Better Call Saul (Season Four, spoilers)

It was a mistake to jump straight into binging Season Four of Better Call Saul fresh off of marathoning six seasons of The Americans. It was difficult to re-adjust to Vince Gilligan's slow, methodical, artsy style of storytelling after living in Joe Weisberg's fast-action 1980s period drama. Both shows are great in their own right, but it was considerably tougher for me to get sucked into Saul than it had been in years past. To wit, my wife effectively called it quits after the first couple episodes (though naturally, she still wanted me to tell her what happened).

The season did take its time to find its footing, to be sure. The fallout from Chuck's death included extremely weird behavior from Jimmy, who seemingly couldn't find joy in anything until he found out that he was indirectly behind Chuck's suicide. That should have been the first clue for his McGill-severing behavior in the finale. Similarly, Mike meanderings in Lydia's warehouses early in the season wound up not serving much direct purpose, and his arc didn't really pick up until later in the season.

That said, boy did his arc pick up. His effective command of the superlab construction project was probably my favorite Mike storyline of the entire series, and this is the first time I've found myself more invested in Mike than Jimmy. His relationship with Werner and its ultimate termination were heartbreaking, and the scene in which he's forced to kill him is simultaneously one of Better Call Saul's saddest, best-shot (heh) and well-executed (ahem) scenes.

Nacho getting absorbed into Gus' operation was another interesting twist, and I would have liked to see that action play out further. It was horrid to watch him in agonizing pain from the gunshot wounds of Gus' guys, and we really didn't see a whole lot of him after his recovery. The arrival of Lalo* was a new element of danger for Nacho, and we last see him looking at Canadian driver's licences (I think?) for him and his father.

*I've read that the "Better Call Saul" episode of Breaking Bad, Saul asks Walter and Jesse if they were sent by Lalo. That's fascinating how much of this world was built by offhand comments in the predecessor series. It makes me want to re-watch Breaking Bad to catch all of these references.

Kim had a little bit of a weird season as well, as she was often cold and shut off. Her best moment came when she lashed out at Howard over Chuck's will arrangement. The rush she gets when slipping (heh) into Jimmy's schemes continues to fascinate me, but in the end it appears that she was conned more than anyone else in that storyline. She shed tears over Jimmy's impassioned speech to the bar committee and when it was revealed shortly after that Jimmy was totally full of shit, it seriously hurt, as Kim had said she'd be with him no matter what. Thinking back on the season, the moment had plenty of foreshadowing but it still registered as a total shock when it happened.

One wonders whether Jimmy's relationship with Kim has permanently severed at this point. She's pledged allegiance to him through so much garbage over the course of the series, but this was by far Jimmy's most serious betrayal of her trust. It's the first time that Jimmy seriously doesn't seem to give a shit about her feelings and the single point at which there's no doubt that he's beyond redemption*. Breaking Bad had a similar climax at the end of Season Four, when the camera pans to the Lily of the Valley plant, effectively revealing that Walter poisoned Brock. The Saul Goodmanning of Jimmy McGill is effectively complete in this moment, and we're left with one more season to link him up with Walter White. Better Call Saul has had better seasons, but its run of quality largely continued in Season Four. The debate of whether this show or its effective sequel is the better series will continue to rage on -- something that seemed inconceivable when news of this show originally leaked.

*Humor me, assume that there's not a whole, previous television series indicating that he's beyond redemption

Season Grade: A-

Television Review - 2017 (Part 5): #2 Viewing Experience of 2017, Better Call Saul

There's spoilers here, so stop if you don't want anything ruined.

After a third season, my opinion is unchanged. Better Call Saul is the best active show that I watch on TV.

Given that the same man is behind it, it's no wonder that Saul is able to replicate the tension that we saw on Breaking Bad, and I'm wondering whether there will be legitimate debates at the end of the series as to which show is better. Unfortunately for Saul, they just killed off one of the best aspects of the show in Chuck McGill.

Chuck sort of had to vacate the show, having exhausted any sort of useful relationship with Jimmy and having been ousted from the firm that sees his condition as a detriment to its business. His story was largely complete, but the loss will still be felt. Characters as well-written as Chuck are hard to find on television, even among very good shows. He felt real, yet transparent enough for viewers to understand exactly how events, circumstances, and other characters' words would affect him. Michael McKean (who absolutely owned his character) was often able to transmit Chuck's reactions to things with just the slightest facial changes, and it was always clear what those little ticks meant because of how well-drawn the character was. Chuck was petty, a hypocrite, nit-picky, spiteful, selfish, and just plain mean-spirited throughout his arc on this series, but he's one of the 15 or so greatest characters I've ever seen on TV.

Elsewhere, Season Three treated us to Giancarlo Esposito reprising his role as Gus Fring. This was teased via a hidden message in the episode titles of last season, so it wasn't exactly a surprise, but it was still awesome to see. The season focused on Fring's rivalry with a pre-disability Hector Salamanca, and we learn about the contentious history between the two that led to the animosity we saw on Breaking Bad.

