How did you feel about Saul while watching BB?

Right to the last episode I wanted Walt to get away with it, and I never understood the fans of the show who didn't. Did people watch Dexter hoping he'd get caught? Did they get happy at the thought of Tony Soprano going to prison or getting whacked? I always root for the protagonist even if he or she is a 'bad guy' so it was easy for me to like Walt, Jesse, Mike, and Saul.

Spoilers for mentioned series below.

If I wanted to see the protagonist win everything and get away with everything, I'd watch Yugioh and say it is the best series of all time.

The whole appeal of Dexter was that he might get caught. The show starts off with him being the perfect killer, untouchable and season after season you get the feeling he might get caught. And Doakes came pretty damn close to get him. It's just lazy writing in such a show, that the main character gets away with everything, when it's setup right at the start that he has to be caught. What was the dream ending there? Him killing people until the end of times, living in Argentina til his days come to an end?

Happy at the thought Tony might get whacked or go to prison? No. But does it make for a good storyline? Hell yes it does. Except that prison was not the way Tony had to end, it had to be him getting killed and that's exactly what happened. If you delve into the show, you recognise patterns and "clues" along the way (watch it a 2nd time, it will be obvious as hell) that just scream "Tony won't make it out alive here". It starts with ducks who represent his family, who are leaving his pool, the meaning being he is scared that his family (= represented by the ducks) leaves him (= represented more or less by the pool). He is scared that his family might see him getting locked up or shot dead. In the final episode, we see his final moments from his PoV and then it goes pitch black because he gets shot in the side of the head. His family sees what he never wanted them to see. Him getting killed.

Walt did horrible things. But I would never say he broke bad after the Jane thing. No, he broke bad right in the first episode. He was already heavily aggressive, he made the choice to cook meth and the only thing that changed over the course of the series was that he got more and more ruthless. He had his death coming either way - from cancer or from getting killed. It was only a matter of how he died and if he tried to somewhat redeem himself and he did. I didn't necessarily "root" for him in the end, I just wanted to see how it plays out.

I watch series from a somewhat neutral view. Sure, I have my favourites and people I don't like, but I always look into the characters. For example, Skylar pissed me off in the first 2 seasons, but I knew that she was right. Her husband was doing shady shit and she didn't know exactly what he was up to. Every person would've reacted in the way she did.

I try to see reasons behind characters decisions. I love it that way, analyzing, looking for foreshadowing etc. It's what makes great shows incredible. But I guess I am in the minority.

This got way longer than intended, sorry!

/r/betterCallSaul Thread Parent