5x02 50% Off

[7.8/10] People will go to incredible lengths when something matters enough to them. If something we care about is at stake, something stirs in the blood, something that pushes beyond the places that we usually go. It can cause us to take chances we wouldn’t normally take, or cross boundaries we wouldn’t normally transgress.

That’s definitely true for Nacho in this episode. If there’s been a consistent trend to his character over the course of the show, it’s that he’s apt to keep things stable if possible. He’s not someone who likes to rock the boat. He’s more thoughtful, more calculating, than the hot-blooded Salamancas he inevitably works with.

But the other consistent throughline is that Nacho loves his father and will take chances, put himself at risk, in ways that he wouldn’t normally do in order to protect the man who raised him. It’s frightening when Gus Fring’s goons kidnap Nacho late in the evening and make him watch as one of the henchman implicitly threatens his dad. It’s in keeping with Gus’s M.O. from prior series, invoking threats to loved ones to assure compliance, and his usual calm demeanor through it all only makes it more concerning.

Michael Mando does a superb job selling the magnitude of that threat. There is a raw desperation to him when he’s begging Gus not to go through with it, when he says that he’ll find a way to earn Lalo’s trust. Nacho confirms that he was intentionally stepping on the package (presumably to give Gus an edge in the marketplace?) and that he’s been following Fring’s orders. But Gus perceives the threat that Lalo represents and is willing to push his mole to his absolute limits in order to protect himself against his plotting rival. The button to push is Nacho’s father, and Gus knows that.

In a way, it’s the same kind of button that Jimmy’s trying to push. He’s chasing an image of success with his current racket, but also one of familial connection. As I’ve said multiple times before, Kim now occupies the space in Jimmy’s life that Chuck once did, trying to hold him back from his worst impulses and representing the person whose approval Jimmy is desperate to get.

The difference is that Kim likes and even loves Jimmy. Their problems aren’t going away -- the fact that Jimmy mistakes Kim’s objections to his line of work as an objection to him offering discounts confirms that -- but there’s something legitimate between them. The way they horse around in the shower, speak frankly to one another about their dreams and concerns, confirms that there’s something real binding them together even as more and more seems to threaten to tear them apart under the surface.

Jimmy’s blind to that though. He imagines the two of them in a big house together, enjoying the spoils of success together, making a future together. It’s tragic because that’s a future we know (or at least have good reason to think), he’ll never see. Jimmy is hustling more than ever -- a point that “50% Off” underlines -- but it’s not just for the sake of the game, it’s for the sake of living a dream life with Kim that he believes is finally within reach.

We know that dream’s liable to fall apart, but “50% Off” also gives us a glimpse of what it feels like when that type of connection dissipates. The briefest check-in in this episode is with Mike, who is once again babysitting his granddaughter. The visit goes well, with the grizzled pro enlisting her help in a home improvement project and using football to teach her times tables at the same time. Everything’s hunky dory until Kaylee starts asking about her father.

It’s then that Mike starts staring off into the middle distance, forced to think once again about how his son lost his life thanks to getting mixed up in his father’s muck. Maybe it’s a stretch on my part, but I’d also like to think he connects it with his grief over Werner, seeing another good man taken down by a world of killers and thieves that Mike is active and complicit in. At the very least, Mike is still raw over it, as indicated by a home littered with beer cans and misery. So he takes it out on his granddaughter, his son’s child, whom all of this is supposed to be for.

It’s tough to watch. Jonathan Banks nails the scene as always, and you feel his hurt and lament his misplaced anger. Mike is someone who did whatever he had to in order to look after his family, particularly to soothe his soul after Matty’s death. But years later, with more blood on his hands, it’s debatable whether that tack has made things better or worse for him.

Jimmy’s hoping it can still make things better for him though. Once again, it’s fun to see him do what he does best. The show does a nice job at dramatizing how much Jimmy is overloading himself, aiming to churn through cases to build up his bankroll, with the oner of him traipsing through the courthouse. It captures the flurry of activity as Jimmy rolls through everyone from clients on the phone, to opposing DAs, to Howard Hamlin, striking a conciliatory tone and making his first season 5 appearance. We understand why Jimmy is doing all this -- to pay off his dream with Kim -- but the how is still entertaining.

His tricks, however, don’t seem to work on Suzanne Ericsen, the DA who tried to put Huell away and still seems to hold some resentment for the newly-dubbed Saul Goodman. She correctly sniffs out his churn plan and tells him that it’s his problem, not hers. So Jimmy takes it a step further. He bribes the elevator guy to get them stuck together and makes himself annoying enough that Suzanne would rather negotiate with him over their fifteen cases than listen to him rehearse anymore.

Jimmy gets what he wants. This is far from the most devious trick he’s ever played, but it’s indicative of the lengths he’ll go to achieve his goals. He is not, as Kim did, bending the rules in order to get the outcome that he thinks is truly right. He’s valuing speed over justice, gamesmanship over conscientiousness, with the idea that it’ll speed up his business and help cement his life with the person he cares about. It’s a shortcut, one made in the name of an important relationship.

In a strange way, Nacho is trying to do the same. It’s no secret that he and Lalo are not exactly on the same page. But Gus demands that he ingratiate himself to Salamanca du jour as the war between that family and “the chicken man” gradually escalates. So Nacho has to take some chances himself, accelerate a bond between him and his boss, to protect the life of his father.

Thankfully, a pair of idiots create the perfect opportunity. Granted, the episode spends way too much time on the moronic duo who are so inspired by Saul Goodman’s titular half-off promise that they go on an extended crime spree and use it as a refrain. But the pair’s efforts leads them to run afoul of one of the Salamanca drug distribution spots, eventually leading the cops to it.

Unfortunately for Lalo and his crew, there was a nearly-full pack of the product in question stashed in their safe house, one that’s all but sure to be forfeited as the cops swarm the place. But Nacho sees an opportunity. Without asking permission, he bolts over to the house, takes a page from his web-slinging acquaintance and leaps across rooftops, narrowly avoiding the police while recovering the stash.

The sequence is less tense that the well-done direction and composition would suspect, given that the plot all but demands that Nacho succeed. But still, Lalo declares him a badass, gives him a little more autonomy in their next scene together, and seems to trust Nacho more than he did before after his daring move. It was a chancey decision from Nacho, but one that created an opening for him with Lalo, and helps him protect his dad.

In some ways that’s a simple story, but the one that winds its way through both Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad. One character or another chugs through the status quo; something comes along that puts their loved ones’ future at risk, and so they go to extremes to take care of those people. But that’s only half of the equation. More often than not in this storytelling universe, there’s a cost to those extremes, something lost when the endless hustle and avoidance of consequences catches up to you.

It already has for Mike. Jimmy’s future is clouded by what we know of his destination. And as Nacho tugs ever harder on that thread, it may soon unravel for him too.