Better Call Saul's penultimate season kicks off the lawyering career of Saul Goodman
TV Reviews Recap
We’re back in Albuquerque, folks, with a defined end point for the first time. And it’s good to be back. These first two episodes are relatively quiet, seemingly more in the mode of setting us up for this season’s storylines than launching us straight into the action—and that may be the reason AMC is airing them on back to back nights, after what they hope have been a couple of weeks of straight Breaking Bad binging for their audience.
I say “relatively quiet” although there are at least four bravura sequences, spread over these two episodes, that are bound to get any fan’s blood pumping. The first comes right out of the gate, in the black-and-white Omaha framing story. Spooked by the close call at the hospital, Jimmy prepares to run—but no threat materializes, even after days of careful police-band monitoring. And then just when he feels safe enough to go back to work, “Gene” is definitively made by Jeff at Omaha United Cabs, the driver who picked him up at the hospital in last season’s opener “Smoke.” “Say it! And do the point,” Jeff exults. But Jimmy responds by calling Ed at Best Quality Vacuum! Presumably these scenes were filmed at the same time as Robert Forster’s appearances in El Camino. I thought after watching that movie that this was Forster’s last work—a lovely goodbye. So when he takes Gene’s call, it was like finding something you didn’t know you had from a friend who’s now gone.
And when Gene decides that he’s going to stay and “fix it myself” instead of running again, I had mixed emotions. First: That’s exciting for the last two seasons, because we have no idea what fighting looks like in his current situation. Can he somehow become a lawyer again, or use the law in his fight? That Omaha incident in the season 3 premiere where he yelled advice to the kid being detained by the mall cops suggests as much. But my second emotion, I confess, was sadness. Gene’s not getting back in Ed’s van—so that’s a wrap on Robert Forster. We should all stand and applaud.
The second of these sequences in the opener, “Magic Man,” shows Saul Goodman at work. I never get tired of this. Bob Odenkirk is just so appealing spinning his rat-a-tat bullshit, and you barely recover from one great tossed-off line before another one is on top of you.
We’re watching Jimmy’s scheme to build up his client list after getting his license back under his new name. He’s got an in with Albuquerque’s less savory citizens thanks to his burner phone side hustle. So he’s going to take what remains of his flip handset inventory and Santa-Claus it to them, speed dial preprogrammed to call Saul. As he explains it to Kim, “They already know me, I know them, what’s not to love?” Next thing you know, he’s set up a tent next to a lowrider car rally, with Huell manning the velvet rope outside. “You occasionally, through no fault of your own, find yourself in a donnybrook or two,” he pitches, before inviting them to see Huell for a testimonial about the increasingly sky-high number of years he was facing in prison before the “magic man” got him off scot-free. “Just press 1, speedy justice for you!” When all the phones are gone, he falls back on the angle Kim nixed as beneath him: 50% off all non-violent felonies.
As much as I love watching Jimmy do his thing, though, I’m less invested in his downward spiral than in how it’s going to affect Kim. She keeps trying to nudge him into at least the margins of responsible lawyerdom, but he’s changed his name and his game; the briefcase monogram JMM now will have to stand for “Justice … matters most,” and Saul Goodman is vying for the title of World’s Second Best Lawyer (Again). At the courthouse, Kim’s trying to put in the work on the straight and narrow, but it’s hard to resist Jimmy’s methodology when it seems like the right means aren’t going to produce the just end. She gives in to his scheme about lying to a client to scare him into taking a plea deal from the DA, and then goes into a stairwell—reminiscent of the one she used as her makeshift office in season 2’s masterful “Rebecca”—to reflect on what she’s become.
And speaking of characters I’m deeply invested in, here’s Nacho in the middle of the battle between Lalo Salamanca and Gus Fring. Some of the lower-quality product that Gus put into play has gotten out to the street, and the summit meeting about it just feeds Lalo’s curiosity about this mysterious Ziegler and Gus’s construction project. Worst of all, Mike has to shake hands with this amoral bastard, the man who offed poor Fred at the TravelWire without a second thought. “You keep your goddamn retainer,” he spits at Fring after getting the debrief about Ziegler’s wife and the hiatus in building the lab. But Mike’s all the way in it now—no keeping his hands clean, no making organized crime a little safer for innocent bystanders.
At what point can you no longer protest that your behavior just reflects a role you are playing, not who you are? Kim, Mike, and Nacho are all facing that existential question. But in Omaha, vowing to clean up his own mess rather than paying Ed to vacuum him up represents a shift for our protagonist. The “myself” that will fix it can’t be Gene—that role will be shed. Will it be Saul? Or will we see all the way through to James Morgan McGill?
Stray observations:
- I hope Chuck will come back in some flashbacks. I miss Chuck.
- Jeff the taxi driver’s sweater is a hate crime specifically against me.
- My favorite ancillary character in this episode is the lookout at the drug house, who tries to intimidate an oblivious Lalo by pulling up his t-shirt to show a gun in his waistband.
- When Bolsa tells Lalo that he needs to stop antagonizing Fring, who is “all business,” Lalo makes an allusion to Gus’s mysterious past in Chile: “What about Santiago, was that all business?”
- Sometimes justice needs a little extracurricular push, as we see when Oakley. the chip-loving deputy district attorney, gives the vending machine a surreptitious shove to get his snack.
- Good to see the college film students are still getting that Jimmy McGill swag. Here they “ambush” Oakley in the courthouse hallway so Saul Goodman can swoop in and deliver his line about how “every man, woman and child in Albuquerque deserves speedy justice at a price they can afford.”
- Most satisfying moment in this season premiere? Definitely Mike punching that weaselly Kai. Mike doesn’t cotton to people pretending to be hard cases, nor to the insinuation that Werner deserved his fate. The worker who bitterly complains that Werner was worth fifty Mike Ehrmentrauts notably gets zero punches.
- “This is why this works. I go too far, and you pull me back!”
231 Comments
Great use of Lee Morgan’s The Sidewinder as Saul is handing out free phones
THANK YOU! I couldn’t place that song, and it’s been bothering me.I’ve know I’ve heard it live locally a lot, or at least references to it, but I couldn’t think of the name or where it came from. I wasn’t even sure it was a cover until I heard it in that scene.
And you can’t exactly google an instrumental. I need to get Shazam or something.
If you have an iPhone, Siri is connected to Shazam if you just ask her what song is playing
The song is also identified in the subtitles.
Gotta love Make-Up Girl’s “serious newswoman” look with the big hair.
She’s a genuinely kind soul and if a horrible fate befalls Kim, I will salvage what joy I can in thinking makeup girl has a good life.
Speaking of appearances—was it just me or has Jonathan Banks lost a LOT of weight since last season? Hope he’s ok….
Wait, she was in on the scam?
You cannot possibly be asking that seriously.
I’m sorry for forgetting the faces of minor characters of a show that hasn’t aired in almost two years.
Hahahaha her look was a little on the nose. She looked like a newswoman from the 80s but she played the part well and the kid has moxie
I finally caught up with the show again last year after various things had me push back S3-4 and El Camino. Feels good to be back in the concurrent viewing. And next episode is right around the corner.What happens to Kim has people more concerned than what happened to Ahsoka Tano prior to Revenge of the Sith. Guess we’ll see how it goes.With some of the recent How To vids they’ve been releasing I was wondering if they were still gonna do some Employee Training videos. Seems they released the first one during the airing of the episode. I’m guessing they aren’t gonna be releasing the rest on YouTube as the season goes along which sucks given the geo-restrictions on the AMC site.RIP Robert Forster.
