The leisurely pace of Better Call Saul’s first season no doubt drove away some hoping for a retro Breaking Bad, and the start of season 2 will do nothing to bring said viewers back. Much of the first two hours centers on a ludicrously petty theft case requiring the attention of part-time gate attendant, part-time muscle Mike (Jonathan Banks, his delivery still more withering than the desert heat, and twice as dry). But this is a show that breathes dead air, so it’s no surprise that veteran Bad writers Thomas Schnauz and Gennifer Hutchinson mine a lot of comedy and pathos out of relatively little dialogue and plot.
The inspired playfulness with which the series undercuts its modest scale of wealth and crime still works like gangbusters. The specific vision of the early ‘00s being crafted enhances the feeling that everyone is waiting around for something better to come along. Better Call Saul’s setting does have something of an escapist quality, though. It provides the comfort of knowing that the storytelling won’t ever be ripped from the headlines, or need to address today’s political or technological climate directly. It’s with a light touch – a particularly embarrassing product of the day here, an off-hand reference to a failed Chris Kattan vehicle there – that the show pokes fun at the nascent decade, while also furthering a continuity of middle class uncertainty that stretches through to Breaking Bad, and into the present.
As before, it’s Better Call Saul’s sense of humor that acts as a balm to the underlying frustration. Hutchinson gives a scene to Odenkirk in the second episode that’s catnip for comedians, a slow tease game of keep away that crescendos with hilarious absurdist filth. This, like a lot of the humor, plays right into Odenkirk’s specialty blend of deadpan and charm as a comic actor. But it’s in the quieter, patient moments that Odenkirk frequently justifies Better Call Saul’s existence. The most welcome decision season 2 makes is to put more focus on Kim Wexler, who spent a lot of season 1 just acting as Jimmy’s conscience. Rhea Seehorn made the most of it at the time, and continues to shine as she and Odenkirk expand the emotional range of Better Call Saul into promising new territory.
As with Breaking Bad’s second season, we get a glimpse of what the future has in store for James McGill, just like in the pilot episode of Better Call Saul. It’s another artful dose of melancholy that Gilligan and Gould occasionally call back to through the first two episodes of season 2, like a suspicious cough that just won’t go away.
Given his pop culture savvy, Jimmy could probably remember and relate to James Caan’s title character from 1981’s Thief, a man who fell behind on life, and now has to catch-up doing what he calls a “magic act.” Watching Jimmy work his own brand of magic, as performed with this cast, written by these writers, and directed with such distinction, still makes Better Call Saul alternately captivating and gleefully entertaining. But the act is a little sadder this time. We’re never allowed to forget that Jimmy’s ultimate calling is as an escape artist.
