Today we’re going to be trying to figure out the best and the worst episode of Better Call Saul.
This is obviously going to be a very subjective thing, so be sure to drop your own thoughts and
personal picks too, down below, as this is going to largely be based on my own opinion. I’ve
gotta say though, this one was really tough. There are many many contenders for the best
episode of the show. For me, it comes down to quite a few to be honest. 1x09 ‘Pimento’, 3x05
‘Chicanery’, 4x09 ‘Wiedersehn’, 4x10 ‘Winner’, 5x08 ‘Bagman’, 5x09 ‘Bad Choice Road’, 6x03
‘Rock and Hard Place’, 6x07 ‘Plan and Execution’, 6x09 ‘Fun and Games’. We’re going to come back to
these later though. There’s not so many when it comes to the worst, which we’ll address first.
I don’t believe there are any bad episodes of Better Call Saul. At most there are some
weaker episodes. Better Call Saul’s IMDB scores never dipped below an 8,
which I would personally consider as a universal sign that it doesn’t really have a bad episode.
There’s actually two main episodes that I feel are the weakest of the show though,
and they’re the two I feel are a bit tonally off, a bit too strange maybe, a bit too out
there. They’re surprisingly far apart too. These two being 1x05 ‘Alpine Shepherd Boy’
and 6x05 ‘Black and Blue’. There’s a few other episodes that have gotten low audience ratings,
such as 2x05 ‘Rebecca’, 3x01 ‘Mabel’, 3x07 ‘Expenses’, and 4x01 ‘Smoke’. So, I want to cover
all of those quickly too, and sort of justify why I don’t consider each of them the weakest episode.
I have a lot of respect for the episode Rebecca because I think it did an amazing job at fleshing
out Kim as a character, and really showing us what she was about. It was the first time
in the series she got seem serious sole focus. There’s also great scenes in this episode like
the one between Kim and Chuck, discussing Jimmy stealing from their parents. I’m also
a personal fan of her sticky note montage scene. Mabel is the opener to season 3, and I think this
one has a low rating because of the extended scenes of Mike pulling the car apart and the
slower lawyer side of things too. It’s a slow episode sure, but I think it’s solid as a season
opener, and I personally have no issue with it. The finding of the tracker in the gas cap
is this almost eery moment, and quite enjoy how Mike then uses it to track who was tracking him.
Expenses is a fairly depressing episode, post Chicanery, where Jimmy attempts to sell off his
ad space along with doing community service. It feels quite similar to an episode like Breaking
Bad’s ‘Down’. Again though, I quite like this episode. It’s important to have these low
moments for the characters sometimes even if they aren’t fun to watch. We get another appearance
of Daniel Wormald, and we also get the incredibly important scene of Jimmy getting Chuck’s insurance
adjusted. Quite an underrated one, I think. Finally, Smoke is pretty up there for me for
some of my favourite underdog episodes. It’s a quiet and fairly subtle episode,
and a slightly confusing one even, but there’s so much that’s great about this episode. I
might even have to make a separate video on it, because I personally think this episode
is silently very strong and is one of the best examples of saying a lot without saying anything.
Okay, so back to ‘Alpine Shepherd Boy’ and ‘Black and Blue’. These two episodes are
from season 1 and season 6 and both feature scenes that just feel a bit odd. I do quite
enjoy watching the scenes, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel they kind of took me out
of the show a bit in terms of immersion. Alpine Shepherd Boy has the montage of
new clients that Jimmy is visiting after he receives a lot of attention from his
billboard stunt. We get a variety of wacky characters. We get the talking toilet man,
who Jimmy is pretty disturbed by. We get a scene with a very rich guy who wants to secede from the
U.S. He offers Jimmy his own personal currency that he plans to use for his own state. Both of
these things are things I can actually believe happening, but there’s something that feels
just tonally wrong here for me. It’s one of those things that just doesn’t quite work for
me. This kind of humour feels like it very much found its way out of the show for the most part,
remaining in far more subtle and suitable ways. I think it’s just one of those things in Season
1 that wasn’t quite right, but they wanted to try it out. I don’t hate it or anything,
it just doesn’t feel right for the broader show to me. The episode as a whole is a fairly slow one,
with cuts between Chuck in the hospital and scenes with Jimmy finding his way into elder
law. We get important insights into Chuck’s illness, with a doctor speculating that his
illness is mental rather than physical. Good plot movement, but I think the pairing of the
humour with the quite serious scenes can feel quite jarring. Some of the scenes can also
feel a little too spoonfeedy for this series. The main weakness of Black and Blue is where
it’s situated within the season I think. One issue I think Season 6 definitely had was that
it felt very stop-start. The first 3 episodes are quite fast paced and dramatic, the following
three slow down considerably, then we’re thrown back into speed for another 3, then are left
with a final 4 of gradually increasing pace and tension. There were a lot of whiplash moments,
so with Black and Blue being in the midst of this slower section, I think it did definitely suffer.
