Better Call Saul Season 2

DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:

He wasn’t always Saul Goodman, ace attorney for chemist-turned-meth dealer Walter White. Six years before he begins to represent Albuquerque’s most notorious criminal, Goodman is Jimmy McGill, a small-time attorney hustling to make a name for himself. He’s a forceful champion for his low-income clients, an underdog whose morals and ambitions often clash. Jimmy works with private eye Mike Ehrmantraut, a former Philadelphia cop and recent transplant to the Southwest. Mike has a specialized skill set he’s a ‘fixer’ of sticky situations that Jimmy soon learns to appreciate.

Comparisons with the titanic “Breaking Bad: are inevitable, since this show shares not only creator Vince Gilligan but is a spin off of some key characters – here in an origin story taking place before “Breaking Bad”. But this new show – great in it’s own way – really is quite a different animal. “Breaking Bad” felt big, powerful, operatic. A Beethoven symphony of a show. While it had humor, the blasts of dark drama and tension dominated. “Better Call Saul” feels like more of a chamber piece, a string quartet, or a great jazz trio. Quieter, more intimate, leaning more towards the comic, its themes about America and success are mostly fed with a wink, and not a punch to the stomach. The pace is slower too. This is a character study, and it’s content to allow us to just watch some very interesting people working through their strange funny/sad lives without pushing the plot along all that much. It’s an outstanding show, but on its own terms, in its own way.

The acting is terrific. Bob Odenkirk creates a truly likable semi-sad sack with truly questionable morals and decision making ability, but a big heart. Jonathan Banks continues as one of the best television characters ever, his aging ex-cop a brilliant, cold, coiled snake, who always lets out just enough humanity to know that while this guy could kill you in a heartbeat if he had to, deep down he’s a good guy, a loving grandfather, a moral man. Michael McKean does a great job as Odenkirk’s deeply disturbed brother. He will always be a smarter, better lawyer than Jimmy, he will always hold a grudge, and he is Odenkirk’s exact opposite. The guy who – on paper – we should feel bad for, but who is just icy and venal enough to keep us at an intrigued distance. If the character has a weak spot it’s that he can get a bit repetitive, but that’s more a function of how the man is limited by his paranoid psychosis, not a limitation of acting or writing.

As with “Breaking Bad” the writing is specific, idiosyncratic, full of terrific dialogue that sounds naturalistic, but has just the right touch of poetry blended in. And as with it’s predecessor, the direction and cinematography is always at a high level, very cinematic, unafraid of staying in wide shots, or playing scenes in long takes instead of the rapid cutting that still dominates most TV – even very good TV. There are occasional lapses – I saw the twist ending of season 2 coming a mile off. But – if not as driven and instantly unforgettable as it’s parent show – this is intelligent, subtle and special television, not quite like anything else before or since.

(To those worried about the pre-release price per some other reviews – fear not. It will go down. It always does. Just the way Amazon always does it).

-KG

Season One of Breaking Bad spinoff “Better Call Saul” was excellent, and the second season of the series lived up to its predecessor’s high standard. Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk), a struggling Albuquerque lawyer, sinks further toward being the shyster and conman Saul Goodman that he was on the parent show. This DVD set contains all ten episodes of Season Two that originally aired on AMC from February to April in 2016.

This season, Jimmy’s loose ethics, ends-justifies-the-means ethos, and failure to obey legitimate authority in a workplace lead him, predictably, to go rogue, and the series employs amusing symbolic devices to show how he cannot conform when professionalism requires him to do so. A contrast is drawn between the weak character he shows when he finally gets a chance to reap the rewards of his hard work and succeed as a lawyer and the character his love interest Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) shows at her own law firm when she is treated with excessive harshness.

Jimmy’s ethical lapses hurt both Kim and his lawyer brother Chuck (Michael McKean), effects that Jimmy is unable to foresee when committing his malign machinations. Season Two explores more of the backstory of Jimmy’s relationship with Chuck, as the seeds of Saul Goodman were present in Jimmy by the time he was 13, with devastating effects on his family.

The story of Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), Jimmy’s future “Breaking Bad” associate, also unfolds throughout the season. “Better Call Saul” producers Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould succeed in creating fascinating characters—there are three or four characters on the show so complex and compelling that other worthy spinoff series could be created around them. The writing in the show is brilliant, the cinematography and camera angles are again peerless, and, as always, the scenery of the New Mexico desert is arresting. “Better Call Saul” has justly won and been nominated for numerous awards, and its fans are eagerly anticipating its third season.

-Eric Mayforth

DVD Wholesale Main Features :   

Actors: Bob Odenkirk
Format: AC-3, Box set, Color, Dolby, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: English
Subtitles: French, Portuguese, Spanish, English
Dubbed: French, Portuguese
Subtitles for the Hearing Impaired: English
Region: Region 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Number of discs: 3
Rated: NR – Not Rated
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
DVD Release Date: November 15, 2016
Run Time: 460 minutes
ASIN: B01BZBLP9C