Of course Jimmy takes all the wrong lessons from his ordeal on a terrifying Better Call Saul
TV Reviews Recap
Last week I held out hope that Mike got through to Jimmy—that his speech about doing what he had to do to keep his loved ones safe changed the way Jimmy would approach the intersection of Kim and his work. Well, it did. But I should have known that the Jimmy who walked out of the desert wouldn’t be changed in a way that could do any good for anybody else. Call it Saul’s Law: If there’s a wrong lesson to be learned from his experience, that’s the one Jimmy will learn.
Jimmy changes in two directions, both maladaptive to the actual conditions of his life. First, he suffers from post-traumatic stress. Ordinary sights and sounds, like Kim chunking some fruit through a juicer, are unbearable. But self-care is not Jimmy’s forte. He needs to be okay, to be independent, and to get past this as quickly as possible. His shocked and shredded nervous system has other ideas.
Second, he decides he needs to define the terms of the Jimmy-Kim partnership. It was her idea to get married, to bring down the wall that had Jimmy hiding questionable practices and clients from her; as her spouse, he wouldn’t have to worry about that anymore. But now he finds he has much bigger things to worry about. And so he takes Mike’s speech about protecting his family and gives it the ol’ Walter White twist, deciding that he will shoulder the martyr’s role of doing what it takes to bring in the money that will buy them security, keeping from her all the bad things he has to do in the process, insulating her from the danger. I don’t think this is macho or narcissistic, the way it was with Walt; Jimmy doesn’t need to control Kim or have her be dependent on him. He loves her because she’s capable, confident, and yet still laughs at his jokes. For him, it probably feels like a sacrifice to arrive at this decision: that in order to keep her safe, the terms of the relationship will have to be set by him.
But the counter-evidence —revealing that this decision runs directly counter to actual conditions—comes rolling in like waves, over and over. For one, the horse had already bolted from that particular barn. Kim went to Lalo; he knows about her. She can’t be quarantined from Jimmy’s work for the cartel, as he would know if he’d listened to Mike. She’s in the game. And that disconnect is evident early and often: when she breaks down crying on the phone hearing his voice; when Lalo reveals that he’s seen her (“She’s a looker!”); when Jimmy directs her to the duffel bag to see the money (“that’s what it’s all about”) and she finds the bullet hole in his travel mug.
For another, if money = security, then Kim’s work suddenly carries an outsized weight in their partnership. She can’t quit her job because her career is the lifeline, the escape pod, the tether that at least one of them could follow back to safety if the Saul thing goes south. She can’t quit because that leaves them as wholly-owned subsidiaries of the cartel. The most painful scene of the episode for me was Jimmy trying to repeat Mike’s folksy metaphor about bad choices back to Kim in a completely twisted context, all the while refusing to tell her why the choice that felt so right to her was so wrong. “Bad choices lead to bad roads lead to bad places,” he clumsily summarizes. “I’m giving you a reality check—this is too far, too fast.” It’s that last bit that rankles. His decision about what their relationship has to be in the post-desert reality makes him assume a patronizing, paternalistic position over her, lecturing her as if she can’t see the consequences of her choices, when of course he’s the one who is refusing to let her see them. The bad choice wasn’t hers. It was his—not the one that sent him to the desert, but the one he made about what the desert was going to have to mean for the both of them.
And then of course, there’s the tense standoff that ends the episode, both stunning and stirring. Lalo invades their space, claiming his position at the fulcrum of their lives, wielding effortless power over them. As Mike hesitates, not wanting to pull the trigger and bring down a host of consequences on all of them if it can possibly be avoided, Jimmy unconvincingly plays dumb, offering up a few more demeaning details with each telling as if his previous narratives were incomplete because of his shame. He’s not going to back down, but it’s getting them nowhere.
I thought last week that Jimmy might be motivated to try to save Kim. But instead, Kim steps up to save Jimmy, tearing into Lalo, physically putting herself in Mike’s crosshairs, and pulling a desperate but very convincing version of the inconvenient truths speech she made to Kevin last week. “It’s obvious you have no one else you can trust,” she spits. “Get your shit together and stop torturing the one man who went to hell to save your ass.”
And it does send Lalo stalking out of their apartment. But it also changes his plans. Earlier in the episode, Lalo was tantalizingly close to resuming his anti-Fring whisper campaign in Mexico, releasing Gus, Nacho, Mike, and Jimmy from his orbit. Now he knows that Saul’s not just somebody Nacho brought in, but part of a team working together—and keeping it secret from him. That suggest a lot of other secrets, a host of other events that need reinterpretation. Undermining Gus to Don Eladio is no longer enough. He’s got a whole new plan.
Whatever it is, it keeps everybody on the hook. That’s where Jimmy and Kim are left wriggling. Will they form Team Full Disclosure For Real This Time at last?
Stray observations
- The split-screen cold open calls back to last season’s “Something Stupid,” where Jimmy and Kim share the same space but lead separate lives. This time they’re mirroring each other to a Spanish-language cover of the song as Jimmy walks out of the desert and Kim waits, with the blackest laugh coming while Kim just drinks water and splashes it on her face like there’s plenty more where that came from.
- Next week’s episode is titled “Something Unforgivable.” Hoo boy.
- Who were the bandits who attacked Jimmy? Mike recognizes a tattoo or brand on one of them, a Colombian gang. Gus immediately knows that Bolsa hired them to “protect his business by protecting our business,” unaware that the whole Lalo bail operation was being orchestrated by Gus. “Once Salamanca is south of the border, our actions must be unimpeachable,” he tells Mike, right before callously refusing to release his “asset” Nacho Varga.
- Every time somebody presses Jimmy to tell the truth about what happened in the desert, he reluctantly admits that he drank his own pee. That’s his idea of a believable worst thing that you wouldn’t want to tell somebody, the last word in trauma, a shame of which none greater can be imagined.
- Jimmy does get a good dig at Mike, asking whether Fred from TravelWire was “in the game” and therefore had invited his fate. Mike does have a problem with rationalizing all the collateral damage of his industry as somehow voluntary or unavoidable, and with setting aside issues of morality or justice in favor of a resigned realism.
- Before leaving Schweikart & Cokely, Kim grabs the agave-shaped stopper to that fancy tequila bottle she and Jimmy drank at their mark Ken’s expensive in the season 2 premiere “Switch.” And longtime fans will recall that that was a callback (or a foreshadowing) to the explosive scene in Breaking Bad’s “Salud” where Gus uses the same brand to poison Don Eladio. (That was eight and a half years ago. I have been writing about these shows for a long time.)
- DDA Oakley makes the most of his rare victory over a sunburned, traumatized Saul Goodman: “Law students will study the Goodman debacle as a teachable moment. Think of all the kids who will learn what not to do when faced with underwhelming odds.”
- In the twenty-first century, the corporate cliche of the boss putting into a cup can be updated to Juan Bolsa driving into a simulator.
- Of course Lalo taps on the aquarium. Of course he keeps doing it when asked not to.
- “I will recover and we never need to mention this again.”
464 Comments
Well that was the most horribly intense ending I’ve seen… I don’t even know. I screamed don’t do that shoot and no loud enough to probably wake my neighbour’s. I don’t know who I felt more scared for. Saul, Kim or that poor fish. I was so sure someone was dying. Goddamn it writers! I’m gonna need pills at this rate.
That ending is right up there with Crawl Space as being the most harrowing way to end an episode in the Breaking Bad universe.
I was thinking that as well. I was thinking of the intensity of Tohaljari, the episode before Ozymandias. It was definitely the sort of intensity you would find in Breaking Bad.
The ending of To’hajiilee was when I knew I had to introduce Breaking Bad to my dad. Since last week I’m now going to do the same with Better Call Saul.
Oh man, I always think of the end of Crawl Space as the moment Walt turned into the Joker.
I’m not sure I breathed for about five minutes the first time I saw the final scene in “Half Measures,” when Walt runs over the drug dealers in the car.
The final fate of Victor in “Box Cutter” was another one that had a similarly chilling effect, as you’re wondering what the hell Gus is doing while still knowing that someone wasn’t leaving that room alive. And the shock that it was Victor, who seemed the least likely to die, being the one to take the fall.
I had to stand up and half clean some shit in the TV room to work out the tension during that scene.
But two weeks later someone will be dead, of course. You’ll never make that mistake again. No more half-cleaning, Huja.
It was a problem chore.
Kim is going to atone for Jimmy’s sins with all the pro bono cases in the world, and she’s okay with that. Is this the right place for a Catholic joke?I hope people don’t think that Jimmy is insincerely parroting Mike’s words at Kim, even though he uses Mike’s words again later. Motivation just isn’t that simple, in life or in this show (unless you’re an old guy like Mike who knows everything about himself).
Son… there’s always time for a catholic joke.
What would Agatha Christie say about a woman who passionately believed in something and ended up feeling compelled to withdraw from society because of it? And then there were nun.
Damn, Mike looked badass with that sniper rifle. I was actually hoping Lalo went for his gun and got taken out, though obviously less so when Kim was blocking half the shot.One thing I’m wondering, though—-why would Lalo care that somebody took a shot at Jimmy? I mean, other than Mike’s presence there to save Jimmy, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Jimmy betrayed him somehow.Unless he just has to know exactly what happens at all times.Oh, and of course, Lalo reminded me of:
I think it’s just Lalo knows Saul is hiding something. That if Saul weren’t, he would not hide the fact that he got shot at for the money, maybe even be upset. Instead, he tells him his car broke down. Edit* An edit just before the window closes. I should add, there is no benefit to the lie either. Lalo can’t figure what the angle could be other than it is not for his own benefit.
Lalo has an incredible appreciation for the world he’s in. Like the other intense characters (Gus, Mike), he’s a fiend for the details and wants to leave no stone unturned. Does anyone think it was a mistake for Mike not to coach up Jimmy on his story? Can you hear Mike saying “You can sleep later. You don’t ‘Got it’. Tell me the story again”. And even with that, they didn’t account for a detail because why the hell would someone go looking for that car? And yet…
I thought Mike did coach up Jimmy. Wasn’t Jimmy sticking to his story (and letting the urine be the one unsavory detail he’d rather not discuss) exactly what Mike wanted him to do?
I think Gus purposely left the car there because he knew Lalo would investigate but made sure everything else was taken care of. That’s why Mike was ready at the trigger at Saul’s apt which I don’t think he wanted pull it but just in case Saul either spills the beans or Lalo pulls out his gun. I think this is part of a long game for Gus to eliminate Lalo without any blowback. Gus knows if Lalo goes back to Mexico the normal way he’ll be hard to get to while continuing his sabotaging. This way, Lalo changes his tactics, and possibly falls into some trap Gus has set, thus turning the cartel against him.
If Lalo finds out that somebody shot a Jimmy, yes, he will find it weird that somebody was there to rescue Jimmy. More importantly, someone knew about the money transfer and was ready to let him rot in jail. There is a betrayer on his side. Whether he believes Kim’s version of the story or not, he knows that she’s right about him not being able to trust people in his own organization.
Oooh, good point about the trust stuff from Kim. Hate to be Nacho next episode. Afraid this might be the end of the road for him, especially after Mike’s failed attempt to get him out of the game.
I think he knows damn well that Kim was blowing smoke up his ass as far as her explanation of how the car got shot up and pushed into the ravine; she just reminded him that Jimmy isn’t the source of his problems.
I found it very uncharacteristic of Mike to miss the detail of Jimmy’s Car in the ditch. They cleaned up everything else, but left the car there? That seems a little sloppy to me.
Especially since they sent out a crew with flatbeds to clean up the rest of the cars and cadavers.
But Mike didn’t order the cleaners who got rid of the bodies and the other vehicles; Gus’ people did. If you want to call someone “sloppy,” Victor might be be the better place to lay blame.
That damn Victor! And let’s be honest… If everything went perfectly to plan, there would be no dramatic moments in the show.
Well Victor is famous for not quite doing his job right.
I THINK that Mike assumed that Tyrus and Victor were taking care of the car and they messed up. They had to get the scene – this seems like a Gus crew fail.
Yeah, that sounds about right. Plus, did Tyrus and Victor even know about Jimmy’s Car being in a ravine somewhere? Did Mike remember to tell them? He was pretty out of it and exhausted by that point himself.
Maybe there are several roads down to the border and Mike didn’t expect Lalo to take that exact one?
Maybe, but it would have been difficult and time-consuming to find the car; also, Jimmy’s uncertainty when questioned *could* be chalked up to his PTSD, although Lalo clearly wasn’t buying it, but they also could have simply added to Saul’s story upfront and said that when his car broke down he rolled it off the road into a ditch b/c he didn’t want the car to be found by authorities and traced back to him. Seems plausible enough.
