It's Saul Goodman on the streets and Jimmy McGill between the sheets on a gorgeous Better Call Saul
TV Reviews Recap
From the very first frames of this episode, I was head over heels. There are more right angles than an episode of “The Anal-Retentive Chef.” DP Marshall Adams and director Melissa Bernstein square up the camera like they’ve been studying their Wes Anderson, keeping all their actors in profile, face-on, or back-turned. But because this is Albuquerque and we’ve got a Gilligan house style, Adams captures these perpendicularities from some unexpected placements, like underneath the mesh of a metal bench. And movement creates multiple combinations, as when Jimmy and Kim turn from facing the marriage license clerk into a profile view facing each other—echoed in the moment when the judge has to make a turning gesture to get them into vows-reciting position.
All these compositions emphasize the deep irony of their promise of mutual full disclosure. They take care of the marriage business simultaneously, but not together. In one shot, they stand on opposite sides of a desk with a divider in the middle, filling out forms in silence, focused on their task and apparently oblivious to each other. And that’s the biggest lie of all—the one they tell each other because they think it’s what the other wants to hear. This is strictly business, all about spousal privilege in court. No rings; “we didn’t do that,” Jimmy non-explains to the judge. “It’s not about that,” Kim reassures Jimmy when he apologizes that this isn’t the wedding she dreamed of as a girl. “Just— everything we talked about.”
But secretly each is delighted and moved. Repeating their “short vows,” they get a little emotional and a lot vulnerable. I get that. I remember. There’s no way to look in someone’s eyes and make those promises without it feeling momentous, whatever you tell yourself. And then when they get home from their separate legal worlds, they fall into bed positively giddy with what they’ve pulled off. Because of the terms of their union, though, they have to dance around the idea of honesty; Jimmy doesn’t want to tell her about becoming a cartel lawyer, and she doesn’t want to hear it. He tells—because that’s their deal, “if I have the urge to not tell you something, I’ve got to tell you”—but she only wants the fig leaf of reassurance that he’s not going to follow through with getting Lalo out on bail, that he’ll “put up a fight just for show” and that it will all be okay. The lies are even worse when they’re delivered under the pretense of full disclosure.
Kim is leveraging strategic honesty, too. She and Rich prostrate themselves before Kevin and say all the right things, even getting a nice plug from Paige for the quality of their pre-Acker legal work. But after Kevin sends her off with a parting shot about her taste in men—“This fella McGill or Goodman or whoever? You could do a lot better”—she gets her back up, for much the same reason Jimmy always does: who are you to judge me? “The truth is you ignored our guidance,” she tells Kevin, and goes on to lay out in detail all the times Kevin blew past her strong advice. She’s not wrong, but she doesn’t include how self-serving that advice was. Sure, Kevin was foolish to let his pride and bullheadedness get in the way of taking the win-wins Kim offered. But Kim implies that she was only looking out for Mesa Verde’s best interests, and that’s a lie by omission. In the end Kevin decides he wants a lawyer who’ll stand up to him. Wexler is back on the case.
But the cartel has both fists around Jimmy, squeezing hard. Lalo really comes into focus as the coolest of characters this week. “No trial, no deal,” he interrupts Jimmy’s standard lawyering; Saul Goodman is going to work his magic and get him bail. And just after Jimmy uneasily assures Kim that the judge would never go for it, Mike shows up at his door with exactly the same message from Lalo’s mortal enemies: “I need you to get him out on bail.”
The second scene in the courtroom, where Jimmy uses both his own shyster skillset and Mike’s information to cast doubt on Lalo’s arrest and flight risk, is a well-deserved showcase for Tony Dalton. The insouciance of the man! Glancing back over his shoulder at the fake family Jimmy’s recruited, complete with “love of his life,” kids, and mother-in-law. Then eyeing Fred-from-TravelWire’s very real family on the other side, whose grief makes Jimmy so uncomfortable that he blacks out for a second before finding himself on his feet before the judge talking about the mysterious “Dave Clark.” Leaning back in his chair enjoying the show as Saul Goodman does his thing to such great effect that the judge sets bail—an astronomical number to Jimmy’s relief. And finally assessing that number with an offhand “Seven million? I can do that. I’m gonna need you to pick it up.”
On two fronts, the facade is becoming ever more solid and indistinguishable from reality. Gus has to burn down a restaurant to cover for Nacho, who received those orders from Lalo’s jail cell, while at the same time reassuring his backers in the Madrigal group to stay the course, tamp down their panic, and wait out the Salamanca threat. And Jimmy, triggered by Howard’s hurt at his proffer being spurned and his lifestyle being pranked, finds himself saying the quiet part loud—really, really loud: “You look down on me? You pity me? I travel in worlds you can’t even imagine! I’m like a god in human clothing! Lightning bolts shoot from my fingertips!”
That gorgeous reflection shot, Jimmy’s face bifurcated as he peers around the corner, illustrates the duality of Jimmy McGill and Saul Goodman. But in that final moment, there’s only one man screaming. And it’s not the man Kim vowed to have and to hold.
Stray observations
- Huell is such a kindly soul, offering to steal a ring for Jimmy and set him up with a honeymoon at his friend’s B&B in Roswell. “We should do it up right for the rug rat!” he explains.
- What a bounty of wonderful signage in this episode, from the letter-paper printouts on the marrying judge’s wall (NO RICE! NO GLITTER! NO BUBBLES! NO LITTER!) to the franchise names at the Madrigal meeting (Stingin’ Rays Hawaiian BBQ, Polmieri Pizzeria, Haau Chuen Wok, Whiskerstay’s, and perhaps the most brilliant fake restaurant name of all time: Luftwaffle).
- Whiskerstay’s Avocadomania promotion has been a huge success, but Los Pollos Hermanos’ new Spice Curls (“the curly fry with the southwestern kick!”) are really going to drive some Q2 profits.
- It is really too bad these two crazy kids don’t have a future, because married Jimmy and Kim are adorable. “Soaring stone is the best kind of stone,” Jimmy riffs as he reads real estate listings. “A casual yet luxurious lifestyle.” “I’m casual yet luxurious!” Kim riffs right back.
- Another mention of Fring’s mysterious Chilean past: It seems Herr Peter Schuller was involved. “Do you remember Santiago? Our backs to the wall? I will never forget what you did. You are still the same man,” Gus says to buck up his courage as Peter talks about the walls closing around him and Lydia flutters nervously nearby with champagne.
- I’m glad those books from the library sale last week make a reappearance, with Kaylee begging Mike for just a few more pages of The Little Prince. “What does that mean, ‘ephemeral’?” he reads. “It means ‘in danger of speedy disappearance.’”
- Why yes, a frozen chicken hitting a hot fryer will explode in spectacular fashion. And you’ve got to love the appraising look Gus gives to the fryer basket before inverting it to serve as the base for his hotel pan chicken slide. Looks like that location’s Lyle has been doing a stellar job.
- “Do you have documentation of your two previous dissolutions?” the clerk asks Jimmy, neatly tying up a loose end some of you eagle-eyes spotted after Kim proposed last week—in Breaking Bad Jimmy mentions his “second wife screwing his stepdad.”
- Lydia has ideas how to handle the Lalo situation: “It’s not my area of expertise, but don’t people get killed in prison all the time? Shanked, or shivved?”
- My biggest laugh this episode came when Rich, sidelined at the meeting he arranged to rehabilitate Kim, pipes up with “Guess we’ll get out of your hair” a beat after Kevin takes Kim back.
- “That’s right, your honor! Witness tampering!”
352 Comments
As a proud recipient of a justice-of-the-peace wedding without rings, the first five minutes were very familiar: out-of-wedlock kids, the occasional wedding dress, the county employee behind glass. Except our ceremony wasn’t performed by a judge but a girl with her name on her necklace, the license cost $75 instead of $25, and I wasn’t trying to dodge incriminating testimony.
As far as she knew.
If you also had a fake family attend your hearing, you can be my new God.
Have you seen my pamphlet on tithing?
Wait, gotta do my due diligence. Can you shoot lightning bolts from your fingertips?
Arse.
No, but if you pull my finger . . .
It’s more of an allegorical short story, IIRC.
I think I’ll stick with my bowl of Special K. Safer that way.
Awesome show, great job.
That was some ACE retconning for Herr Schuller – the SuperLab was the bane of his existence to construct. He feared that his embezzlement/misappropriation would be detected and ruin him for years. Then it doesn’t happen and the lab is built and is hugely profitable! Then the lab explodes and he’s discovered! That’s Chekhov’s SuperLab!
My lab for some fraunch!!!
Watching him eat the curly fries was some high quality callback, verging on fan service.
I still sometimes wonder what Franch tastes like.
It’s easy to make though. Don’t you just mix ranch and French dressing?
I have but I feel I’ve never gotten it quite right. Wonder if Vince Gilligan or one of the writers thought up how to make it properly.
In Breaking Bad, they were always careful to tell enough about meth production to be credible, but not so much that someone could learn from the show and make meth and hurt people. Pretty sure that’s how they approached Franch.
Even then, anybody without some science BSc. at least would just hurt themselves. By explosion or poisoning. Happens all the time.
So true. Herr Schuller was ultimately right in the end. That lab did kill him. It just took a long time to do it.
No wonder he electrocuted himself on the toilet.
Given how he offs himself once the walls start closing in, I’ve started calling Schuler “Mr. Franch.” “Fuck it.”
– I’ve been wanting the return of Lydia.- That fake family had it all. How can he be bad if even his future mother-in-law approves of Jorge DeGuzman?
One wonders if the judge would’ve thought it suspicious at all. I wonder if the opposing council could’ve asked Lalo to name his wife or some details he’d know about the family. I don’t know how the law works when it comes to fake families.
Yep, exactly. As a lawyer, I try to suspend my disbelief when watching legal shows (although I agree with other posters that this show has generally done a decent job of showing, e.g., how law firms operate), but in this situation it would take a competent prosecutor or judge about 30 seconds of questioning to expose this fraud. I know they have to move the plot but I thought that was pretty weak (albeit funny).
In a preliminary hearing like that, probably not, although the judge probably could.
