I'm exhausted. This tension, the politics, the intrigue, even to the last second. So much is happening in this episode. So much concealed under such elegant garments.
In one way I look forward to the finale next week, however I'm not sure how they are going to fit what I was anticipating to be in this episode into the last, unless it is a 3hr episode, but I think it won't be such.
The other way I'm looking forward to the finale, is I no longer will need to invest all my emotion and attention in this concentration of spectacle and the craft of each Actor performing to perfection their role, and appreciating each word, glance, and interaction with their counterparts in such a magnificent, stunning location.
I'll be ready for this finale but until then I'll be soaking in what I've watched today. What a pleasure it is to witness what the Arts can deliver if given a proper opportunity.
Thank you to the Creators, Actors, Crew, and Those That have painstakingly brought this masterpiece to us.
The conundrum has set in... I desperately want to see the last episode now, but I don't want it to be the last show. 10/10
[8.6/10] It’s a fool’s errand to wish for happy endings in the world of Better Call Saul. But I had a faint hope for Nacho. I pictured him getting out somehow. I envisioned him finally escaping from the life that he fell too deeply into and starting again. I imagined Jesse Pinkman arriving in Alaska and making a connection with Ignacio Varga under an assumed name, Mike’s two surrogate sons coming together and looking after one another the way he might have done himself. It’s a nice thought, one too nice for the consequences this universe tends to have in store for its major players.
Instead, Nacho is dead. And we are left to take comfort in the few saving graces of his unfortunate demise. He went out his way, choosing his own “good death” rather than being the plaything of other people’s wills like he’s been for so much of the series. He did so to guarantee the safety of his father, with whom he shared a pained final phone call, freighted with meaning. He claimed one final measure of control, of destiny, to make his death worth something, to him and the people he cared about.
These are small blessings and small comforts. I teared up at the fateful moment when Nacho takes his own life rather than subject himself to the plans of the drug lords around him. Because this is a tragedy. Because this went south just as Nacho’s father said it would. Because Nacho thought he could beat it, avoid the pitfalls, and instead was sucked down by the inevitable gravity of this life. Because despite his best efforts, Mike Ehrmantraut lost another son.
These are not showy, emotional men. So their tiniest expressions speak volumes. The scrunch of Mike’s mouth when he knows Nacho’s gone that reveals his pain and disgust with this whole thing. The slightly raised eyebrows of Gus Fring that show his quiet terror that, with one word, Nacho could blow this whole thing up. And the almost imperceptible nod shared by Nacho and Mike, an acknowledgment of deeds that say more than any words either man has. This is a grim, even sentimental experience for all, made that much more forceful by how Better Call Saul underplays it.
God help me, Michael Mando deserves an Emmy for this episode alone. He, like so much of this incredibly talented cast, has deserved recognition for a long time now. But this is a masterclass. The sheer physicality he puts on display when Nacho buries himself in the sludge of an old tanker truck, the unspoken well of pain and regret pouring out of him when he hears his father’s voice one last time, the sheer vitriol on display when he curses the Salamancas and declares himself the author of all their pain. The shades of desperation, resignation, and self-immolation Mando communicates are virtuosic to the last. If this is truly his final performance on the show, he goes out with his masterpiece.
But it’s not all Nacho in this episode. We get more advancement in Kim and Jimmy’s plan to undermine Howard. This is one of their smaller efforts, but there’s a sufficient amount of tension in Huell(!) and a keymaker using their combined skills to duplicate Howard’s car keys before his valet can catch wise. One of this show’s great skills is taking fairly mundane parts of these scams and ratcheting up the tension. The interplay between a teenage valet rushing back to a parking garage, cut with the grooves of the key and the stairwells of the building, set to a classical soundtrack, makes a comparatively straightforward part of this plan seem like a big deal.
But after such chicanery, Huell asks Saul a simple but telling question -- why do you do this? The dialogue implies that Huell needs the funds, that this is one of few options for him. Jimmy, on the other hand, is a lawyer. His wife is a lawyer. They could get by without this. Jimmy claims that Huell doesn’t understand, that this is for the greater good, that even if the tactics are underhanded, the desired result is good, which makes taking these risks worthwhile.