Guess I’m a bit late to this conversation, but I don’t think it was sloppy. For one thing, as others have mentioned, they couldn’t be certain how Lalo was planning to get back to Mexico, so him taking the same road couldn’t be predicted.But more importantly, it would have been FAR more suspicious if the car wasn’t there at all. That would mean that in the brief time Jimmy was back, with everything going on, one of his priorities was calling a towing company, explaining in detail where the car was, and then spending $1000 dollars to tow home a $200 car when he just got $100,000? And if so, where’s the car? Or someone happened along, had a truck full of spare Suzuki Esteem parts, diagnosed the problem, repaired the car, and stole it? Or maybe the car was never in play at all?The car being pushed into a ditch by rednecks and shot at a few times makes way more sense. It also somewhat plausibly backs Jimmy’s story, but more to the point, it’s a simple act that Jimmy could have done on his own, which suggests that maybe even if he’s lying, he doesn’t quite know why he’s lying; he’s a pawn in someone else’s game rather than a knowing participant. The car being magically gone raises more troubling questions.
Good point. Although, I suppose they missed the best lie – what if they said Saul’s car was shot and disabled, but he never knew who did it. Maybe it was an accident, maybe intentional? Then all the evidence conforms to the scene.
A disabled car blocking a dirt road out in the middle of nowhere? It’s very plausible someone got pissed off because it was blocking their way, so they push it off a bluff, and even shoot it for s & g. Kim planted just enough doubt to get Lalo on his way, but, yeah, he’s still not buying it all.
Agreed, but I think the point Kim hammers home is this: if there was a plan to screw over Lalo, it sure as hell wasn’t Jimmy’s, and he obviously didn’t know about it, because there’s no way he would have agreed to getting shot at and then cooked alive in the desert. Look elsewhere.
Yeah me too. I’m sure Mike didn’t personally supervise the clean-up so I assume Mike had enough trust in Gus that Gus would get it all and maybe Mike had a lapse by not mentioning it himself.Or maybe Gus was going to get that car but it’s hard to pull a car from a ditch so his men would have to come back for it.
Lalo “cares” because he knows Jimmy lied to him; and Lalo is 100% ‘that controlling sociopath.’
He’s a Salamanca. Of course he is. Look at who else is in his bloodline. Hector, Tuco, the cousins, and the less remembered Joaquin Salamanca, who got gunned down by Jesse during Gus’ poolside attack on Don Eladio at his house. They’re all freaking lunatics.
He’s a Salamanca.Fair point; the only one we’ve met who seems sane was Tuco’s abuela.
Something to be said here about the mothers of terrible men, but I don’t know what it is.
I dind’t really buy how what set Lalo off that somenthing was wrong was the fact that Jimmy’s car wasn’t on the road. Did Lalo just assume Jimmy was gonna abandon his car on the middle of nowhere and never come back?
Only so much onus can be placed on someone’s parents and the kind of upbringing that individual had; after a certain point, one becomes accountable for one’s own choices and actions.
Of course, but one’s influences and decision-making skills have to come from somewhere.
Meh.
VG has never seen fit to show the audience any flashbacks of Grandma abusing her offspring, thereby contributing to their toxic growth & warped development…. meanwhile, I distinctly recall one where ‘Tio Hector’ almost drowned one of the twins just to make a point.
O_oBut whatevs – I’m even not about to get into the age-old argument of ‘nature vs nurture,’ especially not on this forum; I’m just glad it’s fiction, and that’s not my fucking family…
Certainly seemed like you wanted to talk about that, but alright.
That biznach?
That biznatch? She hit! And ran!She felonied Starlight Express!
I liked the symmetry of the great camera shots of Kim looking through the bullet hole in the mug and Lalo looking through the bullet hole in the car and each of them realizing Saul is basically full of shit. The fact that it is the two of them that face off at the end (with Saul as an almost passive participant) constructing and arguing the possible narratives is just excellent.
Add in the shot of Mike looking through the scope to that triptych-in-waiting, and you’ve got yourself a hat trick.
Lalo is a psychopath. Jimmy (despite the protests) is a sociopath.
Lalo isn’t about power. But he definitely does not want to be outwitted or outsmarted.
I haven’t got it all worked out, but if Lalo knows Jimmy got ambushed then that means somebody saved Saul’s ass. When Lalo goes looking for someone to thank for saving Saul, none of his friends will say they did it. If Lalo pulls on that thread, it leads back to Mike and Gus, who are definitely not Lalo’s friends. So why would Gus do it? It’s cleaner for Gus if there never was an ambush that Saul needed to be saved from.
Gus didn’t plan the ambush. He sent out Mike in case something happened to ensure the money got to Lalo, but the guy who tipped off Bolsa’s men was acting outside of Gus’s orders.
To me, a better story would have been “Ok, some guys tried to kill me and take the money, but someone saved me. I didn’t recognise them, I assumed it was one of your people from across the border. They told me to get back here, so I started driving, then my car broke down so I walked the rest of the way. It took a while because I was making sure to avoid the road, I thought the bandits would come back. The End.”That way you’re not actually lying (too much). It’d give Lalo something more to chew on, but honestly he was a bit of a dummy anyway for not sending anyone with Jimmy to protect the millions and millions of dollars in cash.
The only problem with that story is, it doesn’t explain how his car got in the ditch. I still prefer my original prediction of what the cover story should be: that the bandits got greedy, started arguing about the money, and ended up shooting each other in the fracas….
It’s all a bit odd and I’m not sure I have it figured out. Gus wants Lalo out of jail and back in Mexico (which, of course, is also what Lalo wants) and the Don wanted Lalo to stay in jail (probably because he does not like Lalo or any of the Salemancas) so the Don set the ambush to get the money from Jimmy to keep Lalo in jail and weaken the Salemancas. IF Jimmy tells Lalo about a shoot out at all, he will suspect Gus. What Lalo did, I think, was figure out the Don’s people would NEVER have to have a shoot-out with Gus’s people because Gus would never move on the Don like that. He had to assume, therefore, that the Don was the one who wanted him still inside jail. Also, I think Nacho’s involvement with torching Los Pollos Hermanos plays into this somehow.
Then they’d have the same problem and Lalo wouldn’t leave until he found out who.
And, similarly, I think Kim’s speech didn’t own Lalo so much as made him realize he had bigger fish to fry— whoever helped Saul and why they were there.
However, to follow up on this, I do think Lalo realized Kim was correct about one thing: Something is rotten if he can’t trust his own men to pick up the money, and he knows it. He was squirrelly about letting Nacho pick up the money; I think he’s going to follow up that instinct.
I agree 100%. Kim didn’t intimidate Lalo down so much as make him think about how Lalo could trust and who he could not trust.
And as I mentioned elsewhere, we know he was worried Nacho might take $7 million and run. I think he had some suspicion of Nacho, even if he was doing everything right; I wouldn’t be surprised if he acted on that suspicion.
There is so much of a fish metaphor with that scene. Lalo is fishing for answer, he is tapping the fish in the tank to disturb them and see what they do, he is all doing this because something about the story is fishy, and then he realizes he has bigger fish to fry outside that room.
Your impostor is posting below:
Thanks. Could you give me a link to one of his comments? I can’t find it. Kinja is helping him hide.
Sorry, looks like the comment was already removed. This is the impostor:
https://kinja.com/dremiliolizardoo1/
Thanks. I’ll report him.
But why is your comment blurry?
I think Kinja is just stretching the screenshot. It looks fine if you click on zoom.
I think the idea is that Jimmy was clearly in trouble. He was shot at, so someone knew about the money, someone tried to take it, and not with insignificant force.Jimmy is not a gunman or a cartel mercenary though, so how did he get away basically unscathed? Someone helped him, then. Who? Did Saul get a hired gun? Unlikely. Then who? Who wants Lalo on the outside?I think that’s what’s going though his head.
Kudos to Kim’s excuse to explain the Bullet Hole in Jimmy’s Car. It’s entirely within the realm of possibility that’s some yahoos shot it up for fun, then pushed it into a ditch for laughs. How many times have we all seen road signs that were riddled with buckshot?
It was an epic save
Perhaps, but there was only one bullet hole in that car. Yahoos would have riddled it.
True. A great way to lean into that story would be to scatter a bunch of empty beer cans around, graffiti the hell out of the car, and shoot it up a lot more. That would really sell it!
No abandoned car out there lasts 24 hours without being filled with holes… it is the way of the desert.
My rule is, if I as a plebian viewer can come up with a plausible explanation, then characters who are smarter than me should be able to come up with that same explanation. Mike should have accounted for the ditched Esteem and prepared Jimmy with that explanation.
I was thinking the same thing, and wondering why Jimmy didn’t immediately jump to that when Lalo revealed he saw the car in the ditch. “I don’t know what happened to the Esteem after I left it on the side of the road.”
Kudos to Kim’s excuse to explain the Bullet Hole in Jimmy’s Car.I’m a little surprised that Jimmy didn’t think of it himself. I half expected him to act surprised when Lala mentioned finding the car in the ditch and launch into a BS story.But I guess he was still shaken up by the whole thing.Still, it’s always nice to see Kim flex her conperson/lawyer muscles…
Yes, Jimmy was definitely off his game due to the PTSD. I think that was the whole point of him losing an easy case in court, and being mocked by the prosecutor. That scene really had no other point, other than to show Jimmy’s shaky mental state at that point.
zero times because Europe doesn’t have guns everywhere 😛
25 miles from civilization on a road seemingly mostly used by the cartel? It’s not a bad lie but I don’t think Lalo bought it. Just that Lalo thought the fishiness he needed to look for was outside that room and not inside after their conversation.
For me this creates a big plot hole. If one of the workers had tried a double-cross, that fall right in line with what Kim said: he can’t trust his own people (other than his cousins). What does Bolsa think when none of those guys ever show up again, but Lalo got bailed out by Jimmy? Were the “bandits” going to double-cross Bolsa? There’s some ‘splainin’ to do about this bit. A lot of ‘splainin’.
Yep definitely.
It’s that Jimmy isn’t giving him the full story. He knows somebody took shots at Jimmy. He also knows Jimmy’s not the kind of guy who is going to defend himself. He also knows he’d already know all the details if his cousins were the ones who defended him.
… and, Lalo figures that the reason Saul won’t tell him the whole story is that Saul is hiding the truth on behalf of someone a lot more dangerous than Saul. Kim hammers that point home.So now, Lalo is going to interrogate Nacho to get the answers he wants.
I’m afraid so. The only reason Lalo even knows Saul Goodman exists is through Nacho.
I love the quick glimpse we get of Mike going into full fledged 911 mode, it’s not often we see him caught by surprise, I can only imagine his initial reaction when he’s informed of Lalo’s detour (presumably by Nacho). And while it would have been fun to see Mike flog the old Chrysler some more….not to mention watch him sneak that rifle up to the roof of the other condo complex….I think they made the right choice going with the quick glimpse
With Nacho in the AMX in the apartment complex parking lot to take Lalo to Change in Plans, Mexico, . . . when and where did he get a chance to alert Mike?
It was probably Victor who alerted Mike since he was following Nacho’s car with that tracker device.
I think as soon as Lalo entered the building, he called Mike. From the time Jimmys phone started buzzing to the knock on the door was just the right amount of time for Mike to get the word and start calling Jimmy as he jumped in the car and took off. But it’s not a huge stretch to make it work. It’s nice for once to see him scramble and not have the show rely on the deus ex machina of Mike just always magically knowing to be around with a sniper rifle to fix a jam.I mean, that’s still almost the end result, but the craft of this was amazing.
Also.. Tracker… Nacho was being followed throughout
I’m wondering if I imagined it, because nobody else seems to remember, but I thought there was a shot of Victor outside Hector’s home as Nacho and Lalo drove away looking at a device in confirmation – likely a tracker on Nacho’s car.
My first impression was that as soon as Lalo gets out of the AMX in the apartment parking lot, Nacho is on his cellphone and quickly alerts Mike….though its a tight time-frame as Mike starts calling Jimmy a few minutes before Lalo knocks on the door. Maybe it took Lalo a minute to get into the building and find Jimmy’s apartment? I don’t know how else Mike would have gotten tipped off. Unless Gus found out through back-channels that Lalo didn’t show up for his meeting at the well, and dots got connected from there. Either way its a great sequence!
From text as Lalo left the car
Keep in mind that we also learned they have a tracker on Nachos car
Victor was tracking Lalo from the senior facility so he could have informed Mike.
Yeah he was tracking the AMX, but simply doing that wasn’t enough as they expected Nacho to drop Lalo off and then head back. The tracker device alone wouldn’t have told them Lalo was still in the car. Possible that Nacho was supposed to check in after the drop and never did, raising suspicion with Gus that Lalo changed plans. Physically following them out into the desert seems difficult given the open space and Lalo’s keen observation skills….but its possible they pulled it off. Either way its great that they can leave details like this open-ended and still not have it seem like a plot-hole.
They may have had a visual on the AMX as he was heading into the city and seeing that Lalo was still in the car, following him to Saul and Kim’s apt. It wouldn’t be surprising if Gus anticipated this and is playing a long game here, having Lalo take himself off the board unwittingly wherever he goes in Mexico, thus letting Gus avoid any blowback for Lalo’s demise. Although Nacho is a wild card here even if Gus knows he wants out.
