Yahoo Lifestyle Better Call Saul Turns 10: Is It Actually Better Than Breaking Bad? We Break It Down and Declare a Winner
Ten years ago, a familiar face from Breaking Bad walked back into our lives — only under a new name.
On Feb. 8, 2015, Better Call Saul premiered on AMC, and what seemed at first to be a fun lark, with Bob Odenkirk reprising his Breaking Bad role as shady lawyer Saul Goodman, turned out to be a richly rewarding saga of reinvention, showing us how scrappy con artist Jimmy McGill transformed into Saul. In fact, Better Call Saul emerged from Breaking Bad’s shadow to become an all-time great TV series in its own right. But do we dare ask: Is it even better than Breaking Bad?
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At first, the very question sounds like blasphemy: Breaking Bad is one of the best TV dramas of all time, point blank. But across its six seasons, Better Call Saul built its own vividly realized universe of lawyers, crooks and drug lords that ended up rivaling anything we saw from Walter White and company. Some fans even rate Saul higher than Breaking Bad — but do we? Well, that’s what we’re here to find out.
To celebrate Better Call Saul’s 10th anniversary this week, we’re putting it to the ultimate test: judging it up against Breaking Bad in a number of key categories to decide, once and for all, which series comes out on top. To be clear, everybody’s a winner here: These are two fantastic shows that inform and complement one another. But there can only be one winner!
Read on to see which show we think has the edge in each of seven categories, and which one ultimately reigns supreme in our eyes. Got your own ideas on which show is best? Vote in our poll at the end, and then head down to the comments to justify your pick!
Pilot
Breaking Bad hit the ground running like few shows do, dropping us right into the action with a pants-less Walter White careening through the desert in an RV. (Those first four minutes are just dynamite, even all these years later.) Later, it backs up to explain that Walter is a cancer-stricken chemistry teacher who turns to making meth to take care of his family, introducing us to Aaron Paul’s smart-mouthed burnout Jesse Pinkman and plunging Walter and Jesse into immediate peril in a heart-pounding showdown with local drug pushers.
Saul’s pilot, meanwhile, takes a more deliberate approach, jumping back in time to when Saul Goodman was just small-time hustler Jimmy McGill. We meet Jimmy’s brother Chuck and the all-important Kim Wexler, not to mention a surprise appearance from Breaking Bad heavy Tuco at the very end. But the whole thing seems a little sleepy, especially compared to the Breaking Bad pilot’s breakneck pace. The Saul pilot is good… but Breaking Bad’s is a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
Winner: Breaking Bad
Main Character
We love all the nuances that Odenkirk and the Saul writers found inside Jimmy McGill in his journey to becoming Saul Goodman (and then, eventually, Gene Takavic). They turned a one-note huckster into an endlessly complex and conflicted human being, with a history we barely got to glimpse in his Breaking Bad days. Plus, Odenkirk got to flex his dramatic muscles in a big way here, earning six Emmy nods along the way.
But again, he’s up against a juggernaut here. Walter White is simply one of the greatest characters that pop culture has produced this century — it’s rare that we see a character go from hero to villain so gradually and so convincingly — and Bryan Cranston’s towering performance is also in a class by itself, with four Emmy wins to prove it. Jimmy McGill is a rock-solid main character, but c’mon: Walter White is the one who knocks.
Winner: Breaking Bad
Supporting Cast
OK, here’s where the younger brother begins to get a leg up on his big bro. To start with, both casts are terrific up and down the line. How can we choose between Aaron Paul’s Jesse Pinkman and Rhea Seehorn’s Kim Wexler? (We can’t! Don’t ask us to!) Breaking Bad’s cast was dotted with standout turns, from Dean Norris as wily DEA agent Hank Schrader to Jonathan Banks as gruff fixer Mike Ehrmantraut to Giancarlo Esposito as sinister drug kingpin Gus Fring — and, oh yeah, Odenkirk as Saul.
See, this gets a little tricky, because a number of key Breaking Bad characters appeared on Saul as well — and for our money, Banks was even better as Mike on Saul than he was on Breaking Bad. (Esposito, though, wasn’t given quite as much of a chance to shine as Gus the second time around.) But when we add in Michael McKean’s heartbreaking turn as Chuck, and Michael Mando as up-and-coming gangster Nacho, and Tony Dalton as chilling cartel hitman Lalo Salamanca… we have to give the slightest of edges here to Saul.
Winner: Better Call Saul
Best Episode
First of all, what a wealth of options to choose from here! From Breaking Bad, pivotal installments like Season 4’s “Face Off” (with Gus Fring meeting his gruesome end) and Season 3’s “One Minute” (with Hank facing off against the Cousins) rank among TV’s best episodes ever. Better Call Saul has its own fleet of contenders as well, from Season 3’s “Chicanery” (with Jimmy and Chuck facing off in court) to Season 5’s “Bagman” (with Jimmy and Mike trudging through the desert with a bag full of cash). It’s just an embarrassment of riches… but we managed to pick two winners.
