Better Call Saul

xpost to myself - looks like that was a mere two eps ago in the mid-finale when he tells them 'I've been sleeping in the guest house for the better part of a year.'

Mike's kicking back with a beer, fuckin finally, and then calls Nachos' father

and it's right after Mike's been staring at his granddaughter's toys. the little monologue he gives is basically what he wanted someone to say about his own son, or what he wishes he could believe

but Mike's dirty in his own way, and Nacho's father wasn't

It’s a bit different because Mike’s son stayed honest, he was killed because he wasn’t bent.

The Gus scene was really great, one of the few times you see him act outside of a scheme or a coverup. At first I thought this was where he gets the idea to poison the cartel but in retrospect it’s probably more remembering what happened to his ex boyfriend

xp lol I misremembered

Finally caught up on these last two episodes, and man, they did some impressively radical, or at least subversive things. First they get rid of their larger than life, almost comically charismatic multi-season monster villain after a ton of build up in kind of a pretty straight-forward way, which of course they can do, because the *real* villain of the show is the one we know from "Breaking Bad," which means we also know that nothing can happen to him (or Saul, or Mike), which makes the show's sustained tension and suspense all the more impressive. And *then* they manage to almost perfectly extract Kim from the picture and fast forward all in one fell swoop, still with four episodes to go, which is almost the ultimate audacious pull the tablecloth off magic trick. Just masterfully handled all around with a kind of perfect formal precision that I can agree runs the risk of coming off self-aware, but maybe because it *has to be* so self-aware, not just of the mythology it needs to set in motion and adhere to but its particular eccentric rhythms and aesthetics, which along with being technically entertaining also come off a little surreal and disorienting, which again helps keep a story whose broader conclusion we already know stay compelling. It's all so almost ... mathematical.

Yeah, absolutely, to keep guiding this thing through the years, with Bob's heart attack and Covid restrictions and who knows what other considerations added to the strictures of this freakin' prequel (bet some are saying, behind the scenes, "Never will I get involved in one of these again," sure)
"That's not justice, it's just revenge. You gangsters are all alike." That's what it all comes down to, that's all Mike could do for his own son, was kill the even dirtier cops who killed said son.
'I've been sleeping in the guest house for the better part of a year.' Jimmy and Kim look concerned. As well they might: it could be the opening line of a Loudon Wainwright III song.

Mike talking to Nacho's dad... Mike has a decent working knowledge of Spanish doesn't he? So he pretended to not know even the most basic, 'justicia', so that Varga sr. would talk unguarded in his mother tongue, clever. This post started out as a question and I realised what was up as I was typing lol

I'm no longer an attorney" was some great delivery too

It was a great line and great delivery - but is it really believable that Kim would just give up law so abruptly? Isn’t it an area where she strongly believes she can do a lot of good?

I’ll hold judgment until I see the full Kim resolution though and (perhaps) see what she does do.

She's been steadily working her way down the ladder, iirc. Big law firm. Big law firm, but focused on pro bono work. Smaller boutique law firm but still really preferring pro bono, and dipping into scams with Jimmy. Working for herself but still focusing on small clients and pro bono work, plus bigger scams. But the way she gave it up so abruptly ... I guess it does depend on what happens next. If Jimmy enabled her to break bad, then you'd think it'd be easy to just move on from Jimmy. Yet those occasional flashbacks to her childhood have implied something more going on, and the promise of Carol Burnett as perhaps her mom (though it's anyone's guess) might answer a few questions.

Jimmy, fwiw, has been working his way down the ladder, too, but he's suited for the first rung, or lower. He pulled himself out of the ooze but in the end prefers it down there.

how quickly we forget the distinction between a criminal attorney and a criminal attorney

if better call saul characters were on politics twitter

kim: warren-to-biden. feels vaguely gross about it. reads a lot of 538
jimmy/saul: tulsi or yang, not voting in the general
howard: bloomberg obv
lalo, gus: trump probably, gus might be a return-to-normal biden type

— 𝒌𝒆𝒗𝒊𝒏 𝒌𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓 (@radiokeller) April 10, 2020

based on patrick fabian’s recent likes (liz cheney, the lincoln project), I feel proud to stand by this tweet I made when I was stoned 2 years ago

howard is totally a radical centrist

I can see Kim giving up the law: she's always evidenced more of a sense of right and wrong, and of personal responsibility than Slippin' Jimmy->Saul, as Howard said to her there at the end, why he was surprised that she would get so into fucking with him (not surprised at all by Jimmy). She's had time for self-awareness to land and stay with her, not in the middle of the night, as has probably happened, as long as she was trying not to think about Lalo being out there somewhere--but in the daytime, in halls of justice etc., walking around and acting normal, per Mike's orders.

Kim has become scarier than Gus, who would just have you killed: she's capable of torture, as with Howard and his wife (though yeah, also prob would have shot whoever answered the door, for love ov Jimmy).

Lalo might torture you (or anyway Gus), then mercy-kill, in effect. Kim just tortures, leaves you twisting.

