Bob Odenkirk has a new memoir and a starry career that began here — look at the ways Naperville creeps into his writing. What does he think of where he is now?
CHICAGO — Some day, when the final history of comedy is written, let it be known that last summer, on the fringes of Netflix, during the cult sketch series “I Think You Should Leave Now,” for three and a half minutes, humanity achieved peak Bob Odenkirk. His essence, his appeal, his average-guy-from-Naperville, Illinois face and receding hairline, his unsettling alchemy of empathy and delusion — it all landed perfectly in line. Odenkirk played an older gentleman who happens to be sitting in a restaurant across from a younger guy and his daughter. The younger guy, played by series creator Tim Robinson, tells his daughter a white lie, that the ice cream machine is not working. He winks in corroboration at Odenkirk, sitting one table over. So Odenkirk’s character winks back.
Then, apropos of nothing, he adds that he is definitely married, and that his wife is a model, that she got sick but she’s getting better, and that he owns many classic cars, that he does not live in a hotel, that he has plenty of friends and that he is very wealthy.
The sketch is lonely, and strange, and silly, and uneasy, and full of heartbreak, about a schlub, a benign schlub, one who cannot resist sharing, long after he’s lost the room.
Bob Odenkirk characters don’t come bundled any tighter.
Unless you think of Saul Goodman, the Albuquerque lawyer that Odenkirk initially played with levity on “Breaking Bad” then deepened over six seasons of its spinoff, “Better Call Saul.” Saul — or rather, before his troubles caught up with him, Jimmy McGill — is a Men’s Wearhouse of lies, hollow promises and
