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Better Call Saul “Nailed” Review

You know the
drill. There are spoilers ahead so tread
lightly
(hehehehe)…

Now that was an hour of
super solid
television viewing! You know how I measure good TV watching?
When the episode
ends and you
feel like that that’s impossible because you just started
watching. With
one episode to go before the
finale, Better Call
Saul
certainly brought the heat last night
bringing a number of story lines

to a boiling point (that heat/boiling joke analogy happened totally by
accident.
Totally natural I
swear).

Let’s start with Mike because (a) he’s
awesome, (b) he
opened the show, and (c) because I
want to. While things have
been mostly quiet on the Mike front the last
couple of weeks we knew that all

those stake outs and Hoses of Doom weren’t for nothing, and this week we
got
our payoff. Ever since
Hector forced Mike into taking the rap for the gun in the
Tuco altercation
you know that this has been a
matter of pride. It’s clear
that Mike comes from the Billy Joel mentality,
don’t take any shit from
anyone,
and after carefully planning it was time to get his
retribution.

I have to
say that hiding a boat load of
money inside truck tires is
kind of
ingenious, and leave it to Mike to figure it out. This is a
character that is
always the smartest
man in the room and doesn’t take action until he’s 100%
that everything
has been mapped out perfectly. Mike
takes a lot of pride in his
work, and the meticulous precision of the truck
assault has that fully on

display. And there’s that word again. Pride. You could hear it when Mike
said
that he hasn’t forgotten
about Hector (great moment), you could see it when he
learned that his
actions got an innocent person killed,
and you could feel it
bubbling over when he bought the bar a round (which
could be the most social
we’ve
ever seen him). Mike won’t stop until he feels that he’s evened the
score
with Hector and I’m willing to
bet that the killing of the bystander, who
helped the truck driver, leaves
more work to be done. And while
Nacho knows
what’s going on, Mike doesn’t seem bothered, and Jonathan
Banks played that
secret meeting
soooooo cool. This guys continues to bring it each and
every week
(can you say another Emmy nod? I
can), and part of me wonders if
Banks and Mike are the same
person.

Side Note: Could

everyone’s favorite diner waitress, Fran, be a possible love interest for
our
gruff badass? She
certainly seemed real interested in Mike saving his
energy to
shovel any possible snow that covers
her driveway.

Speaking of
love interest, Jimmy and Kim really took
their relationship to the next
level
(welcome to the dark side Kim). But before we can discuss that we need
to talk
about the
ramifications of Jimmy’s actions from last week. Watching that whole
“wrong
address” play out in the hearing
was all sorts of uncomfortable. While
Jimmy’s scams up until this point
have been funny/entertaining there
was
something vindictive and ruthless watching this one play out. This could

possibly be due to us having
some sort of a relationship with Chuck and the fact
that he’s not just some
random face in a hotel bar.
Watching that embarrassing
court room scene play it out really made me feel
for Chuck. Over the course of

two seasons I’ve understood his biased against Jimmy, and while I haven’t

necessarily liked hearing the
truth, I know he made valid points. Jimmy has this
kind of puppy dog quality
to him though, that even though
he pisses on the rug
you believe he’ll eventually learn not to. There’s
hope for redemption and
that’s
even with the knowledge of how he’ll turn out in Breaking Bad.
You
just want this guy to do the
right thing, and boy did he do a whole lot of
the wrong things this
week.

Yes it
resulted in Kim getting the Mesa Verde
account back, but at what cost?
At his
core you have to believe that Jimmy is a family man. Kim had it right
when she
said that he
idolizes Chuck, but after a life time of being told he’s not good
enough
there was only so much he could
take. There’s a parallel between Chuck
and Jimmy’s father here. Each of
them either didn’t believe or
ignored him,
and when that became too much to bear, Jimmy lashed out;
stealing money or in
this case
trying to destroy Chuck’s career. Chuck frantically looking through
the
files and piecing together what
happened lead to this seasons best scene
thus far.

The encounter in
Chuck’s living room was something
out of some
tin foil version of Game of Thrones. Chuck takes the
fact that he lost
the account
fairly well, under the circumstances, and despite his bitterness
he
needs Kim to know the type of
man his brother is because he does
respect her as a professional. He
perfectly pieces together everything
Jimmy did
(boom lawyered!), and while Jimmy protests the absurdity of it all
(a little
unconvincingly I
might add), Kim stands there and listens to it all. When we
discover Chuck
is only telling her this so
she’ll have to report it to Mesa
Verde and Jimmy could face possible jail
time over fraud charges, she has
her
fill. And then…Kim. Throws. It. Down.

