Better Call Saul makes Jimmy and Kim confront some harsh truths
As the series speeds towards its conclusion, the McGills face the music
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At its core, Better Call Saul is a prequel series, even though it has become much more than what’s expected of that genre. Still, one of its main purposes is to get to the end of whoever and whatever Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad is. That would bring us full circle to the colorfully attired, loquacious, ethically-pliable, always entertaining attorney to the stars of Albuquerque’s meth trade. But what if the end of this show isn’t just the beginning of Breaking Bad’s Saul Goodman or (as also promised by the black-and-white flashforwards) the arrival of Cinnabon-slinger Gene Takovic?
Last week’s midseason premiere quickly but satisfyingly closed Lalo Salamanca’s story and forecasted what was likely to be serious trouble in Jimmy and Kim’s relationship. “Fun And Games” pays off on that front, speedily running through the state of McGills’ marriage. Kim breaks Jimmy’s heart when she tells him that they have a good time but don’t bring out the best in each other. And she’s right: They bring out each other’s worst instincts, traits, and behaviors, all of which have consequences. Look no further than them using the Sandpiper case to further their careers. Jimmy giddily went along with Kim’s ideas to humiliate Howard instead of using the settlement to help others, even as the operation became more and more destructive to Howard. It was all fun and games until somebody lost a life. Yes, the McGills are really good at running scams. They display frighteningly real sincerity even in a situation like trying to convince a widow who has been (wrongly) made to believe that her husband died by suicide and was a drug addict, all in the name of covering their role in the man’s death.
If that scene between Jimmy, Kim, and Howard’s widow Cheryl wasn’t the impetus for life-changing decisions by Kim, then she probably would have been by Saul Goodman’s side in Breaking Bad, continuing to pursue her passion for advocacy law, perhaps, but also continuing a pattern of bad behavior. That the resolution of Jimmy and Kim’s relationship in “Fun And Games” was inevitable doesn’t mean it didn’t come more swiftly than we might have predicted, though. Jimmy was especially shocked by the breakup and Kim’s harsh but truthful assessment of their integrity as a duo. Ever the organized type, her things were already packed in suitcases and boxes as she told him why she was leaving.
So Kim left her career and Jimmy behind, despite professing her love for him, but is this really the last we’ll see of her in Better Call Saul? Four episodes remain in the series’ run, and that’s a lot of time to be without Kim Wexler. (We still need more of Rhea Seehorn’s Emmy-nominated work.) BCS has to also deal with Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, and guest actor Carol Burnett’s arrivals. Plus, there will be some update on the predicament we last saw ol’ Gene in with that menacing cab driver Jeff in Omaha.
That leaves a fair amount of runway to follow all of those storylines, but Kim’s bomb drop on Jimmy—again, like everything in this second half so far—moved too quickly. After his breakup with Kim, we get some very brief time with Jimmy gliding into full-on Saul Goodman mode, complete with the pastel suits, the gaudy manse, a combover ’do that can only be described as Trumpian, and the LWYRUP license plate. There’s no trace of Kim, save that Saul is now spending the night with another woman sometime after she left him. He quickly bids his new lover adieu the next morning with a parting gift of a cereal bar from a giant bowl he keeps on his dining room table.
Of the remaining characters currently in the Saul universe, “Fun And Games” leaves all of them in some state of resolution. Mike cleans up the Howard situation as best he could from a legal standpoint. With the Lalo threat gone and Gus having appeased Don Eladio that Hector’s claims of Gus’ backstabbing were nothing to worry about, Mike and Gus shut down the underground tunnel in Gus’ lair, and he orders Mike to restart the meth lab construction. And yes, Kim quits the bar, her marriage, and leaves for…we don’t know where just yet. Saul showrunner Peter Gould has repeatedly said that the series will end with no ambiguity for Kim—so we haven’t seen the last of her, right?
As for Jimmy/Saul/Gene, maybe when all is said and done, Better Call Saul won’t just have ushered in the beginning of Saul Goodman’s Breaking Bad era or the beginning of Gene Takovic’s post-Bad life. During the Tribeca Festival’s Q&A with the Saul cast, Gould, and writer Gordon Smith, they were asked to describe the last half of the season. Bob Odenkirk answered simply: “A second life.” Maybe the last four episodes aren’t just about how Better Call Saul’s Goodman merges into Breaking Bad’s, but also about how Gene Takovic merges into whatever his life is going to be once he deals with Jeff.
Maybe the end of Saul is going to provide us an abbreviated version of the Gene spin-off so many of us have hoped for and, with the movie El Camino following Jesse’s post-Bad finale life, bring the whole Gilligan Albuquerque universe to an unambiguous conclusion. Wouldn’t that be something?
Stray observations
- Is the Statue of Liberty blow-up that tops the office the exact one from the Kettlemans’ building? Do they pop back into the story somehow?
- The Saul Goodman & Associates sign Jimmy and Francesca watched being installed was so beautiful, like the rest of Jimmy’s original office. We can guess why the office design changes so dramatically in later years, but I still wouldn’t mind seeing if some specific event sparked the downgraded redesign.
- Speaking of Francesca, consider her another casualty of what Kim and Jimmy wrought. More Jimmy than Kim, but she was a much happier, positive character when we met her as the receptionist at the Wexler McGill office. Her demeanor in the post-Kim era of the Saul Goodman offices matches Mike’s demeanor working with Gus after the deaths of Nacho and Howard: resigned and more than a little angry.
- Compelled to provide Nacho’s dad with some closure about his son, Mike gets a donkey kick to the gut when Mr. Varga lumps him in with the rest of Nacho’s cohorts. “My boy is gone,” Mr. Varga says, recalling, of course, season one’s “Five-O” line from Mike, when he tells Stacey, “I broke my boy!” about his own beloved son.
- We have possibly seen the only instance in all of the Saul/Breaking Bad timelines when Gus Fring looked relaxed and legitimately enjoyed himself. It lasted for the duration of his brief conversation at the wine bar with David the waiter. Once David stepped away, and Gus finished his sip of the special wine poured for him, he pushed the glass away. His face immediately changed as he reverted to the buttoned-up, fastidious “house-cat” Lalo described: the guy who would later straighten his tie after his face was blown off.
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I think there was one single scene that perfectly sums up the essence of Saul Goodman.That of course being his disgusting slimy combover hair flip in the shower.Ugh.LMAO
That whole closing montage was something else, wasn’t it? It reminded me of Anakin Skywalker becoming Darth Vader in “Lord of the Sith”.Going to Howard’s funeral service seems to have been a sort of “Order 66″ point-of-no-return.
I’m kinda torn whether Kim went full evil in that scene or that she felt she was forced to push the narrative with that made-up story. I mean, Mike told them they had to keep up the facade, and later on, her conscience and regret seem to push the latter, but I could swear in that moment that she was going sociopath with the convincing false empathy for Howard’s (ex?) wife. Even Jimmy looked troubled with how easy she made it seem.
I’d say it’s both – the latter making the former possible, and that blurring between the lines is what makes it all the more convincing why she decides, then and there, to leave. She KNOWS she could become a full-blown sociopath if she allowed herself to be – that she wanted to stay with Jimmy and enact the plan because she was having fun – and unlike Walter White, she knows to either stop or she’ll go fully down the rabbit hole. Just excellent work by Seehorn there.
Yeah, I think that’s it. Kim is so good at this sort of thing that she could probably slip into full-blown sociopath quite readily if she kept going down this road, and be good at that, too, and get a thrill out of it and have fun doing it. But she just realized that wasn’t who she wanted to be, that the thrill wasn’t worth the cost of the destruction. It seems that conversation with Howard’s widow was the breaking point— sure, Kim got away with it, but it probably made clear the consequences of the road she and Jimmy had been on, and that this kind of lie is the kind you have to tell if you’re going to keep walking it, and that wasn’t something she wanted to do anymore. (And I wouldn’t be surprised if she skipped town as well as quitting law— in both senses not wanting to chance facing the Albuquerque legal community again, and whatever feelings that might force her to confront about what she and Jimmy did.)
So it seems that the big question about Kim’s ultimate fate, is that she simply runs away and disappears on her own accord. No tragic death, no vacuum repair protection program, just her packing up and calling it quits.
Yeah, Kim is the potential sociopath on this show. Not Mike or Gus or Lalo, or any of the men who kill in cold blood… Kim… right./s
The first rule of the con is that you die with the lie. I also think that was when Kim realized that she was way, way too good at it.
You also stick to the story and never go farther than it needs to. Jimmy stuck to the story but Kim made something up that hadn’t been discussed before and wasn’t part of the plan
Kim definitely pushed the envelope and risked inviting the widow to keep digging. She pulled it off, but you’re right that it was too far. A shrug and an Irish Goodbye would have been just as effective.I think there were a couple of things at work there. First, Kim wanted the questioning to stop, but she also had some disdain for Mrs. Hamlin. Here she was trying to heap all the blame for Howard’s “suicide” on the easiest target and ignoring the fact that she’d been treating her husband like crap for the past year.
I think there was also an ego-driven element of “Don’t you dare think you can outplay me” going on. Kim was insulted that Cheryl wasn’t buying the story so she went for the jugular knowing it would crush her.
It might be a kindness to just give her closure so she can move on. It didn’t seem like she had much love for Howard anyway in the previous scenes.
I gotta say, to me it looked like a more cold-blooded, gaslighting Kim Drexler than we’d ever seen before. She’s tying up loose ends, purely out of self-interest.And she’s utterly unlike any Kim Drexler we could have imagined in the early seasons.
Kim Drexler!! Lololol!!! She sounds pretty athletic!
Yeah, it’s an ugly moment for Kim. Jimmy’s story to Howard’s wife was self-deprecating: he tells her that the reason Howard suspected him is because he’s a loser who was envious of Howard. Kim’s story is about the fact that Howard was a drug addict for a long time. And she then pretends to reassure the wife that Kim probably misunderstood, since the wife obviously would have noticed something. She’s using the fact that Howard’s marriage is falling apart, something she only knows because Howard told them just before he was shot.
