Jimmy McGill is now Saul Goodman—not just in the name of his legal practice, but every minute of every day. And he’s never seemed happier. That’s disconcerting for those of us who have rooted for him to throw off the distrust of Chuck and Howard and everyone else who never believed in him, who wanted him to have some success in legitimate lawyering to prove to himself he could do it. But we were always fighting a losing battle against his fated future. Our only hope now lies in Omaha, and we probably won’t get back there for many episodes.
I mentioned in last night’s review that there were at least four great sequences in this one-two opening punch. Now we come to my favorite, in which we see the consequences of Jimmy’s lavish phone and discount giveaway. Saul’s cup runneth over with clients, and Jimmy has to break out some of his patented courthouse moves to keep all the plates in the air. It’s like a walk-and-talk if Thomas Schlamme were an ice dancer, all twizzles and footwork and tight turns. Jimmy has every case and every angle at his fingertips, whether he’s taking calls on the bluetooth earpiece, accosting a prosecutor (“my featherweight was simply defending yourself against your raging bull!”), taking his fee in wads of cash, or sweet-talking the mailgirl (“Hannah Banana!”). But it’s inefficient to work the hallways, and Jimmy wants to go straight to the ADA and deal in bulk lots. Suzanne Ericson isn’t having it. “You’re looking for turnover, you want to churn through clients, make more money,” she assesses the situation. “That’s your problem, not mine.”
If Jimmy McGill has honed one skill over the past four seasons, it’s the art of making his problem somebody else’s. And he pulls it off again, by paying a maintenance worker to break the elevator just long enough to wear Suzanne down. After annoying her by practicing his opening statement in a vandalism case, full of performative appeals to freedom of speech (“moral fortitude … moral fortitude …”), they end up sitting on the floor making deals on his whole stack of files. “See you next week for the last three,” he calls out, before telling the elevator guy that he’ll provide legal services for the other half of what he owes.
Back at home, Saul’s loud attire is literally crowding Kim’s version of lawyering out of their shared closets. They crash a house showing, Jimmy urging Kim to dream of movie nights in front of a big plasma TV—to see past what they’re doing to get back on their feet, and think about what being on their feet will look like. But she still wants to earn it. Maybe the stairwell in episode 1 reminded her: that steep ladder that gets you almost to the end of the board comes paired with the danger of the epic, soul-crushing chute.
The remaining white-knuckle scene of these opening two episodes comes in the Nacho storyline. Gus strongarms Nacho into acting as his inside man, telling him to stay close to Lalo Salamanca and gain his trust. Nacho sees an opportunity to demonstrate loyalty when they get a call from the 5th Street drug house, letting them know about a farcical problem. The drainpipe through which the drugs are dropped to eagerly waiting skells has developed a clog, and while Krazy-8 is up on a ladder doing customer service, the cops roll up. When the crew members report that they left the drugs behind in their hasty bug-out, Nacho decides to go for the grand gesture—sprinting behind the line of cops, jumping from roof to roof, kicking his way through a skylight. It’s a masterfully choreographed and edited action scene, punctuated by the offhand comic energy of Lalo casually watching it all unfold. The cops prepare to storm the apartment where Nacho is collecting the drugs—“Adios, Nachito,” Lalo eulogizes, popping snacks like he’s watching an action movie—but he drops out the back window just as they break down the door. When he hops in the back seat of Lalo’s car and displays the baggies, we know his desperation move has paid off. Next time we see them in the restaurant, Lalo defers to Nacho instead of micromanaging the crew. The only worrisome note sounds when Lalo says he’s got something “much better” planned for Domingo than Nacho ensuring his silence in custody. If Nacho has to stick his neck out to protect Krazy-8, that could jeopardize the trust he earned with that death-defying stunt.
Meanwhile, Mike is not coping well with his new identity as Fring muscle. Last episode Gus told Mike that the underground lab is on hold until Lalo stops snooping around (and snooping he is—on a visit to Hector at Casa Tranquilo, he’s close to unraveling the whole massive scheme), but that Mike will of course continue to be paid. Those velvet handcuffs, to keep Mike loyal and on the payroll, drive him to drink and cause him to lash out at his granddaughter when she asks if her daddy Michael was a good policeman “like you.” Way harsh for a girl who figures out her sevens times tables by talking football (“Four touchdowns equal 28! Plus another one makes 35. Go Eagles, kick ass!”).
The line that resonates through all these storylines is “using our powers for good,” something Jimmy urged on Kim last week to protect her clients. Everybody’s trying to do the best they can with where they’ve found themselves stuck. Sometimes that best involves the hope of a way out of the stuckness—like Kim wanting to build back up to a respectable life and independence. And sometimes it’s just survival, like Nacho trying to shake Lalo off his back so he can go back to the soul-crushing drug kingpin lifestyle he’s built for himself. Only Jimmy seems to be reveling in where he’s wound up. He doesn’t feel stuck, although he talks a good game to Kim about a different future. This is his element. But as these opening episodes end, he has to give up a treat to take a ride with Nacho—a reminder that he’s tangled in other webs.
Stray observations:
- It’s been a long time since we saw Gus do something as cruel as threatening Nacho’s father—a reminder that his ruthless streak extends beyond what could be defended as tactically necessary (like eliminating Werner).
- Emboldened by Saul Goodman’s flyers, the rapping skells double up on their non-violent felonies in the opening, gleefully stealing garden gnomes, pissing in trash cans, fleeing a convenience store trailing a whole roll of scratchers, smashing windshields, and indulging in ten baggies of coke instead of their usual two. (As with Kaylee, multiplication is not their strong suit.)
- “Where are my Louboutins … Louboutins … Louboutins?” Jimmy echoes to emphasize the size of the new house’s walk-in closets.
- The elevator guy’s relative is going to get his record scrubbed “cleaner than Doris Day’s greatest hits.”
- Jimmy continues to show excellent taste in movie dates, inviting Kim to share scampi and After Hours.
- Poor Domingo. Has to let the boss bluff him out of a big pot, gets arrested, but worst of all, has to climb the ladder to try to fix the drug pipe like some kind of stash house super.
- “Life’s rich pageant, who are we to judge?”
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Favorite moment of the night—-the officer deadpanning:“Well, looks like you fixed it.”A Homer Simpson “D’oh!” wouldn’t have been out of place.
Yes, but Chief Wiggum would never say something that competent.
Wiggum would have said something like “Well, there’s your problem. Someone stuffed sugar packets in the drain pipe!” then proceeds to dump a couple into his coffee.
“Bake’em away, toys”
Bake him away, toys.
“Take him away, boys.” – Kaylee
“Do what the kid says.” – Chief Wiggum
“Jinx! You owe him some coke!”
He’d still catch the guys who fled—-at least the ones not wearing a hat.
I thought that was a little too pat and convenient. That whole scene with Mouse and the two guys yelling “You shut up” to each other kind of felt like something out of a different show.
Was anyone else wondering why Krazy 8 wouldn’t want the candy paint rim spinning lowrider shaking the whole neighbourhood with Run The Jewels cranked to 11 to be moved somewhere else while he performed maintenance on his surreptitious meth delivery drainpipe?
Ha, yeah, I was thinking that too—plus, wasn’t that a stolen car that the cops would be on the lookout for in the first place?
You know what’s striking about this show? Every week there are, like, five different actors who could be the best part of an episode.“Man, Rhea Sheehorn is just killing it. She’s definitely…oh, wow, Michael Mando is amazing. He’s great…damn, Bob Odenkirk is hustling the hell out of this scene….”
Makes for endless spin-off possibilities.
Young Mike (with a younger actor and narration by Jonathan Banks)The Further Adventures of Nacho in Manitoba Kim Wexler, Attorney at LawHamlindigo Blue
And Jesse’s Alaska Adventures!
Yes!
Hamlindigo *blow me!*
I just admire the audacity it takes to not only name a color after yourself, but to trademark it! That is a level of self-importance seldom seen, even in these days of social media influencers and Internet celebrities. Considering BCS is set before Breaking Bad, setting it in the early 2000’s, Howard was ahead of the curve.
Unless something’s been said in interviews, I get the bad feeling Kim’s not making it out of this series alive.
