heavens to betsy! the perfect spinoff for better call saul

One of the most delightful things about the Breaking Bad universe created by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould is that even minor characters feel like they could anchor their own show. But there’s one pair in particular who practically beg for it: Craig and Betsy Kettleman.

Yes, I am proposing a full spinoff about the Kettlemans.

And it should be called Heavens to Betsy.

Think about the possibilities.

Betsy Kettleman is one of television’s great comic creations: wildly ambitious, absolutely convinced of her own brilliance, and completely incapable of recognizing how bad her plans actually are. She’s a schemer who lacks two critical tools for scheming: patience and intelligence. Her plots are always just a little too loud, a little too obvious, and a little too reckless.

And yet she barrels ahead anyway.

Craig Kettleman, meanwhile, is the perfect comedic counterweight. He’s a timid, slightly bewildered man who knows the plan is terrible. You can see it in his face every time Betsy explains the next brilliant idea.

Craig: “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
Betsy: “Craig.”
Craig: “…okay.”

And off they go into another catastrophe.

What makes the Kettlemans funny isn’t just that they commit crimes—it’s that they commit crimes in the most amateurish way imaginable. Remember early on in Breaking Bad, when Jesse and Walt stole a barrel of methylamine from a warehouse? I'm talking about that level of incompetence or worse. They’re not criminal masterminds. They’re not hardened operators. They’re the kind of people who would attempt a sophisticated fraud scheme after reading half an article about it online.

Every episode practically writes itself:

1. Betsy hatches a bold new plan to “get what they deserve.”
2. Craig raises mild objections.
3. Betsy steamrolls those objections.
4. The plan spirals out of control in increasingly ridiculous ways.
5. Craig suffers the consequences.

And, crucially, there is a running gag.

In every episode of Heavens to Betsy, the Kettlemans have a lawyer.

Not the same lawyer.

A new lawyer.

Betsy insists on hiring “top legal talent” to support whatever the current scheme is. The lawyer—who is invariably competent, cautious, and increasingly alarmed—spends the episode trying to explain why what the Kettlemans are doing is illegal, inadvisable, or both.

Betsy interprets this as negativity.

Or worse, a lack of vision.

By the final act, as things are collapsing, the lawyer is urgently advising them to stop, to cooperate, or at the very least to not say another word.

Betsy responds by firing them.

On the spot.

“We need a lawyer who works with us, not against us.”

The lawyer exits, stunned.

Craig, watching this unfold, realizes—correctly—that the lawyer was the only thing standing between them and total disaster.

It is, of course, too late.

For example, imagine an episode where Betsy decides the Kettlemans should start a “consulting service” helping small businesses reduce their tax bills. Her plan is to charge huge fees for advice she mostly invents on the spot.

Craig points out that neither of them knows anything about tax law.

Betsy reassures him that “tax law is just numbers.”

Within a week they’ve accidentally advised a client to commit three different felonies and attracted the attention of both the IRS and the state licensing board. Craig spends the episode trying to quietly undo the damage while Betsy insists the problem is simply that they “need better branding.”

Or imagine another episode where Betsy decides the family should get into real estate. She’s convinced the key to success is buying distressed properties cheaply.

Unfortunately, the property she finds is cheap because it’s currently being used by an extremely unfriendly criminal organization.

Craig realizes this almost immediately.

Betsy insists they have “every legal right” to renovate it.

Things escalate.

Rapidly.

And then there are the moments where the Kettlemans brush up against the larger world of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul—without having the faintest idea what they’re dealing with.

In one episode, Betsy becomes convinced that they need to “scale up” and start working with more serious, high-level operators. Through a series of wildly misguided assumptions, she identifies Lydia Rodarte-Quayle as a “corporate logistics expert.”

Which, to be fair, is not wrong.

It’s just…incomplete.

Betsy aggressively pursues a meeting—emails, voicemails, an unsolicited “proposal packet” with color-coded tabs and completely nonsensical projections. Craig, meanwhile, is quietly unraveling.

The meeting, when it finally happens, is excruciating. Betsy pitches something like “regionally optimized embezzlement services for mid-sized municipalities,” while Lydia stares at her with a mixture of confusion and alarm.

By the end, Lydia is taking steps to ensure she never hears from these people again, while Betsy insists this counts as a “successful first contact.”

It does not.

Or worse: Betsy decides they need “muscle.” Not because they actually need it—but because, in her mind, serious businesses have muscle. Through a chain of terrible decisions, she ends up attempting to establish a relationship with associates of Jack Welker.