Let’s go through the episode. We get a scene where Jimmy and Kim wake up early in the morning, both
concerned about Lalo’s whereabouts, still fearful he may come back. We get Gus formulating his super
lab plan when he offers a man some spice curls. Howard and Cliff visit the Sandpiper residents,
and we get a scene between them discussing what Cliff saw in Hit and Run. We get the opening of
Saul’s office and the return of Francesca. We get a return of Viola too, with Kim getting
information off of her. Saul then makes a house call to a H.O Ward. Gus then scrubs a bathtub
with a toothbrush before setting up the gun in the lab. Finally, we have the reintroduction of Lalo,
who visits Margerite Ziegler, finding Werner’s encased rule given to him by his boys, that we
see constructed at the start of the episode. One of the main issues with this episode is both
how we as the audience are left out of things, but also how we’re in the know on things. The
scene where Jimmy and Kim are up early out of fear of Lalo’s return doesn’t hold much weight because
1. We already know he isn’t coming North for them, and 2. We already know he isn’t dead. There’s only
a small amount of tension really in that Kim doesn’t tell Jimmy what Mike told her. The Gus
scenes at Pollos and with the toothbrush are scenes to further show his paranoia,
and they sure do that, but they’re just not the most engaging to be honest, for the similar reason
of us knowing that Lalo isn’t coming for him… yet at least. The planting of the gun in the
lab is important but for me, takes up a little too much time. Another thing we’re left out of
is Jimmy and Kim’s plan. We don’t really know what’s going on, with some mild intrigue from
Kim’s usage of Viola to get the name of the judge. There’s two sections of this episode that feel
tonally odd. These two being the fight and the Germany part. It’s weirdly the way these two
are shot, and the choreography, I suppose. The concept of the fight, and Lalo going to Germany
aren’t things that are far-fetched to me, but the way they’re executed never quite sat right.
The fight feels very fake, I suppose. It looks over-choreographed to me and there’s moments where
there’s these big pauses before someone gets hit. The movement feels janky, and it feels like they
tried to make the two of them look overly amateur to the point that they seem near incompetent. It’s
one of very few scenes in the show that look a bit fake in terms of action. Another example being
the Mike scene in Season 5, when he fights those guys and gets stabbed. That may just be me though.
The Lalo scene I actually enjoyed, but I thought it went on a bit too long and despite him holding
a gun out during the house part, it didn’t feel particularly tense. Largely because we know Lalo
can’t make a scene. The way he silently escapes through a small upper-floor window also felt like
a little too much, and makes Lalo feel almost supernatural. Even when he did the vent thing
there was some noise. All round it’s fairly petty criticisms to be honest, but I think
that goes to show the quality of the show. It's a tough choice really, but my pick for
the weakest episode I think is probably Black and Blue. It definitely does some good set-up,
and I don’t mind the episode as much now knowing how things unfold. Again,
I think Season 6’s odd structure and pacing at times really put Black and Blue in a bad light.
This, along with many of the events being in the audience’s knowledge, but not in the
character’s. Which can feel quite frustrating. Alright, best episode time. My picks were
‘Pimento’, ‘Chicanery’, ‘Wiedersehn’, ‘Winner’, ‘Bagman’, ‘Bad Choice Road’,
‘Rock and Hard Place’, ‘Plan and Execution’, and ‘Fun and Games’. All amazing episodes.
Pimento is an incredible episode from the first season, and to this day has one of the best
moments. That being the ‘chimp with a machine gun’ line from Chuck. Jimmy discovering Chuck’s
betrayal is just heart-breaking and the acting is incredible from both Odenkirk and McKean.
The cartel side is also great, with Mike’s whole pimento cheese routine, and his talk with Pryce.
Chicanery is an episode which focuses solely on the lawyer side of things, with an entire
episode dedicated to the trial between Jimmy and Chuck, culminating in one of the best moments in
the series of the battery in the pocket and the consequential chicanery speech. It’s an amazing
climax to the back and forth between the two and it really impressively shows how intense
an episode solely focused around talking can be. One of my personal favourites and an episode that
gives so much pay-off to one of the greatest relationships of the show, of Chuck and Jimmy.
Wiedersehn is an episode that contains my favourite scene of the series, which is the
one on the car park roof between Jimmy and Kim where they discuss Jimmy’s reinstatement hearing,
and it all blows up after Kim asks why he didn’t mention Chuck. It’s my favourite conversation of
the series and is one of the biggest climaxes in their relationship throughout the show, and I love
just how natural it all feels and flows together. The dialogue is incredibly layered and tight,
and the whole scene is just amazing. We also have the opening scam of the episode, a great scene
between Lalo and Hector, the blasting at the lab, the hearing itself, and finally Werner’s escape.
