'Better Call Saul': Your Spoiler-Free Review of the 'Breaking Bad' Spinoff

Bob Odenkirk as Saul Goodman in 'Better Call Saul'
Bob Odenkirk as Saul Goodman in 'Better Call Saul'

Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan had one crucial goal to achieve with AMC's new series Better Call Saul, premiering Feb. 8. He had to make Bob Odenkirk's Saul Goodman someone to root for, someone with a more complex emotional life than the manic money-grubber we came to love as comic relief in Breaking Bad.

Judging from the first two episodes of Better Call Saul that I've watched (the second airs Feb.9), Gilligan has succeeded. Set six years before we met him in Bad, Saul Goodman is at this point called Jimmy McGill, a down-at-heels lawyer chasing whatever cases he can get. If you're looking for Walter White, forget it — so far, a fine glimpse of Jonathan Banks's Mike Ehrmantrout is all you're going to get for your Bad fix, but you knew damn well Bryan Cranston wasn't going to sign on for a spinoff, right?

Related: 'Better Call Saul': It's Not 'Breaking Bad,' Ok?

And thank goodness for that. Because Better Call Saul has its own tone — it's a different, unique creation. The first episode, written by Gilligan and Peter Gould and directed by Gilligan, sets up Odenkirk's Jimmy as a guy who can't catch a break, who's actually trying to do right by his clients (sometimes) and his family, including his brother — played by Michael McKean with a finely controlled despair. (I should also say the show is, overall, terrifically cast, right down to a small role played by Mirian Colon — Al Pacino's mother in Scarface, which you may recall was kind of a Breaking Bad inspiration.)

Odenkirk is wonderful. He's playing this character, whom we think we know from the previous series, as a little younger, a little more earnest, less cynical. He's neither a dummy nor a wiseguy. Saul is yet to come; as Jimmy McGill, what he primarily wants, he says at one point is "not to starve to death."

Related: Rainn Wilson Interviews 'Better Call Saul' Star Bob Odenkirk

The second episode, directed by Bad vet Michelle McLaren, contains a marvelously paced montage of the small-time courtroom cases Jimmy takes on. The segment accomplishes a lot: It makes you realize how hard Jimmy is working, how inventive he is in his lawyerly defenses, and how difficult it is for a man to behave decently when pressed for time and money.

I'll have a more plot-detailed review when Better Call Saul premieres next month, but for now, I hope you'll keep an open mind, and tune in to the different rhythm of this new show, and the journey it sends Bob Odenkirk on.

Better Call Saul premieres Sunday, Feb. 8 at 10 p.m. on AMC.