The season was loaded with excellent moments, but I'll recap three of my favorites.

First and foremost, the courtroom scene in which Jimmy interrogates Chuck might be the best thing this show has ever done. The entire time I was convinced that Jimmy was holding some sort of electronic object to prove that Chuck's issues are psychosomatic, but the reveal that Huell Babineaux (Huell!) had actually planted a charged cell phone battery on Chuck and there was no adverse reaction was some kind of twist. The entire courtroom episode is one of Better Call Saul's best.

The second involves Nacho, whom the show has transitioned from a frightening character into a sympathetic one. Faced with Hector trying to invade his father's business, Nacho decides he has to take drastic action and make a covert attempt on Hector's life by swapping Hector's pills with something...less amenable to living. We're shown Nacho unsuccessfully practicing swapping a pill bottle into a jacket pocket and despite not getting it quite right, he's essentially given one chance to do it for real, during which his life is basically at stake. The scene in which Nacho executes the switch is one of the most tense I can remember seeing on television.

Finally, we got a chance to see what happens when Fring's drug business crosses over into his chicken restaurant management business. Hector Salamanca and his guys come into Los Pollos Hermanos to intimidate the employees and get in Gus' face. The way that Gus handles the whole situation is masterful (even if the explanation of who the intruders are was a little shaky from this end). He treats his employees with care and respect and it's clear that they both look up to him and are concerned for his safety. Gus isn't just a master earner on the drug side, he's damn good at running his fast food restaurant and treats the business as more than just a front.

Better Call Saul has just kept getting better through three seasons. I think it'll be tough to repeat that feat without Chuck, and as I've observed lately, Season Four is when a lot of great shows tend to go down the tubes. However, Vince Gilligan is at the helm of this one and Breaking Bad only continued to get stronger as the series went on. I have little fear of Saul suffering the Season Four curse.

Season Grade: A

Television Review - 2016 (Part 6): #1 TV Experience of the Year - Better Call Saul

1) Better Call Saul

The first season of Better Call Saul was an interesting introduction to how the artist formerly known as Jimmy McGill got his start as a lawyer and the moments that led him to "cross the line" and never look back. It was good, but damn, did Vince Gilligan and company step up their game in Season Two.

Better Call Saul has essentially been a show with two main leads: Jimmy and Mike Ehrmantraut. The two storylines only occasionally intersect, which sometimes makes individual episodes choppy. While Mike's are typically more action-packed and filled with Breaking Bad member berries, it's usually Jimmy's storylines that I find more interesting.

This is in no small part because Better Call Saul made great strides with its supporting cast. Mike and Jimmy are the leads, but possibly the two most interesting characters in Season Two are Jimmy's two most important relationships: his colleague and love interest Kim Wexler and his brother, Chuck. Kim's arc this season was fantastic. She's every bit a superstar, hardworking lawyer and watching her land Mesa Verde after all the painstaking effort she went through was one of those moments that makes you want to fist pump along with a television character. There's no character you pull harder for when you watch this show, but her decision to throw in her lot with Jimmy at the end of the season casts some doubt on whether she'll be able to succeed long-term in light of his shenanigans.

Kim is wonderful, but Chuck McGill is the best character on Better Call Saul, and perhaps my favorite on television right now. Chuck's essentially the show's villain in Season Two, but the things he stands for most are his adherence to the high standards of his profession and his desire to keep Jimmy from using his law degree due to his belief that Jimmy's a con man who will only use it for dishonest and possibly illegal means. Painted in that way, he has the moral high ground in this conflict. However, his Javert-like adherence (I love Les Mis, sorry I'm not sorry) to his principles leads him to take extensive and arguably unethical actions to thwart Jimmy, with Kim serving as collateral damage. By the end of Season Two, Chuck loses sight of why he began struggling against Jimmy in the first place and has just about fully stooped to his level of deceit just to beat his brother at this game. It's a tremendous storyline for the character and Michael McKean does a stellar job with the role.

I'll unapologetically continue gushing about Chuck, because so few characters on television are drawn as well as he is. He steals scenes because we're so acutely aware of his mannerisms and thought process that we're often taking things in from his point of view and anticipating how he'll react to situations and comments. Take the piano scene from the cold open of "Cobbler" or the way he takes in Jimmy's lawyer jokes in the cold open of "Rebecca". These scenes can't be as great as they are without Chuck's behavior appearing to be a perfectly natural extension of his character.

Of course, I'd be remiss to not mention Bob Odenkirk's work as Jimmy. Breaking Bad's Saul Goodman was interesting and also some refreshing comic relief for the show. What Odenkirk and Better Call's writers have done with Jimmy McGill has been truly remarkable. They took Breaking Bad's jester and fleshed him out to the point where we truly understand him and are seriously invested in his story. He's still got the same charisma and trickery we saw when we first met him as one of Walter White's sideshows, but they've been able to get so much more out of the character.