Yep that’s all possible, I think they threw that shot of Victor in the Escalade outside Hector’s place to let us know that one way or the other Gus was watching the AMX…..to what extent and with what exact methods, we are left to interpret that. I can’t see how they could have tracked them too deep into the desert because I think Lalo would have spotted a tail. Then again I re-watched “Bagman” last night, and Mike was able to shadow Jimmy on his way to the well and back to the shoot-out scene without being spotted by anyone….which amazes me because there wasn’t a ton of cover out there. But its all believable because we’ve seen time and again just how good Mike is. Bottom line…..I love this show!
Right? This show is great. It’s sad they’re ending it after one more season.Anyway, I think that Gus purposely left Saul’s car there in the ditch because he knew Lalo would investigate. Gus is not one to forget a detail like that in a clean up. Lalo only knows that something happened but the only detail he can confirm is that Saul was attacked somehow(but by who?). The only place he could get an answer would be to go back to Saul and try to strong arm him there. Mike and Gus would know this so that’s why Mike is ready to pull the trigger. I think he may have been hoping not to unless either Saul spills the beans or Lalo pulls out his gun to protect Saul and Kim(why he told Saul to leave the phone on). To sum up, this is what Gus and Mike do, and are quite good at it.
That’s an interesting theory, and yes it is strange that the flat-beds they sent out into the desert didn’t also pluck the Esteem out of there. I mean Gus is a guy who obsesses over the fryer baskets at his restaurant, haha, he isn’t missing a big detail like a swiss cheese Suzuki in a ditch. If Gus did plan this it seems clear he left Mike out of the loop, because otherwise Mike would have had Jimmy’s place staked out. Instead Mike was left to fly over there at the last minute and hustle himself up to his sniper perch. Glad he did though, because I love that call Mike had with Jimmy. I wonder if the season finale doesn’t help answer some of these questions….the one preview shows Jimmy pounding on Mike’s door wanting an explanation, maybe its about leaving the Esteem behind. It is sad this show is ending after another 14 or so episodes, better to leave us wanting more though right? Hopefully Gilligan has another idea in mind to keep these Albuquerque adventures alive in a post-Saul world.
Mike was likely tailing Lalo
They showed that Mike was frantically speeding towards the condo complex while instructing Saul. He wasn’t tailing – Victor had a tracker on Nacho’s car.
There was a brief shot of Victor outside Hector’s home seeming to confirm that a tracker placed on Nacho’s car was working.
Mike called Jimmy just as their doorbell rang. Nacho could easily have called Mike from his cell phone as soon as Lalo was walking toward the building and Mike would have immediately called Jimmy.
It is a decent question. I’m guessing there is a chance Nacho pocket dialed, or more likely they are tracking Nacho’s car and scout Lalo in it or just see it driving where it shouldn’t be going.
I think they showed a quick glimpse of Victor confirming there was a tracker on Nacho’s car when they were leaving Hector’s home. That would be how Mike was tipped off that Lalo was at Jimmy and Kim’s.
That scene with Mike looking through the scope and putting Lalo in the cross hairs does not jive with all the effort Team Gus has put in getting him out of the country and off the board. No way Gustavo would take the heat of Lalo dying on his turf to save Saul/Jimmy and Kim.
Mike is a man of standards. He wasn’t going to let Jimmy or Kim die. Besides, if Jimmy told Lao the truth, it was going to come back around to Gus ANYWAY. Might as well have dead Lalo.
I see that as Mike making an instinctual call without Gus being involved. Mike is still in touch with his humanity (see: trying to release Nacho from Fring’s clutches). After getting called out by Saul about the Travel murder, he’d see this as avoiding more collateral lives and will deal with Gus later.
It was also more in line with Gus’ objectives than having Lalo go down for murdering two attorneys in their condo too
It’s obvious Mike is torn, and the speech Gus gave him about the dog that bites all his owners may not have been about Nacho. I think Mike knows he’s taken a road that he can no longer get off of.
‘jibe’
And that is exactly why Mike did not fire. It was a last resort.
Thus implying Mike has a conscience. And the calculus of one dead Lalo was more acceptable than Lalo in prison in NM for life for killing two attorneys in their condo
Fring wouldn’t but I believe that Mike would and would be prepared to take heat from Fring about it.
It’s not just about saving Saul and Kim— if Saul gives up that Mike helped him, that puts Mike and Gus squarely in Lalo’s crosshairs. He’ll, at the very least, want answers as to why they were tailing his lawyer and stepped up to defend him, given the cold war going on between Gus and the Salamancas.
Great, smart take! Any chance the bullet would have been meant for Saul before he starting singing thus sparing Gus for having to answer to the cartel about Lalo’s death?! Is that why Mike had Saul open the phone line so he could listen it?
I suppose there’s a chance, but the way the scene was framed— and with Mike’s relationship to Saul— I don’t think he would have taken Saul out just to cover for him. That wouldn’t solve the Lalo problem; I think Lalo is going to suspect Gus is behind this all no matter what, and almost certainly if someone he’s grilling gets a sniper round through him in the middle of the interrogation.
Very possible. Would have been cool if they showed the crosshairs on Saul to start with, then moving to Lalo when it was clear he was sticking to the story.
Honestly if Jimmy had told Kim everything, in that moment with Lalo I feel Kim could’ve ratted Mike out and who knows what would’ve happened then.
It seemed like Mike was willing to face the fallout for ending Lalo if he absolutely had to to protect Saul and Kim.
I agree, I think that was Mike acting on his own. Mike wasn’t sure if he’d pull the trigger or not, but if he didn’t and Lalo killed them, Gus would’ve appreciate the intel of what went down.
Ugh.
There are times when I really do regret getting myself banned from this site.
Lalo pieced together most everything if not in the desert than certainly before he came knocking. He came there for confirmation and to kill the lawyer who lied to him along with his wife before going after Fring.
But Kim reminded him that he had bigger fish to fry and more important things to do – like draft Nacho into playing Sundance Kid to his Butch Cassidy and go on a kamikaze run on the don himself, which we’ll see next week.
We’ll find out then if his lieutenant shoots him in the back and goes back to his pathetic refrain of KILL ME IF YOU WANT BUT LEAVE MY DADDY ALONE or if Kim skips town to evade the danger at Jimmys bequest.
And only Mike will ever know – Mike probably never knew – if he would have snuffed all three of them had Jimmy spilled the beans. He got all of them in his sights, you know.
Lalo tapping on the fishbowl a few inches away from where the phone was probably made him think of his son getting a knock on the door at night, stepping away from his family he would never see again.
Chances are? He didn’t go to save Gale when this same situation repeated itself a few years later because he didn’t want to relive the scenario for a third time.
If anything sets up the scene in Breaking Bad where Saul thinks he is being kidnapped by Lalo, this episode was it.
I still can’t wrap my mind around how he will think it could be Nacho. Unless it’s Nacho working for somebody way worse.
I think Lalo thinks something happened out there that would point to dangerous forces out there that could pose problems for him.
Lalo is suspicious, primarily, because he knows there’s no way that Saul is surviving a shootout with the kind of guys that would try that kind of operation. If they have the intel to track down that meet, then they have the hardware to steal the money from a chump attorney in short order. That Saul survived the encounter with such people and didn’t tell him about it? That means there was someone else involved that Saul left out as well. And that is very suspicious indeed.
He’s like the victim of a cheating spouse: he knows something happened, he knows something’s going on, but it’s also possible he’s wrong. Like Gus, he’s not willing to lose a valuable asset, not after the burning Kim gave his ears. At least not right now.
Very suspicious, but then it also seems he forgot his own words to Kim about Saul being a cucaracha.
I liked that his interrogation of Saul was straight out of the police handbook. Keep drawing out more details until they contradict their story or get them to tell a lie by not revealing what you already know.
It’s because there is no way in Hell that a guy like Saul gets out of a gunfight alive without help. If there was gunplay, and Saul’s still standing there, then Lalo knows something doesn’t add up. I doubt you last very long in that line of work without being incredibly alert—even if only subconsciously—to implausibilities like that.
Favorite expressions on the episode: Hector looking miserable as they put a party hat on him, and as always, the warmth fading rapidly from Gus Fring’s face.
.
I didn’t realize this was a longer ep and was waiting for the Gilligan and Gould credits so I was quite pleased that I was gonna get more. Then absolutely tense those last 10 minutes or so. I don’t want Lalo to die now, but with Kim there, I was thinking Mike better take the shot. But then I knew she’d get up and stand by that window.
I knew that Lalo couldn’t die then and there, or Saul would not think he could have sent Walt and Jesse. With Lalo so close to Kim and her getting in the way of Mike’s shot, I was half expecting Lalo to have a hidden knife and pull a Salamancas send their regards type move.
I was also expecting the episode to end when Lalo showed up. One of my main criticisms of this show is its “deliberate” pace. It was a very pleasant surprise that they actually finished this scene during the episode. In the same vein, the montage at the beginning was much shorter than the typical BCS/BB montage. I thought it was an excellent episode.
Wow that was tense. The acting in the standoff with Lalo from everyone concerned was just stunning. There’s nothing quite like a Gilligan show firing on all cylinders and this season of BCS will go with seasons 3 & 4 of Breaking Bad as some of the best TV ever.
Conveniently left season 5 of Breaking Bad out??
Jimmy, I really thought we would see more of Saul, but the PTSD is actually believable. That is a dire preview, I really was worried that Kim was going to be a object lesson. Now I am kind of worried that she might be Lalo’s preferred legal counsel. I mean, it is unclear if he is still alive in Breaking Bad, and I have been curious who Gene thinks is after him.
“The only thing that kept me going in that dessert was you.” (Jimmy to Kim in the bathtub) I feel as though if it wasn’t clear enough at this point, this seems like a pretty telling sign to imply Kim is definitely still around by the BB timeline.My bold prediction: The Gene storyline returns in the season finale. They just have to start giving that whole part of the show more screen time at some point.And I’m not ready for another 16-month break after next week. Season 4 truly feels like a lifetime ago.
However they end this season, if there’s going to be any collision with the “Breaking Bad” world there has to be a time jump in the next season.
They set the clock with Tuco taking over in 11 months. Saul may be off the air for that long.
Saul may be off the air for that long.Fuck, I hope not.
Good point about the timeline, though – Saul is still about 18 months or so away from his fateful meeting with Walt & Jesse. (Presuming at least 6 months’ time for Tuco to get up & running as an ‘established’ boss after his release from prison.)
Saul doesn’t meet Walt and Jesse until late 2008. This is the summer of 2004.
Damn, beat me to it. That’s my understanding as well.
It’s gotta be later than that; it was mentioned that Tuco is due for release in 11 months. That moment in 2008 can only be a few months after Tuco’s release, because he hasn’t forgotten all about his cellmate, Skinny Pete.
Kim and Jimmy’s marriage certificate is dated May 2004, and the case Kim was dictating right before she quit Mesa Verde had ‘2004′ as part of the case number, implying it’s still 2004. Also there haven’t been any significant time skips since their marriage. There’s no reason Tuco would definitely have forgotten that Skinny Pete existed after only 3 years. Even if he was constantly on meth that’s a big stretch. Plus by 2008, nobody moves crystal in the South Valley but Tuco (he says). It might take him a while to reach that level of monopoly.
My understanding is that the current timeline of BCS is 2004, so Saul’s actually a little over four years from catching up with Walt and Jesse in late 2008/early 2009.
I read a theory that Saul’s mention last week of a kid that was thrown out of his house for a joint and having to pick up his bail from his uncle could be a sly reference to Jesse Pinkman’s origins.
Damn that would be cool, but it would be Jesse’s aunt bailing him out. There was never any mention of an uncle.
That’s correct that the story from BB was that his aunt left him the house but it’s not such a huge leap in logic to suggest that his aunt and uncle took care of him when his folks turned his back on him. I don’t intend to die on this hill but I could see Gillian kinda throwing that in there. There was also a mention of Crazy 8 adding a new dealer, which could’ve also been a winking reference to Jesse.
Was Jesse ever arrested for marajuana?
That break could be longer…..
I think it’s entirely possible Kim is just hanging out during BB. Gene is waiting to feel 100% safe before calling Kim to move to him. That’s my rosy prediction.
Kim may wind up in Federal Protection and relocation.
Feel free to write your own headcanon, because that is all you’re gonna get save for rough draft notes from the creative team years laterr.
This is gonna be Half Life 3 all over again.
Is it confirmed that its 16 months? Probably so considering most everything is delayed filming right now
Could be a Gene scene, but I have another crazy thought. There are actually TWO flash forward sequences in BCS – one is the b/w sequence with Gene. The other is the Breaking Bad era sequence (roughly right after or during Ozymandias) in “Quite a Ride”. Jimmy very conspicuously goes on about Francesca being somewhere on November 12 at 3:00 PM. That’s not a nothing scene – something is going to happen and I think we’re going to catch up soon.
That would be November 12, 2010, two months after Walt dies. Perhaps by that time ‘Gene’ will feel safe.
Maybe. The unfortunate issue with that BB sequence is that he also calls Robert Forster’s character to “order a vacuum.” With Forster’s passing, sadly, there’s a chance they had to rewrite whatever their original plans were to pay off that scene.
