Sabiendo jugar con los elementos que dispone y siendo astuta en como presentarlos Better Call Saul se presenta como una de las mejores series de los ultimos años. .
Jimmy McGill se presenta nuevamente
Para resumirles un poco este analisis.. Si han visto Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul es para ti, es una precuela tan llena de ritmo y sutilezas que cada camino que recorra tanto nuestro abogado criminal favorito como muchos de sus personajes de apoyo se nos hara de lo mas interesante, y es que la serie no se conforma con presentarnos caras conocidas como a Saul, Mike, Gustavo o Don Hector si no que contra todo pronostico presenta y desarrolla de forma sublime nuevos personajes y los hace interactuar con los principales para dar ese aire de epicidad a la trama. Ni Walter White ni Jesse Pinkman estan a la vista pero si podemos ver personajes que en el futuro interactuarian con ellos y dandoles un poco mas de detalle a sus historias sin dejar nunca de lado sus posiciones de salida en Breaking Bad.
Para hablar de Better Call Saul es imposible no remitirse a su precuela/secuela Breaking Bad, y es que en ambas series se tiene un profundo respeto por la exposicion en las escenas y la relacion entre personajes, todo era un juego de poder e incluso las mas pequeñas e insignificantes acciones tenian ese aire de control de un personaje sobre otro. Vince Gilligan (Creador, Guionista, Productor y Director de ambas series) sabe jugar especialmente con sus personajes y "guiarlos" por sus respectivos arcos por medio del conflicto muchas veces fisico como demostro en Breaking Bad, pero pienso que en Better Call Saul su creador explora otros conflictos que si bien pueden parecer pasivos, los marca de tal manera y lo llena de escenas tan simbolicas que en un momento me parecio que la historia del abogado Saul Goodman me parecio mucho mas movida.
La serie posee una increible atencion al detalle en cada uno de los planos que nos presentan en sus episodios, son sutiles sin ser del todo complicados de ver aunque si que demandan la total atencion del espectador para un completo entendimiento de la obra porque aca mucho del dialogo y de los sentimientos de los protagonistas tienden a estar ocultos hasta muy adelante en la trama.
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Sutilmente, Saul
La primera temporada no pudo ser mas sorpresiva en el como empezariamos a ver a nuestro abogado, pues en primera instancia vemos un lado bueno del abogado penal Jimmy McGill que es encargado de defender a los que no pueden permitirse pagar un abogado en la corte de Albuquerque, un trabajo que reprime a Jimmy porque es mal pagado y ademas no le permite progresar con sus sueños de tener un buffet de abogados propio, por el otro lado tambien tenemos la introduccion de dos personajes clave en la vida de Jimmy, su hermano Chuck, que aunque se intuye que tiene una enfermedad mental es todo lo opuesto de Jimmy: exitoso, con un buffet del cual es fundador y con un gran prestigio en el mundo de los juzgados y Kim que es algo asi como la amiga/amante de Jimmy y que tambien es abogada en el Buffet de Chuck.
Algo que me gusto es como, similar al Eisenberg de Walter White, nos van poniendo pequeñas pistas de como el alter ego de Jimmy (Saul Goodman) a veces se hace con el control de sus acciones y tenemos, por ejemplo, a Jimmy recibiendo sobornos para luego invertirlos en una estafa que le ayude a captar mas clientes. Es un duelo entre dos conciencias que se va aumentando con cada zancadilla que Jimmy recibe por parte de conocidos y desconocidos y tambien se ve reflejado en el trabajo de produccion de Vince Gilligan y su equipo.
De hecho muchos de los problemas extra judiciales que enfrentara nuestro abogado nos resultaran muy familiares si hemos visto Breaking Bad, tendremos a los carteles jugandose el territorio de las drogas y a Jimmy incluso atrapado en ayudar a un bando o el otro. Muchas de estas Subtramas se van desarrollando despues del primer encuentro accidental con el cartel de los Salamanca y duran a lo largo de la serie, pero es tambien muy interesante como extienden esta trama mucho mas alla con Mike y Gustavo que son nuestros dos personajes secundarios que ocupan muchas veces el papel de los principales.
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El peso de los secundarios
Si bien Better Call Saul enfoca la mayoria de su trama en los personajes que ya conocimos antes, creo que una de las mayores fortalezas de la serie es introducirnos a personajes nuevos como Kim, Nacho, Chuck o Howard y explorarlos de tal manera que se nos haga no solo interesenta sus motivaciones si no que tambien su destino en el futuro, recordando que aunque algunos personajes si mantienen una pequeña reseña en Breaking Bad ninguno de ellos se presenta ni toma relevancia por lo que Vince Gilligan juega mucho con el destino de ellos y los contrapone con Jimmy muchas veces.
