On Better Call Saul, Gene doubles down
“Breaking Bad” connects some major dots as Gene slides back into the ways of Albuquerque’s most infamous attorney
TV Reviews Gene
He left that funky Saul Goodman shirt and tie on the department store rack, but make no mistake: Last week’s caper with Jeff and the mall-security team took Gene Takovic right back into the world of Saul Goodman. And one mysterious, contentious phone call in “Breaking Bad” sent him doubling down and going full-bore Saul.
We don’t—yet—know where this sudden but committed embracing of the life that sent him into hiding will end, but people from his old life as Albuquerque’s most infamous lawyer are still reeling from their associations with him. For Bill Oakley, the beleaguered deputy district attorney who envied Jimmy’s cushy opportunity at Davis & Main as he ate lunch from the courthouse vending machine every day, Jimmy/Saul’s shenanigans with helping to free Lalo Salamanca proved so disillusioning that Bill turned to the defense attorney himself: He’s gone into private practice, advertising his services on a bus stop bench. Is he now serving the clientele Saul left behind?
For Francesca, Saul’s loyal but also overworked and stressed assistant, her career prospects are less potentially lucrative. Her life with Saul was certainly never glamorous, but now she’s a landlord, spending her days plunging a sink clogged with weed stems and seeds in the apartment of a pair of surly tenants whose home reeks like “a skunk’s butthole.”
She’s also being followed, her mail’s being opened, and her phone’s being tapped, as legal authorities continue to look for Saul. Yet she agrees to drive out of the city (to the former Big Chief gas station where Jesse paid for a fill-up on the RV with meth in season three of Breaking Bad) for a pay phone call with Gene. He wants the hot goss on happenings back home, and Francesca wants the hidden stash of cash he promised her for showing up. She tells him the rest of his funds (the nail salons, the vending machines, the laser-tag center, the offshore account) are all gone, but he’s most interested in a call she received after news of his Walter White connection broke: Kim, who phoned to check in on her. Kim also asked about Saul, Francesca shares. She wanted to know if he was alive.
Gene, who had driven outside of Omaha to call Francesca, is back on the road to Omaha when he pulls over to make another call. Kim, apparently, is in Titusville, Florida, working at a business called Palm Coast Sprinklers. Gene calls and asks for her and though the noise of trucks passing on the highway drown out his conversation, it’s an angry one we can tell from the gesticulating he does. When he hangs up, he slams the receiver down repeatedly. When he walks outside, he kicks the glass of the phone booth so hard it shatters.
What could have transpired on that call that would make him so angry? If Kim had simply not been at the business or if she no longer worked there, he might have been disappointed, or annoyed, but not violently angry. What was conveyed to Gene that would elicit that reaction? Was he told Kim refused to speak to him? Did she speak to him and relay her feelings about his Breaking Bad-era actions? Did she share news about her new life that ticked him off?
Whatever happened during that conversation set into motion a return to Omaha that was followed by Gene visiting the home of Marion and Jeff and sliding back into the ways of Saul Goodman.
The surprise of this reunion of Gene and Saul is the gusto then the recklessness with which Gene approaches his new venture with Jeff and Buddy. It’s a typically intricate and clever play from the mind of McGill/Goodman that boils down to identity theft that is then sold for cash. The trio make an easy go of it and have amassed a good amount of money when they hit a snag: One of their marks is seriously ill and when Buddy finds out the guy has pancreatic cancer, just like his dad suffered, he refuses to continue swiping his identity documents. Gene had earlier discovered the man had cancer during the recon phase of the con at the bar they were drinking at and seemed very concerned about him. He even asked him if he should be mixing alcohol with the pills he was taking for the cancer.
But when Buddy tells Gene and Jeff he will not continue their grift of the cancer patient, that they should move along to the next guy, Gene flips out. He berates Buddy, insisting that he return to the man’s house and resume photographing all of the personal documents that will earn them another payday. When Buddy still refuses to do so, Gene calls him an amateur and fires him from the job, with a parting warning that he should keep his mouth shut about their plot.
Then Gene’s anger and recklessness turn to desperation. He gets Jeff to drive him to the home of the cancer patient, who he assumes will still be unconscious three hours after he was slipped drugs in a water bottle by Jeff. Without any proof that is the case, Gene nonetheless is dropped off at the man’s home and breaks in, with no real idea what will happen when he steps inside.
The break-in scene is preceded by a flashback to Saul approaching J.P. Wynne High School in “Better Call Saul,” the season-two episode of Breaking Bad that introduced Bob Odenkirk’s character. Saul’s going to surprise Walter White in his chemistry classroom. It’s still early days in Walt and Jesse’s meth enterprise, and Saul thinks he can help them grow it and keep a significant cut of the profits for himself.
And in a scene that precedes that, there’s another flashback, a new one from a Breaking Bad-era meeting with Mike in Saul’s office. Mike reports to Saul about scoping out Walt and Jesse, telling him they are amateurs, “small potatoes” who “He Who Shall Not Be Named” (Gus, of course) has no interest in. Mike, in no uncertain terms, advises Saul that Walt and Jesse are not suitable business partners. Saul, obviously, ignores this advice, and we now know that the connection of all these characters and everything they brought together, all the lives it changed and the many that it ended, was facilitated by Saul Goodman. Of all the Breaking Bad callbacks and guest appearances that have been sprinkled throughout Better Call Saul, writer-director Thomas Schnauz saved the best and most pivotal one for Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, whose much-anticipated appearance as Walt and Jesse was more than worth the wait.
Now, with just two episodes remaining in the series, we turn to Gene’s desperate entry into the home of that cancer patient in a decision that feels like it could be as pivotal to his post-Walt and Jesse- life as his initial appearance was to theirs.
Stray observations
- Francesca’s call with Gene also provides a crucial update on Skyler White: She cut a deal with the authorities, so apparently Walt’s lottery ticket, the one that he promised would lead to the location of Hank and Gomey’s bodies, worked.
- Shoutout to Tina Parker, for her series straddling standout performance as Francesca, who definitely ended up on the wrong end of Saul’s dealings. Here’s hoping there was a tidy sum of cash in that packet she pulled out of the water pipe.
- There’s no way we don’t find out the contents of Gene’s call to Kim’s Florida workplace, right? Could that even mean one more appearance by Rhea Seehorn before the series ends?
- Super clever casting: Alfred Hawthorne, the obnoxious first mark in Gene’s identity theft bar scam, was brilliantly portrayed by Devin Ratray, who played Kevin McAllister’s obnoxious older brother Buzz in Home Alone.
- Two more great callbacks by Gene: He skips Saul’s fashions, but he does drink (or not drink, as it’s part of the scam) Moscow mules with one of the ID theft marks and also procures a chi machine, that foot massage device Saul used in his Breaking Bad days. Was that just because it was a safe way to privately embrace his Saul past or was the machine a physical necessity for dealing with the stress of returning to an active life of crime?
367 Comments
Wow, I didn’t think so before, but maybe they will kill off Saul/Jimmy. Then again, with all the misdirection this show does, what looks like the cops arriving to the scene next week with somebody getting shot doesn’t have anything to do with what Jimmy was last doing.So I’m thinking one of two things happened with Kim. One, the cartel got her, and that explains why Jimmy is suddenly in a hurry to get cash, or two, she left that agency and didn’t tell anybody where she was going. She’s not dead—-I would think Jimmy would have been upset rather than just furious.Secondly, was that a NEW scene in the winnebago? I haven’t rewatched BB in a long time, but boy, if that was new, they sure did a wonder with the makeup on all 3 guys, and even the much maligned acting skill of Aaron Paul—-he slipped right back into that role like a glove.
I’m sure that was a new scene in the Winnebago. In fact, everything from the Breaking Bad era in this episode was redone. Bob Odenkirk is a noticeably thinner now than he was when he made his debut in BB and as I recall, the grave scene was a wide shot, not a close-up.They re-shot the grave scene from Saul’s perspective and shot a whole new conversation in the RV that was taken as read in BB.
That’s what I figured. Bravo, makeup artists.Well, then again, both Aaron and Bryan had thick coats and wool caps covering a lot of their faces, lol.
The best line of that whole scene was when Jesse asked, “Who’s Lalo?”
This is the greatest gif, ever.
How could Jesse never have heard of Lalo though? He doesn’t know the top Salamancas?
I’m guessing that’s sarcasm. At that point in BB, Walt and Jesse are only dealing with the bottom feeders of the ABQ criminal underworld. As Mike so eloquently put it, they’re small potatoes.
No I was sincere. Your explanation convinced me, but I would think that guys that high up in the cartel would be legend. Like saying “who is this El Chapo you were referring to?”
I guess that would be possible, though the Salamancas took great pains to insulate themselves from the street-level crime with multiple layers of subordinates, much like the Sicilian Mafia. I’m also that they wouldn’t have lived very long if Lalo was still alive. They ended up dealing with Tuco instead, who was bat shit crazy enough to ignore the red flags and do business with them.
I mean Jesse didn’t even know who Tuco was until Skinny Pete introduced him, and he certainly had no idea who Hector was upon meeting him
Lalo has been dead and gone for years by the time Jesse is in a position to enter the meth trade, and Jesse’s hardly a major player; he’s some shithead loser doing some low-level cooking round the fringes when we first meet him, he’s not gonna know the hierarchy of the Salamanca family.
Four years, it looks like.
If that’s so, when Lalo was murdered Jesse would have been flunking high school; he’d hardly have been plugged into the gossip of the Albuquerque underworld. It’s perfectly plausible that Jesse wouldn’t have any idea about the existence of some gangster who disappeared off the face of the planet four years before. He was just some high school dropout dicking around at the fringes of the meth trade, he wasn’t a made man or anything.
I dunno, early in the game was Jesse really in touch with a cartel hierarchy or was he just a dumb street dealer?Its been a while since I’ve rewatched BB.
Yeah I thought the toques was a smart trick.
I am currently rewatching BB and I was a bit disappointed in Aaron Paul’s performance. I could ignore the fact that he looks older but he sounded like a grizzled old man. It was distracting.On the other hand, if you haven’t seen it this little piece of post-BB work was fantastic:
Best line: “There’s like a month worth of sit in there!”
They really lucked out with Walt and Jesse having those hats in that BB scene since it meant they had good reason to not mess with the actors’ hair for this new scene.
Whoa whoa whoa- since when has Aaron Paul’s acting skills been, “much aligned”?
