Better Call Saul “Klick” Review

Have you ever sat back and
asked yourself why do you watch TV? Or
maybe more specifically why you watch
certain shows on TV? There are
tons of
other things you could do with your time so what is it about this
colored box
that draws you in?
For me that answer is simple. I love stories. I’m obsessed
with stories. I
crave them at all times and get
them from all different types of
mediums. Books? Check. Comics? Check.
Movies? Check. Television? Check. What
I
love the most about television is the ability to spend such a long time
with a
group of characters and
really understand their motivations and actions. Great
television, and I
mean great television
(The Shield, Breaking Bad,
LOST…I don’t care what you think
about the finale (P.S. you’re
probably
wrong) LOST was amazing!) is like a literary experience.
There is so
much to dissect
and pull that it becomes literal; something you can break down
and discuss
and have tremendous conversations
about. Would I say that Better
Call Saul is one of the best shows
ever created for television? No,
not
yet. Will I say that it’s story telling is better and more engaging
than most
things on TV right
now? You bet your sweet bippy I will (I didn’t want to say
ass here…
Well, looks like it’s too late for
that.).

I was so happy that the

season finale opened with a
flashback because it helped set the tone for the
episode in a lot of ways.
Throughout the shows two seasons
we’ve seen the
differences between Chuck and Jimmy. Chuck is incredibly
intelligent, a hell of
a lawyer,
and does things by the book. On the flip side Jimmy is incredibly

intelligent in a street smart way, looking
to bend the rules to his benefit, and
is constantly looking for the love and
approval of his brother Chuck.
So much in
fact that he becomes a lawyer in this sad attempt to get Chuck’s
seal of
approval or some
acknowledgement that he’s worth the time. But what we learned
through this
flashback isn’t just how much
Chuck resents and dislikes Jimmy,
but how in some ways he’s living
in Jimmy’s shadow. The fact
that his
mother wakes up before her death and calls for Jimmy tears Chuck up
inside. Why
Jimmy? Jimmy is
a good for nothing. Chuck has done everything right and still
can’t seem to
grasp that acknowledgment from
his mother before she dies. This
relationship between the two brothers is
just a circle of sadness. Each of
them
projecting shadows that neither one could escape. They’ve built a
relationship
that can be nothing
but destructive, and while Chuck not telling Jimmy what
their mother’s last
words were are sort of dickish
(can I say that? Eyemuffs.)
and and a device used to make us hate him even
more when the ending comes… I

sort of get it. Not that I agree with it but I understand.

For what
it’s
worth this episode was
mostly Chuck’s with everyone else playing bit roles, and
yes Jimmy’s role
was bigger (it’s his name on the
marque people) but Chuck
can’t have a story without the existence of Jimmy.
When Better Call
Saul
started my initial reaction to Chuck’s condition was that it was a
bit
outlandish for this universe. It
didn’t really seem to fit, but as the show
has progressed it has made more
and more sense and has become
less of an illness
and more of an extension of Chuck’s personality. Last
night was the first
episode
where I actually felt the terror that must coarse through Chuck as he
tries
to prevent technology from eating
his soul. That scene of him on the
stretcher was tremendously shot and did
such an extraordinary job of
instilling
that fear inside you as Chuck struggled to have his voice heard.
As painful and
uncomfortable
as it was to watch it is one of the shows finest scenes and I
think in some
ways will help define the
tremendous story telling ability of the
show.

While Chuck was at the
forefront this week it doesn’t
mean that
Jimmy was in the background as a matter of fact it was quite the
contrary. For
the majority of
the finale Jimmy was right by Chuck’s side acting as a
concerned brother,
and I felt that this was coming
from a genuine place. I loved
that even though it meant damning himself, he
ran out of the shadows into the
24
hour copy shop in order to get Chuck help. There was a portion of this
episode
where I believe Jimmy
was acting out of guilt for what he had done, but
somewhere in the middle it
passed. Yes, Jimmy felt the
initial guilt of causing
Chuck to have his “technology everywhere sucking my
will to live panic attack”,

but it was his love and idolization of his brother that prompted him to care
and
to try and make things
right.
Then we get to the end.
That ending.
Everything we’ve learned about Jimmy is
that he’s able to play
the long con really well. His ability to set things
up and close them is what

makes him the perfect scammer, and we assumed that because Jimmy is Jimmy
and
Chuck is Chuck that it was
just a one way street. Oh how wrong we were. Chuck is
just as good at the
con but what makes it worse is that
when he does it it comes
from a malicious place. It comes from his hatred
and resentment of

Jimmy.