Guessing Saul would have prepped Lalo for basic questions like that given Lalo knew to expect a family in attendance for him.
Was I overreading, or did Gus briefly pause to inspect whether the team cleaned the fryers well enough? This writing… inspirational.
He also straighten out the tray with the chicken on it. Gus gonna’ Gus.
I shudder to think how that precision showed itself in his Santiago days.
Yes he did. Gus is nothing if not meticulous.
Not entirely.
Remaining at the scene of the crime after the explosion when witnesses might be taking notes? His only emotional lapse in common sense between his boyfriend getting killed in an ill conceived business offer and the day he joined in Valhalla.
Yes. You should check out the article you just commented on wherein writer Donna Bowman mentions that very thing.
Reading is hard.
Luftwaffle? LUFTWAFFLE!
I saw that and wondered if Megan Amram made a guest appearance in the writer’s room for this episode.
Is there a pun or play on words in Haau Chuen Wok? I feel like I’m missing a joke.
Must be
I saw ‘How you chew and walk’
Must be
Google translate says hao chen wok means “take advantage of me”.
According to google the Simpson’s named a resturant that, granted it was from forgettable era. The Onion also made a joke article in 2005 with the same name. Regardless its a brilliant restaurant name, wonder the marketing is like. Blitzkrieg your tastebuds?
Flavor Über alles!
saul goodman joining dennis reynolds with his own version of the golden god speech at the end there
That was my second thought. My first was of Ned Beatty talking to Howard Beale in Network (which Jimmy quotes early in the show, talking to… Howard.)
I got big “I am the Danger/ One who Knocks” vibes from that moment.
I think there was more truth to what Walt was saying while Jimmy was more high on his own supply so to speak
My first thought was Walt’s “I am the one who knocks” (and “tread lightly”) speech(es), getting fully full of himself.
The ol’ sliding-frozen-chicken-into-a-deep-fryer arson trick . . . I’m thinking the writers room is well stocked in edibles.
What a beautiful and pensive episode. I believe the next one is directed by Vince Gilligan, so….get ready.I’ve been thinking a lot this past week about the prior episode. Unless I’m forgetting something, one element about Kim that I think gets left out in these discussions is the fact that she doesn’t really have any social life whatsoever. The show doesn’t call attention to this, but we haven’t really ever seen her hang out with anyone else outside of work or Jimmy. It seems her entire adult life has been devoted to her law career, has it not? If she had left Jimmy, where would she have had to go? It doesn’t look like she has any other friends or family to fall back on. If Jimmy is the only person she ever struck a deep bond with, surely that says something about how his personality has always been more thrilling than disgraceful in her eyes.
Jimmy doesn’t have too many close friends either since Marco’s long gone.
I was thinking about that too. Jimmy wouldn’t have anyone to fall back on either, but I just wonder if Kim has ever had a close friendship similar to what Jimmy had with Marco. There hasn’t been enough information given about her past for us to know.
I doubt that Kim would let herself get that close to someone, especially a female someone, after growing up with her mom.
I wonder if Jimmy is or ever was capable of having a friend
Marco!
Yes! I somehow forgot about Marco. But you could say the Marco relationship just goes to show that Jimmy can only be friends or romantic partners with someone if they’re as good and as deep into conning and scamming as he is
Donna wrote back at the end of Season 1 that Marco was such a good friend because he appreciated what Jimmy’s talents and what he brought to their relationship. Kim is sliding the same way. Chuck was the polar opposite—despised Jimmy for getting all the attention, and used the law as an excuse to settle his personal vendetta. So far, there hasn’t been someone who appreciates Jimmy’s positive qualities while simultaneously condemning his corner-cutting and law-breaking.
The closest thing Jimmy has to a friend outside of Kim is Huell.
This is a great point, no family or friends for Kim, or any hobbies outside of work. Then again the same is true for Jimmy, albeit he does seem to have a wider network of work associates, however none of them seem to be the type he’d meet up for a happy hour.
It rings quite true for me. Law is a tough profession–doesn’t leave much time for social gatherings. At least they have each other…..for now.
This is why we drink, right? As someone who is geographically estranged from my close friends, my only social life now is my immediate family and my colleagues. (So CoronaLife really blows.) Jimmy and Kimmy’s lives totally make sense to me. Being a lawyer sucks.
From what I’ve read, most lawyers spend most of their time drowning in litigation documents. Which they’ve also showed in previous seasons with the Mesa Verde stuff. It’s mostly just Kim being on the phone with clients or Kim doing mountains of paperwork.
Sucks if you haven’t found your niche which I think probably 80 percent of lawyers have not really ever done, they just put up with where they have ended up. Even if you have, the stress and pressure can be overwhelming at times.
I mean, I found my niche. There are some real upsides. But the fundamentals of the work in a firm (or as a solo or mid-sized, probably) are just frustrating. Even after you make partner, you’re forever worrying about billable hours, generation, credit, etc. It’s a haul.
For sure. That’s why I bailed out of private practice a long time ago, even after making shareholder. Just hated it. I’m a government lawyer now and am quite professionally happy, but even then there are the occasional moments of having to swallow broken glass.
That’s my dream. Go after a non-profit or government gig in 5-10 years. Not sure about the broken glass though.
Til death (or dissolution) does them part……..
I wonder if Huell thinks he and Jimmy are friends.
Paige is a close friend.
They can talk everything over, eat chocolate drink wine braid each others hair or whatever.
She actually liked Jimmy too, based on what she read in the transcripts during the Charles Mcgill fraud matter. And shes smart enough to know he’s guilty as sin.
“So he’s a friend of the Mexican cartel? Damn girl!”
Where would she have had to go? Nebraska?
I don’t think *she* would have gone anywhere. Didn’t Jimmy move in with Kim, into the apartment she already had?
If she had left Jimmy, where would she have had to go? It doesn’t look like she has any other friends or family to fall back on.
The fan theory around the internet is that she probably went back to Nebraska, where she might still have some family random uncle? Cousin? Sis/brother? Which could explain why Jimmy chose Omaha. Maybe to find/stalk her out.
Certainly possible. Considering how careful this show is in how much information they provide us in those cold opens, I’m sure they’ll find a way to take Gene’s storyline in an completely unexpected direction. The possibilities for the Omaha timeline are endless.
I think the factor as to why we don’t see Kim hanging out with friends is because she’s a character on a TV show. If showing her having other relationships doesn’t advance the narrative then there’s no reason to highlight that. I took a script-writing class while I was in college and one thing I retained from it was that you never add elements or scenes unless they advance the story.
Except that showing that a character has friends outside the immediate plot can be an important part of the story. If you watch the first season of The Wire, for instance, you’ll see that we get glimpses of the social life of several of the characters for no immediate plot reasons, but just to establish who these people are.
[off the top of my head, we at the very least see Jimmy drunk and alone, Bunk trying to get laid with random strangers when drunk but then regretting it, Daniels at a fancy dinner of his wife’s friends but wandering off and pretending to be a driver so he can watch a sports game with people he feels more comfortable with, and Kima having a healthy night out at a bar with some lesbian friends (who don’t completely understand her); only the Daniels incident is vaguely plot-related, and even that certainly isn’t necessary. So we know that Jimmy is a miserable fuckup, Kima may be a bit odd but is basicall a sociable person who’s trying, and Daniels is trapped between seeing himself as a plain salt-of-the-earth guy, and wanting to be a social climber for his wife’s sake. And Bunk… is Bunk. And notably, the scene of Kima doesn’t just tell us about Kima… it also implicitly tells us something about Jimmy because if flags up that we DON’T get those scenes for him. Oh, and we also get repeated scenes of Daniels painting miniature furniture – because he’s a settled guy who enjoys a hobby that he also makes money out of, which doesn’t nothing for the plot, but similarly helps to tell us who he is by showing us what he does in his time off]
Well, the other thing we’ve gleaned from Kim’s backstory is that a) she’s always had to rely on herself to not only manage her own life, but also those of the people around her and b) she’s programmed to expect disappointment and irresponsible behavior from those who should be closest to her and protecting her. Add to that the fact she grew up with nothing and clawed and fought to get everything she has, and working in a blue-chip law firm probably doesn’t put her in a place where she’s going to identify with, empathize with, or like anyone around her.And remember, Jimmy just happened to be there by chance. He’s not one of them; he’s a charity case his brother took on out of obligation. He’s the ultimate outsider, and more to the point, the kind of outsider Kim understands and has dealt with her whole life —he’s her people.So the the fact that Kim socializes with Jimmy — and only Jimmy — outside of work makes perfect sense to me.
Yep Kim seemingly has no friends or family and her entire life is consumed with her career and her relationship with Jimmy. It’s pretty sad
One of my issues with the show is that I think they’ve never really had an idea about who Kim is and have been leaning on Rhea to paper over a lot of this. Her lack of friends or any sense of social life, for instance. Or even her background- they didn’t even give her a middle name in this episode. I feel like her character would be much better if we knew something about her past to see if her attraction to Jimmy is because she’s had a thing for bad boys or if she’s broken in fundamental ways to or because she has a lot of class issues simmering more under the surface than they’re showing. I love the show and I love Kim but I also think the show underserved her in some ways.
Yep. She doesn’t even have a middle name.
First off, awesome job on the headline Donna!Fantastic episode, but what I enjoyed most was how hilarious so many of the moments were. The reactions from Huell at the wedding, the guy in the upper bunk peaking down at Lalo when that phone slides in, and the whole scene with Mike at Jimmy’s apartment. Balancing in this subtle humor amongst all the darkness in Vince Gilligan’s New Mexico is what makes this show so special.
So, one thing I’m somewhat obsessed with in watching this show is the “disappearance” of Jimmy McGill. From the jump, we’ve watched a performer who has trained for years (in conartistry) to slide into the con and commit. (And it’s Bob Odenkirk doing it, so it’s like a double joke!)
From one view, Jimmy/Saul is a calculating and conniving bastard who chooses what he is every step of the way. From another, Jimmy has been punished every time he showed vulnerability or sincerity. And in this view, his cons are maybe like self defense. Go to the first season – he tries to play it straight with the Kettleman family and gets screwed so he jumps to the con. With Chuck, he repeatedly tries to play it straight and gets screwed so he jumps to the con.