Well we at least know Ahsoka is alive at that point, which is more than we can say for Kim.
Well, we didn’t necessarily know that for sure at the time.
But my second emotion, I confess, was sadness. Gene’s not getting back in Ed’s van—so that’s a wrap on Robert Forster. We should all stand and applaud.
Amen. RIP, Robert ForsterKim’s trying to put in the work on the straight and narrow, but it’s hard to resist Jimmy’s methodology when it seems like the right means aren’t going to produce the just end. She gives in to his scheme about lying to a client to scare him into taking a plea deal.
As I wrote in a comment from last season in a later episode where Kim lectured Jimmy that they should use their gift of graft only for noble causes . . . there are no noble cons. Just cons and to try to differentiate/justify one over another is hypocritical. This is something Jimmy knows to the core. I’m a bit confused about the B&W cold opening. After replacing his plates with Missour plates, Gene drives to Grandma’s K & I Diner. That’s a real restaurant and it’s and then turn back to Omaha where he called Robert Forster? Most satisfying moment in this season premiere? Definitely Mike punching that weaselly Kai. Mike doesn’t cotton to people pretending to be hard cases, nor to the insinuation that Werner deserved his fate. The worker who bitterly complains that Werner was worth fifty Mike Ehrmentrauts notably gets zero punches.
I dunno’. It was Mike’s soft touch and laxness that allowed Werner to escape. It happened on his watch. Kai deserved what he got, but wasn’t Mike punching him just Mike pretending to be a hard case? Why didn’t Mike react to the other German telling him Werner was worth 50x what he was? And about half-measures . . . sure Mike tells Gus to shove his retainer, but we all know Mike goes back. The mythology of Mike is crumbling.
Mike took offense to Kai calling Werner soft in trying to suck up. The other guy knows Mike killed Werner and just punched the guy ahead of him, but he still said his peace that Werner was a good man and didn’t deserve his fate. Mike respects that.
Also … bare minutes after Mike told the work crew that they should never, ever talk about what happened to them, here’s Kai deciding he really needs to talk about what happened. He should be relieved he got off with just a punch in the face.
The first rule of underground meth lab construction is you don’t talk about underground meth lab construction.
That’s how I saw it too. One final chance to emphasise the point about keeping quiet.
Amen. RIP, Robert ForsterI can tell you deeply cared about this actor that you’ve never met, and by demonstrating this you also appear to be an incredibly deep and humanistic person who understands the artist greater than anyone else.I’m trying to tell you that it totally worked. You’ve impressed everyone and showed that you’re an amazing person with your tremendous effort of humanity.
Mike hates Kai, as does the audience. We’ve all wanted him punched for a long time, and that was the last chance to do it.
I would totally argue there are noble cons. It’s just a form of vigilantism.
I know Jimmy is a con artist but he also shows a genuinly empathetic nature; even to the people he grifts; and to his clients who he’s not really trying to rip off. Sure he’s here to make money; but I like how he seems to have some kind of respect for those people nobody cares about; that’s why he’s so good at doing his saul goodman shtick. Also you’ve got to admire the dedication he puts in everything he does.
I don’t think the mythology of Mike is crumbling – we are seeing how he learned his lessons.
BB and BCS both use ABQ locations to stand in for other states — for instance the mall Gene works at. I think we’re just meant to read it as an out-of-the-way diner in the middle of nowhere, unless and until we get additional information that shows otherwise.
I think what we saw is Mike realizing that he is not a good man, that he is nothing but a murderer and a lackey. During that moment of contemplation after being told that he is worthless (in essence), Mike is coming to terms with who he really is.
I think what we saw is Mike realizing that he is not a good man, that he is nothing but a murderer and a lackey. Mike’s been pretty adamant that he knows he’s a bad man since season one: his speech to Daniel about “good and bad criminals”, his talk with Stacey… He knows he’s a bad man by default since he’s a criminal and that once you commit to even a single crime, you have to accept what you’ve done.
What I think he might realize is that he’s not as unfettered and practical as he thought or needs to be. Mike is pretty callous in Breaking Bad until he bonds with Jesse in season 4, which ends up doing him in on the general. What we might have seen was step one of Mike finally turning off any pretense that he can abide by any sort of code, which fits as a parallel story to Jimmy’s.
Did he drive to ABQ
The server who tries to offer him lunch is credited as Kansas Waitress. I’m sure they used a real Albuquerque restaurant for the setting because that’s where they shoot, but in-story it’s supposed to be in Kansas.
BB and BCS often use locations in ABQ to portray other states (the shopping mall Gene works at, for example) so I think we’re just meant to assume it’s a Nebraska diner in the middle of nowhere unless/until we see indications otherwise.
I’m a bit confused about the B&W cold opening. After replacing his plates with Missour plates, Gene drives to Grandma’s K & I Diner. That’s a real restaurant and it’s in ABQ. Did he drive to ABQ and then turn back to Omaha where he called Robert Forster?It looked like Saul knew he was ‘made’ and decided to change his license plate and flee temporarily and see if he was being followed/chased by cops. He sat in the diner for several hours and after realizing that no cops were after him, he decided to return.
Forster knew he was dying. I’m sure he was happy to record enough scenes to portray Ed for the rest of the series. With savvy audio and video editing there can still be a few more phone calls and a possible escape plan for Gene.
Two reasons why Mike punched Kai and not the big guy:1. Kai did deserve it, even though he was right about Werner. Mike also needed an example and Kai was the best candidate.2. The big guy was also right and the comment hit Mike like an cold ice pick in the heart. Also, the big guy would have kicked Mike’s ass.
Here’s a weird thought that’s probably not actually what they meant in story. Jimmy/Saul/Gene was tensely reading newspapers at that diner. Maybe it was meant to be in Albuquerque and he drove there (with Missouri plates) specifically to look at newspapers etc. to see if there were any stories about Walter White’s lawyer there?
Welcome back, Donna! So glad you’re still doing this.
Great opening episode and welcome back BCS and Donna!Mike telling Gus to keep his retainer fee was cold blooded, don’t ever change Mr. Ehrmantraut (and you never will). Can we see another series that tells us about the young Gustavo Fring in Santiago? I’m going to hope for that forever.Lalo Salamanca is going to die, die, die, and I can’t say I’ll be sad to see it.
If Lalo does die, Saul won’t find out, as he thought it was possible that Walt and Jesse had been sent by Lalo.
Do we know it’s the same Lalo? Cause Lalo is short for Eduardo and it’s an extremely common name.
They wouldn’t introduce someone called Lalo this late in the series about Saul’s past unless it was a reference to the Lalo who we know troubled him in his past. The odds of the same guy being terrified of two separate guys called Lalo in the space of a four-year period, especially when they’d likely need to be in the same family which is the source of the vast majority of his terrifying experiences, are astronomical, and it wouldn’t be satisfyingly narratively consistent or referential of the past unless they were the same person.It would be an incredibly lame twist for the show to suddenly reveal that the character with what to Western ears is a strange name is actually irrelevant and the real monster is another guy with the same name who will show up later, especially when even now there are only 22 episodes left.