Craig immediately understands that this is not a situation they should be anywhere near.

Betsy interprets their hostility as a negotiation tactic.

She responds by trying to out-negotiate them.

There has to be a scene where Betsy is confidently explaining payment structures and “long-term partnership opportunities,” while everyone else in the room is trying to figure out who these people are and why they are still talking. Craig, sitting next to her, looks like a man actively reconsidering every life choice he has ever made.

The resolution, of course, is not success.

It’s survival.

They walk away convinced they’ve taken a bold step into the big leagues.

They have not.

And then there’s the episode that really defines Heavens to Betsy.

In the aftermath of the Wayfarer 515 plane collision, Betsy becomes convinced that what victims’ families need is “financial guidance.”

Specifically, theirs.

She creates a “support and recovery service” to help families manage settlements and “maximize outcomes.” In practice, it consists of vague advice, homemade pamphlets, and a fee structure that is both confusing and aggressively expensive.

Craig immediately senses this is a terrible idea—not just legally, but morally.

Betsy reframes it as compassion.

“Craig, we are helping people.”

They begin reaching out with unsolicited mailers, awkward phone calls, and deeply inappropriate in-person visits that somehow manage to be both overly cheerful and wildly tone-deaf.

Every interaction goes badly.

Craig tries to scale things back. Betsy insists the problem is “messaging.”

Naturally.

What makes it work is that the Kettlemans never quite grasp why people are reacting so negatively. Betsy thinks it’s a branding issue. Craig understands, dimly, that they’ve crossed a line—but doesn’t have the backbone to stop it.

The inevitable result isn’t profit.

It’s consequences.

And a hasty retreat.

Followed by Betsy insisting that “the concept was sound.”

What would make Heavens to Betsy work is that the Kettlemans would never become competent. In a franchise full of masterminds, professionals, and terrifyingly disciplined operators, they would remain exactly what they are:

People who wander into crime the way someone wanders into a glass door.

Again.

And again.

And again.

And the audience would know, from the moment Betsy unveils the plan, that this is going to end horribly.

The only suspense would be how.

In a universe famous for brilliant criminal strategists, Heavens to Betsy would give us something even better:

The world’s least competent crime duo.

Which is exactly why their show would be amazing. And it's exactly why Joe would give it a ten!

cinema history class: island of the doomed (1967)

The session: Spring is in the Air, and the Plants are Growing
Keith shows four movies about carnivorous plants.

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 2: Island of the Doomed (1967)
Directed by Mel Wells

My Level of Prior Knowledge:
Never heard of it.

Plot Synopsis:
Unsuspecting tourists to a remote island, guests of a reclusive botanist, start dying one by one.  They uncover the terrifying truth as they struggle to survive. 

Plot:
On a tropical island science has gone very, very wrong—and, against all odds, the plants steal the show. Seriously: the plant design is by far the best thing in the movie. It’s creative, vaguely (and sometimes not-so-vaguely) sexual, and just grounded enough in reality to feel almost believable. You keep thinking, “Okay… this is ridiculous… but also… kind of impressive?”

Structurally, Island of the Doomed is actually working from a very familiar horror template: a group of people trapped in an isolated setting, unable to escape, getting picked off one by one as tension (theoretically) builds and the survivors scramble to understand what’s happening. That formula has powered countless effective horror films—and here, the twist that the killer is a sentient plant is genuinely one of the movie’s stronger ideas. On paper, that should be enough to carry things.

Unfortunately, the movie takes its time getting to anything worth caring about. We spend a long stretch with a collection of characters so unlikable and dull that I eventually found myself rooting less for their survival and more for their creative demise. Others in the room saw it as a slow burn, though I had some trouble seeing it that way. There are hints of style along the way—the opening credits feature animation that feels like it wandered in from a Pink Panther short, and at various points I caught flashes of James Bond film series swagger and the campy energy of Batman—but none of it quite coalesces early on.

Then, near the end, everything finally clicks into place. When the character I will charitably refer to as “Miss Bitchypants” has her run-in with the plant monster, the movie suddenly wakes up. From there on out, it delivers the kind of action, tension, and outright weirdness you’d hope for from a premise like this. Even better, the closing act reframes some of the earlier material in a way that almost—almost—makes the slow build feel intentional.