So, what I’m wondering is – how much of real Jimmy are we seeing at this point? It seems like a sea creature terrified of the surface that only comes up for air when it has to. Excepting Kim (which is a fraught relationship), the times the audience sees raw/emotional Jimmy recently are 1) the bit in the car after the scholarship meeting in last season’s finale (where I think Jimmy fully gives up on being “good”) and 2) at the hearing in this episode. I think there’s more than discomfort in Jimmy’s eyes. I think he sees the choice ahead of him and he’s scared to make it. And he makes it anyway.
Leading me to his breakdown with Howard – I think that moment could not have come without 2) above. Jimmy is breaking inside and when Howard scratched his surface, the angry/vengeful guy who decided to be a cartel lawyer came back screaming. Until now, he was dilly dallying with his (mean, over the top) schemes against Howard and Mesa Verde. Now he’s playing for keeps. I’m scared of the end of this season.
It’s an interesting thing to look back on. Even when the board was wondering how sincere Jimmy could be about Chuck, he was trying his hardest to tell them what they want to hear; Words that should be believed, and may have even been true at one point, but was ultimately a performance in itself. There’s gotta be something in between the guy who plays it straight, and the guy who cons. I’m still not entirely sure what to make of the lack of remorse at his brother’s death- do you think that was authentic, or another front?
I’d like to think the distinction is as easy as knowing when he’s lying to himself, but the trick of it is Saul actually believes his own truths. It’s why Saul works. But it also makes it harder to find Jimmy underneath the surface. And makes the breakdown with Howard so fascinating. Correct me if I’m wrong, but is this the first time he’s mentioned Chuck since that all went down? A painful Jimmy is still in there. Yet we’re watching the Saul persona solidify and reinforce his own existence right before our eyes.
I think a lot of Jimmy’s choices are coming out of a place of self-defense. Kim’s too. I think Jimmy’s reaction to Chuck’s death was set in motion before he died. Remember, Jimmy’s last interaction with Chuck was when Chuck told a self-serving lie – “You’ve never mattered all that much to me.” Jimmy heard that line in life, took it with the appropriate devastation, and then the next thing he knew, Chuck was dead. That was a lot of things, but it was definitely an asshole move, and Jimmy won’t let himself be hurt by assholes. So he decided to hide his feelings.
When he saw Howard, Howard was inviting Jimmy to open himself up (like Howard was). Jimmy would not take that bait. Too much pain, and Chuck didn’t deserve it.
I think that’s right – this is the first time Jimmy mentioned Chuck since the hearing. And, yeah, I think Jimmy went into lashout mode here and the many unprocessed feelings about his brother came rushing to the surface.
Jimmy’s lashout was just about hurting Howard. There are no unprocessed feelings about Chuck. Jimmy hates Howard because Howard feels things he can’t. Howard is riven by guilt, not just about Chuck, but about being to Chuck what Jimmy should have been. Howard was the little brother Chuck chose to have, and Howard feels like he pushed him to his demise. Howard is just emerging from the tailspin caused by Chuck’s death. Jimmy has yet to miss a beat.
Interesting. So you think he was controlled and unemotional there? Huh, I don’t see it, but interesting take.
I have my own conclusions about the line between Jimmy and Saul. I feel so strongly about them that I’m trying to make a video essay explaining it, but who knew those things are hard to make and take a while? :(There are 2 parts to the distinction, I’ll talk about the 2nd part since I don’t think I’ll get around to making a 2nd video essay lol. Saul uses Jimmy’s authentic feelings as part of the con. We see this at the end of Season 4, Jimmy’s feelings about his brother are real but he thinks they are fake, he thinks “like Jazz” he is just free-styling his speech, when really he is giving voice to his actual feelings.It’s interesting at the end of this episode we see the real Jimmy for the first time in a while. What he says isn’t true (he doesn’t even actually blame Howard for Chuck), but his outburst is authentic. It’s not part of a con or deception. It is him trying as hard as he can to hurt Howard. Howard is absolutely right, he has upset Jimmy, he upsets Jimmy by showing Jimmy a reality that Jimmy has already rejected. Howard, by being authentically kind and compassionate to Jimmy, is showing Jimmy that not everybody is self-interested. That not everything is a con. But Jimmy already made this choice, he’s passed the point of no return on that decision. In season 1 Howard might have gotten through to him. Jimmy was not locked in at that point. But now he is, so there is nothing more upsetting to him than the idea that all these self-interested scams aren’t necessary, are a choice and not just “how the world works”.
Also, I bet that Howard’s offer is the one thing he feels the urge not to tell Kim, and so he won’t.
I don’t really think Jimmy feels anything for his brother,he did at one time but not any more.
Painful Jimmy is still occasionally evident even in Breaking Bad.Most particularly with the look he gives Francesca after she makes the fake phone call to Hank. Also, ‘conscience gets expensive, doesn’t it.’ It sure does, Jimmy. It sure does.
It’s also evident in the flash-forwards post-Breaking Bad post-Better Call Saul, when the guy should be full Saul Goodman, but it’s not. I contend Jimmy has remained a (wounded) good guy trapped inside a con all along (after all, we can retcon that from Breaking Bad, because we never really saw beyond the surface back then).
Jimmy may do a good thing now and then, but he hasn’t been a good guy for a long time.
I think Jimmy doesn’t know how to process Chuck’s death (or Chuck’s impact on his life overall). The dime-store psychologist in me thinks Jimmy’s rage at Howard is emotional turmoil unleashed on a Chuck-stand-in.
IIRC, Jimmy was 100% blaming himself for Chuck’s death until Howard came along and told Jimmy that he, Howard, blamed HIMSELF for it. In that moment it was like a lightswitch, Jimmy fully adopted that narrative: Howard is to blame (though he halfheartedly “comforted” Howard in the moment). And in this episode, he actually said it out loud for the first time: “you killed my brother.” He now actually believes it, because it’s allowed him to forget his own guilt.
Yep! /Dan Wachtell He did, him looking into that sink with the water going were his metaphorical tears. So was him being entirely silent and still for a whole night. Had Howard not shown up and cracked and said he thought *he* was guilty, Jimmy was more than happy to transfer how he felt to Howard, in one of the most “whole livingroom goes LOL” way. That was such an amazing one liner…and it works with your deduction which is the same as mine.
“I’m still not entirely sure what to make of the lack of remorse at his
brother’s death- do you think that was authentic, or another front?”Jimmy uses Chuck as a cudgel on Howard. That all Chuck means to Jimmy. Howard feels what Jimmy should, but doesn’t, and can’t. Howard feels the guilt, pain, and loss and Jimmy hates him for feeling the things he can’t. Jimmy is a straight to the bone sociopath.
Nah, see season 4 ep 1 again.
Jimmy still has huge unresolved feelings about Chuck’s death including a lot of guilt. The way he’s dealt with that is to blame Howard for Chuck’s death somehow
It’s a front, Season 4 spent a lot of time on showing us that Jimmy is a very deeply sad person. Which Kim realizes, that’s why she’d like him to see a shrink.
Lot of interesting thoughts. You talk about the scholarship meeting in the last finale as being the moment he gives up on being “good.” I feel as though we’ve had multiple moments of that like in the season 1 finale, where he tells Mike that what stopped him from taking the money they had isn’t going to stop him anymore as he drives off humming Smoke on the Water.
The reason I focus so much on the car/scholarship scene is that it’s an unusual scene in the show. Jimmy is entirely alone and has dialogue. Who is he making a plea to? It remind me slightly of the scene with Walter White in New Hampshire, where Walt similarly makes an uncharacteristic plea. Who was he making a plea to?
I don’t think either show is religious in any way, but I think these scenes reveal a true spiritual despair. These characters are consummate liars, and scenes where they are alone reveal some of their unguarded thinking. So, this is why I think the scene was pivotal to Jimmy. He had no reason to lie, showed vulnerability, showed regret and loss. And then in he was changed.
I would call this his true “Saul” moment.
ISWYDT. I guess one could say that in that scene, ‘Damascus’ off.
I don’t know if VG lucked into a rich, loaded name, but I’m sure that he is cognizant of the Damascus bit. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next episode hits this home. But, we literally have a man who tried to be good, was seduced to abandoning principles, and renamed himself. It’s not a coincidence.
You said all the right things the right way my man.
Truncated take is that Jimmy/Saul is a product of his environment. To piggyback that thought, in another post I made mention of the scene where Barry Corbin (the homeowner who refused to move) accuses Kim of lying about her background story (never had a true home because they had to move from place to place; growing up poor) just to get what she wanted. Kim was very much affected by this because she was likely telling the truth. Contract this with the fact she’s getting things done when employing some of Jimmy’s/Saul’s shady tactics (using spilled milk to ruin a dated copy of blueprints and replacing them with an updated version) and you could wonder if Kim is going down the same road as Jimmy/Saul – choosing the avenues that move her career/life forward – at least until that road turns into a dead-end disguised as a Omaha Mall Cinnebon.
Who knew that Huell was such a romantic?
The Scrooge McDuck cash swim back in BBS5.
It’s become impossible for me not to comment weekly on the craftsmanship of this show. The scene with Nacho and Gus setting up the arson at Los Pollos Hermanos was just a masterclass of shots, angles, close-ups, and wide. With just the perfect music accompaniment, a jaunty latin tune.So Herr Peter Schuller was involved with Fring in Santiago, Chili. I’m sure it would never be connected, but I was getting Nazis in South America vibes going off in my head. Why else would Germans be involved in a fascist regime in South America? Probably not important enough, or enough time to go there if it was.Mike giveth, Mike taketh away. I love that getting Lalo out on bail was Gus just having Mr. Ehrmantraut undo what he had done, by giving Saul the info his fake P.I. had fed to the librarian. Oh, and the fake family was just priceless. I can’t believe there’s only 3 episodes left this season and just one more season after that. It doesn’t seem long enough, because I’m really going to miss this show regardless once it’s over.
Next season is supposed to be 13 episodes, if that helps.
