'Better Call Saul' picks up where it left off after putting audience on hold

After being criticized early on for a slow-moving plot, it seems like the time the writers of "Better Call Saul" (2015–)  spent world building has come back to benefit them and their viewers.

In just the first three episodes of the fifth season, major plot points have moved the story further forward. Most notably, at the end of the second episode, "50% Off," Nacho Varga brought in Jimmy McGill, aka Saul Goodman, to help the Salamanca family with a tricky legal situation. Finally, after seasons of simultaneous storylines, we see the two begin to merge. Not to mention that the third episode, "The Guy for This," brought DEA legend Hank Schrader himself back into our Albuquerque universe.

The end of the fourth season and the beginning of the fifth season showed that we are headed on a collision course for all of our main cast in some way or another. Nacho's double-agent lifestyle can only last so long, Kim can only balance her passion and profession until she will ultimately have to decide and it won't be long before the persona of Saul Goodman fully takes over Jimmy.

"Better Call Saul" so brilliantly, especially in its most recent episode, shows this impending doom on a number of storytelling levels. The show's writers are excellent at using dialogue both sharply and efficiently to capture characters' emotions and desires. Nacho's haunting "once you're in, you're in" comes to mind. This little line of dialogue hammers home for Saul that there is no escape; now that he is a part of this he will always be the cartel's lawyer. Despite Saul or Jimmy's best efforts, which are really minimal at times, his nefarious past can't help but keep dragging him back into a world of crime.

Equally amazing is how well the writers build story and allow tension to be recognized but unsaid. Over the course of the fourth season we see Kim and Jimmy's relationship begin to unravel as the two go down different paths.

This has only continued into the fifth season, when we see Jimmy and Kim romantically daydream as they take a tour of a house together, only for Kim to say it would be a nice idea later down the road. The two could have it out there — because we understand that this is not just about financials but about Kim being afraid to make that much of a commitment to Jimmy, and Jimmy's suspicious behavior — but they don't and the show would never do that. Like always it takes its time, letting the story build and show the tension for itself.

What makes "Better Call Saul" head and shoulders above every other show on television currently is not just the writing but also its mastery of filmmaking. Frequently "Better Call Saul" has brilliant photography that, even in the age of post-peak television, is thoughtful and breathtaking. Showrunners Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould have smartly trusted experienced television directors this season, such as Norberto Barba and Michael Morris, to craft episodes of "Better Call Saul," and it shows here.

The third episode begins with the image of ants crawling onto and feeding off the ice cream cone Jimmy left on the ground at the end of the second episode. It's an ugly image but properly fitting for the mess that Jimmy's life is about to become, with a vast number of people feeding off of him. It's fitting in the show's ironically tragic style that Jimmy stumbles upon this cone again, only to recognize its grotesqueness and walk away.

Again, later in the episode, we see Kim and Jimmy drinking on their patio. As they talk, the focus of the scene is a glass beer bottle that is anxiously standing on the rail near the edge. It perfectly symbolizes Jimmy and Kim's professional lives, which they are discussing in the scene, and their personal relationship, both teetering just on the edge of falling and shattering into a million pieces. Irony strikes again later on in the episode when Kim and Jimmy are drinking on the patio yet again and decide to take out all their frustrations and throw their bottles on the ground.

Due to the fact that we know the likely endpoint of Saul's arc, "Better Call Saul" is not wrapped up trying to land the plane, something that has tarnished many great shows. Over the course of its seasons, it's used this freedom to build characters' stories and create an even larger world for the viewer to soak in. And only now with its end in sight, "Better Call Saul" is beginning to cash in on this tactic, driving its characters into dangerous situations that most likely will not end well for many of them. It's clearly not all good, man. It will still be thrilling to watch though.