Better Call Saul
Episode 1.4 “Hero”
Directed by Colin Bucksey
Written by Gennifer Hutchison
Starring Bob Odenkirk, Michael McKean, Jonathan Banks, Rhea Seehorn, Michael Mando, Patrick Fabian
AMC
Air Date: Monday, February 23, 2015, 10pm

Every day is a struggle for Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk). His adversities aren’t narrowed down to just one facet of his life, but instead encompass ALL aspects of the lawyer’s being. Along with struggling to build his clientele, pay his bills, and make a name for himself, there’s his constant inner conflict as he continues to teeter between acting in good conscience and relying on his old swindling ways. Back in Better Call Saul Episode 2, we heard Jimmy promise his older brother, Chuck (Michael McKean), that he wasn’t slipping back into his old ways, which, as we see from flashbacks, was being a hustler and a schemer. He’s trying to make his way in the world as a public defender for the Albuquerque, NM, courts, but it pays very little and is getting him nowhere. In Episode 1.4 “Hero,” Jimmy once again walks that fine line between good and bad, but this time around, his moral ambiguity becomes his defining characteristic.

Better Call Saul
Episode 1.3 “Nacho”
Directed by Terry McDonough
Written Thomas Schnauz
Starring Bob Odenkirk, Michael McKean, Jonathan Banks, Rhea Seehorn, Michael Mando, Patrick Fabian
AMC
Air Date: Monday, February 16, 2015, 10pm

We all know Saul Goodman, the criminal lawyer — not criminal lawyer, from AMC’s mega-hit Breaking Bad. He’s unscrupulous, he’s shady, he’s somewhat cheesy, and he’s got a lot of underground connections, schemes, and burner cell phones. He knows how to manipulate the law in just the right way to get what he wants and to get his absolutely guilty clients off, or at least get their sentences drastically reduced. A guy like this has obviously been running his cons and gambles for quite some time to be able to get away with what his does — and in plain sight, as his face is all over billboards, benches, and TV commercials. Yet, in AMC’s Breaking Bad prequel/spin-off Better Call Saul, we learn that Saul only six years prior had been Jimmy McGill, a struggling public defender who couldn’t even pay $3 to park his car at the county courthouse.

How did down-on-his-luck screw-up Jimmy McGill become the savvy lawyer Saul Goodman after only a few years? It’s three episodes into Better Call Saul and the breadcrumbs to the underworld have been laid out for Jimmy’s transition into Saul.

Last week saw the two-night premiere of AMC’s spin-off Better Call Saul, with Bob Odenkirk reprising his role from Breaking Bad. In the first two episodes, which aired last Sunday and Monday respectively, we’re re-introduced to the character, only for this prequel series, he goes by his real name Jimmy McGill. Although the premiere episode gave a glimpse of the character’s post-Bad whereabouts, the events of the series so far take place in 2002 when Jimmy was a struggling public defender before he became the shady strip-mall lawyer Saul Goodman with the popular “Better Call Saul” billboard and bench ads and TV commercials.

The end of Episode 1.2 gave us an idea of how Jimmy will enter the world that Saul eventually inhabits. Check out the preview photos and video here below for Episode 1.3.