Unless the coronavirus fucks everything upIt would be weirdly poetic, though, if Breaking Bad’s first season and Better Call Saul’s last season both end up being shortened due to (drastically different) work stoppages
It does because after these last couple episodes and the unexpected turn of Jimmy and Kim marrying, it feels like there’s a couple seasons worth of material right there along with still catching up to Breaking Bad and then the future plus the whole Lalo, Nacho, Fring, Mike situation happening. The latter I can see be wrapped up nicely by the end but having to divide time with it and Jimmy’s continued slip to amorality seems like there’s a lot to get through with little time left. But maybe that just means good things and that the show will be moving at a steady pace now after seeming to slow down a bit in Season 4.
It’s about time.
“Santiago, Chile”. Not, “Chili”.
Not that it matters, but judging by the quality and substance of the OP’s writing throughout the rest of this post, I’d chalk that one up to a probable missed autocorrect error.
Damn. Now I’m hungry.
Santiago Chili is a completely separate Madrigal restaurant, unaffiliated with Los Pollos Hermanos.
*wink*
Understarred comment.
Santiago Chili is a cracking bar offering Pinochet Punch and free helicopter rides.
They already have PH and Tullum Tacos – Madrigal knows better than to over-represent the Hispanic-food franchises.
Thanks.. sorry it was late when I posted.
Or if temps dip below 40F in the South American capital city, Santiago Chilly.
Chili’s is Saul’s food competition (those darn baby back ribs!)
It’s Chili in french. But yeah, the internet is in English, so nevermind that intrusion of cultural learning.
I think we can infer that Schuyler is the son of a Nazi war criminal. Which further supports the implications that Gus had some sort of role within the Pinochet regime. ‘Santiago, Chili’. If only. Most hilariously appropriate misspelling in history.
Wait, maybe they meant a Chilis in San Diego!
He’s way too young to be a Nazi war criminal. He was just a regular, corporate friend of the Pinochet government.
I said that I thought Schuller’s father was a Nazi war criminal.
Sorry.
Me thinks they were more related to the people that had Pinochet flee. Gus suggesting they had their backs to the wall and then Peter doing something amazing that saved them all…and then I guess Peter flew back home and Gus immigrated to Mexico in 86 as Hank found out (something Mike couldn’t even, Gus’ face to realizing that while talking to him on the phone in BrBa was great, Hank was throwing more salt on his wounds than he thought was imaginable).Schuler most likely had nazi grandparents or such, but that’s the case for a lot of Germans, doesn’t mean they’re into socialism for only one kind of people too. Gus being black helps picturing that out.
I’m not clear on who you mean by “people who had Pinochet flee.” The US installed and backed Pinochet, acknowledged that his time was up, and quietly aided people in his government who would face charges in the new government. The US government supplied Gus with his new identity, visa to emmigrate to Mexico, and, of course, permission to settle in the US. If Gus was in danger of arrest by the new government and facing serious charges, getting out would be very dramatic, even with US-supplied fake ID. I don’t see how anything else is plausible.
The fact that he is black, means that he likely was in the underground resistance formed by the former Army under Allende and previous non-puppets. Their “backs to the wall”, Schuler saving the day / Gus’ life, to me it’s clear he wasn’t part of Pinochet’s fascist regime. Something Esposito said was a real possibility in those youtube AMA style videos.It’s like Bolivia’s current illegal government, they are white hispanics and want to subjugate all of the 70% native american Bolivians right now. They’re not cool with non-whites. Same thing with Pinochet.
No no, schuyler is Walt’s wife. She wasn’t the son of a Nazi war criminal (unless that’s a twist I missed)…
I assume you’re joking?
…yes. You misspelled his name as ‘Schuyler’, which is the name of Walt’s wife (or, at least, the traditional spelling of that name, even if it’s not the one used in her case). I just thought it was an amusing coincidence.
As “ activist students” in Pinochet’s Chile, Max and Gus could have been in danger. Schuler made have been a mercenary or an operative in the country. The Pinochet regime was a nasty piece of business.
Gus was able to legally emigrate to Mexico, because of US State Department help, as Hank and Steve learned. Gus and Max were affiliated with the regime, not the opposition. The regime was very, very pro-business, so I’m sure Schuler’e role was more mundane.
Why else? The Pinochet government was notably a business-friendly environment.
I also detected an undercurrent of sexual history between Schuller and Fring. Did anyone else get that?
“It’s not my area of expertise, but don’t people get killed in prison all the time? Shanked, or shivved?”Loved this, seemed like such a Walter White line.
Don’t forget the ‘or whatnot’. That was classic Lydia.
Props to Laura Fraser. Lydia was on screen for a hot three minutes and I immediately despised her again.
This show has a genius for elevating secondary, tertiary, and even bit players.
– I find myself wanting to get more information on getting a Luftwaffle franchise. Please tell me the girls at the counter wear uniforms like the stewardesses on the Hindenburg. Is there literature? An 800 number I can call?- Did any of us think for a second that Lalo would have any problem getting his hands on $7 million in cash, like… today?- I think Gus also disconnected a gas line. I heard it hissing. That frosty bird was essentially a slow fuse that allowed him to casually walk out to his vehicle before the place exploded.- Speaking of Gus, it’s easy to imagine Herr Schuller was there visiting his former Nazi grandfather when things hit the fan in Chile. He must have stepped in and saved Gus from meeting an early demise. The men are obviously old friends, and this little vignette not only sheds light Gus’ past, but also on why the CEO of a multinational conglomerate like Madrigal Electromotive was willing to fund his drug empire.- So Kim is lucky girl number three! I don’t recall Saul ever mentioning a third wife in BB, so it’s possible that Jimmy and Kim are still legally married, though obviously separated, by the time he’s in Omaha. I’m still hoping she shows up in the series finale to convince him to leave his self-imposed exile.- Only a true friend would offer to steal a ring IN THE COURTHOUSE for you as a wedding gift. Huell, you’re the best!- Yes Howard, Jimmy really doesn’t want to accept your job offer, as if the bowling balls and the hookers for lunch weren’t huge clues. I was kind of hoping Jimmy would have to pull one more prank before Howard threw in the towel. Possibly a Chicago Sunroof?
Correct. The frozen bird into the oil would cause a boil-over and flash fire but wouldn’t blow the place up. The gas line is what did that.
It’s actually a pretty good way to torch a restaurant. The investigators won’t find any accelerant and the source of ignition is the first thing you’d expect to find in a chicken joint—a chicken. The assuption will be that someone forgot to turn off the fryer when they closed up shop for the night. And the main motive for most arsons, insurance money on a failing business, isn’t a factor they’d look at. Los Pollos Hermanos is very profitable.Also, this method will buy Nacho some cred with the Salamancas. It will look like he managed to carry out Lalo’s orders and did it in such a way that it looked like an accident.
Isn’t this line of thought nullified by Nacho’s vandalism? It wouldn’t look like an accident when part of the place will show signs of vandalism. I think Nacho had to do that to put a signature on the act, on behalf of the Salamancas. They don’t really care about an investigation.
Good point, though the explosion would have tossed everything around the place pretty well. Perhaps he took a trophy as proof he was there.
Im guessing the reason Nacho trashed the place pre-explosion is to make it look like arson from some competitor or outside entity. But why??
They can’t pin it on Lalo directly as he has an airtight alibi of being in jail already. Maybe its purely to throw insurance off the scent of an inside job? Feels like there has to be more to it than that.
I think that was so the Salamancas wouldn’t think that the fire was a coincidence. Gus needs them to trust Nacho.
I’m pretty sure it was meant to look like vandalism and arson. Otherwise, why would Nacho have destroyed the front of the restaurant the way that he did?
That was for the Salamancas’ benefit. If the fire burns long enough, a lot of the vandalism will simply burn.
And the chicken shredded the seats and spray painted the walls before jumping in the fryer?
He was a bad chicken.
How do you square all the graffiti and vandalism that Nacho did with this theory of what happened?
That chicken definitely broke bad.
I think they’re trying to make it look like some methheads on a rampage just vandalized the place for the lulz. In a smarter way than Pryce.
Apart from Nacho slashing the seats, etc., which I presumed was for the opposite reason.
My theory about it being a good way to torch a restaurant still holds. This arson was for show, but if you wanted to burn down your failing chicken shack and make it look like an unfortunate accident, dropping a frozen chicken into a fryer cranked up to 11 would be the way to go.
What about how Nacho thrashed and graffitied the dining area? Wouldn’t that make it clear it was arson, even after the fire damage? Btw I loved the perfectly in-character contrast between Nacho and Gus’ modes of destruction: one hands-on, one precisely calculated!
Indeed. Even when Gus does get his hands dirty, he meticulous about it. Like when he killed Victor.
Gus had Nacho vandalize the front area so it won’t look like an accident it will look more like kids breaking in rather than arson.
Maybe they made it look like one of the local skate rat gangs.
Yeah, except for all of the VERY obvious vandalism that Nacho did while Gus was setting up his chicken fuse fire bomb. Nacho spray painted the artwork on the walls smashed the cash register with a golf club or something, and slashed many of the booths with a knife. Clearly they wanted it to look like arson. Not sure what the long game is on that one.
They might be making it look like some low-level outfit they want to take out did it. There are other players in town, including small fry like one Jesse Pinkman and his buddies, making their own product locally and selling it in competition with Gus and the Salamancas. Of course, their product was notoriously inferior until a certain chemistry teacher got in the game.
Indeed, Bolsa instructs him to find some stuff from a local manufacturer, Gus delightedly answered “Don Juan, you know Eladio strictly doesn’t permit to buy from local sources (or competitors?).” Something like that, which Juan responds to swiftly with “let me worry about Eladio”. Juan is likely Columbian (very very slight spoilers for a future episode here and also for Breaking Bad, to those who haven’t seen it yet), which explains how Juan doesn’t like Eladio that much either and hence why he’s willing to work with Gus, to the dismay of the Salamancas. I guess that’s who Hector was talking to in the flashback to the late 80’s/early 90’s when he protests about having Gus work for them, with meth instead of coke, north of the border, before he almost drowns his little nephew Leonel.Everybody knows, especially in the ‘00s but it is still going on massively, how everybody with a high school knowledge of chemistry can indeed cook meth and then show his dropout friends how to. Meth in pill form mixed with a little MDA or MDMA is likely the most common drug in my area of Canada after alcohol and weed. I haven’t seen anybody into that in a long time, but somebody somewhere knows how in Canada you can just buy jugs of decongestant syrup with just pseudo in it right on the shelves. It’s the street hood response to the redneck’s moonshine.