This doesn’t bode well…https://www.dispatch.com/entertainment/20200229/rhea-seehorn-knows-her-better-call-saul-character-is-toast
There’s an alternate universe where Hank and his partner don’t die, and Hank leads a team of ATF agents who bust drug lords and gun runners. Hank would still have the cane and limp so he’d have to rely on his old partner and some new faces, more than ever.It’d be called, Schrader Squad.
Michael Mando’s acting in this episode was superb.From his frantic desperation when he thought he was about to see his father killed before his eyes, to Nacho’s Mission Impossible, Ethan Hunt impersonation—while jumping in between the rooftops and skylight—he put on a great performance.
He needs his own series when BCS wraps up. Unfortunately for us south of the border, it’ll probably be in Canada and we’ll have to wait until it hits syndication on ION.
Ooh, don’t forget when Lalo was asking him his thoughts on Krazy 8!
Nacho had to do something similar when he went into a gunfight to help the Salamanca twins.
The Cousins are about the closest thing there is to actual Terminators. Nacho isn’t, so he has to rely on Balls of Steel and sheer GUTS.Nacho is the sleeper character of this series and oh, so deserves a spin-off. He started out as part of the scenery and is now one of the main reasons I tune in.Idea for a series about Nacho:He finally convinces his dad to get out of the ABQ so he can make a run for it himself. We find him a few years later living a quiet life in Manitoba, reupholstering furniture and attending local high school football and hockey games. But, ala A History of Violence, he has to address his past when unsavory characters come to town.
Winnipeg is kind of the crime capital of Canada, just a mere more further than a boat ride from Chicago. He wants to escape the Mexican cartel/Gus, he will have done that easily here. In Canada, if he stays quiet in Winnipeg, it wouldn’t be for long if he slips a little, our big baddies here are quite racist biker gangs, Hell’s Angels are not a joke like in the US here. So it could be interesting.p.s. I based this on his fake ID he got made for himself and his dad, placing him in Winnipeg, MB. Everywhere else is really quiet in Manitoba though, yep.
He definitely wants to stay out of the city. There would be way too much risk and way too much temptation to cut a few corners, which is how he got to where he is now. If there is any one central lesson in BB/BCS, it’s that taking the shortcut will cause you nothing but trouble in the long run.
No arguing that. There’s always Brandon, MB if one doesn’t want to live countryside, but that’s about it. I was saying that because the fake driver’s licenses in his safe said residence : Winnipeg. If he survives and escapes,
warning, spoiler from the last ep (ep 3) below, I wish I knew the kind of coding this place use and could somehow have it hidden, but you have been warned…
sadly without his father it seems…Winnipeg has nice areas like all cities and if he makes it, which I really hope he does, hopefully it’s with a lot of cash money. We’ve only seen Canada once, from the border in the Breaking Bad universe, in El Camino and it was just a bit of road from British Columbia to Alaska, we deserve more screentime. Oh yeah, Walt on a good day could catch Montreal on his tv according to the disappearer.Anyways, I got a lot of sympathy for Nacho, he’s what Jesse imagined himself to be in his head somehow before season 4 of BrBa.
Indeed, I see Nacho as an decent guy who’s in a bad business. He probably got into it young, lured by the money, and has grown to regret it the longer he’s in.
The scene where Lalo seems to be hinting that Domingo needs to be killed to keep him quiet, and Nacho forces out “you want me to take care of it?” — such good acting! I can’t stop thinking about that bit.
And they all get snubbed at Emmy time.
The look Gus gave Nacho in the car. Mercy!
That Gustavo Fring is one icy-cold scary SOB.
I will kill your infant daughter!
I don’t remember what episode it was, but in an episode of Breaking Bad, Gus visits a police station (or DEA office? I don’t know) on pretense of some charity thing, and I think picks up some info on something or other– anyway, he leaves the main office and goes down in the elevator, and the camera stays on Gus’s face as the doors close and the car descends, and you can see the temperature in Gus’s face drop palpably, even though his expression barely changes. It’s terrifying.
I think it was the DEA office. I remember the scene and yes, he doesn’t make a sound and his face is virtually expressionless. All you can see is the malice rise in his eyes.
Yeah, he had just been questioned by Hank, and realized that the DEA was looking into him.
His fingers tapping the dings of the elevator…it was after being questioned by APD Detective Roberts and Hank, Gomie with Merkert present also.
Non-sequitur question: I always assumed that Pollo Hermanos was a franchise due to the large production facility, yet Lalo tells him that he should francise. Is that just Lalo acting like he is unaware of Gus’s success?
Not a franchise. He owns all of the locations. As a business that is a front for a large scale methamphetamine operation, I’m not sure franchises would be the optimal business plan.
Thanks, that makes sense!
I feel like such a nerd remembering this, but what Lalo said was that he was interested in a franchise, which sort of implied that he already knew there were franchises.
They gonna fuck
Jimmy McGill is now Saul Goodman — not just in the name of his legal practice, but every minute of every day. And he’s never seemed happier.
Slippin’ Jimmy with a law degree
“…Slippin’ Jimmy with a law degree is like a chimp with a machine gun.”—Chuck McGill
Hasta la vista, Dr. Zaius.
How about FOUR machine guns?
Awesome!
I was impressed with how he handled his client load, but the first episodes of the series showed that Jimmy did not stop working as a p.d. and then took care of Chuck, so he is very good at multitasking and he does know how to work hard.
That was the quality Howard most admired about Jimmy, and the reason he still wants to do lunch with him. In a word: HUSTLE.
I think Howard is relatively nice deep down, and he was all for hiring Jimmy after he passed the bar, but Chuck bullied him to not giving Jimmy an associate position. He was also willing to be the scapegoat to Jimmy about not getting the job, so I think he is going to ask Jimmy to come on board to HHM. I also think I realize what the difference between Chuck and Walt from Breaking Bad: Walt was worse during the end of the series, but Chuck would become sanctimonious if caught doing something wrong, and Chuck did not show remorse like Walt did in the beginning ( like writing a checklist on why or why not to kill the guy in the basement, I think that was Domingo/ Krazy 8.
That’s why I was so happy when Howard grew a spine and showed Chuck the door. It was painful, and Howard is still wracked with guilt over how Chuck decided to kill himself rather than live as a retired lawyer (though that’s totally on Chuck). The truth is it was the right move. It saved his firm.
Ever since it was revealed, some time ago in show time, that Chuck was source of Jimmy getting screwed over at HHM and not Howard, I haven’t even really understood why Jimmy still seems to hate Howard
You wouldn’t hate the guy who enabled your bully?
I see what you’re saying here but isn’t it a bit more complicated than that? Wasn’t Howard also taking the fall for Chuck’s actions partly in a bid to save Jimmy from knowing that it was his own brother who was doing all these things to him?
He was, but the only thing Jimmy hated more than Chuck’s animus and shitty treatment of him was the way that no one else (besides Kim) seemed to notice or acknowledge that Chuck was so vindictive to Jimmy. Howard helped Chuck hide that stuff. I don’t think he can ever view Howard as anything other than a tool for his abuse (real or perceived) from Chuck. As viewers, we’re certainly given compelling reasons to view Howard more empathetically, but I understand why Jimmy is unable to view him in that way.
50% PERCENT OFF!!!
That’s almost half!
Just goes to show you how many Badger and Skinny Pete characters exist in ABQ
I think the calm before the storm is coming to an end.I am in full denial this show is eventually going to have its own Ozymandias.
What’s been hinted as potentially the highlight of the season will come with Episode 8, “Bagman,” an opus directed by Gilligan. Gould calls it “physically, a very difficult episode for us to do.”
https://variety.com/2020/tv/features/better-call-saul-season-5-showrunner-peter-gould-vince-gilligan-1203510585/amp/
The only worrisome note sounds when Lalo says he’s got something “much better” planned for Domingo than Nacho ensuring his silence in custody.
I think I get what’s being implied here, and it’s awfully clever. We learned in Breaking Bad that Krazy-8 was a DEA informant, and Hank thinks it’s because he was a weasel who was turning in his fellow dealers to move up the food chain. It looks like that’s going to turn out to be a ruse—that Lalo’s actually going to order Domingo to rat out Gus’s dealers to Hank, to starve Gus of his profits and put him on the outs with Eladio and Bolsa.I’m usually more interested in the show’s character drama than in the Breaking Bad references and crime-thriller machinations, but that’s a pretty ingenious retcon.