Apparently Robert Forester wasn’t written to be in the scene initally and they simply threw him in the mix since Gilligan had him for the movie… So who knows, really, but I’m not sure it’ll affect things too terribly. If he was meant to come back they can work around it with editing, implication & one sided phone calls…
“The only thing that kept me going in that dessert was you.”
I’m pretty sure he said “desert.”
I sometimes think of loved ones to give me the strength to power through a big dessert
I sometimes think of loved ones to give me the strength to power through a big dessert
Unless Kim does die, and so what we see in BB is all that is left, Saul Goodman, the “born survivor cockroach”.
The mimicking of the speech was very Kafkaesque.
So if Tuco is scheduled for release in eleven months, that puts us about a year out from Breaking Bad since Tuco was fresh from prison when he met Walt and Jesse. It’ll be interesting to see what the show does with the timeline.
Was he? Domingo was.
I knew Domingo had just gotten out, but I was also sure that the same was true of Tuco. Now that you ask, though, I couldn’t explain why I was so certain. I’ll have to go back and look at the Breaking Bad episodes where he first makes his appearance. I know that Walt and Jesse are introduced through Skinny Pete, who had been housed on the same prison block as Tuco, but that’s about it.
Kim is a total BAMF, and I seriously hope the worst that happens to her is that she leaves Saul for good.
Rhea Seehorn Emmy now please. I was shaking by the end of Kim’s speech, just like Rhea was.Amazing.
As Vince Gilligan said in an interview last year: The worst-case scenario for Kim isn’t that she leaves Jimmy. It’s that she doesn’t.
Just for the record: screw awards. Rhea Seahorn doesn’t need to be validated by some freaking statue.
When the teaser went to black before the opening title, my brain played, not the Better Call Saul music, but the Breaking Bad music. So, that’s where we are now.
The result of that exchange is that Kim won. But somewhere down the line Lalo may have a realisation that costs her and Jimmy.Cast down, it was heaven sent, and to the church, no intent to repent on my knees; just to cry Until you travel to that place you can’t come backWhere the last pain is gone and all that’s left is black
Holy shit Kim, holy shit. Jimmy may have the literal balls but Kim definitely carries the biggest metaphorical pair. My expectations are low but I really hope she makes it out of all this ok.
I think you mean Kim FUCKING Wexler.
Lalo in my book is going down as one of the scariest TV villains of the last twenty years. The complete package of evil, smart, and charismatic. Tony Dalton is killing it in that role and deserves an Emmy nom for sure. And that title of the next episode makes me really worried for Kim. I hope its just her walking out on him and not worse.
As scary as Lalo is, I have to say that what I find endearing about him is the true love he has for his tío.
Tuco was the same…
Lalo seems so amiable when he feels capable of it. It’s like he’s a decent, friendly guy who is also fully committed to being a highly professional and efficient cartel enforcer, so that has to mean murder when it’s called for.
And the thing is it adds to his menace. You can get the idea he actually doesn’t like killing; it ruins his day, but it’s part of the job.
See, I imagine Lalo absolutely LOVES hurting people.
I can’t tell with Lalo. Nacho for sure doesn’t like being violent. Lalo I think is totally indifferent to it if it’s the best move. He might even like it insofar as he likes making the best moves.
He’s extremely affable, but I don’t think he’s decent at all. Killing innocent people doesn’t bother him in the least. Many highly professional people do things they don’t approve of in the course of their work, and they pay a price for it emotionally. Lalo doesn’t. Other people’s lives mean nothing to him. He was perfectly happy in court, with Fred’s family there distraught—and him so indifferent he didn’t even know who they were.
Lalo does seem like what a good kid turn into from being raised by somebody like Hector. “Why is Tio Hector being violent? … Oh, it’s all part of a game? I like games.”
Don’t forget about Lorne Malvo. Aces.
Aces!
Watching Lalo reminds me of watching Tony Soprano, except without the pretense that the viewer is ever supposed to sympathize with him.
I never sympathized with anybody in the Sopranos for long, which is probably why I stopped watching part way through. They were all selfish miserable assholes IMO. At least Lalo is super charming.
The combination of cheery charm and absolute menace has really made him an amazing character. I’m struggling to even think of someone who combined those two elements so well on screen. Dalton is amazing.
Christoph Waltz – Hans Landa
That’s a pretty decent example I hadn’t thought of. They have a slightly different vibe that I can’t really articulate though.
Ok, after thinking about it way too much, I think it may be that Landa’s attitude feels more like an act. He enjoys his work but his shtick is to disarm people while he gets info and slips in the dagger and can switch on a dime. Lalo is genuinely a happy go lucky dude who likes his fast cars and cooking tortillas, but is also a scary as fuck cartel heavy and just does both at the same time. He has fun being menacing and has actual joy in it. I dunno.
“Cheery charm” paired with “absolute menace” is definitely a TV/film staple (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AffablyEvil)—but it seems to be applied to villains of Hispanic/Latinx ancestry particularly frequently, which is an interesting cultural quirk. Maybe it’s just because John Leguizamo and Javier Bardem both play that type of character so well.Actually, now that I think about it, the TV villain Lalo’s combination of geniality and menace most reminds me of is actually Tuco. It must run in the family, no?
Joe Pesci in Goodfellas
Funny how? I mean, funny like I’m a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh?
Lalo is the only character in the whole BB universe who seems happy. He really likes himself, his work, his uncle, and his belts. I want to see what he does next with an enthusiasm that I don’t feel for Gus at all. It will be sad when the show loses the pure joy of his id.
Hank in his beer garage was pretty happy
Well said. He is the only one doing what they love “playing the game”.
Tony Dalton gave a great interview last week where he talks about his approach to playing Lalo. A great piece of info he gives is that he was actually inspired by Jules Winnfield’s character from Pulp Fiction.
I’m not surprised, but I’m still impressed by the level of detail Dalton describes in that interview that he goes through in figuring out how to play a scene.
I wouldn’t say that TD ever claimed he was “inspired” by Jules, he merely mentioned him. His main inspiration, according to him, was the fact that none of the other Saul / BB villians ever displayed any real humor or charm. He decided to be unique in that regard.
Indeed. Don Eladio comes closest in that regard.
Lalo reminds me a lot of Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda
when he said ‘nice!’ at saul’s apartment it shook me. it was the perfect ‘you know i’m not a kind person, look at me pretending to be kind, isn’t that funny?’ scary-as-fuck moment.
Same thing when he was paying such rapt attention to Saul’s stories about the desert. That dramatic “ew” when Saul said he drank his own pee was psychotically friendly.
The problem is, if you gave an Emmy nomination to everyone on this show who deserves an Emmy nomination the entire ceremony would have to be re-named “The Better Call Saul Awards.”
Which I and so many others here would have no problem with since its one of the best acted and written shows ever.
I mean they made the Emmys the “Modern Family Awards” for a long time… BCS is worth that level of praise and more.
Not to talk about Game of Throne’s double digit noms a year. Its a shame that BCS isn’t as buzzed about as much.
The whole “I’m a quirky bad guy who smiles and breaks social norms and then gets all scary” is a little too played out for me. Also, he looks too similar to George Hamilton in “Zorro the Gay Blade” to be truly menacing.
Salo’s got big “ted bundy” energy there. I like how varied in personality these BB/BCS villains are.
Lalo in my book is going down as one of the scariest TV villains of the last twenty years. The complete package of evil, smart, and charismatic.Fully agreed. A very close race with TWD’s Negan and OZ’s Schillinger.
Lalo in my book is going down as one of the scariest TV villains of the last twenty years.Totally agree! I see Lalo as sort of the anti-Fring. Whereas Gus is frightening because he’s deceptively quiet, Lalo scary because he’s deceptively affable. He’ll be calm, charming and comedic right before committing some incredibly violent act. Then he’ll smile, tell a joke and be on his way.
I cannot describe the tension in knowing that Lalo could have killed Kim (w/ the same indifference as Travel Wire dude), because it would have fit in to explain whatever happens to her. I can’t recall a more suspenseful fate for a character on any show, and certainly the Breaking Bad universe just b/c of what we do know now. Hank was a surprise in BB, Mike too, but certainly not seasons of suspense—maybe Jesse’s fate it this only thing close? She has to live at this point I think, just because of how poorly Jimmy’s dealing with some collateral Mexican thugs’ deaths—no way he copes so gregariously through Breaking Bad with Kim’s death fairly recently in his rear view mirror. I say he fakes his death somehow in Omaha, takes the diamonds he’s saved, meets up with Kim, and they live happily in a new exotic location as Viktor (with a K) and Gisele pulling cons forever! We can dream…P.S. Lalo and Nacho go down next episode, book it! The explanation for why Saul thought they’d come back for him in BB….and they are going into the well at that same drop spot we’ve seen for the last 2 episodes.
Give Rhea Seehorn a goddamn Emmy for this episode
I’m not sure which part was more heartbreaking, Kim worrying about Saul and the relief she felt after he called her, Kim seeing the coffee cup with the bullet hole, or Kim almost breaking down and giving Saul that look after Lalo left.Another episode for the Rhea Seehorn Emmy reel. Kim Wexler already had my adoring admiration, and unlimited respect, but standing up to Lalo, when he’s in his most intimidating mode… just mama lion type resolve. I’m still reeling.I really appreciate that even at it’s most tense, BCS will always fine time for funny moments. The look on the face of the woman behind the counter when Saul shows up with the money was priceless and showing the bail bond people actually having to count the money is one of the many great parts of this show.
Kim’s reaction when he called her was heartwarming for me. Almost swoon worthy. It’s not just a business arrangement- she really does love him! After siing the cup, when Kim genuinely wanted to know what happened- with no judgement- and Jimmy still lied, (and she knows it) that’s the heartbreak. Goddamnit, Jimmy…
Throughout the episode, I found myself repeating, “Don’t fuck this up, Jimmy,” and being disappointed when he did.
Did he though? Mike told him clearly if you want to keep somebody safe keep them out of the game. Could Kim had saved them in the end of the episode if she really knew everything? Would she have betrayed her knowledge? idk. Jimmy has dug himself so deep that I feel like all that is left for him is bad choices.
….I’m sorry, “siing”?
my accent slipping, whoops!
Kim accepts that she’s in the game now, even when Jimmy doesn’t. So she’s going to bring everything she has of herself to the table, no matter who’s sitting across from it. Even when Jimmy’s actions lead her into being an amiga del cartel, she won’t give up her agency.
Every time someone says “Oh, no, Kim is so dead!” I get a little pissed, because they clearly don’t know Kim.
Well, after that last scene, the chances of Kim secretly mudering Lalo, and just not telling Jimmy because he’d freak out, have certainly gone up.I mean, she wouldn’t want to, but if it has to be done…[of course, the chances of her becoming a human rights lawyer in Belize have also gone up after that ‘doing some good’ speech…]
Not a scenario I’ve imagined, but one I now want to see.
I am convinced that Cinnabon Saul is running from Kim. Either because he is ashamed, or because she is Lydia’s boss’s boss.
Certainly thinking at this point that Kim is the cartel’s lawyer in the BB/Cinnabon Gene timeline.God that’s dark to contemplate. This show is so good. And yes, so of course she could be the one on the lookout for Saul.
Wow, that’s not a scenario I even contemplated and I could definitely see things going that way. The show is really toying with us around Kim’s fate, making us worry for her death or her disappearing via Ed Galbraith. Given those two fates are so obvious now I’m thinking yours is more likely as a much bigger and darker curve ball.
It’s not something I had ever contemplated until the last few minutes of last night’s episode. Holy shit this show is good.
The finale will end with Jimmy calling Kim from Omaha asking her to bail him out again, and her refusing.
Cold.
On the contrary, though, it seems from the season opener that he’s channeling his inner Kim to go after the guys stalking him.
Yeah but Kim didn’t know Lalo. She’s used to standing up to tough men in boardrooms, but that’s different than standing up to just about anybody in the cartel. She’s lucky she stood up to one of the only people we’ve seen in the cartel who would respond to this without violence. It was maybe the best play, but it was also partially arrogant that she’s been so lucky up until now standing up to people.
She was smart enough to be afraid of the cartel when Jimmy wasn’t. She was afraid before they opened the door, before the gun was out. She’s not stupid.
Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler as written by Gould/Gilligan writing room has become one of the more enigmatic female characters I’ve seen portrayed – she is such a great character, her motivations are sometimes opaque and yet always believably depicted – tonight was a rare example of Kim expressing her motivation via verbal exposition, often her actions are left to speak for themselves and we the audience trusted to debate and process them as we see fit. Seehorn is always stellar, but she was brilliant in tonight’s collection of scenes; believably sick with worry and then overwhelmed with relief when Jimmy calls at the the start of the episode, and then selling both the terror of her situation and her bold front with multi-faceted aplomb. She’s the best.As is becoming traditional in a season of BCS, I am left wanting more of Michael Mando’s Nacho; his fate is always one of my great concerns on this show, and yet he is always left dangling in a state of perpetual unease.
I’ve definitely noted how as Jimmy and the cartel’s stories finally begin to intersect, Nacho is the character that seems to be pushed further into the margins.
