5x03 The Guy for This

[8.3/10] I could write an entire review just trying to decode all the little images that “The Guy for This” deposits. One of the things that set Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul apart is their penchant for that type of symbolism, letting the visual convey as much of what the audience is supposed to take away as the dialogue. So when an episode opens with ants slowly but surely descending on Jimmy’s ice cream cone, and ends with the aftermath, you know it’s supposed to mean something.

The easiest interpretation is that it’s a visual metaphor for the slow degradation of what Jimmy has. You’re enjoying something sweet, something good, and then the unexpected happens to turn it all upside down. Then one scavenger shows up to take a cut, then they tell a few more, and a few more tell a lot more, until eventually, the whole hive is there. Finally, you return to find what you had melted, with nothing but insects wanting their taste crawling around.

You can stretch that to Jimmy’s plot here, where his connection to one little bit of crime with Tuco led him here. You can stretch it to his broader arc this season, where his new practice colors outside the lines, but is mostly on the up-and-up, until he gets involved with the cartels and suddenly finds himself surrounded by them. Or you can read it as his story across two shows, where ever since he earned his law degree, his inability to put Slippin’ Jimmy to rest opened the door for bloodsuckers to come to him and lead him into this swarm.

Or maybe it’s just a cool shot of melted ice cream.

Either way, whatever that sequence means, it's cool to see the plot mechanics spin into place. The thing that really drives Better Call Saul is its incredible character work, bolstered by outstanding performances, which connect to piercing themes and an aesthetic bent. But it also knows how to spin a twisty plot that leaves you on the edge of your seat waiting to find out what happens next. As much of a stupendous slow burn as this series usually is, when it starts tying things together, it makes you bite your nails waiting for the boom.

Here, that results in a series of scheme that tie all corners of the show together, and even ties into Breaking Bad. It starts with Nacho’s suggestion that Lalo bring Saul in to handle the situation with Krazy 8. Lalo actually has a pretty good plan, which involves getting Krazy 8 back on the street by ratting out to the police, but about Gus Fring’s operation rather than the Salamancas. It’s a clever way to solve two problems at once: keeping a low-level guy who’s never done jail time from cracking in the joint while also using the police to put pressure on a rival.

The only catch for the title character is that he doesn't want to be involved in this. What’s particularly interesting about this interlude is how Saul’s brought in because Nacho has seen his resourcefulness first hand. Lalo even comments on his “mouth” in the same way that Tuco did. And yet, while Saul can use his gift of gab to get out of plenty of situatiions, he can’t manage to avoid doing this job. Even when he tries to offer alternative solutions or price himself out of the proffered task, Lalo pushes past it.
So he gets in and works his old Slippin’ Jimmy charms. Not only does he coach up Krazy 8 about what to say to the police, but he helps grease the wheels of justice when his “client” actually has to face them. And those police turn out to be...Hank and Gomey!

It’s a nice way to integrate them into the world of Better Call Saul. I’ll admit, for a show that’s already gotten a little too cute with its connections to the world of Breaking Bad (see also: the origin of Hector’s bell), I don’t know that we really needed this pair back in action on the spin-off. But if they’re going to be included, this is a great way to do it. Not only does the show nicely reintroduce the pair of DEA agents, hinting at who’s arrived before their faces fill the frame, but it makes them formidable opponents for Jimmy’s efforts to make good on his, shall we say persuasive, clientele.

That’s because Hank sniffs out the ruse. Even when Jimmy does the whole “lawyer trying to prevent his client from giving away the game” routine, Hank doesn't buy it. The show nicely walks the line with Hank, making him still the crass bulldog of a man he was before we found him sympathetic, but showing some solid police instincts with him. His banter with Gomey is still on point, but he’s also smart enough to go toe-to-toe with Jimmy and extract some concessions in his usual hard-headed way.

The plot means that Jimmy needs to mainly come out on top here. He gets Krazy 8 out on the “contingency” of the cops finding something based on his information and making arrests. He secures safe passage for his client so that he doesn't get fingered as a rat by his criminal associates. And he even tries to protect Krazy 8’s well-being by limiting his police confidential informant status to these two cops and these two cops only, giving Better Call Saul a convenient excuse to keep our favorite DEA special agents in the fold.

The one catch is that Jimmy tries to make this a one-time deal and can’t. He tries to beg off after laying out the terms of the deal to Lalo and Nacho, pleading that he has too busy of a schedule to keep up, but Lalo says he’ll make time. The ants have swarmed, the ice cream is melted, and he’s a part of this now, whether it was in the plan or not. That’s what Nacho tells him -- it doesn't matter what he wants -- when you’re in, you’re in.

It’s just one of many lines of dialogue in this episode said to one person and meant for another. Nacho is nominally talking to Saul about how he’s stuck with them now, but he’s really talking to himself. Whether Nacho wants to be in a life of crime or run away, he doesn't have a choice. He’s in too deep now, and there’s little, if anything, he can do to extricate himself.