Jesus, yeah, I didn’t even think about how she leveraged her knowledge of the state of their marriage that way. Christ, Kim is good at selling this kind of thing— probably so good she even scared herself with how good she is.
I see it as Kim always coming to Jimmy’s defense or aid. Jimmy was choking on his words to Howard’s wife and it didn’t look like his lie was selling it so Kim does what she always has and leaps to Jimmy’s aid. I have been that kind of woman with the men in my life and sometimes even when you know that the other person has them dead to rights you still jump in and defend them. That’s why I believe she will be in the Gene scenes. I think Jimmy is talking to the cab driver about not being friends. He will pay him off with the diamonds or something, but it won’t be enough for Jeff the cab driver and Gene will need Kim or “Giselle” to help him pull off another con. I think Jimmy needs to survive as Gene in order for them to do a possible spinoff.
Jimmy isn’t bothered by Kim being able to lie convincingly. He’s bothered by a) seeing how he’s corrupted her and b) the way she is honest about her dishonesty. Jimmy convinces himself he’s a good guy. Kim doesn’t do that. And, so, when Jimmy seems Kim being honest about her dishonesty, so to speak, he’s confronted with his own dishonesty.
well i dont know if hes a good guy, but there is a friendliness to him, a smidge of human kindness kim doesnt have.
That of course being his disgusting slimy combover hair flip in the shower.It’s so bad, it’s like he knows and he’s deliberately doing it to further the character he’s playing. He’s making the bad combover part of his brand.
Just like his gawdawful suits and Gus’ clip-on tie.
I rewound that and watched it 3 times. Amazing.
On the BCS podcast, there was extravagent praise for the hair and makeup folks who engineered that flip.
Battle of hairstylists for the Emmy—-BCS vs SNW.GO!
I’d be very into Kim getting her own. El Camino. Sounds good.
David the waiter was Reed Diamond, best known for Homicide: Life on the Street, which Giancarlo Esposito was also briefly on.
I best know him as the guy from Dollhouse.
Either that or the Hydra guy from Agents of SHIELD
I certainly recognized Reed, and the Homicide connection, as well. I took that sequence as a rare instance of Gus letting his guard down, and enjoying a brief flirtation. Then slamming the gates back down and moving on, knowing what his relationship with Max, and, yes, I’m in the ‘they were lovers’ camp, had cost both of them.
I feel like when the sommalier talked about the ‘note of blood’ in the wine’s palate, that’s snapped Gus out of being able to dream about having a true connection with somebody, and right back into the reality of his life. He’d already been down that path once with tragic results, and cut it off immediately.
Is that a “camp”?It seems clear as crystal to me that Hector killed Gus’ boyfriend because he doesn’t like gays. I’m not sure of any other reasonable interpretation of those scenes from Breaking Bad.
It was left pretty ambiguous, wouldn’t you say? It might have been homophobia, or it might have been purely practical— the cartel already had Max’s chemical formula, which made him expendable. But from their amoral perspective, it made sense to keep Gus around for his business acumen & distribution connections.
Hector made repeated insinuations that the “Chicken Brothers” were more like (paraphrasing but it was something crass like the following) ‘Butt Brothers’.He was visibly disgusted at this idea, laughed at them a lot, and while I think it’s fair to say Don Eladio would’ve likely killed one of them anyway for the “disrespectful” way they got that meeting, Hector pulled the trigger early (before Gus and his partner could try and talk their way out of a death) and with gleeful sadism.I don’t think anyone can say Hector had that much hate for the “Chicken Brothers” just because of the way they got the meeting. Sure Hector has always been a sadist (just look at his flashback with the two kids one of which he almost drowns), but that particular murder seemed very kill-the-gays motivated given everything he had said in that scene and his stopping of letting them try to talk their way out of a death.
Everything you say is plausible, but it still doesn’t explain why Max gets offed while Gus is spared. Was it the pure vagaries of fate, or was there some method behind the cartel-psycho madness?I’m going to have to go back and re-watch that episode of BB, there might be some nuances that I haven’t caught.
The exact reason Gus was spared is not spelled out, but it’s heavily implied that Gus has some powerful connections to the Pinochet regime back in Chile and this makes him untouchable (or, at least, difficult to touch without risking a big problem). Eladio states outright that the only reason Gus was allowed to live is that “we know who you are.” Gus’s time in Chile is elsewhere described as having been scrubbed, with no record of him existing prior to arriving in Mexico.I’m kind of glad that Better Call Saul maintained this mystery around Gus’s true identity, because any concrete answer would be unsatisfying.
In my head canon, Gus is Pinochet’s illegitimate son and was groomed as an enforcer before being allowed to travel abroad and seek his fortune as a meth lord. As Pinochet was still in power in 1987 (when the Max flashback takes place), Gus was still under his protection. By the time of Better Call Saul, the cartel could kill Gus without issue, but he’s making them too much money and he’s long since proven his criminal genius in building out the American business.Max, of course, was expendable. Gus is the brains of the operation and the cartel thinks anyone can cook the meth.
I never thought of him as some weird illegitimate son, but I did think that he was likely a Chilean military intelligence veteran or a participant in a lot of the old operation Condor, which would explain how his records are so hard to find.
I feel like there has to be more to it than that, because without some kind of familial tie to someone incredibly powerful back home, I don’t think the cartel would be afraid to execute Gus. Also, there’s the mocking way in which Hector refers to Gus as “Generalissimo,” implying that he did not earn whatever official title he held in Chile. If Gus was just, like, a military intelligence official, or an actual general in the Chilean army, Hector wouldn’t be as dismissive.
Possibly not; I was thinking that any guy who has connections to the Pinochet regime and was in the intelligence service is no joke. That said, I could certainly see people being a little dismissive of Chileans in that context if they are Mexican cartel guys – they would see people from say, DINA as a bunch of effete college boys (not unlike the way some folks see the ivy league guys from the CIA). That would. of course, be a serious underestimation.
It’s one of the reasons I think Gus is so careful and precise. That has all the marks of a guy from agencies like that; you don’t get a lot of people who play fast and loose and especially people who basically run a pretty efficient police state — they tend to pay attention to detail, you know?
At the time, Giancarlo and Vince were playing coy about their relationship. Most people read them as lovers, and eventually even Vince, who loves ambiguity, confirmed it.
agree, i read that scene as a flirtation and Gus for just seconds, contemplating a relationship with David, drinking fine wine and planning trips to French vineyards. Then, within seconds, reality settles in, and with (seemingly) no regrets, he moves back to the life he actually lives where that relationship is completely impossible
That scene for me achieves what the best cinema does: tells a story clear enough to follow even without audio.
They actually teamed up in the TV movie finale to that wonderful series, so this was a reunion of sorts for the two Mikes (Kellerman and Giordello). Interestingly, this review doesn’t even touch on the fact that Gus was openly flirting with David the waiter, confirming a suspicion many of us had long assumed (and one which both Esposito and Gilligan had already stated in separate interviews) regarding Gus’ sexuality. His grim expression at the end of the scene can be attributed to Gus realizing that he can never truly be happy as himself, for to be exposed would mean certain death, as it would for someone like David, whose life would most likely end the same way Max’s did (notice Gus staring at the pool…where Max was murdered…same look he gives at the bar).
As a gay man, I’m annoyed at myself for not putting together what that scene indicated sooner. I’ve been hoping that we get some final confirmation of Gus’s sexuality before the end of the series and that was it.
Wasn’t there a flashback during BB where it was basically shown that the other “hermano” in the chicken business was Gus’s lover who was murdered by the cartel? Don Eladio also acknowledges that’s where the hate in Gus’s eyes comes from in this last episode.
Yes, I think the point was that this was as exposed as Gus was willing to be. He was willing to subtle suggest that David might come to his house and try the wine that David had talked about. When David said he hoped Gus would tell him what the wine was like when he tried it, Gus took that as a rejection of his offer. But the offer was never quite made, and it’s not surprising that David did not presume a person with whom he had a friendly customer relationship was inviting him over to his house to try super expensive wine. I also think the scene is meant to give Gus a measure of what he deserves. One tough thing about the show is that Gus does not face real consequences for all the terrible things he does on Better Call Saul. He wins, and the real consequences come years later, on a different show. But the scene does provide some justice. Yes, Gus wins, but he is utterly alone, and lacks the tools to make himself happy.
I doubt that we’ll see much more of Gus in the final stretch. Maybe a couple more scenes after the lab is finished? But, yea his story is over for now, and there’s so much other territory for the show to deal with. I mean this episode ended with a significant jump foward in time. I think it’s safe to assume the lab has already been nearly finished during that time. Remaining episodes are gunna be very Saul/Gene-centric.
Alan Sepinwall had a pretty interesting take that in Gus’ line of work— and what happened to Max— he knows he can’t let things progress any further than that. This little flirtation is the most Gus can afford himself, and he has to break it off for both David’s safety and his own.
Yes, Gus wins, but he is utterly alone, and lacks the tools to make himself happy.
Yes, but weirdly the show seems to want you to feel bad for him, like this is some ironic tragedy, as if he didn’t do it to himself by being colossally evil at every turn.
He’s fueled by revenge and hates the cartel, sure, but the show has done a pretty bad job convincing us why he even wants to run a drug empire.
Agreed, I think the waiter would have taken the offer but as a consummate professional would’ve never actively tried to…consummate any relationship with a customer. Plus Gus is known to appear sporadically between long stretches, so he probably never expected anything real to come of it. I’m glad Gus asked the other bartender to tell him he had business to attend to rather than do the disappearing without explanation or pretend he was offended by something thing.
If the bartended professional code of conduct prevents sleeping with customers, that seems to be a rule more honored in the breach.
I missed that finale when it aired and have never forgiven myself. iicr, wasn’t it a crossover with law and order too?
That was my read as well.
It was all but spelled out in Breaking Bad that Gus and Max were in a relationship, and that Gus’ current marriage is merely a facade he puts on, like so many others, to disguise who he really is.
It also ties in to how he dies: having half/most of his face blown off. The proverbial “mask” being blown away. Double ironic since the two times his mask fully came off were caused by Hector: when Hector killed Max, and when Hector blew himself and Gus up.
