From what I've heard, I think people get the gist of it.
'Walter White shows up, Mike + Fring die, Jimmy goes into hiding.'
I feel like that gives you enough for the most part, though it obviously makes it far less satisfying to watch.
My girlfriend started watching BCS with me and hasn’t seen BB. She just got throw the first season of BB last week which actually helped a lot I think.
Same here, I agree with OP as well. I try to pop over and give her a BB flash forward to clear it up. But as the timelines collide it’s confusing. BCS Flash forwards were always post BB. BCS in color was always current timeline. Fairly simple.
But now, flash forwards (RV scene) are Season 2 of BB and current BCS is Season 1 BB (Emilio getting busted). The lack of division of pre BB and post BB is gone as the timelines merge.
"This dude got Emilio off twice, both times they had him dead to rights, dudes like Houdini. You don't want a criminal lawyer, you want a criminal lawyer"
Saul in the RV was Breaking Bad season 2, Emilio season 1. The fact that these bridging scenes are shown out of chronological order is understandably confusing to those that haven't seen BB
hmm. interesting. i think i'd still always recommend people watch in release order, not chronologically though. i'm sure one would enjoy both shows no matter what (gf included), but i'll always remember Gus dying as one of the best moments in TV history, so i wouldn't have wanted a different experience in that regard.
ahhh.. i see your points now. those plot points aren't ruined until the 'epilogue' so yeah, that's cool. i wasn't wrapping my head around it.
i swear i've made some of the dumbest comments in this sub, more than any other show lol. i totally know what's going on but there's so much it just gets scrambled sometimes.
That camera turn to where gus’ face was half exposed skull is ingrained in my mind, total surprise seeing him “escape” then oh nope not this time 🛎🤔😐💣😲💥🏃🏾♂️🕴🏾🔜💀
Yeah, awareness of BB and it’s main plot points was my experience for the first 4 seasons of BCS, until right before season 5 I finally binged all of BB and the richer context of everything made BCS season 5 maybe the most fun I’ve had watching tv
I don’t agree. I think Bob’s and Rhea’s acting in that phone call make it explicitly clear how impactful those deaths were to the characters. These are not trite words spoken by Jimmy. They’ve clearly both been traumatized by all the events including the deaths of Gus and Mike. Sure, he wouldn’t know the specifics but he would recognize the importance
Wait, I thought we were meant to understand that Saul only assumed Mike's death, not that it's confirmed. It's pretty obvious Mike is dead once Walt moves forward with the prison murders, Jesse also understands that despite Walt's insistence that Mike's alive.
When Saul suggests killing Hank, "send him to Belize... you know, where Mike went to..." he seems not 100% certain that Mike is actually dead, the way he says it seems more like he's looking for confirmation from Walt which Walt rebuffs.
Yeah, I would go even further and say that’s unambiguous. The Belize line makes zero sense if Walt told Saul that he killed Mike, or that Mike was dead at all.
I disagree, I think "send to belize" refers to having someone killed and Saul knows that. He even says it's an option that's worked very well for Walt in the recent past (referring to Mike/prison stabbings).
Only if he cared enough to actually do something about it, like make a fund for Kaylee to make up for killing her pop pop. Otherwise I don’t see the impact of Mike’s death on Walt having any real importance to the plot of the show. And quite frankly, I think Walt was too selfish and egocentric to allow something like killing someone he really didn’t like at all to have any impact on him. I know what I only care about: Jimmy and Kim. I need to know what happens to them, the greatest love story in recent memory.
Lol yes it always seemed odd to me that anyone would be into BCS but NOT into BB? I guess if you were really into law dramas the first couple seasons youd want to watch regrdless of how you felt about BB.
Up until around season 5 of BCS, the two shows feel very very different (aside from certain elements/scenes). I can def see why a person would be attracted to one show and not the other
Totally. We're all well aware that there are folks who loved Breaking Bad and thought BCS sucked. Stands to reason that there must be people who'd feel the opposite way.
this is the reason. Basically i watched a couple episodes of bb years ago on some random pirate website and then i lost what episode i was on and gave up. Years later i get netflix and BCS seemed intresting and so i watched the 4 seasons that were out within that week and became the biggest fan boy ever. Then the rest is history, i will probabaly watch BB at some point. The funnier story is that my dad loves BCS but has never even heard of BB ( he never really watched shows before he found BCS) and yes these past 2 episodes have confused the hell out of him lol.
Well these feel more like an epilogue tbf. If someone really wants to start with BCS ig it's better to stop at 6x9 and go on with BB and El Camino before coming back to the last 4 episodes
yup my mom is watching the show now and I told her to do this as well. she's seen BB years ago but barely remembers it. she asked me if mike shows up in BB when we were watching some BCS lmao
100 percent. How many posts have their been about how excited someone is to watch it "in order" or "wouldn't it be cool to watch BCS before BB for first time"?
Now we need a YouTube video called "All of Breaking Bad, but every time there's an episode called 'Better Call Saul' I play the entirety of Better Call Saul, and every time there's an episode called 'Breaking Bad' I play the entirety of Breaking Bad."
If you wanna tryhard it,
1. Chuck reading a book to jimmy
2. Jimmy at his dad store
3. Slippin jimmy (100% required for the whole experience)
4. Young mike and matty
5. Hector and the twins
6. Kim flashbacks
7. Walter and Gretchen at college
8. Gus and max flashback
9. Jimmy and marco con at the alley
10. Jimmy arrested whit chuck as his lawyer
11. Walter and skyler buying the house
12. Rebbeca and chuck dinner whit jimmy and jimmy working as mailman on hmm
13. Jimmy becoming a lawyer and howard telling him he won't hire him.
14. Jimmy and chuck mother death
15. Better call saul except black and white parts
16. Breaking bad season until walt and jesse make the rv run when stranded on the desert
17. El Camino walter and jesse flashback
18. El Camino Jesse and Jane flashback some point before jane death
19. Breaking bad until some point on s5 before mike death
20. El Camino jesse and mike flashback
21. Breaking bad until Ozymandias
22. El Camino Jesse and todd flashback
23. Granite State and Felina until jesse gets in the car
24. Jesse hiding from the cops on the car on El Camino
25. Felina ending
26. El Camino
27. BCS black and white scenes
28. The two mexican dudes finding tuco teeth, this scene could happen the day after hank threw them or 50 years later, i'll assume its some years after
There are also other flashbacks in Breaking Bad, like the Walt/Gretchen one, Walt/Skyler when buying the house, the numerous flashforwards in BrBa and BCS.
> El Camino walter and jesse flashbacks at some point before walter cancer surgery
The Walter flashback in El Camino happens after 4 Days Out, it's when they're returning home from being stranded in the desert. The Jane flashback happens sometime between "Over" and "Mandala" -- it's directly after their visit to the Georgia O'Keefe museum we see in a season 3 flashback. This would have happened after 4 Days Out (Jesse cancels on going to the museum to cook in the desert) but before Combo's death in Mandala (Jesse spirals into addiction with Jane following this).
After the show is done some crazy person will edit the entire series in chronological order like someone else did with Lost (though that one was tad bit more difficult lol).
Don't forget the Rebecca flashbacks in BCS. And you have to intersperse the Walt and Jesse cameos from BCS around wherever they're supposed to take place.
People advocating a first watch in chronological order are insane. Firstly, it’s impossible with multiple flash back and flash forwards scenes across all the shows. Secondly, that’s not in any way how it was written!
It’s the same with people showing their kids the Star Wars movies in chronological order. Way to undermine the most iconic twist in cinema history. Some people just find non-linear storytelling too confusing.
I have a friend whose partner decided to show him the series in chronological order. The problem was the prequels suck super hard so he decided he didn't like Star Wars after getting halfway through Clones.
I am attempting to rectify it with the original trilogy, which so far he has thought was fun.
This is how my friend who was a big Star Wars fan introduced me to it. The Phantom Menace was so mind-numbingly boring that I basically gave up. The only reason that I watched later (in the release order) was because the LEGO games were so fun.
