Better Call Saul

The thing I liked most was underlining the two sides of a coin duality of Mike & Jimmy/Saul ... and it has a real world Looney Tunes quality, like Mike the sheepdog & Jimmy the wolf
all that shit with him trying to dig the hole with the license plate etc

Mike’s explanation of his selflessness obviously affects Jimmy in the moment but I like to think we see Jimmy struggle with the weight of that notion, how the fuck do you even DO that? Can I do that? Do I want to do that? I did that with Chuck & look where it got me.

I found it kinda revealing in it’s own slow burn way.

good content kev

yeah all the never trumpers are like chuck

https://i.imgur.com/QORSqW3.jpg

lol. that would have been great

haha

anyway my prediction is that Lalo sent those guys with the intention of killing Saul (a guy who knows too much & keeps asking for more money). the idea that he didn't have a guy to inconspicuously pick up money in the middle of the desert seems suspicious to me, you'd think a cartel like that would have a dozen people like that. hope its not true though since that means pretty bad things for Kim

otoh a guy like Saul is invaluable to a cartel like that who knows. of course we do know by the time Breaking Bad starts he's an accessory of Gus/Mike

um, didn't we establish at the start of the episode that the dude who jumped on his cell phone and said "yeah, i got something if you want it" was just selling information to a rival gang about where they could get seven million dollars if they follow where the money was going?

In the pre-credits sequence at the chop shop or whatever it was? I forgot about that but it sounds truer than these other theories

I don’t know if it was clear. Maybe I missed something but wasn’t the place the twins got the money from connected to the chop shop?

Either way how Jimmy explains this to Lalo is gonna be something...he’s looking for a guy named Mike isn’t he?

He’s like a cucaracha that one, he’ll come up with something

Didn't see that--who was the guy, how did he know? One of Lalo's contacts on/from the Inside? Lalo would know he couldn't trust such guys, so making use of untrustworthiness? Re Nacho,"He's good for a lot of things," but maybe not w 7 mil--he trust Saul not to take the money and run, eh? Because Saul would be more scared of the cartel? Nacho knows better than to try it, because he does know them better. So, using Saul seems that much more suspect.

he'll come up with something This is a test?

it was the start of the episode, prior to the credits. the twins come into a front, go into a locked room, pick up seven mill and leave. As they do, a guy who works there gets on a flip phone and says "hey. i got something for him, if he's still interested."

incidentally, the actor playing lalo is so on point

good spot, I did see it but it clearly just went in one ear and out the other...

Yeah, it’ll lead to mistrust between everyone...

decided howard is actually a steyer supporter

Considering you know Jimmy's going to live--you don't know that with Kim, but it seemed too early and wrong--that last scene was as unbearably tense as could be. Now I have to go ponder the significance of His Girl Friday.

She asked Lalo all the right questions, and I think she'll eventually come up with the answer: of course he could have set it up differently. This was a test. "We gotta lonnng way to go."

Fuuuck me that final scene was like Jimmy & Kim doing Viktor & Giselle for your life

The crazy thing is even though i know it, and i have seen it over & over again, it is crazy that KimALSO has that insane 5th gear where she can lie even better than she can tell the truth.

god I love this show

Caught the last scene again a few hours later...one of the show's best ever. You have to suspend disbelief a little--talking circles around a murderous drug middleman probably not so smooth in real life; very Breaking Bad, Walter used to do it all the time--but you do, it's so good.

I found it was easier to suspend disbelief in this episode, at least more than I would have to when Walt would talk himself out of it. I don't think Lalo believed them in the least, but I think he weighed his odds of a) already being on a bail for a murder in town and, b) possibly pissing off Fring even more when he doesn't have a lot of resources on this side of the border, coming to the conclusion that regrouping in Mexico was a better long term strategy than killing them now.

I don't think Lalo believed them in the least

When I think about Lalo's expression as he leaves, you're probably right. Based on his words to Nacho as they head out, he's clearly recalibrated.

Stressful!

Pretty sure the thing she said about not being able to trust his own people struck a nerve and is not going to play out well for Nacho.

One or both of those guys (my two favourite characters this season) is not surviving this border run.