By me and MANY others…have you seen him in Westworld 4? Still playing Jesse Pinkman, all crying & angry. No range at all!
Read any AVC comment section for Westworld. It’s harsh.
People who still watch Westworld shouldn’t throw stones.
ehhh people are pissy about him on Westworld, and I guess are retroactively now shitting on him in BB. I don’t get it. They mostly just complain about him being distracting because “he doesn’t fit in” and something about his hair.Whatever I like him. WW fans just be like that.
I agree. I watch Westworld too and I don’t get all the hate they direct at Paul. Is he the next Olivier? Certainly not, but I don’t think he’s a bad actor. And I also don’t think he was miscast in either series. I think it may be that Westworld draws many of the same viewers who watched Breaking Bad. Caleb is a very different character from Jesse and I think some people don’t want to buy into that. I think there is also fallout from El Camino, While I personally liked how they resolved Jesse’s story, it wasn’t universally loved.
I thought Paul was great in BB. But in Westworld, whenever they ask him to stretch to his noticeable limitations as an actor it can be painful, especially since the plot since the beginning of S3 has put his character at the forefront.That being said, when he’s only required to do what he’s good at (as last week’s episode) he’s very effective.
Agreed on that. He’s very good at looking super stressed out and melancholy. The Caleb character suffers from PTSD, so those traits are foremost in the portrayal. I think the bigger issue is making sure the writers play to his strengths, rather than ask him to do things he doesn’t do as well.
I thought he was great on The Path.
Never did get around to that one. I found Hugh Dancy’s haircut… incredibly distracting. Especially as a Hannibal Fannibal. I need those curly locks!
But yeah mostly I just never heard any buzz around it and I kind of forgot it was a thing.
It was in fact very good
I’ll confess I wanted it to go a little weirder/darker/more horror but it’s an interesting dramatic analysis of a fictional but very possible spiritual/self-help cult. And Dancy is also fantastic as the cult’s current, deeply troubled leader. It’s worth a watch if you don’t have a queue of more pressing shows/movies. (That probably seems like faint praise. To be honest, I really liked the show but I don’t think it’s for everyone. It’s a little slow and you have to find cults interesting.)
As did I
It’s sorta been a thing for a long time. Some people are always looking to pick pick pick.
What cartel?Francesca tells Jimmy that Kim had called after the events of Breaking Bad. Those events include the remaining remnants of the cartel that Jimmy and Kim pissed off being killed. It’s also not like she had that much direct involvement either. Lalo knew her but there’s no real indication that higher ups did.
So who is following Francesca? The Feds?
Yes – they make that pretty clear when she talks to Saul and she references Skyler getting a deal and the feds seizing his assets. They’re hounding her because Saul is still at large.
That’s really the only people left alive who would care about whatever happened to Saul Goodman.
I mean you never know with those kinds of people, especially if we’re talking about gangsters to whom honour is important. I’d never want to rule them out entirely!
I assumed it was new because they kept the masks on as hats, which would be a good way to skip dealing with their hair. I remember Cranston had to use a bald cap for his last cameo in El Camino.
I have to watch all this again, but all of the new BrBa-era scenes are hammering the same point over and over again — offscreen during the events of the original “Better Call Saul” episode, Saul was given a flood of red flags about working with Walt and Jesse, even more so than we understood at the time. In the Winnebago, they come across as even more amateurish than they did during the original kidnapping that we saw, revealing every last detail of their operation within five minutes. Mike thinks nothing of them and makes that clear, passing along information that Saul doesn’t let on to Walt. Saul knew what he was getting into. He entered the high school chemistry class to shake down Walt anyway.He’s similarly breaking into that cancer-stricken mark’s home, despite receiving every sign that he shouldn’t.
Mike’s warning to Saul was prophetic. Mike was always a professional and it was working with the total amateur Walter White that got him killed.
“He’s similarly breaking into that cancer-stricken mark’s home, despite receiving every sign that he shouldn’t.”That seems out of character for Jimmy/Saul or even Gene (going after a cancer victim), which is why i’m pretty sure that the money he needs is for getting Kim out of imminent peril (for whatever reason).The only other explanation is that he’s transposing his dislike of Walt onto this other cancer guy, but that doesn’t really seem to fit.
Jimmy/Saul/Gene wasn’t that money-hungry when he first moved to Omaha (presumably around the time he called Francesca). What caused him to slip back into “the game” was the taxi driver recognizing him.
He got vacuumed to Omaha in March 2010 (https://breakingbad.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline#Season_5B). Last week’s episode was pegged to October 2010 based on the Nebraska football games Gene talked about with the mall security guard, and we know from a previous scene that the call to Francesca was in November.Seems pretty clear that between finding out the feds confiscated all his money and whatever happened when he tried to contact Kim, he said “screw it” and chose to go back to running scams.
I don’t think there would be that much snow on the ground in October.
A quick Google suggests that it’s rare but has happened.The fact that New Hampshire in late August/early September looked more like Siberian winter in Breaking Bad was much more egregious.
Also the fully leafed out trees with the snow on the ground is really distracting to me. They’re trying to make it look like winter in Nebraska but any northerner will see it’s obviously just New Mexico with fake snow
What indicated the call was in November?
Saul told Francesca that the call was November 14th or something like that when we saw the flash-forward in S4 of BCS.
Huh. I assumed Gene had been in Omaha for a couple of years at least. He seemed pretty settled in to the routine of things.
She’s NOT “in peril”! What a stupid theory….He’s simply imploding with a self-hatred, self-destruction.
It’s not really out of character for him, that’s exactly what he did with Walt, that’s the comparison they’re trying to draw
The only other explanation is that he’s transposing his dislike of Walt onto this other cancer guy, but that doesn’t really seem to fit.I think it’s not so much his “dislike” of Walt as it is that his past experience has proved that cancer patients aren’t automatically saints deserving all of his sympathy. In fact, they can be downright horrible people. If Walt was evil, who’s to say this mark isn’t evil either (despite deliberately ignoring all the signs saying otherwise)?I think Jimmy is still in a nihilistic place where his worldview is that there are no good people. After all, the best mark is the one who thinks he’s doing the con.
I’m sure you’re right. Kim’s in trouble. It’s the only thing that makes sense.
Safe to say Kim’s co-worker at the sprinkler store did not inform Gene that she had been kidnapped by the cartel or was in some other peril, (causing Gene to…scream and yell angrily?)She rejected him on the call and he did what he always does when avoiding pain…he doubles down.
“She rejected him on the call and he did what he always does when avoiding pain…he doubles down”I’m sorry, I don’t see how him showing urgency in getting money illicitly fits his reaction to Kim just denying his phone call—-him showing up in Florida to try and woo back Kim with his ill-gotten gains isn’t going to change anything.“Safe to say Kim’s co-worker at the sprinkler store did not inform Gene that she had been kidnapped by the cartel or was in some other peril, (causing Gene to…scream and yell angrily?)“Why wouldn’t he? He would blame himself for whatever happened to Kim. He just got off the phone with Francesca, where he found out that the cops had located all of his stash, so his entire existence was catching up to him and the woman he loved.Maybe the shop owner said she left with somebody whose description was familiar to Jimmy and hasn’t come back since. Maybe she was hauled off by the Feds who found out where she was when she called in to Fran’s tapped phone.
I don’t think you have a good understanding of the show. (Or human interaction). It’s beyond bizarre to think Gene would start screaming at the sprinkler employee for any reason. And he has no urgency of getting money. He’s angrily acting out. He did it after Chuck died, he did it after Kim left, he’s doing it again after Kim rejected him on the call. This is what he does. He slips. He slips to avoid pain.
“ I don’t think you have a good understanding of the show. (Or human interaction).Oh sure. Like people don’t yell at other people on the phone who are not actually the source of their problems. You’ve never seen somebody scream at somebody who won’t give them what they want? Such as say, a clerk who won’t give the phone to Kim because she won’t talk to him? You’ve never seen anybody yell “JUST PUT HER ON THE LINE”? Or “TELL ME WHERE SHE IS”?
Come on man. If you’re going to insult me, put some thought into it.
Your scenario was that the employee told Jimmy that Kim was kidnapped or was otherwise in peril, not that he refused to put Kim on the line, which somehow caused Jimmy to start yelling at him. You even absurdly speculated that the feds hauled off Kim for the horrible crime of asking Francesca about Saul’s well being. You insult yourself with your poor critical thinking skills.Gene is buying prostitutes, back massage gadgets, bluetooths. He’s not trying to scramble to make money to save Kim from mysterious bad guys. He’s actually quite calm and deliberate as he engages in this self-destructive behavior for no particular reason at all, other than it numbs the pain.
“Your scenario was that the employee told Jimmy that Kim was kidnapped or was otherwise in peril, not that he refused to put Kim on the line, which somehow caused Jimmy to start yelling at him.”Did you miss the second part of that where I proposed he yelled “Tell me where she is!”?If you aren’t gong to actually read what I wrote, don’t bother replying with your half-assed insults.“You even absurdly speculated that the feds hauled off Kim for the horrible crime of asking Francesca about Saul’s well being.”Wha? Where did you get THAT from? I never once said anything about the act of Kim calling to ask about Jimmy being a crime!LMAO, come on dude. This is just getting silly now. I don’t know what problem you have with me, but if you’re just going to lash out blindly and insult me with nothing to back it up, that’s really sad.
You said maybe she was hauled off by the feds who “found out where she was” after she called Francesca. Kim is not wanted by any legal entities. Her location is not unknown. She is working in Florida under her own name. I can only assume you thought she was “hauled off’ for calling Francesca. But apparently you believe she’s a fugitive for some reason. Your reasoning is idiotic. Your scenario where Gene talks to a sprinkler employee who says Kim was taken and then Gene screams “tell me where she is!” repeatedly to someone who would of course have no idea is bizarre. Kim is not in trouble. She just told him to fuck off or words to that effect.