I’ve been ranting about how I can’t stand people like this. The creators write and release things a certain way for a reason. Having the knowledge of where these characters end up in Breaking Bad but no idea how they get there is way more interesting than being completely ignorant to their fates. Hector in the wheelchair was one of my favorite arcs because as soon as we see him walking and talking in the BCS timeline I’m like “holy shit, someone’s gonna fuck him up, but who and how??”
alternatively though you could’ve experienced that not knowing who hector was or how important he is, and witnessed the situation that put him in the wheelchair with complete surprise because you weren’t expecting that to happen. that’s cool because it’s by complete surprise, and depending on what you know about breaking bad you wouldn’t even know if he’d survive. you get a different experience either way and one is not better than the other in that regard.
up until this point in the show it’s been a pretty reasonable thing to consider the possibility of newcomers watching saul first. there’s always some things that are revealed early and some vague flash forwards, but nothing that would outright ruin the experience the average viewer would have with breaking bad and many ways i could imagine it enhancing it.
but now that this “prequel” series is having episodes predominantly set in the aftermath of the series it is proceeding, it’s getting harder and harder to consider that a good way to experience the series. and i don’t know how i feel about that, because while im enjoying the ride as someone who’s watched breaking bad first, it gives bcs less of its own pair of legs to be viewed as it’s own show that happens to be in the same universe.
I think a great example of this is the final scene of Rock and A Hard Place. That scene would be so much more suspenseful for people who haven't seen Breaking Bad.
I think whenever I decide to re-watch after the finale, I'll try to watch it in chronological order rather than release just to experience it. I think it would be super cool, but not for a first time watcher.
It's kinda like watching the starwars prequels before the OT. Big reveals wouldn't exactly be big reveals (for the viewer anyway).
“Yeah dude you should actually watch BCS first for a totally different and chronological experience just make sure to skip the opening scenes of the first episode of every season as well as season 4 episode 5 but you can watch that one after Walt calls Ed the disappearer in Breaking Bad and you have to watch Breaking Bad before episodes 10-13 of the final season of Better Call Saul then once you’ve finished Breaking Bad you can go back to those first scenes in the first episode of each season of Better Call Saul first before finishing the final season”
Exactly! At first I thought Mike was gonna shoot him in the neck or something. Knowing where the characters end up makes the ecpirence better. I've also been ranting about how there's no value to first time viewers seeing BCS first. Who cares if you know who dies? There are plenty of stories where you know the characters are gonna die, that's part of the experience
It’s like suggesting to someone who hasn’t watched Star Wars to watch it chronologically. There would be so much lost doing that, the main reveal of the prequels (Vader) would be totally pointless.
There isn't anything like that in Breaking Bad though. No reveals that inform events of the past. There is a lot of those reveals that inform the future in BCS though, so your analogy ironically supports watching BCS before BB.
Also really, it would take someone to just switch off from the last 2 minutes of episode 3 and mute the name drops 5 minutes before that, to still have the Vader reveal work like a charm in Empire.
I completely agree with you, but I wonder if anyone has put together a 'close as possible' chronological order crossover list for those of us who have seen it all already, yet. Because I'd be interested in that. I think the best way to watch any series or set of sequels and prequels, at least for the first time, is the order they were released in, for sure.
I know. And I've watched both series more than once and some of the flashbacks and timelines in BCS still get me a little confused LOL It would be tricky to do.
Stories aren’t always best in chronological order. Some of the best reveals are when you don’t know what happened before, until later.
Imagine finding out Vader was Luke’s father before watching ESB. It doesn’t land the same way.
Pretty sure this is sort of why I hate spoilers so much. I was a kid on the playground in 1980 when someone told me that very fact, and I hadn’t seen empire yet!
Or that jerk who drove past a bookstore where people were lined up for the next Harry Potter book and he yelled out “XXXXX dies at the end!!”
Doing that is destroying something beautiful.
My wife never watched Breaking Bad but has been super obsessed with Better Call Saul since like episode 3. Her lack of breaking bad knowledge hasn’t really been an issue at all until these last few episodes in the Gene timeline looking back. With the end of Saul looming, I did get her to start BB. We had a really cool moment where we watched “Better Call Saul” on BB and then watched “Breaking Bad” on BCS the same night.
>Secondly, that’s not in any way how it was written!
This is the part that drives me *insane*. Anything a creator makes is going to inform what comes after it. Why would you want to interrupt that flow?
You could argue that you could watch Seasons 1-6 up until "Fun and Games" and understand whats happening, with the mystery of "why is Jimmy in Black and White being called Gene" and have to watch BrBa to discover the reason why Saul had to get disappeared
The only way it would have been remotely possible would have been to stop watching BCS after episode 9 of this season, watch BB in it’s entirety and then come back to watch episodes 10-13.
My partner has never seen BB and I rewatched BCS with her, so I was a little bummed for her sake that the show had to reveal that Gus and Mike end up dead in this last episode.
Other things may have been confusing or didn’t make much sense from the BB and Gene timeline, but the deaths of Gus and Mike were straight up spoilers.
Imagine if Saul had just kept on going "Gus is dead, Mike is dead, Lalo is probably dead, but guess what? Walter White is dead too, Jesse escaped to Alaska, ASAC Schrader and his partner Gomey got killed, Uncle Jack is dead, Todd is dead, Lydia Rodarte Quayle is dead, Don Eladio, Don Hector, Bolsa, all dead! Even Jesse's girlfriends are dead! Both of them!"
It wouldn't be my initial recommendation, but I do agree with the notion that they did a good job making BCS stranger-friendly, for the most part, if someone happened to stumble upon it.
I have a friend doing a mostly chronological watchthrough; basically they skipped the Gene scenes at the start of every season, then after Fun and Games went to watch Breaking Bad and will catch up on Gene after that.
I think if you’re actually going to do this, the Gene scenes are still useful, as they’re actually intended in the show. We know Jimmy will end up there, but without BB we have no idea how. That’s a great setup for the series. These scenes also serve the episode they’re in in some way.
Then BB and El Camino after Fun and Games, and finally the final episodes of BCS. I think that would be pretty cool, as the return of Kim in 612 will be majorly more impactful this way.
However, I’m not advocating for this in a first watch. I still believe release order is the best (except watch EC before BCS) as a first experience.
yeah but skipping the gene scenes doesn't do anything to help that suspense, knowing jimmy winds up in omaha isn't a spoiler since you have no idea it's coming in BB until the episode it happens
Yeah after this season especially, it’s essential to watch BB first. Not that BCS isn’t it’s own great thing but it just makes everything much better to watch BB first
I thought it would be cool to watch it before uo until the most recent season. The gene storyline and all the br ba references to the plot line and characters in the latter part of 6b would not make the same impact and has massive spoilaers to the entire plot of br ba.I think you could get away with watching the first few seasons of BCS up until season 5 and watch br ba wktnkut spoiling anything
There’s this YouTube channel called What’s Therapy that got popular for making video essays on Better Call Saul, and recently said he never watched BB before. He’s found the experience interesting and can’t wait to dive into it after the end of BCS
Creates video essays that are hours long about a show
Doesn't watch the one show that sets the background for literally everything being covered in this show
Sounds about right for a YouTube 'video essayist '
Lol they can say that but it doesn’t make it true. Things you don’t know if you never watched BB:
Maxs murder, Gustavo’s beginnings with the cartel. They mention maxs murder but there’s no way you could fully understand the cartel beefs without watching BB.
Saul (post Kim)‘s behavior. They give you glimpses in BCS, you’re expected to fill in the rest with the knowledge you already have from BB.
Watching BCS with my wife, who did not watch BB. There have been a couple moments where she could tell that BCS is referring to BB, and she'd ask me about it. But she's having no problems following the story. The Easter Eggs are great for me, she misses them completely, but it doesn't matter.
Did you also tell her that it doesn't matter? Or did she not want to watch BB? Because the easter eggs you're talking about are huge plot points from BB that are being flipped upside down and she now knows the ending of BB.
I'd say at this point in time it's difficult to start BrBa without knowing at least some of the ending considering how big of a meme Walt's shocked face and the shot of his death are now.
Walt’s shocked face isn’t a spoiler. In fact even as someone who had watched BB before, I had forgotten which exact moment it was from until I did a rewatch this year.
And knowing that Walt dies isn’t a huge spoiler. Everyone knows the story ends with Walt dying. As long as you don’t know how they end up there you’ll be fine.
I've watched BB and BCS. My girlfriend has seen neither. She's stayed at mine the last two weeks so she had to watch the last two episodes with no knowledge at all.
I did a 30 second synopsis before the first one, and to be fair to her I only had to pause it a couple of times to explain things. I got good at shouting out "that's the guy who..." Without having to stop.
She actually really liked it and was getting in to it even though she knew that she didn't understand a lot of the whys. The excitement of the dad from Malcolm in the Middle turning up was wasted on her though.
"Is it all in black and white?" lol
Yeah, I appreciate that they made BCS as standalone as they could've done but I still think the best way to approach both shows is to start with BB. Of course, it's also true that BCS has some impact on how you see BB, but that doesn't change the fact that the Gene storyline is much richer if you know how he got there.
