Better Call Saul

I don't know what's worse, Lalo's spiderman work or Fringe adjusting his tie after being blown up. It's weird that Gilligan has these occasional crazy moments in what is otherwise is a pretty grounded universe.

it was kind of weird how we saw zero bits of cinnabon Saul since what, the second episode?

We always only see current era Saul in the first episode of each season.

Spiderman shit was pretty stupid. What a bizarre scene.

They could have at least shown some boxes and a filing cabinet there or something. Instead it was just fucking magic. Very odd scene.

DickTrickle said:

I don't know what's worse, Lalo's spiderman work or Fringe adjusting his tie after being blown up. It's weird that Gilligan has these occasional crazy moments in what is otherwise is a pretty grounded universe.

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that wasnt spiderman shit. it was straight up Ant-Man. dude was clocking his shoes like he was walking around instead of crawling. how big are these vents?

Dom said:

It wasn't even a vent, it was just the ceiling space that pretty much most office/businesses have. Watching it now and there's just some creaking which would come from crawling along the beams. No idea if they can actually support a grown man's weight though

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that stuff is only standard fiberboard. you can punch through it with little effort.

Yeah Mulder used to toss pencils into that shit with ease.

Dom said:

Was talking about the framing that holds them in place, not the panels themselves

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i had that in my room as a kid. its very thin steel. it doesnt have to be robust because its not holding a lot of weight. i used to hide my dirty magazines in one panel. i cant imagine those cross bars holding any kind of real weight though.

yeah. it was just shot weird.

Like. it should have had him.. while talking to the guy, Look up at the glass, somehow see, it didn't go all the way up. when the conversation ended. have him step back. look around the room, and see a chair and a ceiling tile damaged or whatever.
great, now we have the idea, and setup. it might be improbably, but we have a setup.

Like, when Walt was asking about what was talked about on the phone, and we have the brochures there in frame.
I dont know. maybe need to rewatch. did we miss the setup?

Dom said:

I enjoy the show... but the pace is really getting to me. A full 10 episode season and pretty much nothing happens. Still great television though.

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Pace has been annoying for several seasons. It's such a well done show you don't really mind, but a lot of stuff is intentionally dragged out in the way it's shot. A sharp editor could cut every episode down to 20ish minutes of run time without deleting a single scene- just clip and snip the unnecessarily long shots.

The way it's shot now:

Jimmy walks into the kitchen, goes over to the coffee maker, pours a cup of coffee. He takes a sip. After a long moment, a bemused look crosses his face. He turns and stares toward the bedroom he and Kim share. The bedroom door is opened and we see a little of the darkened interior of the room but little else. Jimmy walks to the bedroom and stands in the doorway looking in. Kim is lying in bed, wide awake but staring listlessly at the wall.

Jimmy- Hey, you ok?

Instead:

Jimmy is standing at the coffee maker. He takes a sip of coffee. After a brief moment, a bemused look crosses his face. He turns and stares toward the bedroom he and Kim share. The bedroom door is opened and we see a little of the darkened interior of the room but little else.

Cut

Jimmy is standing in the doorway of the bedroom looking at Kim who is lying in bed, wide awake and staring listlessly at the wall.

Jimmy- Hey, you ok?

Same scene, but by eliminating all the unnecessary film of Jimmy wandering around, you cut the scene time by 1/3. We don't need to see Jimmy walk into the kitchen, go to the coffee maker, and pour coffee. Just show him standing by the coffee maker taking a sip and we can fill in the rest. We don't need to watch Jimmy amble over to the bedroom doorway- show him looking at it, then cut to him standing in it and our brain can figure out what happened.

Doesn't sound like much of a difference, but when you multiply this by every scene, it speeds up the pace quite a bit. You end up being able to move the story along twice as far in your weekly allotted 50 minutes.

The show is full of scenes like this, some of them even more dragged out. Don't get me wrong, the methodical, detail-oriented nature of the show is part of its charm, but I really do get the impression they very intentionally set out to turn a 3 season show into a 6 season show.

Still the third best show on TV right now.

First two being Preacher and Fargo?

The Expanse
Game of Thrones (yeah very debatable I know)
Glow
Better Call Saul
Barry? Veep? The Crown? Orville? Mindhunter? American Vandal? The Terror? Dark? (all shows i haven't watched yet)
Brooklyn 99
Good Place
Fargo
Counterpart


looking at best airing shows lists though, goddamn times have really changed from 10 years ago when it was Wire, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, etc. Now 90% of the lists are female driven shows like Insecure, Killing Eve, Big Little Lies, This is Us, Dear White People, etc.

Not a great future for guys who like watching guys do crazy shit