That’s because he has to play all sides at this point. He tries to help fix things with Lalo, to continue ingratiating himself to his boss, by getting Saul to solve the Krazy 8 problem. But that just leads Lalo to trying to sic the DEA on Gus, which means Nacho needs to warn Gus about what’s coming, which mean he continues to be in the precarious position between two dangerous crime bosses who are trying to take one another out.

And yet, the most powerful scene in the episode comes when Nacho is confronted by his father. Mr Varga shows up to Nacho’s apartment to tell him about an offer he received to buy his store. But Nacho’s father is smart too, and like Lalo and Hank and even one recalcitrant would-be homesteader, he sees through the bullshit.

Mr. Varga knows that his son is fronting the money, trying to get his dad to leave town. But he refuses to leave. He refuses to take dirty money. He has a principle, and he won’t bend it for his son. You feel for Nacho, because he’s trying to protect his father through all of this. Whatever he wants or doesn't want, he doesn't have a choice at this point. The ants have swarmed him too, but he’s doing everything he can to keep his dad out of the muck. Mr. Varga is just too much a combination of stubborn and honorable to take the deal.

That puts Nacho and Kim in strangely similar positions. Her goal in this episode is to get an old man to move off his property, because it’s in the way of a major Mesa Verde development a la Up (or, Kelo v. New London if you’re legal-minded). She too tries to play nice with the old man standing on ceremony, offering him money, trying to make him see reason, only to be rebuffed due to the principle of the thing.

He’s only the second of three stubborn old men in “The Guy for This” though. The episode only briefly checks in on Mike, who’s drinking himself to death as he continues to mourn Werner. While the bartender tries to get him to leave, telling him he’s had enough, Mike won’t budge. He turns over his keys and orders another. He demands the bartender take down a postcard of the Sydney opera house, with the implication that it reminds him of Werner’s yarn about his father’s involvement in. He’s ready to inflict pain on random toughs, because he himself is raw. Mike is frustrated at what he’s had to do as part of his job, and it’s eating him up in that old familiar stoic-but-wounded Mike Ehrmantraut way.

That, again, oddly puts him in line with Kim. One of the big themes of “The Guy for This” is what people will do for money and how much of their soul and principle it costs them in the process. Kim is trying hard to maintain hers. She’s excited at the prospect of doing nothing but pro bono cases for a day. She is perturbed, to say the least, at her boss pulling her away from them to do less-meaningful but more lucrative work for her firm’s biggest client. And what sets her off, makes her play hardball with the homesteader, is when he accuses her of being all about money, despite what she tells herself. She hits back because it’s an accusation that clearly hit home with her and hurts.

It hurts especially because she’s been trying to distinguish herself from Jimmy here. Her retort to the homesteader is that he thinks he’s special, that he thinks the rules don’t apply to him, and that he’s wrong. Just because he doesn't like the outcome doesn't mean he can just set aside the law. Like Nacho’s words, those words are offered to one man but meant for someone else. She refuses to express these sentiments to Jimmy, sentiments she deeply believes, so she vents them to this man, safely in this situation, when her own mettle is tested.

(As an aside, my prediction for the series is that the breaking point -- if you’ll pardon the expression -- for Kim and Jimmy is going to come when Kim’s pro bono clients start leaving her for Saul Goodman because he can get them better results using nefarious means.)

So Kim tries to prove herself to this stubborn man, who refuses to leave his property despite a contract that says he has to. She tries showing him homes he could move into. She offers to help him move. She tries to explain how she’s more like him than she thinks, someone from a poor background who never owned anything and understands the value of having something that’s yours. She tries to prove that she’s not the type of person he thinks she is, only to be rebuked with his pronouncement that she’s someone who’ll say whatever it takes to get what she wants -- someone like Jimmy.

The ants are not the only bit of visual symbolism in the episode. Early on, Jimmy comes home to see Kim drinking on their balcony. He meets her there with two fresh ones, resting her empty on the railing. Kim gazes at the bottle as it sits there precariously, representing a certain recklessness in Jimmy that she’s tired of. She doesn't say anything, because she can’t. But when she goes inside, disgusted after hearing Jimmy talk about how this is the most profitable day Saul Goodman’s ever had, she grabs it, representing her rejection of that ethos.

And yet when she comes home after the verbal skirmish with the homesteader, the tables are turned. She joins Jimmy on the balcony. She shares a smoke with him, a continuing symbol of their bad kid camaraderie. Jimmy doubles down on his prior bottle-based recklessness, playing loose-and-catch with an empty of his own.

But Kim doubles down. She stops pussyfooting around and just throws her drink into the parking lot. Jimmy follows suit with his current beverage. And from there, they just take turns yeeting their full beers for the hell of it, until some unwanted attention sends them back indoors.

That image carries some potency too. Kim tries. She doesn't want to be swarmed like the others have. But no matter what she does, no matter how well she means, the world seems to treat her like Jimmy anyway. So if that’s the outcome no matter what she chooses, if she’s in this whether she wants to be or not, she might as well enjoy it. Pour one out for Ms. Wexler, and then toss it over the side. Let it mean whatever you want it to.