Samuel Brace with three hopes for Better Call Saul season 4…
After a wait that’s been longer than we have come to expect between seasons, season four of Better Call Saul is almost upon us, arriving on AMC and Netflix in the coming week. Better Call Saul has been a remarkable achievement, not only has it not disappointed as the spinoff series of Breaking Bad – one of the consensus greatest shows of all time – but it has even been able to match that masterpiece in a number of areas. Much like its predecessor, Better Call Saul has improved with every season, the drama and tension ratcheted up a notch each time we visit Jimmy, Kim, Chuck, Mike, and all of our other favourite Albuquerque inhabitants. There’s no question that Better Call Saul has cemented itself as one of the greatest shows currently on TV but can Vince Gilligan, Peter Gould, and the rest of team behind the series keep up the momentum? Can Better Call Saul continue to get better still? If it can, season four is going to be a staggering achievement. Here’s hoping. But in terms of specifics, what can we expect from the season to come? This writer has a few hopes for the episodes ahead of us, so let’s not delay the matter any further and jump into three hopes for Better Call Saul season four.
Chuck is Jimmy’s final breaking point
It seems only right and proper that we start of our hopes for season four with the long waited for final and complete transmutation of Jimmy McGill into Saul Goodman. Of course, the transformation of Jimmy into his utterly repugnant alter-ego has been a gradual process and season three was a big step in that progression, but we are not quite there yet, we are not quite to the point where Jimmy has severed all ties and is defending out and out criminals from his tacky strip mall office in Breaking Bad. This is, of course, coming and it seems to me that it will be coming very soon. Hopefully, the death of Chuck in last year’s finale and those awful words spoken to Jimmy before his older brother’s death will be the last straw for the younger McGill, and that this will be the moment when he finally gives in and becomes the person his brother always suspected him to be. It’s certainly tragic but it needs to happen, all the pieces are in place for this wish to manifest itself into Better Call Saul’s reality.
Nacho and Jimmy’s relationship deepens
Assuming the above wish comes to fruition and season four does see our pathetic but still somehow sympathetic hero become Saul Goodman once and for all, we need to see his relationship with Nacho develop considerably. Nacho’s presence in seasons 1-2 was sadly diminished but season three was unquestionably his coming out party, with Nacho proving to be one of the show’s most dynamic and watchable characters (thanks largely to a magnetic performance from Michael Mando). Nacho’s prominent place in proceedings needs to continue in season four, especially as the celerity of Jimmy’s descent into the criminal underworld gathers further momentum. Nacho would be a wonderful link between Jimmy and Albuquerque’s criminal underbelly, not only can Nacho introduce Jimmy to all sorts of nefarious individuals to help put our hero in danger, but the chemistry witnessed between the two in the early stages of season one was of such a degree that it would the biggest of shames if we did not see far more of them on screen together very soon.
Things only get darker for Kim
Last of all, season four, it appears to me, needs to see things become desperately morose indeed for the lovely Kim. Season three has certainly put us in a position to witness some very dark times for the show’s heroine. Quite clearly, her relationship with Jimmy is one that could very literally be the death of her – although, I’d argue events don’t need to go that far to provide the desired dramatic effect. Season three left Kim in a sorry state of affairs to say the least, she has compromised herself and her values time and time again for Jimmy and now she even bears the scars of someone who is so closely linked to a future Saul Goodman. One can see things spiraling downward from here on out and I believe this to be key to Better Call Saul’s emotional resonance going forward – especially now that Chuck has departed. Lest we forget, the Saul of Breaking Bad is a despicable piece of human debris, a man whose first solution to an issue has been murder; therefore, certain events need to occur in order to bring Jimmy to such a hellish internal landscape of moral bankruptcy. What the specific set of circumstances could be is fun to speculate on, the show has so many options at its deposal, but I am firmly of the opinion that a dark and tragic future for Kim is the key to Jimmy not just becoming Saul but transmuting into the cold and ugly human being we first met along with Walter White in Breaking Bad. It will be insuperably sad but it will surely be phenomenal TV.
Samuel Brace
