By Benjamin Dojutrek
Staff Writer
Friends are weird.  You can really think you know someone until suddenly you learn something new about them. Then you begin looking at a familiar stranger, someone who looks and sounds like your friend but is different in every other way. You don’t know how to proceed in dealing with them. It’s easy to wonder if you ever even knew them.
This is the case for AMC’s new show “Better Call Saul,” which aired its pilot Feb. 8. Saul Goodman’s character on “Breaking Bad” was a highlights on a show filled with highlights. After finishing “Bad,” my one question was if I could have more Saul. And now that my wish is granted, it feels weird. Like somehow my wish still hasn’t been fulfilled.
For those that don’t know, “Better Call Saul” is a prequel to “Breaking Bad.”  In it, we see the man who is destined to become Saul, Jimmy McGill, struggling to find happiness. Saul/Jimmy is played by Bob Odenkirk, who once again reminds me why I love his character. Odenkirk gives Jimmy lawyer-speak that is understandable and endearing.  But, at the same time, it is not the same as it used to be.
Unlike Saul, who was on top of the world in “Bad,” Jimmy is down on his luck. He is a struggling lawyer trying to take care of his sick brother, Michael. Though Michael was once a great lawyer himself, he’s now riddled by a terrible disease.  And from all this, we see a different portrait of Saul.  And it is weird.
After four seasons of seeing Saul busting people out of jams, this feels weird but at the same time exhilarating.  A character once seen as one-sided is now a multi-faceted character who I do not recognize.  Jimmy is everything Saul isn’t: a good guy trying to keep afloat in a tough life.
And that’s where showrunners Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould get me. I want to know how Jimmy McGill, pardon the pun, breaks bad. In the first episode, we see tantalizing glimpses of the reasons why.  These glimpses show Jimmy struggle with every choice he makes, as he agonizingly debates if crime could work for him.  This show makes me question everything I thought I knew about Saul Goodman.
And because I know how the story has to end, the journey is so much more satisfying as the stranger slowly becomes the friend I know.