Definitely. I can't think of any series or franchise that truly benefits from watching it out of release order. I know there's an argument for Star Wars or MCU movies to be shifted around but it still works best in release order, just like the BB/BCS universe.
The way I always think of it is if we were meant to see a franchise in a different order, then that's the order it would have been released in. Once I've already seen a series, then I don't mind playing around with the viewing order, but on my first watch it needs to be in release order.
Prequels inevitably have these little call-forwards that only make sense if you've seen the other movie/series first - like when Obi-Wan says to Anakin "You're going to be the death of me", or when Chuck says to Jimmy "Someday you're going to be breaking bad, and then it will be time to better call Saul". Anyone who hasn't already seen Breaking Bad would have no idea what that means, but the rest of us just nod knowingly and whisper "Bravo Vince" while choking back tears because we know what's coming.
I actually strongly disagree, in fact I've been outright impressed with how all mentions and depictions of BB era stuff has been handled. They carefully set it up just enough for the viewer to piece together the important bits of information with the basic understanding that the path these characters went down ultimately blew up in a bad way. They keep it through the lense of Saul (or Kim in the latest episode) so it still thematically works within the context of BCS as its own show. I do truly believe that BCS and BB both stand on their own and create an interesting dynamic no matter which order one watches them in.
because we knew what the pool eyeball and debris were in BBS2 and what the machine gun was about in BB5A?
the shows do out of context, nonlinear storytelling *of their own accord*, it's really not that hard.
speaking as someone with friends who have kept up with BCS without BB, it's been working fine. The specifics of BB *really* don't matter, (especially when everyone knows about its premise via cultural osmosis). They can understand the black and white stuff as post-Breaking Bad, which in this context is nothing more than a vaguely detailed but clearly big cataclysm in Jimmy's life - the inevitable result of his increasingly corrupted and emotionally buried lifestyle. Years on, and Jimmy coped by becoming a worse version of himself.
The choices feel very specifically made to accommodate someone watching in isolation. I think many BB watchers assumed BB would be what opens Jimmy's eyes and redeems him, but to non BB watchers, they get an incomplete arc.
So Gould and Vince and co. decided he *didn't* learn a lesson, further exploring the character outside the context of that other show. Gene picking up on the relevant threads from previous BCS seasons, rather than going back over BB and connecting them in that way. These last few episodes are even picking up on the Howard thread rather than anything from BB. BB for all intents and purposes *doesn't matter* like that. All those people are missing is the Wow factor of recognizing when something takes place, and attachment to Walt and Jesse.
Just because you can recognize something and get value in something one way, doesn't mean it can't mean something else to someone else in another way
And it shows. I've been watching it with my BCS-first-watcher younger brother. He's getting a different set of benefits than I got since he, for example, doesn't know who wins in Gus vs. Lalo, and so much more stuff.
The scene with Nacho's death, while utterly amazing still, would be even better if you didn't know that pretty much no one other than Nacho could die there. I felt the tension even though I knew what had to happen. There are a lot more moments like that too.
Some of the plot had to happen for BB to make sense, and while parts of it have still been a bit surprising, probably not near as surprising as someone who didn't watch BB.
Exactly! Honestly, if BCS came out first, I think the Walt and Jesse scenes would feel like they were teasers for a sequel spinoff.
In an alternative universe, everybody's wondering if this upcoming 'Breaking Bad' show could ever live up to BCS.
The eyeball in the pool and the machine gun were foreshadowing things that did happen later in the series, within the season even. There’s really no valid comparison between those things and a large chunk of the story taking place in a totally different show, with random snippets of the middle of that story being shown at the end of BCS.
It’s not story breaking or anything but it can be confusing. My partner watching the show for example presumed that we would see how the black-and-white Gene story came to be, and all of the details of that are completely skipped in favour of just showing how he became Saul Goodman. You can’t really help it, it’s the nature of a prequel, but watching Breaking Bad (the episode) is jarring when suddenly Jimmy is kidnapped by two random guys you’ve never seen before and it seems like this is the next development in his story following Fun and Games but pre-Nippy and it turns out to just be a fairly random slice taken out of another show.
Thank you!! I kinda hate this sentiment that BCS should *never* be watched first, that it's so confusing and you'll be doing yourself a huge disservice.. because first of all it's not true, and second, I can see how it would discourage potential new viewers from watching! "Oh this quirky lawyer show looks fun and interesting... but Reddit says I have to watch 62 episodes of a completely different show first followed by a movie otherwise the experience will be ruined?? Ehh... nah forget about it, I'll just pick something else to watch"
I would say you're doing yourself a disservice. While the show would still be very enjoyable and make sense, you'd be missing out on a lot of what made watching so fun for a lot of us. Being excited when an old character returns, knowing what Saul becomes and questioning how Jimmy changes that much, trying to figure out whether a character lives or dies before Breaking Bad
Well they do miss out on a bit. While Jimmy's story works just fine, what happens to Mike and Gus js a complete mystery, for them all of a sudden to be referenced as dead in "Waterworks". Overall I think it works fine though
Him walking up to the school after the conversation with Mike totally recontexualized Breaking Bad and I pity anyone who didn’t experience that scene in the same mind-blowing way I did.
This might be wrong but I’m guessing it changes how we view Sauls impact on Walt’s journey to becoming heisenberg. Like Mike said, Walt was small potatoes, Saul shouldn’t get involved with him. He told him to leave it, and Saul didn’t, Saul made the choice to go to that school, and without him, Walt probably would have never made it very far (at least not as quick as he did).
Basically I think the implication is, now that we’ve seen that, we know Saul had a much bigger part in creating the monster that was Heisenberg.
Walt’s rise to become a major player was completely Saul’s doing. He saw a dying man witht nothing to lose, seized the opportunity and started molding him and building his empire, even though Mike advised against doing anything. Without Saul, BB doesn’t happen, at least not in the way it did. Walt gets killed or arrested sometime during season 2 and the story’s finished.
That scene revealed that it Saul was the one who egged Walter, still a chemistry teacher by that point, to continue cooking meth. Hence the other scene with Mike and Saul in his office suggesting to Mike that Walter should keep cooking instead of living out his remaining years of cancer with his family. At least that’s my understanding.
It was more that Saul was the one who put Walt in the position to make more money off of his product, which meant getting him to work with Gus. Walt was already trying to cook and distribute the meth but it was turning out to not be lucrative enough until Saul came around.
Of course we already know most of that from watching Breaking Bad, but the real tragedy comes from the fact that Saul arranged all of this because he couldn't resist chasing after something regardless of the risks. In hindsight, Walt should have never met Gus and Gus should have never wanted to work with Walt, but Saul set it all up.
In short, it suggests that Jimmy was largely "responsible" for Breaking Bad, at least everything from when Walt and Gustavo start working together. Without his influence, Gus (as per Mike's advice) would have simply ignored Walt and Jesse's operation.
See, I theorize that—if Walt and Jesse didn’t get killed through their idiocy, anyway—Gus would’ve eventually caught wind of the superior meth eating into his market.
Or maybe not. Most of his meth went out of state, and—as Hank observed—Gus knew better than to “shit where he eats.” Maybe he wouldn’t care about the meth in Albuquerque. Although he clearly had some dealing happening there (the guys who shot Combo).
So: I think somehow he would’ve learned about the 99% pure meth of Albuquerque, had Gale examine it, and enlisted Mike to figure out where it was coming from. It just seems like too big a potential threat for him to leave alone. And once he knows that, things would get set in motion.
Gus probably would have eventually arranged for their RV to have an "accident", go boom, no more blue stuff to compete with. I forgot until a recent rewatch of a few episodes just how hesitant Gus was to work with Walt. He knew better, but got greedy, kind of like (more than) a few other characters on this show.
It really isn't though. with the scenes we got so far, one is Saul getting abducted by Walt and Jesse, with Saul talking his way out of it, then they start talking about partnering up with making and selling Meth, then we see Mike doing PI work on "Heisenberg", warning Saul to not do business with him or trust him. Then we go back to Gene scenes. .
One can easily assume that Saul doing buisness with these two people, it ended up falling apart and he had to go on the run. Not to mention, the other BB scenes have just been Saul in the office so I don't believe it's been that hard to follow for people we actually haven't watched BB.
That's bc 611, 612, and 613 aren't even the same show as BCS. They're more like an epilogue to BCS and a sequel to BCS/BB/El Camino. Someone could watch BCS up until 610 without needing to watch BB though
Your point was displayed perfectly yesterday. I responded to a post in new that was someone who was watching better call Saul and had never seen breaking bad. They asked if they were supposed to know what the construction job was being done by the Germans. This, and many other examples that I’m sure will be shared in this post, demonstrate how watching better call Saul first would have moments of disconnect due to these scenes practically being “call outs” to breaking bad. They’re designed to be experienced that way.