In the end, the final act is what saves the film. Not too little, but definitely too late. Still, I walked away thinking: there’s a better version of this movie hiding inside the one we watched.

Of course, none of that stopped Joe from giving it a 10.

when i'm the only one who shows

There are five regulars in Keith’s Thursday night film class. Five distinct personalities, five different rhythms of laughter, five overlapping commentaries that somehow turn even the dumbest movie into a communal event. It’s a small enough group that every absence matters—and last week, the math got weird.

Dave and Ethan are both out for a while (reasons respectfully unblogged), which brings us down to three. Bobbo, meanwhile, was on his annual pilgrimage to Battle of the Alamo—because of course he was—so we knew he’d be out. That left Joe and me -- and Keith, of course.

And then Joe didn’t show.

No explanation as far as I know. I showed up expecting to see him, and Keith gave me the news: "No Joe." So for the screening of From Hell It Came, the attendance sheet read: one student, one instructor, and one extremely judgmental tree monster.

I’ll say this: it wasn’t a bad experience. Keith and I leaned into it. There was as much back-and-forth as usual. more running commentary, more room for my particular silliness. At one point I even found myself doing a passable Bobbo impression—snapping my fingers to match the background music, which felt equal parts tribute and séance. The movie itself, as previously documented, was gloriously stooopid, and that helped.

But it was also undeniably strange.

I sat in the middle of the room instead of in my usual spot on the side. There was no one to my left. No one to my right. And no one behind me. Keith, as always, took his usual spot off to the side, watching the screen at that slight angle he seems to prefer, beer in hand, like a projectionist who wandered into his own audience. The physical geometry of the room stayed the same, but the energy was different.  Not better. Maybe not worse. But different.

It got me wondering about the logical extreme: what happens if no one shows up?

Would Keith still run the class? Deliver his intro to an empty room? Let the movie play while he sits at his angle, occasionally chuckling, then wrap it up with closing remarks addressed to the void?

I asked him.

The answer: no. No performance for the ghosts of cinema past. He wouldn’t go through the motions. He’d probably still sit there with a beer and watch something—but it wouldn’t be class. No preamble, no postgame analysis, no ritual.

Which raises the next question: what happens to the movie we missed?

Turns out Keith is a completist. If nobody shows, the film doesn’t just vanish into the ether. It gets rescheduled. We’d watch it the following week, even if that throws everything off. The syllabus bends; the canon remains intact.

There’s something oddly reassuring about that. This isn’t a conveyor belt—it’s a shared experience, and if the “shared” part disappears, the experience doesn’t count.

Still, I hope we don’t test that hypothesis.

Because as much as I enjoyed my one-man screening—my brief turn as the entire audience—it drove home something essential: these nights aren’t really about the movies. They’re about the reactions, the interruptions, the running jokes, the accumulated weirdness of a handful of people who have watched far too many obscure films together.

Take that away, and even a killer tree monster starts to feel a little lonely.

cinema history class: from hell it came (1957)

The session: Spring is in the Air, and the Plants are Growing
Keith shows four movies about carnivorous plants.

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 1: From Hell It Came (1957)
Directed by Dan Milner

My Level of Prior Knowledge:
Never heard of it.

Plot Synopsis:
On a Polynesian island, they executed an innocent man. To take his revenge, he rose from the grave in the form of Tabanga -- the tree that kills. 

Plot:
Grading From Hell It Came is surprisingly difficult. On the one hand, it’s objectively kind of a piece of crap. On the other hand… I had a pretty good time watching it. It’s the kind of movie where you spend most of the runtime shaking your head, but you’re still entertained enough that you don’t regret the experience. In the highly technical terminology of cinema criticism: it’s dumb, but it’s fun-dumb.

One thing that struck me immediately is that the supposedly South Pacific island natives look suspiciously like white guys from middle America who wandered in from a Rotary Club meeting. Some of them even have neatly trimmed 1950s sideburns. The effect is mildly surreal. It’s as if the island culture evolved entirely within a suburban barbershop in Ohio.

Tonally, the movie is all over the map. At times it feels like an episode of Gilligan's Island—the tropical setting, the earnest-but-goofy dialogue, the sense that everyone is one coconut radio away from a sitcom plot. Other moments veer closer to The Three Stooges, though notably without the eye-pokes and frying pans. Instead you get a lot of characters wandering around looking confused while a homicidal tree lumbers toward them.

