Better Call Saul--when Jimmy becomes Saul

Better Call Saul hit a significant story milestone last night. I want to consider a question (with spoilers) after jump: How bad a guy is Saul Goodman and is he qualitatively worse than Jimmy McGill?

Better Call Saul tells the story of how Jimmy "becomes" Saul, the "criminal lawyer" of Breaking Bad. Two strands make the story. The first is that Kim Wexler, the love of Jimmy's life, grounds him and keeps him from losing himself in his alter-ego. In mathematical terms, Jimmy-Kim=Saul. The second is that Saul Goodman represents a difference in kind, not degree, from Jimmy McGill. Jimmy is a fundamentally decent person and lawyer, committed to his clients and to doing justice; while he crosses ethical and legal lines, it is in service of a higher ideal and he always comes back around. Saul Goodman, by contrast, is an immoral, unethical criminal, engaging in all manner of wrongful conduct and out only for himself.

The story reached its point of no-return last night. Kim leaves Jimmy, wracked with guilt over the human costs of their scheme. The last seven minutes time-jumps some period for a montage of a Day-in-the-Life of Saul Goodman--he wakes up in a garish mansion next to a sex worker; has a horrible comb-over; wears loud suits; offers his companion a cereal bar on her way out the door; drives his Cadillac with LWYRUP plate; decorates the office with columns and the Constitution and an inflatable Statue of Liberty on the roof; and is fast-talking on the phone at all times. The idea--in reviews and interviews with show-runners--is that Kim bailed because she lacked Jimmy's complete moral flexibility, while Jimmy could compartmentalize and embrace his immorality, as Saul.

This story requires that Saul Goodman is truly worse than Jimmy McGill--that Saul exceeds the typical low-rung, fast-talking, as-seen-on-TV lawyer into outright criminality. Saul did illegal stuff on BB--arranging meth sales, money laundering. But we have watched Jimmy do illegal stuff on BCS. The story tells us that Saul is worse than Jimmy; the seven-minute montage is supposed to show us he is. But to my ear, they have not done it. Style aside, Saul in these seven minutes does not lawyer any differently than Jimmy.

Here is the substance of the phone snippets we hear from Saul:

    • Hard-ball negotiation in some type of PI case, emphasizing that soft-tissue damage gets his client paid regardless of X-rays and that it is better for the defendant to pay now or "bleed to death" in court.

    • Extended conversation with his secretary who updates him on new stuff. Here is Saul's side:

        • Something about telling his "my Zanex guy" "yes and today." It could be that he is representing someone charged with selling Zanex or it could be about getting drugs illegally; hard to say.

        • A new client charged with public masturbation; the joke is that Saul has multiple clients charged with that.

        • Ambulance-chasing to represent victims in a bus accident, obtaining victim names by leaning on a hospital employee he had represented on a DUI and planning a dramatic photo-op and media statement to try the case in public.

        • Scheduling matters for court for his convenience.

        • Listening to, and complaining about the sound quality of, a "Better Call Saul" radio spot. The ad is purely PI--insurance companies that will not pay for accident repairs, defrauded by brother-in-law, surgery gone wrong. He wants to stop the check for the spot and threaten the station with a lawsuit, preparing to stand for freedom of speech.

The montage and episode ends with Saul walking through a packed waiting room and into his office, then calling his secretary to send in the next client with "let justice be done, though the heavens fall."

This did not show us the so-called criminal lawyer. It showed an (exaggerated) version of the fast-talking smarmy, mostly-PI lawyer we have watched for six seasons.

My point, I think, is that, reviews and interviews are insisting on a premature conclusion. We have not reached the story's endpoint--fundamentally decent Jimmy has not become irredeemable Saul. The show has four more episodes, at least one featuring Walter White and Jesse Pinkman and likely showing further interactions between Saul and Gus' meth operations. My guess is some of these final episodes will show genuine Saul wrongdoing, something Jimmy did not and would not do. We are not (yet) there.