And yet, Kim and Jimmy seem to revel in the chase. There’s something personal in this for both of them. The thrill of it seems to light both of their fires. All of it suggests their motives for continuing with something that, to Huell’s implicit point, they don’t have to pursue, may not be as altruistic as Saul pretends. More to the point, they have more to lose in all this than either one of them seems ready to acknowledge.
There’s a lifeline though. One of the prosecutors, Suzanne Ericsen, who once called Jimmy a scumbag, offers to let him turn state’s evidence. She pieces together not only the real deal with Lalo, but how Jimmy didn’t want to be the cartel’s lawyer. After Kim turns over some incriminating evidence she’d be better off suppressing in the name of fairness, Suzanne shares this offer with her, with the idea that he might listen to her in a way he wouldn’t listen to Suzanne.
Suzanne frames it as an opportunity to do what’s right after being steeped in something dirty. Kim frames it as a choice between being a “friend of the cartel” or a rat. But neither of them seems to fully countenance it in the way the viewers, who can process it in the context of the show as a whole, can. It’s a chance for Jimmy to do what Nacho didn’t -- to get out of this, to step away before it’s too late.
It’s too late for Nacho. He tries valiantly to avoid the worst of the blowback. His descent into the muck to avoid his killers is as symbolic as it is terrifying. His kindness (and cash) for a friendly mechanic who offers him help when he needs it and asks for nothing in return shows the decency within a troubled and ultimately doomed young man. His grief, not just at never being able to see his father again, but at confirming Manuel Varga’s worst fears and predictions about his son, is palpable.
There is something admirable in Nacho in his final days, when he accepts the inevitability of his end. He cannot change that. He’s made too many bad choices to reach this point. But he can use his life, the value it still has, to protect the person he cares about most.
The sharpest thing Nacho does is leverage the value of whether he’ll tell the Salamancas the truth, or whether he’ll play along. He realizes the rare power he holds over Gus, rather than the other way around. He doesn’t use it for comfort or to try to buy his own way out. He just wants to protect his dad and uses the last thing he has of value to do it.
It wouldn’t work, though, without his similarly paternal bond with Mike. For all his “Not my call” talk with Nacho, Mike is a man of honor. The only way a promise from a snake like Gus means anything to Ignacio is that it comes backed by Mike.
There’s a rapport between the two of them, an understanding, a familial intimacy that adds the wholesomeness and tragedy of it all. Mike insists on being the one to rough Nacho up to look the part of someone working against Gus’ operation rather than for it. Beforehand, they share that drink together, an acknowledgment or respect and care. And Mike puts himself out there to be an “insurance policy” for the plan, there to ensure, in his heart of hearts, that it goes down the way they planned it, that Nacho doesn’t have to suffer. He looks through the scope in the way he did back in season 2’s “Klick”, and sees someone who understands the lengths a father and son will go to in order to protect one another as well as he does.
Except, when the time comes, Nacho goes off script. He palmed a piece of glass, presumably from the cup Gus broke an episode ago, and uses it when the time’s right. Rather than simply announcing, as Fring insisted, that he was in league with Alvarez and paid off by rivals in Peru to sabotage the Salamancas, he goes a step further.
He laughs at the prospect of “the chicken man” being involved as a joke. He swears his hatred of the whole Salamanca family, offering up the motive for him to do this without any need for being aligned with Gus. He takes credit for Hector’s sugar pills, pointing to Gus’ intervention as the only reason Hector is still alive. In brief, he makes the story better and more plausible than even Gus had in mind. It’s clever, proving his worth even in his final moments, giving Fring everything he could possibly want to throw the heat off of him, in the hopes that it will convince the crime lord to keep his word and spare his father. After so long, so many missteps, Nacho seized control and went out on his own terms, if only a little.
The palmed glass becomes vital to slipping through the zip ties that bind him. He seizes Don Bolsa’s gun and holds it to the man’s head, so everyone can point their guns at him. And then, with the weapon in hand, he can kill himself, rather than subject him to the Salamancas’ torture or other humiliating or excrutiating ways to leave his world. His death is still a sad, terrible, regrettable thing, but it comes with a moment of self-actualization, where for a moment at least, Nacho is not the pawn of these men. He is their equal. And then he is gone.