Yeah, you’re probably right. I didn’t remember the context in which what you said happened. I thought maybe Saul thought Lalo referenced Walt and Jesse as clients (BB was so long ago), but now I remember you meant when they were threatening Saul in the desert, with masks.
Seriously, two Lalos? *snide chuckles*
“Ned” as shorthand for “Edward” never made any sense to me – glad to know the Spanish version has an equally illogical nickname.
‘Ned’ makes sense. “Mine Ed” and “Thine Ed” become “My Ned” and “Thy Ned”.
[Similarly, women called ‘Elizabeth’ or ‘Eleanor’ used to be known as ‘Nell’.]
…it’s ‘Ted’ that makes no sense! [I’m guessing babytalk reduplication from Ed to Ded, with irregular strengthening of D to T, possibly influenced by phrases like “it’s Ded” and “his Ded”, where the S would devoice the following consonant… but I don’t know.]
Like “Bill” for “William,” or “Dick” for “Richard,” or “Jack” for “John?”
Bill for William is the least egrigious of those three by far. Jack for John makes no fucking sense whatsoever. It’s the same length, they’ve only got one letter in common, and they sound completely different. Fuck whoever came up with that one.
Still he was pretty clear when Gus was taunting Hector that his entire family was dead so he must have been dead by then. He wasn’t at the pool party so he would have to be out of the picture by that point.
Can we see another series that tells us about the young Gustavo Fring in Santiago? I’m going to hope for that forever.I can’t see that happening, since it would be entirely subtitled from Spanish. Can’t see AMC going for that.
Not to mention that fact that Fring looks so much older now than he did when first introduced.
Well, I didn’t imagine they were talking of a prequel series about young Gus Fring starring 60-year-old Giancarlo Esposito.
I hand you NARCOS MEXICO to consider. Great show, 95% in spanish, and doing well in almost all international markets for Netflix.Demographics be changing, yo!
Haven’t seen Narcos Mexico yet, but one thing I very much liked about the OG Narcos was that for the most part, they respected the characters’ countries and respective accents. I was laughing at the actual Chilean accent of the Chilean character. A detail the vast majority of U.S. productions miss, even ones as meticulous as Vince Gilligan shows. Of course, a big exception was that Pablo Escobar’s actor is Brazilian and didn’t speak Spanish, but they did an actually very good job in teaching him a Colombian accent and not just “generic Spanish”.
No, just a wordless montage of Gus dropping rebels from helicopters. That would be enough. Hopefully, with a young actor. I don’t really like the de-aging stuff.
As intriguing as a series based on young Gustavo would be you might not like his character too much as they have alluded that he worked for Chilean fascists back in the day
Gus was, probably, one of the army guys who took up communist students in helicopters and then dropped them alive over the Pacific Ocean. Remember, that Gus told a story where he tortured a wild, unthinking animal to punish it for eating from one of his trees.
This was the first time I saw the connection between Gene flipping out in his lonely living room with the police scanner and Chuck & his anxiety problems. Were there hints before? Nothing good comes of McGill brothers trapped and alone.
Never stopped to think of that parallel either.
Oooooo- good call! I bet this will play out in upcoming Gene scenes.
Indeed. In many ways Jimmy is living like Chuck did—in a prison of his own making.
Points to you and my wife for drawing this parallel.
And points to you for being one of my favorite players throughout the 1980s!
RIP Tony. “His glove is like a bowl of silk.” – Vin Scully
The better give Rhea Seehorn the Emmy so rightly deserves this year. If not, I’m burning that fucking award show to the ground
100% but (I could be wrong) I don’t believe she’s even been NOMINATED for an Emmy! Insane. She’s so talented. I would love to hear more about her career, and see where she goes next.
Not sure if your last line there is about Rhea or Kim, but it’s valid either way.To be honest, the drug stuff is entertaining in its way, but I’d happily watch a five-year series of Kim just being a corporate lawyer during the events of Breaking Bad, but with no connexion other than occasionally seeing something on TV…
I meant Rhea (seriously, SUCH a fan – and I keep thinking how has she stayed under the radar this long in an industry that is super hard on women who are over 30?) but obviously also Kim. I’m a lawyer and I pretty much want to be Kim (despite being a non-white dude).
I think examples like Rhea demonstrate what I’ve come to suspect: there’s a huge number of talented actors in the world, and a huge number of people who keep getting prominent acting jobs, but these two populations have remarkably little actual overlap… it seems almost as though it’s a pure accident that occasionally a showrunner will hire one of the people who’s actually good at their job…[In the UK at least, the population of people who can actually act seems mostly to be supported by live theatre (and the occasional murder mystery). So every so often someone will turn up on a show, they’re brilliant, I think “who the hell are they and where did they come from!?” and it turns out they’ve been an award-winning stage actor for thirty years. I remember someone informing me 15, 20 years ago that Mark Rylance was the greatest actor in the world… but it was another decade until Spielberg happened to, I don’t know, bump into the guy in a lift or something, and suddenly (after 10 films in 25 years!) everyone knows who he is and he’s in awards contention every year…]
The better give Rhea Seehorn the Emmy so rightly deserves this year. If not, I’m burning that fucking award show to the ground
Really strong opener. Donna’s right about everything in the Omaha sequence, especially Robert Forester. What a moment seeing his weathered old face and weary eyes framed against the shadows of the vacuums on the wall. Have to suspect we get major clues this season as to who specifically is after Omaha Gene.
Did I miss something or didn’t Mike kind of quit working for Gus? The season preview has Gus asking (presumably Mike) to soldier up so I took it that Gus will be down a man in his match with Lalo. Anyways, I think Casper’s remark to Mike hit about Werner hit him really hard. Great point about rationalizing behavior from Mike, but I wouldn’t mind seeing him struggle with the aftermath of murdering Werner last season. I don’t think Mike deserves catharsis, but his guilt should be manifest at some point.
Saul’s tent was priceless. What a great carnival-esque establishing shot. Magical realism. I kind of hope half of the season is low stakes for Jimmy as he gets his footing in the legal game. Kim’s leaving Jimmy by the end of the season, right? Or does Kim get roped back in with a Chuck or HHM subplot even if her and Jimmy split? Tell you one thing, she’s going to help Gene.
What a show though. 5th season premiere of a prequel series that is confident in itself and is honest with its audience. It laid out the stakes of the season: Gus/Lalo, Saul/Kim, Mike/Gus, etc. Even a rube like me knows what to expect. Hell, there are episodes of other shows where I know clue what to expect next- and that’s not a compliment.
If this season delivers big time, is it time to start rating “Better Call Saul” as a better show than “Breaking Bad”? I know some have already, but start to take that seriously? Judging from the fact that the Breaking Bad season 5 premiere was quite a bit different around here, I’ll reserve judgment on that question for now.
Great review Donna!
Anyone wanna take bets that the cabbie who made “gene” say he was “better call Saul” out loud twice….is gonna bite Saul in the ass?
POV camera shot down the water spout. Yep, BCS is back!And we got a lovely montage, too, watching Saul spit game to potential clients in that tent. The ringmaster of his own circus.
POV from inside the vending machine was less conspicuous but still very cool.
Beat me to it! We’re all just cogs in the machine.
