Better Call Saul 4.05
Sep. 5th, 2018 09:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which we finally get a lawyers-centric episode again, Mike-Gus have only two scenes, and yours truly is happy.
The opening teaser marks the very first time in which we see our anti-hero in his incarnation as Saul Goodman, specifically, Saul in the last moments of his Saul-ish existence, near the end of Breaking Bad, scrambling money and a few momentos in his office before high-tailing it the hell out of Dodge, err, Albuquerque. I’m biased, of course, but as opposed to the Gus stuff so far, this doesn’t feel like simple BB related nostalgia fanservice, not just because it’s our main character and his becoming Saul is where we’re heading, but because of what that particular flashforward/flashback says. Take the interaction with Francesca. Not just her usual deadpan unimpressedness, but her contemptous snort and refusal when Saul attempts a farewell hug. This is a far cry from the last time we’ve seen Francesca interact with Jimmy (and, for that matter, Kim), where there was indeed a hug as well as mutual fondness. Taken together with the flashforwards to Gene in season openers, it underlines one of the tragedies – Jimmy has always been a gregarious creature, he thrives on interacton with others, both in the professional and the private sense, and his particular knack for making people like him even when they shouldn’t has rarely failed him. And he’ll end up in utter paranoid isolation (much, come to think of it, like his late brother Chuck) after a farewell from someone who’s been a daily companion as Saul and had known and liked him as Jimmy shows only disdain.
Another interesting thing about the flashfoward/flashbackt to Saul is that he provides Francesca with the address of a lawyer whom to call when the cops catch up with her, and tells her to say to said lawyer „that Jimmy send you“. This pretty much narrows the identity of the unnamed lawyer in question down to Howard Hamlin. (Since Kim already knows Francesca.) Taken together with the scene between Howard and Jimmy later in the episode, I interpret this as an indication that not only will Howard survive into BB times but he and Jimmy-turning-Saul will achieve a state of semi-friendliness before Jimmy irrevocably seals himself in the Saul Goodman identity.
On the other hand, the fact that Saul doesn’t simply advise Francesca to call Kim is a bit ominous in regard to Kim’s future. It could, of course, simply be that once the end comes between Kim and Jimmy, she’ll make it clear she doesn’t want anything to do with anything related to Saul (which would include Francesca), or that she leaves New Mexico for parts unknown and he doesn’t have her address. But it makes me a bit more nervous than I already am. Kim in this episode continues to feed her inner Atticus Finch, representing the hopeless to renew her lawyerly calling and doing a great job… right until a phone call from Mesa Verda makes it clear to both the audience and Kim that a choice between her meal ticket and this pro bono lawyering is rapidly approaching. And there’s no „good“ choice to be made. Mesa Verde is her only paying client right now, and what’s more, if she leaves them she’ll gain a reputation for unreliability that will be hard to shake in the corporate world. Also, note that in Jimmy’s „I’ll show everyone“ speech at the end of the episode, the future he envisions for him and „my partner“ is decidedly not the philanthropic lawyer kind, but the shark lawyer kind. Otoh, if Kim stays with Mesa Verde and really does nothing else, she might lose some essential self respect. Like I said, no good choices!
Jimmy hustling the mobile phones gives him some short lived satisfaction of using his con man skills (in a legal way). (Oh, and lets him launder the money from the Hummel figurine; at least that’s where I assume the money comes from he puts into the cash register before taking off with the burner phones in order to sell them on the street.) But it ends in humiliation due to the mugging and in the self disgust evident when he cleans away the sale pitch from the windows. It even briefly makes him consider actually using Kim’s suggestion to see a therapist, until he runs into Howard, who is in a dreadful state despite seeing a therapist. And that’s where, for the first time, I see a thematic connection to the Mike-Gus storyline of the episode. To Jimmy, the fact that Howard is in a bad state is proof that therapy is a waste of time. He wants an instant fix for his problems. But that’s not how therapy works, or anything, really. The two engineers Mike tests for Gus are a pretty blatant illustration: the flashy Frenchman who promises an easy fix and doesn’t see difficulties is dismissed, while the German who carefully investigates, sees problem everywhere and points out all the difficulties without making grand promises is hired.
(BTW: they either hired a fluent German speaker or an actual German to play Werner Ziegler. The German tidbits weren’t bablefish German but the real deal, and so was the pronounciation.)
(Mind you, I doubt Werner Ziegler will survive creating Walt’s future super lab for long, so the Frenchman is clearly better off.)
One more Howard bit: him stopping himself from answering Jimmy’s question as to the reason of his miseries is a clear reflection on Kim’s chewing him out two episodes ago about making himself feel better at Jimmy’s expense. While this is character growth on Howard’s part, the irony is that talking about the dead elephant in the room might actually have benefited both Jimmy and himself at this point.