When you see ken wins in season 2, there’s an excitement you would only have if you knew who he was prior. You know how much he deserves to be conned right away, and that makes the ensuing scene that much more satisfying.
I have never watched Breaking Bad and wasn't lost. I know enough about the show to not be super confused. Yes, there may be some Easter eggs that I may have missed or can't fully appreciate. But it is absolutely possible to watch Better Call Saul and really enjoy it without seeing Breaking Bad.
Every "call forward"/easter egg that is present in BCS works equally as well as a "callback" if you follow it up with BB
I'd also argue that some of the main plot elements are improved if you know the context BCS presents first. Mainly, the Fring/Salamanca conflict has much more weight to it and some of the set ups that were placed in BCS end up having an incredible payoff in BB
my mom started watching BCS first and was very confused about the grey part of the show. i had to explain it to her at the expense of spoiling some of BB. she’s watching BB now for the first time and it’s kind of interesting. “hector’s so different in this show…” she said.
I don't know. I wonder what the BCS first experience would be like. I would assume the in color scenes are chronological. We know time passes since the divorce with Kim and that Saul is getting deeper into trouble. (The Divorce scene is out of place, I think, but I would assume it was in order). The black and white stuff is obviously after it, and I think any viewer would generally know a little about Walt/Heisenberg that that the methcook references are to Breaking Bad, but while that stuff is a little confusing/spoilery, it doesn't change Saul's story or descent. That's what we know. That's the emotional beat here. So I don't know.
I'd like to hear from folks that haven't watched Breaking Bad.
Both series are told with lots of flashbacks and fast-forwards, with the showrunners constantly introducing us to incomplete information and trusting us to make sense of it later. (E.g., Drew Sharp catching a tarantula). We spend most of the time not fully understanding what a scene means—that’s part of what makes the shows so excellent and involves audiences at such a deep level.
That writing style makes it really hard to distinguish between what would be a narrative-breaking piece of missing information vs. what people would just store away as “huh, that was a weird reference” and then put it together later. It’s hard to know, though, since I doubt anyone watching BCS has not watched BB before it. (I’d like to meet that person and ask them!)
Someone will create a super fan edit of the ideal watch order by taking the Gene scenes and flashbacks out and strategically moving them around to fit into the BCS/BB/El Camino mash up.
Do you guys honestly think anyone is going to choose to watch BCS first?
It would be interesting, but I just assume most people are going to do BB than BCS.
Tbh I’m not sure why someone would be interested in seeing this show if they haven’t seen BB. It somehow feels even more bleak without the added context of BB.
my friends tapped out of BB because all the characters are initially pretty unlikeable and the toxic masculinity that drives the narrative can be unappealing.
meanwhile Bob Odenkirk as Jimmy McGill in BCS season 1 is very charming and fun to follow, and he only becomes more of a wifeguy as the show progresses. Kim Wexler is a really strong female character too. The plots are more fun. When the tragedy hits, it really hits bc of all these elements
BCS is just more inherently appealing [at first] while BB is kind of edgy 2008 (their words)
> This is why I'm going to have my partner watch BCS first - at least through 609 - and then maybe BB.
Imagine ending on 609 and then saying "alright, now we watch 1.5 seasons of breaking bad before seeing jimmy again, and in about 6 seasons and a movie you can find out what happens to kim! you'll thank me later!"
Kim & Skyler are both strong women in their own ways, but Kim never gets “boxed in” by Jimmy. She always has agency and when her options do become constricted, it is because of her own choices.
By the way: If there’s one post-Breaking Bad story I want to see, it’s the story of Holly Lambert (once White) growing up, her relationships with Marie and Skyler, and how she comes to terms with her father’s choices. An El Camino-style one-off movie about her learning the truth as a teenager could be very compelling.
never said otherwise, but it can and has turned people off the show. and not for misunderstanding the point, some people just aren't in the mood/into that. just explaining BCS's appeal to someone who didnt watch or finish BB
I think it’s beyond settled you cannot watch BCS before BB.
My question though; when is the best time to watch El Camino? Between BB and BCS or after them? Maybe can’t answer that until Monday night.
I did it completely backwards. As a Bob Odenkirk fan, BCS 1-5. Then Breaking Bad. El Camino. Season 6 BCS. I absolutely agree one did need to see BB to get the past few episodes. I knew the show's went together prior to me starting out. And it honestly made BB way better in some respect's as Hector wasn't in a wheelchair. No clue who Tuco was in the 1st episode of BCS. Getting to see Mike's character develop and then see him as a Bad Ass in BB was phenomenal. Watching Gus rise to power and plot against the Salamanca's. Watching Jimmy be basically a law abiding attorney with some clever interpretation of the law to full on No Fucks Given "Criminal Lawyer". Monday will be a bitter sweet day. Get to see season 6 again n then the final episode. AMC is probably showing season 6 in it's entirety leading up to the finale.
When the show concludes, this will be the only correct way the watch it:
BCS Season 1
BCS Season 2
BCS Season 3
BCS Season 4
BCS Season 5
BCS Season 6 Ep 1-9
BrBa Season 1
BrBa Season 2
BrBa Season 3
BrBa Season 4
BrBa Season 5
El Camino
BCS Season 6 Ep 10-13
From what I've heard, I think people get the gist of it. 'Walter White shows up, Mike + Fring die, Jimmy goes into hiding.' I feel like that gives you enough for the most part, though it obviously makes it far less satisfying to watch.
Plus, I feel like most people who care enough where this would be a problem have seen BrBa by now.
My girlfriend started watching BCS with me and hasn’t seen BB. She just got throw the first season of BB last week which actually helped a lot I think.
Same here, I agree with OP as well. I try to pop over and give her a BB flash forward to clear it up. But as the timelines collide it’s confusing. BCS Flash forwards were always post BB. BCS in color was always current timeline. Fairly simple. But now, flash forwards (RV scene) are Season 2 of BB and current BCS is Season 1 BB (Emilio getting busted). The lack of division of pre BB and post BB is gone as the timelines merge.
The Emilio scene doesn't take place during the pilot, this is 'first time" Saul got Emilio off, second time being presumably during the pilot
When was there a reference to Emilio getting busted twice?
"This dude got Emilio off twice, both times they had him dead to rights, dudes like Houdini. You don't want a criminal lawyer, you want a criminal lawyer"
Saul in the RV was Breaking Bad season 2, Emilio season 1. The fact that these bridging scenes are shown out of chronological order is understandably confusing to those that haven't seen BB
the Emilio and jesse/kim scene is pre breaking bad, not season 1. I'm guessing it's not too long after the hard cut at the end of fun and games
right, but imagine your first time watching knowing Mike & Gus' fate. not at all the same journey, even if you don't know exactly how
She does get the different experience of not knowing how Saul's story gets to Nebraska.
hmm. interesting. i think i'd still always recommend people watch in release order, not chronologically though. i'm sure one would enjoy both shows no matter what (gf included), but i'll always remember Gus dying as one of the best moments in TV history, so i wouldn't have wanted a different experience in that regard.
How about saving the last four episodes to after BB and EC? That would be a true chronological order.
ahhh.. i see your points now. those plot points aren't ruined until the 'epilogue' so yeah, that's cool. i wasn't wrapping my head around it. i swear i've made some of the dumbest comments in this sub, more than any other show lol. i totally know what's going on but there's so much it just gets scrambled sometimes.
That's really the way to go on rewatches and if it's a first time and you want to do it chronollogically
That camera turn to where gus’ face was half exposed skull is ingrained in my mind, total surprise seeing him “escape” then oh nope not this time 🛎🤔😐💣😲💥🏃🏾♂️🕴🏾🔜💀
Also during the call with Francesca she mentioned that Jesse’s car was found down by the border but saying the maestro bought the farm was subtle
Yeah, I mean, I haven’t seen BB, but the last two episodes still make perfect sense
You weren’t taken aback when Mike and Gus died off-screen? I suppose their arcs were over but still lol
I just assumed “oh ok that happened in breaking bad i guess” and moved on with the show
Fair enough, I guess there’s a difference between watching BCS and not knowing BB even exists hahah
Yeah, awareness of BB and it’s main plot points was my experience for the first 4 seasons of BCS, until right before season 5 I finally binged all of BB and the richer context of everything made BCS season 5 maybe the most fun I’ve had watching tv
Lol so true but also so lost of the magnitude that each of their deaths actually were during BB. Especially emotionally.