“You said maybe she was hauled off by the feds who “found out where she was” after she called Francesca. Kim is not wanted by any legal entities.”How do you know that? There is a big time lapse between the end of BCS’ arc and “Glen’s Adventures in the Future”—-not to mention all the shady shit we ACTUALLY SAW HER DO in BCS. Hell, we even saw an ADA try to offer her a deal to get out of one of the messes the ADA thinks she’s wrapped up in with the cartel and Jimmy.You don’t actually know ANYTHING about what Kim has been up to in the past year or two since she left Jimmy at the end of BCS and the entire run of BB. Or whether the Feds have a pending case against both of them for what we actually saw them do in BCS.“Your reasoning is idiotic.”Oh yeah, my reasoning is idiotic.Let me remind you that you came in insulting me and claiming definitively that none of the above scenarios are possible when you have absolutely no way of proving any of it isn’t possible.“Gene screams “tell me where she is!” repeatedly to someone who would of course have no idea is bizarre.”What? How on earth can you come to THAT conclusion? How do YOU know the clerk doesn’t know where she is? Maybe the clerk said “she left and she doesn’t want to see you”? Maybe the Feds actually took her into custody at the shop?The point here is that you made a lot of definitive declarations based on zero evidence. It would be like me saying “I guarantee the Feds have her, and you’re an idiot for thinking she just told him to fuck off!”.Which I didn’t. I may be completely wrong and you may end up being completely right, but you don’t have any proof of either being the case at this point.
Jimmy does not need the money. I think it was very likely Kim rejected him horribly. She left him because of what they did to Howard and could not take it. Now she knows Jimmy was involved with the cartel, the very same people who killed Howard. The thought he turned so bad would probably break her heart. That set him off because he has nothing to live for and WANTS to be caught now. Everything about the cancer guy and his actions screams it. He no longer cares and is being intentionally reckless.
It is, but I think it’s an allusion to Jimmy’s nature. He basically has an addiction, and can’t stop himself from breaking bad. Now he’s relapsing hard. I figured Kim just rejected him or someone told him she didn’t want to talk
That’s a good observation. Other than the Mike and Saul conversation, I didn’t feel like the flashbacks added a whole lot– a slightly different perspective on the kidnapping scene from the “Better Call Saul” episode, but that’s all. But metaphorically speaking, I agree that it’s intended to be analogous to Gene ignoring the red flags about this mark.
This reminds me of the beginning episodes of Better Call Saul. He just kept making (obviously) bad decisions over and over. He was his own worst enemy.
The cartel have all died. Gus killed all their leaders, Hector killed Gus, Lydia/the nazis killed Declan and his crew, Walt killed the nazis. There’s no one left that would care about Kim or Jimmy enough to kill them.
Yeah, Hank and Gomey should have just hung back and let the entire cartel / meth empire crew clean each other out.
I don’t think it’s a big stretch for Aaron Paul to act like Jesse Pinkman.
Yes, it was a new scene.
It’s very clearly a stationary building standing in for an RV. The angles and proportions are all wrong.REALLY took me out of it, and I was watching on a tiny screen.
It was definitely a set. There was way too much room. Still, I didn’t find it enough of a distraction to ruin the scene.
There’s a medium- to wide-shot with Saul sitting between/behind the driver and passenger seat that really clinched it for me.But I’m also in the (minority) camp of commenters who feel like the Cranston/Paul cameo was a cute but unnecessary trick to begin with. So for me, the set believability issues were just another reason the scene wasn’t really worth including in the first place.
The Cranston/Paul cameos were definitely fan service, but they helped illustrate that Jimmy/Saul/Gene was going down the same road again—ignoring the red flags.
It was definitely a new scene. I thought Paul’s voice sounded much deeper and like he was struggling to get words out for some reason— like he was sedated or had a Vito Corelone-like jaw or something.
I commented to a friend, “Had Paul not hit puberty yet during Breaking Bad?”
Yes, but we need to keep in mind that Jesse’s a meth head.
I knew the BB crowd didn’t like Skyler, but I wasn’t aware that Aaron Paul’s acting was much maligned. That is nuts and totally news to me
Not in Breaking Bad—I’m talking about other things like Westworld. He was perfect for Jesse Pinkman.
Much maligned by who? The guy’s won three Emmys.
For playing Jesse Pinkman. I’m talking about outside of the BB universe. Watch Westworld S3+ for example.
I don’t think he needs the money for anything; once he gets it, he socks it away and doesn’t look at it again. He’s simply backsliding into Slippin’ Jimmy because it gives him a sense of control over his life.
It seems far too urgent to me to be just “Jimmy being Jimmy”. Maybe I just have a terrible read on the situation.
I didn’t sense urgency so much as rage; whatever happened in that phone conversation left him angry and helpless in the way one would when their ex says “hell no we’re not getting back together.” The mall scam gave him a sense of power and control, and after calls with Francesca and Kim he realizes he has absolutely none. Thus, he decides to run a scam. Slipping Jimmy isn’t so much his nature as a drug he can’t help but consume, and he’s currently bingeing.
Considering that the show has tended to make an addiction metaphor out of Jimmy’s tendency to play scams, it can be read as Jimmy taking it to the point where he’s basically becoming the con-artist equivalent of a wino or a crackhead; just losing himself in his addictions because he’s lost everything else. I do kind of get the feeling that there might be something more to that phone call than Kim just saying “No, we’re not getting back together,” (honestly, that just seems a little predictable and trite), but Jimmy running scams to get money to ‘save’ Kim somehow also seems a bit too melodramatic. My personal guess is that the phone call revolved around a terminal illness or Kim being arrested for something, and that the real moment that determines whether or not Jimmy is truly beyond any kind of redemption will revolve around what happens after he breaks into the mark’s house rather than whether or not he can ‘save’ Kim.
Tom Schnauz, who wrote and directed the episode, gave a great interview in THR Monday and said the same thing about Jimmy’s motivation. The money is just a way to keep score.
Why would the cartel care about Kim? People keep saying that, but there’s just no logic to it.
Well, because she was deeply involved with just about everything Jimmy had going on, or at least they thought she was. Heck, even Mike thought they were coming after her (well, more specifically Lalo).I hadn’t really thought that there probably isn’t much left of the cartel that would even be familiar with Kim and Jimmy anyways, but if there were, they certainly would try to hold her to get to him (and the money they think he has).
I figured Jimmy was simply denied access to Kim, perhaps he talked to a secretary and was told she didn’t want to speak with him.
I could see that, but I don’t think he would react so furiously to hearing that—-after all, she left him a while ago. Unless it was one of those “straw that broke the camel’s back” kind of things coupled with all of his money and friends being gone.Or maybe he was just upset at Huell leaving him for New Orleans.
He wouldn’t be furious if she was kidnapped by the cartel, he’d be horrified and devastated. I think it’s a terrible theory. She probably just shut him down or told him to turn himself in
I’m not seeing how he wouldn’t be furious—-he’d blame himself for getting her caught up in it and desperately try to get back all the money that got seized to possibly pay the cartel for her release.But really, unless she’s dead, in which he would be sad, I’d imagine that anything bad that happened to Kim that was remotely linked to his failed criminal activity would make him mad. Or maybe she turned on him to the feds?But you’re probably right about the cartel—-it doesn’t seem to exist anymore, I hadn’t watched the last seasons of BB in a long time and forgot that they were pretty much wiped out.
I figured Jimmy was simply denied access to Kim, perhaps he talked to a secretary and was told she didn’t want to speak with him.
Wow, I didn’t think so before, but maybe they will kill off Saul/Jimmy.Surprised no-one on here’s mentioned that incredibly ominous shot where the (false) grave Walt and Jesse dug fades out and it fades in to show Gene lying on his bed. It might just be a cool shot, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s some foreshadowing either.
Nah… too obvious
“they sure did a wonder with the makeup on all 3 guys,”
Some of that make up was computers (though respect to them for not going overboard). You could see it most around Odenkirk’s upper lip/mouth/jawline and the slimming of Aaron Paul’s face. It was pretty seamless. Their voices were way more of a giveaway that so much time had passed.
“much maligned acting skill of Aaron Paul”What fucking crack are you smoking?
He doesn’t need money. Nothing is wrong with Him. You are overlooking the option kim just told him she does not love him anymore after she heard what he did. Howard was killed by the cartel and Jimmy now worked for them and Walt, who is a known murderer and huge meth kingpin. She could not take what they did to Howard, how would she take knowing this is what happened to jimmy? Her rejecting him would set him off like this in a second. Scamming is what he does to bury pain.
There is a lot to unpack with how amazing the episode was but it must be said… the editing was on fire this episode! The transitions from past to present especially the one with the shallow grave was some of the best editing in either series. Bravo editor!
It’s a crime that this series has never won an Emmy for editing or cinematography.
I’m not disagreeing at all BUT this is the same organization that denied The Americans awards for… well, EVERYTHING.
Good point. I didn’t watch The Americans in real time so I wasn’t aware of their lack of nominations, but the show definitely deserved more Emmy awards than they ended up getting. One of my all-time favorites.
It’s always been noticeable but not “showy”, exactly– maybe ‘showy’ but not ‘show-off-y’– but here it was both (all three), but in a good way.
My favorite scene had no (apparent) edits. It seems almost impossible.
That guy fumbles one of those boxes, and they’d have to start all over.
Yesss I love this kinda shit
Yeah, the match cutting in this episode was great. It reminded me of Alan Moore’s work in in the mid 80’s like Watchmen and Killing Joke.
It looks as though this show has decided to end its story in a very contemplative and pensive direction. I’m not sure how I’ll feel about it until it’s all over, but it’s certainly a bold creative decision. I certainly felt the decay of Jimmy’s soul in that beautiful music montage, that’s for sure. However, I’m bummed they decided to announce Walt and Jesse’s return in advance. Would of been a nice surprise.
I think they wanted audiences to worry more about the Jimmy/Saul/Gene story and a little less about when Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul might show up for a single five minute scene. That may be it for their involvement! If it had been kept a “secret,” that could overshadow the main story.
I don’t think that’s it for their involvement. The actors have said they’re in multiple scenes.
Yeah, it seems pretty clear we’re not done with the BB flashbacks.
I’d been avoiding all outside information on the show, and only vaguely remember news during the off-season about Walt and Jesse maybe making an appearance somewhere. I’m sure AMC leaned hard into it for the marketing, but it’s actually been these reviews that spoiled it for me, bringing it up every chance they get
I think the story will require Jimmy/Gene to go full Saul one last time (no clue how, though someone here surmised the mall scam would result in a slip-and-fall counter-suit), and he’ll put on a colorful suit one last time and the black-and-white will give way to full, triumphant color.
Maybe he will go all the way back to Slippin’ Jimmy, wipe out on a patch of ice while fleeing the feds, crack his head on the curb and die.
