With a new semester around the corner, we know the question on everyone’s mind: how am I going to procrastinate EVEN MORE now that summer is done?
Fear not. Brig has you covered.
This year, the film & TV section are introducing a new feature that will give you no excuse but to spend even longer indulging in your favourite shows.
Brig’s Big Binge will pick out the latest releases on streaming services and TV and binge them along with you, reviewing, speculating and hyping up all the drama as it unfolds.
We’ll help you unpack plot intricacies, unravel nagging questions and rate each episode as we watch it. If all episodes are released at once, we’ll cover them at a responsible pace – so be patient… if you can!
So which shows will be featured, you say? We’ll give advance notice of specific shows as the year progresses so you can clear your schedules, but first up is BETTER CALL SAUL SEASON 4, which premiered on Netflix UK today.
A *SPOILER-LADEN* recap of season 3’s ending is below, and the review of season 4, episode 1 will be posted tomorrow.
Also picked up by Brig’s Big Binge will be THE INNOCENTS, which drops on Netflix on August 24.
The highly anticipated British supernatural thriller series looks certain to entice fans of Twilight and Stranger Things, and we can’t wait to get into it.
So without further ado, and ahead of the debut of Brig’s Big Binge tomorrow, here is a recap of where things have got to in Better Call Saul and Jimmy McGill’s fated transformation into the crooked Saul Goodman of Breaking Bad fame.
STOP READING NOW IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED THE BETTER CALL SAUL SEASON 3 FINALE.
It is widely anticipated that much of season 4 will deal with how Jimmy deals with the death of his brother Chuck, how this affects the people around him, and most importantly the role it plays in facilitating his transformation into Saul Goodman.
The final scene of S3 finale ‘Lantern’ was one of the most memorable and harrowing of the show so far, the resurfacing of Chuck’s EHS symptoms, real or imagined, culminating in his apparent suicide.
The death of Chuck did not altogether come as a surprise to me, but the nature of it was shocking and unnerving. Chuck was not a particularly likeable character, but the chain of events set in motion by Jimmy’s tampering with legal documents in season 2 puts to bed any doubt that it was indeed his own brother that sent him over the edge.
How this tragedy impacts Jimmy, who clearly loved Chuck despite a deep-seated, fierce rivalry in law practice, will certainly fuel season 4’s central plot.
An AMC synopsis reads: “In the all-new season, Chuck’s death catalyses Jimmy McGill’s transformation into Saul Goodman.”
It couldn’t be plainer than that, and the show’s creators have repeatedly said that Better Call Saul‘s world will move closer to that of Breaking Bad with each season, fated to eventually intertwine.
Then there is Jimmy’s partner in life and in law, Kim Wexler.
After she fell asleep at the wheel and broke her arm in S3E9, Kim agrees to take a leave of absence from law practice while Jimmy accepts that the lease on their joint office should be broken off.
Are these the events that lead to the couple’s eventual break-up? They make a good team, and Kim is a highly likeable foil to Jimmy’s erraticism, but she’s not in Breaking Bad, is she? Is Jimmy’s eventual new identity a reason for their break up, or a consequence of it?
All this, alongside the escalating involvement of Jimmy’s associate Mike Ehrmentraut with Breaking Bad villain Gus Fring. It is the most obvious tie-in between the shows, but Mike is an endlessly engaging, enigmatic figure who somehow oozes sadness, love, grim determination and frightening levels of icy intimidation all at once. How does his work as a security consultant for Fring’s front of Madrigal Electromotive come to affect Jimmy, or help to create Saul?
And there’s even more going on than this. Nacho has poisoned Hector Salamanca, the reason for his wheel-chair bound state in Breaking Bad, we assume. Fring’s suspicious glance at Nacho as Salamanca is wheeled into an ambulance suggests that he, as usual, knows ominously more than he lets on.
Brig’s Big Binge kicks off tomorrow with Better Call Saul season 4 episode 1, which available to watch on Netflix NOW.
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