To Live Outside the Law: The good and the bad in the finale of Season 1 of Better Call Saul

Each episode of Better Call Saul has at least one damn good scene with Breaking Bad-quality writing that makes the episode and the series itself worth watching: the scene in which the ex-cop takes signs on as a bodyguard for the hapless young man who's selling some stolen pills to a gangster-thug is one great scene in the penultimate episode, and in the finale for Season 1 Jim's mental and emotional breakdown during the Bingo game is a classic: the kind of one-man scene that would be a great exercise for an acting class or for an audition. That said, some aspects of season 1 were quite disappointing: overall, it felt as if this should have been a one-season prequel, but perhaps, realizing they had a pretty good show going, Gilligan and Gould decided to stretch out the timeline - so this season ends with Jimmy's decision to go to the dark side, to live outside the law and, presumably, to represent those (like Walter White) who do so as well - not the sweet clients he's built up in his elder-law practice. Some of the plot mechanics, as Jim/Saul/Odenkirk would or might say: Just didn't do it for me. For example, I never bought into the fact that his brother, Chuck, would want him out of the law firm because he's "not a real lawyer" - when everything up to that point suggested Chuck was proud of Jim and grateful for Jim's devotion. Similarly, I found it very hard to keep in mind the various schemes and scams that Jim gets involved in - which tells me that none of them, really, were particularly important to the story line. I guess ultimately I can never really accept this character as an Irish-American hustler from Cicero when, throughout Breaking Bad, he seemed so quintessentially Jewish, didn't he? In season 2, which I no doubt will watch, it'll take a lot to convince me that this guy could so easily morph into a new persona - Saul Goodman - and set up a practice in the same city where he used to practiced as Jimmy McGill?