Or maybe he’ll just shit into someone’s sun roof…
My money is he finally does what I think Kim told him to do—turn himself in. He represents himself at his arraignment and negotiates a relatively light sentence for himself. He cites that the evil Walter White threatened him into representing him. Saul went into hiding not to avoid prosecution but to escape the Evil Walter White. Any crimes he was party to were due to coercion from Evil Walter White and that he’ll happily share whatever little he knows if it’ll help close the case.He ends up getting 18 months in a minimum security federal lockup, doing legal paperwork for the guards—ala Andy Dufresne—in his makeshift office in the backroom of the laundry.The last scene is Jimmy McGill walking out of the prison and getting a bus ticket to Florida to plead his case with Kim.
I mean, if you wanted another “Ozymandias”, I don’t think anyone can ever create another episode like that.
Wondering if Kim got remarried. That’s the only thing I can think of that would piss off Jimmy that much. He almost never screamed at her like that when they were together. Also, was Jimmy intentionally homaging Goodfellas?
Why would that piss him off? She left him years earlier. Maybe Kim has cancer and Gene devised the whole identity theft scam to save enough money to pay for her treatment.
WHAT???? Nonsense…she simply rejected him.
It’s very weird to see people in the comments surmising that the last 2-3 episodes would introduce a “Kim in peril” plot with stakes requiring Gene to quickly amass a stack of cash.
Yeah, I somehow dislocated MY shoulder just reading that stretch.
If it was as simple as that i don’t see why they kept it from us. We were intentional not privy to that conversation (for now) which suggests something more than just “she rejected him”
Oh come on.
I don’t think that’s likely, but it would be extremely funny in a stupid way if they really decided to bring the original premise of Breaking Bad full circle like that.
I think that would probably send him over the edge.
I noticed that too….pure DeNiro with the phone booth!
I think you mean James Caan as Sonny Corleone.Deniro’s phone booth scene was in Goodfellas.
Yes, I know…..I meant DeNiro in Goodfellas!
They told Kim she was about to be a Made Man and everything…
I mean, how much were the Bosses gonna take?
I was hoping he’d knock over the phone booth like Robert De Niro.
It could be that the feds have been looking at her as a way to get to Jimmy, and have charged her with a crime, either from her past or from some new scam she is running in Florida. Jimmy could be desperate to raise funds for her to disappear.
I’m pretty sure “it’s been years since we were married and we haven’t been in contact since” would keep the feds off Kim’s back. Especially since it’s true.
I can kind of see the Feds maybe keeping a casual eye on Kim in general terms, since an ex-spouse is a reasonably logical person for a fugitive to try and contact at some point, but unless she’s been up to no good in her own right it’s highly unlikely they’d be any kind of threat to her to the extent that Gene needs to do something drastic to ‘save’ her.
said same thing, goodfellas.
If you want slight spoilers , on reddit ( on the bcs subreddit), some noticed the German language version had included cc for the phone call . So they transcribed it there..
Oh no I couldn’t
Apparently in the german language dub of the episode you can hear the phone call better for some reason. someone posted it in these comments or you can find it on twitter
Saul was depicted more positively in Better Call Saul than in Breaking Bad, and I thought there was a chance that the show would give him a happy-ish or mixed ending. But I think this episode closed the door on that. It’s clear the final verdict on Saul that the show is heading towards — that he is a selfish, reckless person who ropes people into being the worst versions of themselves (even Walt, who didn’t need much encouragement).
I think one question this show poses about morality is that no matter how many times a human being blows second chances and constantly makes selfish decisions, is there always a chance for growth? So I can’t help but feel, with two episodes left, that the show is still leaving some room for him to finally gain some semblance of clarity and redemption.
Maybe he teaches law in prison…
I could TOTALLY see the show going there! He’s Saul in prison, “clients” lined up around his cell, and loving it!
That’s what I’m thinking too.
A few years ago I worked in a law office mail room (it’s just as tedious as you’d think) and often ran across legal paperwork generated by jailhouse lawyers. Since they don’t have law licenses, they function as defacto paralegals and have to get an attorney to actually file the paperwork for them.These guys have nothing but time on their hands, so they can spend more time on whatever they’re doing on than any practicing attorney. While most of the stuff I ran across was obviously frivolous and almost certainly destined to get thrown out once it got to a judge, the level of attention to detail was amazing. Everything was handwritten since these guys don’t have access to computers or typewriters. Every document I saw was always perfectly formatted with perfectly straight lines, spacing and font size.
Nope.
Kind of proves Chuck right, doesn’t it? He warned Kim that Jimmy couldn’t help himself…
Kind of proves Chuck everybody right, doesn’t it?It wasn’t just Chuck. That DA told her after the Lalo bond. I’m sure Howard did at some point, and probably others I don’t remember.It always just pissed her off.
Howard thought Jimmy could change. Howard was not the one who sabotaged Jimmy’s career, and he was even willing to work with Jimmy after Chuck died.
It’s true that Howard always bent over backwards to give Jimmy break after break after break, and all he got back was just more hate, but I still think at some point I remember him warning Kim, though I can’t remember it specifically.Maybe I’m misremembering cause Howard should have warned Kim.
Howard may or may not have warned Kim at some point, but he also was not the one who sought to prevent Jimmy from advancing, and I even get the impression that he thought the firm should give Jimmy a chance at least one of the times he was a prospective employee. And again, he was willing to work with Jimmy after Chuck died and directly offered Jimmy an opportunity to do so, IIRC. I think everyone who ends up close to Jimmy, including Kim and Howard, knows what he is…a clever guy who is willing to use, manipulate, and exploit people for his own ends, and a slippery guy whose words cannot simply be accepted at face value, and also who could be less than a great guy to associate with and be associated with. Lots of lawyers like that including Howard (except the “careful about associating with”). But I think Chuck is the only person who treated Jimmy as utterly irredeemable.
I think he’s leaning into it, now. Like, “okay, everyone thinks I’m no good – I’ll show you no good.” It always felt like throughout BCS, Jimmy never thought of himself as basically bad, even with Chuck telling him that. Then, with Howard’s death and Kim leaving and whatever happened in the phone call, he’s kind of given up on having a basically good heart.
It was a self-fulfilling prophecy IMO.Looking at a timeline of events in Jimmy’s life – his arrest for defecating through a sunroof happened in 1992. After that, he worked at Chuck’s firm in the mail room until he passed the bar in 2001. That’s nine years of keeping his head down and working hard enough to impress Howard. After that, he tirelessly takes care of and defends Chuck even though just about everyone believes Chuck has a psychological issue.That’s enough to make me believe that if Chuck had been supportive of his brother, Jimmy likely would have turned out much better. Jimmy would have been willing to deal with mundane tasks and work his way up the ladder because he wanted to do good by his brother. And Chuck would have been able to correct him if Jimmy took shortcuts if he kept him close by.But Chuck doesn’t do any of that because he deeply resents Jimmy for being the more loved one in the family despite his transgressions. And thus everything he was hoping to avoid comes to fruition.
But it’s also possible he would have eventually been bored. I don’t think it could have turned differently for Jimmy. I think the point is not there is a whole lot of good in Jimmy but that Chuck too is bad. Everyone is. We are all kind of human scum in our own way. Just like Skyler was. Just like Kim was.
I don’t know. Everyone saying that Jimmy had to revert back to his ways is willfully ignoring real-life examples of people who were screw-ups as kids or young adults who turned their lives around. Addicts who ruined their life by pursuing a substance or a vice, only to hit rock bottom and find support to leave it behind them. Not saying that was guaranteed for Jimmy as plenty of people are unable to escape their demons, but he certainly had a better shot with the full support of his brother than not.
This exactly! Jimmy has years—YEARS—of just working hard, taking initiative, and taking care of his brother while trying to build a practice from the ground up. Quite obviously he could change. But Chuck sabotaged him at every turn.
Even before that, his dad and Chuck were always positive role models for Jimmy, but he saw Chuck as a stick-up-his-ass tightwad, and saw his father as a sucker who let people rob his store, which led to young Jimmy stealing from his own father himself.
Jimmy was a kid when he stole from his dad though. Do you believe that kids or even young adults can’t turn their lives around? That people don’t mature as they grow up or hit rock bottom as Jimmy did when his brother has to bail him?
Chuck was a primary instrument in Jimmy not being able to help himself, because, just when Jimmy was getting his feet under him playing it (mostly) straight, Chuck was actively sabotaging him, putting Jimmy and the people he cares about in increasingly desperate situations, primarily driven by Chuck’s jealousy at how much people like Jimmy. Chuck couldn’t help himself either.
I do think things could’ve been different for Saul, but a lot would have had to go differently in earlier years, before this show started– or maybe through season 1 at the latest. I don’t think he would ever been a corporate Davis & Main type, but he could’ve been at least an honest if flamboyant lawyer, I think. Or at least not an actual criminal.
What’s nagging me, though, is how they keep focusing on Saul’s internal dilemma. With every scam that could lead to actual harm to the victim—including the Sandpiper scam with Howard—we see Jimmy struggle with his decision. Each time, of course, he either allows himself to be convinced to proceed, as by Kim, or as in this case he makes a decision to proceed anyway.I still don’t get the REASON for this U-Turn. Gene/Jimmy/Saul seemed resolved to end his flirtation with his old habits until he spoke with Francesca and discovered that Kim had asked about him. After the mysterious call to the sprinkler company, Gene suddenly reactivates maximum Saul and coldly exploits even a lonely, depressed cancer patient.Maybe it was the loss of all that illicit money that the feds have discovered that has led to this sudden push for cash. Maybe it was the call to Kim. I don’t know yet. I know we’ll find out eventually. But this return to form to Saul feels very abrupt and, to me at least, a painful and depressing turn. The whole time he began pushing to continue the scam against the cancer patient I was desperately hoping Jimmy would emerge victorious over Saul and that in the end redemption and a reunification with Kim was possible. I’m really worried that Jimmy is forever gone and that I’ll feel like a sucker for ever thinking he had a moral compass after all.
I was just thinking about how Walter White, a brutal and abusive asshole, at least got sent off avenging his brother-in-law, and kill a bunch of asshole racists, with one last kickass MacGyver stunt, and it seems like Jimmy/Saul/Gene is going to go out ripping off a cancer patient.
True, though Walt’s motivation was not to avenge Hank. He was ready to give himself up in New Hampshire until he watched Charlie Rose and saw that his contributions to Gray Matter was being minimized and that someone was still cooking his meth.
Exactly, Walt didn’t want others to continue to profit off of his work.
Exactly! Walt was always a self-serving narcissist who only became more of one as his success with the blue meth increased. It revealed who he was all along, it didn’t change him fundamentally.
