named in a sexual misconduct allegation from a former writer. Hope he stashed some of that Mad Men money.
Hopefully the sexual assault allegations derailed his career
A Gus prequel could make sense. But what is there left to tell with Mike? We know he accepted payoffs in a corrupt PD and that his son wasn’t corrupt and was killed. We saw how he got revenge and left. There’s nothing left to mine there. Better Call Saul already served as his prequel story to me.
Forget more prequels, we already know a lot of backstory on most of the characters and we know where most of their stories end. It’s time to get to the Breaking Bad sequel. I think we need to see what Badger & Skinny Pete are up to in their 40s. I think we’ve all been wondering yo.
No, it must be centered on Huell, and shall be called “Anticipation”.
Maybe a 4 season series of Huell just sitting in the safe house waiting for someone to give him word on whether or not it’s safe to come out?
Gilligan already said he’s done with this universe anyway. There won’t be anymore prequels or sequels or same-time-quels or quels of any sort.
I think he said he’s done “for now” with the BB universe, but I didn’t get the impression he was done forever.
I don’t know if Better Call Saul needs any “wayward fans” from Breaking Bad. If they were fans they would probably be watching along with the rest of us. There was an NPR article recently wherein the author intimidated that BCS was too boring for her to catch up to the finale, but she wanted to watch the finale in real time so she advocated for fast forwarding. It just makes me sick that this person wants to feel and react to the ending before she inadvertently hears about it but she can’t put in the time to watch all of it. See, the slow burn parts are some of the best parts and what set it apart from Breaking Bad. Unfortunately most BB fans just want the action and not the character development and its a shame.
Another difference compared to BB is that many central characters were preening bores: Kim, Chuck, Howard, often Jimmy/Saul, sometimes Gus, and Lalo. They demanded to be admired for their challenging careers and personal qualities. Even the Mike character sometimes suffered from the tendency of successful TV/filmmakers to ruminate on such things once they reach top 1% industry status. Most notorious, to me, was Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse, which was set in a highly expensive but boring Century City etc. L.A., and every other scene looked like a pitch meeting or lawyer/accountant/manager appointment.BCS is a very good show, but I tuned out due to those reasons, not lack of action.Many exceptions to the top 1% career poison exist though. Ron Howard would make an excellent Oscars host, but I doubt he would ever do it. I’m not a great fan of his movies, but he was funny in Arrested Development.
I don’t think I understand this – can you clarify? Are you saying you dislike characters who are in “challenging careers” or simply ones that are focused on them? Out of curiosity, what shows do you like? Because I think an overwhelming majority of the shows I like do enmesh the characters in their work. But maybe that’s just the reality I see.
i think he’s saying he didn’t like that so much of it was set in board rooms.
Board rooms are great tho! I guess Succession is also bad?
What Better Call Saul needs is more proactive, vigilant fans who will keep those filthy casuals away. Tell em that they’re not real fans. Make sure they know that they’re watching tv wrong. Bunch of posers, am I right?
I mean, there’s a big difference between being a “casual fan”, and wanting to experience only the final chapter of something so you can publicly react to it on your public platform.I’m imagining this will not lead to enjoyment or a positive experience, whereas following the simple rule of experiencing the story in the order in which it… is… would be more fulfilling and enjoyable. So in essence, yes, they will be “watching it wrong”.
If someone wants to watch a show that undeniably demands a strong attention span in the form of, like, a little Youtube-style collection of highlight clips… yes, they basically are watching it wrong.
I don’t advocate for gatekeeping and if someone really wants to just watch the last episode of a series because that’s how they enjoy it then I won’t yuck their yum, but I do dislike that someone is influencing others to join them in doing that, especially in advance of trying it. I think that it will actively detract from the experience of people who haven’t watched the show, but read that and actually think it’s a good, well-informed idea.
You can consume the media in your way, and how someone else consumes it doesn’t affect you.
It definitely doesn’t need them – the show got to its final season and has been critically acclaimed so its not like adding viewership does anything now.
It could be because I haven’t seen any Breaking Bad since it ended, but I think I enjoy BCS more overall. BB is excellent, but I think the larger scope of characters in BCS makes it more entertaining. Also, watching Jimmy watch an unconscious man on a security monitor for several minutes had both my wife and I laughing out loud, which very rarely happened with BB.
I get the Pop Culture email newsletter as well, and that essay was weird. Through the first paragraph, you’re thinking “well, I guess that makes sense; you just don’t have the time to catch up, but you’re going to tell us how you liked this current season.” Then the story continues into the second paragraph, and the third, and you soon realize the full essay is just a fastidious description of how they put days of work into not watching hours of tv.
NPR used to be good. Lately, they just aren’t that good. I record it and about a half hour after the start I begin watching and skip the commercials. Fast forwarding through the actual show is a Hell No!
