Season Two of Better Call Saul starts with Jimmy McGill being tempted to quit the law and then becoming an associate who will be a partner of a large Albuquerque law firm, Davis and Main. Mike’s story begins with him, being fired by Daniel “Pryce” Wormald, a man who sells pharmaceutical equipment to Ignacio Varga (Nacho) a member of the Salamanca gang. Without Mike’s backup, Nacho robs Pryce, and when Pryce involves the police, Mike is afraid of going down with him. Mike confronts Varga, and threatens to tip off Tuco, if Pyrce’s baseball cards aren’t returned. Pryce has to sell his Hummer to withdraw the attention of the police from himself, Mike and Nacho.
Season Two deals further with the rivalry between the two brothers, Charles and Jimmy McGill, and the depth of the animosity that Charles has for Jimmy is deeper then him, believing that Jimmy is unfit to practise law. Several episodes of season two have prologues which delve deeper into the past history of the two men, while Charles is a more successful and respected practitioner of the law then Jimmy, Charles is jealous of Jimmy’s ease with people and especially, the relationship with their parents.
Jimmy is not suited to life as a senior associate at a law firm, and resents the lack of independence of action, he can do with Davis and Main. He becomes such a horrible person to work with that he eventually gets fired from his job and goes back to solo practise. Kim Wexler, Jimmy’s love interest and the person who recommended him to Davis and Main gets in trouble with HHM for Jimmy’s actions at Davis and Main. Kim eventually quit HHM and set up her own legal practise. Both Jimmy and Kim come to a deal where they run two solo legal practises in the same building and agree to split business expenses.
In her final days at HHM, Kim through contact with a former classmate from her law degree, brings in a new client for the firm, a medium sized bank. She gets no credit for it, and it is this action that eventually forces her to quit.
The rivalry between the McGill culminates with a move by Jimmy to sabotage Chuck’s reputation as a lawyer by forging all the documents of the expansion of the bank by mixing up the address on the files. HHM lose the client to Kim, and Charles is furious about this turn of events. He goes all in on trying to get Jimmy on record.
The end of the series, Charles has Jimmy on record about the sabotage of his reputation on his tape recorder. Although it’s hard to know at the end of the series what he can do with this, as a tape recorder isn’t a great way to prove on the record and the bank will never use HHM again.
Differences between Season Two of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are:
- Season Two of Breaking Bad deals with Walt and Jesse still trying to expand their drug business. The expansion of the business had consequences, including the death of one of Jesse’s friends Combo. Walter eventually has to agree to go into business with a gang that has a massive distribution network led by Gustavo Fring. Fring’s money laundering business Los Pollos Hermandos is a fast food, with branches all over the South West of the United States. In Better Call Saul, Jimmy for most of the series leaves the world of solo practitioner and becomes a high ranking associate of a big law firm, but eventually forces his way out, becoming a solo practitioner again.
- Body Count: Season Two of Breaking Bad has the biggest body count with over one hundred killed as a direct/indirect result of Walter White’s actions. These include Tuco Salamanca, Combo, Jane Margolis, and a double plane as a result of the stress put on Jane’s father who was an air traffic controller. Better Call Saul’s body includes an assault on Mike by Tuco Salamanca, and two murders by the Salamancas. Mike by the end of the season has a chance to kill the Salamanca gang, but on a cliff hanger at the end is warned not to.
The second season of Better Call Saul is more conflict driven then the first season, with both Jimmy McGill and Mike Ehramtraut managing to get into strife that was set up in the later episodes of season one. Jimmy has a sibling rivalry with older brother, Charles, after finding out that it was him that was keeping him out of his partnership. Mike does black market jobs, where he meets Nacho, who is running his own side deals, and is trying to get rid of his supervisor Tuco. Mike’s scheme to put Tucho in jail works, but that brings conflict with the rest of the Salamancas. The Salamancas intimidate Mike, into retracting his statement to his police.
The Salamancas threatening the live of his granddaughter is unforgiveable to Mike, and Mike is now an enemy of the gang. Mike has a shot on the gang, but in a cliff hanger ending, someone has convinced him not to.
Is Better Call Saul worth a watch? Yes very much so. The show gets deeper with the conflicts in the overall story have been set up. The legal drama with Jimmy and Kim against HHM, and the crime drama with Mike and Nacho against the Salamanca gang. Over to Season Three. Five Stars.
Ferdia O' Mahony 