Another life wasted. Another existence snuffed out in the middle of the desert. Another son lost amid the plata y plomo. In a beautiful opening sequence, we see the flora growing over the spot where Nacho died, growth perhaps fueled by his remains. Amid such desolation grows a beautiful azure flower, the rain come to wash it all away. There, catching its droplets, is that same shard of glass, the one that gave Nacho his last bit of freedom, before the collective weight of these larger forces could firmly and finally take it away.
It would be too much to call Nacho a good person. At his best, he was still a drug dealer thriving on others’ addiction and misery. He may have been a touch nobler, a touch younger and thus more excusable, than the psychos he worked for. But he was still a bad guy doing bad things.
And yet, there was something recognizable in his fall and folly. Too many of us see shorter, yet more dangerous paths to the things we want, and believe we can avoid their greatest perils along the way to our hope for spoils. We see Nacho’s regret, his emptiness, his sense of being trapped in this before he realized how deeply he had fallen. We see how his desire to protect his dad -- from Hector, from Gus, from his own mistakes -- led him to this point, where he was in too deep with no good options.
Nacho may not have been perfect, but he was pitiable; he was recognizable; he was loved. There is always tragedy in the death of someone loved. Jimmy is also loved. He has his chance to get out, to turn to the police like Nacho’s father instructed his son.
But Ignacio didn’t listen. He’ll never have a chance to escape. He won’t ever meet Jesse in Alaska. Exit ramps are rare. Happy endings are in short supply in this world. And in the end, there weren’t enough of either left for Manuel Varga’s little boy.
[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.
[7.9/10] I don’t know how Stranger Things wants me to feel about Papa. From my vantage point, he is, as Eleven calls him, a monster. In both flashbacks and present day scenes, we’ve seen him abuse the children in his care. So much of the first two seasons in particular was centered on Eleven moving past that. She embraces this new, wholesome, loving family, and discards her old, pernicious one. She finds a real dad, one who loves her and cares for her, rather than to have to swallow the harm presented as love she’d endured for so much of her life.
But then this season presented him as a force for good, at least to a degree. He helps Eleven regain her powers, as the ability to lift the giant metal drum indicates. He thinks she’s the only thing that can stop Henry/One/Vecna. He’s trying to make her better, make her well.
At the same time, though, Papa doesn’t care about what Eleven wants. He doesn’t care about her psychological well-being. Owens calls him out for it. He reminds Brenner that this bunker was never meant to be a prison and upbraids him for freaking out Eleven with the threat of Henry breaking the boundary between worlds, rather than easing her into it. Papa thinks he knows what’s best for his “daughter”. He holds her against her will, declaring that it’s for her own good, trapping her in the same shock collars he once held all of his other “children” in.
I was, frankly, glad to see that. It played like a reminder that Brenner is not a good man. After a season in which the show seemed to be trying to rehabilitate him, it finally had his worse, controlling, abusive nature rear its ugly head. Confining Eleven, ignoring her wishes, drugging her and putting her under your control, is legitimately monstrous.
And yet, when the military baddies show up, he tries to save her. More to the point, he wants her to believe that he always meant well, that he wanted what was best for her. God help me, maybe he did, at least in his own mind. I want to give Stranger Things credit. I want to believe it understands the nuance of abuse, where abusers do not necessarily see themselves as monsters, but think they’re doing the right thing for their victims. I want to buy that it sees the shades of gray in Brenner, someone who does unspeakable, repugnant things to innocent kids, but in his own twisted way, thinks he’s helping them. There is truth in that, and a complicated villain is a better villain.
The fact that Eleven grants him no absolution, but simply bids “Papa” goodbye, suggests the series understands. The feelings of the abused toward their parents is complicated. Love, attachment, care remains, even if it becomes hard to reconcile with the horrors inflicted. In a show that’s not afraid to spell things out, it leaves all this to subtext, a bold, subtle move that leads to humble, foolhardy viewers potentially overreading the situation.
Speaking of subtext, I don’t know if we’re going to get a scene with Will and Mike more emotionally explicit than the one we got here. The Pizza Van crew finally matters to the story, showing up to rescue Eleven from the Bunker and take her where she needs to go. But the most important thing they do isn’t plot-relevant.
