TV Talk: ‘Better Call Saul,’ ‘The Flight Attendant’ back with new seasons

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers viewing tips for the coming week.

Just two days shy of two years to the day AMC last premiered a new episode of “Better Call Saul,” the show returns at 9 p.m. Monday, airing two episodes on AMC and streaming on AMC+.

Time to Google where the show left off: “Better Call Saul” jumps right back into the ongoing story of Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) and Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn). She was last seen taking a turn for the duplicitous much to Jimmy and viewers’ dismay.

Nacho (Michael Mando) is on the run after a failed attempt on the life of Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton), which has big repercussions including a surprising, uncharacteristic turn by Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito).

In this first half of the show’s final season — seven episodes air weekly and the final six begin rolling out weekly July 11 — “Saul” offers some welcome, seasonally-appropriate Easter eggs (watch for the name of a restaurant, “Breaking Bad” fans) and a callback to the “Saul’s” first season with the return of Betsy (Julie Ann Emery) and Craig (Jeremy Shamos) Kettleman.

The show’s sound palette often favors silence over a loud volume (the better to ratchet up tension) and disquieting close-up visuals (an ant climbing on what turns out to be the finger of a corpse).

Through the first two episodes made available for review, “Better Call Saul” remains a well-plotted masterpiece, similar to “Breaking Bad” for which “Saul” is a prequel, complete with unexpected twists and action sequences that a viewer might expect to go right but end up going left. Or as Mike Armentrout (Jonathan Banks) says somewhat menacingly (AKA the way Mike says everything), “Whatever happens next, it’s not gonna go down the way you think it is.”

‘The Flight Attendant’

Although it had a bumpy take-off with its first episode, HBO Max’s “The Flight Attendant” smoothed out in its second episode and soared through its first season thanks in large part to star Kaley Cuoco and a bouncy score by composer Blake Neely.

Initially announced as a limited series, the show’s popularity and an open-ended first-season finale ensured “The Flight Attendant” would fly again. Can the show’s writers keep the story aloft in season two, streaming April 21? Through the first six episodes made available for review, they largely do.

When viewers last saw Cassie (Cuoco), she had just sobered up and learned that fellow flight attendant Shane (McCandless native Griffin Matthews) works undercover for the CIA. Shane wanted to recruit Cassie to the clandestine organization. Meanwhile, Cassie’s flight attendant friend Megan (Rosie Perez) was in the wind after discovering she’d been spying (unbeknownst to her) on behalf of North Korea.

As season two begins, Cassie says she’s been sober for one year. She’s living in Los Angeles with new boyfriend Marco (Santiago Cabrera, “Star Trek: Picard”) and has been working for CIA handler Benjamin (Mo McRae) and his boss, Dot (Cheryl Hines), when best friend Ani (Zosia Mamet) and her beau Max (Deniz Akdeniz) visit.

Naturally, that’s when Cassie’s life goes into upheaval again as a Cassie look-alike tries to frame the real Cassie for a car bombing murder in Berlin.

What’s great about “The Flight Attendant” is that it’s airy fun but it’s also well-plotted with an eye toward satisfying viewers. Many characters from season one pop in, often in the most unexpected moments, and it’s a delight.

While Cassie’s situation is often comically dire, the show’s biggest stakes aren’t around questions of life and death — I can’t imagine the writers will kill off Ani — but around whether or not Cassie will fall off the wagon. That’s the subject “The Flight Attendant” takes most seriously. The rest of the spy hijinks are played more loosely with an eye toward humor and some character development.

Producers clearly took note of Cuoco as their strongest asset in season one, and there’s more of her in season two as Cassie verbally spars with other versions of herself in this season’s “mind palace” where the real Cassie struggles with her demons. But again, this is a cream puff of a show that handles all its stories — except Cassie’s sobriety — with a light touch.