Better Call Saul s3 ep1 review: Return of the best looking show on television

*This review isn’t spoiler-free, but also there weren’t really any major spoilers this week* We’ve been in a bit of a dry spell TV-wise so far in 2017, but today sees the return of Better Call Saul, a show I can never get enormously excited about but which I’ll still gladly watch new episodes of without delay.

It’s become tradition now that seasons open with a black and white catch-up on the life of post-Breaking Bad Saul Goodman. In ‘Mabel’ we find him still living as Gene, the manager of a mall-based Cinnabon, but growing increasingly frustrated with his sedentary, law-abiding life. Last season he scrawled his old name on a wall and this time around he helps police only have a change of heart. It’s unclear where these cold opens are going – is it the case that the creators simply can’t resist dipping back into the Breaking Bad era universe, or are we building towards a meaningful epilogue to the original show? There would be a nice symmetry with the main events of Better Call Saul if Gene returns to being Saul the same time Jimmy finds his inner Goodman…

When you fire up this week’s episode you’ll probably be met with a season 2 recap which Netflix prepared, which is just as well as BCS‘ plot is built on incremental changes and small court intrigue it’s hard to keep track of between seasons.  Jimmy’s story is skinny this week, picking up where we left off, with Chuck taping his confession. It seems this wasn’t a false cliffhanger and Chuck does indeed intend to use it, but a slip up that sees his assistant Ernesto learn of the tape’s existence massively puts the ball back in Jimmy’s court.

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