What I can’t figure is how did the burners heat the fryer, but not ignite the loosened gasline? [I already forgave the ‘bubbling’ oil as stagecraft]
True, they took a little bit of dramatic license. In reality the burner would indeed have ignited the built up natural gas once it accumulated, but then we would have been deprived of that excellent sequence featuring the frozen bird slowly sliding down the pan toward its date with destiny.
It’s been 32 years since my days as a Hardee’s fry cook, but if memory serves the heating elements on fryers aren’t open flame, they are electrical elements that sit at the bottom actually in the oil, so no exposure to the gas filling the air.
I worked for Burger King back in the day (it was a Tuesday—nod to Dane Cook) and we had the same broiler as Hardee’s and the dearly departed Burger Chef. Yes, the broiler was gas, but now that you mention it, the fryers were electric, so the logic holds!Mythbusters did an experiment with a frozen turkey and busted the myth that it would explode, but they still proved that the results are VERY UNDESIRABLE. Instead of an actual explosion—they got a raging grease fire.That video isn’t available for free on the Web, but Tech Insider did a similar bit with a fire department and had similar results. Enjoy!
There must also be specific ratio of air to gas for a blast to occur.
If it’s like most fuels, it’s around 10-20:1 by mass.I’m thinking we should just enjoy the entertainment and NOT try to recreate this at home…But, if you do, please be sure to film it!
Maybe…just maybe…this fictional television show didn’t want to inspire people to use an actually workable method to commit the very serious crime of arson. Just a thought.
And an ignition source
A commercial fryer with an electric element is a possibility, but I also worked Hardees in the late 80s and we had gas fired fryers. And from what I could piece together, from the scene and inference regarding the LPH business; 1) Gus loosened the gas line at least in fair proximity to the fryer. I inferred from that it was the gas line FOR the fryer. 2) The only other use for a gas line in a commercial kitchen would be a cast iron range, and I inferred from BB and BCS that LPH was fried chicken, fries and sodas [and spice curls]. Maybe they have ovens for bread and other baked items, but I didn’t sense a need for a grilltop.
I think I will just default to the “rule of cool” then.
They seem to make burgers. See the very classic and frantic intro of Walt driving like a mad man to the LPH where Gus spends the most time at, to get Jesse back and is waiting there (I’ll wait…” that was almost as cool as “I’ll be back”). When he’s sitting at the worst spot possible like an idiot near the entrance, with all 3 cameras pointing at him, there’s a poster behind him saying “OPEN WIDE” and a drawing of some burger and how it won “best burger in Albuquerque” or such. Places of specialty always have other, very expensive meals. Reminds me of the ribs fries and coleslaw plate I had a BBQ chicken joint common in eastern Canada….expensive as hell, but I didn’t feel like eating chicken. But they had everything else imaginable other than BBQ chicken, except fried chicken, BBQ chicken places find fried chicken likely offensive from their slightly more classy kind of eatery viewpoint.
Gas doesn’t automatically explode. There has to be a specific ratio of air to gas for a blast to occur. Until that ratio is reached, nothing happens.
Why are we all calling him “Herr Schuller”? I checked the wiki, isn’t his name Peter? Is it some kind of German joke I’m not getting? Or do they call him that in the episode?Also I wonder if writing Jimmy from the ground up they would’ve had him have ex-wives. Or is that 100% just service towards the BB line?
“Herr” means “Mr.” in German. We’ve all been conditioned by countless WWII movies to use it when referring to German people.
German is a very formal culture when it comes to terms like Herr (Mr) Fraulein (Miss) and Frau (Mrs).
‘Herr Schuller’ is German for Mr. Schuller. His name is Mr. Peter Schuller.
His name is actually Herr Manager Peter Schuller. Unlike Kim, he has a middle name and that’s Peter. Translates to Mr. Manager.
We just say manager
“Manager,” we just say “manager.”
“Just…….manager.”
*obligatory ‘I’m Mr. Manager!’ joke here*
We just say Manager.
It’s probably a way to get people to stop theorising that Kim will metaphorically sleep with Jimmy’s metaphorical stepdad. Makes much more sense if Chet once briefly dated his mom.
It was his actual wife then in Cicero, first or second, we don’t get to know, but likely second as he was with her when he committed the Chicago Sunroof.
Herr is just German for Mister. If I’m not mistaken that’s how he’s referred to in the friendly confines of Madrigal Electromotive.As for the first two Mrs. McGills, I’m thinking they are in Illinois and Jimmy no longer maintains contact with them.
I’m pretty sure the spelling is SCHULER. Only one L.
Gus calls him that at the meeting.
He mentioned his wife in season one, who Chet, the kind of a-hole who drives a pearl white BMW with white leather, who might have cheated on his wife etc. when he breaks down at the old folks home bingo. Was hilarious too.
Just so you know, that guy who replied to you is a troll who likes to impersonate me. He’s usually much nastier and has had literally dozens of accounts banned. This one will be soon because he has been engaging in his usual shit elsewhere. If you see a grey comment from me on avclub, it’s him.
Good to know.BTW, I’ve never mentioned it but I dig the Buckaroo Bonzai reference. One of John Lithgow’s great early roles, along with Roberta Muldoon.
I think Gus also disconnected a gas line.Well, duh. A chicken doesn’t usually contain high explosives. 🙂
The boil over and ensuing grease fire would still be exceedingly nasty though. Just ask William Shatner:https://mashable.com/2012/11/21/william-shatner-turkey/
You still need a flame a frozen chicken will cause a violent reaction with grease flying everywhere but it doesn’t guarantee a grease fire either.
Seeing how the Simpson’s and the Onion has made the amazing pun name Luftwaffle, I wonder if the writers knew that or not.
Good point. Either way, it’s a great pun and worthy of retreading every once in a while.
Absolutely. So good I almost wish it was a real restaurant.
“Did any of us think for a second that Lalo would have any problem getting his hands on $7 million in cash, like… today?”Considering that this means that his bail would actually amount to $700,000 and not $7 Million – no.“Only a true friend would offer to steal a ring IN THE COURTHOUSE for you as a wedding gift.”And from a court-employed Clerk, no less. Impressive dedication to love.
The judge said cash. Also, no bondsman would touch this case with a ten foot pole.
It also puts a big sign over his head saying “ Hey authorities where did I get all this cash?” when you pay the bail.
Lalo doesn’t care. I don’t think he’s planning to be around to answer questions. And if Gus has his way, it’ll be a permanent condition.
I didn’t hear “cash”, but am happy to take your word for it.
Huell needs his own series. A comedy filled with all these friends and family he’s always talking about.
Ask and ye shall receive
We’re all locked up like Huell in the safe house these days!Please AMC, please make this happen.
Unless Lalo has some real estate or some Krugerrands equivalent to this, no bailbondsman is going to put up $7 million in cash.
There has to be a seven million dollar bond. Assuming he uses a bail bondsman, I assume you are right in your 10%. However, he might not.
Judge said “Cash only” and I don’t think any bailbondsman would take the risk unless they had a deal with the Salamancas.edit: I see someone has said this upthread, Kinja won’t let me delete.
That would be true if Lalo were using a bondsman.
Luftwaffle you say? Check this out:MUNICH—An elite force of three dozen 24-hour Luftwaffle restaurants were unveiled across Germany Monday, with free waffles for blond-haired, blue-eyed customers, discounts on Cheese SwasSticks, and the incendiary bombardment of Luftwaffle’s largest competitor, the city of London. “Soon, customers will fall under the sway of my lightning-quick, piping-hot Blintzkreig,” said Hans Kreuzen, Luftwaffle’s founder and oberstmanager-general. “All will know the sweet, buttery taste of fear and waffles from above.” Luftwaffle restaurants are expected to face ruthless competition in Germany’s already crowded martial-themed eatery business, which is led by such established chains as WehrKnochwurst and Der Marzipanzerkommand.https://www.theonion.com/german-luftwaffle-chain-offers-waffles-overwhelming-ai-1819567962
Der Marzipanzerkommand is pretty good too. However, wouldn’t a desert section on a waffle joint’s menu be overkill?However, I live in Georgia and Chicken & Waffles is a huge thing here. So maybe a desert after a sweet/savory meal might not be too much as long as you’re not planning on doing much the rest of the day.
I think you would order one of the other, like at crepe places.
Maybe in the rest of the world, but this is ‘Merica! We supersize everything!
das burrito
How about a nod to Bob Uecker, Dos Mariachis!
simon, vato.
– Did any of us think for a second that Lalo would have any problem getting his hands on $7 million in cash, like… today?
Ok, but wouldn’t being able to post the bail tip off investigators that this is more than just a simple robbery?
Yes, but I’m betting Lalo is going to head for the border as soon as he gets out of jail and is planning to call the shots from afar, with Nacho as his point man. That would work out nicely for Gus.For Nacho as well, if he can convince his dad to leave town with him.
Surprised Disneyland doesn’t have a Lufftwaffle franchise, next to the Matterhorn or Soarin’.
I’m more scared for Kim than ever. Right now, her dying would be just the thing to kick Jimmy into full Saul. 🙁
You don’t think he’s full Saul yet?
At this point, no. Tonight it was Lydia casually suggesting a prison shanking. Jimmy has a while to go before he gets that low.
Lydia might be the most cold-blooded soul in the BB/BCS Universe. Her solution for everything is to kill the people who are loose ends. (Mike’s crew, Hillbilly Meth producers who bought Walt’s franchise, Lalo). Heaven help the server that brings her tea presweetened with real sugar instead of Stevia.
I don’t think Jimmy ever gets as depraved as Lydia.
No. I don’t see the Saul we have at this point casually suggesting that Walter have someone shanked in prison.
