Last Monday AMC released the first two episodes of the final season of BETTER CALL SAUL. If you don't know this show, and you want to write television, it's an absolute must see. Their storytelling is filled with just tons of great writing techniques.
Each week of the final season I'm going to take a day to highlight some of the things they do well.
Today: The Caper.
Who doesn't love a caper, right? If it's told well, people will watch it again and again, despite the fact that they already know how it goes. It's that satisfying.
SAUL and its predecessor BREAKING BAD are very much caper shows. Pretty much every episode you're going to see someone putting big bold plans into action. And yet it never gets predictable or repetitive. And I think that's because they have a whole bunch of ways of telling a caper story.
1) TELL US NOTHING AND JUST THROW US IN: Sometimes SAUL will simply begin a caper without letting us know there is a plan afoot at all. We're just along for the ride as usual when suddenly we discover, oh shit, this is part of something bigger. And precisely because we're surprised, we lock in that much harder on the story. Suddenly we're in a mystery; we want to figure out what is going on here.
There's a great example of this in 602, written by Tom Schnauz and Ariel Levine. When we first see Betsy Kettleman she's getting a Native man his tax returns check. Though he gets very little there's no hint that there's anything more to it than that, and when we return to their offices later we see someone else coming out with their check. And then it turns out the whole thing is the Kettlemans' latest scam.
It was all right there happening in front of us. The Native man even looked a tiny bit surprised when he looked at his check. But they were careful to soft pedal it, and in the end it becomes this amazing reveal (and turn) from Kim.
2) TELL US THERE IS A CAPER AND NOTHING MORE: This is a frequent SAUL technique: Withhold key information. Just in the first couple episodes of season 6 they use it a bunch of times. For instance in 602 we have Saul and Kim talking about how they're going to approach these disgraced auditors the Kettlemans. And both times, the writers give us just enough information to let us know there is a plan afoot, but that's about it. In the first case we're not even told what exactly the goal is: we know that somehow this has something to do with getting the Sandpiper case back from Howard, but that's it.
And that technique of information withheld continues even after Saul has seemingly laid out his plot. Mrs. Kettleman immediately betrays Saul, but it turns out that, too, was Saul's plan, a way to poison the Sandpiper lawyers' belief in Howard.
I especially love that aspect of this SAUL technique--making the ambiguous clear only to undermine that clarity once again. It leaves the audience in the position of realizing they're just along for the ride. And because it's executed so smartly, with the right people dunked on, that's a source of delight.
3) SHOW US A CAPER IN PROGRESS BUT DON'T EXPLAIN WHAT IT IS: At the top of 602, Mike and his men break into Nacho's apartment, throw out his drug addicted ladyfriends and then break into his safe and take everything out. We already know Gus is having Nacho killed, so it seems like they're cleaning up loose ends.
But then instead a new safe is brought in and everything replaced along with a new envelope. We're told nothing about what this is or why they've done it. They just do it and leave. And it's not until much later that we see this was part of a bigger plan to insulate Gus from any connection to Lalo's murder. The envelope directs those who break into the new safe to believe that Nacho was working for the Peruvians instead.
SAUL absolutely loves to do capers like this. Sometimes you find out what the scheme is in real time, and what keeps it fun is that the series of things that the character involved does don't seem to add up to anything until suddenly at the very end it all locks into place.
And sometimes it's like this--we'll give you a couple pieces of the puzzle now, and the rest a half hour (or few episodes) later. The extra benefit of this latter approach is that it invites the audience to construct their own bigger narrative of what's going on. When I saw that envelope going into the safe, after Mike had already palmed the fake Canadian I.D. Nacho had made for his father, I thought, maybe Mike believes Nacho will make it back and this is some kind of warning or attempt to help him. I was completely wrong, but that's not a bad thing because the real answer is even better (aka more clever and unexpected). The point, really, is to invite us into the game of it all.
One thing is key among all these strategies: Bafflement. The writers love to introduce elements that don't make sense next to each other. Like the WGA-nominated episode from season five where Saul goes to a Salvation Army-type store and spends a ton of time just looking at and picking up different objects. And when he finally settles, it's on the most random choice of all--a bowling ball. Again, the lack of continuity among elements invites us to construct our own narrative. It's also a great mine for humor. Incongruity is always funny.
Better Call Saul airs tonight on AMC. And I'll have more SAUL content every Monday.
I also still have one act of LA CAGE to go. I'll be back to it on Wednesday.
Tomorrow: HEARTSTOPPER!