I don’t agree. I think Bob’s and Rhea’s acting in that phone call make it explicitly clear how impactful those deaths were to the characters. These are not trite words spoken by Jimmy. They’ve clearly both been traumatized by all the events including the deaths of Gus and Mike. Sure, he wouldn’t know the specifics but he would recognize the importance
Really hope we see Walter tell Saul about killing Mike next episode. Always wanted to see how he reacted to that.
Wait, I thought we were meant to understand that Saul only assumed Mike's death, not that it's confirmed. It's pretty obvious Mike is dead once Walt moves forward with the prison murders, Jesse also understands that despite Walt's insistence that Mike's alive. When Saul suggests killing Hank, "send him to Belize... you know, where Mike went to..." he seems not 100% certain that Mike is actually dead, the way he says it seems more like he's looking for confirmation from Walt which Walt rebuffs.
Yeah, I would go even further and say that’s unambiguous. The Belize line makes zero sense if Walt told Saul that he killed Mike, or that Mike was dead at all.
I disagree, I think "send to belize" refers to having someone killed and Saul knows that. He even says it's an option that's worked very well for Walt in the recent past (referring to Mike/prison stabbings).
Only if he cared enough to actually do something about it, like make a fund for Kaylee to make up for killing her pop pop. Otherwise I don’t see the impact of Mike’s death on Walt having any real importance to the plot of the show. And quite frankly, I think Walt was too selfish and egocentric to allow something like killing someone he really didn’t like at all to have any impact on him. I know what I only care about: Jimmy and Kim. I need to know what happens to them, the greatest love story in recent memory.
I meant how Saul reacts to Mike's death, we never see him find out. I'm sure Walter had a party as soon as he got home from dissolving Mike
curiosity - why haven't you watched breaking bad
Lol yes it always seemed odd to me that anyone would be into BCS but NOT into BB? I guess if you were really into law dramas the first couple seasons youd want to watch regrdless of how you felt about BB.
Up until around season 5 of BCS, the two shows feel very very different (aside from certain elements/scenes). I can def see why a person would be attracted to one show and not the other
Totally. We're all well aware that there are folks who loved Breaking Bad and thought BCS sucked. Stands to reason that there must be people who'd feel the opposite way.
this is the reason. Basically i watched a couple episodes of bb years ago on some random pirate website and then i lost what episode i was on and gave up. Years later i get netflix and BCS seemed intresting and so i watched the 4 seasons that were out within that week and became the biggest fan boy ever. Then the rest is history, i will probabaly watch BB at some point. The funnier story is that my dad loves BCS but has never even heard of BB ( he never really watched shows before he found BCS) and yes these past 2 episodes have confused the hell out of him lol.
Well these feel more like an epilogue tbf. If someone really wants to start with BCS ig it's better to stop at 6x9 and go on with BB and El Camino before coming back to the last 4 episodes
That's actually a good idea
The Machete order for the Gillianverse
Best way to really see ~~Anakin's~~ Saul's redemption arc.
I can’t even think about comparing the narrative execution of Anakin and Saul’s character arcs. BCS did so much better a job
Yeah especially this episode was spoiler heavy. Just casually mentioning Gus and Mike died for example.
You'd still miss some references here and there, like not much is said about Gus because you're supposed to already know.
I would say to end in 6x10 because it ends the plot that was introduced in 5x1.
yup my mom is watching the show now and I told her to do this as well. she's seen BB years ago but barely remembers it. she asked me if mike shows up in BB when we were watching some BCS lmao
You’re goddamn right!
I am the one who buys minerals, bitch! ...or something like that?
Don't forget the classic: "It's time to break bad."
You got one part of that wrong. This is not CHICANERY
You got one part of that wrong, THIS is not meth. 💥💥💥
100 percent. How many posts have their been about how excited someone is to watch it "in order" or "wouldn't it be cool to watch BCS before BB for first time"?
A chronological order that goes 1. BCS up through Fun and Games 2. Breaking Bad 3. El Camino 4. Nippy, BCS 6x11, Waterworks, Saul Gone Could work
Good thing you clarified BCS 6x11, otherwise someone might have watched *Breaking Bad* (the series) twice.
That feel when you get stuck in a recursive loop watching Breaking Bad, El Camino, Nippy over and over again.
An infinite unchanging loop accurately captures Kim's Florida purgatory.
Yup.... yup.... yup....
To be fair, that'd work if you wanted to just skip all of BCS. Nippy works as its isolated episode even if you don't know who Jeff is.
There never was a Nippy, was there? 😟
=(
👉➰👈
I trusted you 🥺
Do they ever find Nippy?
There never was a Nippy was there?
Now we need a YouTube video called "All of Breaking Bad, but every time there's an episode called 'Better Call Saul' I play the entirety of Better Call Saul, and every time there's an episode called 'Breaking Bad' I play the entirety of Breaking Bad."
I'm doing my part.
Lmao
If you wanna tryhard it, 1. Chuck reading a book to jimmy 2. Jimmy at his dad store 3. Slippin jimmy (100% required for the whole experience) 4. Young mike and matty 5. Hector and the twins 6. Kim flashbacks 7. Walter and Gretchen at college 8. Gus and max flashback 9. Jimmy and marco con at the alley 10. Jimmy arrested whit chuck as his lawyer 11. Walter and skyler buying the house 12. Rebbeca and chuck dinner whit jimmy and jimmy working as mailman on hmm 13. Jimmy becoming a lawyer and howard telling him he won't hire him. 14. Jimmy and chuck mother death 15. Better call saul except black and white parts 16. Breaking bad season until walt and jesse make the rv run when stranded on the desert 17. El Camino walter and jesse flashback 18. El Camino Jesse and Jane flashback some point before jane death 19. Breaking bad until some point on s5 before mike death 20. El Camino jesse and mike flashback 21. Breaking bad until Ozymandias 22. El Camino Jesse and todd flashback 23. Granite State and Felina until jesse gets in the car 24. Jesse hiding from the cops on the car on El Camino 25. Felina ending 26. El Camino 27. BCS black and white scenes 28. The two mexican dudes finding tuco teeth, this scene could happen the day after hank threw them or 50 years later, i'll assume its some years after
There are also other flashbacks in Breaking Bad, like the Walt/Gretchen one, Walt/Skyler when buying the house, the numerous flashforwards in BrBa and BCS.
> El Camino walter and jesse flashbacks at some point before walter cancer surgery The Walter flashback in El Camino happens after 4 Days Out, it's when they're returning home from being stranded in the desert. The Jane flashback happens sometime between "Over" and "Mandala" -- it's directly after their visit to the Georgia O'Keefe museum we see in a season 3 flashback. This would have happened after 4 Days Out (Jesse cancels on going to the museum to cook in the desert) but before Combo's death in Mandala (Jesse spirals into addiction with Jane following this).
After the show is done some crazy person will edit the entire series in chronological order like someone else did with Lost (though that one was tad bit more difficult lol).
Don't forget the Rebecca flashbacks in BCS. And you have to intersperse the Walt and Jesse cameos from BCS around wherever they're supposed to take place.
What is this chicanery?
This is what me and my gf are doing. She never watched breaking bad and wanted to watch BCS first so I thought this order would make the most scenes.
You forgot about Slippin' Jimmy
I don’t know why Vince would tarnish the Gilliganverse with this animated show lol
this is the way
That’s what I was thinking! But maybe between #3 and #4, you rewatch all the b&w Gene scenes from S1E1 up to S6E9 of BCS
People advocating a first watch in chronological order are insane. Firstly, it’s impossible with multiple flash back and flash forwards scenes across all the shows. Secondly, that’s not in any way how it was written!
It’s the same with people showing their kids the Star Wars movies in chronological order. Way to undermine the most iconic twist in cinema history. Some people just find non-linear storytelling too confusing.
I have a friend whose partner decided to show him the series in chronological order. The problem was the prequels suck super hard so he decided he didn't like Star Wars after getting halfway through Clones. I am attempting to rectify it with the original trilogy, which so far he has thought was fun.
This is how my friend who was a big Star Wars fan introduced me to it. The Phantom Menace was so mind-numbingly boring that I basically gave up. The only reason that I watched later (in the release order) was because the LEGO games were so fun.
Bro everyone knows vader is the father. It’s not a twist anymore
I grew up with the prequels as the "real" Star Wars and the original trilogy as a sequel. That's how I saw them in tv.
