Better Call Saul

did you call and tell them you were stuck in brazilian territory? sounds like a comedic entry point to a diplomatic incident

Schrodinger's Trash Room and Light Switch otm

Have also been stuck in a stairwell that had doors that could only be opened from the outside.

ditto

What you are all overlooking here is that doors in Scandinavian countries (genuinely) open the opposite direction, so cut a Finn some slack for his confusion.

Also My Mother never watched Breaking Bad, but she has somewhat accidentally become engrossed in this, all I needed to tell her about the Gene stuff was "Yeah, he becomes a sleazy lawyer for meth dealers and such, everything goes south and he has to go work in a cinnabun under a fake identity. No, I don't know what that is either, some American pastry thing I guess."

boston cream splat

Does this stick out so much from the landscape because (it's a desert, i mean) there's so little legitimate tragedy out there that isn't really something else - beautiful loserdom, exploitation, gore, just dumb, etc. - or do I have a greater taste for it because of the comedy and romance (if that's the word)?

People who come to this without watching BB must also bee nonplussed by the title, right? I mean, I'm more than a year into this show and nobody called Saul has even showed up!

He deploys the name in the "Slipping Jimmy" era flashbacks. S'all good, man!

hadn't connected his fear of pressing the bar on escape door where the (v possibly false) consequences are clearly labelled to his flipping a mystery switch in his new office for the hell of it

The world is a rich tapestry, my friends. But trust me, you don't wanna see it.

serviceable episode this one, but I think s2e01 is one of the best of the show so far.

hilarious episode. jimmy looking regretfully at his new sunroof cracked me up along with the whole boston cream splat story. chuck shaping up to be a proper villian

This was great, I really hope we see more of baseball card dude at some point.

Given the constant parade of hubristic chumps they have to deal with, it's easy to see how Mike and Saul agreed to work with Walt, he would have just looked like another out-of-his-depth idiot, which of course he was to some extent.

I cannot unsee baseball dude as a Bruce McCulloch character, his delivery is just *so close* to Gavin

show continues to deliver - Chuck as a background villain is great

that brilliant shot of him playing the piano

How long can they continue to use Jimmy's internal conflict between being good and bad as the axis of the show? I feel like they've already covered this in S1...

His conversion from pitiable figure to villain is pretty chilling. Hates his own brother so much it overrides a real and debilitating mental health issue, yikes.

How long can they continue to use Jimmy's internal conflict between being good and bad as the axis of the show? I feel like they've already covered this in S1...

he remains something of a conflicted character all the way through BB so yeah they're going to mine this

he's done criminal, he's doing lawyer, and now he's learning how to be a criminal lawyer

Why would you keep dumpsters in a long skinny cell like that? Most are emptied by robot truck arms. What, does the garbageman come in and drag the dumpsters out... through the too-small-for-a-dumpster door that calls the police whenever it's opened?

I think it's pretty common for restaurants to hide their dumpsters in an outbuilding or utility area like that. Can't believe we're still talking about the dumpsters.

The future bits are all dream sequences anyway

figured the dumpsters were removed via steel rollup door just offscreen
http://www.guardiandooranddock.com/JPGS/rolling-steel-doors.jpg

Just catching up w thread after first two episodes. Old Lunch riffing aside, I worry about things going fwd if mall dumpster placement is hanging you guys up.

I'm not worried abt Gene turning into some kind of straight heavy. He looked like he was veering off in that direction when it was first disclosed that he prevented Howard from hiring him, but then with the Cicero flashbacks they colored in his reasoning a little more—obv. we knew abt. Jimmy as a once (and future) huckster but seeing him work those $50 scams and freshly sprung from jail in a terrible shirt explained his brother's selfishness a little bit.

One big reason this show works for me is that the ethical compromise, moral dilemma etc. aren't limited to Saul or Mike, but extended to the secondary characters, and for me at least it's even more satisfying to see the apparently two-dimensional creep fleshed out w/ his own set of issues and redeemed a little bit. Like Howard for example, I hadn't expected he wld have any added value but his scenes are great!

fantastic episode!

but to all you dumpster conundrumers - how come Kayleigh doesn't seemed to have aged between BTC and BB?

huh oh well maybe she does. I remember her being about the same age in BB as she is in BTC but maybe not. what is the time span between shows supposed to be, roughly?

Better Tall Caul - the the conversation prequel wherein harry's character is established alongside his rivalry with his inferior and much shorter brother

could still have a character called slippin jimmy

Another great episode. Part of what I love about this show is its ability to wring tension out of such random things - Jimmy puts up a billboard! The boss calls Jimmy in for an early morning meeting! Jimmy hosts bingo! It feels quite... original?

what's going on with mike's... whoever she is again (daughter-in-law)?

i didn't quite work out why he waited outside then she found the bullet damage on the house. were we meant to think that mike had done it, or that whoever did do it saw him there and came back later?

He was there all night = he knows there were no shots but he doesn't wanna tell her. She's having nightmares as a result of the trauma of her husband's death

That's how I read it anyway. I guess the mark was supposed to be clearly not a bullet hole but it wasn't obvious to me

I assumed she's trying to run a con on Mike to get him to pay for her lifestyle/housing upgrades. She knows Mike's granddaughter is his kryptonite, plays on safety fears.

Yea thats what i thought too, WilliamC

Yeah, I thought that, too. Iirc, they are estranged c. Breaking Bad, right? Like, he keeps his distance?

This show is so perfectly written, acted and directed, it makes everything else look bad. Even the way it takes place before Breaking Bad is perfect. We're not exactly sure how long before, and the pace is so slow and deliberate we have no idea how long it'll be before or even if it catches up. We know things end poorly for pretty much everyone involved, so that's always hanging over the story, but it builds and develops its own tension, too, over tiny details and character beats. Just perfect.

these guys sure know how to do the pre-credit intros. they're all perfect, just as they were in breaking bad.

The scales of justice as an ashtray was such a fantastic image.

I assumed she's trying to run a con on Mike to get him to pay for her lifestyle/housing upgrades. She knows Mike's granddaughter is his kryptonite, plays on safety fears.

Given her husband was murdered she's more likely to be genuinely paranoid and terrified. The Mike scenes in Breaking Bad suggested at a continuing relationship with her, but the whole story appeared to be a plot device to move Mike further into the drug world.

Yeah, I thought that, too. Iirc, they are estranged c. Breaking Bad, right? Like, he keeps his distance?

This hadn't occurred to me but if it is it might be the fallout from Mike's believed culpability in his son's death? I'm not sure if they were necessarily estranged though, it might just be that BB didn't see the need to delve too closely into his family life beyond including Kaylee as a humanising factor.

This series is also always otm tonally, like the confidence with which they transport broad sitcommy gags & characters into this patient drama

As I recall, Mike and Stacey were at least semi-estranged in BB, but not so much that she wasn't willing to accept financial help and let him do some Kaylee babysitting. I assume this season of BCS is setting up their BB-era relationship.

a strained relationship seems p natural given that she knows Mike is m/l responsible for her husbands' death and is also a murderer in his own right (something in which he has also made her complicit, after the fact)

Now that was much better.

Another vote for the daughter-in-law going round the bend, mentally.

If she was trying to con Mike into a housing upgrade, sure as shit Mike would detect that and call her out.

The show is taking place 6 years prior to BB, around 2002.

Well, he did hear gun shots when he was staking out in the car. That's when he took out his gun. Actually, maybe he shot/broke the wall to convince her and his granddaughter to move somewhere better!

He didn't hear gun shots. He heard newspaper delivery.