Season two of Better Call Saul wasn't perfect, but it was damn near close. Prequels can be a dicey proposition and it's difficult to execute them well or have them live up to the original subject matter. However, through two seasons, as crazy as it sounds, this show is every bit as good as Breaking Bad.

Season Grade: A

Essential Episodes: "Cobbler" (s2.ep2), "Fifi" (s2,ep8), "Nailed" (s2.ep9)

Better Call Saul, Season Two, Episode Seven: "Inflatable"

In which we meet the biggest sucker of them all, Jimmy's own father.

A couple episodes back, Chuck mentioned in a conversation with Kim that Jimmy had stolen about $14,000 from his father's store.  In tonight's cold open, we get a lot of extra context around that.

In a flashback scene, we see Jimmy "working" in his dad's store (reading a Playboy when he should be sweeping). Jimmy overhears a conversation between his dad at the cash register and some guy spinning a sob story to try to con Jimmy's father out of five dollars. While Jimmy's dad is all too eager to help the man in whatever way he can, Jimmy sees the situation for what it is and pleads with his dad to not give the guy a handout, as he's seen this happen plenty already. Of course, Jimmy's dad doesn't listen and winds up giving the guy ten dollars.

Jimmy's dad runs to find spark plugs to help with the con artist's car, leaving Jimmy alone with him. It's clear to the con artist that Jimmy doesn't trust him, so before departing he says, "There are wolves and sheep in this world, kid.  Wolves and sheep.  Figure out which one you're gonna be."

When Jimmy's dad comes back and realizes the con artist left, Jimmy gives his father a look of utter disdain. Left alone with the cash register, Jimmy steals the eight dollars the con artist used to purchase cigarettes, and we're to believe that this is Jimmy's first of many thefts from the store. At that moment, Jimmy's figured out which one he's gonna be.

The thing is, while Jimmy may have despised his father for being such an easy mark, it's easy to respect a man who would rather risk getting conned than refusing to help someone in need. And while we may admire Jimmy's street smarts, an honest person can't believe that him stealing money from his father is in any way justifiable. The scene makes it more understandable, but it's still just plain wrong. We know from Chuck's story that it's Jimmy who causes the real harm to the store, not random con men pilfering Lincolns and Hamiltons.

The post-credits portion of the episode opens with a truly tough scene to watch. Jimmy represents Mike in his meeting with the prosecutors to explain that Mike will no longer claim that the gun in his confrontation with Tuco Salamanca actually belonged to Tuco. Jimmy tries to make Mike feel better about the incident and even offers to not collect for his services. Mike isn't having any of it -- he doesn't want to feel tied to anyone. Honestly, other than his family, it really doesn't seem like Mike has it in him to give a damn about anyone.

From there, Jimmy sets out to quit his job at Davis & Main, though when Omar points out that his signing bonus would need to be paid back, his mission changes to "get fired without cause". Putting the "colorful" in "colorful lawyer", he dresses up in his outlandish suits and we get a montage of all the things he does to try to get canned:

1. Wearing aforementioned suits
2. Running a loud juicer in the office and exploding said juicer all over a couple associates
3. Screaming Spanglish at a guy who's vacuuming at night, when the guy is from Michigan and speaks English just fine, thank you very much
4. Repeatedly taking shits in the bathroom and not flushing, under the excuse of water preservation
5. Playing the bagpipes in his office

The bagpipes turn out to be the final straw and Cliff cans Jimmy.  Jimmy can't come up with a reason for his actions besides explaining that he's a square peg.  On his way out, Jimmy rips a soda can out of Erin's hand and throws it in the garbage. Awesome.

After quitting, Jimmy goes to meet with Kim and tries to get her to not only quit HHM, but drop her pursuit of the Schweikart job and become partners with Jimmy as a new practice. Jimmy tells Kim that she's too good for a lateral move and goes so far as to call Rich Schweikart "Howard Hamlin by a different name". Before Kim can get on board, she wants to know whether Jimmy is going to "play it straight" or in their new endeavor, or, in a very apt choice of words given the previous montage, whether Jimmy is going to "be colorful".  Jimmy can't lie to her for more than a few seconds, and Kim ultimately rejects the offer in what's a pretty strong scene for her character.

Meanwhile, Stacey shows Mike an expensive house that's well beyond her means. Mike knows that Stacey faked the bullet hole that led her to trying to convince Mike that her neighborhood was unsafe, but just how much is he willing to let Stacey take advantage of him? We know he loves Kaylee more than anything, but even he needs to be aware that continuing to deal with drug gangs for money won't be any good for her, right?

Finally, Kim nails her interview with Schweikart. We discover she's from a small town on the Kansas/Nebraska border. That explains the Kansas City Royals shirt, at least. On her way out, she accidentally calls Rich "Howard". It's a moment that's more than a mere verbal slip-up. When Kim lets the wrong name slip, we come to understand that she knows Jimmy was right; Schweikart and Hamlin are really no different to her at all, and she's looking for a way to get out completely.