Diamond was also playing the heavy in the episode of Leverage: Redemption playing on ION during the repeat of tonight’s BCS episode.
Yes. And a great police procedural with an excellent cast.
He’s also the cop from The Shield who SPOILER ALERT Vic Mackey kills in the pilot. Best Pilot Twist In TV History.
One of the reasons that was such a great twist is that we had been picturing Diamond as Vic’s potent adversary, based on his performance as Mike Kellerman.
Yeah. The first twist in the pilot that Terry Crowley, Diamond’s character, is an undercover cop sent in by Aceveda to take down The Strike Team sets up all sorts of expectations for the series to come. Will Mackey find out about Terry? Will Terry be seduced by Mackey’s way? Will Aceveda take down Mackey? And then, all those expectations are killed with Terry when Mackey shoots him. It was brilliant, using one twist to set up another.
Is any show a harder sell these days than The Shield? Spending most of its run trying to get you to root for dirty cops before finally pulling the rug out, a bizarrely straight-faced anti-vaxxer sentiment throughout multiple seasons, and oh yeah, a major cast member is a legit murderer.
I rewatched the whole series 2 years ago and it still holds up really well. It’s crazy to me that in the early seasons people thought Walton Goggins wasn’t a terrific actor because he’s incredible throughout.
He is one of the best actors ever. Just an absolutely incredible performance on that show. Incredible.
He is also the non-meat eating police officer who was interviewed by Samuel L. Jackson in the S.W.A.T. movie that didn’t make the team. Reed is a great actor!
I recently rewatched the whole series. A lot did not age well, but a lot of it still holds up well, notably CCH Pounder and Shane’s arc in the later seasons.
Which parts did you feel didn’t hold up?I’ve been thinking about a Shield rewatch for the first time since the show ended so I’m curious to see what it’s like now.
The aforementioned anti-vaxxer sentiment. Pretty much anything involving Julien, and not just because the actor murdered his wife. His big subplot about supressing his sexuality through Pray The Gay Away therapy was very troubling.
IIRC that was at the behest of the actor, who is, and I know this is going to be shocking considering what a great guy he was otherwise, kind of homophobic.
The Shield rules. I haven’t watched it in a little while but for a period of time I went through the series once a year. It’s just so damn effective at grabbing you and making you feel what the characters are feeling even as the stakes get higher and higher. And all the other stories outside the Strike Team make it work pretty well as a procedural on the side, so there’s rarely a bad episode.
And it’s so unfortunate because it is, legitimately, one of the best shows in the history of TV. It’s right up there with Breaking Bad. But yeah, it’s a tough sell now.
My exact challenge. It was a show I was aware of when it was airing but I never got a chance to watch it, and had intended to circle back one day. The day came and I found myself unable to start it. I just cannot engage with the premise anymore.
Yikes, who is the show for?! I guess it’s fun to troll cop apologists?
Yikes, who is the show for?! I guess it’s fun to troll cop apologists?
He is also the “bad guy” lawyer throughout the series Franklin & Bash where his law partner was….Rhea Seehorn.
Get this: Rhea Seehorn was actually in an episode of Homicide during the 6th season (which HEAVILY featured a long running arc involving the Kellerman character). I was going over her IMDb not too long ago and my jaw dropped…THAT WOMAN IS 50 YEARS OLD! I legit thought she was late 30s at the most! Damn, girl!
Ah, you beat me to it.
That show is incredible and yes, that twist was jaw-dropping.
And, of course, he famously appears second in the credits in the first episode of The Shield.
I also routinely get him and Patrick Fabian confused, which made that an amusing bit of casting for me.
He was also the Strike Team member whose death was the catalyst for the entire run of The Shield.
He was also Terry on The Shield.
Shout-out to Arye Gross’s effective appearance as the surprised judge Dearden.
Oh that was Ayre Gross. I saw his name in the credits, but didn’t recognize him in the scene.
Davis was the restaurant’s sommelier, not a waiter.
he was also Dr Daniel Whitehall on Marvel’s agents of SHIELD
He also seemed to be the sommelier, not the waiter.
The “new lover” is a hooker, I believe.
How dare you, SHE’S A NICE LADY!
Totally heard Saul’s voice when I read that.
Yes. I definitely thought she was picking up the cash (and leaving the breakfast bar.)
Oh, she most definitely took the money.And the breakfast bar.
I thought she took the cash, and then grabbed a breakfast bar too.It was weird how they lingered on the breakfast bars. Almost like product placement.Is there something special about them I’m missing?
I think the point is just that he has a whole bowl of breakfast bars set out for all the special ladies who inevitably find themselves popping into his dining room to get paid early in the morning.
I guess it is kinda hilarious that he considers himself gentlemanly enough to always buy his dates breakfast (which he buys in bulk).
Yup, that’s exactly how I read it, too. That he hires so many prostitutes that he eventually just decided to put out a bowl of snacks for them on the way out, instead of scrounging around in his cupboard or whatever. That’s how often he has them over.
Is there something special about them I’m missing?
Just that Nutri-Grain bars are a part of every hooker and lawyer’s balanced breakfast!
I personally expected them to have cash inside somehow.Fun fact: I initially type “somehoe”I’ll see myself out
I believe the term is informal professional.
Great comprehension skills!
Yeah, thought that was obvious.
So Kim got out, but I think it remains to be seen how unscathed or scathed she ends up being. For her, the threat isn’t physical, it’s psychological — whether she can get over the things she has seen and done.
I’m starting to thing she may become endangered in the Gene time-line.
Man watching Kim bid farewell was rough. She was completely right and yet Saul genuinely cared and isn’t faking his emotions and pleads. Made me feel bad just watching.
Yeah, I felt the same way. Clearly, and for the first time in a long while, she made the right decision, but it was no less devastating. Even if we didn’t know what Jimmy would become in Saul, we knew it would never end well for the two of them, and yet, we wish, regardless of their transgressions and crimes, that it would.
Well, I think that about sums up what happened to Kim. She didn’t get whacked or, as far as we know, vacuumed. Nobody’s chasing her except her conscience. Causing Howard’s death was too much. Watching him die was too much. Lying through her teeth to Howard’s widow was definitely way too much. So she quit her job, quit Jimmy and left. I still hope we get to see her in Omaha.The time jump to Saul with his combover and “houseguest” in his mansion puts us squarely in Breaking Bad territory. We probably won’t get a reenactment of the desert scene, but I definitely think we’ll see Walt and Jesse in Saul’s parking lot soon.I can’t decide which was a sadder scene, Mike telling Mr. Varga that Nacho was dead or watching Gus at the wine bar. Varga’s reaction was exactly what I expected. He knew his son was in with bad people and one day he’d be getting this news. Of course, that was sad but what was sadder was seeing Mike get none of the comfort he was seeking by giving a grieving father some closure. The short conversation with a waiter was the first time I can recall ever seeing Gus with his guard down. The conversation was all about wine but there was another vibe at work—David was basically flirting with Gus and he was enjoying the attention. But Gus knew his chance for that kind of life died long ago.Gus has been alone since Hector Salamanca killed Max that day at Don Eladio’s pool. Even though he’s surround by his henchmen, his Los Pollos Hermanos employees, his customers, and all the people he sees in his civic life, Gustavo Fring lives a solitary life. He couldn’t be more alone if he was a hermit on an Andean mountaintop.
That was an immensely depressing hour of TV.
Depressing, yet entertaining.
It was, but it didn’t fetishize it’s own misery*. As the review indicated, this is a prequel and we all knew this was going to happen in some form or another. This episode was the Revenge of the Sith of the BB cinematic universe. Christ knows why, but I watched an episode of 13 Reasons Why before watching BCS. Christ, talk about one show using being depressing for narrative purposes and the other just wallowing in it’s misery.
Saul still hasn’t had a formal introduction to Gus yet, correct? Bc in BB his is already quite familiar with the man.
Christ-kun, why did this poster watch an episode of that show?
They display frighteningly real sincerity even in a situation like trying to convince a widow who has been (wrongly) made to believe that her husband died by suicide and was a drug addict, all in the name of covering their role in the man’s death.When Kim tells the widow she was the one who should have seen the signs of Howard’s (fake) problems, it reminded me of when Kim convinced Howard that he was actually the one responsible for Chuck’s death.She really is as soulless and despicable as the villains on the show when it suits her.
Great call back. Yeah, it was both a challenge for her to go ice-pick-cold on Howard’s widow, and a weary admission to herself that she can do this – has to do this one last lie. They could have walked away and been like, “Whatever,” with the lingering suspicions, but Kim realized she needed to nail this shut.It mirrors Gus’ “look in my eyes” lie from earlier in the episode.
I think that was the moment that broke her. It was unnecessarily cruel and she realized it after the fact.
Jimmy lied but did it with a soft touch and did it in a way that comforted Howard’s widow. Kim just dug the knife in. That’s pretty much what their relationship has been like for the past season or two with Kim being the cold blooded and Jimmy still having a bit of a conscience about things
Kim steps in when Jimmy can’t close the deal.
Jimmy isn’t doing it because he has a conscious. He’s doing it because he’s soft. He and Kim are both lying. He just doesn’t have the stomach to lie in a more matter of fact way.Jimmy isn’t being kinder by being softer. Kim isn’t being kinder by being crueler. (She is being more honest, though). Scamming someone is scamming someone whether you leave them with a smile or a frown.
That’s a key difference, though. Jimmy still has a heart and a conscience about what he does, even if he doesn’t do the right thing. Kim no longer appears to have either of that. It’s exactly like the scam on Howard in which Jimmy was dragged into it by Kim and tried several times to back out of it but she wouldn’t let him
Except that Kim is the one who takes responsibility and decides to change her ways. She feels enough guilt over what she has done that she gives up being with Jimmy and gives up being a lawyer, just so that she won’t do anything like that again. While Jimmy, for all his supposed “heart,” chooses to go full scumbag.
And pretty quickly after the fact, given that when they left to go back to their car, she drove off without Jimmy.
Did it show them arriving in one car? I’d assumed they must have both driven there in their own cars.