It comes when Will reassures a worried Mike. Mike fears that Eleven doesn’t need him anymore, that he was a dumb schmuck who happened to find her, but that it’s not fated they be together. Will offers an emotional reassurance, about -- how it’s Mike’s heart that holds him together, how much he still means to her, how much he’ll always mean to her -- when it’s clear (to the audience at least) that he’s really talking about himself rather than Eleven.
It’s a great performance from Noah Schnapp, who absolutely kills it with the projected emotions he feels when speaking about someone else’s relationship. The reveal with his vaunted painting works and weaves together the complicated feelings of all three members of this unorthodox love triangle. The catch is, I don’t know if I want the show to go further than this. Will professing his true feelings in plain terms seems like a bill that’s due for the show at this point. And yet, there’s something poignant about Will having these feelings but, due to societal prejudices and recognizing where his friend’s heart lies, not being able to express them. There’s something true to life, even artful about that, and I wonder where Stranger Things will leave it.
I wonder far less what’s going to happen with Joyce, Hopper, Murray, and their pair of reluctant Russian allies. The most important thing in that corner of the show right now is the reveal that the Soviets are experimenting on creatures from the Upside Down. The scientists at this facility are vivisecting demogorgons, seemingly cloning or growing their own army of this sort of fauna, and even appear to have a mind flayer contained within their walls. Who knows what it means exactly, beyond the obvious -- the Ruskies are prepping for a war with extraordinary, albeit uncontrollable, weapons at their disposal -- but it’s an intriguing reveal.
What’s less intriguing is the Joyce/Hopper crew trying to find their way back to the United States. Escaping from the Russian prison is surprisingly easy. (Apparently Yuri’s van is bulletproof, which, fair I guess?) Their mission to use some combo of Yuri’s helicopter and a coded message to allies in the USA to get back is fine. But even this penultimate episode can’t escape the sense that this is a sideshow to keep the adults away from the major events happening in Hawkins and the the desert, rather than a meaningful part of the story in and of itself. Even Hopper and Joyce’s mutual “I thought you were dead” conversation doesn’t have much juice to it.
We get more character moments among the now united Hawkins faithful though. There’s still some excitement here. Nancy witnesses the horrors Henry experienced and then, in a big surprise, he lets her go as a messenger for Eleven. The crew steals a winnebago and collects weapons to fight Vecna’s demons. And they sit in fear with the knowledge that he means to use “four gates” to shatter the bounds between his world and ours, putting everyone our heroes know and love at risk in the process.
Still, this is mostly a “calm before the storm” part of the story for the Hawkins kids, which tend to be some of my favorite parts of genre movies and shows. It’s a chance to have those important character moments before the last act fireworks take the stage. We get to see the players bouncing off one another, expressing what they mean to each other, rather than just hacking and slashing at the dramatic CGI beastie du jour.
Some of these moments are small. Erica telling Lucas that even if they bicker, he’s still her brother, is quite sweet. Eddie roughhousing with Dustin over his puns and telling him to never change is weirdly flirtatious, but also very rousing in how he sees the kid’s greatness. And as much as I’m down on all the teases of Steve and Nancy getting back together, Steve waxing rhapsodic about his dream to have a whole “brood of Harringtons” roaming the countryside in a car like this, while Nancy looks on admiringly, is a really warm moment.
But there’s bigger moments too. Robyn seeing her crush with a boy and it hitting her like lightning is sad and sympathetic. But the same goes for her and Steve aiming to reassure her about it, while she insists there’s bigger fish to fry right now, but he still shows care for his best friend. Likewise, Max and Lucas’ heart-to-heart -- about Max’s willingness to be the bait for Vecna because she doesn’t want to be in harm’s way, about her confidence that she can best him by finding her happiest moment that just so happens to involve Lucas, and Lucas’ insistence that if things go wrong he’s going to deploy Kate Bush in a heartbeat -- affirms one of the sweetest and most earnest little romances on the show before the going gets tough.