El caso de Kim Wexler es uno de estudio, interpretada de manera brillante por Rhea Seehorn nos ofrece una abogada que ha trabajado muy duro para llegar hasta donde esta, pero que no es invulnerable a los atajos que le ofrece Jimmy y va evolucionando poco a poco de la voz de la razon de Saul a ser casi una extension en todas sus estafas. Cada gesto, cada ceja arriba que ofrece Kim nos ofrece un termometro de los estados de animo de Jimmy y tambien un pequeño abrebocas de su transformacion en Saul Goodman.
Sucede algo parecido con Chuck, el hermano de Jimmy parece saber exactamente lo que se esconde detras del "Jimmy abogado defensor del necesitado", y es que nos encontramos con uno de los personajes que mejor le conocen: Directivo de la firma HHM que vendria siendo la misma que dio trabajo a Jimmy en la sala de correos antes de sacar su titulo de Abogado, Chuck nos ofrece una vision mas realista de lo que realmente es Jimmy McGill, alguien impredecible y destinado a siempre encontrar atajos en orden de conseguir sus objetivos. Por desgracia tambien padece una enfermedad extraña que pone en el limite y a depender de su hermano a Chuck, por lo que se da una interesante dinamica entre ellos, Chuck por una parte no queriendo que Jimmy sea un abogado y Jimmy tratando de sabotear a Chuck al mismo tiempo que le entrega lo que necesita para sobrellevar su enfermedad.
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El Cartel, Mike y Gustavo
Better Call Saul a primera vista no pareciera tener ese ritmo acelerado o "urgente" que si tenia Breaking Bad en su momento, tenemos la historia de un abogado que no puede llegar a fin de mes sin meterse en algun problema pero es ahi en donde nos presentan quiza la subtrama mas interesante: Mike contra el cartel, un personaje que desde BB tiene muchos fans se mete en terreno no deseado cuando acepta trabajos del bajo mundo a cambio de dinero para cuidar de su familia, desde ahi se tiñe una historia en donde no solo veremos las caras conocidas del cartel si no otras tan conocidas como Gustavo y Don Hector asi como una variedad de personajes nuevos que va conociendo Mike y que nos pone masen contexto el por que esta en Nuevo Mexico y cual es su pasado.
Gustavo Fring tambien hace una aparicion mas que deseada en la serie continuando con su guerra personal contra los Salamanca y especificamente contra Don Hector, que vendria siendo su objetivo principal asi como el hacerse con todo el imperio de la droga para el solo. Algo realmente interesante es que todas las historias se unen de forma completamente natural pero muy pocas veces llega a pasar que por ejemplo Jimmy trabaje para Mike, y de hecho Jimmy y Gustavo no se encuentran en toda la trama.
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En Resumen
Better Call Saul es una serie que, atento a lo que hizo su predecesora, decide aplicar su propio estilo alcontar historias dinamicas e interesantes sin descuidar su apartado visual y aportando su propia identidad a la mesa, su ritmo se define mucho por sus personajes pero no tengo dudas que la serie cumple con las expectativas y tambien sorprende en algunos apartados, completamente recomendable.
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ENG
Knowing how to play with the elements at its disposal and being astute in how to present them Better Call Saul is presented as one of the best series of the last few years.
Jimmy McGill shows up again
To sum up this review a little bit... If you have seen Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul is for you, it is a prequel so full of rhythm and subtleties that each path that goes both our favorite criminal lawyer and many of his supporting characters will make us the most interesting, and is that the series is not content with introducing familiar faces like Saul, Mike, Gustavo or Don Hector if not against all odds presents and develops sublimely new characters and makes them interact with the main ones to give that air of epicness to the plot. Neither Walter White nor Jesse Pinkman are in sight but we can see characters that in the future would interact with them and giving them a little more detail to their stories without ever leaving aside their starting positions in Breaking Bad.
To talk about Better Call Saul is impossible not to refer to its prequel / sequel Breaking Bad, and is that in both series has a deep respect for the exposure in the scenes and the relationship between characters, everything was a power play and even the smallest and insignificant actions had that air of control of a character over another. Vince Gilligan (Creator, Writer, Producer and Director of both series) knows how to play especially with his characters and "guide" them through their respective arcs by means of the often physical conflict as he demonstrated in Breaking Bad, but I think that in Better Call Saul his creator explores other conflicts that although they may seem passive, he marks them in such a way and fills them with such symbolic scenes that at one point I thought that the story of the lawyer Saul Goodman seemed much more moving.
