Spoiler warning: this recap discusses the ninth episode of Better Call Saul on AMC/Netflix.
“Kick off your shoes”
It was all going so well. Chuck’s rehabilitation seems to be working – he’s outside getting grass under his feet – and Jimmy’s nose for a long con has landed him a proper case. Even Chuck has to admit: the Sandpiper Crossing retirement home business is worth taking on. Not only is it a decent thing to do – their elderly clients are being ripped off – but it’s also a case that could run into a multimillion-dollar payment. Jimmy fends off Sandpiper’s expensive lawyer and is ready to tackle the huge document dump they send over to Chuck’s house as a delaying tactic. Chuck puts a damper on proceedings: there’s just no way this is a job for the McGill boys – they simply don’t have the manpower. It’s so big there’s only one thing for it: get HHM involved.
“Finally – out of the mailroom”
Chuck braves the outside world, and arrives at the HHM offices for the first time in months. There’s a standing ovation from the entire firm. Jimmy brings up the rear, carrying a stack of boxes, and squeezes his way on to the conference table. For a moment, it looks like the two McGill boys might be working in offices next to each other, but then Hamlin clears the room. Just to make it absolutely clear, they will be taking over the case from now on. Jimmy’s out. He’ll get a payoff for his work so far, but there’s no job for Jimmy here.
“Confidence is good. Facts on your side? Better”
It’s crushing, and even more so as Jimmy slowly puts together what’s really happened. It isn’t smooth Hamlin, but Chuck who has been trying to sabotage his career. Jimmy notices that his phone has run out of power. He stored it in Chuck’s mailbox (one of the “perks” of living in Chuckland), and it was dead in the morning, so it must have been left on overnight – which he would never do. Jimmy spots a deleted call, checks the phone records, there’s a 2am call … to Hamlin. As we saw, Chuck sneaked out in the middle of the night and, with the help of an oven glove and a pencil to ward off the phone’s harmful radiation, instructed Hamlin exactly how to cut Jimmy out. Jimmy confronts Chuck – who admits he can’t accept the idea that Jimmy’s corner-cutting (specifically his degree from the University of American Samoa) should now mean that they’re equals. Even though Jimmy has looked after him, indulged his electromagnetic hypersensitivity and kept him stocked up with steak, Chuck still doesn’t trust his little brother. “Slipping Jimmy with a law degree is like a chimp with a machine gun!” he says. The McGill Bros are through.
“What you packing?”
Never take a knife to a gun fight, unless you’re Mike, in which case, bringing a cheese sandwich is more than sufficient. On the recommendation of the Vet (who seems to have some kind of reputation for being a guy who knows a guy), Mike finds himself hanging out in a car park with a man-mountain and a motormouth keen to compare notes on his arsenal of guns. Their employer for the day is a civilian in sport socks who is borrowing his nephew’s name Pryce as an alias. (Not the toughest of street names, but still). Mr Motormouth tries to cut “Uncle Fester” (ie Mike) out of the deal; Mike dispatches him with ease and drives off with Pryce. It’s a one-man job, after all.
“Probably the less talk the better”
They wait for Pryce’s connection to arrive: ah, hello again, Mr Varga. Mike makes sure Nacho doesn’t rip off Pryce; the envelope he hands over in exchange for Pryce’s pharmaceuticals is light by $20. It’s always good to see Mike in action, and the puppy stuff with Kaylee and her mother was nicely played, but here’s hoping we have some more Mike and Jimmy interaction next week. There’s something a bit disjointed about their separate storylines in this week’s episode.
Notes and queries
- “The lesson is, if you want to be a criminal, do your homework … I’ve known good criminals and bad cops, bad priests and honourable thieves. You can be on one side of the law or the other, but if you make a deal with somebody, you better keep your word.” Great speech from Mike, who for once breaks his rule about idle chatter.
- This season, Chuck will mainly be wearing pinstripe suits lined with space blankets.
- “Lying, miserable pig-fucker” – Jimmy’s got such an ear for creative swearing.
- Pimento sandwich? It’s the “caviar of the south”, apparently. Anyone tried it?
- “We can Erin Brockovich the shit out of this.” Is Jimmy hoping Julia Roberts will play him in the Jimmy McGill film?
- Anyone else wonder if the car park where Mike meets Pryce was the same one where Gus had a lucky escape in End Times during Breaking Bad’s fourth season?
- “You’re like a damn pod person!” For some reason, it seems like Jimmy would be a fan of the Donald Sutherland version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
- “Slippin’ Jimmy with a law degree is like a chimp with a machine gun!” Hang on, that’s a great idea …
- There is one episode to go before the end of the season. There’s an interesting quote from Vince Gilligan over on Deadline.com: “I worried all through season one that we weren’t getting to Saul Goodman fast enough. Now I’ve come around 180 degrees, and I’m thinking, ‘God, I don’t want to get to Saul too quick,’ [because] I love Jimmy McGill so much.” The key question for Gilligan isn’t how long it takes to turn Jimmy McGill into Saul Goodman, but what problem does becoming Saul Goodman solve? Will we get to see what that is next week?