Let’s be real, it’s stupid as hell for the kids to strap up and head into the breach to fight a psychic, telekinetic demon dude. Sure, there’s the patina of plausibility to the plan, with the notion that they can get him in his trance while he’s going after Max, something he needs in order to reach this world. But Eleven’s right to fear for them after she uses her mental wandering powers to learn what they’re up to. The blaring sounds of a Journey ballad undercuts the gravity of the situation (and weakens the vibe) more than a little as the episode comes to a close, but it’s a still an ominous thing our heroes are walking into.
There’s grace notes for other villains here. The jerk jock whose name I’ve forgotten in the month or so between episodes menaces Nancy at the gun shop, but never feels like more than a tertiary villain from another show. The big bad military dude shows he’s truly evil (if the torture didn’t do it) when Ownes gives him a safe way to test his theory that Eleven’s behind all the killings, and the guy decides to just kill her anyway. And Henry gets a few more chances to show his victims what waits in store for them if they continue down this path.
The heart of this one, though, comes with Eleven’s confrontation of her would-be father. She takes out those military goons with comparative ease, under the circumstances. SOme of the show’s best imagery comes with her and her pals amid the desert blaze. Eleven even enacts violence against Papa when he threatens to cage her again, force his will upon her “for her own good.”
In the end, though, forces beyond his control prevent him from enacting his plan. To his dying breath, he wants his “daughter” to believe that he meant well. Eleven won’t grant him the forgiveness and understanding he seeks, because whatever lingering attachment she has to the man who raised her, he doesn’t deserve it. But now, whatever his wishes, she is untethered, recharged, and ready to save the people who do deserve her care, and her love.
Gosh, I hate plot armor. It's a motherf*** pyroclastic flow! Yet, all main protagonists escape (more or less) unharmed. Fantasy world or not - I don't feel treated in a serious way. They added the eruption only because it looks good and it was a great cliffhanger last episode. It looks awesome indeed, but it's all show and no substance. They refuse to go through with the inevitable consequences. Cowards! Who says that everyone needs to live? (Bronwyn even saved her infamous Met Gala dress - no blood stains, no burns).
Likewise, I don't like the scene between Elrond and Prince Durin. They try to negotiate an alliance. They talk and talk and talk. But nothing results from all the dialogue and multiple episodes. Instead, another miracle/vision saves the story: leaf and metal tell you what to do. Why should I pay attention to all the dialogue, the characters, the father/son conflict, the character's needs, hopes and attitudes? In the end this part of the story is (pre-) determined by a miracle/vision. The Prince does what the leaf tells him. [They did something very similar back at the islands with Galadrial. All her behavior (and bossy misbehaviour) had no consequences whatsoever. In the end it was a vision (and again leaves) that suddenly forged an alliance between Numinor and Galadriel.] That's not good story telling.
The score is again back to mediocre. It was suitable for last episode. But it's annoying in this episode. Music just won't stop. It doesn't help that this is a boring orchestral score - couldn't they come up with something more unique? The music often subdues everything else. And when they chose to focus on actual noises it's totally over-dramatic (like when the boy draws his sword when the Orcs approach. That's not how a sword sounds like when you draw it out the scabbard). I'm not even sure whether the dialogues between the Prince and King or between Galadriel and the boy are actually any good - I'm just annoyed by the melodramatic music during these scenes.
I still don't understand the whole Halbrand story. How did he end up as Lord/King? He used to be a random guy on a raft, a drunk prisoner, a thief and showed interest in becoming a blacksmith. Galadriel noticed that he can pick up a sword elegantly. That's all? That told her that he's a capable soldier? And now it feels like he's somehow (almost) the most capable soldier in the ranks of a FOREIGN army? [Strange enough that Galadriel - previously hated by almost everyone in Numinor - is suddenly accepted as a peer in battle.] In a very expensive armor tailor-made for him? Even a Lord? A King? And nobody questions this? People asked King Charles III. after his proclamation "who voted for you?", and I ask: what's Halbrand's merit or legitimacy? Is that something we have to accept because it was predicted in yet another vision (I somehow missed this part if there was such an omen)? His legitimacy surely can't be based on the coat of arms he carries around, can it? Anyone could have picked this up.
