'Better Call Saul' How Does It Compare to 'Breaking Bad?' Recap

After months and months of waiting, the follow-up to "Breaking Bad" is finally here.

So, how does "Better Call Saul" compare to its predecessor?

The short answer: pretty favorably.

Though it's billed as a prequel to "Breaking Bad," it looked as though "Better Call Saul" actually began with a flash-forward of sorts. The vignette could have been straight out of "Breaking Bad," with artists meticulously mixing ingredients to make a highly addictive substance...only this time, it's Cinnabons.

Watch Better Call Caul on Yidio now!

The visual cue here—the black-and-white film—should be enough for any "Breaking Bad" fan to know that we're in the future. Vince Gilligan used the same cue in the show's second season to show us events following the crash in the finale.

If that wasn't enough, though, the act of our buddy Saul putting a VHS into the VCR and watching his old Saul Goodman commercials should seal it. We're seeing Saul's life after Walter White came through and put him into exile.

For now, though, in the present (which is actually the past), Saul Goodman is Jimmy McGill, the smallest of small-time lawyers in New Mexico. But even so, he's still the Saul we know and love; in a particularly brilliant scene, we watch as he acts as public defender to a few kids who desecrated a corpse at a morgue.

Still, the bills are piling up, and Jimmy fails to land a big client...probably in part due to the fact that his office is a supply closet in the back of a nail salon. We also find him dealing with the predicament of his friend Chuck, who is a partner in a major firm and on leave due to an illness, but refusing to take a multi-million-dollar payout.

So, Saul turns to crime: he recruits two younger men to run out in front of the lost client's car, thereby (somehow) sealing him as her lawyer...or at least getting a major payout.

Problem is, the car isn't the one they thought it was, and it leads Saul straight to the house of a familiar face: Tuco.

The thing that made "Breaking Bad" so engaging—that Walter White was an ordinary, average joe who turned to crime and got very, very good at it—isn't quite as strong here. Jimmy McGill isn't a crime kingpin either (yet) but he is slimy enough to not be quite as interesting when he does "break bad."

Still, the language of "Breaking Bad" is there. We have small mysteries throughout the episode that keep us hooked (one act break had Jimmy tearing up a check for $26,000, an act that was baffling until we learned why later) and there are even visual cues that harken back to "Breaking Bad," such as the kicked-in trash can (remind anyone of a paper towel dispenser we've seen before?).

Already, "Better Call Saul" has the potential to be a fun, suspenseful show, especially if we keep getting cameos from the likes of Mike Ehrmantraut and Tuco. Will it ever soar to the heights of "Breaking Bad?" Probably not, but like Jimmy, we can dream.