Genuine question here, not trying to be snarky – why do you care in particular about Nacho’s fate? I’m not saying you are “wrong” but his thin character has never resonated for me and I’m continually wondering if we are supposed to be rooting for him and if so why?
A couple of reasons: firstly I like Mando’s portrayal, I’ve only ever seen him in a couple of things but he stands out (e.g. Orphan Black).
Secondly, I see Nacho as almost a Jesse Pinkman-type; basically an ok young guy who made a few errors of judgement as a young man and continues to pay a very high price for his transgressions. I care about his relationship with his father on the show; Nacho holds his father’s life in his hands, and his Varga Sr. has been established as an honorable man undeserving of a grisly fate at the hands of the cartel.
The stakes are high for Nacho; I just wish we got a little more screen time for Michael Mando ..
Pretty much what I think also, seems to be what the show is portraying, except, Nacho is much less impulsive guy than Jesse, he also doesn’t hate his parents, and he could be justified in finding his dad ungrateful, but he wants to escape with him to Canada, no other options.
He’s obviously this show’s Jesse. At least what Jesse thought of himself season 1-2-3, more like he is in season 5A. He’s the young guy who Mike kind of tutors in their give-and-get relationship. The dude is literally why everything that comes rolling into the giant snowball that will be the next and last season and Breaking Bad to be set in motion. He’s a well-meaning guy who because he wants his father to get a break, escape the mexican-american lower expectation of quality of life that he was born into and escape to Canada. He’s the young guy with no sense of power over his own destiny, just like Jesse. Mike wants him to be able to do so, but with what Saul blabs to Walt and Jesse in the desert after they kidnap him, this Lalo/Nacho thing ends real badly…
Nacho is not a thin character. He is quiet, but that quiet has always communicated hidden desperation and a desire for better more innocent things. I heard a great interview where the actor said Vince pitched the character as “Nacho is not the type of guy who would kill a fly with a sledgehammer”, and IMO that’s a perfect description. He does what he has to, but he get no thrill from power or dominance. He’s as if you took a smart decent every-man plopped him in the cartel and said “now try to survive without looking suspicious”.
Jesus I forgot. I literally thought Nacho might get killed tonight. When he was dropping off Lalo there was a tense scene where you could tell something was going to happen, and it is certainly possible Lalo is putting some pieces together on or off screen that made him suspicious of Nacho. It’s even possible that Lalo would kill Nacho to make himself more necessary. This is an episode of tv where I was somehow afraid for the fates of Lalo, Kim (via Lalo), Kim (via Mike), and Mike (I got so invested I forgot it was a prequel and he was basically safe). This show is so good. I’m glad Nacho got out of the dessert. Because it definitely had a “last job before retirement” vibe.
She was great, not just for the gripping scene at the end but all of it. The way she looks when she finds the cup with the bullet hole you know she’s mad that he lied. Then when he freaks out with the juicer you can tell she’s thinking that maybe he didn’t lie so much as he just can’t talk about it yet. Then she gets a little mad again when she tries to get him to open up and he doesn’t. She goes through a lot of emotions in a couple of minutes trying to process how she feels about it and you can see all of it even though she never comes out and says any of it.
I think what made the phone call even more challenging to play for Seehorn was that Kim had to have known it wasn’t necessarily good news — she had to keep it together in case he was calling from an ER or because some guy had a gun to his head and wanted a suitcase full of cash to let him go.It’s like a mom getting a call from her kid hours after he was supposed to be home — she can’t relax just because the first thing he says is “don’t worry, I’m OK.”
I felt from her performance was that her first fear was it not being Jimmy on the phone but somebody who found him dead. You are right that she also captured the fear of feeling too relaxed too soon as well.
Another
episode for the Rhea Seehorn Emmy reel.If she doesn’t win this year, they need to shut that award show down for good. It’s ridiculous she’s never even been nominated.
Has she been submitted though? Can’t get nominated if no one submits you.
With all the spectacular drama of last week’s episode, I was surprised that no recapper or reviewer admired her piercing eyes and intense expression when she told Jimmy “Do Not Do This.” I thought she was (unsurprisingly) brilliant in that moment.
Rhea is astonishing as Kim. I had tears in my eyes. Tears of fear, tears of love, tears of pride for her character standing up to Lalo. Best episode yet (hell, I said that last week!).
Well she’s about to be dead so give her a kiss goodbye fanboy.
Christ on a cracker, what is it with AMC and their endless commercials? They would show a single scene, then cut to what felt like 10 minutes of commercials, single scene, more commercials, Etc. The actual running time of The show must have been 20 minutes!
Yeah, that was a stupid amount commercials.
And the same ones, over and over, trying to buy our business by pandering to our quaratined emotions.
I’m just starting Killing Eve Season 2 (It’s good & it’s an easy binge – only 8 eps per season) … I don’t need a fuck-ton of spoilerish Season 3 commercials. I’m happy AMC has it. Quit overselling it, douche-bags.
I buy the episodes 1 by 1 the day after the episodes air on YouTube (they’re up by about 3am). Worth the $1.99 for no commercial interruption.
I just buy the whole season on Amazon Video ($24.99 for HD). If you’re doing the $1.99/ep (SD) on YouTube then that’s about $20 for the season (SD) or you could save a couple bucks by buying the whole season ($17 SD). It’d be $30 for HD so $25 (on both YouTube and Amazon) is a bit cheaper.
Wait. Slow down. Are you saying an advertisement tried to manipulate you into buying a product?! We need to take this to the authorities.
from what I’ve read, AMC loaded up on early commercials so that they could run the last act uninterrupted
This was, in fact, the reason. The last act really only works uninterrupted, and it’s like 16+ mins long.
59:13 exactly. With the “previously on” section and the credits but no commercials.
So that’s 26 minutes of commercials then……Insane!
When a third of a show’s running time is commercials, you know that the network is giving the audience the finger. Then again, AMC has been doing that for a while now; splitting final seasons into half seasons a year apart.
Speaking of commercials, I’ve never felt better about fast forwarding past all the corporate pandemic solidarity shit as if they care. These commercials are made for specifically targeted reasons. The question is why? Is there is an actual segment of people that this drivel works on? Are they that afraid of getting their image hurt by being called insensitive on the Twitterverse? If either are true, it’s a sad, but powerful, example of why America is so fucked up and has it’s head up it’s ass about everything. I’m pretty sure one of those issues are involved, so…yeah.
It was because they needed a super long section commercial-free for the ending scene to not break up the tension.
I read elsewhere the episode was purposely structured that way to allow for the lengthy final scene (which checked in around 16 minutes).
Thank fuck for being British and having Netflix.
This is why DVR’s were invented.
Yeah, but you still have to fast forward through them.
The TiVo does 30 second skip, so you just hit that button a bunch of times if you start it half an hour late like we did.Or if you wait till it is done it does automatic commercial skip for a lot of shows including BCS. Ironically, that’s the technology that got ReplayTV sued out of existence, along with the ability to share shows between users. ReplayTV was such a great product, but the perfect example of “settlers get the land, pioneers get the arrows.”
Alan Sepinwall said in his review AMC was getting all the breaks in before the apartment scene so that it wouldn’t be broken up. It ended up being 15-16 minutes without a commercial, and really marvelous tension.
I suspect a lot of advertisers are getting shy about buying air time and networks are cutting deals to keep them. I also don’t think anybody knows how this mess will be resolved, and AMC may be trying to bank some extra money now against hard times later.
I watched Saul last night (starting around 10) and Killing Eve S3:E1 Sunday night on the AMC app on my Roku and had no commercials in either. It looks like I’m only authenticated with my Verizon FIOS TV account but maybe I’ve got upgraded access from somewhere?
Someone else mentioned it, but they front-loaded the commercial breaks in this episode so that they could show the tense 16-minute apartment scene without a break. So there actually was a logical reason behind it worth applauding.
That’s why God crested the DVR!
Created.
Believe me, I feel you, but please don’t tell me you literally sat through all those commercials; that you don’t DVR the sucker? What, you do, just to say you watched in real time? That’s just not right
I want Kim Wexler as my lawyer. I want to marry Kim Wexler. I want to worship at the Church of Kim. I will be devastated if she is harmed.
I referred to her as my tv wife tonight.
Me: Enough, Lord Vince. Let it end! On my honour as a Goodman, on my honour as a Wexler, let her go, or I will cut your episode’s throat! Vince Gilligan: I’ll find another. Lalo: The Salamancas send their regards.
I know! I’m glad Vince managed to write a female character that didn’t get years of hate from assholes. What a character, she’s the real beating heart of the series.
I dunno. I suspect the weird anti-Skyler idiots aren’t even watching this show in significant numbers because Saul isn’t as “awesome” as Walt. Skyler was an excellent character in her own right.
The show was written to make people hate Skylar by perpetually leaving her in the dark. She was generally acting appropriately for *what she knew*, but by the time she had any real confirmation of what was going on it was generally beyond her ability to handle.
I didn’t watch BB until season 5 was airing, at which point I binged through the first four seasons and caught up just in time for the finale. I don’t know if it’s me or the fact that I binged it instead of watching along, but I liked Skyler and everything she did made sense to me (in the context of the show, anyway, obviously she made some bad choices at times but no more so than anyone else on the show).
She was and Anna Gunn is a fantastic actress. Its just she wasn’t written to be as likable as Kim which is completely fine. Its the whole I like Walt more attitude that astounds me. Yeah all the stuff with Ted is bad but how is that even close to the scores of people Walt killed.
The one that stands out to me—but didn’t used to until it was explicitly stated to me this way—is that Walt rapes his wife in the pilot episode. Then he tries to again two or three episodes later (after he’s murdered Ocho Loco, which I will call him forever because of Lalo). From pretty much jump street Walt was reprehensible, whereas we see here that Jimmy was truly a more nuanced guy to start with.
wait, what? Walt didn’t try to rape Skylar in the pilot episode .. ?
He doesn’t try, he does. It’s the end of the episode, and she relents. Then a few episodes later her tries to pull the same move and she forcibly stops him.
Um, yeah nah – that’s not what happens.
Most definitely he assaults her in the episode where she is wearing the green face-mask. In the pilot he simply instigates sex. I’d be very surprised if there was anyone else who agrees with you on this and I certainly do not.Just to be clear though, I very much agree that he sexually assaults her (in the kitchen) in S1. But not in the pilot.Edit: apparently S2E1 is when Walt assaults Skyler ..
I think it was more that Skyler was constantly in the way of Walt and Jesse getting to the proverbial “fireworks factory”, not that any viewers thought she was morally inferior.
If she gives Jimmy a wrister on his b-day next episode, all that goodwill will instantly turn 180.
A good description of why Kim, as an unrealistic fantasy partner, weighs the show down.
Give Rhea Seehorn her dang Emmy
just give rhea seehorn an emmy already oh my gosh
If Rhea Seehorn doesn’t get an Emmy for her incredible work this season, we riot.
If she doesn’t it will be as great an injustice as when Jonathan Banks didn’t win for Five O.
Now we know about how far we are from the time of Breaking Bad. We know Tuco will be out in 11 months…
Do we know how long he was out of jail when we get introduced to him in Breaking Bad?
But he hadn’t just been released in Breaking Bad. He was the dominant mover of crystal in the South Valley (, bitch). It’ll take him 3 years, during which Jimmy’s status as siempre un amigo del cartel will see him get Emilio off like twice. 4 years before Jesse met Jane, which is where we are now, he was a kid, and given his age, that means 17. A 17-year-old could very well be an underling of Saul’s recurring client, Mr. Koyama. Aaron Paul cameo plausible.
Aaron Paul playing 17 now would be worse than Jesse Plemons revisiting Todd at however many stones heavier he was. Please no.
It doesn’t distract me. If I can live with the cast of Friends playing their teenage selves in flashbacks, I can live with this. I wonder how much it would cost Gilligan to borrow MCU digital de-aging technology for a few seconds worth of footage?
Don’t forget Odenkirk playing 20-something Jimmy a couple seasons ago.
Aaron Paul is so old though. It was distracting sometimes in El Camino.
3 years!? Tuco didn’t build the business from scratch, he stepped right in to lead an operation that was already functioning in earnest. That could have happened in weeks. Do you think he’d give a shit about Skinny Pete 3 years after sharing a cell with him?
As I posted elsewhere, it’s still 2004 right now in BCS, 4 years before Walt and Jesse meet Tuco. This is because Kim and Jimmy’s marriage certificate says May 2004, the case Kim is working on right before she quits Mesa Verde has 2004 as part of the case number (surrounded by letters, so not part of a random string of numbers), implying it’s the current year, and there have been no time skips of note since they got married. That’s evidence of the year. So it would appear that Tuco does indeed give a shit about Skinny Pete 3 years after leaving jail. Or Tuco will not be out in 11 months. Perhaps he will do something else to extend his sentence again. Even if Tuco did take over an already monopolised Salamanca business, there’s nothing I can recall in Breaking Bad that says he hadn’t been doing it for 3 years at that point.
Ugh.
There are times when I really do regret getting myself banned from this site.
Lalo pieced together most everything if not in the desert than certainly before he came knocking. He came there for confirmation and to kill the lawyer who lied to him along with his wife before going after Fring.