Couldn’t help but see parallels in Gene’s unwillingness to take the Vacuum guy’s out with Kim’s client making a similar mistake. It’s also interesting to contrast sad, beaten Gene with the unnervingly flippant Saul. It’s going to be hard to like Saul (which is the point) as he spends these next few seasons becoming who he was in Breaking Bad (a man amoral enough to suggest they have Badger killed without any moral objections). I don’t know if I’ll ever quite buy that a guy as decent as Jimmy would be that far gone but I’ll be fascinated to see them try.
I think we are 6-8 years before the first episode of BB, so Saul has been down that dark path for a while now…
I appreciated that this pretty specific year gap was shown through Kim’s client playing an original Game Boy.
It is tricky, because Uncle Jack says “Whacking Bin Laden wasn’t this complicated”, which places that episode after May 2011.Jane Margolis’ dad says she turns “27 next month” and her DOB is April 1982, therefore the pilot (on Walt’s 50th birthday) is 2008. His 52nd birthday is 2010, so there is a bit of a writing error on when the last season takes place (2010 or 2011)Season 1 of BCS is May 13, 2002, based on Jimmy’s paycheck. Season 3 sets a date of March 4th, 2003 when Howard gets a check from Kim.Season 4 sets a date of Jan 12th, 2004 because of Jimmy’s PPD being completed then.Season 5 picks up right after his hearing, so we should still be in 2004, so BB is approx 4-5 years from Walt’s 50th birthday (If it is 2008 or 2009 due to the Bin Laden line) Walt’s 51st birthday is not until season 5 (“Fifty-One”).Having a OG Game Boy in 2004 might look out of place, it was a 15 year old system at the time.
That actually threw me because the Gameboy was released in 1989! I was 14/15 in 2004 and had a Gameboy Advance at that point. Of course, I wasn’t a young, criminal father, so I think that might have been not just a way to date the scene but also a way to root the character, economically-speaking.
I was guessing about 2 years, and that the Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul world will collide in the final season.
Some of the lower-quality meth that Gus used to replace what Werner stole has gotten out to the street…i don’t recall Werner stealing any meth, and thought Gus put some bad product out on the street for the purpose of having an alibi for what Werner was up to in and out of the construction project
Yes, it was definitely a cover story. I just rewatched all of season 4 last week to prepare for the premiere this week, and Werner did not steal any meth from Fring. It was used as a cover story to explain why Mike and Fring’s other men were chasing after Werner – though by Lalo’s response, he clearly didn’t buy the story in the slightest.
Yeah, it was 100 percent just a cover story. Also, to get technical, the story wasn’t that Werner stole some of the cartel’s meth, because at this point in the timeline the cartel doesn’t sell meth. Gus’s story is that Werner stole two keys of coke, and he cut the rest of the shipment with meth to hide the shortfall.
Gus said Werner stole 2 keys of product. The product is meth. Hector was bring meth into the US in ice cream trucks before Mike tried to frame him. There’s a scene with Don Eladio where it’s pointed out that Gus’ meth operation makes more profit than Hector’s.
No, both men are trafficking cocaine, not meth. That was the basis of the initial conflict between Gus and the cartel: Gus and Max wanted to persuade Don Eladio to expand into meth, but Eladio refused, killed Max, and continued to traffic in cocaine alone. Gus has a long-term plan to force the cartel into the meth business so he can take over production with his own meth superlab, but he’s only gotten as far as to seize control over the northern end of the cocaine distribution chain from the Salamancas.
He hasn’t yet persuaded them to embrace his preferred product—which will presumably come at a later point when the superlab is closer to being finished, and probably involve engineering some sort of problem with cocaine distribution or demand.
So in last night’s episode when the 50% guys are trying to get their drugs out of the drain pipe and the say” Where’s our glass?” you believe they are talking about cocaine?
No, I just don’t recall them establishing that that the cartel had transitioned to meth distribution prior to last night’s episode. Maybe I missed some references, or maybe the transition just happened off-screen prior to the main timeframe of the series. (shrug)
No, he didn’t…
Yeah that got me too. I just researched all of season 4 and don’t recall Werner stealing meth. Besides, it’s just not his style. I took it as Gus’s cover story.
Wouldn’t it have made more sense for him to just say that Werner stole the meth, and they recovered it? As opposed to putting some bad meth on the street, in the hopes that Lalo would realize it?
no the idea was to indirectly provoke a meeting and make Lalo think he pushed Fring to confess; and to make it the least suspicious possible as to the real role of Werner. Without the bad meth he can’t casually call a meeting just about Werner; it would have been dead obvious he was hiding something. And even still Lalo doesn’t buy it.Also he doesn’t “hope” he will realise it; Nacho is tasked to casually hint at it so he knows he’s gonna find out.
I think you’re right. Gus wanted that meeting with Lalo, not sure why yet. Maybe just to get a read on him.
Exactly! I made the same point above.
Aha, yes — thank y’all for the correction. I’ll edit for posterity.
yeah; if it wasn’t obvious it’s a scheme; during the episode Nacho specifically tells Fring or his goons he planted the bad drug; and hinted to it at Lalo as they instructed him.
That wasn’t Victor talking to Lalo & Gus, it was Juan Bolsa 😂👎🏻
Whups! Thanks for the correction. I’ll fix it!
I’m glad to have Donna back for BCS because it increases the number of people capable of professional writing at AVC by one, for a grand total of… one.That being said, you’re a bit rusty out of the gate, Donna. The fourth paragraph is full of mistakes and misunderstandings:We’re still in the cocaine era. Gus is using trucks to ship cocaine across the border, splitting it with The Salamancas, and some of it has been cut with baby laxative (intentionally as a ruse). It’s also why Lalo can tell by sight which has been stepped on and not, he has all sorts of experience with coke. We won’t see Meth take over Fring’s distribution Product until the SuperLab is finished 😉 So in Gus’ fictional narrative, Werner stole two kilo’s of coke.“Worst of all, Mike has to shake hands with this amoral bastard” So, one completely immoral sack of shit had to shake hands with another one, then? I guess I didn’t remember that Donna also drank the koolade about the notion that Mike has a consistent moral code or is less of a piece of shit than any of the other drug enforcers, but okay. He’s really not, but okay! “You keep your goddamn retainer,” This didn’t make any sense to me, honestly. Not just Donna’s take but even Mike’s. I don’t really understand how Mike sees himself as superior at all in this point of the show. He can’t make organised crime safer for innocent bystanders while he’s connected with a drug cartel that already threatened his granddaughter!!! I don’t understand this cognitive dissonance where Walt endangered his family makes him an irredeemable piece of shit, yet Mike doing the same means he adheres to his moral code.At this point in the timeline Mike already had an entire career as a shitstain corrupt-cop, murdered two cops for petty revenge (instead of taking responsibility and trying to change the system), got a truck driver murdered after he stole his drug money, and killed an Engineer with cabin fever in cold blood. Of course there’s also all the collateral damage like Travelwire (interesting how you don’t hold Mike accountable for that, and neither does Mike, of course), everything from the Breaking Bad era (like ditching his granddaughter alone in a public park), and the fact that he works in an illegal industry that ruins lives and communities. “Moral Code” Anyhow, I’m baffled how Mike has the cojones to act like Gus roped him into something that he wasn’t prepared for. Mike demanded this job and completely, 100% shit the bed. Like, metaphorically-speaking, “Mike The Pro” soaked the fitted sheets, the top sheets, the blanket, the pillow cases, the pillows, the bed frame, the mattress, the boxspring, and the fuckin’ duvet with liquid diarrhea and then complained to his drug kingpin boss about having to clean up after it. I don’t understand how Gus works with Mike after this + Mike’s arrogant attitude.