It may be unintentional but there was a moment where I thought the show may be foreshadowing Kim’s death. During the marriage vows as the judge is reading them, the camera cuts to him after focusing on Jimmy and Kim, and he looks at them as he says the line “until death do you part” and then it cuts back to them. When he reads them again for Kim, the camera cuts behind the shoulder of Jimmy and keeps the focus on her face. Again, at the end of the vows, there’s the line “until death do we part” and there’s a bit of a pause as though Kim is weighing that last statement in her mind before she finally says I do. Was that her chance to say No and live? Has she now sealed her fate? I hope not. I hope Gene pulls a scam on the Taxi driver to scare him into silence and then meets up with “Giselle” and they go off on the road pulling con jobs together. That’s the happy ending I now want to see. Jimmy may not deserve it but, in the words of Unforgiven, “Deservin’s ain’t got nothing to do with it.”
They’re going to make us wait a year (or more) to learn the fate of that Omaha cabbie. 🙁
I feel like that would be too much under the belt, considering how good the writing has been for quite a while now. There’s been the fear that Kim would get hurt by Saul because of his choices, but instead the show gave her the agency to make those choices herself. I don’t see them fridging her.
We need a Mythbusters episode of them testing out Gus’ method for blowing up his restaurant. After thinking about it, it might come out “plausible” because I remember reading a story a year or two ago about a KFC that literally blew up overnight because of a gas malfunction.
It’s too bad shows like Mythbusters don’t run forever. Because they had a breaking bad episode and definitely would’ve done a BCS one too.
The Mythbusters reboot was 10 kinds of horrible.
Excuse me, there’s a reboot?
Mythbusters: The Search
Season 15
I remember hearing about the reboot but never watched it. I seem to remember the timeslot being bad or it kept moving around or something.I think the original show ended because Jamie decided he was done with TV and he and Adam didn’t really get along anymore. I don’t know why they couldn’t just continue with Adam, Grant, Tory and Kari.
The reboot is best treated like The Godfather Part III . . . let’s just all pretend it didn’t happen.
Of course, I don’t know for sure, but after Kari, Tori, and Grant put a cannonball through somebody’s house, the increase in insurance, and perhaps even some general unhappiness with the three probably led to them being cut from the show. And Adam and Jamie were never great friends.
I would love to be shown wrong somehow, but unless I’m really missing something this is not just implausible, its painfully idiotic. It’s not just that it wouldnt work. The premise for why it might work is entirely wrong on a basic level. What happens when you drop a frozen Turkey (or chicken, or ice) into a deep fryer is that the ice flash vaporizes, causing the oil to overflow and spray everywhere. When people make this mistake with a propane heated turkey fryer that hot oil can catch fire, rather explosively. But without the open flame there is no actual explosion in the combustion sense (Its poultry, why the hell would there be?). And no combustion of the oil means no ignition source for the gas leak Fring rigged. Breaking bad had its share of flaws in terms of bad physics and implausible scenarios. But I dont know what to make of this. Its a whole new level of intellectual laziness which I feel is pretty incongruent with the level of thoughtfulness I’ve come to expect from the writers. How does a person even hold a belief in their mind as extraordinary as “frozen poultry ignites oil” and not even think to google it, or think through how that would even work?
Yep. That’s why I’d want to see a Mythbusters episode on it. They’d be perfect for it. It’s exactly the type of thing they’d do. I think it could work if there was a source of open flame like you said, but they never showed it in the episode (unless I missed it. All I saw was Fring opening the gas valves). Plus, the concentration of gas required to get that kind of explosion seems like it would take some time. There’s no way Fring could just walk out of the building and seconds later the entire place blows up
Right. I was so bothered by this I watched the scene over like 3 or 4 times lol. I dont think there was any open flame visible. The way the whole thing was set up really just seems like we’re expected to think the chicken alone would do it. But if there were an open flame then the grease fire would seem to be redundant. Once the gas concentration reached the right level, the open flame would set it off with no need for a primary explosion. And with the open flame the whole place would be a ticking time bomb while Gustavos playing with his bird. But your right, an open flame would seem to make this scenario vastly less ridiculous. It would at least assist my suspension of disbelief. A Mythbusters would be great, I dont disagree.
You ask, you get.
The the overflow and vaporization of the oil contacting the flame source under the fryer causes a fireball. The fireball in combination with the gas causes the explosion.
I mean it was like the fifth episode when Walt made this stuff that looks like crystal meth but explodes when you throw it at something. This show has never been realistic with this stuff or realistic in general.
I’m not sure what the source of ignition was. The frozen chicken would cause a huge eruption of boiling oil as the ice Crystal’s flashed into steam and it sounded like there was an open gas line, but it all needs a spark to set it off and I didn’t see what that was. I think the heating element for the oil is either an electrical coil in the oil or sealed underneath it, so I don’t think either of those would do it.
Well the fryer would be heated by a gas flame and I think an oil explosion would be enough to being the two things together
I thought most of those big industrial jobs were electric and the gas ones had sealed compartments as a safety mechanism.
Hmm. Wouldn’t need the oil if there was exposed flame and leaking gas. Now I”m not sure what the deal was
I think I know the KFC you’re talking about. It’s in Eden, North Carolina and it exploded in July 2019. I live about 20 miles away from it.
That’s probably it then. I think it was somewhere in NC if I remember correctly. Can’t imagine there’s multiple KFCs in the US that blew up over the last year
They have done gas explosions before and it’s not as easy as it seems. The gas air mixture has to be correct or it won’t explode like that. They had a number of tries blowing up a house failing because there was too much gas in the air. I think it was a Jason Bourne based episode.
Yeah. You have to get the stoichiometry right. To get the kind of explosion we saw in the episode, it would not be as simple as Gus made it seem.
Yeah. You have to get the stoichiometry right. To get the kind of explosion we saw in the episode, it would not be as simple as Gus made it seem.
They actually did a Mythbuters where they tested out blowing up a room as Matt Damon did in one of the Bourne films (magazine in the toaster; rip out the gas line). If the ratio of air to gas (I think gas has to be between 6 and 9 percent of the volume of the room) isn’t in range, an explosion won’t happen. That’s one of the reasons natural gas is widely used as fuel; getting the right ratio for a blast isn’t easy.
She’s not wrong, but she doesn’t include how self-serving that advice
was. Sure, Kevin was foolish to let his pride and bullheadedness get in
the way of taking the win-wins Kim offered. But Kim implies that she was
only looking out for Mesa Verde’s best interests, and that’s a lie by
omission.
That and Jimmy, trying to gaslight Howard with, “Do you hear what you are saying” and “You killed my brother!” makes them both despicable, with Jimmy way more so. But it’s OK, Jimmy loses Kim and pays some penance in Omaha. We’ll see if he survives that.
I saw Daniel Fienberg’s tweet about his favorite shot of the series being in this episode, and I was looking for it. Was it the shot of Kim sitting up in bed when Jimmy tells her his day? The shots of Mike reading to his granddaughter in a blue bed? Maybe it was a comedy shot, of Gus turning that chicken plate around, or setting the bird up to be a detonator? Oh, no, it was of course Jimmy peeking in the hallway, next to the glass wall, his face and reflection becoming a Jekyll and Hyde thing.Good episode. I like Tony Dalton’s laid-back stoicism. Jimmy going off on Howard I read as more comedic than intended, probably and was a little surprised the episode closed out on that. But Kim in bed with her hair down, though! She CAN do a lot better.
Tussled Kim is the best Kim.
I agree, they do such a good job of keeping Kim the lawyer so buttoned down and bottled up (professionally) that you almost start to forget what an utterly beautiful woman she is.
I think you meant “tousled”, but “tussled” with Rhea Seahorn? Dude, I’ll allow it.
This one’s a B for me. I wanted to see how Jimmy was going to pull off Lalo’s ridiculously impossible request, and Mike just walks in and hands him the answer easy peasy. A rare shortcut for a show that’s usually good about putting in the legwork- as evidenced last week by all the great pieces it took to put Lalo in jail in the first place. Speaking of that, I typically get peeved when any show goes and undoes something they just did. Even if the point is to position Saul closer to being a “friend of the Cartel” I’d argue based on what he’s done for them so far, he already is.I did like the courtroom wedding, which I found strangely beautiful in its own way. And it was nice to see Lydia!.. For about 5 seconds, and then she was her trademark nervous self, and I just wanted her to get poisoned all over again, lol.
While I get that it is disappointing that the set-up for more Saul legal shenanigans was done by Mike, I was just glad that it finally brought about Jimmy and Mike working together again. They’ve been on such tangents since for some time. I think the last thing they collaborated on was Jimmy hiring Mike to go through Chuck’s house for the Chuck vs Jimmy legal debate. I hope this finally leads to more of a bonding between the two leads and their worlds in that regard. The Mike and ABQ Underworld stuff has had a harder fight to stay as engaging as Jimmy’s legal battles and life. Also, glad to see Lydia finally back as well. I was thinking about her after the last couple episodes and the whole Gus Fring storyline. I had expected to see more of her after she first showed up and Mike was at Madrigal but then we went through all the superlab construction and German workers and now the Lalo vs Fring battle. Mike has some kind of history with Lydia. I don’t know exactly what he said since I’ve only seen Breaking Bad Season 5 once but from my memory, I recall it as such: Lydia had tried to trick Jessie and Walt by saying the chemical supplies form Madrigal were being watched or monitored by security. Mike recognizes this is a lie right away and mentions there was some incident where he felt he should have taken her out a while back but didn’t because she was a woman and he wasn’t going to make that mistake again this time. Will we see this early Mike and Lydia confrontation before the end of this series? I don’t think Mike doing a job at Madrigal and Lydia not wanting him around would be the incident he was referring to.
That confrontation was in an earlier Breaking Bad season. He let her talk him into a deal because her daughter was in the next room. It was another example of Mike’s habit of not killing people he probably should have just killed.
Ohhhhh, ok. Funny, I only remembered the second part when Mike was going to finally take her out and not the first part. Now that you bring up, I do have a faint recollection of her having a daughter and bargaining with Mike. My memory completely blocked out the daughter part. I always think of Lydia as single and alone.