And I still don't know why nobody is alerting the elves. They deal with the drwarves. They deal with the bad omens they observe (like the dying tree). They send Elrond on away missions. I understand this. But all of this is not yet closely connected to the main story. Why does nobody send a messenger to report that Galadriel is back and she and Arondir fight Orcs and witnessed the "birth of Mordor"? Wouldn't that represent the more pressing issues for the elves? Remember: Arondir wanted to alert the other elves when he was caught in that trench. Has he forgotten what his plan was? Not saying that the metal/forge story might not eventually become handy in a war with Sauron and his Orcs - but shouldn't this story connected with the events in the Southlands aka Mordor? And wouldn't that help to convince the dwarf King to help them? It feels like no message is relayed simply because the writers wanted another episode to tell the father/son conflict. Why all that conflict between the King and his son when we already know that the common external threat represented by Sauron will eventually unite elves and dwarfs? It's all so predictable and artificially dragged out by not sending a messenger.
All what I said before sounds very negative. I still enjoy this episode. It's certainly not spectacular and lacks (like the whole show) complexity, but it's still nice to look at.
[7.5/10] This show has earned a lot of trust. Sure, if you parse through Walter White’s plans or Jimmy McGill’s schemes, some of them rely on happy accidents or have pieces that don’t fully add up. But for the most part, the Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul-verse plays fair. If something is unclear, or scans as peculiar, or even just seems confusing, you can normally rest assured that if you wait long enough, a satisfying explanation or payoff is on the way.
Which is all to say that I think I understand Lalo’s ultimate goal. He doesn’t just want to kill the chicken man; he wants to discredit him with the cartel so that the murder will be justified in the eyes of their fellow “businessmen”. The Salamanca leader wants proof that Gus Fring was preparing to build his own lab, to be able to do business independently of the cartel, something the audience knows as well as Lalo wouldn’t fly with Don Eladio or his associates. It’s a clever plan, one with an elegance and consideration that makes it worthy of threatening Gus and making Lalo a formidable opponent.
But I have no idea how Lalo arrived at it. How much valuable info did he really get from his brief conversation with Werner back in “Winner”, the season 4 finale? How did he track down Werner’s wife, Margarethe? How does a slide ruler encased in lucite, engraved with “With Love, from Your Boys” bring him closer to finding them?
You can imagine answers to these questions. Maybe the details he heard from Werner were enough for a smart guy like Lalo to piece together what Gus was up to, or at least realize Fring was doing something shady. (Or shady by drug runner standards.) Maybe the info Lalo got from the guy at the TravelWire was enough for him to pinpoint a woman named Margarethe in the general area. Maybe the tag at the bottom of the lucite memento will be enough to get him to the facility that made it and track down their client and get one of Werner’s boys to spill out of a loyalty to their leader and a desire for Lalo to get revenge on the men who ordered and carried out his death. But it all requires a few more logical leaps than you normally get from a tightly-orchestrated show like Better Call Saul.
The same goes for Gus’ actions in “Black and Blue.” I love ninety percent of what we see of him here. This normally unflappable man is utterly paranoid. Actually, paranoid’s the wrong word, since he’s justified in his fears about a shark like Lalo. Nevertheless, it’s unusual, to say the least, to see Gus rattled. He can’t do his work at Pollos Hermanos. He can’t work the cash register without zoning out in a state of low-grade terror. He can’t sleep and finds himself scrubbing bathtubs with a toothbrush as part of his fear-exacerbated OCD.
The episode nicely lays out why. Mike says it -- this is a waiting game. Gus isn’t used to waiting. He likes to take action. He plans everything out to the finest detail. He prepares for the future and executes his plan. But now, somebody else is in charge of the when and why and how, and all he can do is react. That's an unfamiliar position for Gus, and one that unsettles him even in his own home and place of business.
But I don’t know why he descends into the bowels of his superlab and tucks a gun into the tire tread of an excavation vehicle. Once again, you can read between the lines a bit. Presumably he’s onto Lalo’s game. He worries that someone, whether Lalo or a representative of the cartel, will force him into his off-the-books cooking site, and he’ll be forced to defend himself. So he’s providing his future self a Chekov’s gun to be able to use if he’s cornered.
