Breaking Bad or BCS?

For fans of seriality there has been a question for a few weeks now that has become an obsession.
Is Better Call Saul better than Breaking Bad?
I know that in times of Covid-19 and quarantine this is not the main question you're all thinking about, but trust me for those who have viscerally loved Breaking Bad and for those who have seen thousands of hours of TV series this is a question that shifts the balance and does not make you sleep at night.
It's a bit like being told that there is a stronger footballer than Maradona, or a rock band that has surpassed Pink Floyd, or a more pacifist than Ghandi.

Would you jump out of your chair?
That's what it feels like today when 1, 10, 100, 1000 people say or write that Better Call Saul is better than Breaking Bad.
With one difference from the examples above.
It's like telling you that the strongest footballer in Maradona is his son, that the best rock band in Pin Floyd is Syd Barret's cousin, Roger Waters' son and Gilmoure's nephew, and that the most pacifist man on earth is Gandhi's brother.
Yes, because Better Call Saul is the spinoff of Breaking Bad.
And that's not all.
It's signed by the same author: Vince Gilligan.
Among the thousands of TV series produced in recent years, what were the chances that the only one who could approach the unapproachable Breaking Bad was his spinoff?

♪ Unbelievable stuff!
Unbelievable until you watch Better Call Saul.
Only when you've finished watching it will you believe it.
You got it.
It's not so much putting one ahead of the other in the personal rankings, but knowing they're in the same category, the same exclusive club, the same subject matter dreams are made of.
Because probably Breaking Bad was and remains unparalleled overall, but perhaps Better Call Saul is better than Breaking Bad in a relative sense.
Better Call Saul was harder to write, to get the audience to accept.
Breaking Bad was a first work. Like any debut work, it had the chance to amaze, to be seen as the new one that advances, to be judged as you would judge a written work, signed by an unknown author.
At the end of Breaking Bad, Vince Gilligan was considered a genius and Breaking Bad the most beautiful TV series ever, both by the public and the critics.
Writing a new TV series and doing it with a spinoff from the TV series that allowed you to be "seen" as the new genius of world seriality was a brave, almost insane choice.
Because Better Call Saul would have been seen and judged by your audience, by a demanding audience accustomed to Breaking Bad or the most beautiful series ever.

And here's the first miracle of Better Call Saul.
To be at the level of Breaking Bad despite a different, more demanding audience, with a fine palate and high expectations.
Breaking Bad had also managed to be a series capable of showing us the transformation, the change of an average man into a criminal personality, ruthless, though guided by more or less valid reasons.
It had been a sumptuous journey from white to black, passing through many grey scales.

And here is the second miracle of Better Call Saul.
BCS is a continuous back and forth in a thin gray line.
Is Jimmy good or bad? Both, maybe neither.
Are his reasons good or bad? Both, always, at the same time.
Did events drive him down that road or the other way around? Well, who knows, it depends on the point of view.
Ditto on what happens to the characters around him, especially Kim.

And here's the third miracle of Better Call Saul: KIM.
At the moment, with one season to go, Kim has become probably one of the best, if not the best, female character ever written on TV.
Quietly.
Starting as a side character.
Today she has become a very powerful, multi-faceted, deep and unpredictable character even for Jimmy himself.
Kim is the "Jesse Pinkman" of Better Call Saul. He is the sidekick, the co-star who could be the protagonist of the TV series.

And here's the fourth miracle of BCS.
Breaking Bad couldn't exist without Walter White. Maybe Better Call Saul could exist without Jimmy/Saul.
Not because of Jimmy/Saul's demerits but because a universe within the universe was created around him, in which "old" characters like Gus and Mike were perfectly deepened, and new characters like Lalo, Nacho, Howard, Charles and Kim gave a sap and depth to the series that maybe not even the "secondary" characters of Breaking Bad had.

As you can see, Better Call Saul has worked miracles.
Let's also remember that Better Call Saul still has one more cartridge left to shoot.
There is still one season left, the last one, consisting of 13 episodes.
A double-edged sword because it could allow Better Call Saul to become really and unequivocally better than Breaking Bad, but at the same time it could "allow" him to "miss" something and "lose" the duel.
To date we could say that in absolute Breaking Bad remains ahead but contextualizing, relativizing the creative path of Better Call Saul then perhaps we could argue that "relatively" to this Better Call Saul is better than Breaking Bad.
Whatever the answer, we already have a winner: Vince Gilligan.

Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/1402-the-walking-dead?language=it-IT

Rate: AA