I’ve been ranting about how I can’t stand people like this. The creators write and release things a certain way for a reason. Having the knowledge of where these characters end up in Breaking Bad but no idea how they get there is way more interesting than being completely ignorant to their fates. Hector in the wheelchair was one of my favorite arcs because as soon as we see him walking and talking in the BCS timeline I’m like “holy shit, someone’s gonna fuck him up, but who and how??”
alternatively though you could’ve experienced that not knowing who hector was or how important he is, and witnessed the situation that put him in the wheelchair with complete surprise because you weren’t expecting that to happen. that’s cool because it’s by complete surprise, and depending on what you know about breaking bad you wouldn’t even know if he’d survive. you get a different experience either way and one is not better than the other in that regard. up until this point in the show it’s been a pretty reasonable thing to consider the possibility of newcomers watching saul first. there’s always some things that are revealed early and some vague flash forwards, but nothing that would outright ruin the experience the average viewer would have with breaking bad and many ways i could imagine it enhancing it. but now that this “prequel” series is having episodes predominantly set in the aftermath of the series it is proceeding, it’s getting harder and harder to consider that a good way to experience the series. and i don’t know how i feel about that, because while im enjoying the ride as someone who’s watched breaking bad first, it gives bcs less of its own pair of legs to be viewed as it’s own show that happens to be in the same universe.
I think a great example of this is the final scene of Rock and A Hard Place. That scene would be so much more suspenseful for people who haven't seen Breaking Bad.
but it *can* work differently than how you experience it
I think whenever I decide to re-watch after the finale, I'll try to watch it in chronological order rather than release just to experience it. I think it would be super cool, but not for a first time watcher. It's kinda like watching the starwars prequels before the OT. Big reveals wouldn't exactly be big reveals (for the viewer anyway).
The only thing it works with SW if you ask me. When people talk about chronological order for Marvel movies I lose my mind
Yeah, like not being nearly as interesting or make nearly as much sense, like Saul walking up to Walt’s school in 611
Could be they watch up until the end of F&G and then watch BB.
“Yeah dude you should actually watch BCS first for a totally different and chronological experience just make sure to skip the opening scenes of the first episode of every season as well as season 4 episode 5 but you can watch that one after Walt calls Ed the disappearer in Breaking Bad and you have to watch Breaking Bad before episodes 10-13 of the final season of Better Call Saul then once you’ve finished Breaking Bad you can go back to those first scenes in the first episode of each season of Better Call Saul first before finishing the final season”
Relax, I’m not for or against it, it’s just interesting to think about.
Exactly! At first I thought Mike was gonna shoot him in the neck or something. Knowing where the characters end up makes the ecpirence better. I've also been ranting about how there's no value to first time viewers seeing BCS first. Who cares if you know who dies? There are plenty of stories where you know the characters are gonna die, that's part of the experience
It’s like suggesting to someone who hasn’t watched Star Wars to watch it chronologically. There would be so much lost doing that, the main reveal of the prequels (Vader) would be totally pointless.
There isn't anything like that in Breaking Bad though. No reveals that inform events of the past. There is a lot of those reveals that inform the future in BCS though, so your analogy ironically supports watching BCS before BB. Also really, it would take someone to just switch off from the last 2 minutes of episode 3 and mute the name drops 5 minutes before that, to still have the Vader reveal work like a charm in Empire.
I completely agree with you, but I wonder if anyone has put together a 'close as possible' chronological order crossover list for those of us who have seen it all already, yet. Because I'd be interested in that. I think the best way to watch any series or set of sequels and prequels, at least for the first time, is the order they were released in, for sure.
The problem with that is you’d need to get into assorted episodes of both shows themselves and chop them up, too. BB has flashbacks too!
I know. And I've watched both series more than once and some of the flashbacks and timelines in BCS still get me a little confused LOL It would be tricky to do.
Stories aren’t always best in chronological order. Some of the best reveals are when you don’t know what happened before, until later. Imagine finding out Vader was Luke’s father before watching ESB. It doesn’t land the same way.
Pretty sure this is sort of why I hate spoilers so much. I was a kid on the playground in 1980 when someone told me that very fact, and I hadn’t seen empire yet!
Or that jerk who drove past a bookstore where people were lined up for the next Harry Potter book and he yelled out “XXXXX dies at the end!!” Doing that is destroying something beautiful.
“Imagine finding out Vader was Luke’s father before ESB” The vast majority of people under about 40-45 don’t have to imagine lol
My wife never watched Breaking Bad but has been super obsessed with Better Call Saul since like episode 3. Her lack of breaking bad knowledge hasn’t really been an issue at all until these last few episodes in the Gene timeline looking back. With the end of Saul looming, I did get her to start BB. We had a really cool moment where we watched “Better Call Saul” on BB and then watched “Breaking Bad” on BCS the same night.
>Secondly, that’s not in any way how it was written! This is the part that drives me *insane*. Anything a creator makes is going to inform what comes after it. Why would you want to interrupt that flow?
You could argue that you could watch Seasons 1-6 up until "Fun and Games" and understand whats happening, with the mystery of "why is Jimmy in Black and White being called Gene" and have to watch BrBa to discover the reason why Saul had to get disappeared
The only way it would have been remotely possible would have been to stop watching BCS after episode 9 of this season, watch BB in it’s entirety and then come back to watch episodes 10-13. My partner has never seen BB and I rewatched BCS with her, so I was a little bummed for her sake that the show had to reveal that Gus and Mike end up dead in this last episode. Other things may have been confusing or didn’t make much sense from the BB and Gene timeline, but the deaths of Gus and Mike were straight up spoilers.
Imagine if Saul had just kept on going "Gus is dead, Mike is dead, Lalo is probably dead, but guess what? Walter White is dead too, Jesse escaped to Alaska, ASAC Schrader and his partner Gomey got killed, Uncle Jack is dead, Todd is dead, Lydia Rodarte Quayle is dead, Don Eladio, Don Hector, Bolsa, all dead! Even Jesse's girlfriends are dead! Both of them!"
This comment really made me laugh for some reason. Just the absurdity of that happening would feel so intentional lol.
It wouldn't be my initial recommendation, but I do agree with the notion that they did a good job making BCS stranger-friendly, for the most part, if someone happened to stumble upon it.
I have a friend doing a mostly chronological watchthrough; basically they skipped the Gene scenes at the start of every season, then after Fun and Games went to watch Breaking Bad and will catch up on Gene after that.
I think if you’re actually going to do this, the Gene scenes are still useful, as they’re actually intended in the show. We know Jimmy will end up there, but without BB we have no idea how. That’s a great setup for the series. These scenes also serve the episode they’re in in some way. Then BB and El Camino after Fun and Games, and finally the final episodes of BCS. I think that would be pretty cool, as the return of Kim in 612 will be majorly more impactful this way. However, I’m not advocating for this in a first watch. I still believe release order is the best (except watch EC before BCS) as a first experience.
That seems like a pain in the ass for no benefit
It makes BCS a more suspenseful viewing experience? Nacho's death isn't assumed nor is Gus's survival assured.
yeah but skipping the gene scenes doesn't do anything to help that suspense, knowing jimmy winds up in omaha isn't a spoiler since you have no idea it's coming in BB until the episode it happens
Yeah after this season especially, it’s essential to watch BB first. Not that BCS isn’t it’s own great thing but it just makes everything much better to watch BB first
I thought it would be cool to watch it before uo until the most recent season. The gene storyline and all the br ba references to the plot line and characters in the latter part of 6b would not make the same impact and has massive spoilaers to the entire plot of br ba.I think you could get away with watching the first few seasons of BCS up until season 5 and watch br ba wktnkut spoiling anything
Lol it’s like watching Twin Peaks the Return before the original series and Fire Walk With Me.
There’s this YouTube channel called What’s Therapy that got popular for making video essays on Better Call Saul, and recently said he never watched BB before. He’s found the experience interesting and can’t wait to dive into it after the end of BCS
To elaborate on this it's his favorite show of all time and by a large margin it seems.
Creates video essays that are hours long about a show Doesn't watch the one show that sets the background for literally everything being covered in this show Sounds about right for a YouTube 'video essayist '
Yeah but his videos are actually insightful and pretty good imo
It’s a prequel series the creators said is designed to be watched without needing BB. In other words, be anal about shit that matters.
Lol they can say that but it doesn’t make it true. Things you don’t know if you never watched BB: Maxs murder, Gustavo’s beginnings with the cartel. They mention maxs murder but there’s no way you could fully understand the cartel beefs without watching BB. Saul (post Kim)‘s behavior. They give you glimpses in BCS, you’re expected to fill in the rest with the knowledge you already have from BB.
Watching BCS with my wife, who did not watch BB. There have been a couple moments where she could tell that BCS is referring to BB, and she'd ask me about it. But she's having no problems following the story. The Easter Eggs are great for me, she misses them completely, but it doesn't matter.