The following episode Winner is a truly amazing episode which culminates the events of season 4,
which really explored the origin of the Saul persona. It was also a great conclusion to
the Chuck and Jimmy relationship. We have the two storylines of Jimmy attempting to get reinstated
and Mike hunting down Werner, Lalo close on his tail. We get the Kristy Esposito scene,
and the ‘Saul good man’ at the end of the episode. Bagman I want to name drop as it’s one of very few
solely action focused episodes, and it’s executed incredibly well. You feel fear for Jimmy despite
knowing he lives, and the visceral and explosive nature of the action felt very fitting for BCS
as a show. It felt messy and scary and Bob Odenkirk’s reactions to the things around him
throughout this episode are really incredible. We also get some nice scenes between Mike and Jimmy,
the two of them spending a longer than usual amount of time together.
Bad Choice Road is an amazing episode. It has my favourite opener of the series, with the
something stupid split screen and the two morning routines of Jimmy and Kim, ending when Jimmy gets
the signal. It’s a really heart wrenching moment. I love all the aftermath of Bagman,
with Jimmy turning in the money, Lalo telling Jimmy that Kim came to see him, all that stuff.
The final scene is also one of the best of the series, with Kim standing up to Lalo, defending
Jimmy’s story that is slowly falling apart. Rock and Hard Place I wanted to mention
purely because it’s an incredible send-off for a BCS original character. Nacho was
an amazing part of the show, and his send off was perfect I thought. Sad,
but it felt real, intense, and almost operatic. Fun and Games is a great emotional conclusion to
the series, with many great scenes. It has maybe my favourite Mike scene, between Manuel and Mike
discussing Nacho. It has one of my favourite Gus scenes with him at the bar, then of course it
has the great Jimmy and Kim side of the story. A distressing but utterly enthralling episode.
Finally, Plan and Execution is widely considered the best, and is currently the highest rated
episode of the series. It’s a great episode and takes all of the great elements from many of
the best episodes and combines them together, all ending with a hugely impactful bang. It’s amazing
how this episode goes from this light-hearted tone at the start with the funny film crew,
to the absolutely harrowing ending as Howard hits the floor. Everything in between is very engaging,
with the episode focusing around one of the major continuous plotlines of BCS, being
the Sandpiper settlement. Incredible episode. My top 3 comes down to 3x05 ‘Chicanery’, 4x10
‘Winner’, and ‘6x07 ‘Plan and Execution’. However, we do have to pick a best episode. So, my pick
for the best episode of Better Call Saul is 4x10 ‘Winner’. This episode to me captures everything
great about the series for both the lawyering side and the cartel side. It’s like a perfect
balance of each, with intensity on both sides. It also has my favourite episode ending out of all
the episodes of the series. That final moment of Jimmy turning around and saying, ‘Saul good man’,
is just heart breaking, and was a jaw drop moment for me when watching the episode, second only to
potentially 6x07’s ending, which is hard not to jaw drop on. Winner has possibly the most emotion
of any episode also. Despite it’s longer than usual length it’s so dense throughout in emotion
and every scene feels meaningful and powerful. This episode has my favourite opener out of any
with its karaoke scene, where Chuck and Jimmy sing ‘The Winner Takes It All’ by ABBA. Not only is the
song very fitting for their relationship, but also the episode as a whole. It may even be my
favourite sequence in the whole show. It’s moments like this which just leave you so devastated,
especially with Jimmy at the end of the episode letting out this seemingly heartfelt speech
only to turn around and confess it was all for show. As cheesy as it is to say,
I truly believe this episode was the birth of Saul Goodman. The moment Jimmy committed to the mask.
On the cartel side we have the hunt for Werner, and it’s the first episode we get some true Lalo
craziness as he attempts to find out what is going on. There’s great scenes like when Lalo
talks to Werner, and he guesses that Mike is on the other end. There’s interesting yet simple
action like the parking lot chase and everything that goes down at the Travel Wire. The final scene
with Werner is probably up there for the saddest Mike scenes, just below the ones in Five-O and Fun
and Games. This is a moment that truly changes Mike into the person we know in Breaking Bad.
It’s a transitional episode for Mike and Jimmy. The other great thing about this episode is that
it contains probably the best scam Jimmy and Kim ever pulled, which is Jimmy’s reinstatement. It’s
cunning, it’s dark, and it’s bittersweet, again particularly with the ending. To me,
Winner is an absolutely masterful episode, and my favourite of the show.
Well, that’s gonna do it. I hope you enjoyed, and of course please do drop
your own thoughts on the best and the worst episode, down below. Thanks for watching.