Kim smokes a cigarette on the roof of the building and rips her Wexler McGill business card in half. She has her idea -- go out on her own with Jimmy, but operate separately.  That way, both lawyers can practice the way they want to. It seems like a pretty reasonable proposal, but something about the ripped business card gives Jimmy pause, and the show cuts to the end credits before he gives his answer.

Bullet Points

• "Omar, that whole, uh, letter of resignation thing....I didn't mean that. Not a word. I..I'm so incredibly stressed out...I'm stressed out the wazoo."

• "Hey Cliff, for what it's worth, I think you're a good guy." Cliff: "For what it's worth, I think you're an asshole."

• Apparently Omar has kids. His last scene with Jimmy really shows how little we knew him

• Two straight episodes with no Chuck!?!?!? He better be back next week.

Better Call Saul, Season Two, Episode Six: Bali Ha'i

Per usual, let's break down the opening scene. Jimmy's having trouble sleeping at 1:09 AM and heads on over to the TV, where he gets to witness some late night commercials.  In a true "Hey look! It's 2002!" moment, we're treated to a Chia Pet ad, and after a few more channel changes, Jimmy comes upon a commercial produced by Davis & Main for their services in the Sandpiper case. It uses the boring blue wavy background pattern that Jimmy had mocked with Omar a few episodes earlier when he was plotting his own commercial.

Understandably, this compounds the sleeplessness issue and he wanders over to the fridge, smells some Chinese food, decides its gross, and puts it back in there for some reason rather than pitching it. The fridge itself has pretty much nothing in it, which is indicative that Jimmy's not truly settled into this home or this life. After a few rousing rounds of basketball/soccer spinoffs with those wicker balls he joked about with Kim a couple episodes back, it's time to go. Jimmy heads back to the tiny bed in his back-room office at the salon and falls right asleep. Not too subtle with the symbolism here, are we, Vince?

Meanwhile, Mike is finding himself in a bit of a bind. He refused Hector Salamanca's offer of $5,000 to lie and get Tuco out of his jail sentence. Now, Hector's flunkies are swarming his personal life and trying to intimidate him at every turn. In typical Mike fashion, he discovers that there are intruders in his house using carbon paper that he hid under the doormat along with a quick inspection of the door and knob.

In an extremely tense scene crafted by silence and great use of shadows, Mike figures out where Salamanca's guys are hiding by process of elimination and tricks them by turning on the TV (and filling the silent house with the voice of Billy Mays; it's still 2002!) from far away and drawing them out of their hiding place with their backs to him. It's thrilling to watch, but this is classic Mike Ehrmantraut we've been watching for years.

Mike might have shaken off that encounter, but THE COUSINS ARE BACK! The mostly silent and murderous duo from Breaking Bad intimidates Mike from a rooftop when he's hanging out Kaylee by the hotel pool. That proves to be a little much, so he meets with Hector and agrees to say that the gun from the confrontation with Tuco was his after a ballsy negotiation of a $50,000 fee. Nacho comes by to give him the money and in a nice character moment for Mike, he returns $25,000 to Nacho in recognition that Tuco is soon going to be released. The nod Nacho gives in reply is telling -- there's a deepening mutual respect between the two.

Finally, we come to the Kim storyline.  I'm no expert at courtroom speak, but Kim represents HHM at a hearing in front of a judge as she attempts to defend Sandpiper clients against bullying. She doesn't win, but her opponent's boss is impressed with her efforts and invites her to lunch to offer her a job. I found the timing of this very interesting. The job offer would have been most compelling to Kim before the events of last weeks episode in which Chuck found a way to bail Kim out of Howard's doghouse. I'm assuming it would have been easier for Kim to jump ship then, as it'd be a quick and easy way to get out of a bad situation. Now, it's a more interesting situation because Chuck has emerged as a mentor of sorts. Even though Howard's being cold to Kim, Chuck offers hope that she has a future at HHM.

Though Kim turns down the offer initially, she can't help but feel enticed by the freedom it presents. After another swindling of a rich guy with Jimmy at a bar, Jimmy has an honest talk with Kim about the opportunity and explains that it's a way for her to get what she wants, and Kim seems receptive to the idea. The closing scene, with Jimmy destroying that damn too-small cupholder in his corporate car, is pretty telling about the near-term future of Jimmy McGill. But what will Kim do?

Bullet Points

• Howard goes from completely and stonefacedly (that's a word, as of now) ignoring Kim on a long walk to the conference room to upbeat and animated upon seeing their Mesa clients. Another fine moment in the life of CorpLawBot v2.6 Beta.

• "We were just supposed to scare you." Mike: "Well try harder next time."

• The elephant in the room -- Nacho is not a character on Breaking Bad and he's clearly willing to cross Tuco Salamanca. Do his days feel numbered to you? Ahhhh the trouble with prequels.....

• Look, Kim Wexler is cool and all, but she's wearing a Kansas City Royals shirt (in New Mexico, even!). Go fuck yourself, Kim Wexler.

• No Chuck this week. A true crime!