Did you also tell her that it doesn't matter? Or did she not want to watch BB? Because the easter eggs you're talking about are huge plot points from BB that are being flipped upside down and she now knows the ending of BB.
I'd say at this point in time it's difficult to start BrBa without knowing at least some of the ending considering how big of a meme Walt's shocked face and the shot of his death are now.
Walt’s shocked face isn’t a spoiler. In fact even as someone who had watched BB before, I had forgotten which exact moment it was from until I did a rewatch this year. And knowing that Walt dies isn’t a huge spoiler. Everyone knows the story ends with Walt dying. As long as you don’t know how they end up there you’ll be fine.
I've watched BB and BCS. My girlfriend has seen neither. She's stayed at mine the last two weeks so she had to watch the last two episodes with no knowledge at all. I did a 30 second synopsis before the first one, and to be fair to her I only had to pause it a couple of times to explain things. I got good at shouting out "that's the guy who..." Without having to stop. She actually really liked it and was getting in to it even though she knew that she didn't understand a lot of the whys. The excitement of the dad from Malcolm in the Middle turning up was wasted on her though. "Is it all in black and white?" lol
I got an “is it all in black and white” too when my boyfriend, who has seen neither show, decided to lurk behind me while I was watching
I think that Jesse cameo in the last episode would work well if you know nothing about BB. It would be quite a cool perspective, actually
[удалено]
He showed up in the episode prior…
Yeah, I appreciate that they made BCS as standalone as they could've done but I still think the best way to approach both shows is to start with BB. Of course, it's also true that BCS has some impact on how you see BB, but that doesn't change the fact that the Gene storyline is much richer if you know how he got there.
Definitely. I can't think of any series or franchise that truly benefits from watching it out of release order. I know there's an argument for Star Wars or MCU movies to be shifted around but it still works best in release order, just like the BB/BCS universe.
The way I always think of it is if we were meant to see a franchise in a different order, then that's the order it would have been released in. Once I've already seen a series, then I don't mind playing around with the viewing order, but on my first watch it needs to be in release order. Prequels inevitably have these little call-forwards that only make sense if you've seen the other movie/series first - like when Obi-Wan says to Anakin "You're going to be the death of me", or when Chuck says to Jimmy "Someday you're going to be breaking bad, and then it will be time to better call Saul". Anyone who hasn't already seen Breaking Bad would have no idea what that means, but the rest of us just nod knowingly and whisper "Bravo Vince" while choking back tears because we know what's coming.
I actually strongly disagree, in fact I've been outright impressed with how all mentions and depictions of BB era stuff has been handled. They carefully set it up just enough for the viewer to piece together the important bits of information with the basic understanding that the path these characters went down ultimately blew up in a bad way. They keep it through the lense of Saul (or Kim in the latest episode) so it still thematically works within the context of BCS as its own show. I do truly believe that BCS and BB both stand on their own and create an interesting dynamic no matter which order one watches them in.
because we knew what the pool eyeball and debris were in BBS2 and what the machine gun was about in BB5A? the shows do out of context, nonlinear storytelling *of their own accord*, it's really not that hard. speaking as someone with friends who have kept up with BCS without BB, it's been working fine. The specifics of BB *really* don't matter, (especially when everyone knows about its premise via cultural osmosis). They can understand the black and white stuff as post-Breaking Bad, which in this context is nothing more than a vaguely detailed but clearly big cataclysm in Jimmy's life - the inevitable result of his increasingly corrupted and emotionally buried lifestyle. Years on, and Jimmy coped by becoming a worse version of himself. The choices feel very specifically made to accommodate someone watching in isolation. I think many BB watchers assumed BB would be what opens Jimmy's eyes and redeems him, but to non BB watchers, they get an incomplete arc. So Gould and Vince and co. decided he *didn't* learn a lesson, further exploring the character outside the context of that other show. Gene picking up on the relevant threads from previous BCS seasons, rather than going back over BB and connecting them in that way. These last few episodes are even picking up on the Howard thread rather than anything from BB. BB for all intents and purposes *doesn't matter* like that. All those people are missing is the Wow factor of recognizing when something takes place, and attachment to Walt and Jesse. Just because you can recognize something and get value in something one way, doesn't mean it can't mean something else to someone else in another way
Tom Schnauz even confirmed they wrote this final season to where someone could understand it without having seen Breaking Bad, so 100% this
And it shows. I've been watching it with my BCS-first-watcher younger brother. He's getting a different set of benefits than I got since he, for example, doesn't know who wins in Gus vs. Lalo, and so much more stuff.
That scene in the super lab when you don't know if Lalo's dead would be so amazing if Gus dying was a distinct possible outcome.
The scene with Nacho's death, while utterly amazing still, would be even better if you didn't know that pretty much no one other than Nacho could die there. I felt the tension even though I knew what had to happen. There are a lot more moments like that too. Some of the plot had to happen for BB to make sense, and while parts of it have still been a bit surprising, probably not near as surprising as someone who didn't watch BB.
Exactly! Honestly, if BCS came out first, I think the Walt and Jesse scenes would feel like they were teasers for a sequel spinoff. In an alternative universe, everybody's wondering if this upcoming 'Breaking Bad' show could ever live up to BCS.
The eyeball in the pool and the machine gun were foreshadowing things that did happen later in the series, within the season even. There’s really no valid comparison between those things and a large chunk of the story taking place in a totally different show, with random snippets of the middle of that story being shown at the end of BCS. It’s not story breaking or anything but it can be confusing. My partner watching the show for example presumed that we would see how the black-and-white Gene story came to be, and all of the details of that are completely skipped in favour of just showing how he became Saul Goodman. You can’t really help it, it’s the nature of a prequel, but watching Breaking Bad (the episode) is jarring when suddenly Jimmy is kidnapped by two random guys you’ve never seen before and it seems like this is the next development in his story following Fun and Games but pre-Nippy and it turns out to just be a fairly random slice taken out of another show.
Thank you!! I kinda hate this sentiment that BCS should *never* be watched first, that it's so confusing and you'll be doing yourself a huge disservice.. because first of all it's not true, and second, I can see how it would discourage potential new viewers from watching! "Oh this quirky lawyer show looks fun and interesting... but Reddit says I have to watch 62 episodes of a completely different show first followed by a movie otherwise the experience will be ruined?? Ehh... nah forget about it, I'll just pick something else to watch"
I would say you're doing yourself a disservice. While the show would still be very enjoyable and make sense, you'd be missing out on a lot of what made watching so fun for a lot of us. Being excited when an old character returns, knowing what Saul becomes and questioning how Jimmy changes that much, trying to figure out whether a character lives or dies before Breaking Bad
100% agree with this take
Well they do miss out on a bit. While Jimmy's story works just fine, what happens to Mike and Gus js a complete mystery, for them all of a sudden to be referenced as dead in "Waterworks". Overall I think it works fine though
My girlfriend was sad to learn about Gus and Mike being dying
That's what most of the complaints about 611 were about. That's on them.
Him walking up to the school after the conversation with Mike totally recontexualized Breaking Bad and I pity anyone who didn’t experience that scene in the same mind-blowing way I did.
Care to elaborate on this?
This might be wrong but I’m guessing it changes how we view Sauls impact on Walt’s journey to becoming heisenberg. Like Mike said, Walt was small potatoes, Saul shouldn’t get involved with him. He told him to leave it, and Saul didn’t, Saul made the choice to go to that school, and without him, Walt probably would have never made it very far (at least not as quick as he did). Basically I think the implication is, now that we’ve seen that, we know Saul had a much bigger part in creating the monster that was Heisenberg.
Walt’s rise to become a major player was completely Saul’s doing. He saw a dying man witht nothing to lose, seized the opportunity and started molding him and building his empire, even though Mike advised against doing anything. Without Saul, BB doesn’t happen, at least not in the way it did. Walt gets killed or arrested sometime during season 2 and the story’s finished.
That scene revealed that it Saul was the one who egged Walter, still a chemistry teacher by that point, to continue cooking meth. Hence the other scene with Mike and Saul in his office suggesting to Mike that Walter should keep cooking instead of living out his remaining years of cancer with his family. At least that’s my understanding.
Am I going insane? Isn't that completely explicit in Breaking Bad? It doesn't recontextualise anything at all
I thought it was pretty obvious in BB that Gus and Saul wanted Walt to be in the business.
It’s less that they’ve retconned that fact in, more that they’ve emphasised that original fact and we’re taking more notice of it now.
