BETTER CALL SAUL.

• Author: Britschgi, Christian
• Position: TV - Television program review - Brief article

The latest season of Better Call Saul (AMC's prequel to its beloved Breaking Bad) opens with the aftermath of a main character's death--an end that, only the audience knows for sure was a suicide. It's a grim but fitting return for a show that has always been about characters struggling, and usually failing to great dramatic effect, to contain subterranean self-destructive impulses.

That includes protagonist Jimmy McGill, well on his way to becoming the silver-tongued lawyer Saul Goodman whom viewers know and love. Once a slightly slimy but essentially well-intentioned attorney, Jimmy in season four is increasingly cynical and uncaring, shell-shocked by a major loss, and tempted by petty, purposeless criminal schemes. His legal and romantic partner Kim Drexel also returns to her old habits of dangerous overwork in an attempt to escape...