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At long last, Better Call Saul has arrived. I purposefully stayed away from all of the hype and marketing and early reviews for this thing, wanting to give it the fairest, purest possible shot. The TV landscape is littered with failed spinoffs, and while I love Bob Odenkirk's Saul and trust in Vince Gilligan, it only made sense to approach this -- as any spinoff -- was hopeful trepidation.

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First impressions: Better Call Saul leans heavily on Breaking Bad, both narratively and stylistically, which isn't a real surprise. The opening black and white scene with Saul living out his post-Breaking Bad life at that Cinnabon in Omaha was a fantastic coda to that series, and the perfect way to connect the two. Saul is living as a regular Joe, except, one who is constantly terrified of being murdered, thanks to his association with Walter White. The only relic of his past -- a video tape of his "Better Call Saul!" commercials -- transports both him and viewers back to a time before Walter White, Saul, and even Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), when he was just the struggling lawyer Jimmy McGill.

So much about "Uno" felt like a callback to Breaking Bad, especially visually, which again isn't surprising. The cinematography, direction, set design, and glorious integration of beat-up automobiles all felt familiar, and a made strong connection between series. And of course, there was the introduction of several familiar faces to link the two worlds. But the show also channels Breaking Bad in its very framework.

Jimmy, like Bryan Cranston's Walter White, is doing work that people laud (public defender, teacher for WW), but which doesn't pay the bills. There's also the idea of a guy for whom nothing ever works out; he's kicked when he's down, again and again. His car is a pile of shit, his office space is tragically bleak, his brother has a mysterious illness and won't take Jimmy's advice to save them both, and his dabbles in scheming backfire totally. That desperation pushes him to a breaking point, where he chooses (like WW) a criminal enterprise. From there, things begin unraveling and, because of Breaking Bad, we know exactly how insane they eventually get, before petering out to that sad and mostly silent intro.

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The bookends of Saul as Jimmy and later, as another new identity at the Cinnabon, suggest that his life as Saul was a highpoint. Thus, the tone is lighter and more comedic in this show, at least for now. While Breaking Bad always infused its episodes with a dark and quirky humor, Better Call Saul pushes that to the forefront. Some of it works to great effect, like the opening scene where Saul is practicing his closing arguments in the bathroom before attempting to dazzle the dazed court to let his three teenaged miscreants off. But elsewhere, his quoting Network to his brother's law partners felt misplaced, and the comic beat of the wife stopping her husband from signing the document seemed like a scene from a different kind of show.

What's interesting about "Uno," though, is really how much it felt like a regular pilot. It shows where the series could go, connects it to Breaking Bad, and is really heavy-handed in how it details Saul/Jimmy as a down-and-out guy, looking for any kind of a break. And while certain aspects of the hour really took their time, by the end, we've already been introduced (briefly) to Tuco Salamanca (‎Raymond Cruz). Jimmy has been told that he's essentially lost the rights to the family name, and that he should "build [his] own identity" for himself. The signposts of the transformation couldn't be any clearer. But I wanted to stay more in Slippin' Jimmy's world before we connected back with the batshit insane Tuco again.

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There were a lot of beautifully-shot and narratively interesting things in Better Call Saul's premiere, and plenty of potential. There were also lots of great callbacks for fans of Breaking Bad, yet, the series doesn't feel exclusive just to those who are holdover fans (I can't imagine there would be many who would start with Saul, though who knows). AMC, anyway, is hoping for a big ratings win no matter how it looks.

It's going to be extremely hard for the show to carve a place for itself that is both dependent on, yet separate from its famous forebear. How successful it might ultimately be in doing that won't be clear for at least a few more weeks. What is definitely without question though is Odenkirk's unique and fantastic portrayal of Saul in any and all of his incarnations. For that, Better Call Saul deserves more than just casual consideration. Lawyer up.

Episode Rating: ★★★ Good — Proceed with cautious optimism*

Musings and Miscellanea:

-- *If this was any other show, I'd probably give it 4 stars right out of the gate because of Odenkirk, the artistry, the humor, and the potential. But, with it coming off of the heels of Breaking Bad, it gets a more tempered beginning (plus, it needs room to grow within the ratings ceiling).

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-- Only 24 hours until Episode 2! Tomorrow, the show settles in to its regular timeslot of 10 p.m. ET.

-- So many visual things I adored in "Uno," from the imagery at the skatepark to Saul kicking the trashcan while (love interest?) Kim Wexler smokes casually in the noir-ish lighting, before he joins her (and their roles reverse as he stays outside and she replaces the trash can, which I imagine he's kicked before).

-- Michael McKean makes everything bizarre seem perfectly normal.

-- Looking forward to more terrible accents as Jimmy pretends to be his own secretary.

-- "Discreet. Like a stripper pole in a mosque" - Saul. Everything he says is a quote.