What is Better Call Saul’s Meaning?
The central theme: Bad actions, no matter how big or small, will grow bigger, more harmful, and affect more people over time. If the person committing them does not hold themselves accountable to a certain extent, everyone around them becomes vulnerable.
This article is commentary and images fall under fair trade use.
Article has been updated after watching the series finale*
This is why holding oneself accountable to a predominantly good moral compass is so important.
Similar to the ending of True Detective season one in which Rust Cohle and Marty Hart talk about the stars in the night sky. Marty asks Rust about the stories he used to make up as a kid about the stars. Rust responds, “I tell you Marty. I’ve been up in that room looking out those windows every night here just thinking… It's just one story. The oldest… light versus dark.”
Light versus dark. Good versus bad. In Better Call Saul, a similar theme is being explored and it is subtly emphasized in the finale of the show.
Saul says in reference to his 86-year sentencing in prison, “86 years. But, with good behavior, who knows?”
Better Call Saul deals with good behavior vs bad behavior. Similar to the premise of Breaking Bad. What happens when someone decides to succumb to their most selfish intuitions and act on them despite the repercussions on those around them.
The Odds Were Stacked Against This
In addition, Better Call Saul has beaten the odds. In my opinion, prequels are always going to be connected and compared to their originals. This inherently sets the odds against them because the bar in some ways is set too high to live up to.
Better Call Saul has managed to create an original story that both enriches the meaning found in its predecessor Breaking Bad and stands alone as one of the greatest shows of all time.
I realize that Better Call Saul benefits from the intrigue that comes with its connection to Breaking Bad. This is not a knock on Better Call Saul’s merits but an earned benefit.
When the show came out I never once considered the possibility of it being as good as Breaking Bad.
At the time Breaking Bad had already cemented itself in the top 3 shows of all time with Sopranos and the Wire. The built-in intrigue from Breaking Bad pretty much guaranteed people would give it a chance, therefore giving it much more leeway to develop because there is already a trust established with its creators.
In general, I speculate that most prequels don’t do well for an endless amount of reasons. Sometimes it seems they are just cash grabs, leaching onto the success of their original. But I also speculate that people find it hard to get attached to a prequel because they know where the story is going.
When the show was announced we already knew Saul wouldn’t die because he lives through the entirety of the Breaking Bad series. Same with Gus and Mike - we knew their fates.
This is the success of Better Call Saul: it created new stakes and added more stakes to Breaking Bad. I am currently days away from the series finale and I feel like both shows have now merged and we are moving both storylines forward in a way that has real implications to the Breaking Bad storyline.
Related Reading: 3 Hard to Watch Shows that are Worth It: Barry, Under the Banner of Heaven & Better Call Saul