Sure, but the avenging didn’t happen until the final episode of Breaking Bad. Look where Walter White was at the end of “Ozymandias” (the third last episode i.e. equivalent of where we’re at with BCS). Jimmy still has time to get his own MacGyver stunt equivalent.
Remember we still have two episodes left. Gene’s in a very dark place at the moment no doubt, but at this equivalent point in Breaking Bad Walter was watching his brother-in-law get murdered by Nazis and kidnapping his newborn daughter. If Walter could still find a hint of redemption in his last two episodes, then the door’s not fully closed on Gene yet either. It’s darkest before the dawn, after all. It is gonna hinge on what happens in this mark’s house, though.
I’m still optimistic. The parallels between Walter and the Sussman cancer patient make me think we’re supposed to see both decisions as identical: Jimmy/Saul is “breaking bad” by choosing to exploit someone especially vulnerable. We’ve already seen how that choice ended once; whether this second go-round turns out the same remains to be seen.
I think the illnesses of Walt and Sussman are a parallel, but I think the real link is that both are short-sighted, bad decisions that Saul just can’t resist. Mike specifically tells him that Walt is bad news, just as breaking into Sussman’s house is obviously stupid.
I feel like BCS was saying there were off-ramps where Saul could have become something else. Good ones and bad ones. I don’t think Saul gets a happy ending but by now I’m much more invested in the Kim Wexler story.
I always liked Saul in BB. By the end, he was the only character I did like. But he was much more enjoyable because the show didn’t hit you over the head with the “is he good or bad” question.
I absolutely hate the fan obsession with “is this person worthy of redemption or not” and “when did they finally break bad.” Whatever. It’s a very black and white worldview that is not really supported anywhere by the show.
I’m sorry you find those questions annoying, but I think they are questions both shows are very, very interested in. Both shows are almost exclusively about characters who do far worse things than the average person you pass on the street. Yet the shows are constantly making comparisons between the morality of those characters, and then undermining our views about that. That’s where the emotional power comes from when, say, Nacho’s father talks to Mike. Mike’s regularly presented in the show as a “good” criminal — reliable, calm, not power-mad. Mike clearly views himself that way. But Nacho’s father challenges Mike (and us) about that notion. Mike is just a criminal, and his promise to avenge Nacho is no more honorable than any of the other violence we see in the show.
What could have transpired on that call that would make him so angry? If Kim had simply not been at the business or if she no longer worked there, he might have been disappointed, or annoyed, but not violently angry. Unless he was told something like she’s out on maternity leave or out on her honeymoon.
I feel it’s likely Kim got caught doing crimes in FL.
Agreed. I don’t think a happy ever after with a husband and kids would be something Kim would allow to happen to her. She is probably being naughty, having bad luck, or living as a masochist because she feels that is what she deserves.
That call wouldn’t take as long as his did.
She told him to fuck off.
Better Call Saul insists on showing us painstaking montages of everything … except his office being completely remodeled? Why bother showing an alternate office design then? Now it just seems like a continuity error.
Nah, the jump from Francesca’s “living room” waiting area to the hellish scene was one of the better Saul touches.
Don’t know about all that, but it did seem like some or all of the office might be a green screen.On the subject of scenery: are there really people who can’t clock the difference between the interior of a mobile home and an actual RV? Because I have very little experience with either and am watching on a very small scene, but the obvious issues with the angles and proportions in the “Crystal Palace” set really took me out of the show for a hot second. Even more so than the obvious juxtaposition of fake snow/and early fall ABQ weather in the last few episodes’ “Nebraska” scenes.
Eh RV size was fine for me… Jesse’s eye cream threw me off more lol
The scene in the phone booth reminded me really uncomfortably of the part in Bojack Horseman (spoilers)where Bojack reads Hollyhock’s letter and we never see its contents.Similar to when both Saul and Bojack could “see the Matrix”, blissfully unaware of how uncomfortable they were making the person they were with.
“Similar to when both Saul and Bojack could “see the Matrix”, blissfully unaware of how uncomfortable they were making the person they were with.”Huh?
There’s a part of Bojack where he does an interview to get away with all the bad shit he did, and boasts about how he nailed it, and says he could “see the Matrix”. Meanwhile Princess Carolyn is with him really uncomfortable with him.The BCS S4 finale used the same line when Saul and Kim were coming out of the hearing for Saul to get his license back.
I suppose so but it still feels like there was more to the phone call than just “I don’t want you in my life anymore.”
Maybe Gene is angling to get busted, he just needed a big enough pool of crimes to use as leverage in some sort of negotiation with the feds. All these businessmen are from all over the country – maybe Gene wants years and years of snarled legal troubles; cases at cross-purposes – for … reasons? He might even want Carol Burnett to bust him. The only reason I can think of this course of action is so that he gets put in prison somewhere near Kim, and she can visit every so often. But the phone booth call … it seemed pretty extreme for him to be talking to Kim directly. So, what news would Kim’s workplace give him that would make him freak out? Freak out and burn-down his current lifestyle? I have guesses, and none of them are happy.
The other thing about the phone call with Kim is that he seemed like he was calling a business that would have a pretty dead-end job. Wasn’t it a sprinkler service?
I immediately thought of Four Seasons Total Landscaping.
It could be a large-ish company especially in Florida. Lawn sprinkler installation, fire sprinklers, commercial building contracts etc. My worry is that she was caught embezzling.
I think you are on to something, my gut says Gene is doing all this on purpose, he may have even known about the father’s cancer death and set up that mark on purpose knowing Jeff’s brother would bail on it, setting up the garage scene where Carol Burnett gets nosey….this whole series has been about intricate and intentional schemesI don’t think this is as simple as Gene got emotional on a call with Kim so now he’s going kamakaze on himself, I bet this is a bigger scheme intended to flush Kim out of Florida and into his life again somehow
* The bank accounts are all over the country, presumably. All the marks live within a cab ride of Jeff’s route. So, even with a fake dispatch they can’t get too far out of Omaha – which lends a little to Gene’s intention of getting busted. If they had scammed like 6 guys and quit, yeah, they probably might never get caught. But 20-some? Anyway, another theory is that Gene is desperate to finish this job with the guy fighting cancer, because he’s one score away from hitting that exact vacuum cleaner number. What was it? $120k? 150? So that he can get vacuum cleanered over to Kim in FL. Or to buy Kim her own vacuum cleaner vacation.
The call can be heard better in the german language version and it is transcribed out there if you’re ok with spoilers
Werner Ziegler’s revenge!
I find I’m really digging the Omaha story line. The B&W gives it a subtle Film Noir feel, especially in the crime scenes. They even mentioned Hitchcock when Gene was telling Francesca where to find her money, the cement block shaped like New Jersey, or Alfred Hitchcock…My guess as to why Gene got so mad during the call to Kim is that she told him to never call him again, if she even came to the phone at all. While I’ve been hoping for a reunion at the end of all this, it may be that his crimes as Saul Goodman convinced her that he never learned a lesson from the whole Lalo affair and she wants nothing to do with him. Asking Francesca if he was alive was just morbid curiosity.I don’t think he’s going back to his Saul Goodman, Criminal Lawyer days. He’s trying to recapture his days as Slippin’ Jimmy McGill the small-time conman. He’s also desperate for money and the bar con is a way to make quick cash. He’s getting careless and associating with amateurs—the same mistake he made with Walter and Jesse.I think the chi machine is not only a callback to his Saul days, but also a necessity from all the slip and fall scams he pulled in his younger days. He really does have a back back.I knew I’d seen the actor in the first bar scam before. Also, the last one—the man with cancer whose house Gene breaks into—is Kevin Sussman from Ugly Betty and The Big Bang Theory.I think Marion is starting to smell a rat after the boys’ late-night conference in the garage interrupted her cat videos.
I dunno, does Gene have money problem? He has enough that he was willing to pay the Vacuum Salesman double when Jeff first approached him, and Francesca alludes to him bringing a not-inconsequential amount of money with him when he left Albuquerque. Also, there was an early Omaha scene, not referenced since to my knowledge, where Gene pulls a small bag containing a significant number of diamonds from some hidey-hole in his simple little home.The “money problems” angle just feels like Gene giving himself an excuse to become Slippin’ Jimmy once more, whatever the real reasons for that may be.
I agree with you that what he took with him to Omaha would likely be enough for most people. But I think Jimmy’s defining quality, which was amplified when he became Saul Goodman, is that there’s no such thing as enough.
As Saul would probably say, “Nothing succeeds like excess.”
Indeed. I think the thing that’s killing Jimmy right now is that he can’t show everybody how brilliant (he thinks) he is.
I don’t think he’s going back to his Saul Goodman, Criminal Lawyer days. He’s trying to recapture his days as Slippin’ Jimmy McGill the small-time conman.Yeah, the first part with that first guy especially reminded me of the old cons at the bar that Jimmy and his pal started out with.
Me too. He definitely feels like he’s in his element—just like the old days back in Cicero.
Learn anything from the Lalo situation? The end of the Lalo situation was partly Kim’s responsibility.
Yes it was. Kim learned about herself and made changes—quitting the bar, breaking up with Jimmy, and leaving town to try and make a new life.The new life Jimmy made for himself was to double down on being Saul.
I miss Kim.
Agreed. I’ve been missing Kimmy since the moment she walked out on Jimmy. Since then, the episodes leading us to the end of the BCS era, have seemed lackluster, almost pointless. Who cares about Gene? He’s a paler shade of Saul. Worse, Gene is venal, unlikeable on any level and sadly, not that interesting. One potential scenario could save the ending segments of the series. Gene and Marion murder Jeffy and hit the road in search of Kim. Sorry, no spoilers to share.
This is a weird take.
I think this episode underlined the struggle that’s been there since season one: Slippin’ Jimmy can’t help but come out. Saul might be a refined, devilish version of the same conman, but in the end, there’s a con man there, and he can’t help but con. It’s why Saul chose to pursue Walt instead of stay safe, and it’s why Gene can’t let go of the cancer patient mark. My wild guess is that Gene will get in some manner of trouble, and Kim will resurface to defend him in court.
Kim left law in NM. She seems to currently live in FL. How would she defend him in NE?
Didn’t take very long, did it?
He’s Victor now, by the way.
I don’t know, I didn’t find it too hard to believe that talking to Kim — and probably getting told off by her — was just that hard on him.