The whole sending of the retirement letter to Howard and the

painting the house with tin
foil blankets was nothing short of brilliant. I
wonder when season three
comes around if we’ll find out that
Howard was
involved in this. And based off of what we have seen of Chuck
this episode, we
were conned
too. All episode long he was disheveled, out of sorts, and broken so
why
would we believe that he was
actually doing his most clear thinking? Jimmy
confesses to his crime out of
guilt but also out of love. For
all his mixed up
actions there is one thing that is certain and that’s that
Jimmy loves Chuck.
Seeing
him believe that he was broken and useless killed Jimmy and he
did
the one thing he could do to make
his brother feel whole again… he
confessed. Without prompting. Without
hesitation. Jimmy gave up the farm
(in
what was one of Bob Odenkirk’s best scenes this season) with a touch of

tenderness and genuine
compassion. What an impactful moment seeing this
character that we know as
such a slimeball and liar straight
up tell the truth
because he cares about the person he hurt. It was a
touching moment and could
have been
the turning a corner and then…

We find out that Chuck was
taping
the whole thing. My notes at this
point actually read “And the son of a
bitch was recording him. Oh sh*t”.
Chuck played the player and he
played him
hard. What could have been a cornerstone moment for Jimmy will no
doubt lead to
the
destruction of his relationship with Chuck and the emergence of Saul

Goodman. Cause why not? If the people
you love are going to turn on you (or turn
you in) when you’re being honest
and genuine then why would any
one else
deserve that? Long live Saul Goodman! But something tells me we’ve
got some
more to deal with
before that happens. That’s why we’ll watch season three to
see how Jimmy
gets out of this one
(magnets?).

Wait!! I have a few
more
things to say before you
guys leave because Mike was in this episode too! Even
if it was brief he had
one of the more impactful
moments of the episode. On his
crusade to get his revenge with Hector, Mike
buys himself a sniper rifle,

follows Nacho and the gang out into the desert, hides behind some rocks, and

waits for his moment.
Everything about this scene was very tense as The Cousins
first came out of
the house followed by Hector and
Nacho. Watching the scene
unfold through the scope of Mike’s rifle was
perfect and added to the

desperation of him wanting to take that shot. I loved his strange

loyalty to Nacho. The two of
them have a bond together and while Nacho isn’t a
good guy, Mike approves
of him, and wouldn’t shoot him to
get to Hector. Thus
allowing his opportunity to slip him by. Mike has a code
of ethics and it’s

respectable and what makes him so compelling. Hands down Mike is one of my

favorite characters in the
Breaking Bad universe and I’m so glad
that Better Call Saul
exists so I can spend more
time with
him.

Right as Mike is planning to do something with that
rifle (my
thought was something
to draw Hector out of the house again) a car horn starts
blaring through the
quiet desert. And this is where
I geeked out Geeklings. Mike
comes to his car and removes a stick lodged
between the chair and the horn and

everything goes silent. There’s just the sound of the desert and Mike’s

movements and I at this point
haven’t blinked in like five minutes. Then Mike
finds the note, DON’T…
and I lost it. Correct me if I’m
wrong (which I know
I’m not) but that has to be Gus right?! Who else would
be tracking the
movements of
Hector and The Cousins? Who else would intervene because they
believe that
Hector’s fate belongs to them?
It’s freakin’ Gus people! He’s
arrived! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! And while Mike
didn’t have a tremendous amount of

screen time in the finale that little moment made it all worth it.
(Fun
Fact: I read
today that the first letter of every episode of season two
can be arranged
to spell out FringsBack. A trick
that was used in season two
of Breaking Bad with the airplane story
line.)

Quick notes

before I leave you-

• Ernie had my two favorite lines of the

  episode. Lying for Jimmy was a
  bold move and finding out he did because he sees
  Jimmy as a friend was
  touching. I also loved hearing him say
  under his breath
  immediately after, “I miss the mail room”.

• After such a great
  season I
  was saddened to see Kim pushed to the background this episode. I guess
  her
  big moment was last week when she
  acknowledged Jimmy’s actions without
  acknowledging them, but I still felt
  there should have been a bit more
  fall out
  there.
• Watching Jimmy’s commercial air was fun and a
  call back
  to the answering
  machine in the boiler room office as he turned his phone on in
  hopes that
  calls would start pouring
  in.
• Self induced catatonic
  sounds like the scariest thing
  ever.
• The episode
  title comes from
  the sound the tape recorder makes when it gets turned off.
  Insert gut wrenching

  here.

There you have it Geeklings! The second season
of
Better Call Saul has
wrapped and Jimmy looks to be in a bad spot
come season three, and Gus looks
to be on the horizon. What did
you guys think?
Any theories? Thoughts? Feel free to sound off in the
comments below, and tune
in Sunday
when I write my season review. Until then my

friends…

 

Images from AMC