Better Call Saul

[Bobfoc]

I liked Chuck better when he was in Spinal Tap.

[Hellraiser]

Spoiler

As good as this episode was I'm disappointed that there we didn't get to see what Gus and Mike are up to this week. Would be awesome if we get an episode that focuses entirely on them next week. Because to be honest I'm more interested in how Gus is planing to get back at Don Hector than in how Jimmy gets out of his predicament.

But at least we got Huell.

 

Edited May 9, 2017 by Hellraiser

[Bobfoc]

37 minutes ago, Hellraiser said:

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As good as this episode was I'm disappointed that there we didn't get to see what Gus and Mike are up to this week. Would be awesome if we get an episode that focuses entirely on them next week. Because to be honest I'm more interested in how Gus is planing to get back at Don Hector than in how Jimmy gets out of his predicament.

But at least we got Huell.

 

Spoiler

I think it benefited from only focusing on Jimmy and Chuck this week. Giving full attention to the court proceedings and the interaction between the two brothers meant that what seems to have been a pivotal moment in the series carried as much weight as it needed to. As much as I'm engaged with Mike and Gus, I think they would have been a distraction this week. Similarly, putting lengthy scenes involving Jimmy and Kim in Mike's big episode in the first series probably wouldn't have worked well.

 

[TheSqauredCircleMessiah]

Last night was basically Vince Gilligan's "A Few Good Men" fanfic

[Moses Julep]

This was a masterclass. I love that Vince Gilligan didn't even need to give us closure at the end because we know exactly what we just saw and what is about to happen. 

[Adam]

On 2017-5-9 at 15:34, Hellraiser said:

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As good as this episode was I'm disappointed that there we didn't get to see what Gus and Mike are up to this week. Would be awesome if we get an episode that focuses entirely on them next week. Because to be honest I'm more interested in how Gus is planing to get back at Don Hector than in how Jimmy gets out of his predicament.

But at least we got Huell.

 

In one of the previous two episodes, we didn't even see Jimmy until past the mid-point of the episode because it was all about Mike and Gus. Gilligan and co. seem to really know how to balance their story arcs and this episode being largely "self-contained" within the court room was a masterstroke in my view, it's one of the best episodes of television I've seen in a very long time.

Okay, so spoiler thoughts on the ep:

Spoiler

 

God damn, the acting here was just superb. Michael McKean was glorious, seeing Chuck basically get his comeuppance for being such an arsehole to Jimmy all through his own hubris was tremendous, and the events surrounding Rebecca and Huell were Saul Goodman to perfection.

Whilst I have no doubt that by the end of this season (or potentially the next), something really bad is going to happen to Kim, this felt like a big win for Jimmy and "the good guys", albeit in the classic Gilligan way of it being somewhat bittersweet because of how dark, uncomfortable and unsettling Chuck's unravelling was.

Also, damn Huell lost some weight! Good on him, kinda neat to see how that works "in reverse" with it being a prequel and he actually looks younger, whereas everyone else kinda looks older for obvious reasons.

 

 

[Hellraiser]

I'm not denying that the episode was awesome. I'm just saying that I care more about Mike, Gus and Don Hector than I do about Jimmy, Chuck and Kim.

[GoGo Yubari]

I'm the exact opposite, honestly, so this episode was made for me. I think the Jimmy/Chuck dynamic is one of my favorite character dynamics in either Gilligan New Mexico show. Chuck is just such a perfectly layered villain, a guy who's right about just enough in regards to his brother that there's conviction to what he does but so catastrophically, insufferably wrong in what he chooses to do in response and how he chooses to do it.

Spoiler

If he could have looked past his own pride and the story he's been telling himself his entire life, he could have prevented Saul Goodman from ever existing. Instead, he only escalated it. He deserved every single second of that Phoenix Wright meltdown, but at the same time he was provoked into it in order for Jimmy to sell a story that's only true in a big picture sense, so he can get away with having committed a crime that genuinely should get him disbarred.

also to argue against Cloudy for a sec (HI CLOUDY); when he mentioned AIDS I don't think the point was to say "what I have is as bad as this" but simply to cite a well-known precedent for physical diseases being initially dismissed until proven otherwise. That's not smugness, that's a misperception of reality.

(the Unabomber thing, though, that's smugness.)

 

[Arjen Robben]

I love how everything always just gets credited to Vince Gilligan  Even on the insider podcast for the episodes he's always making sure to mention and praise everyone else for having came up with ideas he would never have thought of and stuff. 

[C-MIL]

Buck stops with him though. Having great ideas doesn't mean much if they never get green-lit.

[Arjen Robben]

Well there's him and Peter Gould who are co-creators, a bunch of other exec producers and a whole writing team, and it was Gould who created the character of Saul Goodman. I remember it being similar on Breaking Bad where he's the one getting credited with everything. 