In BB, she said if she went to prison, her daughter would be in foster care, so there’s no husband, or even an ex. Yet, she has a hyphenated surname, which for a woman of her class in the US indicates she was married. I hope we get the backstory.
I always think of Lydia as single and alone.
I remember that Lydia had a daughter only because of the morbid-ass scene in BrBa where she pleaded with Mike that her daughter “needed to find her body” so that the child wouldn’t think Lydia had just abandoned her…
Wesaw the incident during Breaking Bad. Lydia had a hit put out on Mike because he wouldn’t kill his guys in prison. The rest you remember right except that Mike was wrong about Lydia trying to trick them. The APD put the tracker on the barrel not her.
It did seem almost short-sighted of Mike to put Lalo in prison only to be surprised he can still do things from inside. Maybe the plan was always to lock him up and then force him to flee to Mexico, idk.And wouldn’t Lalo be suspicious how Jimmy found out about the PI? Also I’m really really worried for the librarian.
Well if Lalo’s in Mexico he’s fair game..
Lalo in jail turned out to be no solution at all for Gus (i.e. ordering Nacho to burn down the restaurant). If Lalo dies in jail the cartel pins that on Gus. Gus needs to get Lalo out of the U.S. and that’s why Mike helps Saul accomplish that goal.
Great call on the librarian. You think Mike will feel a moral obligation to shield her since he’s the one that put her in harm’s way?
Maybe the plan was to gain Salamanca trust for Saul and Nacho, and to set up manageable defeats for Gus.
To be perfectly honest, unlike in my comment above, I don’t really understand why they worked to put Lalo in prison only to then get him out.
I think it was totally wise for the show to have Mike solve Jimmy’s situation. An underlying theme of the shows is how fate steers us down paths and makes a bad choice easy. (This happened repeatedly to Walter a White.) Yet, the wrong thing is still the wrong thing. When Jimmy told Kim about Lalo he was genuinely ready to turn joss back on him. And then the wrong thing became the easy thing.
It’s an amusing bit of business that Jimmy had no intention of getting Lalo off, and then Mike rolls in and is like. ‘Yea you will. This is happening.’ Bad choices being made easy is a true theme in these shows, no doubt. Though in this case, I don’t know how much of a choice Saul really had in the matter. Even the Nacho/Gus subplot had them just do what was asked, with little choice in the matter. I suppose I appreciate the expediency of it (with only 3 eps to go), but along with the crazy high $7 million bail, that also turned out to be a piece of cake, this episode, in isolation, seemed to lack on overall sense of challenge.
Is that our first sighting of Lydia?
I think so, and the Madrigal corporation, which at this point carries so much meaning, seeing those giant letters in the boardroom gave me chills
No, but I think it’s the first time we’ve actually seen her in a scene with Gus in either show.
No. Lydia made her appearance earlier, either toward the end of season 3, or the beginning of season 4. Its when Gus puts Mike on Madrigal’s payroll to help him launder his money.
I was happy with Mike offering the solution. Jimmy is resourceful, but not a genius who can achieve the almost impossible.
I think the whole Lalo affair is there to show that Saul is just a pawn on the board is this plot line. He’s not making the movies, he’s a piece on the board getting moved.
Is it just me, or was Gus getting ready to kick it with her? And was her daughter his daughter?
I thought she seemed cozier with Peter. He was in his robe, after all, and she’s taking him to the rodeo tomorrow night.
I agree. While Mike going through the machinations to put Lalo in jail only to then scheme to get him out of jail in only a couple episodes may have been necessary for other plot reasons it wasn’t that satisfying to see it unfold from a narrative perspective
…And it’s not the man Kim vowed to have and to hold.I disagree. I think angry honest Jimmy is exactly the person whom Kim chose as her husband. Compare Jimmy’s rant with Kim’s from a couple of episodes ago— both explosive, defensive and a bit working class. They are attracted to each other for their vulnerabilities, the love-of-the-scam magnetism is just the cherry on top.
I got the impression that what Donna was saying was that Kim married Jimmy and the man screaming at the end was Saul.
I’m sure this has been mentioned before, but I don’t think that either Jimmy or Kim has used the word “love” in relation to the other during the entire run of this show so far. I mean, it seems pretty clear (at least to me) that they do, in fact, love each other, so I would imagine that this is a conscious choice by Gilligan and his crew.Any theories as to why that is?
Luftwaffle is one of those things that can only exist in fiction but, oh boy, is it glorious.
All that Howard plot just to have Jimmy go full Heisenberg and turn down Gray Matters the law firm gig with a delusional rant that isn’t at all in line with the cool and controlled corrupt attorney character from Breaking Bad?Yeah, I think Vince would have written something way better.
Totally disagree. What we saw there was full Jimmy. There was no con to be made there because Howard was acting authentically and compassionately and that’s something Saul has no protocol for. Indeed, he finds it deeply upsetting because he has already chosen “the dark side” so the idea that people can be decent and un-self-interested is something very upsetting to him.Saul is always slick, but I don’t think he’s ever been deep down emotionally healthy, even in breaking bad. Saul is really good at responding to tricky situations and hustling, he’s bad at dealing with real human kindness.
Yeah, I think Jimmy’s response was just the endpoint of him finally snapping – he’s had it with all of that life and needed to double down on what he’d chosen. He was also in agony over what he did to that family. It was everything from most of this whole show coming up all at once.
I like how Jimmy accused Howard of killing Chuck; if anyone is to blame (besides Chuck) I’d blame Jimmy, while Howard did his best to deal with the Chuck / Jimmy situation but eventually could no longer.That blowup at Howard had everything to do with Jimmy speaking from the heart, his anger at himself but turned outward.
I don’t think it was full Jimmy, it was full Saul. Jimmy was a compassionate, well-meaning person who took shortcuts but ultimately meant well. Saul is a mean-spirited, win at all costs cutthroat who projects his insecurities on others to avoid addressing the terrible things he is doing.It was telling to me that Saul refers to Chuck’s death as Howard’s fault. Because while Howard officially ousted Chuck from HHM, Saul was the one who initiated it and meant to hurt Chuck in the process.The sad thing to admit is that Jimmy / Saul just isn’t a good person. I see a lot of people rooting for him and Kim to reunite in Omaha, I’m rooting that she got the hell away from him in one piece.
I don’t know if Jimny could honestly be refered to as a good person.he’s certainly less evil than Fring or the salamanca family and has demonstrated an ability for compassion but he’s been a findamentally selfish person since he was nine years old.
“Jimmy was a compassionate well-meaning person”.Not really he’s a slimeball who drove his father into an early grave by putting him out of business.
Yeah, I probably went too far with that declaration that it wasn’t Saul. You’re right.I’m gonna hold firm that Vince would have figured out a better, less “stage’y” scene and something far more original than what we got, though.
Sure, Kevin was foolish to let his pride and bullheadedness get in the way of taking the win-wins Kim offered.No, not really. This conversation took place before any lawyer (including Jimmy) was representing Corbin’s character and they were just on the cusp of (rightfully) evicting him. Kim’s offer was seen (correctly) as completely pointless and a little insane at the time. You’re going back and judging it based on the highly improbable and unpredictable results.The entire point of the scene where Jimmy trying to humiliate Kevin in the garage was that Kevin didn’t deserve it at all.Reminder: The “Jimmy” character is a pretty terrible person.Meanwhile, Gus learned his moves from the same person we all learn our moves from, William Shatner.
It is really too bad these two crazy kids don’t have a future, because married Jimmy and Kim are adorable. We’re not finished with Gene, yet, and Omaha is relatively short drive to Kim’s probable hometown….and before we get mired in the technicality that “Jimmy” no longer exists, I have a hunch that Gene might have figured out a plan to revive him, possibly free from imprisonment or danger.
‘Shanked, or shivved, or whatnot?’ – Lydia’s back with her signature blend of poorly hidden anxiety and trigger-happy murderousness. Saul ‘caught his second wife screwing his stepdad’. This episode now means that Kim will not end up betraying Jimmy to a metaphorically paternalistic Howard. I like that. It also enables me to double down on my previously stated theory that Sunroof Chet previously had some sort of relationship with Jimmy’s mom. ‘In danger of sudden disappearance’ – that line is horrifying, because SPOILER –Mike himself will one day suddenly disappear forever from Kaylee and Stacey’s lives.Shudder.
Nice catch.
Well I’m back to being stumped. I thought this was marriage number 2. Guess its number 3. Damn you Vince Gilligan and his amazing writers, you always have me guessing and usually guessing wrong. Unlike Walking Dead where you either guess right or wrong and the resolution is unsatisfying.
Jimmy screaming at Howard at the end was truly surprising and also fits with this ever-sliding transformation into the Saul we know. I just wonder how it’ll jive with Kim. The two of them are so damn sweet together it hurts. He genuinely seemed conflicted about what he was doing to that TravelWire dude’s family – for the first time a crack appeared in that facade. But he did the job anyway out of fear and, probably, also to prove something. There’s a lot going on in him. He seems to want to be better. But he wants to keep doing whatever he wants as a lawyer and flipping off the establishment. He wants to have his cake and eat it too.
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Useless facts , based on the Marriage cert its currently May 2004 in BCS land ( I would have thought later but there you go) , and Jimmy/Kim were born in 60/68 respectively..
Saul doesn’t meet Walter White until 2008. I’m just wondering how the last three episodes of this season and the entirety of the next season are going to fit into that 4 year gap. After all, the first 5 seasons of Better Call Saul have encompassed about 2 years worth of action…
It’s interesting that to some characters, *Jimmy* is the moral compass, still. When Mike comes in and shows the evidence that’ll get Lalo out on bail, Jimmy asks “You know what he DID, right?”. The fact that Mike seems completely content in this episode, “playing the cards he’s been dealt”, makes him a pretty horrible hypocrite and in much deeper than Jimmy is.
Mike is a much more interesting character with what BCS has revealed about him.
There’s nothing hypocritical about this at all. Mike works for Fring. Fring hates the Salamancas. Mike isn’t springing Lalo Salamanca on Fring’s order to help Lalo escape this murder charge. Mike and Gus are almost certainly planning to deliver Lalo his just desserts , not just for the Travelwire murder, but the Assassinated Pollos Hermanos truck drivers, the death of Gus’ original chemist, ratting out his dead drop locations to Hank, and just his general Salamancaness.
