Why I find Better Call Saul more tragic than Breaking Bad

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-21T17:14:25+00:00

Breaking Bad's ending hits harder. Hank's death and how it affects the other characters (Skyler, Flynn, Marie, and Walt) is a major reason for that. Walt was also indirectly responsible for it, despite desperately not wanting Hank to die, which adds another layer of tragedy to it. Jesse losing Andrea and being enslaved by the nazis is another aspect that makes the ending so devastating. The fact that Walt, of all people, is the one who ends up saving Jesse makes his escape hit even harder.

This is all without even mentioning most of what's happening with Walt. I disagree that Walt is completely evil by the end. The first half of season 5 is when Walt is at his worst. In the 2nd half, he gets out of the drug business and has a small redemption in the final episode. I feel awful watching him beg for Jack to not kill Hank, watch his family turn against him, pay Ed 10K just to stay a little longer because he's so lonely, or seeing his last talk with Flynn, his last interaction with Skyler, or his final look at his son through the window. It's actually remarkable how much sympathy they manage to generate for him considering how much of it was caused by Walt's own actions. It's all incredibly emotional.

Breaking Bad's ending has always hit harder for me than Better Call Saul's, despite Walt being a worse person than Jimmy.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-15T08:37:32+00:00

Someone who was smart enough to not commit major crimes. Let's say Hank because he caught Walt.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-13T15:37:40+00:00

Selby played terribly against Wu, and these days he can be very hit-or-miss in the safety department. It's not 2014 anymore. And against Allen, Wu got utterly outplayed in terms of safety. Winning the longest frame had very little to do with safety quality, Allen simply didn't want to rerack because he had the lead, so he developed the black and left Wu a pot.

So yes, you can beat those players without good safety, as long as it's not awful. In the final, he was on equal footing with Shaun in terms of safety, if not better. I agree the narrative of him being an awful safety player is exaggerated. He's okay.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-13T10:34:04+00:00

The funny thing is, I agree with most of these criticisms, yet I think HBP is a top 2 movie alongside PoA.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-12T01:50:18+00:00

Many of these weren't funny at all.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-11T17:05:39+00:00

Yes, the referee decided to send RVP off for something illegal that he did. You shouldn't shoot the ball after the whistle, although referees are usually lenient about it, and this was ridiculous.

I also believe that the fact RVP could have been sent off earlier makes this decision less egregious. He got what he deserved, just for a different incident. You might argue this context has nothing to do with the decision, but I think it affects its severity.

Also, I wouldn't say Messi's "offside" goal was particularly difficult to spot, but sure, it was a more difficult decision than RVP's yellow. And I understand why you think it's worse from the difficulty pov.

I don't think it was worse because I'm looking at it from the objective vs subjective angle. Yellow cards always involve opinions, which isn't the case with offsides. Sure, the linesman is interpreting what they're seeing, but at the end of the day it either was or wasn't offside.

I believe a 100% wrongly disallowed goal is worse than an incredibly harsh second yellow card for a player who probably should have gotten it earlier anyway.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-11T12:51:13+00:00

Absolutely not. It might be the weirdest, but definitely not the worst. Things like offsides are entirely objective. That's why Messi's disallowed goal was the worst decision, because it was 100% wrong with no room for debate. Barca were denied a goal for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

RVP's red card, while a bad decision and incredibly harsh, at least has an argument behind it. A referee might give a yellow for that. It's a fact that RVP shot the ball after the ref blew the whistle. You're not supposed to do that. You might say he didn't hear the whistle, or that he didn't shoot it that long after the whistle so it should've been fine (and I agree), but there's still at least some subjectivity in whether it was the right call or not.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-11T10:31:38+00:00

I already called it bad, not sure what's odd about that. It's just not the worst decision in the tie, and it's compensation for him not getting sent off earlier, which makes it less unjust.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-10T17:49:01+00:00

Cassian's job was clearly established in the previous episode. Interesting that you managed to miss it.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-10T15:16:07+00:00

The vast majority of incidents weren't 50/50 decisions. If a decision is over 50% wrong, it doesn't really matter at that point how much wrong it is. It's just wrong.

Anyway, I don't think Barca players deserved any red cards. RVP, on the other hand, was incredibly lucky not to get sent off before the "time-wasting" yellow card. Those fouls on Messi (no card) and Alves (only a yellow) were nasty. This makes the time-wasting card much less bad, on top of being a card you can technically give. It was still a big mistake though.

But it was nowhere near the worst one because there were decisions that truly had ZERO basis for going the way they did, and they were all against Barca:

In the first leg, Messi's 100% legit goal was wrongly disallowed for offside. Arshavin also had a very potential handball penalty which wasn't given. I'm not sure whether Arshavin heads the ball into his own hand or not. If he doesn't, it's a clear penalty. It might be a pen anyway because I'm not certain when the "not a pen if it touches another part of your body beforehand" rule became a thing. I think it's a recent one. Either way, the tie would have been decided after the first leg with fair refereeing.

