Sometimes in life you do everything you have to to finally get a taste of success, especially when it comes to Jimmy McGill. Yes, last night on Better Call Saul ambition was front and center as my new favorite television lawyer launched one of the funniest schemes I've seen in a long time, so let's get right down to recapping "Hero".

This was another episode where we learned more about Jimmy's past as the episode opened with an elaborate scam to swipe cash from drunks who thought they were getting their hands on a real Rolex watch. It worked like a charm and we also in a magical way learned the origin of the name Saul Goodman. While it may have seemed like a simple cold open, there was a method to this storytelling madness, because it sent home the point that when he puts his mind to it, Jimmy is a genius at pulling off an elaborate scam. 

Flash forward to picking up where we left off last week, with Saul standing before the Kettleman's as he tries to coerce them to return to civilization and put an end to this whole kidnapping mess. They agree, but they need to keep the money a secret, and of course offer up a chunk of their savings from the state to keep their guilt as quiet as possible. Saul instead tries to turn the money into a retainer fee to finally wrest the Kettleman's away from Howard Hamlin's firm, but they refuse, telling Saul that he is the kind of lawyer that only the guilty hire.  

Faced with this, Saul takes the cash, deciding to use it to build the foundation for his future, and stick it to Hamlin in amazing fashion. In essence, he replicates an advertisement for Hamlin's firm on a giant billboard with his own name, one that is quickly ordered to be taken down. It seems like the odds are against Jimmy once again as he tries to get someone to cover this, as he puts it "David and Goliath" story, but he can only get his hands on a student camera crew to tell his tale. But as luck would have it, the man pulling down the billboard nearly falls off the scaffolding and Jimmy is there to save him...just as planned. It gets him the attention he desires, and at last a few clients. It may tick off his older brother, but either way, Jimmy McGill may finally be in business. 

One has to wonder what kind of man Jimmy would have turned out to be if he used his powers for good, and not evil if you will. But let's be honest, what fun would that be? With this amazingly hair-brained, over the top scheme that ends up working, Jimmy is doing his best to find clients and well...good guy or not I have to say I'm pretty freaking impressed with how far the man will go to get his business rolling. And once again, we see that taste of the dark side coming with him taking the bribe from the Kettleman's. In fact it is now 100% clear to me that the only thing keeping Jimmy from completely becoming the Saul Goodman we know he will one day become is his brother. It's a beautiful thing to see his moral struggle from this, but it makes me wonder how long before something finally breaks Jimmy down to the point where he begins his journey down his darker path and looking at next week's preview, it may not be that far off. Until next time.  

In one word, I have to say YES.  Year after year, there are new award shows popping up and they still all bring the same message that we, as fans do not know what a good movie is.  I will admit, I take pleasure in watching B movies as people put it, but these are much more entertaining that what gets nominated by the Academy.  Now, am I upset that there are movies I have not seen, nor heard of getting awards?  Damn skippy and I know that I am not the only one.

If you have a movie that only caters to one type of person, it does not make it bad for them, but shame on the Academy for thinking that everyone else should see it.  It has been ages since an actual blockbuster movie has been nominated for a best picture, much less been a winner.  This is one of my biggest gripes about the award shows these days, since every film is broken down in forty different ways and only the finest, according to a group of six thousand people who have actually seen the film get their final say. 

It has been going on for over eighty years and the group continues to give the highest marks to films that end up losing money because nobody has seen them.  This is what needs to change in my opinion, the films that should be up for best picture should be the movies that grossed the highest amount, since that is what the people want to see.  I do not understand why we as fans even care about what the committee says, since we have already spoken by paying our thirteen dollars to see the movie in the theater, or paid twenty dollars to get the DVD.

A change needs to be made to how the movies are selected since most of these would be considered B movies due to their lack of revenue.  There are great movies out there that people never see, I agree with that since not every studio or production house is able to advertise to the world, but I do not understand why one singular group is in charge of telling the world what the best movie is, that nobody has ever seen.  I know that when a movie gets a nomination for best picture, it starts to trend up in sales or rentals so people can see what the committee has seen, but that is a cheat to get the overall gross for the film into the black.

Our lives revolve around numbers, I hate to say it, but they really do and this is the way that the movie industry should be moving as well.  The Golden Globes have been successful in adapting over the years but honestly, the only movie award show that seems to make sense these days is the MTV Movie Awards.  This is based on what the fans have seen and liked over the year, and you are guaranteed to have seen at least one of the movies over the year, but have heard of all of them.  I will never try to take away what the Oscar means to all of the people that have won it in the past, but I will say that we are in 2015 now and the same rating system that the Academy has used for the past eighty years is out of date and they need to come into the 21st century already.