I don’t think it showed it— I think the scene started with them about to go into the building, or waiting for an elevator, or something. Funny, I assumed the opposite, that they arrived together.
I only assumed that after she drove off without him!
While I don’t think it showed them arriving together, Saul was standing next to the tan Ford Taurus he’s been driving lately when she drove away.
I like your take. She could have gone even crueler though. She could have said “Howard said that you made him sleep in the guest house for the better part of a year. But I know you had your reasons.” Howard tells them this for some reason and they could have used it.
I felt as bad for Cheryl in this scene as I did for Irene when Jimmy made her ostracized from her group of friends at the senior home.
I feel that Cheryl was playing up the grieving widow a bit after we got to see inside Howard’s home life.
Felt weird since we mostly only saw Cheryl as a cold person to Howard as he eagerly tried to please her. Felt like she was ore offended personally that she was married to a coke head than really mad about Howard actually dying.
She was definitely cold to Howard in the scene when he made her a “peace” latte. But I think it’s unfair she has to now live her life thinking that the man she was sure she knew (even if they were on the outs) was a coke head, despite being correct in telling Kim that she knows him and that he would never do cocaine.
I read it as she was externalizing her guilt, which Kim read and deftly turned right back inward on her. Which is not to say that she should bear guilt if his drug use had indeed been a thing, just that it would still be natural for her to feel guilt.
The same Cheryl who’s been shunning poor Howard? Nah
It really was the way Kim did it, too— superficially reassuring Cheryl that Kim is probably wrong and that Cheryl would have known better than she did, knowing full well Howard mentioned his marriage was falling apart.I think being that ice-cold and knowing how to turn that information to your advantage while still seeming helpful might have been enough to scare Kim about herself. Seeing the kind of person she could be / would have to be if she and Jimmy continued in their ways.
Its was Walter White level. A mix of audaciousness and pure cold calculation. Seehorn is phenomenal.
Id be pissed if Kim just gets to run away scot-free. Most have predicted she gets “vacuumed” rather than killed. Right now at least, it looks like neither of those fates are likely. She is no longer in danger. It looks like she just fucks off, and no longer speaks to Jimmy.
She did give up her career as a lawyer so it’s not like she didn’t lose anything. All of her dreams and ambitions were about helping people in need of legal help and she had to give that all up
Yes, god forbid a female character who occasionally does bad things not get punished…
Occasionally? Like that occasion where she spent months destroying Howard for fun, leading to his death, and then continued to character assassinate him even in death. While mind fucking his widow at the memorial he couldn’t even be buried at???Yes, God forbid! Lol
It’s always been terrifying when she deploys that cold calculating side. The other time Kim stepped in when Jimmy couldn’t quite close the deal was when Lalo visited their apartment the first time.
She did it a third time. With the Kettlemans.
Yes, indeed! Damn these split seasons playing havoc with my memory. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)
One of the odd quirks of the Emmy nominations was Rhea Seehorn finally receiving one, but in the Best Supporting Actress in a Drama category. All props to Bob Odenkirk, but Seehorn is not supporting anyone. She’s a lead actress all the way.
While I was a Killing Eve fan from the promising beginning to its bitter end, I have no reluctance to say Seehorn deserves a Best Actress in a Drama Emmy win more than Sandra Oh or Jodie Comer do this year.
I find Kim’s “breaking bad” moments, peppered though the series, completely unearned. The show thinks its being clever for saying “Saul isn’t corrupting Kim, she’s just as bad!” but they also spend so little time building that part of her character because they really want it to be a surprise every time.It makes the whole thing silly (credit to Rhea Seehorn for making it seem like it works), and it even made her sudden decision to quit her career and marriage and life totally unmotivated.
Even if she thinks getting away from Jimmy is the way to calm her wicked side then okay, but why quit the bar? She can’t go be a lawyer back in Nebraska?
She’d have to take and pass the bar in Nebraska.
I expect she could waive into the Nebraska Bar.
That’s true, but what I meant to say was why did she go “I’m not a lawyer anymore”?If her move was to go practice in another state, she wouldn’t have said that, and it also doesn’t explain why she would quit the NM bar. That’s not a requirement, nor would keeping her NM license obligate her to practice there.
I too always felt that Kim’s turn to the dark side weren’t really earned, or at least developed well enough. Her turn at the end of the previous season felt more like plot machination than character development
I forgot about that! but an excellent parallel, and both scenes are equally hard to watch
So I guess Gus was flirting with a possible fling with the Wine waiter? That sure didn’t last long…..
I just happened to notice that IMDB has stills from the remaining episodes that cue you in about the timeline of the rest of the season. Take a look.
I hope we get more explanation for Kim resigning as an attorney! Why? What’s she going to do?
In terms of stray observations, from my quick google it looks like the the second blood tinged wine runs about $100-1000 depending on the year https://www.wine-searcher.com/find/dom+rene+rostaing+la+landonne+cote+rotie+rhone+france/1978/ while the 1978 Cote Rotie is $4500 https://www.wine-searcher.com/find/e+guigal+la+mouline+cote+rotie+rhone+france/1978
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this episode was the first time we heard Kim and Jimmy say “I love you” to each other. I always thought that they cared for each other, but weren’t really in love – even their wedding was handled like a transaction.
Yes. There is a saying that someone in a relationship always loves the other more. I kind of thought Jimmy loved Kim more. He pursued her and it was like she was with him until someone better came along. When Chuck dies, Kim jumps Jimmy and it felt like pity sex, to me. When they get married, it seems like just a transaction to Kim, but more to Jimmy. He wanted to spend time together that morning but she had court. But when Jimmy is stuck in the desert, I finally believed that Kim loved Jimmy romantically and vice versa.
I knew that was the kiss goodbye in the parking garage. I still think we will see Kim or “Giselle” in the Gene scenes.
I too need everything spelled out for me
This shot of Mike from within the barrel fire, it was like he was burning in Hell. I really like that we’re getting a breather from all the carnage, with Mike finally experiencing the toll from his and Gus’ decisions. While Nacho’s father is correct in morals, he still has a misplaced sense of justice, thinking the police of all things are the answer. He would rather die than run away, even if it means his son is dead. Mike telling him that justice is coming for the Salamancas is only making me think that Nacho’s dad won’t be around for much longer. All the remaining Salamancas are still around four years later in the Breaking Bad era.
When we finally see Kim and Jimmy again, she picks a piece of lint off his shoulder. I always loved seeing those little couple moments where they groom each other, Jimmy zipping up her dresses, Kim tying his ties. They’re bonded by this trauma and still living it at the wake. I can see them judging each other through the lies, judging themselves, their reactions to each other not hidden well at all. That kiss was loaded. As I predicted, Jimmy just wants to try to move on, but Kim can’t.
We didn’t know when we were hearing it, but now that it’s over, we now know how prescient and ironic it was. This episode was the only time they ever said, “I love you,” to each other. The show would show us the affection they had for each other, fiercely fighting to lift each other up. Kim would smile when she saw Jimmy park in front of their apartment. Part of me thought they were making a point to show their love without needing to constantly say it like they do in most other shows, show don’t tell. The other part of me thought they were saving it for a bombshell. I never thought it would be for the end.
She said they were bad for each other. But clearly, after jumping to the almost Breaking Bad time, she was the only thing that could have prevented him from becoming such a morally bankrupt, hollow man. He used to want to help people, but now his clients are just naughty children to him. Maybe Kim was a better person when she was on her own, but Jimmy brought her to life. If Lalo never showed up, they would have gone on with their schemes, to win cases, or to just screw with the sidesitters like Ken and Kevin for pure fun. Maybe they wouldn’t have been as personally destructive like they were for Howard, or maybe they would have done worse things. Now, both of them are broken and incomplete. Saul got himself a mug, no longer second best by default. Wherever Kim is, I hope she’s in a better place. Emmy’s all around for this episode next year.
The scene of the two of them in the garage was great. The moment the two stood facing each other in silence, I knew something was up. Kim’s kiss made it more obvious
I like how the cars were facing each other just like Kim and Saul were.
Regarding the opening montage and song choice.
As soon as I heard it, I instantly thought of the montage from Breaking Bad Season 5 episode 3 where Walt and Jesse were cooking meth in the “fumigated” house to The Peddlers’ “On a Clear Day”. The setups were similar (a montage with a song playing over). The songs possses a similar essence. Lastly, there’s an interesting juxtaposition between the situations involving Walt/Jessie and Jimmy/Kim, in that Walt and Jessie are seemingly in the clear, having killed Gus, gotten rid of the DEA, and found a new place to cook meth in peace, yet it all gets derailed by the end, while Jimmy and Kim are seemingly in the same position, safe from Lalo, protected by Gus, about the cash in from the Mesa Verde deal, and in love with one another.
Maybe I’m just noticing similarities that aren’t there, but Vince Gilligan is a master as using specific music to set the tone, and the similarities are a bit too apparent for it to be happenstance.
Thanks for sharing the Harry Nilsson link. I would have never realized it was a song by him in the cold open if you hadn’t pointed it out. I hope they choose the perfect song in the series finale to close out this series that’s just as synonymous as “Baby Blue” is with Breaking Bad.
The song used in the show is a cover, but it’s definitely based on the Harry Nilsson version. I would have linked to the version featured on the show, but I couldn’t find it. I checked out like 30 different covers, none of them were it.
Shazam couldn’t identify it.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt12187042/soundtrack/?ref_=tt_trv_snd
The version in the cold open is by Dressage & Slow Shiver, says Shazam.
The version used in ‘Better Call Saul’ was commissioned especially for the show. They wanted to use the original, but it was too short for the scene and they couldn’t make it work. They talk about it on the official podcast and I think they mention who covered it for them but I can’t remember.
It was recorded specifically for this episode, according to the BCS Insider Podcast.
Good take on the trash can shot. Similarly, the shot of Mike and Mr. Varga in profile staring at each other through the fence struck me. The chain link fence bisects the frame vertically, but in the foreground, out of focus, there is another section of fence that covers the half of the frame where Mike stands. He’s trying to make good out of his life of crime, but he’s built himself into a cage. Mr. Varga is right—there’s no justice where Mike lives.