Also: Why in the Fuckosphere is “Gene” paying for an “Adapter” when the vacuum cleaner salesmen sold him a shitty vacuum that broke down in probably less than a year?
the vacuum only works for so long if you don’t do the maintenance. that’s on jimmy/saul, not the salesman. it was very clear from the start that jimmy/saul did himself no favors by plastering his face all over a big city – billboards, buses, tv ads.
But “maintenance” is what you do to service a machine (such as a vacuum adapter) after you buy it, not before. When Saul purchased the vacuum part for Gene, Ed knew everything about the precise circumstances that it was needed for, including all the signage debris all over the floor that requires a very robust vacuum.Other than his outburst at the mall telling the thief to get a lawyer, Gene used his vacuum part as directed. He didn’t pop it out of the vacuum and use it to reach for an emergency alarm switch. At one point Gene had a mild attack but that wasn’t his fault.So since Ed knew the type of carpet and cleaning that the vacuum part would be used on, and it broke down in about a year after being used as directed, the failure is on Ed. Maybe Ed should have sold Saul a more robust part like those ones manufactured in New Hampshire or Alaska.
or you could understand that the world is sometimes freaky small. i have randomly came across people i’ve been out of contact with for years while in other cities and even countries. weird coincidences happen. on the flip side, i was born in the same hospital, in the same room on the same day as my 3rd cousin – just a few hours apart. i’ve never met him (family beef from long before i was born). the world is a weird place.short of radical plastic surgery, there is no guarantee that jimmy/saul would go unnoticed for the rest of his life. and even then, sometimes radical plastic surgery backfires:
I have a grasp of the world, it seems that Ed the vacuum guy doesn’t. Perhaps you should address your points to him.
You can’t really lay that on the Vacuum man…a new identity won’t be bulletproof and render you invisible. I totally forgot that the taxi driver in last season’s premiere was from ABQ…a crazy coincidence is all.
Also^2: I’m predicting now that Lalo’s body will wind up spending time in Gus’ Cooler.Whether or not his body winds up encased in or behind the Superlab’s south wall seems like too much of a long shot to lay money on, but at least you heard it here first.
Oh, I’m super rusty! Tried to check everything I was unsure about, but it’s the things you are *not* unsure about that get you in trouble. Thanks for the correction. I appreciate the different perspective on Mike, too — will have to think more about whether his perception of himself as a pro is really out-and-out self-deception, but you make a compelling case.
For fun, you should go back and read over a few of your early Breaking Bad reviews-It took me a while to realize that “Ray” was actually Hank!
I don’t really understand how Mike sees himself as superior at all in this point of the show.Mike doesn’t see himself as superior, he knows he is an amoral piece of shit. It is for this reason he doesn’t want to take the money. He is probably thinking that if he takes the money, something he doesn’t deserve, the result would be that he accepts that he is a horrible person and is okay with it.
I was thinking about a different take from mine upon rewatch and I’d agree afterward that it wasn’t superiority he was showing as much as fear and shame. I suspect there’s also a little bit of Mike’s “professional” pride taking a hit after he fucked up his “YOU HAD ONE JOB!” duties. After destroying his family and his deeply shameful end to his career as a corrupt cop, I think the only thing he had to hold on to was that he was just really skillful and mindful at his work (whether paving a playground or extralegal activities), and now it was laid bare that Mike had mentally slacked off and let more bad stuff happen.I think the idea of Mike taking the money from Gus after his failure was simply driving the point home that there was nothing else about him that mattered or that anyone could count on him anymore. Gus was paying him despite his massive fuckup. I think it was just salt on Mike’s wound.Remember the look Mike gave the cops in the first (maybe second) season when they wanted him to rat on Tuco? One of them puts a hand on Mike and says something to the effect of “we know you’re scared of the big bad drug dealer” and Mike’s face showed an expression of contempt heretofore unseen.My point is that Mike most fears losing the regard from people he respects that he’s a capable and clever operative. He’s a perfectionist who did really shitty contract work, and he doesn’t’ want to be compensated for it. He also doesn’t want pity/silence-money after Gus said he’s giving pity/silence money to Werner’s widow.I also think Mike’s really afraid – for himself and his family – of being indebted by taking pay after shitting the bed. He ought to be.
We’re still in the cocaine era. Gus is using trucks to ship cocaine across the border, splitting it with The Salamancas, and some of it has been cut with baby laxative (intentionally as a ruse). It’s also why Lalo can tell by sight which has been stepped on and not, he has all sorts of experience with coke. We won’t see Meth take over Fring’s distribution Product until the SuperLab is finished 😉 So in Gus’ fictional narrative, Werner stole two kilo’s of coke.I thought it was coke at first too, but then the words the characters said clearly indicated it was crystal meth and not cocaine.
What an incredibly snotty first line. I guess I didn’t remember that Donna also drank the koolade about the notion that Mike has a consistent moral code…Koolaid handed out by who? The writers of the show? I don’t see much wrong with feeling about a character the way the show wants us to feel about him. Sure, in the real world someone like him would be a terrible person, but we’re talking about an entertainingly unrealistic piece of crime fiction here.
What an incredibly snotty first line.What an incredibly bitchy first line.
Thanks for the correction, what you said about the AV club staff in that line was bitchy rather than snotty. I shouldn’t have been so polite about it.
Careful, you’re quickly pivoting from bitchy to cunty.
I see, so you can casually dish out shit, but if anyone calls you on it in even in the mildest terms, you get all aggressive. You’re the worst kind of hypocrite.
You use this word “hypocrite.” I do not think it means what you think it means.
You think your sneering condescension towards others is fine, but if anyone dares to be even mildly critical of you, you attack them for being “bitchy” or “cunty”. In other words, you hold other people to a much higher standard than you hold yourself. Hypocrisy.
You called me a name first and I simply dished it right back to you for fun. I didn’t complain about you doing so (because it didn’t bother or threaten me) and I’m not complaining now, just stating a fact. You’re projecting, sweetie. You see others as complainers and bitch about standards and unfairness because you’re the actual complainer.Happy to help your personal growth, but I’m bored now. Toodles!
I didn’t call you a name. I pointed out that you said a snotty thing – because you did say an undeniably, willfully snotty thing. Your response was basically “calling the thing I said snotty is a bitchy thing for you to say” which is pretty fucking pathetic really.
Thanks for the link though honey, have a lovely evening! Try not to get too worked up before bed though, okay? Byeeee!
Jeez
THANK YOU. I am so tired of people buying into Mike’s self-serving rationalization sh*t. Not to mention the sexism inherent to his chivalry…
You say “The fourth paragraph is full of mistakes and misunderstandings” but your itemized list identifies precisely one “mistake or misunderstanding” (the cocaine vs meth thing). The rest of your list is a criticism of Donna’s piece because she didn’t write something consistent with your opinion of the episode. Your attitude seems kinda lousy. But I chalked it up to cool, whatever. Sometimes we are all imprecise in the way we write our comments. But then I read on and saw your later comments where you call someone “bitchy” and then “cunty” when they mildly criticize your post. And I realized my first reaction, that your attitude is kinda shit, is spot on! I should always trust my first instinct.