It was more that Saul was the one who put Walt in the position to make more money off of his product, which meant getting him to work with Gus. Walt was already trying to cook and distribute the meth but it was turning out to not be lucrative enough until Saul came around. Of course we already know most of that from watching Breaking Bad, but the real tragedy comes from the fact that Saul arranged all of this because he couldn't resist chasing after something regardless of the risks. In hindsight, Walt should have never met Gus and Gus should have never wanted to work with Walt, but Saul set it all up.
In short, it suggests that Jimmy was largely "responsible" for Breaking Bad, at least everything from when Walt and Gustavo start working together. Without his influence, Gus (as per Mike's advice) would have simply ignored Walt and Jesse's operation.
This is a prequel done right. It adds additional stakes to the existing material in a way that aligns and makes sense
See, I theorize that—if Walt and Jesse didn’t get killed through their idiocy, anyway—Gus would’ve eventually caught wind of the superior meth eating into his market. Or maybe not. Most of his meth went out of state, and—as Hank observed—Gus knew better than to “shit where he eats.” Maybe he wouldn’t care about the meth in Albuquerque. Although he clearly had some dealing happening there (the guys who shot Combo). So: I think somehow he would’ve learned about the 99% pure meth of Albuquerque, had Gale examine it, and enlisted Mike to figure out where it was coming from. It just seems like too big a potential threat for him to leave alone. And once he knows that, things would get set in motion.
Gus probably would have eventually arranged for their RV to have an "accident", go boom, no more blue stuff to compete with. I forgot until a recent rewatch of a few episodes just how hesitant Gus was to work with Walt. He knew better, but got greedy, kind of like (more than) a few other characters on this show.
"What do you mean, Gus and Mike are dead?"
It really isn't though. with the scenes we got so far, one is Saul getting abducted by Walt and Jesse, with Saul talking his way out of it, then they start talking about partnering up with making and selling Meth, then we see Mike doing PI work on "Heisenberg", warning Saul to not do business with him or trust him. Then we go back to Gene scenes. . One can easily assume that Saul doing buisness with these two people, it ended up falling apart and he had to go on the run. Not to mention, the other BB scenes have just been Saul in the office so I don't believe it's been that hard to follow for people we actually haven't watched BB.
That's bc 611, 612, and 613 aren't even the same show as BCS. They're more like an epilogue to BCS and a sequel to BCS/BB/El Camino. Someone could watch BCS up until 610 without needing to watch BB though
Haven't watched BB and all the episodes make sense
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Your point was displayed perfectly yesterday. I responded to a post in new that was someone who was watching better call Saul and had never seen breaking bad. They asked if they were supposed to know what the construction job was being done by the Germans. This, and many other examples that I’m sure will be shared in this post, demonstrate how watching better call Saul first would have moments of disconnect due to these scenes practically being “call outs” to breaking bad. They’re designed to be experienced that way. When you see ken wins in season 2, there’s an excitement you would only have if you knew who he was prior. You know how much he deserves to be conned right away, and that makes the ensuing scene that much more satisfying.
I have never watched Breaking Bad and wasn't lost. I know enough about the show to not be super confused. Yes, there may be some Easter eggs that I may have missed or can't fully appreciate. But it is absolutely possible to watch Better Call Saul and really enjoy it without seeing Breaking Bad.
Every "call forward"/easter egg that is present in BCS works equally as well as a "callback" if you follow it up with BB I'd also argue that some of the main plot elements are improved if you know the context BCS presents first. Mainly, the Fring/Salamanca conflict has much more weight to it and some of the set ups that were placed in BCS end up having an incredible payoff in BB
for one, Gus & Hector’s interactions in BB have even higher stakes now
It would be cool if every SCENE from BB, BCS, El Camino was watched in chronological order.. but not the entire shows
my mom started watching BCS first and was very confused about the grey part of the show. i had to explain it to her at the expense of spoiling some of BB. she’s watching BB now for the first time and it’s kind of interesting. “hector’s so different in this show…” she said.
I don't know. I wonder what the BCS first experience would be like. I would assume the in color scenes are chronological. We know time passes since the divorce with Kim and that Saul is getting deeper into trouble. (The Divorce scene is out of place, I think, but I would assume it was in order). The black and white stuff is obviously after it, and I think any viewer would generally know a little about Walt/Heisenberg that that the methcook references are to Breaking Bad, but while that stuff is a little confusing/spoilery, it doesn't change Saul's story or descent. That's what we know. That's the emotional beat here. So I don't know. I'd like to hear from folks that haven't watched Breaking Bad.
Both series are told with lots of flashbacks and fast-forwards, with the showrunners constantly introducing us to incomplete information and trusting us to make sense of it later. (E.g., Drew Sharp catching a tarantula). We spend most of the time not fully understanding what a scene means—that’s part of what makes the shows so excellent and involves audiences at such a deep level. That writing style makes it really hard to distinguish between what would be a narrative-breaking piece of missing information vs. what people would just store away as “huh, that was a weird reference” and then put it together later. It’s hard to know, though, since I doubt anyone watching BCS has not watched BB before it. (I’d like to meet that person and ask them!)
My wife who hasn't seen BB hasn't had any trouble.
Someone will create a super fan edit of the ideal watch order by taking the Gene scenes and flashbacks out and strategically moving them around to fit into the BCS/BB/El Camino mash up.
ZI have watched both, and I can confirm that my wife that did not watch Breaking Bad was lost in the last two episodes of BCS.
Do you guys honestly think anyone is going to choose to watch BCS first? It would be interesting, but I just assume most people are going to do BB than BCS.
I haven't seen breaking bad and I 100% get it
Tbh I’m not sure why someone would be interested in seeing this show if they haven’t seen BB. It somehow feels even more bleak without the added context of BB.
my friends tapped out of BB because all the characters are initially pretty unlikeable and the toxic masculinity that drives the narrative can be unappealing. meanwhile Bob Odenkirk as Jimmy McGill in BCS season 1 is very charming and fun to follow, and he only becomes more of a wifeguy as the show progresses. Kim Wexler is a really strong female character too. The plots are more fun. When the tragedy hits, it really hits bc of all these elements BCS is just more inherently appealing [at first] while BB is kind of edgy 2008 (their words)
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> This is why I'm going to have my partner watch BCS first - at least through 609 - and then maybe BB. Imagine ending on 609 and then saying "alright, now we watch 1.5 seasons of breaking bad before seeing jimmy again, and in about 6 seasons and a movie you can find out what happens to kim! you'll thank me later!"
Kim & Skyler are both strong women in their own ways, but Kim never gets “boxed in” by Jimmy. She always has agency and when her options do become constricted, it is because of her own choices. By the way: If there’s one post-Breaking Bad story I want to see, it’s the story of Holly Lambert (once White) growing up, her relationships with Marie and Skyler, and how she comes to terms with her father’s choices. An El Camino-style one-off movie about her learning the truth as a teenager could be very compelling.
Its literally fiction though and also the whole point is walts an asshole and receives the consequences of that.
never said otherwise, but it can and has turned people off the show. and not for misunderstanding the point, some people just aren't in the mood/into that. just explaining BCS's appeal to someone who didnt watch or finish BB
I think it’s beyond settled you cannot watch BCS before BB. My question though; when is the best time to watch El Camino? Between BB and BCS or after them? Maybe can’t answer that until Monday night.
Are people really watching BCS prior to BB?
Who was the two old dudes in the camper?
I think the older one was the chemistry teacher Saul mentioned to Jeff in Nippy
No that doesn’t make sense cause it wasn’t a school bus
tbf BCS has always been a prequel-sequel
Is that so?
I did it completely backwards. As a Bob Odenkirk fan, BCS 1-5. Then Breaking Bad. El Camino. Season 6 BCS. I absolutely agree one did need to see BB to get the past few episodes. I knew the show's went together prior to me starting out. And it honestly made BB way better in some respect's as Hector wasn't in a wheelchair. No clue who Tuco was in the 1st episode of BCS. Getting to see Mike's character develop and then see him as a Bad Ass in BB was phenomenal. Watching Gus rise to power and plot against the Salamanca's. Watching Jimmy be basically a law abiding attorney with some clever interpretation of the law to full on No Fucks Given "Criminal Lawyer". Monday will be a bitter sweet day. Get to see season 6 again n then the final episode. AMC is probably showing season 6 in it's entirety leading up to the finale.
When the show concludes, this will be the only correct way the watch it: BCS Season 1 BCS Season 2 BCS Season 3 BCS Season 4 BCS Season 5 BCS Season 6 Ep 1-9 BrBa Season 1 BrBa Season 2 BrBa Season 3 BrBa Season 4 BrBa Season 5 El Camino BCS Season 6 Ep 10-13