The Karmic Universe of <em>Better Call Saul</em>
It has always seemed likely that Better Call Saul’s tale of the well-meaning lawyer Jimmy McGill turning into the criminal accomplice Saul Goodman would parallel Walter White's transformation on Breaking Bad. But so far, AMC’s spinoff series has focused less on big, bloody dilemmas of the kind White faced than on small, almost banal decisions Jimmy makes between honesty and loyalty, honesty and ambition, and honesty and some other version of doing the “right” thing.
Season 3, which premieres April 10, picks up after Jimmy has confessed to having swindled his brother, Chuck, in the name of helping his girlfriend, Kim—a confession that Chuck secretly recorded.
I spoke with co-creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould about some of the thinking that goes into making the show. This conversation has been edited.
Spencer Kornhaber: More than ever, this is a show about ethics and psychology. Do you have any ethical schools of thoughts you turn to when thinking about the choices these characters have to make?
A lot of what we do is testing, “Where is this character’s head at right now? What’s he willing to do? What are the stakes for him?” For instance, in Season 1 Jimmy had that moment where he had that giant pile of money from the Kettlemans and it was illegally gotten, and of course Saul Goodman
