Better Call Saul

same tone he used when doing charitable things for the community in BB

Yeah - I like the implication that he is genuinely proud of his spice curls, and sincerely sees worth in his community-building, BUT also has absolute contempt for displays of pride, AND cares even more about how well they cover for his criminal enterprises.

So he's learnt a performance of pride which connects with other people who care mainly about such things, and that also helpfully projects him as a simp to people who don't.

The way gus is filmed and portrayed in this series is ridic, somewhere between a terminator and Satan

of course he insisted on being the one to blow up his own restaurant so that he'd know it was competently done

...and Mr C.

cleaning's good, cleaning's good
cleaning your grill tray's good

As my wife commented when Gus was kneeling in front of Peter to calm him, "he is terrifying and reassuring all in equal measures".

Odenkirk is great, I love the guy, but he’s a comedian, not an actor

kind of apt for someone playing a con man trying to be a lawyer

I have accepted that there's a lot of pantomiming and telegraphing in Odenkirk's acting. It's most glaring in one-on-one scenes with Kim, when he's going for earnest.

But most of the time he compensates for that with charisma—he's still compelling to watch!—and yeah the fact that he's playing someone whose whole m.o. is a false front helps too.

(xpost) Same applied to his agent Stevie Grant in Larry Sanders, the ultimate con man. Acting or not, I think he's great in both, maybe even more so in Larry Sanders.

Kim’s comedic turn imitating Kevin in S5 e5 is pure gold.

I loved that rant to Howard at the end; it’s why I have always loved Odenkirk, he’s so good at being inappropriately angry

plus: it’s ~that~ exact potion of boiling hubristic rage mixed w deep entitlement & bone-deep insecurity that will permanently turn Jimmy into Saul.

Definitely

I liked when the judge asked if these are the witnesses and Huell went 'mmmmhmmmmmmm'

I'm also surprised that Kim is apparently OK with Jimmy working for the goddamn cartel

thought for a minute that they were gonna kidnap Kim

Now that everyone seems to be caught up, wasn't there a shot in the previous to last episode--when Jimmy was shooting the get-Verde video, and Kim offered to come in and help clean up--that suggested Kim was being followed and watched? I kept waiting for either her boss or the Mesa Verde guy to say "Oh Kim, by the way..." at some critical point.

I don't think she knew about the video's contents, or even that it was about Mesa Verde. It was part of what seemed to genuinely shock her at the meeting.

I got the impression that the copyright infringement charge was her idea, but not the commercial

yup, that picture was the thing she saw in the dossier delivered by the guy who broke into the house

I thought she was all-in on the videos/copyright infringement accusation and then decided against that play at the eleventh hour. She was shocked because Jimmy disregarded her decision.

agreed with old lunch

I'd buy that

I didn't explain clearly. When Kim entered the place where Jimmy was doing the shoot, we saw her enter in longshot, as if from the point of view of a car across the surveilling her.

"across the road"

It's been great re-watching this, actually - I realise how much of my mindgrapes were spent trying to work out 'what's Mike doing?' 'what's this scam' etc (sooo many sequences were set up to reveal themselves slowly) and this time I can sit back and enjoy watching it a bit more? Although I'm still trying to work out, e.g. 'hang on, does Gus know Mike and Nacho were working together before?' Obv now I'm back to 'what's he doing now?' mode.
The bit with Jimmy going further than Kim supposedly wanted with the Mesa Verde stuff - I found that almost physically painful to watch.

I liked we got a reference to the 'two previous dissolutions' for Jimmy (I hadn't remembered at all, but there was a ref in BB about Saul's 'second wife slept with my stepdad'.) https://screenrant.com/breaking-bad-better-call-saul-vince-gilligan-plot-hole/

Also, lol @ Lydia keenly piping up to suggest a prison shanking

very onbrand lol

shank or a shiv or whatnot

I liked we got a reference to the 'two previous dissolutions' for Jimmy (I hadn't remembered at all, but there was a ref in BB about Saul's 'second wife slept with my stepdad'.)

I still think about this scene a lot, there's no way they had any clue where the story was going 10 years later when this was filmed. hard to think of another example of a throwaway line leading to such an expansive plot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gM6_FCeiBA

is he saying 'lalo didn't send you"?

"What can I do for you gentleman?!"--Jimmy/Saul, always polite.

I did a double take at Luftwaffle

I couldn't believe that!

Please explain significance of that scary clip?

it's a scene from S2 of Breaking Bad with a throwaway line that references characters who wouldn't be written into the series for 6-8 years

obviously its just sort of a writers trick, leave a breadcrumb that can be referenced later (afaik the writers have admitted a few times they don't really plan things out in advance), but still pretty cool to see that develop into basically half of the show

‘So you’re his *wife* and you *love him* and he didn’t come home last night’

love Lalo’s line delivery

Seems to me that they sort of set Lalo up to just be one of these creepy intense, rando villain type characters that’s terrifying because you never know what he’s going to do, except instead he keeps doing this super sharp, sees through everything, evil genius thing that’s actually a lot more scary.

The Lalo-Kim scene was great, the rest was a long time in the desert minus any and all suspense of will-they-survive? Great hip-hop lesson, though.

?

I'm guessing clemenza is referring to the fact that the episode used "I Got The..." by Labi Siffre, famously sampled in "My Name Is" by Eminem.

Gertcha.

Yeah--I guess that's common knowledge, but it's the first time I'd heard it. Took me a couple of minutes to track it down; I initially googled Lalo Schifrin.

(Because I glanced at the name that came back for "My Name Is sample" too quickly--which I now realize is a Lalo too!)

I appreciated the fact that the space blanket/Chuck connection was pretty obvious but they refrained from spelling it out.

I have a friend who missed that--I'll tell him.

I found the desert trek appropriately tedious x agonizing, even tho of course I knew they weren't gonna die.
Mike, the Complete Pro, acknowledges that he didn't bring more guys (and the one guy just shot and drove off, what the heck?), because he didn't expect all *that* much of an ambush, why not?
Wondering if Lalo didn't send the bushwhackers, so he could get but maybe conceal his bail money--for a while---and see what Gus would do? Since Gus wanted him bustes but then released(why? So Lalo would Feel the Power of Gus?) This would go with getting Gus to torch his own place (Lalo guffawing at "Arson Suspected" headline). Getting Gus to jump through hoops, and prob knows What'sHisName is double-agent (triple, in the sense that he hates Gus for making him work with-against Lalo, though as Mike points out, all this goes back to choices he was warned against).
Lalo does seem like the long-game mastermind at times, but then there's that goofy giggle: "What Fools These Mortals Be"? Was Travel Wire freak-out spontaneous, or part of the long game? Both? Does he fold mistakes into the flow, like the best kind of musician?

"busted," that is.

I don’t think lalo knows that nacho is working with gus

Kim senses that Lalo is responsible for more than Jimmy knew, could even bring Jimmy back? Which would fit w my own "theory."

Why doesn't he know, hasn't supposed it? Things are going the way he wants and/or has turned to his own advantage (folding mistakes into the game etc) Not saying you're wrong, but I haven't noticed anything against my own suspicions.