I am a month and a half late, but I am here for this takedown of Mike. I cannot begin to understand why the BB/BCS writers of the fans think he’s superior to the people around him… much less compelling enough to justify his role as second lead on BCS.
Lee Morgan’s “The Sidewinder” as the score to the circus tent lawyering was a standout song choice in a series and universe that has had more of those than I can count. An absolutely perfect meld of character(s), scene, and song.
Okay, Mr. Magic Man. I also did not hear you say, “Big McThankies from McSpankies” to the customer.
1. Werner never stole any meth… that whole scenario was a setup by Gus to put Lalo’s suspicions to rest. He now has a believable explanation as to why they were chasing down Werner in the first place.2. Lalo’s reference to Don Eladio killing Gus’s “boyfriend” finally confirms that Gus is gay!3. Please give us some backstory on Gus’s background in Chile! I’m still intrigued by Hector’s reference to Gus as ‘Big Generalisimo”…
1. Oh, thank you! It’s what I thought, but then Donna’s review gaslighted me!2. Did we still need confirmation of that? Didn’t we get a flashback about it?
Not sure it was a confirmation that Gus is gay. They’re extremely cruel, hateful cartel members, and killing his male partner and referring to him as a ‘boyfriend’ seems like something they’d do no matter what the relationship was.For my part, I think Gus was gay, but I like that they’ve left it ambiguous because it fundamentally doesn’t matter for who he is. They killed someone he loved, and one way or another, that destroyed him.
I don’t especially care if they confirm whether Gus is gay or not, but I’d really like to know what was up with the signs of kids at his house when Walt came over for dinner. What does family dinner at House Fring look like?
Yeah, I was curious about that too. I wonder if the writers weren’t sure what they were doing with the character at that point, or if he was intentionally misleading Walt.I honestly can’t remember how overt it was that he had a family though, I just remember having the impression.
Maybe he was gay AND had a wife and kids. Maybe they were part of his disguise – or maybe they were actually a loving family.
Or maybe he was gay and had a kids but no wife – maybe the kids are adopted, or are his new partner’s biological kids.Or maybe he had a boyfriend but wasn’t gay – maybe he was bi.Or maybe he didn’t have a boyfriend, just a close male friend that the homophobic cartel assumed (or pretended) was his boyfriend.Him possibly having had a boyfriend at some point, and him possibly having had children at some point, are more or less entirely unrelated subjects.
Signs of kids? I don’t recall this, can you elaborate?
Gus invites Walter over for dinner. There are toys in the background as well as a kids table. Gus also talks about his kids to Hank’s boss when they have dinner. It might be true or it might just be more of Gus’ discipline with is fake identity.
Thanks for the memory boost.
When Walt came over for dinner, Gus says, “This is a Chilean dish that I love but I never get to make it. Kids won’t eat it.”There were also toys and a child’s table visible in the background:There’s been some speculation that Gus staged all this to manipulate Walt, but it’s never been followed up either way.
It would make sense for Fring being used to being closeted, because he could never have become a high level police or army officer in Pinochet’s Chile as an openly gay man.
He mentioned how his family didn’t like his cooking (or something along those lines) to Walt when he came over that night too.
Yeah Gus might be gay but that was more in keeping with Hector’s inability to imagine 2 men having that close a bond without being gay that actual proof.Also his explanation was believable to Juan Bolsa but Lalo made it clear with his south wall quip that he knew Gus was lying.
Lalo is the scariest Salamanca so far because he seems to mix the recklessness and cruelty with an actual intellect.
These are bad observations.
Please give us some backstory on Gus’s background in Chile! I’m still intrigued by Hector’s reference to Gus as ‘Big Generalisimo”… Do we really need more background on that? Fring did dirty work for Pinochet in Santiago, then fled to Mexico under a new identity after the dictatorship ended.
Why did they show a BB marathon, instead of a BCS one? Or did I miss it?It would’ve helped to get back up to speed after so much time to at least show the last couple episodes. I thought I must have just forgotten Werner stealing drugs, which seemed unlikely.
Is TWD still such a great lead-in that they needed to squeeze the premier in between a TWD marathon and Talking Dead without just giving it it’s own mini-marathon lead-in tonight?
Not in my opinion. I too wondered why they didn’t run a BCS marathon. I guess I appreciate the characters story arcs, and I love how Gilligan & Gould run the show. I don’t get upset if I don’t find something out until the writers explain it. I trust Vince & Peter.
1. Yeah, I messed up on that one. I’ll fix it — thanks for the heads up.
True, they had to have a plausible story for Werner in order to keep the lab a secret. Lalo is a smart, violent psychopath and isn’t easily fooled. He’s also a perfect foil because he’s just a methodical and chillingly cold blooded as Senor Gustavo Fring. He knows something is up, he’s just not sure what yet. He knows there’s more to the construction project but is willing to wait until he has all the answers.As for Gus’ sexuality, I always assumed he and Max were much closer than just business partners. It explains the lengths to which Gus goes to exact his revenge. Bolsa is right in that it’s all business with Gus, and killing Max made wiping out the Cartel very much his business.I don’t know if I need any more of Gus’ Chilean backstory. It would be interesting, but I already know everything I need to know about him.
A dude like Lalo with all that ‘machismo’ will throw out gay innuendo as standard degradation. It doesn’t confirm anything, although I thought it was already confirmed.
Thank you for 1, because I thought I was misremebering something for a minute.I don’t think the boyfriend comment confirms he’s gay. I took that as he was calling him his “boyfriend” in that locker room way guys call any two close men boyfriends to say they’re gay as a mean joke.
The 16-month wait is finally over. I certainly hope the gap isn’t that long again for the last season.Do we think we’ll see more of Gene this season, or is this another case of him only appearing at the beginning?
I think we won’t see more of Gene this season, but that was too big a buildup to not have at least a full episode in the last season. I could even see a Memento style fade to color in our future.
I agree with your last sentence only. Gene will be back a number of times this season.
Ooh I’ll bet you. Meet back here either on the season finale or when Gene does in fact appear if I’m wrong?
You are on for 20,000 AVC bit coins!
Aw yeah! I’m saving up to buy that ‘A.A. Dowd. was Right!’ t-shirt!
Bah! Now I’m mad! I would’ve bought that shirt on a whim.
Winner
I’m definitely VERY curious to see how they play around with the time jumps in these last two seasons. It’s just close to impossible to predict what’s going to happen with the Gene storyline.
Of the four main characters (Jimmy, Kim, Mike, and Nacho), the only one whose story is getting a shrug from me is Mike’s. As far as I can tell, he’s essentially unchanged from his appearance in Breaking Bad—with the exception of his reservations about working with Gus, which we know will eventually be resolved. I don’t think there are any big revelations about his character on the horizon, and so I don’t get much out of his scenes except the small, eternal joy of watching Mike be Mike.
That was my impression in earlier seasons but on a rewatch there’s a subtle erosion of morality for Mike that mirrors Jimmy. He may have been a dirty copy, but prior to last season’s finale, he was never a murderer of innocent people (as far as we know) and had gone out of his way to not kill even people who definitely deserved it.The Mike we meet in Breaking Bad is mostly a spent shell of a man, still good at what he does, but fully amoral (except perhaps about Jesse). The guy in BCS isn’t there yet.