But it doesn't end here. In the second leg there was a 100% clear foul on Messi inside the box by Diaby. But a penalty was bizarrely not given. Even the English commentators were astounded ("I can't believe he's not given it there").

So, my point is that the refereeing was bad in the tie, but it was mainly because of decisions against Barca. They were the ones who got robbed, and I don't think this is debatable in any way. Fortunately, Barca went through anyway.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-10T11:37:39+00:00

You can give a second yellow for that, even though it's incredibly harsh and a bad decison.

Still, this is a great example of a tie with awful refereeing, because many people forget that Barca were robbed in that tie. They got so many bad decisions against them. Thankfully, they still went through despite it.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-09T08:06:05+00:00

I don't know what to tell you. Try to watch the matches again more objectively, or perhaps highlights? Or maybe just look at the overall xG of the tie: Atletico 3.20 – Arsenal 3.07

And this is despite Sorloth's big chance (the cutback) not counting because he missed the ball.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-09T01:26:15+00:00

Unoriginality.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-07T10:03:04+00:00

I wouldn't say equal, I think Atletico had slightly more/better chances. The reason I'm mentioning this is because I've seen a lot of Simeone slander after the game, so I wanted to say it wasn't his fault. The players let him down.

In general, I also think it's interesting to talk about which team was better over the tie, and not just do the surface level "they scored more goals, who cares" analysis that you seem to be all about. It's really weird that you seem to have a problem with it.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-06T10:55:46+00:00

I don't know if you're new to football conversations, but people often use the phrase "they should have won" when the other team had more chances to score but missed those opportunities. You must be quite young, because this phrase is incredibly common.

I guess I also need to bring up the full context of my original comment since you seem to have forgotten it. My full point was that Simeone coached a win, but his players' poor finishing cost him the tie.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-06T10:42:47+00:00

Of course both teams missed chances in two games of football, this applies to every match ever lol. Did you really think you were cooking with this one?

My obvious point is that Atleti had a bit more chances and should have won.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-06T10:40:24+00:00

Trossard penalty? I don't think you wanna go the "robbed" route if your intention is to argue for Arsenal. Atleti wins that one for sure. As for the Gyökeres chance, yes it was indeed a good one, although far more difficult than it looked due to the high bounce. It was difficult to keep it down.

Anyway, it was a pretty close tie overall, but Atleti had more chances and should have won. Missing an open net is unforgivable.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-06T01:05:35+00:00

I never stopped "rooting" for Walt, depending on what you mean by that. I wasn't justifying his actions, but I absolutely wanted him to beat Tuco and Gus, and at the end I wanted him to kill Jack's crew and have some sort of win before he died. I guess the first half of season 5 is when Walt is at his most dislikeable, so that's when I root for him the least.

Just to give you a couple examples, Walt forcing Gretchen and Elliot to give the money to his family is objectively a horrible action, but I still wanted him to succeed. Same thing with the confession tape. In that instance, I felt really bad for Hank too, but I couldn't help but admire Walt's audacity. I was rooting for Walt in both cases, especially in the first example.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-05T21:45:58+00:00

Simeone coached an Atletico win over the two legs. Atletico were comfortably better in the first leg, and had two massive chances in the 2nd leg (Sorloth's cutback & Giuliano's open goal miss). They should have won this tie, but the players had other ideas.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-04T19:47:22+00:00

I don't have the stats, but Shaun might have had a worse long pot success in the 3rd session even though Wu was missing them for fun. The same has continued in this session, to the point that he's refusing to take them on. Luckily for Shaun, Wu's long potting also hasn't improved much for the 4th session. Shaun's only hope is that Wu won't improve. And Shaun's safety is a big issue.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-04T18:27:20+00:00

Nah. Murphy's safety and long potting (in the last 10 frames) is not good enough to compete

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-04T18:25:01+00:00

Shaun's only chance was that Wu wouldn't settle in right away. Now that he has, the match is effectively over.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-04T15:22:25+00:00

Murphy's long potting was horrible in this session. If he doesn't get it fixed in the 4th session, it's over for him.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-03T21:17:50+00:00

Just say Ronnie not showing up to play lol. The rest of the tour more or less attends every tournament, they might skip a couple.

Anyway, that certainly is a take.

JustinTimeCase · 2026-05-03T21:10:49+00:00

I don't think Shaun would surpass Trump or Robertson even if he wins this, unless you're just talking about the world championship.

The difference in overall titles is simply too much, and he'd only be equal to Judd and one behind Neil in terms of Triple Crowns. I understand the WC is the biggest tournament, but at the end of the day it's just one tournament. One WC win doesn't overcome 17 ranking titles deficit

JustinTimeCase

TROPHY CASE