Well, it only took three whole episodes, but I am completely sold and hooked on the wonder that is Better Call Saul. In fact I think it's safe to say now, especially after last night's episode "Nacho", that Jimmy McGill is by far the most complex character on television and I think that's what has sucked me in when it comes to this show. 

We learned so much about the man last night, courtesy of the opening flashback where we discover that Jimmy has one hell of a criminal past, one that almost sent him to jail for a very long time had it not been for Chuck taking the time to not only get him off the hook for his crimes, but to make Jimmy promise to finally go straight. Such an action explains Jimmy's guilt as he takes the time to ponder over Nacho's offer to give him a cut of the Kellerman's embezzled money once Nacho finds and swipes the cash.

It leads Jimmy to not only make a call to Kim in the middle of the night expressing his concerns for the Kellermans safety, but it also leads to an impromptu phone call to the Kellermans as well, and it leads to the worst case scenario. The family goes missing, and even Jimmy's first thought is Nacho as he takes the time to call Nacho in a panic, leading to his arrest since it turns out the cops have Nacho in custody as the prime suspect and were looking for known associates, and instead found his lawyer. 

Nacho explains how he didn't commit the crime, but the police found blood in the back of his van. Blood that belongs to the two skater crooks that Jimmy employed not too long ago. Nacho gives Jimmy the ultimatum to either get him out of jail, or see his life come to an end and that's when the show really gets interesting. Jimmy suddenly realizes that the Kellermans "kidnapped" themselves, making it look like something bad happened to throw everyone off the trail. Of course it turns out, Jimmy is 100% right, since in order to save his life, he hunts down and finds the Kellerman's on a "camping" trip a couple of hours away from their house, and in addition to their family, they brought all the money that Craig Kellerman stole from the state.


Simply put, this was a genius episode that showed off just how talented Bob Odenkirk really is as an actor. He showed off an incredible depth and range last night that I had never seen from him before. From the opening moments as criminal Jimmy, to the man he is at this point in the episode, it's obvious that Jimmy McGill is a man torn between two worlds. He knows how easy it would be to return to a criminal lifestyle, but he wants so badly to do right by his brother and walk the right path. It's a wonderful duality for the character and it made for an amazing hour of television. There's no way I'm missing an episode of this gem of a show and I'll be waiting impatiently to see what happens next. Until then...

I have a confession to make, I have yet to watch Breaking Bad. I know. I've committed a television foul and shamed myself all at the same time, but I can assure you that it is a show that is on my Netflix queue, especially now that I have managed to sit down and enjoy the beginning of the prequel/spinoff, Better Call Saul. 

In fact it may be a good thing that I've had the opportunity to see Saul without having enjoyed Bad first simply because I'm coming to everything with a fresh set of eyes, and quite frankly the first thing that attracted me to this show is that I am a huge Bob Odenkirk fan, and so far, after only being two episodes in, I'm hooked on the character and the concept. 

Now I know enough to know that Jimmy McGill will later become sleazy lawyer Saul Goodman, but who doesn't love a good origin story and that's exactly what this week's Series Premiere fiesta brought to us, along with hints of the future, beyond Breaking Bad with a sorrowful cold open in the first episode showing that someday Jimmy will become Gene, mild mannered manager of a mall based Cinnabon somewhere in Nebraska who pines for the glory days when his life was all about the law. In fact what I gathered from watching these first two episodes is that Jimmy's story is nothing more than a grand American tragedy about a guy who wanted to do right, and could only do wrong to succeed.

This is evident from his early work as a public defender, which by the way includes one of the most hilarious defenses of three guilty parties that I have ever seen on television, but I digress. With his inability to land new clients, and his constant work to stay true to the law and his mentally ill older brother, you instantly feel for the guy, especially due to the fact that when Jimmy lets loose with the lawyer talk, he is genuinely talented, he simply cannot catch a break. But its obvious that unsavory deals are the future to Jimmy's career and his hair brained scheme to rip off a potential client who burned him has clearly begun to lead him down that path with Tuco's associate, Nacho, coming to him to figure out how to finish the scam on the Kettleman's.  

Either way, I'm loving this show. I love the look and the feel of it. Love the healthy mix of comedy that comes with it and I'm quite looking forward to the evolution of Jimmy McGill into Saul Goodman because this man's fall from grace is already obsessively fascinating. If anything I think watching this show first before I finally dig into the iconic bag that is Breaking Bad will only enhance my experience when I see everything slowly come together. But either way, I'll be front and center to see Jimmy in action on AMC on Monday nights. Until next time...