SDCC 2018: BETTER CALL SAUL Loves BETTER CALL SAUL

You could tell today’s Better Call Saul panel was at least going to be entertaining when Bill Burr was revealed as moderator. If nothing else, just seeing Burr riff is kind of worth the price of admission all by itself.

But of course that’s not actually what the audience at Hall H came to see. Before Burr introduced his impressive panel of Vince Gilligan, Peter Gould and pretty much every actor on the show save for Jonathan Banks, he let us have a look at the trailer for season four, which you can also see here:

After that primer, everyone came on stage and it was immediately clear there’s a lot of fun love between them. In terms of news, we definitely got teased with some upcoming Breaking Bad connections - particularly in one mystery scene heavily alluded to by both Odenkirk and Gilligan. We also learned about the introduction of a known but until now unseen character named Lalo, played by Tony Dalton. And naturally, Gilligan assured us “season four is the best season yet”, though you can never quite trust lines like that.

Aside from all their cageyness, it was still really cool to see all these people pat each other on the backs for making something they all clearly enjoy. The writers like their actors and the actors like their writers and Bob Odenkirk seems to like everyone.

One big and interesting talking point came with a sense of unification between audience and creators, as everyone discussed how sad Saul’s journey makes them. While everyone loves the show, they also appear quite mournful about the slow-moving tragedy they’re putting together, to the extent of having fantasies of somehow not ending the show with Jimmy transforming into Saul.

All in all, the Better Call Saul panel was light on substance but still a fun experience to witness. The show itself might not be super happy, but the people who make it are clearly having a blast.

Better Call Saul season four premieres August 6.