I immediately said “Hell” out loud, too. But I saw Mike as the Devil, as that is pretty much what Nacho’s Dad called him.
I think we’re supposed to understand that it’s Mike’s sense of justice that is misplaced, not Nacho’s father’s. Mike thinks the father will be happy at the idea that his son’s death could be avenged. But how is that vengeance different from the vengeance the Salamancas sought against Nacho, or that Lalo sought against Gus, or that Gus sought against Don Eladio, or that Hector sought against Gus, or that Gus sought against Hector? What Mike seeks is only justice if you think of an incident in isolation, as if Nacho was killed in a vacuum. From the outside, it’s just violence among different feuding drug dealers, where everyone eventually feels like they have a good reason to kill everyone else. Also, it was Mike’s boss who created the situation that resulted in Nacho’s death, with significant help from Mike.
You’re not wrong, but Nacho’s father was kind of clueless. You know what the Cartel does to rats. You know Gus or Hector would not hesitate to kill either of them. Had his father listened to him, they’d be enjoying the free healthcare in the Great White North.
The world of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul is one where even the “good” characters, like Jesse and Mike, tend to do a lot of underhanded, violent, and illegal things, and I think then it’s jarring to be confronted with someone who is different. But there’s nothing “clueless” about thinking people should be honest and take responsibility for their actions, even when the consequences for doing so are significant. And Nacho’s father is right that there’s nothing just about a violent drug dealer fleeing to Canada when the consequences of his choices become too much to bear, any more than there would have been anything just about Mike murdering Salamancas, in supposed revenge for a death that Mike himself was involved in setting up.
But there’s nothing “clueless” about thinking people should be honest and
take responsibility for their actions, even when the consequences for
doing so are significant. And Nacho’s father is right that there’s
nothing just about a violent drug dealer fleeing to Canada when the
consequences of his choices become too much to bear
Unfortunately, having a black and white view of the world is incredibly, incredibly naive. If Nacho goes to the police, the Salamancas murder his father. If Nacho tells the Salamancas that Gus is forcing him to spy under threat of his father’s life, then Gus kills Nacho’s father. It’s hard to care about a meaningless abstract like justice when life and death are your options. If he flees with Nacho, they live. That’s all there is to it. Nacho died for him, and if the Salamancas kill his father, it will have been for nothing.
It’s been 9 months since the episode. Do you still hold the same opinions about Nacho’s dad?Because, no offense, you seem to be wrong on some things.
I found the name of the Perfect Day cover artists, it’s a collab between Dresage and Slow Shiver. People just uploaded the scene from the show last night.
On the Breaking Bad Insider podcast, the creative team explained that they commissioned this cover for this episode, because the original wasn’t long enough to cover the montage.
Thanks for a great review! Captured everything I was thinking, and more!
I have to think something really bad is going to happen to Kim that completes the hollowing out of Jimmy.
The cinematography is always top notch on Better Call Saul, but they really out did themselves on this episode. I love the scene where Kim is laying in bed facing away from Jimmy and is lit from the front by the nightstand lamp. Jimmy is silhouetted by the bathroom light facing away from Kim. He’s doing all of the talking and Kim says nothing. We just see how lost in thought she is. Really great example of lighting and composition helping to tell the story
Yes, Kim does bring out some of Jimmy’s scammer impulses, but she also channels them for good. She’s good for him, overall, but he is bad for her. Still, she’s not the first person to say it’s not you, it’s me… erm, us.
Kim’s departure seems abrupt, but the planning and everything seem’s in character. I don’t think Jimmy/Saul is over her during Breaking Bad, but we also never had a scene with anybody talking about ‘the ones that got away’. Saul also seems able to compartmentalize in a way Kim doesn’t.
Jimmy is supposedly compartmentalizing, but that’s more of a survival mechanism than it is an emotional state, which I think would be the opposite of what happens with him. When Chuck died, he just moved on immediately. He gave a convincing performance at his bar hearing that even fooled Kim, and her understandable reaction shows us that part of him died with Chuck. We don’t see him mourn Kim in Breaking Bad because he can’t. The rest of him died when she left. He lost his hair. He became addicted to Xanax. He’s broken.
I thought the show would do a time jump after last week given all of the BCS characters that aren’t in BB were dead except for Kim. Little surprised when it happened all the same. Thought they’d take a bit longer to decouple Jimmy and Kim. But made complete sense for it to happen suddenly as well. Also thought we’d see Jimmy procure the vet’s little black book but OK with viewers being left to assume that happens.My prediction for the final four episodes would be that next week, we get an episode of Saul up to his usual antics, maybe with Emilio popping up as a client (given we know from Jesse that Saul represented him twice) and the episode ends with Walt and Jesse showing up. Then the fourth episode will be Breaking Bad events from Saul’s POV – particularly interested to see Mike’s interactions with Saul that we didn’t see. And the fifth and sixth episodes will cover Saul adopting his new moniker and whatever end the writers have planned for Gene. I do assume Kim pops back into the show at some point – I can’t imagine that was the last we see of her.
The second public masturbater Saul was talking on the bluetooth about is Badger, so it seems we’re going straight into BB next week. In BB when Saul meets Badger, he initially has him as the wrong client, and thinks he’s a pervert running around jerking off in front of people.
So time jumps galore? I don’t disagree. Considering tonight’s big time jump, Gail is likely putting the finishing touches on the superlab. Hell, Walt and Jessie may already be driving a certain RV out into the desert! Kim prediction: Kim re-enters the picture in the Gene time-line, where she’s become endangered by the same bad guys after Gene.
She’s too important to the series. I don’t think we’ve even had an episode yet that she’s not in. I think she’ll be in all four of these last episodes or three at the very least.It was definitely not Kim’s final scene in this show. If there was anyone who seemed like they had a fitting final scene in this episode, it was Gus.
She wasn’t in the sixth episode of the first season but she had a smaller role in general back in the first season. Not sure if she’ll be in every episode remaining as I don’t see a way to integrate her significantly into the events of Breaking Bad without retconning and don’t buy she’s part of Gene’s future but agree it makes no sense for this to be the last scene.
I gotta honest: I was more shocked by Kim quitting being a lawyer than from Howard’s death.
Yeah, I don’t get why she’s giving up her law licence.She was finally using those powers for good. It had become the best thing about her.If she’s trying to be a better person, I don’t see any way quitting the bar helps her do that.
I think maybe it’s because being a lawyer made her the type of person who would do all of the things that she does. If she stopped being the lawyer, she wouldn’t be the type of person who she turned in to.
My best guess here is that she just felt like it would be impossible to go about working in Albuquerque law without being constantly reminded of the things she and Jimmy had done re: Howard and the cover-up. And I wouldn’t be surprised if she left Albuquerque, too. (The theories people have that “Gene” relocated to Omaha because it’s Kim’s hometown make more and more sense to me.)
(The theories people have that “Gene” relocated to Omaha because it’s Kim’s hometown make more and more sense to me.)What those theories always seem to overlook is he didn’t choose where he went:
Hmm, I hadn’t seen that and didn’t know. I always figured that since he dropped that line in Breaking Bad about how he’ll end up working at a Cinnabon in Omaha, and that’s what actually happened, that he must have had some say.
Yeah, I find it confusing on if they have a choice. They might sometimes, like Jesse wanted to go to Alaska all along, but it also makes sense anyway for the salesman to choose there too. Probably depends on where you’re wanted and how remote the state is. Omaha honestly seems too large of a city for Jimmy to go to, as does a mall job.
Ummmm … Red Cloud is at least a 2.5 hour drive from Omaha. Not exactly her hometown. But close! Ish.
It’s about a 3-hour drive from Omaha to Red Cloud. But the show *does* suggest that her mother may have led a slightly more itinerant lifestyle than most of the people from Webster County.
Plus I think there is lingering concern that the cartel might come after her if it looks like she is not playing ball – prosecutors were already on her to get Jimmy to flip. I think she is going to change her name and go out of state, and keeping a bar license doesn’t work with that. Maybe it will turn out that she’s the mastermind behind the vacuum operation!
I don’t think she was trying to be a better person, I think she was just ashamed of who she was. Hence the rejection of her core identity.
There was a BCS promo that showed shots of the courthouse that had a VO of Kim reciting the oath she took when she became a lawyer.
I suppose she could just be giving up Bar membership in New Mexico. IANAL, but I suppose she could apply for admission to the Bar in another state, like, say, Nebraska?
Or maybe being a lawyer is too painful a reminder of how far she’s fallen and a reminder of Howard and Chuck & Lalo and all the awful things that have happened and she just can’t do it anymore.
I saw it as she couldn’t live that hypocrisy.No matter how much good she did as a defender, she’d still be the person whose actions she believes resulted in the death of a good(ish) man. And the person who then changed that man’s lifestory in the eyes of his loved ones into something twisted and sad.So, not so much about her trying to be a better person anymore, but rather her accepting that she isn’t one, and that it isn’t right for someone like her to be in the position of power/posing as a defender of the just.Like Jesse’s being the bad guy speech in Breaking Bad.We’ll probably see more of her in what’s left of the show, and that’ll help iron out the exact why, but for now that’s my take on those scenes at least.
I think she’s too tempted by the evil aspects of the job, and is so good at working people it terrifies her
I think she’s too tempted by the evil aspects of the job, and is so good at working people it terrifies her
Best I can figure is Chuck’s comment to Jimmy that Jimmy with a law license is like a chimp with a machine gun. Maybe Kim just no longer trusted herself to wield that power.
Maybe Kim just no longer trusted herself to wield that power.
Maybe that’s the show’s opinion, but it’s extremely silly. Saul Goodman uses his law license in increasingly sketchy ways, but Kim’s occasional scams and villainous turns have never had anything to do with her law practice.
I think she’s pretty clearly punishing herself for what happened. Unlike Jimmy, I don’t think she’s going to be able to push this all down and just ‘forget what happened’ as Jimmy talks about in the bedroom scene. She’s got way too much empathy, which has been well established in the show. She’s lost part of her soul, is never going to be able to get it back, and is going to have to carry that forever. The only thing left to do is not make it worse. I was kinda stunned this wasn’t an A+ episode, because if it isn’t, I’m not sure what is.
