A few things leap out from the latest trailer for Better Call Saul, the Breaking Bad spinoff that debuts in two parts on February 8 and 9 on AMC. Among them is the open, which finds Albuquerque’s favorite defense attorney (Bob Odenkirk) forcefully enjoining somebody to atone. AMC is notorious for cutting trailers in deceptive ways that create tension while revealing little of the plot, but it appears he is taking fellow attorneys to task.
Also present is a reminder that Saul is not actually Saul. As we once learned in Breaking Bad, Saul Goodman is really the nom de plume of one Irish-American “McGill.” We’ll see him practicing law as “James M. McGill, Esq.,” a detail we learn courtesy a “nameplate” printed on line-feed paper and taped to an equally shabby office door. A brief glimpse of charismatic courtroom work is contrasted with tense confrontations and Goodman angrily kicking a wastebasket, reminding us of a certain meth-cooking chemistry teacher and his own frequent reversals of fortune.