It introduces both plot holes, undermines characters, and makes the world feel smaller.
Plot holes – in one of the earlier seasons, Mike pulls off a plan to get Tuco incarcerated by provoking him into beating him up in front of cops. The Salamancas, thinking he’s just an innocent old man who got on the wrong side of their hothead scion, attempt to bribe him to into not testifying.
That’s fine as a standalone plot, but by Breaking Bad he is an established player the Salamancas definitely know as Gus’s right hand man. So retroactively this doesn’t make any sense. Do they just accept it was a coincidence that Tuco ran into him and ended getting put in jail as a result?
More seriously, later in the series Hector becomes fully aware of Gus’s treachery against the cartel. He’s aware Gus kills Lalo. In Breaking Bad it’s shown he is still active and communicating, as he does with Tuco and the Cousins. They are also fully aware that while he is physically crippled, he is completely cogent and still take his words seriously. So this would imply in the years between the two series, he just kind of lets everything he learned in Better Call Saul go and never makes his family do anything about it.
Undermines characters – in Breaking Bad, Saul is the conduit through the protagonists to access all kinds of underworld actors they otherwise couldn’t, because he has built up a huge network of contacts and associates through a long illicit career. In no particular order, Saul is the conduit through which they access
- the guy who takes the fall for others professionally
- the gun dealer
- Gus
- the disappearer
- the second-story exterminator gang
He’s basically a concierge of crime. It makes him a cool character.
In Better Call Saul, the timeline puts it at him having been doing this for about four years (the main plot ends with Kim leaving him in 2004, Breaking Bad starts in 2008). His huge and impressive network of criminal contacts is implied to be mostly inherited from obtaining ownership of the vet’s notebook. This makes him so much lamer.
Makes the world feel smaller – In Breaking Bad, it’s clear that there’s a lot going on beneath and apart from the main narrative. Who are Nacho and Lalo? Why is Saul so afraid of them? What went down that drove Mike out of the Philadelphia PD? In Better Call Saul, we find out and it’s … fine.
Also it turns out that Saul and Mike have repeatedly run into Tuco in completely independent contexts before Jesse and Walt do. Apparently Albuquerque isn’t that big.
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Mike didnt work for Gus yet in Better Call Saul, im confused how thats a plothole.
If you look at any TV series or movie with a microscope you’ll find plot holes. Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul is no exception.
What went down that drove Mike out of Philly? Did you even watch the show?
Hector tells Don Eladio of all his suspicions about Gus including killing Lalo but Eladio doesn’t believe him. Cartels usually don’t take kindly to insubordination had they killed an important business partner.
Plot holes aside I thought Better Call Saul had some good moments but overall was pretty disappointing.
While I don’t really get the first one, and I disagree with the second, I’m with you on the third point.
I call it Star Wars Lore syndrome, where nothing can ever just be a line and be left as a mystery, every single little detail and character has to get their own lore page and explanation.
I’m glad that I don’t obsess over television so much to cook all this shit up
Heres mine… Better Call Saul is boring and Saul is not a good show carrier. El Camino was absolute dogshit and never should have been made.
They struck gold with Bryan Cranston as Walter White, and Breaking Bad was original and the writing was in many ways pure genius, but everything else in that universe is either subpar TV or downright terrible.
Oh yeah, I forgot that it’s opposite day
They literally show the scene where Hector tells Eladio that it was Gus who killed Lalo and Eladio doesn’t believe him because all the evidence point to him just trying to off the man he’s always hated.
There are plot holes in pretty much every show, including these two, but pretty much every question you asked can be answered. In fact some directly influence main plot points lol.
Considering it’s got a 98% rotten tomatoes score and a 9/10 imdb rating yeah I would agree this opinion is unpopular lol.
I live in Albuquerque and it’s unironically not that big lol
“I know a guy who knows a guy”
Was a reference to the black book he bought from the doctor.
I think you’re confused about the plot timeline. Mike wasn’t working for Gus when he first ran into the Salamancas.
By the time Mike was working for the Gus everyone was dead who knew he worked for Gus.
There were always fans in the Breaking Bad subreddit while that series was ongoing who didn’t seem to understand many of the major themes and had very little empathy for characters outside of Walt. They’re the same people declaring BCS as a better show.
Absolutely incorrect and brainrotted take
I don’t agree with all these plot holes but in the end this is the curse of the prequel. You’re writing to known ending and it just makes a less interesting story overall
This is a very funny post because the issue here is easily solvable by not watching Better Call Saul.
Honestly, I didn’t think of these of course and I’m not going to. I think it makes both shows way better, and if I have to tune out a few plot holes, I couldn’t care less. The fact that they were able to weave them together at all is remarkable, and also do it with such a different tone, light and humorous for the most part, is amazing.
1.) Mike and Tuco never meet and Tuco too busy with Salamanca’s declining influence in new Mexico to declare war on his transporter over a person he beat up a year ago that he’s never met ever again and doesn’t know is working with Gus. Remember he was going to be out of prison in like a month in the show but then he shived a guy in prison so he got stuck in prison for the rest of the show so he prob doesn’t even blame Mike for going to prison for that long.
2.) They showed a scene directly confronting this where Bola dismisses the claims as Hector trying to blame his hated rival. After all why would they be suspicious of Gus after Nacho confessed to killing Lalo and destroying their operations
3.) Sure but that’s what happens when you explore the universe and those scenes with Mike were peak so I don’t really care. It took Mike from a side character to a main one which was the point of the show. Plus I never got that kinda vibe of the universe being deeper and interconnected like John wick.
I agree with your overall point although I’m not sure if I agree with your smaller points.
For me, the character of Mike suffers the most. In Breaking Bad, he’s an old vet who knows everything. Knows how to be a PI, has endless amount of man power to grab,is knowledgeable in the underworld so on and so on.
In Better Call Saul, we meet him fresh out of Philly and when he starts working with Gus he can somehow already get all these criminals that can be counted on to guard Gus when he’s hiding from Lalo. That never made sense to me. Yes, he was a crooked cop in Philly; how does that translate into him having the capabilities of being head of security for Gus with an endless amount of resources/people/know how? Being a crooked cop doesn’t necessarily mean you’d learn all the things he needs to learn to be the head security of a drug cartel. On top of that, even if he did, they’d be based out in Philly and not NM where he had just moved to in the beginning of BCS.
Am I making sense?
Better Call Saul is so funny because it’s such a mid show but its fans are so rabidly defensive of it.
I think they’re extra confident bc they’re wearing the armor of Breaking Bad’s legacy + good reviews. Such a silly show and fan base though