Better Call Saul

it was boring

So who was Max? Did I miss something?

yeah that escaped me also, so many details lost over the seasons

https://breakingbad.fandom.com/wiki/Max_Arciniega

my presumption is that they were a couple prior to Salamanca murdering him; the internets generally agree but it's open to interpretation

ah, thanks, never would have dug that one out

I should watch this show w/ the wiki open

yeah that was my interpretation too

it explains the deeeeeep need for revenge & the way the Salamancas have always treated Fring

Somebody, I think Lalo, referred to Fring with a homophobic slur and referred to Max's murder earlier this season. They're laying out there for the attentive viewer.

Which would make Gale Boetticher on Breaking Bad kind of an echo of Max? (Gus also paid for his education, I think...or least he said something about a scholarship when he tried to explain their relationship to Hank.)

yep

I never suspected a sexual relationship between gus and gale tbh

yes me neither

i dont get that vibe from them at all

Between gus and max otoh, definitely

def

Even if there wasn't a sexual relationship--and I don't rule it out (Gale was gay, right?)--Gus still may have viewed Gale as some kind of stand-in for Max...Or maybe it was more of a father-son relationship. There seemed to be something there in the way Gus treated Gale (conceding he did cut him loose at one point).

So I guess mike hooks up with gus out of count of Monte cristo game recognise game.

Kind of amazing that you referred to it this way, because the actor who played Mike's doctor also played Luigi Vampa, the captain of the ship that rescued Edmond Dantes (played by Jim Caveziel) after he escaped from the Chateau D'If in 2002's The Count of Monte Cristo!

A reminder to myself that this is on tonight (almost forgot last week). "Wexler vs. Goodman"--major turning point? Too soon if there's still a season-and-a-half.

not if Better Call Saul

Haven't been as big on the recent episodes as some of the rest of you, but that one was excellent. Great opening, great closing, and the shot just before the commercial break of Kim walking in to help Jimmy clean up the commercial shoot was a great MacGuffin (unless it wasn't). Trying to stay vague.

I actually didn't get what Jimmy was up to till he explained at the end. Rotten, but it made perfect sense.

Just read the Rolling Stone recap. I took absent-minded notice of the song Jimmy was strumming on his guitar but forgot the significance of it, especially at that particular moment.

Not sure what Kim was thinking at the end there

she's only human and... god, we do stupid things for love

plus, spousal privilege

otm I was thinking we might get a legal justification next week but mainly she loves jimmy so “what is she thinking” is the exact point and beside it

he's doing exactly what he's always done, and said he'd do, and it's heartbreaking

I could use a better memory--I find it so hard to retain details from previous seasons. Clearly Nacho and Mike have a lot of history. None of which I remember now.

lol

Speaking of that plotline, lalo is clearly about to call his new hotshot lawyer so things are about to get complicated for jimmy/saul, also lalo is still in play in breaking bad and it doesn’t feel like the timelines are near joining up yet

So we’re still about four years from the start of Breaking Bad. Plenty of time for Jimmy to ruin Kim’s life over the next two seasons and still be an established success & singleton by the time he first appeared

― Fantastic. Great move. Well done (sic), Wednesday, February 26, 2020 6:37 AM (four weeks ago)

Noticed Saul and Gus were wearing pretty much the exact same blazer.

I have enjoyed this season so far (with some reservations), but this last episode was bad. I am an attorney and for the most part have found the show's legal elements to be decent, at least compared to most television shows. It actually showed grunt attorneys doing document production! But Jimmy's entire scam and the way Mesa Verde just says, "we love Kim so much we'll let her boyfriend sue us" is some of the dumbest shit ever.

I'm not an attorney but felt the same way.

As for the ending, yes, the human heart is complex and we contain multitudes etc. but to spend so much time across so many episodes engineering this eviction plotline in the service of the Kim-Saul dynamic, and then just blow up all of those details in the last five seconds on a mysterious (and to me unconvincing) whim of the heart was to me a letdown.