But Kim reminded him that he had bigger fish to fry and more important things to do – like draft Nacho into playing Sundance Kid to his Butch Cassidy and go on a kamikaze run on the don himself, which we’ll see next week.
We’ll find out then if his lieutenant shoots him in the back and goes back to his pathetic refrain of KILL ME IF YOU WANT BUT LEAVE MY DADDY ALONE or if Kim skips town to evade the danger at Jimmys bequest.
And only Mike will ever know – Mike probably never knew – if he would have snuffed all three of them had Jimmy spilled the beans. He got all of them in his sights, you know.
Lalo tapping on the fishbowl a few inches away from where the phone was probably made him think of his son getting a knock on the door at night, stepping away from his family he would never see again.
Chances are? He didn’t go to save Gale when this same situation repeated itself a few years later because he didn’t want to relive the scenario for a third time.
Mouthing off to Lalo, I surely feared tonight was the night: Welp, that’ll do it for Kimberly “Kim” Wexler, folks. Nice knowin’ ya. Capped in her own apartment for her insolence. Season 6 will be about Saul’s revenge. Why, cruel world? Take Jimmy instead, time paradox be damned! But then Lalo did the most surprising thing…without a word, he just walked away. And I’m not sure if I’m relieved, or even more frightened.
I think people exaggerate when they say watching something gives them goosebumps but its damn true when I tell you I get goosebumps watching the last handful of minutes of that episode. That needs to go on the Emmy reel for multiple people from actors, writers, directing, everything. Just a masterpiece.
There was one moment when Saul was soaking his feet, Kim cuddled up into him, that I really felt, for just one second, that he truly understood what he had done to her and needed to confess it all in order to get her away. He knew he had made his bed, but he had a chance to push her out of it. Then the phone rang…
I think that’s why he doesn’t answer the phone later. He knew that moment was the moment was his chance. And he didn’t want to remain silent anymore. He’s no longer conflicted by shame or pride with honesty to her, just legitimate fear that telling her is not safe.
My takeaway was different from yours when Lalo walked out at the end. I thought Kim had convinced him that Saul wasn’t keeping secrets from him.
Nope, definitely not. Lalo knows Saul lied, but Kim’s words made him think of an alternate plan.
Here’s what Tony Dalton himself had to say:I think that, after she stands up and starts going crazy on Lalo, he
basically goes, “You know what, maybe I’m just thinking about this too
much. These gringos are here doing their thing. I got out of jail, so
what’s the big deal?” She’s telling me why don’t you just thank the guy
instead, and here I am about to kill these people. So I think it’s Lalo
taking a step back, saying, “You know what, here I was taking things
seriously, getting all huffy and puffy, when everything’s fine.”
I think that’s the version of what his character was doing that is ok to tell fans now. I think a second part of him knew his own house wasn’t in order.
I think it was more this: You got your money and we’ve given you a plausible story — that should be enough. But even if Jimmy isn’t telling you the truth, would he have come up with a plan that involved himself getting shot at and spending 36 hours walking though the desert with 200 pounds of money, drinking pee? If he’s lying, he obviously doesn’t know why he’s lying. THINK ABOUT THIS — he’s not the guy you should be questioning.
I read it more as— Lalo doesn’t fully believe them, but the same reason he doesn’t believe them (i.e. that Jimmy would have never been able to stand tall in a gunfight) makes him realize there are bigger fish to fry, and he needs to be looking for the people who helped Jimmy.That, plus I think Kim’s words about getting his house in order and not being able to rely on his own men struck a chord. He mentioned to Jimmy a couple episodes ago that a guy like Nacho might get squirrelly with $7 million; maybe in the back of his mind he suspects Nacho can’t be trusted and is going to follow that thread now.
Now that Kim has proven herself to handle the criminal world very adeptly, by ostensibly solving Jimmy’s big problem, I hope we get a black and white scene next week on the finale where Gene, in order to try to handle the guy who made him (a loose plot thread the show hasn’t addressed yet), shows up at Kim’s door. She’s back in her home state, doing pro bono work, let’s say, trying to make up for being more criminal adjacent in BB, the unseen advisor to Saul. That reveal would be a great way to show that Kim survived this show. Which she has to, because she’s beloved by all of us viewers and has such a moving and arduous arc, going through everything she went through. (It’d be like Tolkien killing off Frodo and Sam; James Cameron killing off Sarah Conner. I mean we definitely care more about Kim, who’s the true hero, than Saul/Jimmy) I’m thinking of the first flash forward in Lost when we saw Kate.
No thanks. Putting Kim in the Gene story would be waaaaay too fan service-y.
Did you see El Camino??
It’s only fan servicey because we as fans don’t want the character to get killed because she’s been written so well that we’ve come to really care for her. It’d be nice if this show had a happy ending where instead of the protagonist dies, he reconciles with the love of his life.
These last two episodes I’ve been doing a lot of personal comparing of Kim with Robb Stark.
I don’t know if I like that comparison…
Lalo is going to sew Marcie’s head on her body?
GoT didn’t nearly spend as much time on Robb; Kim is much a more a lead character. And Robb wasn’t specifically written to be awesome and likeable.
GoT didn’t nearly spend as much time on Robb; Kim is much a more a lead character. And Robb wasn’t specifically written to be awesome and likeable.
My reading of the final scene was that what Kim said really got to him, and he realized he can trust Nacho. Now he’s going to take Nacho everywhere, like his sidekick.
I definitely felt the opposite, like he was taking Nacho to Mexico to torture him because Kim made him realise he didn’t intrisically trust his own guys and needs to look there first.
Anyone else catch Mike telling Gus that fear isn’t a good way to motivate people? Which is what Gus tells Mike in Breaking Bad, maybe making it ironic retroactively? I wonder if this is a lesson Gus still has to learn from Mike in this earlier time, which could spell bad things for Nacho if he’s the instrument by which Gus learns it…
Yep, totally what I thought.
Kim is Better Call Saul’s Walter White. :O She’s breaking bad!
We’re all Tio in a birthday hat these days.I don’t think I breathed for the last five minutes of that. Like, at all. Part of me wanted Mike to rain death from above, part of me wants to keep enjoying the multiple levels of sheer terror that Tony Dalton brings to the show with Lalo. Unbelievable. Although I have to imagine there would be hell to pay if Gus just flat-out wacked him, so I think Mike was only there to pull the trigger if he absolutely had to. As we saw, he had a shot.And what do we think Kim told Rich? Did she just up and quit? Part of me thought she was spilling the beans on all she’d been up to with Saul for some odd reason, but I can’t imagine why the hell she would do that. Another banger. I can’t even imagine what’s lined up for next week. Thanks again, Donna!
I bet Mike was freelancing there with the sniper rifle. Gus didn’t tell him to be there.
I doubt that. Gus didn’t say it in so many words to wack Lalo, but the talk the two of them had in Gus’ office alluded to it. Mike would be dead in a day if he just started taking hits out on Salamancas by himself just because he felt like it. Hit men kill when they’re told to.
I’m not so sure about that. If the lawyer representing a suspicious client who just delivered a 7 million dollar bail ends up dead, that’s a lot of heat. It’s in the best interest of Gus that nobody starts pulling on those threads.
I loved how the show took advantage of the copyright claim for “Happy Birthday to You” finally collapsing. I wonder if there were any annoyances over getting the rights back when Breaking Bad had birthday party scenes.
I didn’t even think about that! Good catch. I was hoping we’d get a close-up of Tio in a birthday hat when they showed Lalo leaving, and then boom! There it was. I took a photo of my screen for future profile pics. lol
“We’re all Tio in a birthday hat these days.”
Well said, though it does make we wonder if Hector actually does like Birthday parties, I think that would be his first charming quality ever.
Yeah, I’m guessing not.
Wow. What an amazing subversion of expectations. Pretty much everyone expected Kim to be potentially imperiled, and she was. But, what I did not see coming was this – Jimmy would have been killed by Lalo but for Kim. Kim, who saves herself, is all that could save Jimmy this time. Jimmy would have broken to Lalo with 1-2 more repeats of the story. Kim sized that up and saw the cracks and intervened.
Kim was stone silent, all reaction, for most of it. Saul Goodman, the man who can shoot lightning from his fingertips, was out of miracles. All was falling apart. And then Kim stared Lalo down like he was a straight punk.Which made the pacing of that penultimate scene so amazing. Amazing writing, editing, direction, and crackerjack performance from Seehorn. (For real, right, that scene has to be an Emmy reel for the show. I could even see Dalton getting a nod.)
I cling to my hope that Kim makes it to the Gene days, with or without him.
> Jimmy would have been killed by Lalo but for Kim.
No. Lalo would have been killed (by Mike). Kim saved Lalo not Saul.
Maybe. I’m not totally sure Mike can take the shot, much as he wants to. Gus would be furious and could threaten Mike’s family.
> Gus would be furious and could threaten Mike’s family.
Hmm, you seem to be assuming that Mike was there without Gus’s knowledge. That’s not the case. We can be assured that he is there under orders from Gus.
And a Lalo arrested with two dead attorneys is worse than a disappeared Lalo in Gus’ master plan
Uh, how are you assured? A recurring theme this season is the split between Gus and Mike. Did Gus green light telling Jimmy that something bad would happen to Lalo too in Jimmy’s car?
Mike doesn’t put the crosshairs on someone if he isn’t willing to pull the trigger if he has to.
I don’t know about that. I can think of a few cases in the show where Mike had a rifle on someone and was conflicted, and declined to shoot. (Off the top of my head, Hector and the twins). This could easily be yet another one of those cases. The question here is – did Gus greenlight it? And I can’t see any evidence that he did.
Right now, Lalo has suspicions about Gus, but nothing concrete. If Gus can get Lalo out of the country, and play the perfect loyal soldier for a few years, then things will die down and Gus can return to his plan to axe Don Eladio and steal the empire out from under him. But if Saul breaks and tells the real story to Lalo, offering clear evidence that Gus is playing his own game—then Lalo MUST DIE before he can share that information with Don Eladio.It would be bad for Lalo to die, it would be suspicious, but it might be recoverable. And nothing is more important in the end than keeping a path to revenge against Don Eladio.
Unintentionally she “saved” Lalo by standing in front of Mike’s shot (and this assumes Mike was ready to take the shot and not just using the scope for surveillance) but she definitely, intentionally protected Saul/Jimmy for Lalo by backing up his lie and saying what she said to Lalo
I feel like I was alone in this but I kept on expecting Kim after x many retellings to say something like “Cut the shit Jimmy I was the bullet hole in your coffee mug,” but then it went completely a different way and I expected THAT way to be something where the kind of bravado she might bring as a tactic in a corporate setting didn’t work here but instead it actually worked, at least for the time being. (I realize now she couldn’t possibly ask for the real story because for all she knows he ripped off the cartel or something but didn’t think of that in the moment)
more stray:Mike and Sauls truck stop clothesThe camera shot of Kim on the ground picking up his broken dish. I think this is the first time we see Saul towering over kowtowing Kim.Gus is the king of quick mood change.If Lalo weren’t evil, he would be a fun guy to hang around. I love his witty little asides.I couldn’t tell from his expression if Saul was pissed at Kim after she tore down Lalo, or relieved or impressed.
Saul and Mike’s clothes at the truck stop reminded me both of the scene in Pulp Fiction where Jules and Vincent get hosed down and given t-shirts and shorts to wear (“You look like a couple of dorks!”) and the scene in Breaking Bad’s ‘Box Cutter’ where Walt and Jesse both get matching outfits to wear after Gus kills Victor. Matching Kenny Rogers shirts, no less. With the size tags still stuck on them.
Walt and Jesse also end up with some cool Kenny Rogers t-shirts after some messy stinky work in one episode.
Kim’s limp, drooping hair! The ordeal really took it out of her.
Random – did Lalo call Kim Jimmy’s “abuela” in the first scene (outside the jail)? I’ve studied and spoken Spanish for many years (though as a non-native speaker) and I’ve never heard someone call a young female s/o an abuela… Is that slang? I can’t imagine telling a dude in the US he has a hot wife/girlfriend and calling her “granny”.
He said “Guera” where the G makes kind of a w sound. Like “wheda,” and it is slang for white girl.
So I thought that too, and you may be right, but closed caption said “abuela”. I’ll assume they got it wrong.
The CC got it wrong in that instance, he refers to Kim as “guera” several times.
It was definitely “Guera”. Some of you might remember Beck’s album Guero.
I’ve never heard someone call a young female s/o an abuela… Is that slang?Maybe he meant it like Kim is Saul’s “ol’ lady?”
No, he didn’t say “abuela”, he said the “güera”, which is Mexican slang for a blonde or sometimes for any light-skinned or light-haired girl in general.
Thanks; that makes more sense.
The movie Jimmy isn’t watching with Kim before he takes off to court is “His Girl Friday.” Not that Jimmy’s Cary Grant or Kim’s Rosalind Russell, but there are corresponding dynamics in the two couples’ relationships.
The skaters seen after Jimmy gets out of the car with Mike… such a subtle reminder of how Jimmy became acquainted with the cartel in the first place. A clever throwback to season 1.