That requires a lot of forethought from Gus though. It requires him to predict exactly how this might go down and have exactly the right remedy for it. Maybe the plan will blow up in his face in it’ll take some crazy intervention from Mike or others to save him, not the gun. Maybe he had the flash of recollection of Lalo learning the info from Werner and just wanted to cover his bases. Maybe he’s in full paranoid mode and is just trying to provide for every conceivable contingency, no matter how unlikely, because he has to do something other than sit around and wait for the attempt on his life to happen. You can justify most of this stuff in some terms, but it doesn’t play as natural, and requires near-clairvoyance from Gus.
The contrivance in all of this doesn’t make everything bad, though. Seeing Fring squirm is a remarkable thing, and it’s a positive that the show takes its time to depict the typically steady boss freaking out a little bit in his own understated way. Lalo’s plan requires filling in a few gaps, but his flirtatious scene with Margarethe plays his debonair manipulation to the hilt. His snooping and willingness to kill another civilian makes his scenes in her house terrifying. (Plus, for a guy who bears a resemblance to Timothy Dalton -- no relation -- his scenes feel appropriately Bond-esque.) And guest actress Andrea Sooch does a tremendous job as Margarethe, evincing the love she had for her husband and the pain she still feels over her loss.
Seeing Werner’s wife recollect and grieve, Lalo fish for information however he can get it, and Gus panic in an uncharacteristic way are all worthwhile, even if the paths to get there require some narrative contortions.
Gus isn’t the only one, panicking though. Kim is likewise afraid of Lalo, unable to sleep at three in the morning, barricading doors, and having a smoke to try to calm down. Seeing the way this weighs on her, while she feels as though she can’t tell Jimmy the truth lest it trigger an even worse response from him, is a compelling note for Rhea Seehorn to play. It could mess him up mentally at a time when he’s doing well, happy with his new success and able to hire back Francesca to manage his big influx of clients. Kim understandably doesn’t want to disrupt that. And we also see the intimacy between she and Jimmy in their home life, the casual chumminess they have apart from their plotting and scheming.
Howard’s onto that scheming, though. For once, we see why Howard is successful at what he does, calming a room full of elderly class members and convincing them that their lawyers aren’t just fighting to get them more money, hence the delays, but fighting for a broader principal about not letting big companies take advantage of people. Who knows if Howard believes it himself, but he sells it better than poor overwhelmed Erin can, and it shows the audience that he may be a prick, but he’s not a schmuck. There’s a reason he’s risen to where he is, even if it’s just packaging pablum with the perfection of a politician.
Clifford confronts him about the suspicious goings on of late, not out of a sense of accusation, but as an offer of help. He really is the most decent man in this entire show. But his offer of assistance only tips Howard off that, once again, Jimmy McGill is out to get him.
That’s where it gets bizarre though. Hamlin, under the cheeky pseudonym “Mr. H.O. Ward,” lures Jimmy into an impromptu boxing match. It feels silly, even by Better Call Saul’s occasionally outsized standards. The show doesn’t dress up two middle-aged guys throwing body shots at one another. It’s awkward and ugly the way it ought to be. But it seems unbelievable that either one of them would go through with a stunt like this.
Only here, “Black and Blue” provides answers. For Howard, it’s an opportunity not just to maybe, just maybe, work out some of the pair’s psychological issues through physical activity, but a chance to sic a private eye on Jimmy. Howard’s no rube, after what he’s been through. He’s fighting fire with fire, hoping to catch his antagonizer in the act and clearing his name with his co-counsel. The fact that his tail might run into Gus’ tail on Jimmy and Kim only leads to even more tantalizing possibilities.
More to the point, we learn why Saul would do it, when he has every reason to just walk away from Howard. Kim explains it -- because Jimmy knows what happens next. He knows that they’re going to ruin Hamlin’s life. And just like Kim starts to feel a twinge of guilt when her former colleague talks about how much she admires Kim, Jimmy feels the same. He wants to let Howard have his jollies while he can, because he knows the hammer will fall soon.