First of all, it’s “intimated”.Second, I was a fan of BB who was excited in 2015 that the same people were making a new show! But I gave up on BCS a long time ago, after about 8 episodes, because it was booooring.
It’s just a TV show. TV snobbery and elitism since The Sopranos has misplaced priorities of what is worth getting annoyed over. I mean, I enjoy these shows too but- you know, it’s not worth being offended over what someone on NPR says.
You’re missing the point she wants to be part of the cultural moment that is the current hype surrounding this but she feels at this point she doesn’t have time to catch up. That doesn’t excuse her for not spending the passed couple years pandemic especially catching up but you’re really shaming people for not wanting to crunch six seasons of TV in a couple weeks.
People have jobs and lives dude chill tf out. I loved Breaking Bad, I didn’t watch Better Call Saul I saw bits of season one. No I’m not a fan who only saw the last couple seasons of Breaking Bad and “didn’t watch it properly”. I just didn’t care about Better Call Saul conceptually when it was new and you’re being a shit head for acting better than me about it. This sounds delightful I’m probably going to watch this episode next week because BB is nostalgic for me and I’m sorry I’m not going to watch it in the proper order but cry me a fucking river quit acting like this IP belongs to you, it doesn’t.
You realize people will be spoiling this shit over water cooler discussion anyway right? She just means she doesn’t feel she has time to catch up at this point before it concludes i.e. people will be discussing it. You insisting she binges all the seasons is a stupid opinion because people have lives. We’re not all neckbeards who sit here all day bud.
BCS is the superior show. Consistently great writing throughout. BB took a season and a half to go from fine to great.
I’m pissed at AMC and Better Call Saul. I signed up for AMC+ at their Prime Day rate with the idea of watching the first half of season 6 and finishing the second in real time, rather than to wait for them to come to Netflix sometime next year.Instead, seasons one through five are included, the same that are currently on Netflix and the second half of six is streaming one episode at a time, but as a bait and switch, they want me to buy the first half of season six. IOW: They want me to buy seven episodes out of the whole run of the show to forever sit in my Amazon queue.My plan had been to get the two-month Prime special, then stick with it through Kevin Can Fuck Himself, but now I’m really thinking about ending my subscription before it goes to a second month and I’ll just watch it someday, maybe next Prime Day special or when (or if) it comes to Netflix.I really think it was disingenuous for them to pull such a blatant bait and switch.
That was my plan, too. I just ended up buying S6 for $25 on amazon
I’ll probably just wait and watch it some other year. While Better Call Saul is a good show and all, it is still just television. The only thing that has now changed is that I’ll be wary about subscribing to AMC+ again.
That sucks. Theyre holding back season 6 on their premium streaming service.
It’s like AMC+ is a for-profit operation or something.
For-profit corporations are still allowed to operate honestly.
AMC+ is a subscription service. Their profit is supposed to be from selling advertising and subscriptions, not from forcing people to buy 7/63s of ashow from Amazon
I really think it was disingenuous for them to pull such a blatant bait and switch.For the entirety of Season 6, they have had a line at the top of the episode description saying it is only available for about a month and a half. It’s not their fault for you not paying attention.
I just resubscribed (after getting a few months from them last year) and yes, it appears that if I had brought the sixth season up on Amazon, it now has a note that only the second half of the season will be available, but I don’t know how long that note has been there and the highlight reel on the AMC+ website features BCS without any fine-print notation.It feels like a real bait and switch.
Wold Netflix even get the last season. Example they just had two seasons of Pose on their platform the last season never appeared even a year later. The show is now on Hulu.
It’ll eventually go somewhere. If not to Netflix, then I’m sure it will be available via AMC+ in a few months. I really don’t think that in a year’s time, they’ll be able to force people to buy seven out of sixty-three episodes.
Disney owns FX and Hulu so they snatched up all of their FX shows from Netflix for the “FX on Hulu” section of that service.Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul will both be on Netflix until 2025 I believe.
I’m watching it weekly right now on Netflix outside the US with a VPN.
I agree whole heartedly. I subbed with the special at Christmas with the thought that it was a great way to get Shudder content. Not only do they not have all Shudder content, but they don’t even have all AMC content, and each series only has a handful of recent episodes. They even have a section called The Walking Dead Universe… yet you can’t catch up on old episodes. So yay AMC+ you got me, but I’m not renewing.
And @huja for-profit does not necessarily mean anti-customer.
I don’t have AMC anymore (Hulu live doesn’t carry AMC, but got a damn good deal compared to You Tube TV) so I just purchase each episode of BCS (2.99 a pop, which a week is still less than a Starbucks coffee) on Prime. Obviously I wouldn’t do this for other shows but Better Call Saul is on another level. I haven’t done the math yet so who knows if I’m overpaying but I don’s watch anything else on amc anyway (I forgot Kevin can fuck himself is coming back). at least for my budget this works fine for me. and you can purchase the episodes the same night they air so no waiting games.