I also think Jimmy is saying that as much to try and convince himself as he is trying to convince her.
At first I thought it was brutally impulsive and did not fit with Kim at all. But she has made decisions like that over and over – leaving HHM, working against Mesa Verde’s interests, dumping MV and a partner track at her new firm. They all happened at a snap of a finger and had enormous implications. Just like walking three miles with a cello on a cold Omaha night.
I thought it might have left more options for writing Kim in the future, if she retained the powers of a lawyer. But I guess she could regain them some day. Jimmy did.
Same. Of all the different ways Kim’s fate could play out, that was one I did not see coming. It really speaks to a complete loss of self. I wish I were more surprised by all of the people suggesting Kim is somehow more morally reprehensible than Jimmy. But I already lived through the Breaking Bad fandom’s reaction to Skylar IRL.
Indeed. People just lose their minds completely when a woman breaks bad
She sees being a lawyer, or at least the type of lawyer she was as a moral calling and she understands her deeply unethical actions means she should no longer be trying to serve justice.
Yeah, I called it when her just leaving him but did not expect her to give up her license.
She’s punishing herself.
Anyone else think Bob Odenkirk looked particularly haggard during the HMM wake? I wonder if he was just coming back from his heart attack.
I believe it was. I read in other articles the scene they were filming when he had his heart attack was right after Lalo shot Howard and Lalo was talking to Kim and Jimmy with Howard laying on the floor. The article mentioned how it took two months to finish that scene and Bob Odenkirk doesn’t remember any of it.
They confirmed on the BCS podcast that last week’s scene with Lalo and Jimmy in the apartment was, in fact, the scene where he had the heart attack. They had shot about three quarters of it when it happened, and couldn’t resume until he recovered a couple months later. Vince Gilligan was getting very emotional talking about it.Interestingly enough, they also shared that the cold open with Howard’s car on the beach was the final scene ever shot for the whole series. To think the last day of production was set on a beach with no actors…
frankly he’s just too old to still be playing the character. they do their best with lighting and makeup, but the wheels are falling off a bit this season.obviously the heart attack wouldn’t help.
I think Jonathan Banks is the one who consistently looks older than he should be compared to BB, but yeah, Bob looked pretty odd in that wake/funeral scene.
oh they all do, giancarlo esposito arugably looks better than either of them, but he too looks much cragglier than on bb. obviously the show is good enough that you just deal with it.
Can’t wait to see high schooler Jesse Pinkman as played by 42 year old Aaron Paul
Of course! It is part of the over-the-top nature of the whole project. But actors have played other ages for as long as there’s been drama. Whether it is High School kids putting talcum in their hair to look old, or 39 year olds playing high school kids on Happy Days. When the audience is saying “you can’t do that!”, and still tuning in every week, you are doing something right. Bob is almost done playing Saul, and he is now PERFECT to play Gene Takovic.
I think it’s better to have the same actor replay the role and ask the audience to just go along with it, than it is to recast the actor.Like how Jack was pretty large in the El Camino movie despite being pretty slim in that time period in Breaking Bad.It might be a little awkward for people who see it, but at the end of the day, if the actor isn’t a dick, it’s gonna be less off-putting watching the same actor in the role.
for sure, it’s also only becoming a problem this season. when the show began a decade ago it wasn’t an issue at all. would have been particularly strange to recast back then.
I think that’s the first scene he shot after recovering.
Not much to add at the moment, other than to mention the few seconds of the opening office-sign-hanging scene where the camera framed it as “Goodman & Ass”. What scamps these BCS directors are.
Does Saul have associates?It sounds like he’s still dealing with public masturbation himself, and he seems to have way more money than the nickle and dime cases we see could ever get him.Maybe it’s Sandpiper money, but then why’s he hustling so hard?
1. Certain people do not have an “enough”. They always need more.2. What the hell else is he going to do? Everyone he knew, cared about or respected is gone. Gotta fill the hours with something.
I don’t think any amount of money would stop him from doing what’s in his DNA. Money didn’t stop Walt.
I took that whole montage as throwing himself into the work to cope or avoid the heartbreak with Kim
I would be completely ok with the last episode or two being about Gene and what happens to him. Especially as it looked like he was up to something in the last scene with him.However, all things considering, does Jimmy/Saul/Gene deserve a happy ending? Does Kim? We all love the character but he’s either done or been involved in a lot of bad things and maybe having to spend the rest of his life as Gene, living in constant fear of being caught, is kind of the life he deserves.
This may be a dumb question, but it’s been a decade since I saw the final BB season… Who exactly is after Saul to put him in hiding? Cartel, Biker’s, cops? All three?
I don’t think they ever say explicitly, but since Walter was outed, I’d presume it’s some mix of the cops who’d at least be looking into, and likely for, his lawyer, and perhaps anyone involved in the meth underworld who might simply think he’s a loose end who needs to be killed. (I think Saul knows most of the big players like Gus and Mike are dead, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone else out there who wants him dead.)
As part of the bonus content for this season there is a mock reality/true crime documentary focused on Walter White’s criminal empire. It explicitly outs Jimmy/Saul by name and with photos so on top of having the police and cartels looking for him, there’s also true crime nutjobs.
The law. He’s a known associate of WW and in the episode that starts with the cops raiding his mansion, I assume that his money was taken due to RICO laws.He’s also afraid that Lalo has people looking for him.
The little teaser AMC had before the premiere of season 6 in which Stacy Keach narrates had interviews with DA Susan Ericson so I wouldn’t be surprised if she wanted to prosecute him. She might believe that Jimmy/Saul had something to do with Hank and Steve’s deaths because he was Walter White’s lawyer.
Jesse’s videotaped confession probably implicates Saul as a money launderer, which can have a sentence of up to 20 years. They would definitely seek the maximum for the great Heisenberg’s money guy.
The cops would certainly like to talk to him, though I’m not sure if they can charge him with much.
Redemption would be fine if it’s earned, which is hard to imagine. It’s not in the series’ DNA to end with them reuniting and gleefully returning to their capers.
I think Jimmy deserves a happy ending. He was a dick to Howard, but Jimmy kept pushing back on the idea. Kim rebuffs him when he says she wouldn’t want to do something like that. “Wouldn’t I? (pew pew finger guns)“ Jimmy says that he doesn’t want to ruin Howard’s life, Kim dismisses it as, “a career setback.” And when the judge’s broken arm threatens to derail the plan, Jimmy tries to call it off because he thinks Kim would rather have the really fulfilling career opportunity that would help people, but she would rather fuck with Howard instead, hanging onto resentment from when she had to work under him. Something terrible happened and he lost what was most important to him, and then he lost himself. He’s not evil. Even as Gene, he gave legal advice to some shoplifting kid, unable to separate himself from his soft spot for troubled underdogs.Kim isn’t evil, either. She just wanted to help people. She could have gone to the police or run off, but she wasn’t going to let Jimmy die. Everyone talks about the lies at the wake, but no one thinks about what the consequences the truth would have, and still others also don’t see the toll having to make these lies has on her, all for the sake of comforting a widow who was cold and distant towards Howard for who knows how long. It’s a terrible situation with no good options.If we’re talking irredeemable characters, there’s Gus, Hector, Tuco, Todd, Marco, Leonel, Lalo, Mrs. Spooge, and that cop that got mad when Gene told a kid he had rights.
Jimmy, maybe. Saul, no, definitely not. The show is definitely a tragedy. If he were to get some sort of redemption, he’d have to do something really good, like killing the emperor instead of his son on the Death Star
I can see one possible form of redemption for JimmySaulGene — if, in the Gene timeline, he’s given the opportunity to go Full Saul again but, finally realising just how much it’s cost him and the world around him, turns his back on it once and for all. In order for there to be any redemptive grace to the show, something needs to happen to reassert Jimmy into SaulGene’s persona once again.
Who gives a fuck about ‘deserve’? What are you, God? No they probably don’t, maybe Kim does, Saul definitely doesn’t, but I still want them to get a happy ending
I’ve always thought that was the case. Gene is living in a prison of his own making. The tragic part is that the only people left who want to talk to him are the cops, and they’re not really trying all that hard. It’s not like they’re putting up roadblocks, they’re happy to wait until he eventually turns up in a traffic stop or something.The Cartel is gone. Gus is gone. The Bikers are gone. Walt is gone. If Gene really wanted to disappear he could used the money he has stashed to escape to Belize and live out his days as an expat. I’m guessing the only thing keeping him in Omaha is the chance of seeing Kim again.
When they were in the parking garage and Jimmy said “I know that was hard” and I imagined her saying “that’s the problem, it wasn’t hard, it was easy”, but instead she just gazed at him for a moment and smiled and softly kissed him. And that’s why this show is unlike anything else on television.
Yeah, it definitely wasn’t hard for her, that’s the scariest part. I’m reminded of a similar moment in the final season of The Shield.
Which moment?
After Ronnie kills Zadofian in the motel room, he’s talking to Vic afterwards and says something like “I thought the hard part would be…” but gets cut off before he finishes. Given what we know about Ronnie by the end of the series, and how ice-cold he is and how at peace he is with being a criminal, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was going to say something like “But there was no hard part.”
I understand that this makes me part of the problem, but seeing Kim go evil even just for half a season was fun. I’d like to imagine there’s an alternate universe where she’s doing the whole Saul thing but better.
Don’t blame yourself. Cunning plans and crazy capers are fun to watch. Especially since we don’t have to deal with any real consequences from them.
Same, was really hoping those two would stay together and she’d be involved in Breaking Bad times.
Why is it that any time you see the “Brief Nudity” notice before a show, you know it’s gonna be a shot of the ass crack you least want to see.I’ve now seen enough Jimmy/Saul buttcrack to last me the rest of my life.
Weak tbh
lol
Yes!! I said to my husband that it was probably going to be Bob like the locker room scene.
