Better Call Saul 4.04.
Aug. 28th, 2018 05:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakYet another episode with not much Jimmy and a lot of Mike. Sigh. At least most of the Mike stuff isn't Gus-related?
Mind you, on the one hand way the loss of his son and his related guilt impacted Mike is something BCS-specific, not BB, but it was introduced in s1, and I can't say we're learning anything new in this regard here. Still, I'll take Mike bonding with Anita and using his cop skills on a fake in the grieving group over Mike and Gus anytime. Incidentally, you can easily tell Mike feels superior not just to Henry the liar but to the entire group, doesn't see the point and accuses them of "feeding of each other's grief"; this made me with Joan Watson was there to point out that no, actually, he's not unique in feeling bored and dissatisfied with the group routine, that everyone experiences this sooner or later, because recovery isn't something that comes with a flash and then, presto, everything is fine from this point onwards. (That was such a great scene in Elementary.) Not that this doesn't work as character logic; the inherent disdain with humanity at large that's on display here is what made Mike good at being a corrupt cop and what will make him good at Gus' enforcer.
Meanwhile, Jimmy also thinks boring routine jobs are beneath him and so he turns down another job opportunity only to change his mind when needing an excuse for Kim as she wants him to visit a therapist. This lands him in the world's most boring mobile phone shop, with only a catch up with the guy who sold the stolen Hummel figurine as a perk. Here my problem is that I feel the last two episodes already got across Jimmy's current state of mind and emotion in this regarded, and this feels like a treadmill. Otoh, the Kim on her own sequence was something new and illuminating. I was wondering what she was doing in the old justice building, when the judge kindly spelled it out for me, and this recontextualises her reaction to all the Mesa Verde expansion plans somewhat differently. I.e. it's not so much that she feels overwhelmed but that she's starting to wonder whether this is what she's become a lawyer for. Wanting to rekindle her enthusiasm for the law by making the judge draft her for the most hopeless cases, the ones we've seen Jimmy having to take at the very start of the show, strikes me as a Kim thing to do, and also it (hopefully) brings us back to the courtroom and the lawyer side of things. *crosses fingers*
Lastly, poor Nacho: has now survived the doubtful joy of having to share a mission with the cousins and become a killer himself, i.e. everything his father never wanted him to be. That scene with him and his father at the end is heartbreaking. Though again: if I were Nacho, I'd take my aged parent and run for the hills, go as far away from Albuquerque as I can. Since he's not able to cook a special kind of meth, I doubt Gus would go to the trouble of searching for him.
Mind you, on the one hand way the loss of his son and his related guilt impacted Mike is something BCS-specific, not BB, but it was introduced in s1, and I can't say we're learning anything new in this regard here. Still, I'll take Mike bonding with Anita and using his cop skills on a fake in the grieving group over Mike and Gus anytime. Incidentally, you can easily tell Mike feels superior not just to Henry the liar but to the entire group, doesn't see the point and accuses them of "feeding of each other's grief"; this made me with Joan Watson was there to point out that no, actually, he's not unique in feeling bored and dissatisfied with the group routine, that everyone experiences this sooner or later, because recovery isn't something that comes with a flash and then, presto, everything is fine from this point onwards. (That was such a great scene in Elementary.) Not that this doesn't work as character logic; the inherent disdain with humanity at large that's on display here is what made Mike good at being a corrupt cop and what will make him good at Gus' enforcer.
Meanwhile, Jimmy also thinks boring routine jobs are beneath him and so he turns down another job opportunity only to change his mind when needing an excuse for Kim as she wants him to visit a therapist. This lands him in the world's most boring mobile phone shop, with only a catch up with the guy who sold the stolen Hummel figurine as a perk. Here my problem is that I feel the last two episodes already got across Jimmy's current state of mind and emotion in this regarded, and this feels like a treadmill. Otoh, the Kim on her own sequence was something new and illuminating. I was wondering what she was doing in the old justice building, when the judge kindly spelled it out for me, and this recontextualises her reaction to all the Mesa Verde expansion plans somewhat differently. I.e. it's not so much that she feels overwhelmed but that she's starting to wonder whether this is what she's become a lawyer for. Wanting to rekindle her enthusiasm for the law by making the judge draft her for the most hopeless cases, the ones we've seen Jimmy having to take at the very start of the show, strikes me as a Kim thing to do, and also it (hopefully) brings us back to the courtroom and the lawyer side of things. *crosses fingers*
Lastly, poor Nacho: has now survived the doubtful joy of having to share a mission with the cousins and become a killer himself, i.e. everything his father never wanted him to be. That scene with him and his father at the end is heartbreaking. Though again: if I were Nacho, I'd take my aged parent and run for the hills, go as far away from Albuquerque as I can. Since he's not able to cook a special kind of meth, I doubt Gus would go to the trouble of searching for him.