Lastly: Jimmy’s final speech – I’ve seen someone refer to it as a supervillain speech, and while he doesn’t declare any intention of world domination or killing someone, it does have that vibe, due to the „I’ll show you“ undertone. Oh, Jimmy, if you’d gone back to Chicago, you might have vented that impetus by working for Diane Lockhart, which would have been ever so much better for you and the world than becoming Saul Goodman…
The opening teaser marks the very first time in which we see our anti-hero in his incarnation as Saul Goodman, specifically, Saul in the last moments of his Saul-ish existence, near the end of Breaking Bad, scrambling money and a few momentos in his office before high-tailing it the hell out of Dodge, err, Albuquerque. I’m biased, of course, but as opposed to the Gus stuff so far, this doesn’t feel like simple BB related nostalgia fanservice, not just because it’s our main character and his becoming Saul is where we’re heading, but because of what that particular flashforward/flashback says. Take the interaction with Francesca. Not just her usual deadpan unimpressedness, but her contemptous snort and refusal when Saul attempts a farewell hug. This is a far cry from the last time we’ve seen Francesca interact with Jimmy (and, for that matter, Kim), where there was indeed a hug as well as mutual fondness. Taken together with the flashforwards to Gene in season openers, it underlines one of the tragedies – Jimmy has always been a gregarious creature, he thrives on interacton with others, both in the professional and the private sense, and his particular knack for making people like him even when they shouldn’t has rarely failed him. And he’ll end up in utter paranoid isolation (much, come to think of it, like his late brother Chuck) after a farewell from someone who’s been a daily companion as Saul and had known and liked him as Jimmy shows only disdain.
Another interesting thing about the flashfoward/flashbackt to Saul is that he provides Francesca with the address of a lawyer whom to call when the cops catch up with her, and tells her to say to said lawyer „that Jimmy send you“. This pretty much narrows the identity of the unnamed lawyer in question down to Howard Hamlin. (Since Kim already knows Francesca.) Taken together with the scene between Howard and Jimmy later in the episode, I interpret this as an indication that not only will Howard survive into BB times but he and Jimmy-turning-Saul will achieve a state of semi-friendliness before Jimmy irrevocably seals himself in the Saul Goodman identity.
On the other hand, the fact that Saul doesn’t simply advise Francesca to call Kim is a bit ominous in regard to Kim’s future. It could, of course, simply be that once the end comes between Kim and Jimmy, she’ll make it clear she doesn’t want anything to do with anything related to Saul (which would include Francesca), or that she leaves New Mexico for parts unknown and he doesn’t have her address. But it makes me a bit more nervous than I already am. Kim in this episode continues to feed her inner Atticus Finch, representing the hopeless to renew her lawyerly calling and doing a great job… right until a phone call from Mesa Verda makes it clear to both the audience and Kim that a choice between her meal ticket and this pro bono lawyering is rapidly approaching. And there’s no „good“ choice to be made. Mesa Verde is her only paying client right now, and what’s more, if she leaves them she’ll gain a reputation for unreliability that will be hard to shake in the corporate world. Also, note that in Jimmy’s „I’ll show everyone“ speech at the end of the episode, the future he envisions for him and „my partner“ is decidedly not the philanthropic lawyer kind, but the shark lawyer kind. Otoh, if Kim stays with Mesa Verde and really does nothing else, she might lose some essential self respect. Like I said, no good choices!
Jimmy hustling the mobile phones gives him some short lived satisfaction of using his con man skills (in a legal way). (Oh, and lets him launder the money from the Hummel figurine; at least that’s where I assume the money comes from he puts into the cash register before taking off with the burner phones in order to sell them on the street.) But it ends in humiliation due to the mugging and in the self disgust evident when he cleans away the sale pitch from the windows. It even briefly makes him consider actually using Kim’s suggestion to see a therapist, until he runs into Howard, who is in a dreadful state despite seeing a therapist. And that’s where, for the first time, I see a thematic connection to the Mike-Gus storyline of the episode. To Jimmy, the fact that Howard is in a bad state is proof that therapy is a waste of time. He wants an instant fix for his problems. But that’s not how therapy works, or anything, really. The two engineers Mike tests for Gus are a pretty blatant illustration: the flashy Frenchman who promises an easy fix and doesn’t see difficulties is dismissed, while the German who carefully investigates, sees problem everywhere and points out all the difficulties without making grand promises is hired.
(BTW: they either hired a fluent German speaker or an actual German to play Werner Ziegler. The German tidbits weren’t bablefish German but the real deal, and so was the pronounciation.)
(Mind you, I doubt Werner Ziegler will survive creating Walt’s future super lab for long, so the Frenchman is clearly better off.)
One more Howard bit: him stopping himself from answering Jimmy’s question as to the reason of his miseries is a clear reflection on Kim’s chewing him out two episodes ago about making himself feel better at Jimmy’s expense. While this is character growth on Howard’s part, the irony is that talking about the dead elephant in the room might actually have benefited both Jimmy and himself at this point.
Lastly: Jimmy’s final speech – I’ve seen someone refer to it as a supervillain speech, and while he doesn’t declare any intention of world domination or killing someone, it does have that vibe, due to the „I’ll show you“ undertone. Oh, Jimmy, if you’d gone back to Chicago, you might have vented that impetus by working for Diane Lockhart, which would have been ever so much better for you and the world than becoming Saul Goodman…