I think someone figured out that, based on the Nebraska football conversations from last episode, timeline wise we’re somewhere around 2013. That works because that’s about the last time I saw a pay phone. It’s all I could think about during that Francesc/Gene convo.
I had to look up when Madoff got caught to see if that was right for the timeline. I know Breaking Bad screwed up when Uncle Jack mentioned the operation that got Bin Laden, even though that would be years in the future from where the show was at that point.
The phone call with Franchesca was on November 12, 2010 per Sepinwall who knows both shows inside and out.
That was me, but people more knowledgeable about college football than me nailed the year down to 2010, which makes more sense story-wise as well.
Still weird they’d have working pay phones at a abandoned building in the middle of nowhere. Gene even showed what’d happen to them.And who stashed that money? Does Gene have money squirreled away like that all over? If he still has accomplices back there, he wouldn’t have to call Francesca.And was the fishing line really necessary? The drainpipe didn’t seem that hard to find, so the fishing line just makes it more likely to accidentally stumble across the cash.
I dunno. There was a working payphone on a corner of an empty lot on Rainier in Seattle for like 20 years.
Yeah, I had the same questions. It seems a bit odd, especially since he left in such a hurry. But maybe he took a risky weekend drive from Omaha to ABQ (888 miles) and planted in during his six month exile.
I think we have to assume that Ed the vacumm guy stashed it as part of Saul’s getaway package.
No. It was 2010. Martinez was a hotshot freshman in that year.
2010.
Kinja’s notifications link is broken. It just takes you to a kinja frontpage.
It’s working again now.
Ok, it’s definitely Jeffy’s mom who ends up turning in Gene. You don’t bring in someone of Carol Burnetts stature just to have her play a cranky old lady!
And she has a computer now.
It’s funny because I feel like she won’t even need that– she’ll probably end up pressing Jeff a little on it after what she saw, and I dunno if he’s going to keep “Gene’s” secret, especially after how reckless he’s getting with this last job.
Chekhov’s funny cat videos
After tonight’s episode, I am pretty sure the phone booth call to Florida is the Rashamon multiple points of view story that Rhea was talking about months ago. I can’t imagine Jimmy ever getting violent with Kim so there is definitely more to the story. Jimmy either wants to get caught or he HAS to get the money for something to get closer to Kim. Good on the writers for having the identity theft story. The timing is right about there. I remember when Sony got hacked in 2013 and my information was out there (Luckily I got protected) but there was also the Melissa McCarthy /Jason Bateman Identity Theft movie within a few years of the hack so it all makes perfect sense. Also, BRAVO to the writers for having Jimmy want Jesse to change the subject at the mention of Lalo’s name. Bob conveyed believable fright too. And great to revisit Walt and Jesse arguing about the RV and turning the lights low so I didn’t fixate on 40+ Aaron Paul. Oh I would be able to suspend disbelief, but I forgot for a moment.
If that’s the scene Rhea Seehorn was taking about, then we’ll be getting the other half of that conversation soon. As for the cops in the promo for next week, I think Gene makes an anonymous call when he discovers his mark is dead from an overdose. The man was already taking meds for his cancer which probably included something for pain, then he was drinking heavily on top of it. A dose of a barbiturate on top of that isn’t a good combo.
I keep hoping we get an episode of Kim’s perspective / life over the course of Breaking Bad.
A movie is more likely I think, a straight to Netflix thing like El Camino.
when he discovers his mark is dead from an overdose. That’s what I thought would happen as soon as we saw his pills.
Barbiturates plus alcohol is a deadly combination. But I really can’t see them having Gene/Saul/Jimmy causing another death.
I can see that but then again, I didn’t expect Howard getting killed.
When Jimmy got the phone call about the mark, that’s what I immediately thought happened, and had been waiting for that shoe to drop once the series of cons started.
Interesting you say this because, assuming the series hasn’t completely closed the door on redemption for Gene, I can actually see them setting up another parallel. Because stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a man breaks into someone else’s house only for one of the occupants to start choking to death in their sleep. Only the intruder can save this person’s life, he has every reason to just let them die, and no one will know if he does nothing. Walter White made one decision, and it led to him going further down a pit of darkness that eventually swallowed him. Maybe Gene will make a different decision that will see him begin to climb out of one?
Good point! Maybe Jimmy makes the decision to save the guy, despite the fact that it will start a cascade of long-delayed consequences that will land him in prison.Maybe that act buys him enough goodwill that he manages to get a shorter sentence.
Up until this episode, I’d been thinking, “He knows Lalo’s dead, how does that BB line make sense?” Now it does — he’s simply still that traumatized.
Woop woop fellow former Sony hack employee!
That thing floating in the sink that Francesca took the plunger to sure looked like a Teddy bear eye floating in a swimming pool…
Oh shit! Is Francesca in trouble??
I also think that as much as Breaking Bad fans wanted Walt and Jesse to pop up in Better Call Saul, I think it is safe to presume that the writers know that the majority of Better Call Saul fans want to see Kim and Jimmy reunited. This is my wish. And the fact that Jimmy is going by “Victor” again tells me that if Kim didn’t want to talk to him, then he probably would not use that name again since Kim’s “Giselle” was part of those memories. So either Jimmy needs to make money or he needs to get caught because he can’t stand his life anymore.
I am sure he is still spelling it Viktor with a K as well
Now with the cancer mark, and with Walt and Jesse before, Gene needs to take his own advice from last week.
Devin Ratray was also in another black and white Nebraska set production with Bob!
A couple of other cool points: his character’s name, Alfred Hawthorne Hill, is the real name of the late comedian Benny Hill, and I’m not sure if this was ever acknowledged, but I’m pretty confident that the character of Bill Oakley is named after the former writer/producer of The Simpsons (where Bob’s brother Bill Odenkirk also wrote/produced).
I recognized the Bill Oakley / William Oakley connection quickly and clearly enough that it almost feels like the name choice could only be intentional.(Or maybe I’m just a nerd. They made a movie about it. McBain played my father.)
I think I saw that one. Surprisingly uncomedic.
I found it interesting that his character was essentially another version of Marco: a big round guy using bar tricks to shake down credulous drunkards. And then there’s the cancer guy who reminds Gene of Walt, and Jeff and Buddy echoing Walt and Jesse.It’s like Gene is getting back at anyone other than himself that he can blame for breaking bad. It’s their fault. They wanted this. He’s feeding them all to the darkness to keep it from swallowing him: “It wasn’t me, it was Ignacio!”
How about shout out to Mike Nesmith and Tapioca Tundra. RIP Mike!
TY. Loved it.
Yes! Never expected to hear Papa Nez on this show.
My favorite sequence in the episode. Here is the song:
It’s a shame Nesmith didn’t live to see the song used in this episode.
So if I’m taking away one lesson from the Breaking Bad universe it’s: stay away from guys with cancer, nothing good will come from it!
I find Francesca unpleasant, but her loyalty is impressive. Anyway, I’m overthinking this probably, but I have a few questions about this week’s scheme, which seems to only work if a lot of convenient things happen:Not everyone drinks the same, and wouldn’t there be guys who cut themselves off before having too much? How does Gene close the spiked water bottles after he’s broken the seal? And what if someone simply says “No thanks”? What are the odds there will always be a free opportunity to tape those front doors? (I myself, always turn around to close my door.) Does no one live anywhere there might be a gate, apartment buzzer, or other tiered access?
To be honest, it seems like most of these questions can be answered with “we’re seeing the cons that work”; in pretty much any of these scenarios, the trio would just cut their losses and move on to the next mark. About the only one that would pose a significant enough problem that couldn’t just be walked away from is the opportunity to tamper with the front door, and that one’s explained by the fact that the whole point is that they’re getting the marks so drunk / out of it that they need to be helped into the house in the first place.
I’d assume they’d just move to the next guy if they hit any snags, but Buddy and Gene’s fight disproves this because the mere suggestion of doing so was out of the question.
I suppose, but that seems more frustration at someone getting cold feet / an inconvenient bout of scruples rather than an unavoidable hitch like a potential mark just not wanting a drink.
I wanna know why he’s so desperate for cash, that aborting one mark is out of the question.
The close up of the caps shows him putting on new ones that haven’t yet been opened. The reaction to the cancer patient implying that this was their first failure and they’ve been batting 1.000 was odd but he complains about the amount of labor put into the screening he did on each victim so it’s safe to assume he cased their places.
Gene/Saul mentions that they have not “batted 1.000″ – he specifically states, when berating Buddy for bailing on the cancer patient, of how hard it has been to find the right people to grift since so many have families, etc., and that it has been hard to find the right combination of rich, single, and lonely.
“The close up of the caps shows him putting on new ones that haven’t yet been opened.” Wait, huh? If they haven’t been opened, they are still firmly attached to some other water bottle, right?
Yea, I watched the bottle scene again and it looks like the seals are there, so thankfully that clears that up. Though it occurs to me that the cancer thing might have come up if he was screening these marks with such detail
Francesca was much more pleasant when she was working for Wexler / McGill. It seems pretty clear that all the shit Saul has had her pull has embittered her a lot.
Yeah Francesca is definitely a study in how prolonged contact with Jimmy/Saul is toxic.
Yea, it’s a soul-sucking life, working for Saul Goodman, haha. She can be as grumpy as she wants, but she’s a great person to call when you need a favor
In the scene where Gene fires the guy with the dog, Gene says something to the effect of “do you know the research required to find these marks?” So their living situations are all well researched. And Gene feeds the marks salty snacks and flatters their egos by letting them dazzle him with their financial knowledge to keep them drinking.
It’s reasonable to think that this scam will work every time they run it, and Jimmy himself hints at as much, but I’m not sure why they would show the non-catastrophic failures. If a guy just cuts himself off and goes home, why would that get shown?
I’m thinking any of those obstacles would mean an abort. That would be the smart thing to do. Gene is getting greedy and that’s making him reckless.
During the garage scene, Jimmy says that he cased those guys out for a long time before choosing them. So, I guess he found guys who liked to get drunk.
deleted
There’s no way we don’t find out the contents of Gene’s call to Kim’s Florida workplace, right?Hahaha. Like Lucille Bluth, this show gets off on being withholding.
“Look at me…Getting Of.”Lucille Blouthe
I don’t care. I don’t care what he did. I don’t even remember how bad he was in BB. I want a happy ending for Jimmy. I can’t imagine a satisfying conclusion any other way.
This is the only hint working in your favor:
Actually, it doesn’t. That quote comes from the last episode when Gene tells Marion that “Nippy” was returned safely.