And Nacho picking up Saul is to represent Krazy-8 and get him the inside info more than likely, which compromises our protagonist lawyer, and gets him involved fully in this whole Lalo/Nacho mess that he references when we first meet Mr. Goodman in Breaking Bad.
Based on this it looks as though maybe Nacho is eventually going to use Saul to set Lalo up for Nacho to turn Lalo in to the DEA, perhaps to save his dad, forcing Lalo to go on the run where Gus promptly has him murdered and buried in the desert.
As long a Nacho can make it to Manitoba, I’m for it.
I still say Nacho gets a head injury, makes it to Manitoba, then heads east and ends up in Toronto, where he meets up with this English con woman who has a lot of siblings…
Oh! Well done, I missed that! Yeah, that’s a great plan.
That would make total sense. Krazy-8 is actually much smarter then he lets on, and Lalo knows it. There was an unspoken pact made when he folded on the river. They both can do the math—Lalo tried to bluff a hand he didn’t have and they both knew it. By letting Lalo have the pot, Krazy-8 was kissing Lalo’s ring and telling him he’d do anything for him.Lalo actually trusts him more than he trusts Nacho right now. He respects Nacho’s huevos, but he knows that Domingo will die for him.
Yes, but Krazy 8’s subsequent disaster with the cops probably wrecked some of Lalo’s confidence in him.
I think Lalo still trusts him, otherwise he’d have had him killed in jail.
Looks like you nailed it.
I like how the more we learn about Domingo, the more we realize that Walt murdered a nice suburban kid who wanted to make a little extra money and not be his boring furniture salesman dad, and got in over his head. I mean we knew that but it’s nice to see the ways it’s reinforced. I loved the retcon that explained his nickname.
Ahem, Walt defended himself against Domingo, who bullshited him for an hour being friendly when Walt, knew he had the piece of plate just in the perfect shape for a DIY knife. Walt killed in self-defense until pretty late in, when in season 5A he was starting to piss me off, some will say there’s the Jane matter, but he didn’t kill her, he just didn’t save her from self-induced OD. I mean, if you were gonna puke your soul out, your dose was already ridiculously high and reckless and I am a pain patient who in the first few months did take half more of a pill than I should have and it wasn’t codeine with tylenol, it was morphine pills, still, I knew the dose NOT to take at all costs then, but I also never was a junkie or was brought to AA/NA by my parents when almost 30.
Nicely done!
After it was over, I wondered if Mike’s blow up might have been kind of an attempt at a mercy-break-up. Like the proverbial kid who drops the dog he can’t keep on the side of the road and says “Get outta here! I hate you! Dumb ol’ dog.”But then, in retrospect, Mike, his daughter-in-law, and his grand kid have a pretty good relationship in Breaking Bad. So, this blow-up has to be fairly temporary, right?
Yeah, he just lost his temper. I think any comments about his son and the relationship he had with him are strictly off-limits, no matter who’s making them.
Yeah, Mike knows he’s not even close to half the man his son was and it’s painful when he’s reminded of it.
Kayleigh is going to be a way bigger part of his life than Nymeria was to Arya’s (even in the books). So yes.
Hey, book -Nymeria’s going to be incredibly important! Somehow! She is!…there wouldn’t be that much build-up otherwise!…surely!?
Yes, because in the books it’s already been established that Nymeria is running a wolf crew in the Riverlands. Also, Arya can warg and she’s an actual character, not just a plot device.
Yeah, yeah! Book Nymeria is gonna be so much better! One day, we’ll all get our copies of Winds of Winter and Dream of Spring and everything is gonna be different for us! You’ll see! GRRM is definitely not going to die without publishing them! Yeah! (At this point, my feverish love of the books has so subsided that I’ve accepted the show ending and just don’t care anymore.)
Yes, exactly!Well, I mean, it’ll presumably be Brandon Sanderson who publishes them in the end, but same principle…(and yes, while I will try to read the next book, if there is one, I’m not sure I’ll be able to get back into it. Likewise, I still haven’t read the Sanderson volumes of WOT (and have no interest in the forthcoming show). In theory, I like huge cycles of doorstopper novels – I’m a big Robin Hobb fan – but there is a limit to how long we can wait for resolutions. Or, you know, any content at all. In ASOIAF’s case, it’s now been 20 years and counting since the end of A Storm of Swords, and we still haven’t gotten to what was meant to come next (since AFFC and most of ADWD are set in what was originally meant to be a five year gap before the next round of events occured)…)
Also, I’m not sure why Mike would even think to do that now. The current timeline of BCS is years before he has to walk away from his granddaughter in the park.
Just insofar as he’s thinking, “stay away from me, I’m loathsome.” We know he’ll return to some sort of status quo with K and Stacey, so, yeah, it lends credence to this being an actual emotional fuck-up. I think I’m always having my Vince-verse goggles on watching for character actions that seem random at first only for them to reveal later “I meant to do that.”
It’s a character trait. Mike doesn’t always act the best when he’s under pressure and/or feeling guilty about something. We saw him binge drinking again, too, which is something he’s fallen back on before when shit got rough.This is fairly clear, and I don’t think it’s what you’re alluding to, but I don’t think he yelled at her because he was thinking, ‘Someday I’m going to ditch you in a park. Be wary.’
…and she’s barely aged, which, as smart as this show is, must surely be me misunderstanding something, right?
It’s got to be stressful when your granddaughter never grows past age 10.
oh shit son. she should either be like 4ish right now in BCS, or 16ish at the end of Breaking Bad, shouldn’t she? I guess Vince et al were just like ‘aaah fuck the continuity on this one’
She’s in the fifth grade in Breaking Bad, season 5A, so 2009, when we see her first back in s1, she’s maybe 4 or 5, so, hm, I think she’s not more than 7 right now, in I think late 2004. It’s still fine with me.
Mike would die for that girl. In fact, he eventually does. She’s the whole reason he came to the ABQ in the first place. Grandpa just blew his cool and the kid will get over it. She’ll hate his guts for the next few hours, but miss him come sun up. Beside, she’s still got her eights and nines to learn and that tree house isn’t going to build itself.
I think it was on purpose , as he just can’t do this right now. Clean break. No more calls. He knows it all ends badly
“70 hours is a breeze, trust me. Think of all the good you’ll do…” – Jimmy explaining the community service deal he got for a client while eating a mint chocolate chip cone, notably leaving out how it’s way more of a breeze if you can legally extort your supervisor.Of course, aforementioned Mint-chip cone winds up on the pavement. Nacho’s not going to let anything fuck up the seats his own father upholstered.That god damn one-shot in the court halls had me going. It’s amazing how Gilligan can make the more mundane sequences so much more exhilarating than the ones with bullets and car chases. Also a clever way to drive home how criminal justice is actually negotiated with hallway deals in contemporary times.I was really hoping that while Victor was inside the cafe with Nacho’s father, he would make a subtle throat-slit gesture, but there’s still time for that. I know, a joke like that would be a little on the nose. It’s so bad, it would make Jane throw up in her mouth.I initially thought that the kink in the gutter pipe was orchestrated by Nacho. If Nacho had prepared an exit plan for dealer’s den that didn’t involve just dropping off the wind sill, I’d still be considering it.I was kinda hoping that we’d see the real estate broker from when Marie stole the spoons or thimbles or whatever they were or the broker who was trying to Febreze Pinkman’s house while they were cooking in the basement. I guess Kim & Jimmy’s McMansion is on a higher market level than those brokers serve.Fizzy K is a white rapper name if I ever heard it. I don’t imagine it tastes better when mixed with tequila and a splash of Hector’s backwash. Nice of the BCS team to still come up with chemistry references for a potassium laden drink, though.Biggest sign that Mike is officially off his game? He absentmindedly had Kaylee put the steps on the ladder before she tried to line up the sandpapers. Didn’t even set them on a sturdy surface and draw lines with a flatedge. Mike wanted Kay’ to fail. Mike needed Kay’ to fail. Mike needs to be hated for all of his sins, and I can’t really disagree.So is Hamlin taking Jimmy out to tell him that his Sandpiper settlement came in or is HHM maybe looking to start up a new division? Perhaps a division to provide local legal services for an expanding, multi-state fast food franchise?I knew the elevator was going to get stuck long before, but I love how Odenkirk plays Jimmy’s tone of lying. Jimmy’s not obvious enough to leave no doubt, but there’s plenty of tells if they just pay attention, or if you’re his own brother and you have his lifetime of experience. Also, when the ruse has run it’s course, Jimmy doesn’t care enough to keep it going, openly checking his watch and muttering “Twenty minutes” after the power comes back on. At the end of the day, I think Jimmy sees himself as a teacher, trying to help other sheep become wolves. Even in a race to the moral/ethical bottom, you still need a coach.