Kim flat out tells Chuck
that he
is the reason Jimmy
is the way he is. That all he’s ever wanted was his brother
to treat him
like an equal and respect him, but
has constantly heard how he’s
not good enough or will never amount to
anything legit. She even throws in the

relationship killer, “I feel bad for him”, (ouch) but also adds that she
feels
bad for Chuck. This scene
was perfect. Rhea Seehorn (who has been strong all
season) really brought it
here calling out Chuck on his
“bullshit”. You know
there was no way that she didn’t know Jimmy wasn’t
involved (after all Chuck
said
he did it for love…how touching?) and she proved it when they got in the

car and she started punching Jimmy
in the arm. I was worried what Kim sweeping
this under the rug and not
acknowledging it would mean to her
character, and we
didn’t have to wait long to find out.

Lying in
bed, not willing to talk
about
the living room intervention, Kim finally gives in to her dark side. All

season long she’s had fun playing
around and scamming people, but last night
she took her first steps in being
just like Jimmy. The whole “if
you had been
the one to do this I would make sure” speech is Kim’s
agreement to live this
kind of life
with Jimmy, and just confirms the fact that Jimmy can corrupt just
about
anything. Kim is no longer the
pure/do things by the book gal and I wonder
how much deeper she will sink
working in the same building as
Jimmy. They say
the first one is always the hardest.

Kim’s

bedtime speech leads Jimmy
to make sure everything is indeed cleaned up so he
returns to everyone’s
favorite 24 hour copy shop.
Seriously, who is making
copies this late at night?! Is there some sort of
huge demographic for late

night copying in New Mexico that I don’t know about? In classic Jimmy style
he
pays off the cashier with
a little charm and a bunch of Benjamin’s
(“yeah…that’s my guy”), and
again allows himself to skate free
of any legal
trouble.

Except not all trouble comes in the legal form
and Jimmy sure
gets what’s
owed to him. His actions have clearly driven Chuck over the edge
and he
storms into the copy shop demanding
to know if the cashier saw his
brother there. After each denial Chuck
becomes more and more unnerved which I

guess allows technology to run wild over him (brother) and then

collapses, hitting his head on a
desk, while Jimmy stands across the street
watching the whole thing. While I
didn’t want to see anything
terrible happen
to Chuck (I stand by my theory that he’s going to die) I
couldn’t help but
feel that
Jimmy deserved this. The road to hell is paved in blood (is that the
saying
or did I just make that up?) and
Jimmy needs to be held accountable for
his actions in some form or other.
While he may have changed the
addresses out
of love and to stick it to Chuck that doesn’t take away his
admiration for his
brother.
Standing across the street unable to help has to be killing him, and
plays
off as the ultimate comeuppance.
This is where Jimmy and Walter White
differ. Walt would be able to
rationalize this and use it to his
advantage, if
something serious happens to Chuck I think this will weigh on
Jimmy his whole
life (re-
visit my theory about becoming Saul Goodman is a way of forgetting
Jimmy
McGill ever existed)

Some
quick thoughts before I leave
you:

  • I loved how Kim
    defends Jimmy and the very next scene
    is
    him doing what he does best. Everything about that school yard commercial
    scene
    was fantastic. His
    ability to come up with these ridiculous premises, that are
    so outlandish
    they almost seem true, is uncanny.
    He doesn’t miss a beat here
    even when his idiot make up artist tries to
    derail him.
  • Quick

    Theory: Do you guys remember in Breaking Bad when Mike and Jesse
    went
    on that dessert road trip
    picking up buried money? I don’t know but this truck
    thing make me think of
    that. Maybe the money they were
    digging up was money Mike
    had stolen from the tire heist?

  • Kim
    in jeans seemed unnatural.

    Like she was too relaxed almost. Does that make sense?

  • Best
    line
    of the night, when
    asked if he robbed a bank Jimmy responds that his biggest
    crime is, “some
    times I go number two and don’t
    flush”, hahahahaha
  • It looks like Mike and Jimmy’s stories
    are meant to stay separate

    this season. I have no real problem with that as both stories have been
    ultra

    compelling.

There you have it Geeklings. What did you think
of
this weeks episode? How
do you think the season finale is going to shake out?
Can Kim be saved or is
she too far gone at this point?
Sound off in the comments
below.

 

Images from
AMC

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