Most any other actress in this role couldn't care Kim's complexity across a single season of this show, but I'm starting to feel like they're making Rhea Seehorn run in circles for no good reason. Like, yes, we *know* already that Jimmy is a corrupting influence and she'd be better off w/o him but damnit just can't seem to let the rascal go, etc. This plotline is starting to feel to me like in GoT when they just had those kids wandering around in the snow for five years.

the opening shot with Kim not getting in the car with her alcoholic mom, who is lying to her, is meant to mirror the ending imo

Jimmy's like an alcoholic for hijinks

Was it Rhea in some kind of prosthetics playing Kim's mum? Her voice was indentical.

No--the Rolling Stone piece thought so too.

Ha yes the casting of Kim's mother was so good I thought they may be related IRL

I disagree with posts above about weakness/unmotivated nature of plotting. I think it's pretty obvious that this is Kim doubling down in a desperate attempt to get Jimmy to reform. The Mesa Verde plot is there to illuminate their relationship, and to show how both of them respond to escalating stakes with more and more addictive behaviors. Not unlike Adam Sandler in UNCUT GEMS. She has just as bad a gambling problem as he does, in fact he brings it out of her and makes it worse. In this sense you need the Mesa Verde to move Kim inexorably down her trajectory. She's not running in circles at all.

The two posts this morning did give me pause about the latest episode--"Yeah, they sure did buckle to such a slapdash, borderline ridiculous threat." I think I just mostly check credulity at the door with not just this show but other TV shows I enjoy. (I like Ozark, which is preposterous.) There was the roadside lineup for cell phones and legal advice earlier...I just go with it.

i thought they dubbed Seehorn's voice as the mother.

I'm re-watching from the start so not keeping up with this thread. Just up to the s4 episode where they make all the provisions for the German lads to be isolated inside for 8-10 months. Such foresight!

i watched last week’s episode and man that ending threw me for a loop

but after some reflection i think drew is otm

this is not kim being a ditz and oh he’s terrible i love him

this her doing what they both do so well & pivoting on the spot with a new plan

ie he fucking played me in public to win fuck him we’re done ohhhhhh no even better lets up the ante & see who flinches when we put it all on the line & let it ride (my gambling knowledge is not great so forgive if i am mixing terms)

this is like two gambling addicts in love with each other as much as the game to the point now where the relationship is the game

this ending for them is gonna suuuuuck

good episode, was missing Saul's Nathan For You-type schemes this season. seemed a bit ~too~ obvious that this was where they'd break up (as hinted by the episode title obviously) so I liked that bait and switch, like all this show's cliffhanger endings who knows what that's all about. would love to see Kim pull one over on ol' Jimmy somehow

been digging this season but watching it with such a long layoff is kind of difficult, every character has some sort of dual loyalty and there were so many plots I forgot the details of (like Nacho poisoning Hector). doesn't help that every actor is a decade older than they were when Breaking Bad was going, screws with my head sometimes. Mike is clearly an "old man" in the BCS universe, so is he supposed to be like 80 when BB rolls around? or is this one of those things we aren't supposed to think about

Huell!

Lydia!

Another good episode. That justice at the beginning ought to get his own show. Mike reading The Little Prince with his granddaughter resting her head on him was a beautiful image.

Gus's grease fire setup was great

Don't read this if you're not up to date.

Two questions: 1) Was Nacho with Gus? I thought he was, but Gus got back in his car alone; 2) When Jimmy tells Huell the marriage is just for legal protection, he's just making that up right? I'm pretty sure the answer is yes, but you never know with Jimmy.

I assumed they came in separate cars (1)

re: Jimmy-Huell, that seemed to me like a partial truth Jimmy amplified in order to get him to back off re: ceremony trappings

Yeah, that's actually what I thought: that Jimmy was lying but voicing something partly true that he hadn't even consciously formulated himself yet.