Better Call Saul is a prequel to Breaking Bad. Saul is the lawyer that constantly gets involved with Walter White once he is introduced, helping him in shady ways, he is in fact a shady lawyer. His beginning has a sad twist to it as I saw it, always an upbeat character trying to earn his brother's approval, which eventually becomes something he can never achieve.
The first two episodes show how close to death he comes dealing with some of the criminal element, as only his gift of gab saves him from getting murdered quite early. There are flashbacks which show his younger days, all the way back to when he is playing little con games to swindle other drunks out of their money with his best friend Marco in Chicago. He ends up getting in pretty big trouble when he decides to defecate through the sunroof of a powerful guy who had an affair with his wife. In comes his brother who is already a big lawyer himself and "saves" Saul, who initially is going as Jimmy McGill, his birth name. His brother works in New Mexico, so he heads out there with him.
There is another flashback where he fills us in that he has been taking online courses and even entered some sort of law school and even though it took him three tries, he has just passed the bar, and is officially a lawyer. Any sane person would see this and realize he is emulating his brother who he loves and respects probably more than anyone else. He has been working right under him in the mail room of his law firm. Jimmy has nothing but love for his brother, almost like a puppy looking for his brother's approval.
His brother then falls ill, and it appears to be a bullshit sickness where radiation from electrical signals makes him sick. He becomes an invalid over the course of the following year. He gets off the grid, but doesn't leave his home. I believe if I really had this affliction and I had been partner at a big law firm, I'd take a big check, build a cabin out in the woods and live out in nature. Instead, his brother becomes his lifeline, bringing him everything from ice, to meat to the assorted newspapers he likes to read.
The end of the first season has Jimmy figure out it wasn't the other lawyer who wouldn't hire him, it was his own brother who did not want him working in the same office, doing the same thing. Michael Mckean does a great job playing the older brother, but even as an old man, see him as Lenny, from Laverne and Shirley. His main reason was that he is not a real lawyer, he didn't do it the "noble" way, he found shortcuts and scammed his way to become a lawyer. This breaks Jimmy's heart and starts him on his way of changing his name to recreate himself away from the McGill name.
The series also follows Mike Ehrmantrout, a scary dude who fixes things for Saul all the time in Breaking Bad. Here, they barely met. Mike is working the gate at the courthouse parking lot and Jimmy is constantly trying to get him to pass through without paying. Mike also has a tragic past, and moved to New Mexico to follow his granddaughter and be near her.
Jimmy, or Saul really is a good guy and he cares about the people he helps. He is gentle with the elderly people he is helping and takes huge pay cuts in order to help them. I found myself on the side of the "shady" lawyer because there are people out there far worse than that.
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