Don’t seem to recall Mike going out of his way not to kill Tuco, but what do I know.
I don’t know how to say this without seeming like an ass, but there was a multi-episode plot about how Mike avoided killing Tuco. Nacho hires him to kill Tuco and instead he baits Tuco into beating him up in front of a cop. It’s overt that this version of Mike wasn’t going to kill anyone, not even Tuco, for money.
I’m trying to think if he has actually ever outright killed anyone for money.
Some of Gus’ people in season 4 of BB. Poolside he strangled a guy plus I think during a truck heist…
Yeah you’re right the pool party was definitely a planned job. The truck heist like most of Mike’s kills was him reacting to someone else trying to kill him.
I mean he was literally seconds away from killing Walt at the end of season 3
But he didn’t so it’s not relevant to this discussion
It’s pretty obvious he had no qualms about doing so and it’s pretty safe to assume he’d done similar things in the past. No one as careful as Gus is gonna send someone to do a hit unless he was certain they were up for it.
It’s not like he had a moment of conscience and decided to spare Walt.He let him live because Walt forced him inti a position where that was his only option. Mike was also a willing accomplice to Gus who was a sociopath drug kingpin who ordered the murder of children.He told Walt to have Jesse killed towards the end of season 3 and was going to break Saul’s legs so he could do it.People are just too blinded by their hate for Walt to see the moral failings of any character who opposed him.
That’s not a good look for you. There’s literally a multi-episode arc about this exact thing.
Mike does too many ‘good’ things in Breaking Bad for me to agree that he’s an amoral shell of a man. Besides mentoring Jesse, he’s shown to have a loving relationship with his granddaughter. He gives Lydia a second chance despite her ordering a hit on him because, it’s implied, he doesn’t want to hurt her daughter emotionally. Finally, he’s ultimately killed because he refuses to allow Walt to kill his men despite the threat they pose.
Maybe so! I like this point of view because I like Mike, but I keep thinking about how in Half Measures/Full Measures he recommends Jesse be killed.
Yeah I think killing Werner was the big turning point for Mike
Thank you for this, because I can’t remember anything about what happened after a year and half.
So glad to see that Donna is doing the recaps.Here’s to another great season and piecing together puzzle together!
I think that Jimmy is hiding in Omaha NOT because of the events of Breaking Bad but is hiding from whatever is going to happen in the next two seasons of BCS.I missed the recap at the beginning of the episode and it had been so long since the last season I had absolutely no idea what was happening for a good fifteen minutes. I had to read wikipedia recaps with one eye on the episode.
Set your DVR right now son!
Saul took a Vacuum Man relocation because of the events of BB, and he specifically mentioned Omaha (and Cinnabon!) to Walt. Not saying stuff from BCS won’t come back to haunt Gene, but everything falling apart at the end of BB was definitely what prompted his disappearance.
That’s been my big question all along: If you don’t have to know Breaking Bad to watch BCS, how are they going to explain the events that led him to Nebraska?
Yeah I’m pretty sure Saul/Jimmy took the vacuum cleaner salesman route because he was a huge part of one the biggest drug running operations of all time and an accomplice of two men who committed multiple murders and were involved in the murders of multiple LEOs, not because of the relatively lowkey events of Better Call Saul
I guess I should rephrase that. I believe that whatever is causing him to freak out in these black and white segments (his collapse at the mall, freaking out over his cover being blown) has more to to with the events of BCS than it does Breaking Bad.Think about it this way – at this point, with Gene in Omaha, he would know that Walter is dead, Lydia is dead, Hank is dead, the white supremacist gang is dead, Jesse is gone, and Skylar wouldn’t be saying anything to the cops. It’s unlikely anyone is actively looking for Saul, considering that it would be difficult to directly connect him to anything.But when BCS started the very first episode had the b&w open with him worried about the guy staring him down in the Cinabon, going home, looking out the window, and then pulling out the VHS tapes of his commercials which led into this part of his past.BB may have put him into hiding, but the events of BCS are keeping him there.
Regarding Kim, I am beginning to think that there won’t be a dramatic conclusion to her character. I think she is more likely to split from Jimmy/Saul than compromise herself.And I’m still wondering if Saul will married twice before the series is over, or whether the “my second wife” comment in BB is just Saul giving a line for the purpose of solidifying his identity as Saul.
I assumed both marriages were during his wilder Slippin’ Jimmy days.
This was eating at me after the opening “Gene” sequence, so I feel like leaving this here.Jeff at Omaha United Cabs — the guy who recognizes Saul — is played by character actor Don Harvey who’s had roles in MANY things over the years. Including this driver character in THE UNTOUCHABLES.Creepshow 2, Eight Men Out, Casualties of War, Die Hard 2.Most recently, he played a cop on THE DEUCE.IMDB link for reference:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0367496/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t215
Thanks for the detective work. I see that he was also Snickers (one of the Candy Bars) in “Hudson Hawk”!
“he played a cop on THE DEUCE.”
That’s where I recognized him from! Thanks for saving me a Google.
As much as I love watching Jimmy do his thing, though, I’m less invested in his downward spiral than in how it’s going to affect Kim.I agree. I’ve personally felt that Jimmy’s transformation into Saul isn’t as tragic/dramatic as Walt’s transformation into Heisenberg… but the one thing that increases the stakes for me is the presence of Kim’s character. I care about her character and his relationship with her — and the obvious tension is that she’s nowhere to be seen throughout Breaking Bad. So a large part of the pervasive sense of danger is, “What happens to her? How do we lose her?” Which, I think, is very clever.Personally… I’m hoping she doesn’t die. I’m hoping the “Gene” portion of the series gets expanded and we find a better/happier “ending” for Jimmy/Saul/Gene.[SPOILERS for Breaking Bad/El Camino]I feel like Walt got his best ending. He would have never been satisfied as a regular father raising his children— he got to go out with guns blazing, secured money for his kids, never spent time in jail, etc.“El Camino” basically gives Jesse his own series finale, allowing him to work through his own loose threads and get on a road toward what seems like a much healthier place.There’s a pattern of “happy” endings in this universe and I’m hoping they find one for Gene.
Was there a pattern of “happy” endings before El Camino, though? I remember thinking Jesse’s resolution in the movie was welcome new ground for an often much darker universe.
My take is that Walt DID get a happy ending. He went out in a blaze of glory. Killed his enemies. Got money to his family. It’s perfect for him. There’s no way he could have ever lived a normal life.
He got the best ending he could under the circumstances he’d backed himself into, but I don’t think that’s really a “happy” ending, even from his character’s perspective. His chance for what he’d consider a happy ending disappeared when he lost control of Grey Matter. There was no redemption for Walter White, and he knew it: He gave up his family for his pride, and even that work then slipped away from him.
I’d agree that he got the best ending for the circumstances he backed himself into. But I just feel like he was so fatally flawed, there was no path to a “happy ending” for him. It’s been a while since I’ve watched it but there’s some part in the middle of the series (I think) where he manages to extricate himself from the business. He’s just a normal dad again, away from danger, and he sees some kids buying supplies to cook meth at a hardware store — and the old competitiveness in him fires up, and he heads back into the drug kingpin fray. His ego and pride messed him up with Grey Matter and he continued to get in his own way throughout his life. He would have found a way to destroy himself if he were the head of Grey Matter being interviewed on Charlie Rose.