Gene uses this line two episodes ago when explaining to Marian that he found his missing pet so don’t think it is an indication of what is coming. All of the teasers for the next episodes have been misdirects.
I’m the opposite. Once Kim and Jimmy went down the Howard destruction route – and kept going despite many opportunities to abandon – I was pretty much done with happy endings for them. Sometimes the bad guys win, but in Breaking Bad that really doesn’t happen. Everyone goes down. (Jesse eventually came out, but he was tortured first.) I can’t imagine what Jimmy or Kim could do in the last two episodes that would warrant redemption.
I agree. They need to pay some type of penance. I think Kim already is. She gave up the profession she loved. Jimmy is going to end up in prison, where he will spend his time doing the obvious, being a prison lawyer.
Kim and Jimmy were not looking to destroy Howard but just to make him miserable for being a jerk. They learned the hard way the lesson of “it’s all fun and games until someone really gets hurt.”
I disagree. They were trying to ruin his reputation and have people think he was a drug addict who cavorted with prostitutes. It was going to definitely end his ability to litigate the Sandpiper case. And given the public nature of the “breakdown” it was foreseeable that it would end his legal career too.What would he have at that point? I don’t remember what they knew about his marriage, but it seems likely it would cause problems there too. Even later, when given the chance to provide some comfort to Howard’s widow, Kim doubled-down on the lie.
It wouldn’t have ended his legal career but it was going to dent it. They even admit he’ll eventually bounce back. But it was going to be a big setback for Howard.
They tried to completely destroy Howard’s reputation, both professionally and socially, with everyone he respected. They were already going too far and they were doing it so that Jimmy could get his payout quicker.
exactly my take. The direction that Kim and Jimmy took with Howard was a bridge too far for my taste. If they both end up deceased it’s what they deserve.
That’s so fucked up
The worst kind of fan. Watching a show hoping the MC they spent so much time with gets their comeuppance.
One of the impressive things about the show (and Breaking Bad) is how it gets you to care for characters despite their many flaws. Kim and Jimmy can be very likeable and I really did want them to be happy together. The stuff with Howard was just the tipping point for me.
The worst kind of fan heroizes amoral monsters beyond redemption
I don’t think there can be one. He’s going to end up in prison at least. When you are a criminal, you eventually get caught. And he’s about to. I was actually thinking maybe there was some foreshadowing with the scene showing the grave hole in the desert and then Jimmy superimposed in it as they transitioned to the next shot with him lying down with his back machine.
Why does he deserve a happy ending? the ending he deserves is to be in prison with no assets at all.
A straightforward riding-into-the-sunset-together happy ending is, frankly, not on the cards at this point.An ending in which Jimmy/Saul/Gene finds a bit of redemption? I can still kind of see that. If Walter White can go out rescuing Jesse and mowing down Nazis then it’s not impossible for Saul Goodman’s better angels to lead him to find some redemptive grace as well. But it’s not going to be easy.
after using that Nilsson song a couple episodes ago, did anyone notice another Nilsson homage…the stoner tenant dude that Francesca is dealing with at the beginning was wearing that robe combo like Nilsson wore on Nilsson Schmilsson, and the Black and white cinematography really helped drive that point:
With how much cancer came up as a theme in this episode and that phonecall that sends him on a spiral of conning I do wonder now if Kim’s smoking habit got to her. It would explain the anger, in that if he hadn’t run and hid for so long he could’ve had a chance to see her again but instead she’s gone so he’s just on a self-destructive streak.That or she’s alive but doesn’t know where she is so is hoping to get caught with some but not too much attention that she hears of it?
I am not gonna miss these unbelievable stupid theories when the series is over lol
i really wish AMC could’ve done one of their ‘presented without commercial breaks’ for this airing. it clocked in at an hour and 20 minutes and the ads were absolutely killing the pace of the episode.i never expected a happy ending for saul but maybe just a neutralish ending? judging by the speed of his descent into slippin’ jimmy and carol burnett positioned to be the whistle blower it will likely be bad. anyways, great episode. i will truly miss BCS and the BB universe when this is done.
Commercials have always disrupted the quiet tone of the show. I think Better Call Saul will play much better in the binge format for future viewers than those that had to watch it live.
That is a benefit to AMC+ (that Verizon offered a year free of) in that there aren’t any commercial breaks for me so I can watch it uninterrupted.
This is why i let the show record on the DVR for a half hour or so (about the time it takes to get my kids to bed and then get them some water and then have them get up to get more water and then for them to spill the water and then to clean up the spilled water – so really 45 minutes or so) anyway, that’s enough time to forward thru commercials
Binged s1-5 on Netflix. Thank god
I watch BCS here: watchseriesstream.com No commercials.
I just start at 9:25 and breeze right on through. No commercials at all other than the seconds it takes to FF.
Yeah, I pretty much did the same. I have it set to DVR and got home like 20 minutes into the show, so it ended up working out perfectly.
Get the app and do premium. When I signed up at my new house with Verizon FIOS they gave me a free subscription to AMC Premium and it’s been very nice not having to deal with commercials.
I almost never watch the live airing of the show just because of the commercials. I speed through those momentum-killers!
No commercials on AMC+!
Like a few folks have mention, we usually just watch the next day on AMC+, ad free, but these last episodes we’ve been watching on the AMC live stream (also via AMC+), just to avoid spoilers – the internet is not safe!But wow, you are so right, the ad spacing just sucks the momentum right out of the show. Towards the end, it was like 2-3 minute of show, then ads, then show – it was so disruptive I actually rewatched the episode this morning.
I wonder what the ending would be if Carol Burnett weren’t a fan of the show, and Robert Forster were still alive. Different, I expect. I’m not sure what a neutral ending is. These are the possibilities:-dead-jail-escapes and starts a new life like Jesse did, except we’ve been watching a whole show about how that’s impossible, so scratch that. They’re obviously doing something with Kim too. She’s either dead, disappeared, or refuses to see him. I don’t think “She comes back to Jimmy and her love redeems him and makes him Jimmy McGill again” is in the cards.
Hopefully no commercials for the finale.
we were never going to get a neutral ending. Jimmy/Saul’s whole deal is that he is constantly chasing something just out of reach, which inevitably leads to his downfall. (it happened with Chuck, with Howard, with Kim, with Walt & Jesse, and now it’s likely going to happen to Gene and the Nebraska gang.)
Yeah I think Carol Burnett will use her computer to discover Saul
We get it on Netflix here the following day, thank goodness, so no adverts at all.
Place your bets people!My money’s on: This series of events (combined all the outside his isolated safe Gene life calls he’s making) lead to the feds coming down on him. Who shows up with them? Kim.Though whether she helps or damns him at that point is a mystery. Either way, I very much doubt it’ll end with the two of them driving off into the sunset.
“For Bill Oakley…Jimmy/Saul’s shenanigans with helping to free Lalo Salamanca proved so disillusioning that Bill turned to the defense attorney himself”
You don’t know that, though? Saul never realized this during Breaking Bad’s run, so we can assume Bill didn’t change sides until *Breaking Bad* and not before it.
The reference to Ozymandias in the Walt/Jesse scene was just great.
What was that? I must have missed it.
The poem, to clarify. He mentions not wanting people to find them buried in the desert in a thousand years or something similar, which is exactly what happens to the Ozymandias statue in the poem.
Ah, right, good catch.
Worth noting; both episodes are third to last in their series.
I only knew because of the captioning, but hurray for the late Mike Nesmith having a song used for one of the show’s signature montages.Some lyrics — and this is during the scheme, after the Kim phone call:
And one more time the faded dream
Is saddened by the news
It cannot be a part of me
For now it’s a part of you
I think they should have had made the Omaha scenes continuous. Maybe there could’ve been a couple flash-forwards at the beginning of the series, but otherwise I think they would have been better if we’d been “living” in Omaha for a bit before we got to him breaking bad. As it stands, it’s been two episodes of scams. I think it would have felt less rote or repetitive if we’d seen him really settling in to life for more than 5 minutes at a time.That being said, I like the idea that he takes himself down. When the series began he was always making bad decision after bad decision. He was his own worst enemy in that regard. It was kept out of a good job and what lead him to “take down” Howard for no good reason and why he ultimately wound up in Omaha. It should be what ultimately gets him caught (or at whatever low point he winds up).
Im not saying what they did was right but Howard was a dick to both of them for most of the show, so it’s not for no reason
I guess this writer (understandably) never watched Big Bang Theory. The cancer mark was the comic shop guy.
Of course they watched it. Their entire formula is to take B actors and give them such high quality roles and lines that they become giants of acting!
I recognized the actor, but could not place him.
Me too (as I posted before seeing the point had already been made). It was killing me for 24 hours before I finally realised who he was.
I thought it was Paul Giamatti, because I’m a genius.
And he was really good. Good sitcom acting is no small feat, but it a particular thing. Sussman fit right in to the also particular style of BCS.
I loved how for just a moment, it looked like Gene was going to drink his drink, choosing not to go after the cancer guy. And then he puts his hand over it again.
Worth noting; This episode, the third to last, contains a blink and you’ll miss it reference to the third to last episode of Breaking Bad, Ozymandius. When Saul presses Walt to try the RV again, he says, “…or are they going to find us buried in a sandstorm a thousand years from now?” Gotta love a show that continuously rewards an audience for paying attention.
I think Jimmy is destined for a long stint in prison, where he will of course spend time helping out fellow inmates as a “prison lawyer”.
I dunno if we will hear what happened to Kim. I am dying to find out what she’s up to and to see her in the show again but I also wonder if it might be like that one episode of BoJack where only he gets to read Hollyhock’s last words to him- It would suck though because she feels like such an important character to the show (I cared more about her than Saul by the time this season started) that it would feel like a huge letdown to have her storyline just end where it did. I get that the show is literally called “Better Call Saul” not “Better Call Kim” but still lol
I also just went back and reread AVClub’s review of the last ep of BoJack and they said apparently El Camino did a similar thing with Jesse writing a letter to Brock in that movie so it wouldn’t be unprecedented. Although it would be heartbreaking
Part of me is thinking that this was an exceptionally well made episode with a great conclusion of Gene both stepping over another moral line AND acting recklessly to do so. But part of me felt a little cheated that so much time was spent on showing the scam play out, complete with montage, one week after an episode devoted largely to another scam, complete with montage, when so few episodes are left. It felt a little self-indulgent. Admittedly the portion of the running time that wasn’t devoted to the scam was incredibly effective.