Better Call Saul, Season Two, Episode Five: "Rebecca"

I said it last week and I'll say it again. This show knows how to deliver an opening scene. And once again, the cold open is the best part of the episode.

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.

Better Call Saul, Season Two, Episode Four: Gloves Off

The neverending rage of Tuco Salamanca......

Vince Gilligan is an artistic master of the cold open. We see Mike walking through a dark house, drop an envelope of money on the table and head on over to the fridge to get a beer. He puts a bag of frozen vegetables on half of his face, which the camera hides from view. Eventually we get to see just how badly he got messed up and it's not pretty.  It's an easy conclusion that he wound up taking the job from Nacho that was referenced at the end of the last episode, but what we don't know is that this is a sort of "flash-forward" scene for what's to come in "Gloves Off".

Meanwhile, Jimmy's getting reprimanded for his commercial by his bosses. I understand why they'd be mad because he went behind his back, but the reason that Cliff provides puzzles me.  He says that the commercial is damaging to the reputation of the firm and I genuinely don't understand how.  It was aired one time during a TV show watched by mostly elderly folks. Maybe he's warning against future decision-making in the same vein which could have worse reputational consequences, but I really didn't get this explanation.

Further confusing is the punishment that Kim receives for not bringing the commercial to Howard Hamlin's attention. Jimmy very logically argues that she shouldn't be getting punished for something he did at another firm. Plus, she didn't even know that Davis & Main didn't approve the commercial, so there was no reason for her to believe there was any wrongdoing.  Another very puzzling scene.

Jimmy confronts Chuck about Kim's predicament and Chuck denies involvement. This actually lines up with what we see when Kim departs the conference room with Chuck and Howard, as Chuck asks Howard, "What do you plan to do?" It's an interesting touch because we've expected Chuck to play the villain at this point and it lets the viewer know that this decision is likely in Howard's court. Jimmy tries to convince Chuck to do something about it by proposing quitting the law in exchange for bailing out Kim, and Chuck correctly points out that this would be extortion and a felony. Chuck may not treat Jimmy with the love a brother should have, but it's clear from this scene that he hasn't acted the way he has just to be a dick. He's got too much respect for the law to either be okay with Jimmy practicing it or making a Jimmy-like deal to stop Jimmy from doing that ever again. Mike and Jimmy are obviously the two best-drawn characters on the show, but Chuck is giving them a run for their money.

Meanwhile, Nacho explains that the "job" he has for Mike is for him to kill his partner, Tuco, because he's a total nutjob, why else? Nacho's elaborate plan seems too leaky for Mike, so Mike suggests sniping Tuco from a distance after he exits a meeting. He goes to procure a gun from a private arms dealer, but when he doesn't find anything to his liking, he seemingly changes his mind on the spot about his plan for Tuco.

Mike explains to Nacho that killing Tuco would compound the problem, not solve it and that getting him arrested would be a much better course of action. The explanation he gives is that Tuco's family would ultimately figure out what happened and come back on Nacho. What remains confusing to me is why Mike needed to see the arms dealer to figure this out. Any thoughts?

The plan Mike hatches is brilliant and well-considered, but absolutely painful. He provokes Tuco into beating the shit out of him in front of the cops, but to do so he needs to bank on Tuco acting predictably (not so tough) and getting the cops to show up at the absolutely perfect moment (pretty tough). Everything Mike pulls works to great effect, from wiping hand prints off of the payphone to flashing his cash as he purchases chicken from the diner to the final "that's all you got" that really earns him some facial damage. Nacho asks him after the incident why he went through so much trouble and monetary sacrifice to avoid pulling the trigger. Why indeed?  Perhaps the answer lies in something Mike said to Tuco, referring at the time to trying to go through insurance to resolve a car accident. "I offered to do this the right way. If you can't accept that, I can't help you."

Bullet Points

• Mike drinks PBR. Mike is the fucking man.

• Another nice touch from the cold open -- Mike is holding the boxing gloves that Tuco wore around his neck as a souvenir from the fight.

• The opening credits show a shot of cell phones in a drawer, which is a reference to the protocol people use before getting in a room with Chuck. I haven't really paid that much attention to these but have they always been this plot-related? They've seen kind of random to me in the past.

• We are still breaking up Mike and Jimmy storylines week by week. When's everything going to connect?

• Hmmm...I wonder just what Jimmy's going to do with that second chance of his?

Better Call Saul, Season Two, Episode Three: "Amarillo"

Last week, Jimmy crafted an extremely creative and effective solution to a problem that Kim found to be fascinating and brilliant, but then he pissed Kim off when he crossed the line. This week is much the same, only Kim is left in the dark about the unethical parts.

Amarillo opens with Jimmy "indirectly" making a pitch to a bus full of Sandpiper residents. One of them, Alma Mae Urbano, replied to a letter from Davis & Main explaining the overcharging situation. When her bus breaks down, Jimmy slips on board and starts explaining in his usually charming manner what's going on using the analogy of a diner getting a bill wrong. Naturally, the other passengers just happen to hear about the situation and BOOM, 24 new clients for Davis & Main.