After Saul gets out of the car, right after Mike tells him that he alone chose the road he was on, the two skateboarders in the background. A callback to where it REALLY started.
I loved how they used the fish tank in that (incredibly tense) encounter with Lalo. The symmetry of it: Saul is the fish- rattled almost to the point of death by Lalo’s insistent poking.
Love this!
What are the odds that Kim exits the pre-Breaking Bad era of the story via the Ed Galbraith express? I tend to doubt that if she were to die as a result of Jimmy’s lawyering, that he’d still be a lawyer, and a relatively happy-go-lucky one at that, by the time of Breaking Bad.But her being “in the game,” I could imagine her leaving Jimmy and then needing the services of Ed to get out of town.The contact to bring Ed into the picture could be Mike, just because I’d love to see a scene between Jonathan Banks and Robert Forster (here’s hoping they filmed one). Mike helps get Kim out of town, and that’s how Saul has Ed’s contact info when it comes up on Breaking Bad.Then, at the end of the show, the flash forwards become the present, and somehow “Gene” is reunited with Kim.
By 2008, Saul will be disinclined to have close emotional relationships with women, preferring to stick to paid services and casually flinging sexualised comments at his secretary. He’s going to learn, I think, that you can’t make anyone game-adjacent. If you bring them in, if you let them into your heart, they’re in, and there are only two ways out. No more half-relationships, Jimmy.
Sort of like Spider-Man?
“…just because I’d love to see a scene between Jonathan Banks and Robert Forster (here’s hoping they filmed one).”I like the idea, and dare to dream, but it seems unlikely. 🙁 Would love to eat my words, though!
Holy lord, Kim is magnificent. I thought for sure Lalo had Jimmy dead to rights, but then Kim steps in, effortlessly improvises a plausible explanation, sells it, and as one last distraction puts Lalo on the defensive. Here is all my lunch money Kim Wexler, please don’t hurt me.
Gus is about to learn that fear is indeed a poor motivator. Nacho will do something against Gus despite the gun to his father’s head. Every gun the cartels ever held went off, and Saul and Kim are just waiting till the firing stops.
1. Good call. Everyone thinks that the title of next week’s episode “Something Unforgivable” refers to Jimmy and Kim, but Nacho could very well be in a position to do something dangerous.2. Coldplay reference? Nice!
Nacho will not survive next week’s episode.
That’s a lesson he takes over to the Breaking Bad World also. I don’t recall the episode, but when talking about Walt, he tells someone that “he doesn’t believe fear to be a good motivator”
He said that in season 3, episode 4, “Green Light”. To Mike, which makes this discussion a nice call forward.
S4 Ep11 Crawl SpaceGus to Walt: “I will kill your wife, I will kill your son, I will kill your infant daughter”. So much for fear not being a motivating factor.
It’s “an effective motivator” and it’s in Green Light.
Agreed. I’m starting to think he’s going to realize that Lalo is his lesser of two evils. Dude is vicious as they come, but he seems to genuinely respect Nacho, is trying to bring him closer into his circle, and doesn’t have a gun to his dad’s head. By contrast, Gus has made it perfectly clear to Nacho that he’s an expendable asset.
I’m worried and kinda expecting next episode Nacho is gonna get cooked by the Chicken man.If that happened we’d need a reason why Saul is still afraid of him well over a year from now though.
I always think of a Bronx Tale. Yeah Sunny prefered people fear him, but if they had loved him he wouldn’t have been shot. Fear is a strong motivator but only for so long.
The most brilliant little detail from this episode: after Mike’s speech to Jimmy about the small choices that eventually led him down this path, Jimmy steps out of the car. And in the background are two kids riding skateboards. That seemingly small choice in the very first episode—teaming up with those skateboarding kids to scam the Kettleman’s—led him to Tuco, which led him here.
Noticed those skateboarding kids too. The attention to detail of these show creators is amazing.
Nobody does it better then Vince and Company.
Makes me feel sad for the rest.
Gus said to Walt in Breaking Bad that he doesn’t find fear to be an effective motivator. It now appears he got that mantra from Mike, which means he’s about to be proven right that having a gun to Nacho’s father’s head will backfire.
Kim being in the crosshairs of Mike’s sniper rifle was metaphorical, she is now all in the game and is in much danger as anyone in the cartel business. No way she can live happily ever after now, either vaccum cleaner or death.
As I continue to not be able to stop thinking about that final scene…I was screaming at Saul to answer the phone the first time it rang. How many times has it happened this season (let alone this series) that he’s ignored a phone call only for it to turn to shit because he didn’t answer?I know I’m not breaking (!) new ground by saying so, but seems like Saul might still be Jimmy if he didn’t suggest people better call Saul…(*Does the George Costanza walkout as the crowd boos*)
I may be forgetting a detail, but who was it that followed Lalo and Nacho from the nursing home?Whatever Lalo is thinking now I think has to do with the Hector scene, and his last words “Family is everything”.
One idea: Kim put enough doubt in him that he’s suspicious of the cousins.
That was Victor, who works for Gus. The same guy who got his throat cut with a box cutter by Gus in Breaking Bad.
So is the implication that he followed them to the well, saw them check out the car, and let Gus or Mike know they were coming back and probably suspicious of Jimmy? I’m not sure how else Mike knew he was coming.
That probably makes the most sense, although Victor would have to hang WAY back in that empty desert. Everyone thinks that Nacho called Mike, but I don’t know when he would have had the opportunity to do so, with Lalo sitting right next to him all the time….
Victor was looking at a tracking screen as they pulled out of Las Tranquilas. He had a tracking device on Nacho’s car, so he could hang way back, and also know when they turned around and came back to Albuquerque so he wouldn’t be seen.
Victor was holding a tracking device.
Do Fring’s goons/muscle ever sleep?
Sure, we don’t see it because he just puts them back in storage until he needs them.
Victor was in the parking lot of Hector’s home, tracking Nacho’s car. He or Gus must have told Mike where Lalo was.
I like that idea (your last one). To me, part of Kim taking the top of the tequila bottle out of her desk signified at least in part that the schemer aspect of her personality is not dead. Sure, she was being lied to about it by Saul, but that whole speech to Lalo was basically a con. If she’d been privy to what Saul had actually been up to, that’s exactly what it would’ve been – a con on Lalo to get him to go away.
She wasn’t fully privy, but she did know from the coffee mug that Lalo was right. Not so much conning him as gaslighting him.
You’re right, I forgot all about that. So in a way, her con game was even stronger. She wasn’t just saying what she thought was the truth. She went all in on it.
I thought “I don’t know what happened to that rusty Esteem after I left on the desert road in Mexico.” was a pretty obvious explanation before Kim brought it up and I didn’t get why Saul wasn’t taking that angle.
Yeah, that would’ve been my approach. Like she said, Saul can’t control who does or doesn’t shoot up a car and then push it into a ditch in the middle of the damn desert. That was the easy part of the whole discussion to me. He was separated from it for over a full day.
Goddamn, Rhea Seehorn. Just… goddamn….
Watching this one, it became clear that there’s still a missing piece to where Jimmy becomes the Saul we see in BB. Something else happens that makes him truly reckless and unapologetic. I don’t think Kim will die but what we saw tonight was definitely the calm before the storm.
And god it was tense…
Also, Kim’s decision to quit her job and do pro-bono seemed to be a somewhat impulsive thing driven by seeing all that money in the bag. Not shallow, but more of a ‘what am I doing?’ thing, mixed with the fact that she knows they have $100K now so she doesn’t have to do any more bullshit. Lot of complex things going on with her that happened in a scene that didn’t explain any of it. Masterful.
Did anyone else notice the skateboarders in the background when Jimmy gets out of Mike’s car? He’s a long way from the first episode of the series.
Also, Nacho’s AMX may be the most beautiful vehicle I’ve ever seen. I adore my ‘80 Firebird but it doesn’t compare.
I’ve tried posting about that subtle detail twice but I guess my comment isn’t deemed important. Such a cool reminder that the skateboarding scam is what introduced Jimmy to the cartel and what began this Bad Choice Road from the get-go.
There, now it’s important. 😉
Good catch. I saw them too, but didn’t make that connection.
What’s funny is you can draw a line directly from those two skateboarders all the way to the end of Breaking Bad.If they hadn’t tried to scam Jimmy, Jimmy wouldn’t meet Tuco and Nacho. If Jimmy doesn’t meet Nacho, Nacho doesn’t case the Kettlemans. The Kettlemans in turn wouldn’t fake their own kidnapping. Jimmy wouldn’t find them, be paid off, rent the billboard, and meet Mrs. Strauss. If he doesn’t meet Mrs. Strauss, he doesn’t go into elder law, discover the Sandpiper fraud, and eventually end up at Davis & Main. He doesn’t make the commercial whose airing gets Kim demoted to document review. Kim doesn’t try to bring in Mesa Verde. Jimmy doesn’t have to forge any documents and never has anything to confess to Chuck, who is still alive. Jimmy never gets suspended, never becomes Saul Goodman, and never represents Krazy-8. Krazy-8 never becomes an informant and never turns in his cousin and Jesse. There is no raid for Walt to tag along on, so Walt and Jesse never team up. Jimmy barely knows Mike, so Walt doesn’t get connected to Gus. Gale happily runs the superlab, and dozens of people, including Hank, don’t die.Instead, all that happened, because a couple of dipshits couldn’t pick a good target.
Good points. All of them.
Bringing this out of the grays. Well done.
If the skateboarders had went after the next guy it actually leads to the Walking Dead universe, so we lucked out all things considered.
I have to say that Better Call Saul just flexed its muscles to show what it can do with 16 minutes of straight tension and suspense. Everything in Breaking Bad was a surprise as it went, but in BCS knowing and not knowing the fate of characters, in my opinion, ratchets everything up a bit more. Mike could shoot Lalo or Lalo could shoot Kim, but we all know Mike and Saul are safe. Yet, for those 16 minutes I had to stand up and watch through my fingers. Other than maybe Jesse, is there any character in this universe who fans have a more vested interest in than Kim? And that’s been since day one for her in this show exactly because of what we know. I remember people questioning whether this show was worth it, and last night confirmed to me in 16 minutes how great an idea this was by everyone involved in making BCS happen! Here’s to hoping Saul fakes his death in Omaha, spends his diamonds the keep showing, and Viktor (with a K) and Gisele end up conning people happily ever after in some exotic location!BTW, Nacho and Lalo also have mysterious fates like Kim, and I think we see them both exit stage left in the finale at the hands of Gus.
One thing that stretches the bounds of plausibility, is Lalo’s seeming superintelligence. For someone who’s your basic cartel thug, he sure is one *smart* mofo. He instantly figures out everything on little or no information.
When Nacho drops him off at the well, he suddenly gets suspicious of Saul and decides to check out his story. Why? From the knowledge he has at this point there’s no basis for being suspicious. He would know from the twins that the handoff took place successfully and uneventfully. He knows that Saul brought back all the money, and not a single dollar was missing. Since the plan was entirely successful, there’s no reason to think that something else happened along the way. The only way is for Lalo to be clairvoyant or have magical powers to know about elements of the plot he is not privy to. This smacks of bad writing.
It’s not “magical powers” or bad writing—it’s just a “I should have seen his car moment” while traveling the same road. Don’t forget from Saul’s appearance that he clearly has a story that would be memorable.
He was extremely late and had told at least one person what he had planned. And he’s not exactly just a thug.
He also just had a long ass drive to sit and think. He’s a good enough judge of Saul to tell when Saul might be lying. Saul was too shook to fully sell the lie. I will say Lalo has good intuitions but he is far from the basic cartel thug. He was raised in part my mister cartel Hector, and has been doing this his whole life.
When Lalo came back to Nacho’s car after getting dropped off I thought he was pulling out a gun to shoot him.
Loved this episode. Maybe even more than last week, which was also amazing.I expected Kim to run out on Jimmy half a dozen times. I expected Lalo to put a bullet in her head at the end of the episode. Once again, they subvert all expectations on the “this is it for Kim” train of thought.
Is it just me or is every episode these days ‘will Kim be ok this week?’ That final scene with Lalo and the very prominent gun in his belt sitting there with Kim and Jimmy was so tense. I wasn’t sure whether to stand up and applaud Kim for having the guts to stand up to him or further worrying her words and actions were bringing her further into the game.Lalo is one of the more frighting monsters on tv. He is very smart along with his macho arrogance and that intelligence makes him so effective and scary. I worry he will see Kim as a lever to get Jimmy/Saul to do his bidding or a way to punish him. By leaving her job, Kim seems to have realised she can’t live this double life – straight corporate lawyer in the one hand and her own interests (pro bono cases and Jimmy’s partner in crime and shadiness) on the other.
This entire season is Kim Be Okay.
Better Leave Saul
Kim is an unrealistic fantasy that drags this show down. You only have to read the description of her role in the relationship in this article to see it.
Maybe it’s just me, but the suspense of this episode was increased by the way oranges show up in The Godfather right before people die.