Carol Burnett and Gene

And Jeffie

Shit it’s The Rehearsal

had to remind myself of who Jeffie was because I watched Season 5 more than two years ago, and lol different actor, but once I looked it up...pretty ingenious maneuver by Jimmy/Saul/Gene

Exterior daylight b&w cinematography was exquisite

the heist made me anxious af. always does. Jimmy NEVER plans for the unexpected happening and always has to wing it.

I mean shit, what if security guy had said "ugh, got bad diarrhea tonight, no buns for me plz"

Sammy Hagar

Before checking, I'm guessing the security guys were a call back to the episode where Gene got locked in that storage room, and Jeffie and his friend were the guys who spotted him in the mall. But my memory of all that is very hazy at this point.

I thought Carol Burnett was very good (both she and Odenkirk were on The Larry Sanders Show), the episode as a whole okay. As this show tends to do when it turns procedural, a lot of time to effectuate a basic plot point. Many people here love that about the show, but I never really have.

Gene promising "Scout's honor" an obvious Mad Men tribute.

Loved Jeffie being Extremely Casual.

I’ll tell you who must’ve loved this episode the Board of Directors at Cinnabon

Yeah this episode was another wheel-spinner but shows that Gene Takevic’s still got it.

Neando: then Jeffie wouldn't have got the Go on his phone

The shirt at the end... is he just longing for that Saul style or have we seen this shirt somewhere?

I assumed the former.

laughed a lot at Gene doing Bob Odenkirk's I Think You Should Leave sketch when the heist starts going wrong

that whole scene felt like something from Uncut Gems. its the first time in 6 seasons where we really don't know what's gonna happen to him

I liked the straightforward single episode encapsulated heist format. Pretty obvious from the moment it was introduced that the floor polisher was going to be the unexpected variable, but how it played out was a great gag.

Carol Burnett confirmed she's in multiple episodes fwiw

Really over the top stalling in the security room. Looking at the monitors constantly. Hard to believe they get away with it. Though maybe that's why they used an actor famous for being useless. Jerry was great.

I could watch a whole season of single episode heists like this

Also really nice to be away from the Kim / Hamlin / cartel drama

i thought originally he was bringing 'Jerry' the cinnabons so he would have a heart attack on the job and they could rob really easily

^^^ Yeah I thought that was going to be the flaw in the perfectly-oiled heist machine. I thought the mark on the floor was some devious thing Gene did for some reason.

I liked the straightforward single episode encapsulated heist format. Pretty obvious from the moment it was introduced that the floor polisher was going to be the unexpected variable, but how it played out was a great gag.

― mh, Tuesday, July 26, 2022 9:11 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

nearly being foiled by a slip n' fall is perfect. that was a hell of a pratfall too though when I watched it it seemed pretty clear when the stunt actor came in

okay so trying to get a grasp on what we know about the final 3 episodes:

Carol Burnett's character appears in "more than one" episode, so her & Jeffy will be back (I'm guessing Gene's ultimate fate will have something to do with something going wrong with these people?)
Jesse & Walt have a couple scenes, so some of it will be in the past
Francesca was told to make a phone call to a payphone at a specific time...?

Obvious, I suppose, but just because it animated the part of Jimmy's story I wanted to be watching, I liked the reference to the broke chemistry teacher he once knew who made a pile of money within a year.

I was afraid Jeffy was dead for a moment

loved the rhyming of the merch with the sequence -- 'Patagonia five to survive' etc

(xpost Jeffie dying) That would have taken some Jimmyspiration! Or if he'd just kept lying there with eyes closed a lot longer, wtf Jeffie??
Agree that it was refreshing to be away from the grinding plot machinery down south, and Burnett was totally charming; I bet she ends up accidentally causing Gene's downfall, if not demise, oh no gosh Sweetie Gene!
So, just to stay consistent and above suspicion, and maybe for companionship too, won't Gene have to keep up the Cinnabon sessions, at least with some regularity?
(At first, I was like, "Yeahhh, gimme one of those bad boys," but after countless close-ups of Jerry's ingestions, not so much.)

Although, now that I mention it, starting to want one now, at least 30 miles from likeliest mall. Dammit.

I do not want to take the time to look up the dietary stats on the standard issue 'bon, but I know they're horrific.

I think I last had one in an airport on a business trip, and regretted it instantly and smelled the cream cheese and cinnamon for the rest of the day.

That said - I think if you cut directly to the center, and skipped the outer layers, you would be doing much better from a caloric standpoint and would get the best part of the 'bon.

Damnit. I think I kinda want one now, too.

one thing I didn't get was how often he was visiting the security desk - I had assumed it was every week so he could talk about the college football game, but if that were true the scheme would take months to pull off which I am guessing was not the case. but it had to be on some kind of schedule. could it be every single day? those Cinnabons are like 850 calories!!

I really don't like cinnabons and all the ep did was make me not want them more.

Maybe Kim's final torture is making a hungry woman watch endless Cinnabons when they don't even have them in this godforsaken country.

The Jeffie guy totally threw me, like he was getting out of a CAB wearing a STRIPY SWEATER but ... it's not the guy!

With the first cinnabon I assumed he'd put ricin or a laxative in the middle of it.

We were puzzling why Saul had set up a fairly elaborate procedure for fairly small gain but it made sense at the end with the felonies stacking up like that.

Also, love Gerry being Gerry. Or Gary, Frank, whatever