Kim Wexler’s blind spot for Jimmy would be unbelievable if I hadn’t witnessed similar ones my whole life. My sister’s, many female friends for example. She’s going to be destroyed at the end of this, she’ll either be dead or ruined in some capacity
I was in the Kim role for several years, myself.
If you’ve never had the life experience of living with, loving, and being around a sociopath you have no idea how charming and charismatic they can be. If they worked as hard at an honest existence as they did at their scams and schemes, they’d be wildly successful. A study done 30 years ago showed many successful business leaders had the traits of sociopaths.
*cough* Bill Gates *cough*Just kidding, sort of. I got a bug in november, bronchitis. Typical for an asthmatic, happens every other year for me. Also, that one time they did that very painful prongs-in-the-nose Influenza test at the ER back in 07, and it turned out, and I had to call the ER 3 days later, to know if I had influenza or not (they scripted me Tamiflu and very comforting hydrocodone syrup and muscle relaxants…..I was a mess). They said I had some other virus, unknown to them, it wasn’t influenza. Didn’t even tell me if I should continue to take the Tamiflu, but the box said once you started it, you had to take it for the week.Doctors are a bit psychopathic in how they can wave off so many things and also how they can stay ice cold doing surgery on somebody totally wrecked from a car crash. Speaking of, more people died of car crashes in the last 6 months in the US than of any sudden illness.
All this to say, because you’re at the top of a liberal arts field, doesn’t mean squat as to your humanity.
This almost certainly isn’t the case (like, I’m 99.9 percent certain it isn’t), but I’ve wondered for a while if the show’s big reveal will be that Kim and Jimmy are actually still together during the events of Breaking Bad. The whole “total honesty combined with spousal privilege” thing actually works, and Kim manages to keep finding ways to make her peace with Jimmy’s slide into Saul-dom. He just never mentioned her during BB because he felt it helped his rep to be have multiple divorces or because he didn’t want the people he was dealing with to know he had an actual loved one. Then, he has to go into exile at the end of BB and he’s forced to leave Kim behind.
As much as Saul did on that show, we never saw anything about his personal life. It would be very in character for Saul to have a wife he never revealed to anyone he worked with.
We see him mercilessly hit on his secretary at his office in BB, though. Saul wouldn’t do that if he were still married to Kim. The man may not have too many allegiances, but Kim is one of them.
I hope after this series, we get a spinoff series with Huell. Call it Raisin’ Huell.
The series would be hour after hour of Heull patiently waiting alone in a motel room for instructions that will never come. It will be a surprise hit and recommended viewing for people with high blood pressure – very much like looking at fish in a tank.
DAMN, that last scene. Jimmy/Saul had his “I am the Danger/One who Knocks” moment just like Walt did. Little man letting out all his frustrations, all his insecurities bounce back as hostility. I mean “LIGHTNING BOLTS OUT OF MY FINGERS”. The pressure and the guilt is starting to get to him.He’s gonna lean into Saul hard just to get what little pride he has left.
I like that Lalo seems like he would be, in another context, a pretty good boss. He’s demanding, but he listens to the advice of people around him, he doesn’t fly off the handle or get impatient… usually when a gangster has a sense of humour it’s a sign they’re going to be the movie or show’s complete psychopath, but Lalo seems like a genuinely cheery dude who also happens to be willing to kill for cartel business.
It’s true that he’s not a rageaholic and he’s smart enough to take good advice, but his cheeriness is actually pure menace. He has the laid back attitude of a guy who knows there will not be any disagreement, because either he gets what he wants or you die. Simple, right? What’s not to be cheery about?
I like that Lalo seems like he would be, in another context, a pretty good boss.
“What is something only someone who survived the G/O Media bloodbath might say, Alex?”
Who put the chicken in the freezer? Did Gus call ahead? As we all know, Los Pollos’ chicken is refrigerated, never frozen.
Also one little thing that’s bugging me: did the police not, like, find the gun that Lalo reached for in his car before deciding to surrender peacefully instead? Even if it wasn’t the same gun used in the murder surely that would be of note.
There were other charges that we didn’t hear plus how serious is a handgun in a car in New Mexico a couple of decades ago?
We saw him in a jumpsuit and cuffs, didn’t we?
Apparently this isn’t the first time Luftwaffles has been named. The Simpsons and the Onion had both made that pun. The Simpsons had it as a giant german helmet drive through and the Onion proudly stated it will blitzkrieg your tastebuds.
Saul was very naive to think that a Cartel man couldn’t get $7 million.
He’s new.
But wouldn’t the mere act of this salt-of-the-earth Albuquerque man they pretended he was suddenly having *$7 million* kind of blow the lid off the cover? Though probably not before Lalo leaves the country.
I doubt Lalo is gonna be concerned about that.
The “two-faced” shot of Jimmy looking at the grieving family was so strange. It was definitely a dramatic moment, but I couldn’t stop laughing at how damn goofy he looked.Also pretty impressive that this seems like the first time Jimmy’s cracked emotionally since his brother’s passing. Gilligan and Co. waited an entire season and a half to finally let Jimmy air his beef with Howard, and rather than feeling cathartic, it ends up feeling a lot more… pathetic.
“You hurt people, Jimmy. It’s what you do.” How fucking heartbreaking it must be to come so far and still know, deep down, that his brother really was right. He lied and nearly ruined the career of the woman he loves. He spat in the face of one of the few people who tried to make amends. He’s about to make a family watch their father’s murderer walk away on bail. Ever since he broke free of Chuck he’s hurt more and more people, and he knows it, and he can’t bullshit himself from denying it.Man, watching his agonized descent into the life of a Criminal Lawyer just makes Walter White look like such an asshole in comparison.
I love Gus, and I like Lydia, but their scenes together (and most of Gus’, in fact) come across a bit too ‘Gandalf investigating the Necromancer’. Sure, it’s ‘where they were’ and ‘how x and y happened’, but it’s not a lot more than that.Most of Mike’s stuff has fallen into that territory for the last couple of seasons too, but at least he gets fun stuff like the PI sequence last week.
Join us and Play with us now JarvisQQ
Question: have Jimmy and Kim ever said ‘I love you’? It was actually really nice to see them happy and affectionate. If they kill Kim off I will never forgive them!
Seeing Lydia again made me smile a little, thing back (OK, forward) to the moment Walter informed her he’d poisoned her with ricin.Good times!
Perfect wedding for these two – Kim proposed, it was done with the least amount of public affection and emotion possible, and when they got home, banging, awkward confessions, and most likely some take-out and beers later. Sounds great to me.I dug the shot of Peter Schuler dipping his curly fry into the sauce and eating it, mainly because how it was a cool callback to ‘Madrigal’, the episode of ‘Breaking Bad’ that he appeared in. The scene leading up to his suicide in the bathroom of Madrigal in that episode featured the introduction of a line of new dipping sauces that we saw Peter partake in, one of which was called ‘Franch’. I guess Peter Schuler likes his dipping sauces. And not only all that, but the reason he committed suicide was because he was about to be arrested for the very thing he was so worried about in this episode of BCS – for being involved in Gus’ empire. Way to call your shot, mein herr.Barreling toward the finale now. I can’t believe we’re already on episode 8! Can’t wait for Vince’s episode next week, and man, the finale is gonna set the room on fire. Or the chicken restaurant. Either or.
I’ve not seen any significant mention of it here so far, so maybe it’s so obvious that I should be ashamed… But there’s got to be more to Kim not having a middle name. It seemed like she reacted a bit when the judge mentioned it.If she really does have one – nothing on her driver’s license that I could see, but Jimmy’s just had an initial – would that invalidate the marriage and make her able to testify against him? Is this her revenge plan, get Jimmy to tell her everything and then whoop, actually no marriage, see you at the trial?
Did anyone get the sense that Gus and Peter were more than just friends? The disappointment in Gus’ face when Lydia opens the door. The way Gus places his hand on Peter’s thigh. It seems like there’s something else going on there.
Curly fries. It was a lot like the bath scene from Spartacus that Jimmy wanted to humiliate Howard with in season one, for the billboard. We got the same bisexual ambiguity going right there. That was hilarious to those who got it, I tell ya.
Curly fries. It was a lot like the bath scene from Spartacus that Jimmy wanted to humiliate Howard with in season one, for the billboard. We got the same bisexual ambiguity going right there. That was hilarious to those who got it, I tell ya.
Truly an epic episode, and I almost choked on my cookie when I saw the name “Luftwaffle”
I distinctly remember Gus proudly telling someone that his product is fresh, never frozen. I can’t remember if it was in Breaking Bad or on a previous season of Saul, however. In any case, the writers are way too exacting for the frozen chicken in this episode to be a mistake, and it was in the walk-in all by itself, separate from other chickens, so Gus must have planned this out in such loving detail. This show is fucking amazing.
These last two episodes have been incredible. INCREDIBLE!
Wasn’t Gus boasting to Lalo a few episodes back that they don’t freeze their chickens?
It was the only chicken in the freezer when he went to get it.
I had a weird thought the other day, is it at all possible Kim is still in Albuquerque during Breaking Bad? Like she holes up as a corporate lawyer for Mesa Verde and just chills?
Jimmy has become totally unlikable this season.
Too bad we don’t know much about Kim. It’s probably because the writers are catering too much to fan-boners for the cartel crap. Enough with Mike and Fring and the Mexican neandrathals. We already saw the story and don’t need to see it again. It’s the huge flaw of this show that it’s only interesting when it’s about the Albequerque world of Jimmy and Kim.
“And it’s not the man Kim vowed to have and to hold.” Yes it is. What the hell distance from his sleaziness does Kim have left?
Many late night treks to Jack-in-the-Box over the years have given me the bonafides to recognize Jack-in-the-Box curly fries when I see them, and those “Spice Curls” were absolutely some Jack-in-the-Box curly fries.
The look on Fring’s face when the Whiskerstay’s woman was giving her spiel made me think he was imagining skinning her alive while roasting her feet over hot coals.