[Adam]

That's just how it is with TV/film though, I like to hope it is implied in everyone's posts that Gilligan isn't the sole driving force of everything good like a novelist would be. People can't list 15 producers/writers every time they wish to praise something in a show .

I said Gilligan "and co." in my last post anyway so I'm with you regardless 

[GoGo Yubari]

That certainly wasn't my intent, for one. I used Gilligan as a shorthand for both shows in my previous because not only is BCS a spinoff of Breaking Bad that happens to have Gilligan heavily involved, but it very much carries on the same storytelling techniques and visual style of Breaking Bad. It's a part of a whole.

[GoGo Yubari]

Spoiler

LYDIA

 

[MalaCloudy Black]

That one felt disjointed and like there were too many things going on, even with the extended run-time. It was still a good episode, don't get me wrong, but after last week's they had a lot to live up to. 

Spoiler

Loved the montage of Jimmy's phone calls to clients, and that shot of Chuck grabbing that Rayovac battery off his desk was beautiful stuff. Nacho noticing and hiding one of Hector's pills -- what do we think? Is he going to try and poison him or something?

 

[GoGo Yubari]

1 minute ago, Broken Cloudy said:

That one felt disjointed and like there were too many things going on, even with the extended run-time. It was still a good episode, don't get me wrong, but after last week's they had a lot to live up to. 

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Loved the montage of Jimmy's phone calls to clients, and that shot of Chuck grabbing that Rayovac battery off his desk was beautiful stuff. Nacho noticing and hiding one of Hector's pills -- what do we think? Is he going to try and poison him or something?

 

Spoiler

Yeah, I think Nacho's going to be pivotal to Hector's downfall and Gus' ascension.

The Chuck sequence where he's walking downtown trying to find a pay phone was brilliantly done. I'm curious where they're heading with him, and I loved Howard finally getting through to him by playing to his pride/ego.

 

[Arjen Robben]

I found myself incredibly irritated by Rebecca saying Jimmy "owes" Chuck. Fucking please explain that one. Annoyed me that even Jimmy and Kim weren't like "how do you work that one out?" a bit more than a flippant "I don't owe him squat".

[Bobfoc]

5 minutes ago, Arjen Robben said:

 

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I found myself incredibly irritated by Rebecca saying Jimmy "owes" Chuck. Fucking please explain that one. Annoyed me that even Jimmy and Kim weren't like "how do you work that one out?" a bit more than a flippant "I don't owe him squat".

 

Spoiler

My guess is that she was referring to the time when Chuck bailed Jimmy out of jail and got him a job in the mail room at HHM. If she was in the room when all of Jimmy's efforts to take care of Chuck were discussed, though, I don't see that being grounds for any kind of lasting emotional debt.

 

[Adam]

Spoiler

 

A decent episode for me, sets a few things in motion and we got a few familiar faces showing up like Victor, Tyrus and Lydia. I was out my seat in that final scene, you had a sense it was coming but to finally see Saul Goodman was a real treat. How he continues to morph from here is just fascinating.

As far as what happens next, I think Nacho is going to be a big part of Hector's downfall. But is it imminent? Tuco takes over his drug operation from what I remember and it appears he is stuck in Los Lunas for the foreseeable. I don't think Nacho is going to poison Hector, I assume his pills prevent him from deteriorating in whatever way he eventually does, so maybe Nacho will find out through Mike or a doc what the pill is for, so he can find out what is really wrong with Hector and then act accordingly to hasten his decline. He will surely team up with Mike again to achieve this, and of course Gus will be a major player in that.

Speaking of Gus, him scoping out the laundry business marries in perfectly for me with my rewatch of Breaking Bad that I'm doing, because I'm just in the midst of Season 3 and Walt and Jesse have just started working in the superlab. Tremendous stuff.

 

 

[MalaCloudy Black]

Kind of a quieter episode that served to move pieces around (again), but I liked it. 

 

Spoiler

You can kind of tell this is the genesis of Saul Goodman. Jimmy's getting bitter. Colder. Meaner. There's no better evidence of this than when he's talking to his insurance agent and he has that little "breakdown", where it seems like the entire point, after he couldn't get his policy canceled, was just to get Chuck in trouble. No other reason. No grand scheme. Just trying to fuck with Chuck. 

Seeing as we don't know what happens to Nacho come Breaking Bad, I'm going to assume that the pill switch goes wrong and - optimism! - Nacho manages to get out of ABQ and go on the run from the cartel. 

Also, Kim's doubt over what they did to Chuck sets the stage for her exit. Whether she leaves ABQ or just cuts Jimmy out of her life, I dunno. But I don't think she's going to stick around much longer, and Jimmy's going to blame that on Chuck (or someone else, anyone else but himself) and it's going to be a further catalyst for him to really become Saul.