For Better Call Saul, we have to go with “Fun and Games,” the Season 6 stunner that featured the heart-wrenching breakup of Jimmy and Kim, with a shocking smash cut to Jimmy’s new life as Saul Goodman. And for Breaking Bad, well, it comes down to one word: “Ozymandias.” Season 5’s jaw-dropping masterpiece, that saw Walter’s grand plan come crumbling down in a hail of bullets and blood, is the very peak of Peak TV. It has a perfect 10.0 rating on IMDb, for crying out loud. How is that even possible? It’s a tough choice — but in the end, there is no other choice.
Winner: Breaking Bad
Consistency
Here’s where we have to pull out our microscope and identify a few tiny things to nitpick about Breaking Bad. Its overall magnificence is unquestioned, but it did have a few lulls and dead spots in the middle of the series, as the writers slowly moved their chess pieces into place. (Unpopular opinion alert: Season 3’s vaunted bottle episode “Fly”? It was just OK.) By the end, Breaking Bad was an unstoppable freight train, but at times along the way, it was just spinning its wheels.
Better Call Saul, by contrast, was a slow burn from the start, but it steadily picked up momentum as it went on, with each season managing to top the one before it. All the elements fed into each other and enriched the series as a whole, with the final episodes beautifully paying off six seasons’ worth of set-ups (not to mention providing a new perspective on Breaking Bad itself). It may not have ever hit a peak like “Ozymandias,” but episode to episode, we have to say Saul was a more consistently satisfying watch.
Winner: Better Call Saul
Acclaim
Now this one isn’t a fair fight — and it’s not Saul’s fault at all. It took a while for the Television Academy to catch onto Breaking Bad’s genius as a series, although they did recognize Cranston’s greatness right away, with four Emmy wins for best actor in a drama series. But the voters made up for lost time, eventually showering Breaking Bad with 16 Emmys, including a pair of wins for Outstanding Drama Series and acting wins for Paul and Anna Gunn.
Saul, on the other hand… well, we have to wonder what show Emmy voters were watching, frankly. It did well enough on the nomination side, totaling 53 nods, including seven nominations for Outstanding Drama Series. How many did it win, though? Zero. Not one single Emmy! Not for writing, not for directing, not for Rhea Freaking Seehorn. Saul didn’t take home a single Golden Globe or Screen Actors Guild Award, either. There’s not much more the Saul team could’ve done, but in terms of pure hardware, Breaking Bad is the clear winner here.
Winner: Breaking Bad
Finale
Series finales have become an essential part of a TV show’s legacy, and Breaking Bad’s is one of the most celebrated of all time. Indeed, it was crammed full of unforgettable moments, from Walt’s wry confession to his wife Skyler about his meth making (“I did it for me. I liked it”) to his rescue of an imprisoned Jesse with a flurry of machine-gun bullets. But it wrapped up a little too neatly for us: Jack and the Nazis were just cardboard villains to give Walt somebody to defeat in a final showdown, and it almost seemed unfair for a monster like Walt to get such a heroic sendoff. We actually might’ve actually preferred the series to end on the penultimate episode, “Granite State,” with a bearded Walt condemned to live out his days in bland anonymity.
Saul’s swan song, though, was pretty damn close to flawless. It tied back to Breaking Bad, with a surprise cameo from Betsy Brandt as Hank’s widow Marie, and saw Odenkirk do his best work of the series as Jimmy made a full confession in court, attempting to win back some small bit of redemption in Kim’s eyes. It also gave us a perfectly poignant final image, with Jimmy and Kim once again sharing a cigarette, only now with him stuck in prison for decades. Saul’s finale might actually be its best episode of all, and ranks right up there with TV’s greatest finales ever. Well, it ranks higher than Breaking Bad’s on our tally sheet, anyway.
Winner: Better Call Saul
The Verdict
Alright, yes: He won.
When we total up the categories, Breaking Bad comes out slightly ahead, four to three, and that matches our gut feeling, too. If Tuco put a gun to our heads and forced us to pick a winner, we’d go with Breaking Bad. (As Heisenberg himself would say: You’re goddamn right.) But this is closer than we thought it’d be. Both series have certain advantages over the other: Breaking Bad has more action and shocking twists, while Better Call Saul has more depth and emotional resonance. Breaking Bad may have created the formula… but Saul honed it to perfection.
Even if we ultimately go with Breaking Bad as the better show here, it’s an incredible testament to Saul’s quality that this is even a debate. It not only stands as one of TV’s best spinoffs ever, it’s in the discussion for one of this century’s best TV dramas, period. And if you’re a Breaking Bad fan who hasn’t watched Better Call Saul yet, we have one question for you: What are you waiting for?
Alright, now it’s your turn: Vote for a winner in our poll, and then tell us why you picked that show in a comment below. And in case you’re up for a rewatch: All episodes of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are now streaming on Netflix.
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