In a flashback, we're introduced to Rebecca, a woman with whom Chuck is romantically involved. Jimmy comes over for dinner and is meeting Rebecca for the first time. Despite Chuck's warning to Rebecca that Jimmy is coarse and unrefined, Jimmy is cordial and charming throughout most of the dinner. It's around the time Jimmy started at HHM and Jimmy begins to talk about his experiences in the mail room. He talks through most of the scene, but per usual, Chuck is what makes the scene interesting.
Chuck seems genuinely proud of his brother when Jimmy talks about how he's coming along in the mail room and adjusting to his new job. However, once there's a prolonged silence at the dinner, Jimmy starts telling lawyer jokes that he's heard through the grapevine. Because the show has drawn Chuck so well to this point, we know exactly how he's going to react to the idea of Jimmy making jokes (harmless jokes, but jokes nonetheless) about his profession. A series of forced smiles and frustrated scowls washes across Chuck's face while Jimmy puts on his show and then the knife gets twisted when Rebecca delivers another zinger and joins in on the act. He's unable to absorb even the slightest of mockeries of what he does for a living, and he's doubly frustrated that his brother can win over people so easily when he quite obviously doesn't have the personality to do the same. One gets the sense that Chuck feels that interpersonal relations involve meticulous hard work and that instant connections with people is yet another one of Jimmy's "shortcuts" that he despises.
Anyway, now Jimmy apparently has a babysitter for him at the office, a girl by the name of Erin. The first encounter the two have is pretty symbolic of everything that there is to come. Jimmy put a soda can in the recycling bin in his office, which ::gasp:: is for paper only. Good thing Erin was there to notice it, rescue it, and point it out to Jimmy basically as the first thing she says to him. She then drops a 3,000 pound sack of "annoying" on Jimmy as she describes a laundry list of edits and minor problems with documents he prepared, even though Jimmy technically outranks her. Woof.
Though Jimmy gets his fair share of screen time, this episode is mostly the Kim Wexler show. She's still in Howard Hamlin's doghouse and she's desperately trying to work her way out of it. Jimmy shows up with the quintessentially Jimmy solution of suing HHM, which Kim quickly dismisses. Jimmy still thinks that Chuck is behind this mess, but thanks to that subtle moment in the previous episode, we know that this is Howard's beef, even if we don't fully get why.
Kim's next step is to lay out a bunch of post-it notes with a bunch of old connections as she reaches for whatever strings she can pull to bring in new business for HHM. She paces across parking lots, stairwells, and empty conference rooms only to receive countless rejections in montage format across two different musically-enhanced scenes. One could criticize Better Call Saul for dragging out these scenes, but it's really the only way to properly capture the frustration Kim's going through, which is necessary for the payoff. She gets a call back from Paige, an acquaintance from Mesa Bank, that finally leads to a meeting. Kim's shriek of pure jubilation in the parking lot is a truly triumphant moment.
Unfortunately, that moment of happiness is very short-lived. Howard and Kim meet with Paige and another rep from Mesa and it's very obviously a success. After the meeting, the two congratulate each other on a job well-done, but there's an obvious coldness to Howard, who doesn't even attempt to make eye contact with Kim until he walks away. Kim asks Howard if she should begin considering a list of associates to put on the client, but then Howard delivers the most painful line of the season so far.
"I'll put Francis on that. You've got enough on your plate in doc review."
Ouch.
Howard and Chuck meet at Chuck's place to discuss the new business and the details are fleshed out further. Howard credits Kim for the score and Chuck asks whether Kim's out of the doghouse, to which Howard replies with a flat, "We'll see." The guy can't even be straight to his partner about what he's done.
In response to what he's heard, Chuck tracks down Kim at the office and has some coffee with her. Chuck reminisces about his dad, for whom he has a great deal of admiration. As it turns out, according to Chuck, Jimmy stole $14,000 from his dad's store, which led to the score going under. As Chuck explains it, Jimmy's not a bad person, but he can't help himself from being who he is. He leaves the room telling Kim that he'll talk to Howard to see if he can get Kim out of her current situation and congratulates her on the new client. It's a clear attempt to become a mentor of sorts for Kim, but probably more important to Chuck is finally being able to win over someone Jimmy loves, similar to what Jimmy did to Rebecca in the cold open.
Bulllet Points
- I'm convinced now -- Chuck is the best character on the show.
- Chuck's attempt at lawyer humor falls flat with Rebecca: "What do you call 25 attorneys buried up to their necks in cement? Not enough cement!" Jimmy could have delivered that well. When Chuck says it, it just sounds dark and creepy.
- I was dying when Jimmy was telling the story of when he started at HHM and he licked all those envelopes before realizing that there was a sponge for that. On one of my first days ever on my first job out of college, I was asked by a guy a year ahead of me who was showing me the ropes to mail out approximately 100 benefit statements to pension plan participants. I trucked on through the painstakingly slow process of licking all the envelopes to seal them up, and when I was nearly finished, the guy who asked me to mail them came by my desk and asked me what the hell I was doing. He pointed out that there's an envelope sealer in the production room and that he only wanted me to take the envelopes there and have the production team handle it. I never got out from under that story as long as I worked there. Long story short, I feel your pain, Jimmy.
- Ugh, Kim calling all these old acquaintances is pretty much my worst nightmare. Not only is small talk entirely dreadful, but the idea of being all-too-aware that you're going into the exchange needing the other person to do something for you while having little recent friendship capital to lean on? Awful. It's the equivalent of the situation faced by all those people you vaguely knew who took commission-based financial product sales jobs in their 20s and called everyone they knew to "make a connection" or "set up a meeting" to discuss products to sell. The person on the other end of the line now needs to find a way to say "no" in the least disappointing way possible, and you're the asshole who put them in that awkward spot.
- "You don't save me. I save me." You go, Kim Wexler.
- Helloooooooo Hector Salamanca! I miss your bell. Maybe up your bribe from $5,000 next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment