Better call Saul is basically a show about a guy doing bad stuff. As his arc progresses he does more bad things and encounters bad people. A scumbag Lawyer who resorts to underhanded tricks and creative methods to win his cases. He will fabricate evidence, smear your reputation, deceive, manipulate to make you the demon, morality is not a vice. He went from serving senior citizens with their wills and estates to serving hardened criminals, prostitutes and junkies. Nonetheless, he is the perfect guy to get you out of a rock and a hard place. Colorful, eccentric, slippery and unpredictable, presiding judges never know what to expect. He knows how to get you out of a sure thing. Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould will make you cheer for the bad guy, cause if everyone in the show is a bad guy, who are you going to root for? Obviously the guy with Halocaust numbers and that makes you contemplate about your human nature. Am I as pure as I would like to believe? Am I a good guy? Do I want to be a good guy? Cause Saul learned a lesson when he was a boy and it also hit hard. There are two types of people in the world, the sheep and the wolf, decide where you fit in. Do you really wanna be a sucka all your life? Standing on the stands, watching life frizzle into obscurity. The wolves are the go getters, they make things happen, they will things into existence, they make the money, they fuck the bitches, like Tony Montana they are portrayed as the bad guy. Would you rather be the lousy sheep? Following orders, “doing the right thing”, staying in your lane, playing it safe, boring as watching two coat paint dry. The Gilligan Universe shows us something different, fast paced, big money, bloody, murderous, exciting! Life is boring why not add spice, lie, cheat, extort, manipulate, murder, get away with it and repeat. Walter White had noble aims for dealing Crystal Meth, a high school teacher struck with the news that he has cancer, to compound things he has mortgage problems and can’t avoid to pay for Chemotherapy. He turns to Chemistry and starts cooking Crystal Meth and it proves to be lucrative. As his power accrues he becomes a monster and killing becomes routine. Cause when you kill one, then you have already crossed the line, you have transgressed, you are already a sinner, you are already condemned and going to hell why not do it again? One day it starts being normal and the cost of business and killing in cold blood becomes a part of you, you gain a reputation, you become the grim reaper.
Look at you Fucken Junkie! No impulse control, emitting smoke from your lungs like a chimney. Splurging on pills and powder to numb the pain but neglecting what you need. Floating high across the sky when you should be grounded because you have seeds. Fucken Junkie look at you, you disgust me. No self-worth but it’s your appearance that disgusts me. Thin as a needle, teeth crooked and yellow like “Hell no”. Lips blacked out like the mouth of a mamba. Eyeballs lifeless like Brazil without the samba. Face disconfigured like a loaf of bread weighted down by 10Kg mielie meal. Did you even have a meal? Surprise, surprise the fridge is clean. Are those ribs popping out? That ain’t lean. Fucken Junkie, look at the house, it’s a pigsty. It’s like a natural disaster occurred and the smell like somebody died. Junkie, surrounded by needles and baking powder. The music is maxed out but you want it louder. Junkie, your children are dirty and are attracting fleas. They can’t go to school because you smoked the fees. Junkie, you are someone no one wants to appease. You are indecent, unreliable and always on your knees. Fucken Junkie, you are a burden to humanity. Always high and mighty but your existence brings much uncertainty. Junkie, who you gonna rob for your next hit? Show me your face so I know where to spit. Fucken Junkie look at you, can’t function without your daily dose, snorting everything up like a vacuum cleaner. Junkie, you disgust me!
