Better Call Saul Season 1 Episode 10 Review: See You At the Crossroads
Miranda Wicker
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The #1 new show on cable has concluded its inaugural run with Better Call Saul Season 1 Episode 10, an episode which found our antihero Jimmy McGill at a crossroads:
Go good or go BIG.
Fans of Breaking Bad obviously know which direction Jimmy McGill chose and it's the road that leads to Saul Goodman's face on every bus stop bench in Albuquerque.
We've spent all season wondering what it would take for Jimmy McGill to leave his birth name behind and become the man he was destined to be:
Saul Goodman.
While he hadn't officially adopted the moniker by the end of "Marco," it was clear that's the direction in which he was heading.
Jimmy McGill was a man who would never be quite good enough for those in his life. Kim might have been the exception, but in making the call that landed him the job interview with Davis and Main, there's the sense that she didn't think he could do it on his own. Or maybe she thought he wouldn't have the confidence to do seek it on his own after learning that Chuck, his own brother, had been the one to sabotage his chances at having a lucrative career.
Let's go with that, because I like Kim. I think she genuinely cares about Jimmy and wants to see him succeed and watching the fallout between the two in Better Call Saul Season 2 as he pursues a...different path...is going to be good. She's never going to agree with what's to come, if she even knows the depth and breadth of it, but there's one thing we now know. Marco would have supported Jimmy 100%.
Marco forgave Jimmy for essentially abandoning him. He didn't hold a grudge when Jimmy said he'd returned to town for his mother's funeral but didn't stop by. He even understood that Jimmy couldn't turn his back on Chuck despite Chuck's soul-crushing revelation that Jimmy would never be good enough.
Their week together and the adrenaline that came from running cons plus Marco's death were the catalysts Jimmy needed to complete his transformation.
Jimmy's a good attorney. His clients love him, particularly the old ones, probably because he's the first person to listen to them in years. They trust him. And he's fantastic at being really, really smooth; at spinning a tale and talking fast and the sleight of hand required for getting away with, well, just about everything.
Why not use his powers for personal gain instead of just for the good of other people? Where has the latter gotten him so far?
Jimmy told Marco he was building something, but it's more like he's been building toward something, and that something is the character we came to know and love over the course of four seasons of Breaking Bad. Jimmy McGill is destined to be Saul Goodman, a man of questionable morals who operates within the law but also above it.
Getting cocky and forgetting that sometimes he's being paid for a job is what will end up costing him. IF that's even what his life is really like.
The truth is that we don't really know much about Saul Goodman's private life, which is what makes this series so promising. We know he enjoys massages of all kinds, finally gets his Cadillac, becomes a flashy dresser, employs a bodyguard or two, and finally opens his own office, but that's really all we know about him.
We might find out he's still living in the back of that nail salon and everything we see is a mirage.
I know I can't wait to find out.
What did you think of "Marco"? How have you felt about Better Call Saul Season 1? Are you excited to see where Better Call Saul Season 2 takes us? If you missed a minute of this season, you can watch Better Call Saul online right here!
Miranda Wicker was a Staff Writer for TV Fanatic. She retired in 2017. Follow her on Twitter.