At the subsequent meeting back at HHM, Chuck sees right through what Jimmy did and calls it out for what it is -- solicitation. Technically, all Jimmy did was talk to the person who replied to the letter, but he orchestrated a situation in which there'd be others present. In response to Chuck, Jimmy flat out lies and explains that pure word-of-mouth got them the extra clients. But wait! Kim's not giving him any ankle-lovin' under the table, so he makes a show of agreeing to backtrack and find a way to get clients on the straight and narrow.

That alone doesn't win back Kim's good graces and it shouldn't. She put her neck out there to get Jimmy where he is and Jimmy's doing stuff that could get him disbarred at every turn. She again affirms her confidence in Jimmy's abilities but all but demands he put a stop to his funny business. For what feels like the seventeenth time already this season, Kim pulls Jimmy back on the honest side of the line. Obviously, that's temporary. It's going to be heartbreaking when we have to watch Kim give up on Jimmy completely, because we know it's coming.

To circumvent apparent efforts on the part of Sandpiper to prevent residents from contacting Davis & Main, Jimmy proposes an idea that's flat-out brilliant -- a commercial during Murder She Wrote, a TV show which is informally a scheduled event at Sandpiper facilities across America. Cliff says he's open to the idea, but that they should revisit the issue next week.

Jimmy proceeds to at the very least shoot the commercial in the interim and shows it to Kim, who finds it to be very compelling. Having shown that his charisma and creative mind can be put to good use in an ethical way, Jimmy falls back into Kim's good graces, and the two get cuddly again. Yet, there's just one tiny, miniscule, unimportant detail -- Cliff hasn't okay'd this yet. But that's a mere formality, right?

Well, Jimmy seems to think it's a more significant hurdle. He sits in his office and ponders what to do next while the camera focuses in on the alluring "Nest Egg" commercial tape. Jimmy walks the tape over to Cliff's office but stops short of going in. What have we learned, Jimmy? Oh yeah, that doing the right thing gets us nowhere. Cliff can wait. You need to send that commercial to the TV station right away.

Obviously, despite a very-well shot scene showing Jimmy's tension waiting for the phone to ring, the commercial is a rousing success and it inks Davis & Main over 100 new clients. Armed with his methods already having succeeded, Jimmy will be better able to spin his strategy when it's pitched to Cliff, but Cliff gets wind of it first and scolds Jimmy over the phone, even calling him an "arsonist" for using the name of his firm in a commercial without his permission. Poor Kim is left in the dark, as Jimmy keeps her believing that Davis & Main was a-ok with his methods.

The Mike storyline is so disjoint from Jimmy's at this point so I don't think it makes much sense to interweave them here. Mike's daughter-in-law is scared for her and her daughter's lives because she says she's hearing gunshots at night. To scope out the situation, Mike sits in his car all night, but other than a paperboy making a "plop" sound when tossing a newspaper on driveways, all is calm. The next day, she calls him frantically about hearing shots in the night and shows him what she believes to be a bullet hole. Mike begins to realize that she's crazytown bananapants, but he says he'll help move her out of the house anyway.

To do that, Mike needs money, so he goes to his favorite criminally-connected veterinarian to seek work. As it turns out, someone asks for him by name for a job. Just before the final credits, it's revealed to be Nacho.

If I have a complaint about Better Call Saul thus far, it's that the character work has been pretty straightforward aside from the two primary protagonists. For the most part, the only character viewpoints we get are those of Jimmy and Mike and they don't overlap all that much. Breaking Bad created a rich tapestry of characters and as a result, scenes could be centered around any of Walter, Hank, Skyler, Jesse, etc. We don't know all that much about the surrounding players in this story except how they relate to either Jimmy or Mike. This is why I loved that piano scene at the beginning of last week's episode so much; it was good to see Chuck being Chuck on his own. The show needs more moments like that.

Bullet Points

• Perhaps someone with a legal mind can explain what's wrong with solicitation in this form? Would Jimmy actually get disbarred for explaining to a bus full of old people that they're getting ripped off and offering to help them with the situation? I understand that in many cases someone doing this could be an annoyance, particularly when they're coming from a place less genuine than Jimmy is here, but it seems to me that he's doing the world a favor here.

• This Kim/Jimmy situation shows some of my worst fears in recommending someone for a job. I've never been put in this situation before, and it's not like I would recommend someone I know to be as ethically questionable (generous!) as Jimmy, but it'd be a little scary to attach my reputation to someone else's level of effort unless I'd actually seen them in the workplace before.  I feel like doing a favor for a friend I've never seen operate in a professional capacity in this manner could get pretty dicey. But again, I've never had to cross this bridge.

• "You gotta ask, dude, dolly's extra."

• "Does anybody like you?"

• "Hey, don't be jealous of my big bowl of balls; it's unbecoming."

• "For you, I could make any chair in this place vibrate."