What is good? What is bad? Cause when Walter White started cooking crystals to secure his family’s future I was with him. Life is not fair and sometimes it makes no sense at all. I mean what is the alternative? He has cancer and can’t afford to pay for Chemo because he works in a profession that doesn’t pay much. He is overqualified and his teaching job isn’t maximizing his talents. He has kids and has been diagnosed to live for a couple of months. Even if he reached into the family’s savings to pay for the Chemo, its not guaranteed that he’ll survive, cause what if he pays the 300K for the treatment and perishes anyways. What then? What about the kids? What about their futures? What about the house? The unsurmountable debt? No college fund, what about the kids dreams? No insurance, what about that safety net? Is that the legacy you want to leave for your family? Are you really going to leave behind your kids hungry, scrambling for survival, living off bread crumbs? What about your honor as a man? What about your pride? What is your use? You lived your whole life as an honest man, working to secure your family’s future and now cancer is wiping off your whole existence. Maybe you know of people who can pay off the treatment but is that a way to live? Being a charity case for people who screwed you over? People who built their empire on what you started and claimed it for themselves. It’s guilt money, a bribe, they are paying you off! Of course that’s not how they will present it because human beings are sophisticated creatures and theatricality is the order of the day. Maybe they do care and genuinely want you to beat the cancer but deep down you’ll know. You’ll feel the bondage and entitlement. Sure they stole your work to get to the top but they also saved your life, let’s face it, you owe them. How is that fair? You screw me over and still manage to get the last laugh. Nah fuck em! If I can do something to alter destiny then I will, even if it means cooking crystals. I am already on borrowed time, I am knowledgeable, I might as well go all out. This way at least I have a chance, I can procure the funds for the Chemo treatment, I can secure my family’s future, I can be useful, I can be a man, I can be proud of myself. It’s not like I am stealing the money, I’ll be earning it. I understand that drugs cause harm and death is a relative but what is the alternative? Give up to cancer and die? Leave my family broke, leave them with nothing except a memory. A memory that was stained by suffering and a prolonged death towards the end. Everything I do, I do because of my love for my family. What’s so bad about that? What’s the use of having the knowledge and not putting it to use? Laboring years for a system that rebukes you. What does “overqualified” even mean? Everyone else is flourishing as a result of their hard labor. Why can’t I be the best that I can be? What is ethics and morality in a Godless Universe? Everybody dies, time forgets and nothing matters in any case. You tell me, what is good, what is bad? Is your criteria subjective or objective? Cause if the people want crystals I am happy cooking it for them, we are adults with freewill and it will be the best, most purist crystal meth in the world.
You think you got a good wife but when the kitchen gets heated she dashes out and goes fucking her boss. After everything I’ve done for the family, after everything I’ve sacrificed. I did everything for the family, she doesn’t recognize that, she doesn’t acknowledge me. All she does is criticize, criticize and criticize. How I wish words were sufficient to make you see the broader picture. It’s like I’ve become an outsider, an enemy, she wants a divorce, she doesn’t love me anymore, it’s like we don’t have a history. Sure I lied but it was to protect you and the family. I wasn’t fucking random bitches, I was working to secure the family’s future. A man’s job is to provide and it has been that way since the beginning of time. How you gonna persecute me for doing what comes natural? Watching the show, I was disgusted with Walts wife Skylar, she abandoned him. She had a righteous aura about her, she judged Walt, she elevated herself above Walt. The balls on her to sleep with her boss. Walter Jr, is correct, she is a bitch! I mean sleeping with your boss to spite me, to get me to react, to get your way? That is devious, beyond Machiavellian. How is that morally justified? I cook crystals to secure the family’s future and you fuck your boss because you disagree with my methods? Where’s your loyalty? You made an oath to be by my side. Nobody’s perfect but how you gon consciously do that? Repeatedly at that! You don’t respect me. You don’t support me. You don’t want to see my perspective. Who made you God to judge over life like that? You are a bad person Skylar, an example of what a wife shouldn’t be. Fuck you too bitch, here are your divorce papers all signed, you got what you wanted I am leaving! Hope you choke on that assholes dick and die!
“Woah! Slow down big fella don’t make this personal”, I’ll try. The show made me emotional and my moral compass was tested. You might make a point for Skylar and suggest that she was only thinking about what was best for her and her family. When it comes to family self-preservation and survival triumphs all. Distancing yourself from a drug dealer is a good move as implications might lead to a difficult life. Stay and you are an accomplice, an accessory, a collaborator of all the crimes. Stay and everybody is a murderer cause you all enablers. Who wants to be on the front pages of morning papers and grace the tabloids columns? It’s disgraceful and worse you might lose everything you worked so hard to achieve. Good points but there’s holes, Skylar was already flirting with his boss before she found out the truth about Walt. It was just a matter of time before something metastasized. She just wanted an excuse to fuck him and she got one. Lines are blurred, I don’t know what is good and bad anymore but I do identify with the protagonist, that’s my nigga, I am with him, I understand. I progressed with him on his Arc. In my view good and bad is a matter of perspective, they are labels that don’t mean all that much – life goes on, we all make our choices and then they make us. Life is not black or white it’s far too complicated because we are complicated creatures who live in a world we don’t understand. There is no definite blueprint for a successful life and everybody is doing their best. Everybody in the show transgressed, everybody in the show is bad, everybody in the show is guilty. I salute the creator Vince Galligan and everyone involved with the show. The characters of the show are complex and troubled. How do you save somebody like Jesse when he believes in his heart that he is a bad guy. The criminals are super professional, have high levels of empathy, supremely intelligent and hide in plain view. Judge one of the characters and it reflects back at you, you feel like a hypocrite because you see yourself in their actions. It is an absolute masterclass, one of the greatest shows of all time. The acting is unbelievable and the writing superb. I was addicted to the show, I couldn’t stop watching. It is excellence. It gripped me, I loved it!
antakalipa 