It’s a satisfying answer for an absurd thing. That's the trust I have in Better Call Saul writ large, to be able to cover for contrivances like Lalo’s detective work and Fring’s premonitions in a way that's emotionally and narratively satisfying. This show, and its predecessor, aren’t perfect in every detail, but they’re strong when it counts. More to the point, they’re strong enough at delivering that punch, that turn, that unexpected but cathartic jolt in the story, that makes you trust wherever they’d like to take you, and however they’d like to get there.
Alright, I know I am probably alone on this. I know it’s not incest, they aren’t actually related. But Luther x Alison was weird as fuck, they were sneaking around trying to bang each other while talking about “their sibling” and “their father”. If you are going to make them a thing, don’t make them view each other as siblings! And how that relates to this episode (and apparently those to follow) is me by default disliking Luther x Sloane. It’s nasty and feels like the same thing. (Because in my mind, alternative universe but they are all still kind of sort of siblings, ya know.)
And because I see Vanya/ Viktor being such a hot topic here. I hoped he would keep just being Vanya once Elliot came out, not going to lie. But Vanya transitioning to be Viktor was handled very simply and briefly, which is how I prefer my LGBT characters at this point. I am sick and tired of the woke agenda always taking things too far and just preaching instead of treating them (us actually, lesbo here) like normal people. Sexuality and transitioning is not a personality trait, stop treating it as such. The brothers reaction basically being “yeah, cool. Anyway —“ was refreshing lmfao.
I can only repeat myself. This was dragging and the implausibilities just keep continuing.
More than two hours for an episode... I really don't understand why. You watch this and the evening is gone. You definitely can't binch this season. So I don't see a benefit for Netflix. The viewer definitely has none. With episodes this long the structuring becomes incredibly weak. You basically have forgotten what the episode started with once you are at the end. It just seems they felt the need to cram all storylines for all characters in there somehow. In my opinion they should have shortened everything happening outside of Hawkins and just brought everything together much earlier. These parts did not add much and for the few "character-development-bits" no spacial distance was necessary.
When finally trying to connect these lines it feels incredibly forced and quite frankly unnecessary except for Elevens part. Which still could have happened the same way with her being stuck in a facility in Hawkins or basically anywhere. The Russian storyline took ages to finally take of and just didn't really convince me in terms of being connected to fighting Vecna. In fact it did not feel connected to any of the rest. If they had made the adults fight an incursion from the Upside Down in Russia for most of the season which climaxes simultaneously to the events in Hawkins, both sides thereby supporting each other by weakening the enemy from two sides it would have been so much better and more believable connected.
On top of that the finale seamlessly connects to the clishee-ridden rest of the season. Too many tropes like the coward sacrificing himself or the power of love triumphing over ... well everything.
For all the tension build up, in the right moments things just fall into place way too easily. The Sinclairs overcoming their tormentors and El escaping her shackles in time because suddenly Vecna who supposedly becomes more powerful with each victim he takes takes an awfully long time to subdue and kill Max. Something that took mere seconds with all the previous victims.
This scene is cut so annoyingly long by literally cutting back and forth between all the different storylines it was the worst of timing.
One's monologue did not convince me either. He states El is allegedly responsible for his deeds when he clearly told her that he was murderous and wanted to eradicate - at least part of - humanity before even being part of Brenner's programme.
That being said it wasn't all bad. From a technical perspective there was only little left wanting. The acting was also perfectly fine up to amazing. "Master of Puppets" was a really great moment and a perfect choice as regards content. Lucas crying out in agony was so well acted. I just loved the slow motion shot of Nancy unloading her shotgun and Dustin telling Mr. Munson about Eddie was the only scene in the entire season that actually made me tear up.
However the epilogue again felt just so quick and dirty. Why the fuck was everyone so unfazed by what just happened? They did not defeat Vecna and the town was destroyed... Whatever happened to the two Russians? Or the military? Why is noone suspicious of these giant unnatural rifts in the middle of town?
Overall I am not a big fan of retroactively inserting a mastermind behind all that's happened before. This is just screaming for plotholes. And to me Vecna was by far the least frightening enemy. I just don't understand why people feel this is the season with the most horror. Yes it was dark and gory at times but after Chrissy's death there wasn't anything new in terms of horror.
In the end the entire season feels more like the first half of a book than a tv show with its own arc.