The series has an incredible attention to detail in each of the shots that we are presented in their episodes, are subtle without being at all complicated to see although they do demand the full attention of the viewer for a complete understanding of the work because here much of the dialogue and the feelings of the protagonists tend to be hidden until very late in the plot.
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Subtly, Saul
The first season could not have been more surprising in how we would begin to see our lawyer, as we first see a good side of criminal lawyer Jimmy McGill who is charged with defending those who can't afford a lawyer in the Albuquerque courthouse, A job that holds Jimmy back because it is poorly paid and also does not allow him to progress with his dreams of having a law firm of his own, on the other hand we also have the introduction of two key characters in Jimmy's life, his brother Chuck, who although it is intuited that he has a mental illness is the opposite of Jimmy: Successful, with a buffet of which he is the founder and with a great prestige in the world of the courts and Kim who is something like Jimmy's friend/lover and who is also a lawyer in Chuck's Buffet.
Something I liked is how, similar to Walter White's Eisenberg, we get little hints of how Jimmy's alter ego (Saul Goodman) sometimes takes control of his actions and we have, for example, Jimmy receiving bribes and then investing them in a scam to help him get more clients. It is a duel between two consciences that increases with each setback Jimmy receives from known and unknown people and it is also reflected in the production work of Vince Gilligan and his team.
In fact many of the extra judicial problems that our lawyer will face will be very familiar to us if we have seen Breaking Bad, we will have the cartels playing the territory of drugs and Jimmy even caught in helping one side or the other. Many of these subplots develop after the first accidental encounter with the Salamanca cartel and last throughout the series, but it is also very interesting how they extend this plot much further with Mike and Gustavo who are our two secondary characters that often play the role of the main ones.
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The weight of the secondary characters
While Better Call Saul focuses most of its plot on the characters we already knew before, I think one of the greatest strengths of the series is to introduce new characters like Kim, Nacho, Chuck or Howard and explore them in such a way that we are not only interested in their motivations but also their fate in the future, remembering that although some characters if they keep a small review in Breaking Bad none of them is presented or takes relevance so Vince Gilligan plays a lot with their fate and contrasts them with Jimmy many times.
The case of Kim Wexler is one of study, played brilliantly by Rhea Seehorn gives us a lawyer who has worked very hard to get to where she is, but is not invulnerable to the shortcuts offered by Jimmy and is gradually evolving from the voice of Saul's reason to be almost an extension in all his scams. Every gesture, every raised eyebrow that Kim offers us a thermometer of Jimmy's moods and also a small glimpse of his transformation into Saul Goodman.
It happens something similar with Chuck, Jimmy's brother seems to know exactly what is hidden behind the "Jimmy lawyer defender of the needy", and we meet one of the characters who know him better: Manager of the firm HHM that would be the same that gave Jimmy a job in the mail room before getting his law degree, Chuck offers us a more realistic vision of what Jimmy McGill really is, someone unpredictable and destined to always find shortcuts in order to achieve his goals. Unfortunately he also suffers from a strange disease that puts Chuck on the edge and dependent on his brother, so there is an interesting dynamic between them, Chuck on the one hand not wanting Jimmy to be a lawyer and Jimmy trying to sabotage Chuck while giving him what he needs to cope with his illness.
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The Cartel, Mike and Gustavo
Better Call Saul at first glance does not seem to have that fast or "urgent" pace that Breaking Bad had at the time, we have the story of a lawyer who can not make ends meet without getting into some trouble but that's where we are presented with perhaps the most interesting subplot: Mike against the cartel, a character that since BB has many fans gets into unwanted territory when he accepts underworld jobs in exchange for money to take care of his family, from there a story where we will not only see the familiar faces of the cartel but others as well known as Gustavo and Don Hector as well as a variety of new characters that Mike is meeting and that puts us more in context why he is in New Mexico and what is his past.
Gustavo Fring also makes a welcome appearance in the series continuing his personal war against the Salamanca's and specifically against Don Hector, which would be his main objective as well as taking over the entire drug empire for himself. Something really interesting is that all the stories come together in a completely natural way but very rarely does it happen that for example Jimmy works for Mike, and in fact Jimmy and Gustavo don't meet in the whole plot.
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In Summary
Better Call Saul is a series that, attentive to what its predecessor did, decides to apply its own style to tell dynamic and interesting stories without neglecting its visual section and bringing its own identity to the table, its rhythm is defined much by its characters but I have no doubt that the series meets the expectations and also surprises in some sections, completely recommended.