Better Call Saul

I think in El Camino there's a report of a woman 'not expected to survive' or somesuch. Feels like they wanted to keep the option open of using her again, but they might not have used it. I didn't think she was a particularly compelling character tbh by the standards of the BB-verse, so I'm not actively stanning for her to come back

I would hope the writers didn't think a "surprise, Lydia isn't dead!" was what the BCS universe needed approaching the finale. I think the freewheeling nature of this back-end of the season has been wonderful. I would love to read an in-depth oral history of the writers' room for this season down the road because they've done a great job of sticking the landing so far.

what was the purpose of the dog?

― frogbs, Wednesday, August 3, 2022 1:08 AM (yesterday)

I figured the dog was there to sound the alert if anyone else approached or if the mark started stirring from their drugged slumber

― mh, Wednesday, August 3, 2022 1:09 AM (yesterday)

I figured dude just likes to have his dog around, given how mad Gene got about the dog being around

the dog sensed Jeff's mom had been watching too many funny cat videos.

Once again apologies if this is a bit but yeah, Lydia is not coming after gene. And Marion isn’t her long lost sister or whatever

the stuff with Madrigal seemed like a potential window into a BB spinoff series but yeah it's not coming back now

do feel like with 2 episodes left there are still a couple more curveballs to come. that phone call with Kim seems mighty important for reasons we probably haven't seen yet.

The shot of Saul, the dough machine spinning round and round, and the exit sign pointing away was an all time-shot for this show. Glad they’re still doing visual story telling.

Lydia’s orphaned daughter is coming for revenge

xp I think madrigal is like gus’s past in Pinochet’s chile, the odd glimpse is enough

a great callback to skyler white at the 4 corners with the aerial shot of gene after his call with francesca

these characters trying to escape the grip of walter white, some even after his death

To be clear, I don't think Lydia (who I loved) is suddenly making an appearance, but I do think El Camino planted some doubt about her death. (I've watched it twice, and don't plan on revisiting it again.)

Or not...Evidently I have it backwards.

"While her fate is left open-ended during the series finale of Breaking Bad, Lydia’s death is confirmed in one of the early scenes of El Camino."

https://screenrant.com/el-camino-movie-lydia-breaking-bad-death-ricin-confirmed/

(Cut me some slack here. I had a hard time reassembling the Pulp Fiction timeline in 1994, when I was 33.)

FP'd

Madrigal might still be looking for Saul, hoping to recoup something, after Fring and the cartel decimated each other, plus of course Walter White's finale getting so much unwanted attention---also to keep Saul from talking if the feds get him. Which they might, if the cops get him and find that stash of cash: traceable bills or not, it's enough to get feds interested. And who's got all those pix of credit cards, tax returns etc. now> Apparently some of them have been used to some extent, producing the dough that Jeffie wasn't spozed to spend like that, for inst.

and i fake want to know how mike's family dealt with the fallout but we all know these storylines ain't happening.

I suspect the writers were mulling a possible lydia appearance and didn't want to bind their hands. And very likely decided not to go that way.

But that screenrant piece is some seriously media illiterate bullshit lol 'oh yeah there was a radio report in the film that says she's prolly gonna die, that means she's definitely dead' If that writer ever sees the third man their fuckin heads gonna explode

Heisenberg’s meth, Schrödinger's Lydia

I thought Heisenberg's math might be to give her enough ricin to stay alive and suffer: either a slowww death, or like Long Covid and then some---permanent damage, brain fog on and on, bye-bye Madrigal ---

Didn't he mutter something like that at to her at the end, when she called Opie Hitler's phone? Maybe.

So if she does reappear, might be sad, scary (sell her to Walking Dead spin-offs).

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2301455/characters/nm0292182

But that screenrant piece is some seriously media illiterate bullshit lol 'oh yeah there was a radio report in the film that says she's prolly gonna die, that means she's definitely dead'

Redeemed! Started looking around and found a very different account:

Of course, fans knew ricin was the kiss of death in the show and we assumed she died off-screen. El Camino confirms this isn't the case, well, not just yet.

In a radio report heard when Jesse tries to chart a new course following his escape, the announcer says, "The drug kingpin once known throughout the southwest as Heisenberg may yet claim a final victim." At that point, it's uncertain who the report's referring to as we thought Walt killed everyone who had to be murdered, but it's then revealed Lydia is the one barely surviving. "Texas authorities investigating the poisoning of a Houston woman are looking into her possible connection to Walter White's criminal organisation. The unnamed woman, who is hospitalised in critical condition, is not expected to survive."

And confirmed that via an online transcript of El Camino.

and i fake want to know how mike's family dealt with the fallout but we all know these storylines ain't happening.

I did not-fake expect to get a glimpse into why Mike's relationship with his daughter-in-law soured, but it's also not too hard to imagine, even without a scene of her holidaying in the Cayman Islands and having a chance encounter with his banker.