Please don’t hurt Nacho ;_;

I found it touching when Mike went to Gus about cutting Nacho loose--that's the Mike I like!

same

Nacho presuuuumably doesn't die any time soon, since Saul is still referencing him four years later - the amount of dodgy characters he deals with between now (then) and then (a later, earlier then) should mean that Ignacio doesn't leap first to his mind in a threatening situation, if Nacho'd been dead for years. Gould oughtn't be overly bound by Breaking Bad details, but considering they did a "Frasier's dead dad"-level continuity patch two weeks ago, he certainly seems to be.

Fuck that was the most tense the show has felt in a long time. Almost wanted Lalo to smile and wave at Michael as he left, harking back to the end of last season when he realised he was now on the phone to Michael not Werner (hugely enjoyable scene)

His Girl Friday interpretation--I knew someone would get to work on that--from Rolling Stone:

If you listen carefully to the movie Jimmy attempts to watch with Kim, it’s the Cary Grant/Rosalind Russell/Howard Hawks classic His Girl Friday, which is about a woman who keeps returning to a relationship she knows is deeply unhealthy for her, with a man whose charm and wild professional lifestyle she ultimately can’t resist. And now I would very much enjoy seeing a version starring Odenkirk and Seehorn as Walter and Hildy. Or, I would if we weren’t already getting it.

"A woman who keeps returning to a relationship she knows is deeply unhealthy for her" makes perfect sense.

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-recaps/better-call-saul-recap-season-5-episode-9-bad-choice-road-980678/

Fantasy scenario: Jimmy offers to fund Kim's pro-bono work forever, in return for her getting out of the line of fire, moving somewhere safer with a new ID. It'll never happen, but it's a nice fantasy.

That courthouse DA guy! He's so good/terrible

I was into the new episode because I also started playing Death Stranding this week.

Jimmy offers to fund Kim's pro-bono work forever, in return for her getting out of the line of fire, moving somewhere safer with a new ID.

Ooh, this could explain away why he never talks about her - shes effectively in WP.

I'm starting to conclude she won't be killed off. She's too liked by viewers, and even if you put that aside as it applies to BCS, I think they will want to leave open the possibility of a spin-off, including the possibility that it's set post-Jimmy and not limited to a prequel.

B-but I want her show to be pre-Jimmy! Perhaps as I described above, but not necessarily---needs to be some kind of pre-J, though, so that (as with early, apparently honestly striving Jimmy) we start thinking, "Awww, that's a nice break, things are comin' along"---only to remember the nasty future.

Having him offer to finance her pro bono is a good idea, because she would have to face the fact that she wants desperately to do that, and to throw bottles across the courtyard---at least, or at most---she and we don't yet know how far she'll go (quitting her firm, telling off Lalo---pretty far for now).

it is actually criminal that Rhea Seehorn isn't getting nominated for awards or being cast in more things.

https://www.looper.com/201243/better-call-sauls-rhea-seehorn-on-bringing-kim-wexler-to-life-exclusive-interview/

had NO idea this existed

Michael McKean and I actually did a pilot together that Christopher Guest directed from a Mitch Hurwitz script, which was called The Thick of It. It was years and years and years before Veep. It was sort of the first attempt at adapting Armando Iannucci and In the Loop.

It was based on the British shows, but it was done with a Congressman. We had a great time doing it. It just went through other iterations and stuff and became the brilliant show [Veep]. It wasn't a one-to-one ratio. It was totally different people by the time it went down.

I liked seeing Jimmy being the sensible one and trying to talk Kim out of a crazy scheme

the scene with the DA was hilarious. I liked the implication that Saul really was shook, usually this show's protagonists (besides Jesse) are utterly unflappable

why does he try to talk her out of quitting her job? you'd think they had enough cash at this point.

Because his chosen conception of bottle-throwing rebellion favours becoming Saul goodman (making lots of money, winner) to giving your big client back to the squares and doing pro bono work (making no money, loser). It’s sad.

I liked how he kept putting his hand to his heart when he was having ptsd symptoms, calling forward to gene and his anxiety attack

rewatching that final scene, Kim only steps in once Saul offers the money back b/c she knows the shot-up coffee cup is in there right? or is that just a coincidence?

good catch!

Oh! didn't think of that.