Cue “DLZ” by TV On The Radio
“This is why this works. I go too far, and you pull me back!”
So much power in that one sentence and the way Jimmy misunderstands Kim.
I really love this show so much.
Among the many levels to the amount of misunderstanding in that sentence is just how thankless the job Jimmy assigns to Kim is.
Werner didn’t steal meth. That was Fring’s cover-up story, which apparently you bought (though I’d bet the sharp eyed Lalo did not). Please please please if you are going to do these reviews be accurate. I mean, check your shit like you would a medical article. When you float something like this out of the gate you lose credibility.
I love this show and all about suspension of disbelief, but why would they give him job in a mall. Why wouldn’t he have some home based computer job?
There weren’t that many of those even 15ish years ago when this is happening
Indeed. In fact, there still aren’t all that many “computer jobs” that don’t require you to go into an office (despite what the spammers tell us).
As I watch the series on Netflix, years later, I love the timing of this debate about “home computer jobs” in late February of 2020.
Point taken, but job at a mall? Fine, Clark Kent’s glasses aren’t fooling anyone either, but I still enjoy Superman.
You misunderstand, Saul wasn’t in Federal witness protection. He’s on the run from the law. No one is going to spending time looking for the right job for him.
Did anybody else notice that Mike made the two troublemakers drive alone? Kai was a weaselly shit and Casper (iirc) was clearly not as intimidated away from saying what he thought.I thought that was a nice touch showing that Mike paid close attention to the Germans’ personalities and he didn’t want those two influencing any of their compatriots over dozens of travel hours.
The Dallas route was absolute punishment; nine hours. The El Paso route was an easy three hours.
I’ve actually driven from Austin to Albuquerque by myself in a day. West Texas feels like it will never end.
“I hope Chuck will come back in some flashbacks. I miss Chuck.”Chuck was a grade A, pretentious, spiteful asshole.
He was but he provided an interesting, different presence on the show. And McKean’s an amazing actor
Oh man. One of the fun things about the comments during the early seasons was spotting all the people who were way overinvested in hating Chuck for clearly personal reasons.
Well, my theory that Gene was just being paranoid in the cab was blown out saddle. Instead of just being another disinterested cabbie, it turns out Jeff’s a fanboy who collects celebrity rides. Of course, the problem is that Jeff’s an unknown quantity—he could be harmless or he could be looking to get a reward it there’s any wanted posters out there for Saul. There’s no way of knowing. Another danger is that he’ll just run his mouth in front of the wrong fare at the airport and get Gene/Saul/Jimmy discovered.
Peter Gould said in an interview that Jeff’s muscled friend wasn’t there just for fun.
This may not be the last we see of Forster. I have a theory that Kim may have to “disappear” as her ultimate fate. Those scenes could have been filmed already. Obviously if that happens it would have to occur this season. Possibly next season could focus on her post-disappearing life and perhaps there’s some tie-in with Gene. In BB he really knew he was going to manage a Cinnabon in Omaha. It’s possible that’s where Kim would go and he may be following her there. Again, just a theory.
Interesting. It would explain how he knew so much about the vacuum repair service when he pitched it to Walt as well.
Fifty percent off on non-violent felonies. That could actually be a pretty good deal… Is that fifty percent off the bill or fifty percent less time in jail?
It’s off the bill. One of the zillion unrealistic aspects of BCS’s depiction of criminal law is that all of these down and out looking defendants have money for a lawyer (and in the case of that dumb defendant to pay for a trial. What they don’t tell you is that defendants have to pay the court for the costs of having a trial. This is maybe the main reason so many people plead out)
True. My brother briefly hung his shingle in private practice after passing the bar and did a lot of defense work, including acting as a public defender. The PD gig didn’t pay great, but at least it paid. The biggest problem was that it wasn’t consistent and he was competing with a pool of other lawyers who were all desperate for cases.The rest of his clients had a bad habit of not paying up. Some also had the bad habit of committing more offenses while the first (or second or third) was still being adjudicated.After about a year of barely making enough to pay the rent on his office space he decided to go to work full time for Uncle Sam and hasn’t used his J.D. for anything in 20 years.
Yeah, this notion that Saul is somehow going to create a thriving practice by giving these folks the ability to call him for free is … quite a stretch. He’s been practicing long enough to know that 99% of the folks he’s giving the phones to have zero ability to pay him.
I think what he’s hoping for is that their “grandmothers” are really “godfathers” who will come up with the money. He doesn’t really care where it comes from. He’s also smart in demanding the money up front. There is no pay as you go plan.
Two things; one is that I imagine Saul takes credit cards which his clients can feel free to run up astronomical bills on and then how they pay them off is their problem. Also, many of Saul’s clients are criminals, and unlike a lot of practicing defenders, Saul has no qualms about taking drug money or other ill-gotten gains.
That’s fair. And also people possibly facing jail are at their lowest point and so would be desperate enough to leverage everything they had to the hilt in order to get out of that.
Wow. Gus’ little trip to the taqueria with Nacho shows why Gus is so damned scary. The whole stunt was probably the same drill Gus ran in Chile when he was the Generalissimo. He can put on a cordial facade, but deep down he has an icy, icy core.
I may be wrong but, from Roman times on, there has only been one generalissimo per country at a time. In Rome, Julius Caesar held the title. In Chile in the 70’s, it was Pinochet. No, other army officer would dare have or be called by that title.
I’m pretty sure it’s just the Cartel’s nickname for him. Pinochet would have had him against a wall had Gus run around calling himself that. Also of note, nobody in the Cartel calls him that too his face.
Yes Lalo, Nacho’s a badass.
And now Howard wants to have lunch with Jimmy, I mean Saul.
Penultimate season? So this is the season before the final one?
Yes, they announced that next season will be the last.
Hmmm, am I gonna commit a non-violent in the next week? Y’never know, and that 50% discount sounds pretty sweet…
Hmm, it sucks for the Germans — they got to come back this year but only for one scene before being sent back to their home planet.
Ah, so they got 2 seasons left. I was wondering how long they’d go for, as good as the show is it’s good to end on a high note
I would’ve preferred for it to be 5 seasons like Breaking Bad
Technically, it was 6 seasons since Season 5 was split in half over 2 years.
I have loved all of BCS, but they could’ve cut some of the beginning and got to him being Saul much faster.
Donna Bowman has the patience of 50 saints. Very graceful handling of all the corrections, sister. Good on ya.
That kid wanted to go to trial when he was offered 5 months, possibly 2 due to overcrowding!? Clients are their own worst enemies.
Was the little tin that Gene keeps his diamonds in the same one that Saul kept his con coins in, back when he was conning with Marco? It looks familiar…
Totally sick of Mike and his superfandom among critics. His voice starting in the last two seasons of Breaking Bad became annoying and actually, pretty whiny. The crap they put in his mouth to say sound like it should be coming out of Tom Hanks and not this guy. And stop with the cute grandaughter/daughter thing. This guy is about as upright as the two baboon newphews of Salamanca.
The way the drug lookout started yelling, “hey vato,” with a “v” sound instead of a “b” sound, I knew before I even saw the guy that he had no idea what he was in for.