If they were gonna m night it we could have had Kayleigh kills by the Salamanca twins’ sniper rifle, the reveal then being that there was never anyone on those playdates with pop-pop, only her ghost as imagined by a grieving & guilt-mad Mike; this explains why she is doesn’t age between bcs & bb

damn the writers really did have all their ducks in a row

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed9tlp3fcKY

guess I’ll offer the lone bit of dissent and say that while the show remains perfectly watchable, I’m not sure there is much of a purpose anymore. feels like it could have just ended 2 episodes ago. the walter/jesse scene was embarrassing imo… also reminded me of how much I hated jesse as a character

Well I hope they still have some fun and surprises in the last remaining episodes.

Overall I think BB > BCS, but the longueurs of Jesse moping around miserably were a bit much.

I thought the last episode, specifically the phone call part, kinda drove that home. Gene is something of a cipher for the audience. There's nothing left in Albuquerque. We already know what happened to the major players, and none of the minor characters have particularly interesting fates. Huell gets out, Skylar's deal worked, so what's left to say. There's no story left. The only thing left to tie up is what exactly happened with Kim, though even that seems to be settled - she's in Florida doing something else. Everything Gene does is in a black & white world where there's nothing left to happen - his story is supposed to 'end' there, as a Cinnabon manager from now until he dies of natural causes. But Gene decides to delve back in anyway, which can only end badly. Maybe a self-aware argument against doing another spinoff series :)

Kim in Florida could get pretty wild, and they'd have to come up with mostly new characters and plot-lines, which could be refreshing.

I know it’s irrelevant it who is Gene selling the ID info to? The whole point of being in Omaha is no one knows who he is, and conversely, he doesn’t know anyone.

lol it’s a fair q, we know from Walt & jimmy that it takes at least 2 seasons to make the right contacts

Obv the answer is in the question, it doesn’t matter & so can safely be elided in a montage

Deep Dark Subwebasement, esp hard to trace seller's own id in 2010, I guess---?

Starting to think our pal Jimmy might not slip out of this one

I think a better name for this episode would have been “crime and punishment”

My PVR messed up, so when I started playing tonight's episode, it was the intro to the post-show discussion and I had a couple of surprises ruined immediately. Anyway, I was so down on Kim's send-off a couple of weeks ago, I'm glad they brought her back.

Reading some reviews of last night's episode, came across the title of the last episode: "Saul Gone."

one thing last night’s ep hammered home for me is that i’m glad we spent so much more time with jimmy than saul. saul goodman is a miserable fucker, would’ve been hard to take him as a lead in a show

agreed. that entire bit where he wasn't getting what he wanted from the phone call and dropped into this "i'm back in the game!" spiel was terrible and made me wonder if he remembered anything about the good parts of his relationship that didn't involve schemes and cons. seemed obvious that kim's been living in purgatory

I was absolutely dying at the boyfriend's "yep.... yep.... yep...."

insanely depressing how the kim we know seemed to be completely absent in her new life

xp that was great hahah

seemed obvious that kim's been living in purgatory

That seemed to be the real point of the episode to me, and not just because she's guilt-ridden. Her depressingly mundane life in Florida reminded me of the ending of Goodfellas, Liotta's breaking-the-fourth-wall words to the viewer about how miserable he is.

As one of the reviewers I read this morning pointed out, she couldn't even bring herself to choose between vanilla and strawberry ice cream. So as venal as Saul can be, there might be the implicit suggestion that he is--and Kim was--alive.

nearly completely self-imposed, too. gene exists in nebraska because he went through the identity washing process and people are looking for him for known crimes. kim's were all covered up, and if anyone did want to find her, she's living under the same name, although very quietly

the initial airport scene had a nice red herring when she was standing under the alaska airlines entrance, but it ended up being a bit of a tease for that last cameo

I've been pretty clear on this thread that I've had mixed feelings about this season the whole way. But I think there's one genuine tragedy (I mean, as genuine as can be for fictional characters in a TV show...) that was underscored by last night's episode, especially when Kim looks over at that lawyer (a Kim lookalike, one of the reviewers said--didn't notice) advising her client: Kim was a great lawyer, especially when she was taking all those pro bono cases. And she walked away from all that--perhaps needlessly.

Kim's breakdown on the bus was amazing, very uncomfortable to watch.

Second-guessing my "perhaps needlessly"--I guess she was so deep into an ethical swamp, there was no sustainable way to continue.

Yes--but, as she admits, obliging with the legal eagle critique for Howard's widow ("C'mon, Howard always said you were this great lawyer!"), there's no physical evidence of what she's confessing to---so maybe no indictment, and would a civil suit, brought by widow, fare any better? Widow might need a Saul-type to accept the case.
So---Kim still in purgatory, unless she can provide more details? Guess she could say that Jimmy's still alive, but evidence for that? Does she know where he's calling from? May soon be moot anyway, of course, the way things are going for him.
Would she have made this disclosure w/o Jimmy's call? "You're the one with the guilty conscience!" Might have done better to appeal to his sense of self-preservation, but either way, back when he was unsure what to do, she was the one who said, "Do you want to be a cartel lawyer? Or a rat?"