I also feel like Fizzy K has an extra layer. What’s the best natural source of Potassium? Bananas. Bananas are smooth, creamy, and effortlessly mashed into puree or blended into smoothies that would be slightly thick and thus arguably easier for someone with trouble swallowing to drink than a thin, water-based liquid and way easier than a carbonated water-base.So I think the joke may be that – despite Jimmy’s legal efforts – the corrupt health-care machine keeps chugging along, buying unneeded and expensive artificial vitamin drinks (a la Pedialyte) that likely cost $5 bucks and are surcharged to Medicare for much more. Meanwhile a $.15 banana would provide more potassium, be easier to ingest, and not taste nasty like Fizzy K probably does. Anybody else have experience with Care facilities? This kind of wasteful and harmful shit goes on all the time.Also, Lalo could have returned with rum in his flask and turned Hector’s banana puree into a potassium daiquiri.
I kind of like Howard Hamlin. He seems very much like the lawyers that I have met. He is professional, but if you go two layers down, he is actually a sympathetic human being. And you can’t deny that he is willing to take one for the firm.
I do too. Howard took a tremendous amount of bullshit from both brothers, despite doing his best to treat both of them with fairness and decency. I really liked it when he finally stood up for himself against each of them.I hope Hamlindigo-Blue still flies by the end of the series.
Me too. He even took crap from Kim, and he defended himself, but a law school tuition is a lot of money to just let go. And there are far worse things than being sent to doc review.
In my opinion, the Kim-curbing was a little shitty, but I think that and the other crummy things Howard did was him just being too loyal to his best friend Chuck and not feeling like he could question him. I think Howard just revered Chuck until the bitter end, thinking he must always be right. I can’t really blame Howard for that perspective considering how much Chuck had done for his and his father’s business.The whole thing with the tuition – especially the way they shot it as having an asymmetry – I think illustrates that Kim and Howard are written as mirror images, since Gilligan loves duality in writing characters. Howard saw Kim foolishly enabling Jimmy and Kim saw Howard doing the same for Chuck. So my perspective is this: Jimmy already accused Kim of betraying him on the rooftop even though she was just trying to do her best to protect him. Chuck considered Howard trying to help him as betrayal before suing HHM like an asshole. Since Howard was eventually forced to come to terms with the kind of bastard that Chuck had become and was driven to cut him off in a humiliating manner… does this mean if/when Kim reaches her wits’ end with Jimmy, will she also “betray” him?I’ve honestly always had this sense from after the 2nd season that the reason Kim left Jimmy’s life (and possibly ABQ) is because Jimmy drove her away, probably back to Kansas. I can’t help but look at the Chuck/Howard pattern as foreshadowing a similar breakdown.
Loved that “Life’s rich pageant” line. Enjoyed seeing Howard briefly; sounds like HHM had a strong turnaround, and Howard wants a lunch meeting with Jimmy. What place will the show have for our Ken doll now?Mike looks soooo old… Gus also looks too old, for that matter. Such are the dangers of a prequel. Gus’s scene in the car was fantastic though.This is when Domingo gets flipped by the cops, right? Still hard to believe how fast he rises to the commanding position we saw in BB S1 (only a few years away, I think?)
Man, Lalo’s gonna regret poking the bear that is Gus Fring. I got $50 that says he ends up buried under concrete in the superlab, perhaps under that south wall he kept taunting Gus about. Who’s in?Kind of a lumbering episode, but with a lot going on. On one side, it’s a scummy lawyer show, on the other, it’s a drug cartel expose. Great as ever. Just air one ep per night for the next week, please.
I’ll take that bet! Though I must say, I’m really enjoying Lalo’s addition to the show. Would have loved to see this character go a few rounds with Walter White
You never know, he might yet!
Lalo is a great foil for Gus. He’s smart, meticulous and just as cold-bloodedly ruthless as Gus is. However, Lalo is reckless. He underestimates Gus, partly because of his own arrogance and partly because of his disdain for Gus’ perceived sexual preference. Since Lalo is history by the time Walter and Jesse hit the ABQ drug scene, I’m guessing Gus ultimately gets the upper hand.
In the south wall and not yet dead when the concrete is poured as Gus watches sternly and silently.
The thousand injuries of Lalo Salamanca I had borne the best I could…
For the love of God, Gustavo!
“The Flask of Zafiro Añejo”
Damn! You win!
Yes, for the love of God!
Ding! Ding!
Yes, with an ever so slight hint of a smile as he watches yet another Salamanca draw his last breath, giving him another barb he can use to taunt Don Hector with.Honestly, the ongoing chess game between Gus and the Cartel could have been a standalone series by itself.
Gus seemed very confident that all the Salamancas were dead when he taunted Hector in Breaking Bad, but Saul thought Lalo might still be alive when Walt and Jesse kidnapped him. Odds are that you’re right and that by Breaking Bad Lalo is dead but officially missing as Gus has killed him and buried his body somewhere.
Pretty sure Gus would know more about whether or not there were any living Salamancas than Saul would.
That’s the ultimate mob style revenge: never let people know what really happened to someone.
Saul says when kidnapped by Walt and Jesse “It was Ignacio, he’s the one….no Lalo?!”. I think Nacho ends up killing Ignacio and Saul is a suspect for a little while, according to the cartel, otherwise he wouldn’t have blabbed all of that, saying he was amigo “del cartel! sempre!”
Nacho is Ignacio. They’re the same person; he’s called Nacho because it’s short for Ignacio. Do you mean ‘Nacho ends up killing Lalo?’ It won’t be that either, because what Saul says to Walt & Jesse is ‘Lalo didn’t send you? No Lalo?’ If Lalo does die, which I’m almost certain he will, the authorities won’t find out, because Saul doesn’t.
I knew that buddy, what made it sound like I didn’t…
PS Oh I see, I meant Nacho is gonna kill Eduardo/Lalo somehow. Just a transpositional error, nothing a little whiteout won’t take care of :
PS
Oh I see, I meant Nacho is gonna kill Eduardo/Lalo somehow. Just a
transpositional error, nothing a little whiteout won’t take care of. I’m on a paid week off so it could be the cold I have or the medicine for the cold (got me some codeine syrup, the real thing, just codeine in it from my doc, just a tiny bit, but it helps along with the inhaler I always have, that’s why I might be a little swimmy today).
I think the “lumbering” is about to pick up very quickly, possibly for the rest of the show’s run.
This is the moment. The turn. Jimmy and Saul are fighting for control, and this is where Jimmy finally loses. Look at the suit – it’s mostly Jimmy, fairly understated and clean, well tailored, with a nice shirt. But the tie & pocket square, that’s all Saul. The ice cream is classic Jimmy. The earpiece, totally Saul. Jimmy and that ice cream of his suffer the same fate – rendered irretrievable because the wrong criminal pulled up at the wrong time.
Good take, but I still think Jimmy died crying out “No!” in his car in last season’s finale. That ending to the scholarship sequence was the last sound of the old Jimmy.
Saul : “Stay put like a good boy, don’t go and get an ice cream…” to Jesse as he sends him at the corner of Juan Tabo and that other boulevard. I thought about that immediately, I knew seeing Jimmy with an ice cream cone was bad news…even if it wasn’t soft serve.
Mike’s granddaughter has always bugged me a bit. Wasn’t she like 5 in Breaking Bad? Here she’s doing multiplication so she’s at least 7 or 8 (looks like it too).
