Over the past month, I’ve written about why “Better Call Saul” is the best show on television right now. First, I looked at the reprisal of characters from “Breaking Bad” as its foundational strength. In the following piece, I talked about the silent storytelling, in particular with the character Mike Ermentraut (Jonathan Banks). This week, I’m going to shift the focus back to the titular character, and the impeccable dialogue that he is known for, particularly in the scenes with his brother.

A major strength of “Saul” is that it skillfully doles out exposition by showing more so than telling, as my last piece dealt with. Dialogue is rarely on the nose, until it needs to be. And when it needs to be is when characters have reached a point where they have to confront someone on their past actions, and spell out to them how it has affected them.

Season one episode nine is the epitome of this, with the scene where Jimmy confronts Chuck for sabotaging his efforts to join HHM. All the cards are on the table, and Jimmy has done his homework to nail Chuck. I won’t waste time explaining the scene beat by beat. Watch it for yourself.

Everything comes to the surface in this scene. Motivations of both characters. The expectations they have of each other. The tragic misconceptions that drive it all. It’s not only a strength of the show’s storytelling, but a truth of how often and easily a lack of communication can change the course of a relationship, even between brothers.

Now, what is most important about these scenes of direct dialogue are the dramatic results. Since the climactic fight in season one episode nine between Jimmy and Chuck in Chuck’s living room, the scenes taking place between them at that location have alternated between night and day. At night, Jimmy will only be around if Chuck is going through an episode, at which point Jimmy will put their animosity on hold and take care of his brother. During the day though, when Chuck has recuperated, their exchanges are heated, and cut to the heart of the matter as I described above.

In episode eight of season two, however, this pattern broke. Jimmy returned to Chuck’s residence to, you guessed it, fulfill the role of the caretaker. What informs this scene though, and plays with the viewer’s expectations of what Jimmy will do, is the fact that Chuck brought the client Mesa Verde back into the HHM fold, after Kim had taken them with her to her new private practice. The impetus for Chuck coming out of reclusion and working his magic on Mesa Verde was that he learned Kim was opening private practice with Jimmy, as partners, an omission of truth that Howard let fly. That omission is important though, as it is reason enough for Chuck to brave the electricity of the HHM office and save their client, all to spite Jimmy.

So, when Jimmy arrives at Chuck’s, the viewer is unsure how he will act. Wil he set aside their differences, as usual, and see to Chuck’s recovery? The darkness of the scene suggests he will not, and further suggests he will do something uncharacteristically evil. There was a moment where I thought he might even kill Chuck, maybe by suffocating him with a pillow like a crazed nurse taking pity on a patient. Jimmy, of course, does something else. By going through Chuck’s Mesa Verde files and rearranging the mailing address on several documents (in yet another masterful montage), Jimmy is playing the long game. When Chuck’s files are shipped to the wrong address, seeds of doubt will start to grow in Mesa Verde’s mind. Was a large firm the right choice over one dedicated lawyer? Are they handing off work to sloppy interns of paralegals? Was Kim Wexler the first and right choice? Episode nine showed just how this discrepancy

This is the evilest l thing we have seen Jimmy do. What’s worse is that once he has put the fabricated files back in place, he takes his usual seat in the chair across from Chuck on the couch, and goes to sleep as if he had been there doing his usual good deed towards his brother. This is the inversion of the pattern, and it continues in the morning when Chuck and Jimmy talk. The viewer might expect unkind words regarding the Mesa Verde switch, or maybe more cheap shots from Chuck. Instead, we see Chuck at his most human. He thanks Jimmy for setting aside their differences and coming to his aid. He tells him he would do the same for Jimmy.

And just like that, the script is flipped. The dialogue we have been conditioned to expect, that Jimmy has come to expect, has been inverted. And it’s god damn heartbreaking. And what it causes Chuck to do is even worse, as we saw in the final minutes of episode nine.

The strength of these verbose scenes is that they are earned. They are earned by the writers and the characters themselves. With the plethora of television shows on today, half of the episodes are usually an exposition dump to make sure that the viewer remembers who is who, why they are doing what they are doing, why they are in a certain location, etc. Even a show as popular as “Game of Thrones” suffers from an overload of exposition, information repeated ad nauseum, causing what should be poignant moments to be inundated with superfluous exposition.

“Saul” takes its time. It benefits from, unlike a show such as “Thrones,” having a smaller cast that it carefully develops and spends quiet time with. When it comes time for those characters to talk at length, we know from being shown where they are coming from.