Niall Anderson thinks Saul Goodman is just about worth your money.

All of the main characters in Breaking Bad – and most of the minor ones – exist somewhere along a spectrum between greed and desperation. Walter White starts out desperate, but his initial desperation unlocks the greed that’s always been there. Jesse Pinkman would like to be purely greedy, but he just doesn’t have it in him, so he’s doomed to desperation. Even the icy Gustavo Fring, who appears beyond any human consideration whatsoever, is finally undone when he can’t resist a confrontation with the historic source of his miseries. It turns out he was desperate too.

So where does that leave Saul Goodman, the Technicolor criminal lawyer (“criminal lawyer,” as Jesse puts it), with his bad wigs, his hundred cell-phones, his papier-macher office? At first he looks like a comical example of pure greed, and over the course of Breaking Bad there’s nothing he won’t try to keep the money flowing. But in the process he genuinely fights for his clients. Even the notorious ricin cigarette switch is an attempt to get Walter and Jesse back on the same side of the desk – fighting together rather than dying apart. Over the course of Breaking Bad, Saul might be the only person who doesn’t break his word. Continue reading Better Call Saul →