Her age was always sort of messed up, since they never recast the role on Breaking Bad, which meant that by the last season you had a character who was supposed to be like seven or eight years old but the actress was now a tween. Eventually they had Hank mention that she was ten, which was probably an attempt to split the difference. She certainly comes across as a very young ten-year-old, who still likes playing on the swings with her grandpa, but it’s not completely implausible.
Then in the behind-the-scene commentaries for Better Call Saul, I think the writers say that she was supposed to be twelve in Breaking Bad, which seems like another retcon so they didn’t have to cast a toddler in Better Call Saul. That would make her around seven years old at this point in BCS, which seems about right, as long as you can suspend your disbelief that the Kayee from BB was supposed to be almost a teenager.
Perhaps she was 10 during most of 2009, when most of Breaking Bad is set, but turns 11 late that summer and 12 while Walt is in New Hampshire?
But that would make her three in 2002 when Better Call Saul starts, and only about five at the current point in the series, neither of which seem in line with the way the character is portrayed. It’s an awkward fit either way, but I think her going from five to seven to twelve probably makes the most sense.
When do kids learn their multiplication tables these days around grade 3?
Yeah, I think second or third grade. Definitely not kindergarten, though.
That’s when my kids did it in the 2000s and when I learned them in the mid-1970s. So around 8-9 years old.
She suffers from BAS, backwards aging syndrome. Simple as that.
“Lookin better every day/You got that Benjamin Button”
5th grade, off by 5 years, or more, sorry.
Might be forgetting some details from last season, but what made Werner’s murder “tactically necessary”? Mike trusted Werner could keep his mouth shut, pled for him, and Gus coerced Mike into murdering Werner. Mike’s fundamental problem is that buries his criminality and evil behind a criminal code of ethics. No civilians, respect the Sunday truce, that sort of stuff (with plenty of asterisks too).
“Michael,” what Mike sees himself as, is the ethical criminal who is smarter and more skilled than others that can avoid unnecessary bloodshed. His techne and praxis have allowed him to avoid serious moral choices (with some notable exceptions where it blows up in his face). The only thing separating him from Anton Chigurh is motive, and just like Mike’s crimes to cover up for “Matty,” Gus is pitting Mike against necessity. The only difference is that with Matty, Mike acted out of guilt (and love…and fear), whereas Gus coerces Mike into murder by hanging the threat to his granddaughter and daughter-in-law. Mike cannot be “Michael” without that veneer of ethics and he’s now understandably wrestling (again) with the shattering of that reality.
Might be weird to say, but Mike is a romantic. As a cop, he had a vision of honest and dishonest graft, as a drug enforcer, he at least acts with restraint and is not cruel for its own sake, made a point to not accept blood money. His ideal drug organization has a next to zero murder rate. I imagine a sign to that effect placed in the lab listing the days since they’ve had to kill someone. The problem is that Mike is not “Michael.”
Michael, as Werner called Mike, was a respectful and professional address of peers. Werner the engineer who was worth 50 times Mike, and Michael, the ethical criminal whose superior “virtu” makes everything run smooth and clean. Mike snapping at Kaylee while building her clubhouse and the preview showing him drinking again can’t be good. It’s fine if Mike is on the sidelines most of the season because Gus/Lalo with Nacho in the middle and the Saul/Kim stories are good enough for me.
Mike deserves a period of introspection which we haven’t really gotten other than Season 1. And, to be fair, he wasn’t the most fleshed out character in Breaking Bad. His arc was from semi-mysterious past as a corrupt cop to effective, but judicious and fair cartel enforcer. Let Nacho establish his bona fides this season. Other side of the coin, Nacho, another victim of Gus’s coercion. Instead of murdering German contractors who live moral lives, contribute positively to society, have healthy relationships with friends and family, and with whom you have a ghoulishly cathartic sympatico (keep in mind we never know for certain what Werner truly thinks of Mike- maybe he’s terrified of him and butters him up every chance he could- kind of a reserve Hogan’s Heroes? “Kainch had a radio hidden where?!?). While Mike is dealing with the consequences of his own self-delusions, Nacho is taking major risks to what, save some spiked drugs, just to maybe prove his mettle so he can maybe become a better mole for Gus? Come to think of it, Nacho to Mike is the character arc of every Trump administration official! Make no mistake, Mike knows he Mike. He’s evil and good at it. Nacho is still just good at being evil. The only real shot at solace Mike has is if he burns every bridge with anyone he cares about, doesn’t care if he lives or dies, and anticipates or adapts to any situation that could compromise his ethical constructs. He knows he’s dynamite and his idea of penance is to stay the wrath of others? In general, Mike served Walt’s character development much more than Saul so they have a tighter window to work with, so it’s hard to blame the writers. Mike’s a mishmash of well worn tropes and plot destiny, but he’s still done well. Spend some time down that bottle, “Mikey:!
Random episode thoughts
-Lalo/Gus looks fun. Lalo has to suspect Nacho is making a move. The double, triple agent cloak and dagger show!
-Gotta love the drug dealer’s fortress. Stripped out, no place for a wiretap, all boarded up, portholes to talk out of, and a neat, clean, and easy method of transaction. Call it lack of meticulousness, foresight, or procedure, but an otherwise tight operation getting jammed up by 10 packages is not the engineering oversight Werner, Mike, or Michael would make.
-Saul and Howard framed in the courtroom door window panes in a shot. Hint of a courtroom showdown? How will Chuck affect the plot this season? His spirit is too strong to go away.
-The Kim/Jimmy house visit scene was cliche until that realtor gave them the thousand yard stare as Jimmy waves and says thanks. Well shot.
-Kim’s going to suffer this season and I hate it. I predict she’s stripped of her license to practice law in New Mexico by the end of the season. Oh, and her and Jimmy break up, but that’s probably for the best.
-Two episodes without a keynote musical montage or superb credit song? If you used the music budget to buy the rights to a Stones song, it better be obscure enough and really apt.
-Still the best television show. Season 5 of a prequel is a fucking task. Why is this show not more popular? Association with The Walking Dead becoming trite? Honestly, this should be the hit Breaking Bad was. Hell, it’s been what everyone loves about peak Breaking Bad.
-Hope Donna’s shorter review tonight isn’t the new norm.
I don’t think Mike actually has that kind of moral vanity. He and Nacho both prefer to avoid needless brutality and escalation, but they’re not at all squeamish about doing what they they think is necessary. Mike was casually corrupt as a cop, told Walt that story about one time he nearly murdered a perp, the moral of which was that he should have, and kicked himself for falling for Lydia’s mommy routine and not murdering her. They just care about the people they care about.
Good points, and thanks for refreshing me about some parts of BB that are frankly a big hazy at this point. And yeah, maybe I’m projecting Werner onto Mike too much. In general, there isn’t much range or space for a deeper character or complexity in the right hand man of a brutal, evil gangster. Mike is a violent man and utterly ruthless, but I think him and Nacho see themselves as “better” than other criminals that’s tied to a warped ethical view, despite the cognitive dissonance and inconsistency in their actions and ideas. But thanks for taking the time to read my insane rant!
I enjoyed the rant. I also take this too much to heart. I don’t Mike and Nacho think they’re morally superior. Mike hates himself and Nacho is moving in that direction. Mike all but acknowledged that Kasper was right. They do, however, look down on the their dumber associates and do not like being taken for tools themselves.
If they hate themselves for what they do and others who do the same things don’t, that does make them morally superior. It means they have morals that they violate. Lalo, for example, seems to be amoral.
Well put Tony, thanks for the assist (and for the missed music scenes). I am working on the assumption that the show is saying that Mike/Nacho and Gus/Lalo are different sorts of characters. I’m a bit hazy about Mike/Gus/Walt’s relationships in the later season, but they were the main vessels for examining “breaking bad” and the violent steps criminals take, and in my opinion Mike came off as the least worst in the end. So, yeah, I’m probably ascribing too much significance to Werner and other flaws, but his work life is affecting his family life again, his inner demons are rising, his boss is pissed at him, looks like he’s drinking again. Should be a fun season for Mike!
I don’t think Mike has had many fun seasons in his life.
I wasn’t arguing that they were amoral, but that they lack moral vanity. And Mike, for one, as we saw in his experience with the grief support group, has no patience for people who are not honest with themselves. I think they both admire decent people, but know perfectly well that’s not who they are.
