Better Call Saul

Yeah, there were a couple of episodes that were more about the building dread more than action set pieces, but I’m amazed that anyone could stick with this show through seasons 1 and 2 only to suddenly now complain that the show is too slow.

You just know it's all going to kick off in the season finale after three slow episodes

xp I gotta say that I think the last few episodes have been slow even by BCS standards

I agree but I like it. I think they're still packing quite a lot in with the different plot strands.

I think it's been a great modern noir. My biggest complaint is (similar to BB) everyone acts like James Bond until the story suddenly requires them not to.

Also, it's pretty obvious Lalo is going to be killed and buried (or maybe buried alive) in the poured concrete floor of the meth lab they are building.

i think a lot of us have had kind of enough of half hour shots of making a sandwich now that it's the final season... like, just make with the Heisenberg

please do not make with the Heisenberg

make out with Heisenberg

tbh I complained about the pace of a few prior episodes but I enjoyed the last one. esp the way they keep us in the dark on what Jimmy/Kimmy have planned

Maffew otm. It being the last season is what ticks me with the slower speed. Pack it in, we don't have much time left!

Also, compared to the first seasons there is a sense of knowing (at least in spirit) where this is all heading. Feels more of a delaying of the inevitable as opposed to building up something entirely unprecedented a la season 1/2

yeah yknow not literally Heisenberg (though i might've expected just a fun Saul Goodman being a sleazebag lawyer episodes by now)... but let's eat the sandwich. I bet it's a really nice sandwich.

and that Gene guy, what's he up to!

I want to know if Saul saved the toilet that he inherited in his new space

is it possible he was sitting on it behind his desk in Breaking Bad?

They showed it in the dumpster in the last ep

I can't imagine anything I want less out of this show than Walt and Jesse to casually stroll in for a cameo, even though I know it's going to happen.

BCS > BB

Wouldn’t it be better if this show was worse, because it is nearly finished

It's such a masterful act to have slowly set D-Day up as both an exciting + intricate heist-like scam that we can't wait to see unfold and a thing that's probably going to ruin one or more protagonist's lives, maybe forever.

Yeah, Kim turning the car around when she is on the precipice of fulfilling her pro bono/criminal justice dreams and really help people in order to get at Howard is something else.

I'm in the middle of Todd Haynes' Mildred Pierce remake for the fourth or fifth time--just love it, gets better every time I go back. Mildred's boss when she takes her first waitressing job, Mr. Chris, looked familiar, but it took me a while to place him--Hector Salamanca (Mark Margolis)! I think Mr. Chris is supposed to be Greek.

Pretty interesting filmography. His first credit goes back to 1952, one of the network soaps. There's a 24-year gap after that, and his next credit is The Opening of Misty Beethoven, from the chic-porn era. Also, in the next few year after that, Short Eyes, Going in Style, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, and The Cotton Club

Well I'll be goddamned

I flipped the first time I saw/heard the real Margolis:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OHIoPK6wC8

i just saw him in an old law and order

Yeah, Kim turning the car around when she is on the precipice of fulfilling her pro bono/criminal justice dreams and really help people in order to get at Howard is something else.

“MIRA…
EL SECRETO DE FRING”

sometimes they deliver everything you expected and maybe a little bit you feared, and now I just want more

Definitely the best ep of the season

HOLY SHIT

I do hope that smothers the pace complaints.

That last line, three words, up there with "Are you alone?" from Mad Men as one of the best season (or half-season) closing lines.

was weirdly not shocked but i don't thing i've wrapped my head around the episode as a whole.

i think i'm at the point where there are very few BB episodes i would consider above this show as a whole.

I take back every bad word I ever said about this season

Justice in the timing in that last scene. Jimmy and Kim touched the same fire everyone in the drug side of this show touched with their scams. the different sides meeting together and some poor civilian being caught in the crosshairs. A great explanation for how Jimmy and Kim got to where they are. They were always there from their first scam, just took a while for the stakes to catch up

good post

Great speech by Howard too. For the first time I've felt like Jimmy and Kim are actually the baddies. Up until now I've always felt they're more loveable rogue types

I mean I don't think they're 100% bad. They're not in the same league as someone like Lalo or Fring. But now I feel like they do have that badness in them

You might say this season they truly …broke bad

I texted my brother just now about the show (missed last night) and autocorrect renamed the show “Better Calm Saul”

Great speech by Howard too.

Wanted to say the same thing. The way he put everything together--going all the way back to sending Kim to that room to check dockets, which felt indefensible at the time--I really felt sympathy for him. I have to believe that Kim will battle massive guilt over what happened more than Jimmy will.

Jimmy will rationalize it as he always does to avoid the feeling of guilt. Don't get me wrong, his worry about Howard's safety when Lalo showed up was genuine, but he's going to bury those feelings deep, whereas Kim might be permanently changed by it.

Lalo slipped through because Mike diverted all of the resources on the street to protect the lab/Gus's house, right?

Why were Jimmy and Kim so shocked by Lalo's reappearance? Hadn't Mike given them advance warning?

Kim knew he was still alive, but didn't pass that info on to Jimmy.

Ah, okay...A good parallel for the last line might be Samuel Jackson's "Oh, I'm sorry--did I break your concentration?" in Pulp Fiction.

Mike's entire conversation with Kim ended with him saying that she had the spine to handle the news that Lalo was alive, where he didn't think Jimmy had it in him

Which was followed by several conversations where Jimmy said things like "Don't worry, at least Lalo is dead!" and "At least we don't have to worry about Lalo!" while Kim looked spooked

omfg

Lalo you lil stinker

When you see howards pi pull up to take the envelope and the last puzzle piece of the scam clicks into place, real clockwork plotting - & yet as I was saying the other day the satisfaction of the caper rings so hollow cause it’s like Howard says, what’s the point? Two broken ppl throwing bottles off balconies. Also once you get into the conference room it is fundamentally a retread of the humiliation of chuck, another big downer. The last scene was played perfectly, Kim & jimmy’s taunting sangfroid when facing him down was chilling

Yeah, played perfectly all around (and agree that probs with pace have recently gone away)---Howard goes out great, Lalo the masterful minimalist ov delivery, another thing which reminds us that gloatin' Jimmy and Kim are, however reckless, Little League sociopaths in comparison (like Lalo will prove to be in comparison to the Cartel). But also yeah, hollow: having the whole thing come down to gaslight gone rong, this whole plotline that's taken over, with Kim and Jimmy going over the sympathy line, also the interest line, two little Walts, just as I figured---"Something will happen to Howard, Kim will probably freak out and run away"---not even helping Jimmy dispose of the body, I hope, but he can always award free legal services for life to someone who will help---she may go back to Nebraska, and Cinnabon X-Jimmy may encounter her there, not nec in a happy way; that could be good.

(I figure the Cartel will choose between Lalo and Fring, if they haven't already; not much suspense in that, but some interest in Lalo's means of demise).

I'm also interested in exactly what Lalo wants to talk to his lawyers about (Howard: "You need better lawyers!"), and how that will go, under the circumstances, and how they fit into his Plan A.