Better Call Saul, Season Two, Episode Two: "Cobbler"

So the baseball cards were real after all. I'm a little ticked that Wormald, geek and Worst Criminal in the History of the Universe, just HAS to be a gigantic baseball fan. Look at you, Vince Gilligan, giving us who obsess over the great American pastime a bad name.

Anydangway, Chuck plays piano! The opening scene of this week's episode was outstanding without much at all happening. Our favorite Worst Brother in the History of the Universe is practicing playing Sicilliene and it seems like a very precise, painstaking process. He's got one of those ticky devices to keep the rhythm (a "metronome" -- I learned something today!) and when he screws up (which takes awhile, Chuck is actually quite good), he gets frustrated and starts back over from the beginning, not allowing himself to continue from the point of the mistake. No shortcuts allowed. It's a nice character moment that lines up well with everything Chuck wants himself to stand for.

Eventually, Chuck's unique brand of self-torture is interrupted by a visit from Howard Hamlin, who drops by and informs Chuck that Jimmy will be working the Sandpiper case in his new role with Davis & Main. Chuck plays this off like he's happy for Jimmy. I genuinely don't get this -- shouldn't Hamlin already be pretty familiar with how Chuck feels about Jimmy practicing law? How did their conversation go last season when Jimmy wanted to join HHM? Lots of unanswered questions here.

Anyway, as work kicks off on the Sandpiper case, we see a couple signs that Kim's still interested in Jimmy. She swaps other peoples' seats at the table so that she and Jimmy are next to each other and there's some super-hot ankle rubbing going on under the table. When discussing Jimmy's future home, she has a bit of a Freudian slip, saying "we should get one of those smokers, barbeque for days", including herself in the vision. The two kiss before Jimmy departs to pick up his brand new corporate car.

Meanwhile, back in Wormald land, Danny Baseball is showing up at the police station, for some reason, to pursue recovery of his baseball cards using the help of cops, for some reason, in his gigantic "blinking neon sign of a vehicle that says 'drug dealer'", for some reason. Mike advises him to cut off communications with the police, in part to protect his own safety, but winds up on the hook to recover the baseball cards to prevent the distraught Wormald from proceeding with his hilariously stupid plan.

Mike tracks down Nacho working at his family's upholstery repair shop and pressures him to return the cards. When Nacho refuses, he invokes Tuco Salamanca's name to scare him into cooperating, and even promises Wormald's monstrous Hummer in exchange for far less cash than it's worth. The plan works, and Mike kills two birds with one stone. Nacho tells Wormald that their business is concluded.

Back at HHM, Jimmy talks strategy on the Sandpiper case and is briefly overcome by Chuck entering the room until Kim gives him a quick shot of confidence. The two have a strange encounter after the meeting, and immediately after, Jimmy gets a call from Mike asking him if he's still "morally flexible". Seeing an timely opportunity to continue to distance himself from everything Chuck stands for, Jimmy replies in the affirmative.

As it turns out, the job Mike had in mind was to convince the cops of Wormald's innocence. Jimmy gets in a room with Daniel and the cops, and after a minute or so of Wormald making the situation worse for himself, as he is wont to do, Jimmy takes over the conversation and begins to begin a spectacularly bizarre yarn about what Wormald was hiding behind his baseboards. He claims that Wormald's the creator of some sort of "art" videos and repeatedly insists that they're private. What sort of videos could these be?  Why, "squat cobbler", of course!  Crybaby squats, in particular. Anyhow, the police seem to temporarily buy this story that Wormald gets into a costume, tapes himself sitting in pie, and that there's a certain category of sicko in this world that becomes aroused by that behavior. "Hey, the world is a rich tapestry, my friends."

He discusses the charade with a very amused Kim over pie (what else?), during which Jimmy reveals that he asked Wormald to make such a video. It's fabrication of evidence and she calls him on it. Now that Jimmy's shenanigans have spilled over into his legal responsibilities, it's no longer fun and games for Kim and she tells him that she can no longer hear about such deeds.

Bullet Points

• I'd practice piano exactly the same way as Chuck. Maybe that contributed to my fascination.

• Jimmy's gift from Kim is a coffee mug that says "World's 2nd Best Lawyer". It was interesting seeing that gift revealed right after Jimmy finished making Kim feel nice and jealous about Jimmy's new gig.

• Man, those salon girls really lost it over seeing the weird guy living and working out of the back room getting delivered a Mercedes-Benz.

• The World's 2nd Best Lawyer coffee mug doesn't fit into the Benz' cupholders, but it fits nicely into the one in the little yellow shitbox. Is there a message here, Vince?

• "I tried to learn in high school, but then I decided there were easier ways to get girls."

• So even though we're no longer supposed to think that Hamlin is a dirtbag, is it weird that every time he talks he still seems like the scum of the earth?

• What's your pleasure -- Hoboken squat cobbler, full moon moon pie, Boston creme splat, or simple Simon the ass man?

• That. Pie. Looked. Awesome.