Yeah, that was me too. “’Brief nudity’ is from the Greek, for ‘Bob Odenkirk’s ass’.”
Speak for yourself. I wanna pay with credit.
One thing I was thinking about, now that it’s confirmed we’re jumping to more-or-less “present day” Breaking Bad— or at least a time point when Saul has become Saul— is that I was on the fence about Walter and Jesse reappearing if it was just going to be fanservice. But now I’m getting a laugh out of the idea that we’re going to see some scenes of Saul after he starts dealing with them, and he’s going to be complaining a lot about what pains in the asses they are. I hope we get something like that.
This reviewer is likely an episode or two ahead of us, and they just spilled the beans about Walt & Jessie showing up soon in tonight’s review.
Cranston and Paul returning to this season was reported in the press some weeks ago, so I don’t blame her. Probably assumed it was public knowledge by now.
Their return has been known for months.
With four episodes left, I feel like we could get a significant amount of Walt and Jesse, not just a cameo.
i suspect it’ll be re-framing key moments from bb, possibly re-doing scenes entirely.
I’d love it if the show suddenly became light again and they give us the procedural show most fans expected, at least before they get to the Gene timeline
The creators are on record saying that they’re trying to pull some things off that have never been seen before on television. I can totally imagine an episode that spins BCS on its head and shows Walt and Jesse as complete buffoons from Saul’s perspective in the same way Saul was seen as comedic relief in BB.
Yeah I kind of had this same thought, that the last few episodes of BCS are just BB episodes from Saul’s perspective, or something. That would be fascinating.
Just an incredible episode. I did a BrBa rewatch after the midseason finale and was surprised at how much distance remained between BCS Jimmy and BrBa Saul in terms of the latter just being an utter scumbag. I questioned if they were going to be able to narratively bridge that gap in a way that made sense. And then they just went and did it with a couple minutes of dialogue and a flash forward. Man. That breakup scene was like a slap across the face.One thing I still question is the bridge between Mike’s characterization in the two shows. At the start of his BrBa stint he has a much lighter touch, kind of a happy warrior vibe. But BCS Mike is just so dour and intense all the time.
I think a lot of that with Mike is how involved he was in Gus’ business while in BrBa he’s slightly more distanced. Wonder if that scene in the tunnel is highlighting that after Gus’ incident with Lalo he stops relying on Mike so much (which would also explain why his security goes from basically ex-Special Forces guys back to people like Victor).
Yeah I think Season 5 of BB establishes that Mike is now an employee of the Pollos Hermanos chain, as their corporate security, and no longer an employee of Madrigal directly. It’s a minor distinction, but I get the sense Mike is more in charge of vetting other guys and doing background checks/PI work and security, while Victor, Tyrus, etc. handle more of the “soldier” tasks.
Wonder if that scene in the tunnel is highlighting that after Gus’
incident with Lalo he stops relying on Mike so much (which would also
explain why his security goes from basically ex-Special Forces guys back
to people like Victor).
Tyrus and Victor were already working for Gus when Mike came aboard. The ex-Special Forces or whatever guys are probably all Mike hires, though. Victor was the one who swapped the gas cap tracker from Mike’s car. Tyrus appears in the next episode when Mike first meets Gus in person.
Agreed. Even through most of this episode, Jimmy seemed a long way from the Saul of Breaking Bad. This episode sold it, and I’m still not sure how.
Its going to be difficult to transition from BCS to BB if you watched them in that order—-I think Vince was still learning how to create the show at the time, so now that he (and Peter) are at their absolute prime its going to seem rather odd and jarring to go into BB after watching BCS to the end.For example: Mike and Saul/Jimmy spent a LOT of time together in intense situations (like the desert) in BCS, but Mike doesn’t really seem to know much about Jimmy/Saul in BB.
Mike still had a soft spot for his granddaughter and then Jesse. He respected Walt until Walt screwed things up with his ego. Then when Gus was killed he just kind of got through the day.
Personally, I don’t buy for a second that Mike in BCS would keep working with Gus. He absolutely hates Gus’s entire crew. He thinks he’s much smarter than everyone and he can’t stand the convoluted way they do things. He has some respect for Gus, but not much. I don’t see him staying out of loyalty and I don’t see him staying for the cash. By the time BB rolls around, he would have a ton of dough. So why wouldn’t he retire to spend time with his grand daughter?
I’m sure the writers will come up with a convoluted reason. I like some things about BCS but the prequel-ness of the show is very obvious in the Gus and Mike side.
Not surprised by the jump forward given I predicted it from the trailer for this final half of the season but I honestly can’t believe that amongst all the outcomes I never once thought they may go for something as simple as Kim just leaving.I think the next episode will definitely be the Walt and Jessie one given that Saul refers to “another public masturbator” which is how he’s introduced to Badger in Breaking Bad.As for the scenes in HHM I never felt sorry for Howard’s wife. Maybe it’s just because of how she was introduced as already cold and distant towards him, but maybe that’s also why Kim’s remark of “you’re the one who knew him best” felt more like an insult to me than words of comfort.
It was absolutely an intentional insult by Kim. Kim knew of Howard’s marital troubles, but Cheryl did not know that Kim knew this.
But what I’m curious about is they went out of their way to show 2005 tags on Jimmy’s car after the flash forward. Doesn’t BB start in 2008?
He also has a disability badge that expires 2008. Theories I’ve seen are either the “masturbator” thing was just an easter egg or Saul Goodman is the sort of person to drive with expired plates.
I honestly thought, maybe I’m just reading too much into it, but that scene with David seemed like Gus might be gay but in the closet. idk his body language, the way he was kinda playing with his hands a bit, made him seem like he was into the guy. Which kind of makes his whole family life in Breaking Bad really sad if true. And also the fact that this is like the only time in either series he’s ever looked legitimately happy.Also fuck I hope we see more of Kim soon 🙁 I agree, this episode felt like it could’ve been two… But I do really like how it was also obvious through their body language that they felt miles apart even when they were standing right next to each other. Lots of good body language acting in this episode I guess lol
I also saw it as Gus flirting with David.
Hey, everyone! Gus wasn’t gay. His marriage was legit. I think that I read somewhere that he even had kids. Which….guess what….you can’t do if you’re gay.
Boy are you wrong about lots of things in one comment
He wanted Walt to believe he had kids, so he staged his house to look like small children lived there, and he mentioned “I never cook this… kids won’t eat it.” It was a ruse to convince Walt that everything they do is for purposes of providing for their families. The irony being, Gus did not have a family, all he had were his businesses. This episode showed exactly why Gus felt the need to cut himself off from any personal happiness, to prevent another tragedy like Max’s murder from happening again.
This episode showed exactly why Gus felt the need to cut himself off from any personal happiness, to prevent another tragedy like Max’s murder from happening again.Which seems to me to be the very same reason that Jimmy finalizes his transformation into slimy Saul. Once Kim is gone, there is no more Jimmy. Cutting him off is just cauterizing the wound.
i have read somewhere he’s not even a real person and is a character on a tv show. possibly even two tv shows.
WHAT?!?!?
Seems sus
A guy in my neighborhood recently got busted for soliciting minor boys. He has four grown children and his wife knew about his predilections.
You can’t have kids if you’re gay?! Now you tell me. Don’t ask Anderson Cooper, Andy Cohen, Neil Patrick Harris, Ricky Martin, or Elton John, OK? They’ll never guess.
There’s never been any romance to the guy so I don’t really get where people are coming from. I do wonder if what he told Walt was a lie. Either way I took the scene from this episode to just be about his inability to connect with anyone. He has an acquaintance that shares a common interest, but that’s as far as it can go. He bought the wine on this guy’s recommendation, but they can’t enjoy it together. Gus talks about a special occasion to celebrate, but he will never have one – at least not one that doesn’t involve the violence and murder. His best friend in the world was murdered in front of him and all he has now are associates (and to the waiter he will only be a customer). That’s how it is for just about everyone on the show at this point. Mike is the only person that still has a connection to anyone else (his granddaughter) and that’s not much.
???? – How does his relationship with Max the Chemist work into theory?
I’m willing to bet now there’s a significant chance Tuco Salamanca is coming back in the next episode or two. He showed up at the beginning of this series and it would make sense to bookend the Salamancas’ storyline in this show with his return. Plus I think there should be some sort of explanation over how Hector ends up out of the retirement home living with Tuco in the dessert at the beginning of Breaking Bad.
I agree. I would also love an explanation as to where all the “Salamanca women” are. So far we have only seen Tuco’s abuelita (grandmother). But my husband and I wonder where all the women who birthed these Salamancas are. That would be a good back story. I get the impression that Hector does not have much respect for women either.
I don’t know if I like the time jump in the show. Since it will mean that we are essentially spending the last bit of the show with a completely different character than we have spent the last 5.5 seasons with. Also, the fall of Jimmy is pretty obviously because all the people for whom he was striving to be better are gone. Like he stopped being slipping Jimmy to impress Chuck, then Kim and with both of them gone the older version comes back. But… I don’t like completely jumping over all of that.
The final B&W shot of the department store has me thinking that there will be some dénouement with Gene and future Kim. If I had to take a maudlin, sentimental guess, the most bittersweet wrap-up would be that now re-married Kim roles up with 1-2 5-7 yr. old kids for a Cinnabon and Jimmy finally realizes what he lost.
That’s fucking depressing. Your mind sucks
But did you hear? Gene (Jimmy, Saul) is announcing everything in the department store is free, as he is turning on the lights! It sounds like he goes on a stealing spree, or takes someone else on a stealing spree, in the mall after it is closed.
I don’t remember…but has Kim ever once expressed that would be a life she’d ever actually choose?
She’s just had a life changing epiphany.Who knows what she’ll decide she wants now?All we know is it’s not what she wanted before.
Sure. She could also go be a lawyer somewhere else. Resigning from The Bar just meant the New Mexico Bar.
True. She can certainly sit for the bar in another state, like Nebraska…
I think the life Kim would have chosen went out the window with Howard’s death and the coverup. It’s now anyone’s guess what she’ll decide brings her happiness.
