Eric Bay-Andersen reviews the third and fourth episode of Better Call Saul season 2…
At the end of episode 2, Kim gave Jimmy an ultimatum – she didn’t approve of his morally questionable methods, and if he carried on with them it would be a real sticking point in their fledgling relationship. As episode 3 opens, we discover that he just can’t help himself – since soliciting the Sandpiper residents directly at their rest home is illegal, Jimmy bribes their coach driver to take a five-minute pit-stop during their day out so he can charm them into signing up for Davis & Main’s services. Later in the episode, Jimmy takes it step further by making an advert to be shown during the commercial break of Murder She Wrote – a sure-fire way to reach his elderly target audience without actually entering the Sandpiper facility.
In an amusing scene, Jimmy pitches and films the advert with the help of two typical film students (read: pretentious little snots), and Kim is impressed with how professional it looks. Jimmy leads her to believe he has his bosses approval to air it (when all they said was they’ll think about it) and although the advert proves effective, they are very angry with him for going over their heads and potentially tarnishing Davis & Main’s reputation. Something this episode highlights is Jimmy’s good qualities – he has a genuine rapport with the old folks without patronising them, and his “overzealous” actions regarding the advert may have technically been out of line, but his methods (like they usually do) produced results.
Episode 3, taken on its own, is not a stand-out episode – the performances are uniformly great, and it contains key plot points which will come into play further down the line, but it feels a bit like marking time before something more dramatic happens. Which it does. In ‘Gloves Off’, Jimmy is put on a final warning by his bosses, and Kim is sentenced to document duty in HHM’s basement for knowing about Jimmy’s plan and failing to tell the partners. Jimmy goes to Chuck’s house to call him out for punishing her this way, which leads to an argument almost as explosive as their bust-up and the end of season one. Again, both Bob Odenkirk and Michael McKean are superb in this scene, but credit must go to McKean especially for being able to make Chuck always seem like the reasonable one of the pair, when actually he’s nearly always being smug and/or unfair. Their obvious (if reluctant) bond is nicely depicted by the fact that Jimmy is forced to care of ailing brother when he first arrives at his house, postponing yelling at him until he’s feeling better.
Episode 3 focused mainly on Jimmy rather than Mike, but episode four this ratio shifts, making for the best episode so far this season. Clearly impressed with how he handled Pryce’s situation, Nacho approaches Mike to ask for help with a situation of his own, and the consequences of this deal are shown in episode 4’s brilliant flash-forward cold opening – Mike arrives home late at night with a stack of money, a gold boxing glove charm and a severely bruised face (the slow reveal of this reminded me of Gus Fring’s famous ‘Two Face’ reveal in Breaking Bad). The rest of the episode shows how Mike arrived at that point, and it involves the return of one of Breaking Bad’s most dangerous antagonists – Tuco.
Nacho asks Mike to kill Tuco because he’s getting increasingly violent and unstable, having killed a guy called Dog Paulson after taking crystal meth (an event which Hank mentions in Breaking Bad). Mike takes the job to help his daughter and grand-daughter move out of their neighbourhood, which is seeing an increase in crime. Nacho suggests shooting Tuco from across the street after one of their routine deals, and Mike considers this, even going so far as to inspect some potential rifles for the job. This scene which is noteworthy for two reasons – we learn that Mike is a Vietnam vet (it isn’t said, but it’s heavily implied) and the gun dealer in the scene is Lawson, who sold guns to Walter White on two separate occasions in Bad (“I make my living by repeat business”)
Mike ultimately decides not to kill Tuco, but instead calls the cops and manipulates Tuco into assaulting him just as the cops arrive – an outstanding scene, as tense as anything in Breaking Bad. That way Tuco goes to jail (most likely the stretch during which he meets Skinny Pete), Nacho is free of him, and Mike doesn’t have to murder anyone. Why he chose not to kill Tuco is left ambiguous – Nacho points out he would have got more money for it, he would have saved face (literally), and now there’s the possibility of Tuco seeking revenge when he gets out of prison. Mike’s reasons may be revealed/become clearer as the season goes on, but personally I think the references to Vietman and the drawing by Mike’s granddaughter (which is prominently displayed on the fridge when he returns home) suggest that Mike wants to be a better person than perhaps he’s been in the past. Still, we know that somewhere along the way this morality will be eroded, as in Breaking Bad he kills quite a few people without hesitation (and at some point Tuco somehow gets his boxing glove charm back). Season 2 continues to enthrall and intrigue…
Eric Bay-Andersen
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