Yeah, you should have done the math.If we’re ignoring the Prime day offer to add two months of AMC+ for $0.99/month, you’re saving $0.04.If we’re not ignoring that special offer, you overpaid by $15.96.
I’m pissed at AMC and Better Call Saul.How dare you Better Call Saul! We all know it was your idea to bait and switch these poor people. God forbid someone have to spend more than $2 to watch your entire run!
(The episode title, and description, comes from Canadian TV listings site , but haven’t popped up on the official AMC site yet; AMC press confirmed the title when we reached out.)Reporting/fact-checking: A-Sentence construction/punctuation: C-I know commas are tricky, but the basic rules aren’t that hard to understand.
Also though, you appear to be producing about half of the site content that isn’t a weird, third party link, so…sorry you still have to work here.
DON’T BE SOFT ON THEM, OR THEY WON’T LEARN.
It’s like it was written to be spoken by Shatner.
Well, the source is Canadian.
With Shatner punctuation: It’s like, it was written, to be spoken, by, Shatner.
The report being from Canada confirms this theory.
You’re probably right the intervals, are, too regular to represent Christopher Walken’s delivery, he’smuch more erratic.
Punctuation is hard to understand if you are a content robot. The only thing harder to understand?This human emotion you call love.
I like to think that Lyle and Trent, the waiter who makes guacamole right at your table, are brothers. They eventually open up a chicken and guacamole restaurant and pick up where Gus left off.
I am very curious what unexpected direction this episode is going to go in. It is in this show’s DNA to constantly subvert expectations, and they’re leading us on to think we know what’s going to happen with Walt and Jesse coming back…My only prediction is that Tuco Salamanca is absolutely returning. The Salamancas have a been a major part of this story since the beginning, and there has to be some explanation why Hector is living in a crummy dessert house at the start of Breaking Bad.
Probably because he hated the nursing home and had Tuco to look after him at the time. There’s no way Hector would prefer a nice assisted living facility to being close to his nephew. “Familia es todo.”
Tuco seems the least important to close out the story of the main characters of Better Call Saul so I would take the “no Tuco” bet if you’re offering. There’s not much explanation needed as to why he’s living in a crummy house – he’s an unstable, drug addict who is likely to be terrible at keeping his house (but in terms of his empire and his actual living quarters) in order.
I doubt Tuco will be back. If he had been involved in filming I think we would have heard by now unless they jumped tbrough all kinds of hoops to conceal it. Knowing Raymond Cruz’s distaste for tbe character, I think it’s highly unlikely. Plus most of tbe remaining series may well be set in tbe Gene Takovic Omaha timeline. Hector living in the desert shack is easy to explain. Tuco took him home to Abuelita’s home, the one we saw in BCS S1 Episodes 1 and 2. Then when Hank Schrader closed down his operation, Tuco escaped to his desert hideout and took Hector with him.
Didn’t know Cruz didn’t like playing Tuco. He made him so memorable.
Ah, so it’s a Kim episode. Hell yeah.
I find the term “monochrOmaha” inordinately funny. Now if I can just find a way to get that word onto my Nebraska license plate…
It sounds like an indie rock band name. Also, kudos on your screen name. 👏
I made it through I think the first 3-4 episodes of BCS after finishing up BB in a binge. Couldn’t keep up with it, got bored. SO much praise for the show though, I think I need to revisit it.
it becomes a really special show as it goes on, but it is an extremely slow burn.
Yeah this is a good way to put it. I love the show, but it is slower than Breaking Bad
as the show goes on, I would argue that it surpasses Breaking Bad.
OoOoOoOo
as someone who only started watching breaking bad because i knew odenkirk was on it, i definitely prefer the saul show overall.i like breaking bad a lot, but i love better call saul.
I hung in there through the first season of BCS.
Eh, I didn’t find it all that great. I was surprised by how bland the writing was. I felt like we as an audience were often ahead of the characters.
Maybe it gets better after the first season, but that’s alot of episodes to slog through.
I mean, it gradually became more and more similar to Breaking Bad, as more and more familiar characters were reintroduced.
If you can binge it that makes it easier. As others have said, it is a very slow show. And that’s really saying something considering there are only 10 episodes in most of the seasons. I’ve enjoyed it overall, but I don’t think it really compares to the excellence of Breaking Bad.
I hear this and I think of bagman. I laugh under my reflective blanket.
I think I got about that far. Michael McKean was on trial for having allergies or some shit
Yes! I remember that, but nothing further
I gave up on BCS when it first came out too. I recently rewatched BB and missed that world so much I gave BCS another shot. The first season is much slower than it needs to be, but all the pieces fall into place by the last episode. The second season is much more enjoyable in comparison because they hit the ground running.
I would respect the hell out of this show if they just killed Jimmy next episode and told you to figure the rest out.
your all saying what the show needs, A bit late no ? only 3 episodes left in the entire run , so , kinda get what you get.