I mean…it’s not like Kim was pushing Jimmy to be a suburban mom with kids. I admit I may have forgotten if she did at some point.Maybe I missed it…but has Kim ever shown herself as being or wanting something like that?She was just shown as being cruel and calculating, and confessed to how much she fun she has being that way. Not sure how we get from that to soccer mom who just happens to go to Cinnabon so the finale can end on a cliche…?
No. She hasn’t and given her alcoholic mom it’s pretty likely she burnt out on caretaking early in her life. (Ask me how I know).
How old is Kim supposed to be? I assumed she’s the same age as Rhea Seehorn, give or take, and Rhea is 50, so it would be a miracle if she rolled up with four bio kids. But she would be a great step-mom / adopted mom (if she wants — I love that Kim and Jimmy never discuss children).
She is more-or-less the same age as Seehorn (Kim was born in 1968, Seehorn in 1972). Since it’s a period piece set 20 years ago, that’d put Kim in her mid 30s.
Rhea Sheehorn is 50? Man, she is well preserved.
I assumed she’s the same age as Rhea SeehornShe’s the same apparent age as Rhea Seehorn. So about 38.
I don’t think she’s going to be having any children. Rhea Seahorn is 50 in real life and I imagine her character is somewhere close to that. Not exactly optimal child bearing years.
“I love you too…but so what?”Damn.
Mike’s demeanor changed after he was ordered to kill the German engineer.
Strictly speaking, he chose to do that rather than let someone else.
Gus would have lost confidence in him if he refused and you know what that means, also he wanted to be sure it was done mercifully.
It wasn’t a matter of refusing. Gus expected it to be done but not by Mike. Mike took it on himself because he would do it mercifully.I think we agree it was a major turning point, but it’s one he took on himself rather than had imposed on him, and I think that’s an important distinction.
one thing that really hit me this episode was how long i’ve been watching these characters and how much the world has changed.
How do you figure, boy?
According to the BCS podcast, that is the same Statue of Liberty inflatable that the Kettlemans used for their tax office.
I mean, that’s been glaringly obvious since the moment we saw it at the Kettleman’s office, that it’s the same one Saul later has in BrBa
I loved it. Many things in life really are sudden, so Kim’s decision works for me. I can see her not shrugging it off as easily as Jimmy; that she watched Howard’s brain become wall pizza. But I think they hit just the right tone with Jimmy, too: like seriously shaken and in grief, but still totally confident that he can move past it. I wanted Kim to remain a lawyer, as that just seems to open up more possibilities for her in the future than giving it all up does. But it is plausible that she is rejecting everything that led her to this awful moment, and she has decided that the world must be protected from her dark side.
I think it’s too little, too late at this point. I guess we’ll see where the show takes her, but her dark side (along with Jimmy of course) not only got a man killed, but ruined his legacy. She didn’t know the former would happen, but the latter was her exact intention.
Howard put Kim in doc review. The revenge for that was maybe a tad disproportional.
No deaths, no vaccum cleaners, just Kim bouncing. I feel like this all but confirms she and Jimmy will be reunited in the Gene storyline, and I am happy.
Other than the Gould quote in the article I really wondered if this was the last we see of Kim. Never something I thought would happen until the montage scenes of Saul after she left. I’m glad there’ll be no ambiguity to her fate. I used to think they’d be back together in Omaha, but based on the reason she left, I’m not sure of that anymore.
I understand this is a successful cash grab, just baffled as to why. It all sounds like a giant waste of time. None of the characters ever change, they run the same scam over and over, and somehow – despite being nearly powerless in the real world – women are always depicted as some sort of particularly soulless super villains because they have lady brains.
huh?
I don’t think Kim comes off as a super villain and definitely not soulless, she has tremendous soul and conscience. She just has an amazing poker face. We see that she grew up with a grifter mom, which answers why Jimmy’s crazy cons could feel like a home to her. And, yes, people never change and if that ruins it for you then all of life is a giant waste of time.
lmao what
what
What show are you watching?
This show is so incredible at making inevitable plot points come in the most unpredictable fashion. Everyone was asking the obvious in the first five seasons of this show, “When is Kim going to leave Jimmy?”After they get married, the writers found a way to flip that question on the audience and lead everyone to start asking when Jimmy is going to leave Kim. So when we see Kim is the one who’s packed all those boxes in the apartment, it feels so obvious in retrospect but arrives when you’re least expecting it. Jimmy was never going to be the one to end it. It’s not in his DNA. Beautiful writing.
I always thought Kim would leave Jimmy and that would be what put the finishing touch on Saul becoming a sleazoid. He “learned” that, when he sincerely loved someone, it hurt too much, so he became the over-the-top con man.
They do well with the Kim & Jimmy part but the cartel part often feels contrived IMO. The really bent themselves out of shape to keep Gus alive/ keep the Salamancas in the dark.
There was a brilliant bit of subtext at the funeral/wake, when Jimmy and Kim were catching up with Rich (I’ll paraphrase):“This’ll likely be the last time any of us are in the building. They’re downsizing, moving to a space downtown one quarter the size. And they’re changing their name. Hamlin, Hamlin and McGill is no more.”
“So long Jimmy – ah, Saul..”So yeah – some very symbolic closure on the Jimmy McGill name, especially from the POV of the legal profession.
I just hope Kim comes back. I hope that was not the last we see of her. If I was the writers, I would have Kim looking for Jimmy, and Jeff the cab driver might somehow tip her off. She could not be with Jimmy while they had the power to ruin other people. But now they can’t. He is a fugitive, so he has to shut up, so he is safe now.
They could live out thier lives as small time con artists.
Something about this show I noticed – even in the innocuous, calmer scenes, I’m still potentially on edge. Gus’ chat with the wine guy was exactly what it seemed; a bit of a break from all the violence. But I was still half-expecting someone to die or at least be threatened….I don’t agree that things are wrapping up too fast. This show and Breaking Bad have always been really good with time-jumps and such, so that ending part worked, and as for the breakup.. It was efficient. Like Kim.It was kind of sad, kind of creepy that the woman Saul says goodbye to at the end has similar facial structure to Kim’s…
“Wouldn’t that be something?”As an avid listener of the BCS Insider podcast, I totally heard this last line of the review in Vince Gilligan’s voice. 😄
That was a prostitute at the end of the show. She puts money in her purse.
In the black and white scene at the end, Gene appears to have gone back into his mall after hours and is giving someone a few minutes to steal whatever clothes they want from the department store. Is it Jeff the cab driver? Is it to get him arrested? That’s not going to keep him locked up for long.
I think getting Jeff arrested would be the last thing Gene would do. That would give him a reason to talk to the cops.
You’re right. So maybe he’s trying to get the Omaha police to kill Jeff.
We a going to get a whole lot of Saul Goodman in the next couple of weeks. So many unanswered questions. Like, the Sandpiper money, the black book, etc. Strap on. It’s going to be a wild ride.
Not “The McGills”. It’s Jimmy McGill AKA Saul Goodman and Kim Wexler. If we need a joint last name to refer to them, go with “The Wexlers”, after the only one of the pair didn’t change her dang name for the sake of a pun.
This was Ozymandias.
Definitely feeling some sympathy for Rhea Seehorn since you know there are going to be chuds who don’t understand that actresses don’t write their own plots and take out Kim’s ‘betrayal’ on her.
Someone on twitter pointed out that the blown up photos of Howard at his memorial are just directly lifted from Patrick Fabian’s own instagram account
That’s actually hilarious.
That’s amazing. I was like “wow, howard was way into the outdoorsy stuff, was there ever any hint of that on the show?” and it seemed like one of those touches where you find out that someone had a whole part of their life you never knew about, but it made perfect sense.And then for it to just be Patrick’s personal Insta photos is hilarious.
Did anyone get a sense that the prostitute looked a little bit like a dolled-up Kim? Same deep-set eyes?
I noticed it. I thought it was the actress that played her mom for a minute. It would make total sense that would be Saul’s type.
last episode name, Gene and Kim? or possibly, Life and Death.
“Her demeanor in the post-Kim era of the Saul Goodman offices matches Mike’s demeanor working with Gus after the deaths of Nacho and Howard: resigned and more than a little angry.”Which is weird because why not just quit? Is the money that good? It’s not hard for an experienced legal secretary to get another job. I’m guessing the money really is that good, but it would have to be damn good.
I have a completely unnecessary quibble:
Jimmy launders drug money, of course, but his home seems far too opulent for a man that has a Saul Goodman law firm in a strip mall. Not “Saul Goodman & Associates.” Just Saul. I’m sure he’s laundered well to keep up the appropriate appearances, but the man is living like he owns something larger than HHM.
(And yes, Sandpiper settlement and all that.)
I can suspend belief and go along with everything, but they seem to have made his home lifestyle just one notch too opulent to gel with everything else.
I’m going to miss Kim but I’m so happy for her. She’s going to need a lot of therapy but she is way better off without Jimmy, as much as I love them as a couple.
I have a feeling that most of what’s left of the show is going to be the post-Breaking Bad stuff. Which I’m really looking forward to
With the way Gilligan and Gould have gone on record talking about how they’re going to be attempting some things not yet seen in a television series in these last four episodes, I am fully expecting an episode where Saul deals with these two buffoons who are trying to run a meth business and Walt and Jesse become the comic relief for BCS in the same way Saul was for BB. We’re going to see the timeline of BB from Saul’s perspective while he tries to wrangle the two bumbling idiots that start off with a ridiculous attempt to threaten him in the desert.
So, after Mike warns them to act if nothing out of the ordinary has happened, Kim resigns from the bar, ends her marriage, and leaves town. But apparently without consequences, unless the flash-forward is hiding them.
I know I’m a week late but I haven’t seen anyone mention this:When Mike and Gus are talking in the tunnel, just before they depart, Mike gives Gus a kind of cold look, and Gus just for a moment looks kind of contrite, like he actually feels bad for all the shit Mike’s had to deal with. Just an amazing bit of acting from Esposito, just a subtle casting of the eyes and you suddenly feel a bit of vulnerability breaking through.
The time jump to full on Saul was a far more crushing reveal than the entire prequel trilogy.