Is violating your principles really worse than having no principles? You get the same end results and you’re a hypocrite without integrity. I prefer a criminal who sticks to his amoral guns. But perhaps that is why I don’t like Mike (or Walt) and like Saul. Saul may be a shithead, but he doesn’t try to claim otherwise. (Plus, he’s got that hustle. You have to admire the hustle).
Werner has to be projected into Walt. Walt was terrified of Mike, who can forget the hilarious warning call “Mike…first off, don’t be angry”, but begrudgingly respected him for real, as much as Walt can respect somebody other than Walt (or Jesse) until things took a bad turn in “Buyout”. Mike had apologized for chaining him to a radiator. Mike had thanked Walt for the 5 million. Yet he asks for that again as they are about to part ways..gah, season 5A Walt is so terrible, hahaha. Thanks for making me remember that. I see 5B differently, it’s so much pain and complete horror….I think it’s only time restraints that had Walt not play around with Hank by just ignoring Hank and leaving the car bug where it’s convenient like Gus, he was out, it’s not like he had any suspicious things going on at all, oh well.
Again, good points! I’m rusty on my Walt lore so thanks for cleaning things up and adding better insight. Your welcome for 5A Walt, what a post-impeachment Trumpian megalomaniac victory lap that sow more and definitely adds water to all of the seeds of Walt’s self-destruction.
But 5B is a bit of a mess. A bit rushed (Mike’s death-even pre-BCS), but that’s the curse of the Golden Age of TV, plodding, stilted, back end of the second half of the final season where the pacing and plot especially stand out as disjointed. Game of Thrones was the worst offender (ironic in a way), The Sopranos, Mad Men *ducks*, Boardwalk Empire, not to mention shows like Rome and Deadwood that were forced to rush. Sorry, I’m rambling.
I’m pretty sure you’ve missed at least two musical montages. The 50% assholes off the top of this, and Saul’s cellphone hustle in the previous ep.I agree with you about the popularity. Breaking Bad didn’t really become a phenomenon until it was available on Netflix, but BCS has been streamable (previous seasons) for years. This show is a little more slowburn and nuanced than the former, so that might be why.
Since there is a season 6, I think the finality and whatever it will be like for Kim and Jimmy will be for later, they still have fun and seem to have an understanding that is deep enough that they don’t need to talk much, the kind of connection so strong where even the very talkative Jimmy/Saul kind of dropped when it came to her sometime by season 3. He was resentful at her refusing his help in the past and when she wanted to help when he was doing time in season 3 and 4, mostly 3 as he was still bitter about it, see the lying down with the guitar scene in their office.That said, balconies and stairways plus Kim makes me nervous as hell.
Agree about Kim and Jimmy’s final screen time occurs at the end of the final season. Still think things are headed for a blow up at some point. Honestly, the tragedy of it all is that they do and should work together quite well. They’re an all time great couple. Ying and yang in all the right places for so many seasons (but with the frictions you note- like they’re a real couple). I think Kim is being tempted by the Saul method and ethics and she’ll come around to it in her own way. She doesn’t cut corners or have as many blind spots as Jimmy. If Kim lost her conscience, she could be as methodically ruthless as Gus Fring, but Kim and Jimmy are classic deontology and consequentialism debate among others things (Chuck too, with Kim now taking up the Kantian mantle whether she likes it or not in some ways.
Damn your last sentence to hell. It’s a trenchant insight (tell me more!), but damn you to hell for even suggesting that possibility. (But seriously, great catch there as much as I can’t stomach it).
After seeing the extra video of Lalo’s taco recipe, and remembering how much Tuco liked to cook, I would be happy to have a Salamanca cookbook. If not that, then I would settle for Tuco’s salsa recipe.
Gus also loves to cook. I guess it’s a crime boss thing, like Goodfellas.
Remember that in, “The Godfather”, when they go “to the mattresses”, Michael is taught an old family recipe by Clemenza.
That’s a damn good recipe too. I made it once.
I would be disappointed by the consistent lack of chili P.
What’s the recipe?
That’s what I want to know. I hope that it is a four pepper salsa so I can use it with Lalo’s carne asada taco recipe.
Didn’t Lalo already have a cooking video on YouTube?
He does, and it is awesome. I just want more, and I think Tuco would be a natural for a cooking video. I would also like a sewing or upholstery maintenance video by Nacho.
There are certain looks that make me wonder if Jimmy knows he might be losing Kim.
I think he knows. That’s why he dropped everything to show her the house.Just when she thinks she’s out, he pulls her back in.
He wants, in short, what all soon-to-be villains want: everything.
The house show reminded me of how he would show kim offices in earlier episodes.
I argued this with my husband when we watched the other week. Whether he specifically knows it or not, Jimmy is manipulating Kim into staying with him. He knows she’s unhappy and he knows how to reel her back in: promises of a successful life on the straight and narrow where she can do good lawyering by day and curl up in a nice place and watch old movies at night. Kim stays with Jimmy because he sees her; unfortunately Jimmy is using that insight to manipulate her now.
The only worrisome note sounds when Lalo says he’s got something “much better” planned for Domingo than Nacho ensuring his silence in custody.I interpreted this totally opposite, but I don’t know who’s right.I think when Nacho asked Lalo if he really wanted the former to take care of it, he was asking if he had to kill K8. I think at this point that Nacho was prepared to do it, since any other option would be to sacrifice his father’s life.So Lalo’s “much better” is something either actually-better or (more likely given the sociopath who said it) something much worse. Evidently it also involves Jimmy. We know that “Squat Cobbler” has already been used, so K8 is delving into an unknown, here. IIRC, K8 lives in a mcmansion at the beginning of the BB chronology, so whatever it is, he may have gone along with it or Jimmy & Nacho found a way around it.I hope they pull Mike into it, whatever it is. A true 3-man teamup would be really fun.
That’s a good show, but my pet peeve in TV is when a cast gets so large, they’re split in barely overlapping storylines, like in Riverdale or Brooklyn 99. It’s the case here where Jimmy, Nacho and Mike’s scenes could almost be edited in 3 miniseries.
It’s always been that way. Even when the cast was smaller, Jimmy rarely interacted with Mike or Nacho. I don’t think all 3 of them have ever been in a scene together.It’s my biggest problem with the show. I don’t care about Nacho or the cartel, and I got tired of Mike long ago. I’m here for Jimmy/Saul, and the majority of the show doesn’t involve him at all.
Yeah I’ve been saying that for awhile. BCS is effectively two different shows which just happen to both be set in ABQ now. I’m intrigued by the end of this ep though and hope it leads to more integration
I wouldn’t worry too much about Krazy-8. I reckon that kid’s got a long life ahead of him. 😉
Anyway, I think that Kim will get that house in the end, but without Jimmy. I think she’ll even slam the door in his face.
* “Raging Bull”plus “After Hours”—it’s been a while since we’ve had so many movie references from Jimmy.* Did anyone else notice that one of of of Saul/Jimmy’s clients is named Seehorn?* Why does Howard want to have lunch? Could it be bad news related to that huge finder’s fee that Jimmy is presumably still owed?* Great subtle, non-verbal acting from Michael Mando in that moment when Nacho is given the authority to make the call on his own—he doesn’t smile, but the smile is there.
No mention of the Knome with half its face-off. A callback to Breaking Bads Teddy Bear. Which was symbolism for the unintentional consequences of Walts actions. Same with Jimmy now, he thinks hes just making money but hes encouraging more crime
I couldn’t help noticing the similarities between the gnome’s broken hat from the beginning of the episode and Saul’s discarded ice cream cone at the end. Of course the ideas that popped into my head immediately was, respectively, “crack head” and “dunce cap.” One of my favorite things about this show is the care that is put into symbolism and visual puns, especially when they make me laugh!
I thought that Nacho made Saul get rid of the ice cream so that his car’s upholstery did not get dirty.
That’s definitely the reason.
I’m inclined to hate the Salamanca’s for their mindless violence and levels of psychotic behavior. That being said, Better Call Saul has done a much better job of putting on full display what a monster Gus is. Poor Nacho being caught in between this, here’s hoping at the end of this ride he and his father get to order a vacuum or at the very least get to live off the grid somewhere in the Canadian rockies
Winnipeg’s in the prairies, but you’re pardoned. And yep…Gus had to go, no longer am I thinking the murder of Tomas is ambiguous…he ordered it.
