Season 6 episode 3 of Better Call Saul begins with a shot looking out at the New Mexico desert. You can hear crickets in the distance and a rattlesnake nearby. Over the next 2 minutes, the camera slowly pans down around the area, pausing briefly to look at a pretty blue flower. Rain starts to fall. The camera continues its slow, meandering journey before coming to rest, finally, on… nothing at all? No. Wait… the rain hits an object in the foreground and the sound it makes tells you that it is glass.
This piece of glass is important.
You don’t know why - not yet. But by the end of the episode you will be very familiar with this small piece of glass and the role that it plays in the larger story.
There may be an “official” name for this technique, but I’ve been thinking of it as “Backwards Storytelling”. Show the viewer something they don’t understand, then them more information over time until they have the complete picture. Better Call Saul implements this device multiple times in every single episode and it is incredible.
Why is Mike measuring that safe? Why are we watching this truck being unloaded? By the end of the scene or episode we will know.
What’s even more incredible is that there are often multiple “backwards” stories being told. Season 6 begins with a character’s belongings being repossessed - by the end of the scene we know that it’s Saul’s stuff, but we likely won’t know the reason why until the end of the season.
Hell, the entire series begins with Saul wearing a mustache and working in a Cinnabon for reasons that the show has yet to explain. But by the end we will understand. Arcs within arcs within arcs. The pieces will fall satisfyingly into place.