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.