Yeah, Gus is much more interesting when he’s a petty AF stone-cold crime boss than a plain old stone-cold crime boss.
Anyone else think that the 50% off guys are young Badger and Skinny Pete?
Now I do.
No. They’re clearly not Badger and Skinny Pete.
I also liked Saul quoting Led Zeppelin’s The Rain Song.Being ages since I watched BB, I thought the open house was Saul’s when we meet him in that show. It was ostentatious enough.My trite plotting based on the season premiere would be fridge guy gets killed in prison, Kim feels terrible about it, and that’s the thing that makes her break up with Jimmy, transforming him completely into Saul. As I’ve said for all the years this show’s been running, I’d rather have Kim alive but out of the picture than dead.“Hey, Mr. Banks, today you’re going to be angry and yell at a little girl.”
Zeppelin by way of the Inkspots, Ella Fitzgerald and Longfellow, but yeah. That and the little “Life’s rich pageant” remark – one of Saul’s/Jimmy’s funniest qualities is his brilliant genius for deflecting criticism with the most banal of aphorisms, and I don’t know if Odenkirk ad libs any of those, but he makes it sound like they spring right from the tip of his tongue.
Considering how vocal Banks was about disagreeing with Mike’s choice to abandon Kaylee, I wonder if this scene touched off another round of behind-the-scenes friction.
When their 10 packets of drugs get caught in the drain pipe the 2 skells complain that they want their “Glass”. That’s not a term for Cocaine.
Details, schmetails. Coke, meth…it’s all confusing to the same reviewer that ACTUALLY THOUGHT that Werner really DID steal the two kilos on his little vacation attempt.
It’s not meth? It’s always been meth. I thought the “stepped on” complaint was that it was too fine and powdery, which wouldn’t make sense with cocaine.
“Stepped on” means cut with some other, usually innocuous, substance.
Thanks!
Thank my misspent youth for that knowledge.
Yes. It was meth. They sell meth. There was a whole thing in last week’s thread with commenters correcting people who thought it was crystal meth that Ziegler supposedly stole. Someone even suggested that they cut the coke with shitty meth. No. It’s meth, it’s all meth.
Donna made a mistake but I think BCS itself made a ton of mistakes with this. The packets of white powder certainly look like cocaine or perhaps some type of cheap speed. “Glass” was used a slang term because of the crytstaline glassy appearance of crystal meth. What’s in those baggies doesn’t look like that at all so it’s weird they would call it that
Yeah, some forget that there’s “crank”, the poor man’s cocaine as Eladio said, which is what is sold right now by them, which is a powder, not a crystal. Adderal, Dexedrine, Vyvanse are close enough to meth and they’re powder inside thosee colorful capsules and tablets. Crystal was invented because it can be smoked, pretty much, doesn’t work well with crank, I hear (truly, I know this only because of my job, pharmacologist, plus there’s no crystal meth but a lot of illicit meth pills in eastern Canada, crystal is only an issue in western/central Canada) from what I read in the papers.
My wife asked if Louboutins were a thing in the time period when this is set. This troubled me for two reasons. (1) I’m still not 100% sure of the exact time period and (2) that seemed more like a question I’d be asking her.The first question made me think too much about the cars on the street and people’s clothes, and I saw a few things that seemed off – like the grill and interior of that Yukon that Gus used to pick Nacho up, as well as the labels on the Modelo bottles. I could have done without the “Where’s Waldo-ing.”
The company has been around since the early 90s. The signature red heel started in 93.
I thought the same thing, but Sex and the City was in full swing by that time, and high end shoes were a huge thing.
SATC was all about Manolo Blahnik. It may or may not have mentioned Loubitons, but I do not believe they were a “thing” on the show. (Or anytime in the mid 00s).
Am I the only one who thinks that Nacho staged the WHOLE thing? The timing and response is insane – I think he caused the clog and had the cops tipped off after Krazy 8 headed there. We know he was working Lalo per Gus’s instructions and his endgame was too brave and crazy for a Nacho – I am pretty sure he planned literally every step of this. He even ensured Krazy 8 would be on site – I wonder if Krazy 8 was in on it?
I don’t think so, simply because it was actually Krazy-8, who is an old friend of his, and could potentially be killed for this. Nacho has shown to be cunning and smart, but he’s a softie (in the best way, not like the way Kai implied in episode 1).
Maybe he didn’t want Krazy 8 arrested, but I don’t buy that the rest of the sitch was an accident. I can totally see the next episode having a reveal of Nacho doctoring that drain pipe (or the stashhouse woman doing it).
It seemed pretty clear to me that the clog was from the crazy 50% off crew buying 10 packets at once. That stashhouse Sally would be one smart cookie to see that order as an opportunity to clog the pipe and set things in motion. More likely she was just too dull to think ahead and drop the packets 1-2 at a time.
Yeah, it was complacency on her part. In all likelihood nobody had ordered ten packets at once, so it never entered her mind that they might not all make it through the pipe at once.
I don’t think it was staged. The look on Nachos face when he got in the car dripping sweat looked authentic
I wouldn’t say he’s a softie but he has way more scruples than most of the career criminals we watch on this show.
He’s this show’s Jesse. That was pretty clear last season when we saw him get to his new home with just 2 bitches whom he threw bags of meth at without responding to their offers of dinner or partaking with them going straight to his safe. He’s the guy I want to see get out of that life of crime that stopped being any fun to him since Tuco shot that guy with a sawed off shotgun in the face with him just behind, as Tuco was getting addicted to the stuff, acting erratically and that was the Doug Paulson Hank mentioned Tuco had issues with the Bandidos bikers in Riverside, California in 1998. Nacho has a piece of Doug’s skull stuck in a shoulder and a bullet from Victor in the other…and he wanted out before Gus got to him, all because of whatever his cohort with little regard for Nacho’s life went too far with his little power plays at the meth pile table…… : “he stuck a gun to your head?!” “it’s no big deal” *Nacho looks at ponytail likes he wants to kill him* Oh yeah, his name was Arturo.
Donna – did you subtly decrease the font size for the Louboutins to indicate the decreasing volume? You’re upping your game like you’re Vince Goddamned Gilligan!
are you FUCKING KIDDING ME? why is this show good? do you masturbate at the feet of bob oden-i-need-a-job-because-i-haven’t-been-funny-since-2001-kirk?it’s not a good show it’s fan fictionFIVE YEARS OF RUNNING IN PLACEfive years.
reading these comments is like reading about how GoT is ACTUALLY a great show when we KNOW, for certain, that all the backstory adds up to SHIT on SHITE
I love this show and it is probably one of the last “golden age prestige shows” left (I think “Marvelous Ms. Maisel” counts too). But I am really tiring of the whole Gus and Mike and the cartel stuff. This is all now well traveled ground that was covered in Breaking Bad. I know I am in a minority, but I think the show should be 100% Saul and Kim now. Seeing how Lalo meets his end is really not all that exciting to me. We know all about Gus’ meth lab. They got SOME mileage out of the pathos with the germans last season and showing Mike killing someone for the first time. But now this is all stuff we know and seen before.BCS does not need this Breaking Bad material crutch anymore. Mike and Gus’ characters are powerful, chilling..yada, yada..but we know what happens to them and at this point of the story, they are basically who we saw in BB. Really the last two seasons should be all about Saul and Kim and what happens to them, and relatedly, pick up with Gene in Omaha and examine if Jimmy can ever get some redemption. Just my two cents
Yeah it makes me wonder if this was always his plan to make what is essentially a Breaking Bad prequel or if he just changed his mind at some point early on how interesting the story of Jimmy McGill could be.