PLEASE. DO. NOT. KILL. KIM.That’s it. That’s the post
Anyone else notice the two skateboarding dudes in the background as Jimmy got out of Mike’s car after Mike’s “bad choices leading down a bad road” speech.
Thought that was a pretty cool call back to the Season 1 skateboard twins scam, which led to Tuco. AKA Jimmy’s bad decision to lead him toward the cartel for the first time.
Jimmy’s story to Lalo was never the same, each telling got less believable and you could see him getting smaller literally before everyone’s eyes, Kim saved his ass but at what cost to herself I’m afraid to find out next week ? Also, seeing Saul get taunted by his buddy in the courthouse was wonderful
I think it’s okay that it was different. If it was identical each time it would seem more rehearsed. It still wasn’t believable, though, because Lalo found the car.
Though Rhea Seehorn is the best actor on the planet right now, Tony Dalton and the BCS writing team are doing really great work with Lalo. He’s such a specific type of asshole: totally dismissive and arrogant, capable of empathy but not interested in it, and enjoys giving out just enough information to make someone squirm. But he’s also surprisingly perceptive and patient. He’s macho and brutal, but not a hot head. He’s not the anti-Fring. He’s what Fring would have been if Fring had the entitlement of being born straight and in the Salamanca family. For Fring, perfection is required for survival. Lalo knows he can afford to be reckless, and that he can coast on the fear that surrounds him. But Lalo is still always paying attention.He’s the kind of character where I feel like I know real (non-murderous) people like him, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen that kind of person depicted on the screen.
I thought if there was gonna be another show in this universe it should be The Continuing Adventures of Kim Wexler. Scratch that. I want the Lalo Show. He is hilarious and scary and I want more.
My working theory is that the show has obviously been teasing “what terrible thing will Jimmy do to make Kim leave him or get her killed” but it’s actually going to be “Kim leaves Jimmy to go be a friend of the cartel cause she’s better at the game than he is”.
Another stray observation, small but clever, there are two skateboarders in the background, seen after Jimmy gets out of the car with Mike and his pep talk…Such a subtle way of reminding us how Jimmy, in Season 1, got messed up with the cartel in the first place, how he began his journey on this Bad Choice Road. It’s the little things too that make the writing so brilliant and fun to watch.
For some reason Netflix thought Lalo [In Spanish] was sufficient captioning for the entire seen where he spoke to Hector. I speak Spanish (or at least I did, I’m getting rusty) but he was talking very low and I speak Castellano rather than American Spanish so I couldn’t catch everything he was saying. Did I miss anything important?
Here’s the subtitles :)Look, cops are gonna go crazy looking for me for a few months. Maybe a year. Then the heat will die down, like it always does. Until then, Ignacio or one of the other guys, they’ll get you anything you need. [Hector’s breathing intensifies]Tio, come on, don’t be this way. There are still lots of moves to make against Fring. When I’m home I’ll have Eladio’s ear. I’ll make sure he’s sick of the chicken man. Then, what’s Fring’s, will be ours. [Both laugh]Eleven months from now, Tuco gets out of prison. He’ll run things here. I know, I know, Tuco. He’s a hothead. When he’s on the stuff he’s… We’ll make sure someone is on him. He’ll stay clean.[Leans in] Family is everything. [Kisses head]
Is this the first time we’ve heard anybody call Jimmy Saul? Lalo says, “What’d you do, Saul, hm?” I know he’s been referred to as Saul Goodman and addressed as Mr. Goodman, but has there been any time before this (chronologically) that anyone has addressed him like that’s his real name?
It did stand out a bit. I wonder if you are right.
Someone please explain like I’m five… why is Bolsa’s highjacking of the bail money “protecting our organization,” either Fring’s specifically or the larger cartel organization? Isn’t Bolsa high up in the Cartel, which the Salamancas and Gus BOTH work for? We as the audience know that Lalo is plotting against Gus but Bolsa doesn’t know that. And wouldn’t he want an extremely high-up guy like Lalo out of jail and productive in Mexico, instead of sitting in an American cell getting grilled by the feds? It can’t just be that he wants to save the organization the money; 7 million seems like a lot of cash to us civilians, but it barely made a dent in the shelves the cousins got it from. At first it made sense to me that the cartel-warehouse guy was letting some outsiders he had an “understanding” with in on a tip for an extra-curricular ambush to line their own pockets (a “best laid plans of mice and men” moment that neither Lalo nor anyone else had anticipated). Now I don’t know what to think, and I feel dumb that no one else seems to be confused :/
We get from the scene that Bolsa thinks Gus’s “bad luck” is too suspiciously timed with Lalo’s arrival. That Bolsa sees Gus as a good stable earner and sees Lalo as somebody disruptive. So Bolsa was happy for Lalo to stay in prison. It’s only during the exchange that Bolsa realizes maybe Gus wanted Lalo out of prison and the associated implications of what that might mean.
One of the current great joys of DVRing is getting to fast forward through these feckless, godaweful ‘response to covid19′ masturbatory commercials. They’re even painful at 3 times speed.
Was the speech about a dog biting their owner just about Nacho? I was getting vibes it was about Mike as well- for biting back at Gus. Also, I thought Kim was about to get yeeted with Lalo when they were both in the crosshairs. Don’t feel like this quite set things up for the finale in the way I thought it would’ve like they have in the past. Seems like there’s a lot of detail-heavy ground to cover in the next 14 episodes to get to full on Saul.
Man it sucks that Jimmy’s too much of a coward to be honest with Kim about what he’s doing cuz if the last scene of this is any indication, she’s one of the few people who’s just as good a bullshitter as he is. They’d make such a good team.
If he had told her I’m not sure she wouldn’t have said something that would’ve proved much worse. If Jimmy told Kim everything there’s no saying Kim wouldn’t have ratted out Mike to save Jimmy.
Kim Wexler is the ideal woman. I think the biggest threat to her and Jimmy’s relationship isn’t the cartel, it’s Jimmy at some point believing he doesn’t deserve her and sabotaging the relationship.
I realize this is probably not a popular point of view but having someone who will lie for you and cover for you no matter what as you do insane dangerous criminal shit behind her back is a sick relationship and not an “ideal” anything.
She was lying and covering for him because she knew his life was in immediate danger. What was her option? Admit she knows Jimmy is lying because she found the cup and get them both killed. I imagine once they are out of the woods she’ll put her foot down.
My point is their sick relationship and continually enabling each others worst characteristics is what got them to this moment. But Jimmy is by far the worse of the two. Kim literally directly and clearly asked him not to do this insane dangerous criminal thing and he did it anyway. Now here she is saving his ass from his own mistake yet again. I get that that’s “ideal” for a lot of guys though but it really shouldn’t be
Absolutely amazing and uncharacteristically (sic) last batch of episodes, felt more like Breaking Bad than ever because not even JimmySaul is able to crack jokes, he’s got PTSD and it looks like it’s what Chuck had too.One hilarious highlight here, after the heartbreaking and interesting visual causing Jimmy’s double face being forced into a singular expression by the reflection in the metal, usually there’s this theme of him being a very sad man deep inside and this other persona “Saul” that he coats over his sad clown face that is what Jimmy is, while looking at Ed Snowden, I mean Fred (no way they didn’t pick the guy and named him so close to the real guy on purpose, considering how he was willing to be fully transparent and go against company policy with Mike because he was at least very polite and knew how to play him better than Lalo, who even in a good mood radiates evil). When looking at Fred’s family, realizing how despite him enjoying the cons and petty criminality, he’s not a murderer and he really does not enjoy having to work for Lalo. “ This is above and beyond!” as he told Walt 3-4 years later. Indeed.It’s quite something how Bob Odenkirk managed to become a great dramatic actor, someone being only known for his funnies before BrBa. He deserves some prizes. Also Rhea, my god, Kim didn’t care their marriage was partially a strategic move, she was actually extremely happy when their rushed civil marriage happened, she will follow Jimmy/Saul in happiness and times of trouble no matter what. She even didn’t get mad at him for not following their new total honesty rule, she realizes he can’t even think about what happened himself, that he hates how he feels and that he didn’t think lingering trauma like this was even possible. She calls Lalo on his BS, mentions the bullet hole to the silent Saul who, just as in front of the Chuck 1216 revelations, stays quiet and still like a statue when Kim gets pissed off at a common foe, she’s dominant in the good way, see extreme 3rd gen feminists…that’s actual feminism that Rhea is portraying.It’s just unfortunate that Lalo will count her as in the game and still makes me so damn worried about her character, before it was balconies and stairways that did it, but now her quitting that job at S&C shocked me as much as it shocked Jimmy…she thinks she can just live with that 100k, but I think Saul had other plans for what to do with that payout. The fact we don’t see her in Breaking Bad is fine, he wasn’t even a co-protagonist, just one of the main protagonists lawyer, we never saw him outside of that office or at Danny’s laser tag, Walt’s condo and Andrea’s new house that she’s renting…So that first episode, and also the flashforward last season with him and Francesca before he calls for the disappearer in his BrBa office, tells me that maybe somehow Kim is around, whether she is by her side still is a mystery, but the fact there’s only 11 episodes left (1 this season left already, damn, I missed 13 episodes seasons), tells me the breaking point is close for many, Nacho, Jimmy/Saul. If they stretch the relationship for a good part of next and last season, I bet they will have their own office again, except, likely raking it in, but not that much from clean work…
Gus’s point about Nacho is totally on point. Nacho 1. went behind Tuco’s back for his pharma drug deal, then 2. tried to get Mike to kill him, then 3. tried to kill Hector, then 4. betrayed Lalo. We like him because he looks sweet, but he could have worked for his pop and had a nice life. Nacho is to blame for his situation.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say I blame Nacho. But yes he is somebody who you can’t trust to work under you.
True, but the only reason they can’t trust him is because they threaten him and won’t let him leave.
I think we are all forgetting what might be the most important question, now that the trusty old Subaru is dead in a ditch: WWJD?
in other words…What Will Jimmy Drive?
I love the show, and this was a standout episode. One thing that doesn’t ring true to me, however, is that this is now the third time this season that Kim has, in 2004 in the American Southwest, chewed out a powerful middle-aged-or-older man in front of other people. On top of that, she was lying or employing deception with all three, and two of them seemed to understand she was lying to them. And yet not one of these powerful men, who are not used to anyone yelling at them, and especially a woman, lost their cool or behaved in any way irrationally, despite a sexist status quo and the inevitable blow it must have been on some level to their male egos. That has been a little one-note to me — that Kim vents strategically, puts powerful men from another era in their place, and in the moment they (repeatedly) do nothing to her. It’s fun to watch, but it seems to exist in some sexism-free fantasyland version of 2004 (or before or since) where powerful men never punish women for standing up to them.
That 3 powerful men might respect somebody for standing up to them isn’t that implausible. There is a personality type that respects that. Though this episode did make me worried that it was going to have Kim believe this tactic always works only to have it end tragically this time.
“Gus immediately knows that Bolsa hired them to “protect his business by protecting our business,””I didn’t really follow this. Why would Bolsa not want Lalo out of jail? I think I’m just rusty on the cartel set-up. The guy from Scarface is at the top and then there’s Gus and the Salamancas and… Where does Bolsa fit in? What’s his deal with Lalo?
Bolsa communicated to Gus that he can tell Lalo has been the one disrupting Gus’s businesses, and Bolsa values Gus as an earner.
Thank you. Doesn’t Gus have Bolsa killed in Breaking Bad? That’s what I was remembering so I figured Bolsa wasn’t high on Fring. I guess I need to rewatch both shows now. haha
OK, I’ve gotten a little lost/confused. Why was Mike in the desert watching over Saul?
Because Mike is god and he watches over all of us.
That final scene was so incredibly tense because unlike most shows where everybody has plot armor, these characters I care about were in real jeopardy. I truly believe that if in the writers room they thought Lalo hurting or killing Kim would be the decision he would make, he would pull that trigger. Hell I even thought it was possible for Mike to shoot Kim as a “just after you think they are safe BAM” moment.This pays off so much, Kim’s character trait that has become front and center is challenging authority. It seems to always work out for her, and I was worried this was going to be the payoff to the Chekov’s gun scenes like when she stood up to Mesa Verde man: Her thinking “everybody I stand up to backs down, I’m going to do it here.” And normally, with almost any villain but Lalo that would’ve backfired catastrophically. Imagine her talking like this to Tuco. She doesn’t know what she doesn’t know. BB/BCS keeps turning out amazing and unique villains and Lalo is up there. His menace is his smile that seems to threaten another violent shoe that will drop but never does, and the longer we wait the bigger and scarier that threat seems to grow.This show is how you write gripping television, have interesting characters with consistent motivations, whose actions follow those motivations, and whose consequences logically follow those actions. I cared so much more about what happened in this small room than I did for all the huger than huge battles at the end of Game of Thrones. Because good writing matters.
Anyone else get Pulp Fiction vibes when Mike and Saul waited to be picked up in their gas station bought T shirts?
The thing I loved about the final scene was the shots, and I mean literally and figuratively. The camera put Kim between Lalo’s gun and Jimmy, and Mike’s gun and Lalo. Like an old western. The words were gravy.