And speaking of wandering around, we get a classic movie quicksand scene. Now, I’m perfectly willing to forgive the usual cinematic misunderstandings about how quicksand works. Movies and television have been getting that wrong for decades, and at this point it’s practically a tradition. But what I cannot forgive is the fact that this particular patch of quicksand is emitting steam. Steam. From quicksand. Why? Is the island built on top of a geothermal spa? Is the quicksand boiling? Is Tabanga running a sauna franchise? The film offers no explanation.

The monster itself, however, is actually pretty good. Tabanga—the vengeful walking tree—is a genuinely memorable design. The bark-covered body looks convincingly wooden, the branch-like arms are nicely creepy, and the face has this magnificent carved wooden frown that gives the creature a weirdly expressive look. If you were six or seven years old and watching this in a dark movie theater in 1957, I can absolutely see how this thing might have scared the hell out of you.

Another pleasant surprise is the score. For a movie this goofy, the music is oddly effective. It’s dramatic, atmospheric, and sometimes far better than the scenes it’s accompanying. The composer clearly understood the assignment even if the rest of the production occasionally wandered off to chase butterflies.

The movie also has a faint but unmistakable anti-nuclear message, which was a staple of 1950s science fiction and horror. The suggestion is that atomic experimentation has tampered with forces that humanity doesn’t fully understand, helping unleash the monstrous Tabanga. It’s not exactly subtle, but it fits comfortably alongside the era’s broader anxieties about radiation, mutation, and mankind’s enthusiasm for pressing buttons labeled “DO NOT PRESS.”

And yet… damn, this movie is stooopid. I mean that affectionately, but still: stooopid.

For this particular screening, I also had a unique viewing experience. For various reasons, none of the other regulars could make it, so I ended up being the only person in the class. Watching a movie like this alone is a strange thing—you don’t get the shared laughter, the groans, or the running commentary that usually makes these nights so much fun. Keith did kind of make up for it, reacting with me -- more actively than he usually reacts when the room has more people in it. I can’t say for sure how everyone else would have rated From Hell It Came, but I do know one thing: Joe would have given it a 10.

cinema history class: the crawling eye (1958)

The session: The Cold Can Kill Ya!
With plummeting temperatures, Keith shows us four movies with achingly cold settings

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 4: The Crawling Eye (1958)
Directed by Quentin Lawrence

My Level of Prior Knowledge:
Never heard of it.

Plot Synopsis:
A series of mysterious deaths near a Swiss mountain coincide with a strange radioactive cloud that never leaves the summit. Scientists discover the cloud hides telepathic, tentacled creatures that descend from the mountain to hunt humans, forcing the investigators to confront the monsters before they spread beyond the isolated alpine town.

Plot:
The Crawling Eye is a fascinating artifact of 1950s science fiction. One of the more interesting aspects for me was seeing Forrest Tucker in a relatively restrained leading-man role. I’m so used to him as the loud, blustery Sergeant O’Rourke on F Troop (and in a similar mode on Dusty's Trail) that it almost feels like watching a completely different actor.

The movie takes its time getting where it’s going. For a while it’s a slow-moving mystery about a strange radioactive cloud hanging over a mountain and the unexplained deaths of climbers who wander too close to it. Eventually, though, the movie shifts gears and gives us a full-on climactic confrontation with the titular creatures — enormous tentacled eyeballs that emerge from the cloud and begin attacking everything in sight.

Visually, the fiendish eyes are…well, interesting. They’re certainly memorable. But aside from that central effect, there’s not a lot in the way of spectacle. The real standout, oddly enough, is the sound design. The noises the creatures make — especially the awful, squishy shrieks when they’re injured — are surprisingly effective and do a lot of the heavy lifting in making the monsters feel threatening.

This is very much classic 1950s sci-fi territory: scientists, mysterious radiation, remote mountain laboratories, and alien invaders whose plans are never entirely explained. In fact, the movie never really tells us what the creatures want. Are they scouts for a conquering alien race? Are they colonizers preparing Earth for takeover? Or are we simply dealing with an extremely unfortunate case of cloudy with a chance of eyeballs?

While I can appreciate the film on its own terms, this particular brand of 1950s creature feature isn’t really where my main interests lie. This one was much more a Bobbo choice -- and his rating relative to mine reflected that.

Yet, despite its flaws — the pacing, the limited effects, and the somewhat vague alien agenda — The Crawling Eye is kind of low-key great in its own way.

And all jokes aside, I just know that Joe would have rated this a 10 -- if he had been there.