Better Call Saul

Chuck went so far as to (in his mind) seriously risk his physical health to fuck Jimmy over. It was like the equivalent of cutting off his nose to spite Jimmy's face. So it's a pretty obvious affront however he tries to dress it up.

Jimmy's been expecting Chuck to be a spiteful dick for a while! When Kim was thrown in the basement to do research he assumed it was Chuck's doing. He's just been waiting for a good reason to go hard on his brother.

I wonder if it's Mike that puts Hector in a wheelchair

No, he fell off a ladder while putting up Christmas lights, iirc.

"fell off" a "ladder"

I assumed he had some sort of degenerative neurological thing, but maybe he was injured? Did they ever address in BB how he ended up like that?

Good foreshadowing in the parallelism this episode with Mike shadowing Hector while Jimmy is filming something with a man pretending to be nonverbal and confined to a wheelchair

I guess it isn't Mike, wiki says he ends up in wheelchair because of a stroke

I assumed it was something along those lines.

Although it might've been fun to see Mike beat him into a state of paraplegia with his nailhose.

looking forward to nailhose

Good foreshadowing in the parallelism this episode with Mike shadowing Hector while Jimmy is filming something with a man pretending to be nonverbal and confined to a wheelchair

also really enjoyed the parallelism of the the viewer silently observing cartel operations in the excellent opening scene and mike silently observing the cartel in his car

I kind of want to make my own nailhose w/o even understanding its function or specific purpose

it's probably just decorative, right?

Isn't it a makeshift, uh, that thing they use to stop cars?

It's our first peek into the outsider art phase that Mike only subtly alluded to on Breaking Bad.

(Yes, it's an ad hoc spike strip. Or a thing to use on a dude you want to beat the walking out of.)

probably yes but I did fantasize an elaborate garroting device

Gonna pop-pop some tyres

Mike blowing minds in Albuquerque scene with Piss Gus

it's a soaker hose, the nails are to uh, better disperse the water

Yeah if anyone sees a making-of or behind the scenes for that opening, please post it. Loved it.
― a spate of non-fatal hammer attacks (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ)

sadly kinda flimsy

My suspicion is that Mike is not trailing the cartel guys because he intends to hurt them. He's examining their operation because he's thinking of going to work for them, and needs to know how he can pitch himself as useful.

he seems to like Nacho. Not so sure about the guys that threatened to murder his granddaughter.

For sure, but that threat is exactly why I think he must not be looking to strike back at them. Plus he needs the money.

Well, we know Tuco and his uncle make it to Breaking Bad more or less intact. And Mike, and his daughter in law and granddaughter. The question is how he regains leverage with the Salamancas. Or for that matter, how he comes to apparently co-exist with them later c. Breaking Bad.

Good observation in ... avclub, that the Chuck Vs. Jimmy cold war stuff here shows how much work both brothers are willing and able to put into their goals, except that Chuck's dick move is well within his rights and in fact a mirror of Kim wooing her client, but Jimmy's long night of copying shows him putting in hard work in pursuit of what still amounts to a shortcut revenge attempt to discredit his brother. Anyway, put better here:

The tediousness and meticulousness of the work is underlined in (what else) a signature BCS montage. It’s become clearer in the second season that these montages aren’t just some of the most stylish visuals on television; they do thematic heavy lifting, cementing, deepening, and advancing important aspects of character and story. Here it’s a laconic counterpart to Chuck’s verbose conference room performance. Jimmy can work just as hard and endure just as much to sabotage his brother.

But that’s taking Jimmy’s assumption to heart—that his brother sabotaged him. What Jimmy does is actually different from what Chuck does, however reprehensible the latter. Chuck persuades a client, using less sincere tactics but fighting on the same turf as Kim, when she persuaded that same client earlier. Jimmy alters documents to deceive Chuck into working on approvals for the wrong site. His goal is to embarrass and discredit his brother, but he’s also taking revenge on Mesa Verde for their perfidy, and using means that give credence to Chuck’s distrust of his lawyering. It’s a betrayal of another order entirely. And maybe the worst part is that Jimmy takes advantage of Chuck’s incapacitation and then takes credit for staying with him all night.

But yeah, wow, what a show.

time to admit that I don't really get the whole thing with the salamancas

specifically, nacho's "if they find out what we did, we're dead" thing. like surely now that mike's revealed to them that he's a hardcase and not some random senior citizen, it's plainly obvious what he did? what did I miss?

Or for that matter, how he comes to apparently co-exist with them later c. Breaking Bad.

he goes to work for their competitor

it's plainly obvious what he did? what did I miss?

Salamancas don't know that Nacho and Mike colluded to send Tuco up on an assault+gun charge. They think Mike is just some old guy that randomly got in a fight with Tuco.

yeah but everything they've seen him do since makes it absurdly clear that isn't the case, seems like a short leap from "hey this guy's a professional hardcase" -> "hey maybe...."

sure they know he's a hardcase, but why would they connect him to Nacho? as far as they know Nacho and Mike had never met before.

it makes the chance of the fight being random ridiculously small, they don't need to connect it with nacho to figure out someone put him up to it

I think Nacho's main concern is that Tuco and Hector will find out he was dealing Hummer-dude's pills on the side without cutting them in. There's still not a direct line from Nacho to Mike unless either of them lose their nerve. xps

I guess that makes sense, I was just following mike's reasoning: professional hit = cartel start asking questions, uncover nacho's side deal, random altercation = shit happens. Feels like mike's cover at least is blown, which is basically scenario A

but mike may have had other reasons for making that argument. cartel might not actually give a shit & everyone's just paranoid

Cartel top brass also seem a bit pleased that Tuco's getting a bit of a cool-off in jail.

chance of the fight being random ridiculously small

I don't see why. Random people meet all the time. You have two hardcases randomly meet, makes perfect sense there would be a fight.

well yeah but a guy who does all that first blood shit to calmly disarm two hitmen doesn't nec seem like the "get into random fights" kinda thug? Maybe. idk.

it's a classic breaking bad scheme I guess, plausible enough

those weren't hitmen

more like hired goons

...a distinction they will also be able to draw!

haha yes

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that Mike and Nacho's scheme does get found out, Nacho gets whacked and Mike somehow weasels his way out of it

nooo mando has been so good ;_;

I want him to stay in for another series at least, not "fleshed out" at all, just popping up being all wary & shit

Cartel top brass also seem a bit pleased that Tuco's getting a bit of a cool-off in jail.

― the joke should be over once the kid is eaten. (chap) Seems plausible, and maybe Nacho's still paying the cartel their cut, just going around the increasingly unreliable Tuco, showing them he can handle stuff?
But prob he gets whacked--or that was the plan, 'til writers saw what he could do (as happened with Jesse)

the salamancas know mike is an ex-cop (and really at that point that's all he is, right?) - hector said something about him getting off easy on the gun charge because of that

I think the simplest route to take with this is that it's already been established that Tuco is completely unhinged when he's speeding it up. He murdered someone he liked in cold blood. It's not much of a leap to imagine that he'd beat the shit out of a random person for the smallest of infractions (e.g. bumping his car) or that the cartel people would think much more about the incident than "Tuco being Tuco".

^^^

I mean, without any additional context or clues, "Tuco being Tuco" makes much more sense than "hey, maybe this old ex-cop dude let himself get beaten up by Tuco because he's actually in cahoots with Nacho".