As Better Call Saul season six continues to air, even Chuck McGill himself might have a hard time defending the show's earliest premise. Believe it or not, this corpse-folding series was originally envisioned as a sitcom.
The 'client of the week' comedy concept feels even more distant after 'Point and Shoot', the latest – and darkest – episode of Better Call Saul yet. Sure, the show started out tragicomic, but by this point it’s just a full-blown tragedy.
Forget a laugh track, this thing needs a scream track. And we have a feeling it’s only going to get nastier from this point on. Yes, even nastier than Howard Hamlin being folded into a fridge.
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But this dark spiral has been entirely appropriate, especially as we get closer to Breaking Bad’s timeline and Walt and Jesse's much-hyped cameos.
Better Call Saul has always had a mesmerising style of its own, but 'Point and Shoot' felt like it could have slotted into one of Breaking Bad’s later seasons without blinking.
In fact, it most closely resembles season three’s brilliant finale, 'Full Measure'. The episodes are so similar, it has to be a tribute.
It’s probably not a coincidence that this one was directed by Breaking Bad showrunner Vince Gilligan. And the shock death at the heart of 'Point and Shoot' should change the way you watch both shows.
Returning from one of the cruelest mid-season cliffhangers in television history (one that saw Howard Hamlin’s corpse crash landing onto a coffee table, temple first), the first episode of the second half of season six hit the ground running (with blood).
Kim was sent on a mission to shoot Gus after Jimmy decided she should go instead of him. Jimmy, who was left behind to absorb the fact that Nacho's full name is Ignacio (even repeating it a couple of times, echoing his first-episode dialogue in Breaking Bad), sent Kim in his place, in the hope she'd get away.
He was ready to die for her, but he wasn't prepared for the fact she would kill for him. Remember Jimmy, it's best to never underestimate Kim Wexler. You should probably keep that in mind if you're reading this.
So, while Jimmy's held prisoner by Lalo, not only do we get a reference to Breaking Bad’s second-season episode 'Better Call Saul', ("It wasn't me, it was Ignacio!"), we have an echo of season three's finale, as Kim knocks on Gus' door just as Jesse will one day bang on Gale's door.
Both characters carry guns against their will to save their BFF – Jesse to save Walt, Kim to save Jimmy. Both are given fairly extreme time limits.
Later in the episode, Lalo holds a gun on Gus – standing in almost exactly the same laundromat spot as Mike when he pointed a gun at Walt in 'Full Measure', when Walt urged Jesse to kill Gale. Walt instructs Jesse on the phone against Mike's wishes. In 'Point and Shoot', Mike tries to call Gus, against Lalo's wishes.
Lalo's in that spot because he's obsessed with Gus. Again, there's a Breaking Bad connection. Gus killed Lalo's people in Better Call Saul, just as Hector killed Gus' partner in Breaking Bad.
Gus promises Lalo that he'll bury every last Salamanca. He will, of course, eventually keep that promise ("Now, the Salamanca name dies with you") – from a certain point of view. These men, Lalo and Gus, are more closely linked than they realise.
Peter Gould promised that these last episodes will change the way audiences experience Breaking Bad. "Everything you see coming up is going to throw Breaking Bad into a new light," he said (via TV Insider). "Folks who watch this show are going to see a different Breaking Bad than they would have before these last few episodes."
Ain’t that the truth. After Lalo is gunned down, only to be swung into a hole alongside Howard in the dirt of Gus' future meth factory, how can anyone watch the superlab era of Breaking Bad without picturing Walt and Jesse stepping over those two iconic characters?
Speaking of iconic characters, at least now we know why there was an insect in the lab in Rian Johnson's season three episode 'Fly'. Flies do like corpses, after all.
When Better Call Saul was first announced, it was treated as a joke. How could a spin-off following a comic sidekick even get close to the mastery of Breaking Bad? That it's succeeded and, for some fans, even superseded its source show is a minor miracle. But, whichever show you prefer, 'Point and Shoot's shock death just connected the two timelines in the darkest possible way.
Chuck might call it chicanery. We’d call it genius.
Better Call Saul airs on AMC in the US and on Netflix in the UK.
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Freelancer writer
Sam is an entertainment writer with NCTJ accreditation and a twenty-year career as a film journalist.
Starting out as a staff writer at Total Film, moving up to Deputy Online Editor, Sam was responsible for Total Film’s YouTube channel, where he revolutionised the magazine’s approach to video junkets, creating influential formats that spread to other outlets.
He’s interviewed a wide range of film icons, including directors such as David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Sofia Coppola, Ridley Scott, Michael Bay and Sam Raimi, as well as actors such as Meryl Streep, Nic Cage, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Anne Hathaway, Margot Robbie, Natalie Portman, Kermit the Frog, all of the Avengers and many more.
Sam has also interviewed several comic creators, including Stan Lee, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, and he has a zombie cameo in The Walking Dead comic.
In 2014, Sam went freelance, working directly for film studios including Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox and Disney, as well as covering red carpet events for film marketing company PMA Productions.
Sam is the co-host, producer and editor of the Arrow Video podcast, which has seen year-on-year growth since its creation in 2017, gaining over half a million listens in that time.
His byline has appeared in outlets such as Yahoo, MTV, Dazed, Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Elle, and Good Housekeeping among others.
In 2012, Sam made it to the final of the Leicester Square Theatre New Comedian of the Year competition, and went on to become a filmmaker himself, directing three features that have all played major festivals, and secured distribution – starring in two of them.
Jim Carrey once mistook Sam for Johnny Cash, and John Carpenter told him to ‘Keep up the good work.’ He promises to try his best.