Better Call Saul, Season Two, Episode One

When I reviewed my TV experiences of 2015, I tried to enumerate all the shows that I watched during the year to give folks a sense of what I'd seen and what I hadn't. Pretty inexplicably, Better Call Saul slipped through the cracks. The prequel to Breaking Bad came out early in the year and had somehow slipped my mind by year's end. Honestly, there's a decent chance that if my memory was better, it may have unseated Mr. Robot in my top five, though the latter had the benefit of being viewed in December, so, you know, #RecencyBias.

Anyway, Better Call Saul is back this year and I'd like to try to review these episodes as they come out. They will be spoilerific, so please don't read if you haven't seen the episodes. While I'm aware that the amount of comments that have been posted here is....well...not huge, I'll ask that spoilers for episodes beyond the one being reviewed stay off here, as I may not be able to keep up sometimes. I'll try my best though.

Anyway, I'll post this block text to keep people from reading more than they'd like.

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When we last left Jimmy McGill, he was driving away from Mike Ehrmantraut humming "Smoke on the Water", seemingly vowing to never sacrifice personal gain for the sake of "doing the right thing" again. The conclusion of Season One left it a little vague as to just what caused Jimmy to have this change of heart. He's looking at Marco's pinky ring when he seemingly makes up his mind, but Marco never made a whole load of sense as the underlying cause. It was all pretty confusing, but we don't have to get too far in the first episode of Season Two to realize that there was more to it than we got to see last spring.

Jimmy greets the partners of Davis & Main and promptly asks Kim for a sidebar, which turns into a deliciously awkward scene delivered very well by Bob Odenkirk. He tries to put himself out there to see if there's a future between himself and Kim if he takes the job, stumbling through it horribly until she very correctly points out that "one thing has absolutely nothing to do with another". Jimmy often says that he's been trying to get his act together to please his brother, Chuck, but Kim is very clearly at minimum a secondary reason, as her relatively negative response prompts Jimmy to punt on the job opportunity. We then seen the familiar scene of Jimmy leaving the parking lot after talking to Mike with new context.

While one might have thought this would immediately lead to the creation of "Saul Goodman", Jimmy's next stop is to some resort, where he sunbathes and drinks in the pool. Kim confronts him and Jimmy explains that doing the right thing had never gotten him anywhere, and that the skills that made him a good lawyer are applicable outside the legal realm. Kim doesn't understand, so Jimmy decides to demonstrate his talents on a loud, arrogant stock trader across the room. He approaches the man with Kim claiming to have a small fortune to invest and playing dumb about how to do it. Just like that, Slippin' Jimmy is back in his element.

What makes the scene interesting is Kim's changing reaction to the grift. At first, she stands back wanting basically no piece of it, but gradually the thrill of the idea and watching Jimmy work the man gets her into the act. Before long, she's playing into it just as much as Jimmy and sees it through to the end as the trader buys them what had to be over a thousand dollars' worth of food and alcohol to sell them his services. Feeling the rush of the alcohol and the excitement of the con, Jimmy and Kim wind up hooking up.

Of course, Kim was never going to up and abandon her life over one exhilarating night and she flatly explains this to Jimmy the next morning. Before long, Jimmy's back in the pool begging Kim to return and join him. The sun's not shining as much as it did the first time, which I thought was a nod to how much less glamorous the lifestyle seemed with Kim having departed. Alone, Jimmy decides enough is enough and goes back to Davis & Main, who accept him back into the proposed partnership.

The scene at the law firm is instrumentals-only and looks like my worst nightmare as Jimmy shakes hands and introduces himself to dozens of nondescript faces (I can't be the only person who would dread this, right?  They're all going to know your name the next time you see them because they had to learn one name that day, while you have to learn about thirty during your navigation of a completely new environment). It's obvious though that Jimmy's not here to play it straight given how much attention Marco's ring gets during the montage. The episode ends by focusing on a light switch with a sign that says, "Always leave ON, never turn OFF". If there was ever any question whether Jimmy was making a second attempt at playing it straight, it's firmly answered when he plays with the switch.

Meanwhile, in the world of Ehrmantraut, Mike has been taking further protection jobs from a.k.a. "Price", who has splurged on a flamboyant Hummer. Mike refuses to ride in the ridiculous car to the deal with Nacho, which leads to Price dumping Mike's services prior to the meet, as the deals with Nacho have been going peacefully anyway. Without Mike, Price carelessly shows off his vehicle to Nacho and allows the latter to acquire his name ("Daniel Wormald") and address from the registration in the glovebox. Robbery ensues, and Wormald gets the police involved for some reason, who get suspicious of him quickly. There's no way this guy is gonna last long, right?

Bullet Points

• "Daniel Wormald". Seriously? The guy's already a walking Type-B dork stereotype and we need to give him a last name like "Wormald"?
• "Please do me a favor. Take a pillow, put it over that stock's face until you hear the death bed queef."
• Admit it, you probably really want to know what a $50 shot of tequila tastes like.
• I wonder when we're going to meet Huell Babineaux.