Neither of the scams have really been all that interesting, either.
I fell asleep during the montage, woke up and rewound, then fell asleep during the montage again lol.
What’s the significance of the new VCR screen intro?
Most of the intros this season have been VCR quality, but anything representing the Gene timeline this season has gone to the blue screen error
Could be wrong about this but in one of the first Gene flash-forwards (maybe the very first one), they show him watching old tapes of his commercials as Saul. So maybe the point is now that the show has caught up to Gene’s present, there are no more tapes for him to replay.
Ah, I like that take.
I don’t know if the producers know this, but the VCR blue-screen It’s the same motif as a notorious gay porn series.
I never noticed this myself but learned it from the BCS wiki page: As every season except for the last has 10 episodes each, the title credits for every season’s corresponding episode number would reuse the same image. However, beginning with the second season, each of the episode’s title sequences would continue to decline in picture quality by intermittently flashing black and white. The length and quantity of black-and-white flashes would increase with each passing season, causing many to theorize that this symbolized Jimmy McGill’s storyline gradually transitioning to that of his post-Breaking Bad alter-ego Gene Takavic, whose scenes were entirely in black and white. The title sequence for “Nippy” is notable as the entire sequence breaks down to nothing more than a blue background with the show’s name displayed, this is also the first episode to take place completely after the events of Breaking Bad.
The reason for the declining quality of the intro is likely that Gene is wearing out the tapes. He’s watched them over and over to the point that they won’t even play anymore.It fits a few different metaphors, but also with his actual itch to get back into the game. Now that the tapes are unplayable, his only way to relive his time on top is to go scam more people.
Alfred Hawthorne was a real person. He was better known by his stage name: Benny Hill.
I’m sure Bryan Cranston had no interest in shaving his head again, so kudos to the writers for using the ski masks to fix that issue.
Someone here wrote that it is weird how much time we spend watching the minutiae of the scams, when the writers could be moving the plot along instead. I agree but that is what the show is and always has been. How long did we watch Slipping Jimmy set up that fake Rolex grift? If you want to see who wins the World Series, you’re going to have to watch a lot of details of ball-throwing.
I wish the flashback had all been conducted with Jessie and Walt’s masks on — just to give an FU to all the BB nerds (which I am).The flashback worked well, though Aaron Paul was the one actor who was unquestionably older. He’s denser and his voice has dropped a couple octaves. That’s inescapable — he was pretty young when that show was in its original run. His aging was bound to be most pronounced. I loved watching Gene’s face as he both lured his bullying marks and visibly reviled them. Jimmy is an angry man. For all his breeziness, like Walter White, deep down he’s driven by rage. Shout out to that vintage digital camera! I read somewhere it’s 2015 in the flash-forward era. Is that right?
according to most comments I’ve seen, it should be November 2010, early 2011 depending on how long the identity theft con went on.When Saul was preparing to get vaccuumed, he told Francesca to call him on November 12th, 3:00 pm.
“I wish the flashback had all been conducted with Jessie and Walt’s masks on”Hahaha awesome
I encourage you to look up how significant one octave is in voice terms, to say nothing of two.Aaron Paul is not a contrabass.
*intentionally misses point, adjusts monocle, begins typing*
I’m not sure ‘dropped a couple octaves’ is a literal statement.
I just love how Gene/Saul/Jimmy is literally addicted to the sleaze life, and can’t stop himself from breaking into that house, even when they don’t need to, even when the risk is much higher than the reward.
I’ve been embarrassingly dense seeing the Omaha Gene timeline as a denouement of Saul’s post BB fate. The series premise was presented as a prequel on what made Saul Goodman, Mike, Gus and interconnected drug cartels tick prior to the rise of Heisenberg. The entire BB timeline Saul made no indication/effort confirming Kim’s existence or fate, even when fleeing ABQ after WW and Gus went up in flames. I thought the Omaha events are the tipping point when both Jimmy and Gene ceased to exist, leading to Saul’s return to ABQ.
I hear you, S6 begins with Saul’s grandiose home and office unilaterally packed away by authorities. I didn’t pay much attention to the sports chatter time window since BB took place 2008-2013 and Saul was introduced in S2 (~2010). So I saw Gene’s present location and Kim’s disappearance as both pre-BB issues – fallout from Gus coldblooded, cautious method of reducing risks after Lalo’s (but not his entire empire) demise but Mike’s personal moral compass spurring him to surreptitiously squirreling at least Jimmy away, unlike the fates of the German engineer or Nacho.So I saw this ‘surprise’ insertion of WW and Jesse beginnings and El Camino both future character closures, not backwards glances of Omaha Gene’s timeline.
I like how Breaking Bad has an episode called Better Call Saul where we first see the character of Saul in that series, and now Better Call Saul has an episode called Breaking Bad where we first see the characters of Walter and Jesse in that series. To quote George Lucas, “It’s like poetry, it rhymes.”
We don’t have to hope that there was a nice sum of money for Francesca. She opened the pouch and it was chock full of Benjamins.
It’s taken me nearly 24 hours to work out where I know the cancer suffering scam victim from. I am now ashamed to admit I know him from The Big Bang Theory.
It’s taken me nearly 24 hours to work out where I know the cancer
suffering scam victim from. I am now ashamed to admit I know him from The Big Bang Theory.
The way to redeem yourself is to claim that that episode involved his character suffering from cancer, and being scammed by the Big Bang Theory nerds.
My username getting plenty of recognition now
I noticed that, as Francesca was leaving her tenants’ apartment, there was a Guitar Hero Live case on top of the kitchen cabinet. That game came out in 2015, but the timeline seems to be in 2010. Xylophone, fired for that blunder, etc.
I just rewatched Blue Ruin and Devin Ratray plays the buddy who collects guns and provides our hero with his arsenal.
Has this reviewer ever seen a Vince Gilligan show before? Show, don’t tell. We’re not meant to know the nature of the phone call, just his reaction to it. In no way did the scene imply “Kim no longer works here” by his furious reaction, it implied “This may very well have been his last shot to speak with the love of his life to convince her he’s not a scumbag, and he failed”.
[SPOILER maybe?] A pod I was listening to attributed to whomever from the show (I wasn’t listening closely to know who is commenting publicly on what) that we are going to hear that conversation, so presumably on the same timeline from the other person’s POV, which gives me a pretty good inidication of what next week’s focus will be (along with the title).
I’m thinking that cancer guy is Gene’s endgame here. Maybe didn’t start out that way (likely thinking he wanted to buy another disappearance), but now it checks all the boxes for him. “The bad kind?” Gene might have had a bit of conscience here, but the question is really “terminal?” Didn’t really get the answer he wanted, so then “should you really be drinking”? Now, definitely terminal. Gene knows this is his guy. He has his new identity lined up (decent physical match too), gets to bypass the Disappearer and keep whatever he stashed away from this con. I think it is why he was so eager to get back to cancer guy’s house, regardless of who does it, and why he was so quick to fire Buddy, who was actually damn good at his job . This con is over. Time get out of Omaha and on to Gene 2: The Pursuit of Kim. What could possibly go wrong?
Oddly – or I guess really not – with each BCS episode I look forward to rewatching Breaking Bad and then Saul. I suppose the joins aren’t seamless (as is sometimes pointed out here) but it’s good enough for me.What I like about watching Jimmy/Saul during his rise is that … well, okay, he’s a savvy lawyer, and might even be brilliant, but his idea of what a lawyer is is just so… sleazy. Bus advertisements, strip mall offices, his flashy wardrobe …and we got glimpes of his Trumpian excesses during that scene when the feds are carting all his stuff away. What Jimmy considers a good, successful lawyer is so far from Chuck’s idea, or HMM’s, or anyone’s really. But he seems to think it’s the way to go. It’s a tragedy, though one of his own making, that Jimmy relies on shortcuts and scams to augment his law career.. and it’s telling that, in the latest episodes, he leans more towards the scams, even as Gene. I wonder if his tantrum in the phone booth is a reaction to Kim just saying she’s gone straight and wants to live a normal life. I don’t give up hope that Kim will survive this whole thing, but.. they’re really not the ideal couple.
I think Kim flat out rejected him on that call and it just drove him off a cliff. He doesn’t need the money. This is all pain for having nobody and the decisions he made with his life. I feel he always felt at least ONE person loved him, and that was Kim..and what happened to Howard “was” their fault, but it was just a tragic coincidence of things coming together and Lalo showing up just when Howard did..etc… Kim was racked with guilt and left Jimmy, but it was clear she still loved him.But now knowing what he became? I bet she told him she did not love him anymore and he was a monster. His recklessness this episode is actually kind of a way of trying to commit suicide. By cop or just get caught and end it. He was soo careful in all the Omaha flashbacks and now he is up on a stage singing Karaoke and scamming with two people he barely knows who knows who he is. For the first time, I think Saul might die in the end. The cancer guy paralleling Walt and leading Jimmy to ruin is a pretty strong clue. Next week I am pretty sure is a Kim episode.
FWIW based on this episode I have my theory on how the series proceeds. Briefly, Jimmy/Saul/Gene is not exonerated — his story concludes by identifying him as a fundamentally destructive Mephistophelian figure who corrupts and destroys what he comes in contact with, as Chuck judged him to be.
And specifically, the conversation we do not hear when he calls Kim is essentially about that. She left him after the Lalo/Howard catastrophe with the declaration that they were bad for each other. Having been away from him for some years, she understands more fully how much he harms others. She is the unique character in this story who, unlike Chuck, Howard, Walt, Jesse, Mike and countless others, was able to see — before it was too late — the danger of Saul’s influence, and escape.
This is the revelation that sends Gene/Saul into his fury, and which is leading him further down the path of self-destruction.
I love BCS and BB and Saul Goodman / Bob Odenkirk, and I’m totally endeared to his character. So this has not been my attitude in the past regarding Saul — it’s just how I think the show will conclude.
I don’t think of this as a reunion of Gene and Saul. He isn’t returning to his Saul Goodman days. He’s sliding back into his Slippin’ Jimmy days. Both Saul and Jimmy were grifters, but Saul was an inside man who could land big fish (like the Sand Piper settlement). Jimmy is just a small-time shill pulling short cons for whatever a guy has in his pocket.
So… are we not even bothering with the penultimate episode of the entire series?!?!?!?!?!?
Honestly, you’d think this would be an episode you’d be up for.