I personally think when it started, they used the Mike and Gus stuff as a “crutch” (hence my comment) because this was a new show and they were concerned for exactly what you said..that they were afraid maybe Jimmy’s story might not be enough to pull in viewers. But as the story went on and it turned out Jimmy’s story was the most compelling thing about it, especially his relationship with Kim and Chuck and even Howard, this fear should have been put to rest, but they just can’t get away from it. After the success of the Jesse pinkman movie, I am afraid they will cave and just have the last two seasons be a BB cameo fest with stuff we already saw and know. “Oh look, there is Walt!, there is Jesse!”. At this point, I want to see Jimmy’s story, not Gus and Mike doing things we already know they do and are capable of. When they kill Lalo, I am sure it will be compelling, etc.. but c’mon we already know the guy is going to die, Mike is going to die, Gus is going to die, etc. We don’t know what is the final story for jimmy and Kim.
Even Howard and Hewell and the film kids! That definitely wasn’t the first time Mike killed someone. We saw him calmly kill the two Philly cops. We heard his story about the time he almost killed a perp in his beat cop days and regretted his restraint, so he was probably more proactive after that. He fought in Vietnam. Maybe it was upsetting because he actually liked Werner or because killing people in the service of a drug lord.
I don’t really care about Lalo, either, but Nacho’s fate is also an important story line.
Three to six episodes all on Gene in black and white would be a bold move, and I imagine, would be really great too.
Didn’t Mike already kill before when he was avenging his son?
Yes, but thenhe was avenging his son. This was the first time he cold-bloodedly killed someone he respected and knew was a good person. That’s why he punched Kai for insulting Ziegler, but didn’t punch the other German who directly insulted him with, “He was worth 50 of you.”
Agree. I’ve grown very disinterested in the drug cartel plot.
I would not have a problem with this show only focusing on Jimmy/Saul/Kim and the lawyer stuff but there is a cartel connection to Saul’s destiny. He mentions Lalo and Igancio when we first encounter him on BB. They may be overdoing the Cartel stuff for fan service but it can’t just be ignored. Now that Nacho has come back to Saul and the inevitable Lalo encounter, it’s possible that this cartel link will be the ultimate undoing of Jimmy/Kim and the beginning of all-in Saul.
I mean the end of this episode made it pretty clear that Jimmy/Saul is about to be brought into the Gus/Mike/Lalo story in a big way
You don’t think that “Saul and Kim and what happens to them” might become intertwined with Saul’s involvement with “Gus Mike and the cartel stuff”?If they just dropped the Mike/Gus/Nacho storyline into Saul’s arch with little context you’d probably complaining how it was shoehorned into the story.
OUt of curiosity I just Googled Pinochet and Chile’s relationship with cocaine. It turns out Chile did export coke to the US and Europe in the 8os. Fring will most likely be a part of thier operations. When they mentioned the thing that happened in Santiago it could get interesting. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jul/11/chile.drugstrade
My issue isn’t so much that I like the Gus/Mike/Nacho plot less than the Jimmy/Saul/Kim plot but that the two stories intersect so little they might as well be two different ABQ-set shows. I’m intrigued with how this episode ended and if this can lead to the two shows being better integrated I’d be happy
Yes, if you’d never seen Breaking Bad, and you tried to watch BCS, you’d spend most of the show completely confused about why these two separate storylines were presented as the same show. Realistically, you would quit the show after a few episodes, or a season if you were generous.
The shows are also incredibly dissonant too. Character drama vs. cartel action shootout.
“showing Mike killing someone for the first time”Don’t forget the two cops in Philly.
Nacho is there for a reason, he links up Jimmy/Saul to the CRIMINAL Lawyer world, that’s why the cartel plot has to be there and I love his character. We also get to see how Mike was not a heartless criminal/killer that whole time PLUS we have to see how he becomes Saul’s P.I., they are in 2004 now, still 4 years before Breaking Bad and Mike just told Gus to stick that retainer of his where the sun don’t shine, so the opportunity of Mike rejoining the Saulsphere should be entertaining to say the least.
BCS does NOT need a “crutch” of any kind to carry the mail every week. We have to be happy that BB DID give some of these characters to us in the first place. Been missing Dean Norris, glad to see him returning.
Donna has written another great review on BCS. Using terms like “skell”, “velvet handcuffs”, and “super”. It truly is Life’s Rich Pageant!
I seem to remember long ago, in grade school maybe, hearing a joke about Doris Day’s Greatest Hits. By then, in the late 70’s or early 80’s, it would have been passed down by several generations of kids who didn’t get the joke at the time either. Maybe I’m Mandela Effecting myself.
No shout-out for the Hank Schrader back-of-the-head cameo during the DEA raid?
Pictures or it didn’t happen.
Hmmmm, could be. But what is that cat doing sitting on his right shoulder?
Plotting.
LOL, yeah, what the hell is that. Looks like an owl to me….creepy.
That was a nice house Jimmy took Kim to see. Too bad they’ll never get to use it.
Don’t be too sure; we never see where Saul lives in Breaking Bad.
If he is living in that house in Breaking Bad, then he’s living there alone.
I know that Gilligan wrote BB and BCS as morality tales but that fact really comes through in these first two episodes. No one gets to enjoy the fruits of their ill gotten gains without a huge amount of pain, loss of loved ones and, soon enough, their own lives.We have seen, essentially, all of the people dealing in meth meet terrible ends one way or another:Paralyzed, gassed in a Winnebago, strangled with a bike lock, shot when opening the door, run over, poisoned, shot, machined gunned, crushed between cars, poisoned along with most of the family and crew, shot by the Federales, beheaded, blown up, beaten to death, shot, shot, shot, burned alive in jail, shivved in jail, shot, shot, shot, strangled… Everyone but two! One lives a life he hates and is miserably lonely and the other escaped after many, many beatings and a stint as Albuquerque’s own version of Reek (from GOT). Yet, they all went into that life because of easy money and the good life.
In real life, El Chapo now gets one hour a day out of his cell, the same way that John Gotti lived his last few years. Pablo Escobar was shot like a hunted animal and even posed for photographs they way a deer is by its hunters, the same way that befelled his rival, Carlos Gacha, when he set him up. I can’t even think of two famous mobsters that died of old age surrounded by his loved ones. Meyer Lansky and… ?
The ones that die surrounded by loved ones are too smart to get famous.
True. The best criminals not only never get caught, we never know they were there.
This old guy who shot his landlord twice in the kneecaps seems like one of those mobsters who managed to stay under the radar for long enough. You don’t look that calm doing it if it’s your first time. All black, hand in pocket. Mobster.
https://www.khou.com/article/news/nation-world/93-year-old-man-shoots-apartment-manager-in-both-legs-over-water-damage-in-unit/285-b3b626e0-5732-4b72-8e28-4fe4a71c5d80
Yeah, he was pretty casual about it. Not his first time at the rodeo. I’m guessing any people he’s shot in the past aren’t talking.
I did think the opening sequence was a little heavy-handed; would even these idiots be inspired to go on an all-out crime spree and risk getting arrested just on the promise of 50% off legal fees? Where did they get the money for all those drugs anyway?
I was thinking that two morons like that would easily and quickly get stopped by the police. After every crime there should have been a call to 911 and a description of the car and perpetrators.
Yeah like a lot of Breaking Bad’s depictions of actual low level street crime it was completely ridiculous. They did tons of what looks like coke but what they call “glass” (meth) even though calling it that makes no sense since it’s a white powder and not crystals then they randomly do a bunch of vandalism and stealing super publicly and never get caught? It would’ve made more sense if they’d shown them in a cycle of stealing stuff and pawning it to pay for drugs
Meyer Lansky, Vito Corleone, and possibly Donald Trump.
I think Fabio and Jorge Ochoa both only did about 5 years in jail and kept most of their money. They probably sold more cocaine than Escobar but they kept things quiet.
Carlo Gambino.
Vito Rizzuto, the peacemaker of the 6th family in Montreal (some actor played himin Donnie Darko), he did spend 6-7 years for a murder committed in 1982 than he had ordered in Colorado’s Supermax, but was released back to Canada to die of, guess what, lung cancer on a hospital bed at 67, all his sons dead, mostly just his non-mafia professional financial daughters with him, Rizzuto’s sons and nephews were indeed wasted a lot like Hector’s.
Random question thought re: Gene – I was rewatching an early episode from Season 2 (when Kim thinks about going to SC the first time) and she mentions being from a town near the KS/NE border and possibly working at a “Hinky Dinky” in that town. I feel like there’s a strong chance Gene ends up going to that town, right?
“Skells” are the hoopleheads of Albuquerque