[9.5/10] If there has been one thing consistent about Aang from the beginning, it’s that he follows his own path. From the minute we met him and he was more interested in riding penguins than showing spiritual reserve, it was clear that this was an Avatar who did not fit the mold. There was a uniqueness to him, a purity, that belied the chosen one bearing he had to carry.
That’s what stands out in Avatar: The Last Airbender’s wide-ranging, epic, moving finale. More than the moral turmoil that Aang had experienced in the last few episodes, more than the massive battle between the forces of good and the comet-fueled Fire Nation, there is a young man, making a choice because it’s what feels right to him, what feels true, and it is that trust in himself, that commitment to being who he is, that sees him through.
What is almost as impressive about the final two episodes of A:tLA, which essentially constitute one massive climax for the whole series, is how they manage to give almost every notable figure in the series something meaningful and dramatic to do. The episode truly earns the epic quality of its final frame, whether it’s focusing on the Order of the White Lotus retaking Ba Sing Se; Sokka, Toph, and Suki trying to sabotage the Fire Nation air fleet; Zuko and Katara confronting Azula; or Aang having his showdown with Ozai. The combination of all these great battle, all these profound and grand moments, make for an endlessly thrilling, dramatic finish for this great series.
The siege of Ba Sing Se mostly serves as a series of fist pumps for the viewer, getting to watch these trained masters face their foes with ease. Like the rest of the episode, it shows off the visual virtuosity as the series pulls out all the stops for its final battle. Jeong Jeong redirects fire with awesome force. Bumi launches tanks like play things with his earthbending. Pakku washes away enemies with a might tidal wave, and Piando slides on the frozen path over the wall, slashing away at Fire Nation soldiers all the while.
And Iroh? Iroh breathes in the power of Sozin’s comet. He creates a fireball that bowls through the walls of the famed city. He burns away the Fire Nation banner that hangs over the palace. It is a sign that for as much as A:tLA is a story of the last generation letting down the next one, there are still members of the old guard there to fight for what’s right and make a stand for a better world.
That world is threatened by the Fire Nation Air Fleet. In truth, the cell-shaded CGI war balloons look a little dodgy. Something about the animation is a little too stilted, to where when the cinematography is cool, the computer-generated elements stick out like sore thumbs and hurt the immersion of the show. Nevertheless, there is something truly frightening about Ozai and company at the head of those ships, imbued with power by the comet, launching these fireballs and streams of flaming destruction down on the land below. It is a terrifying image that brings to mind footage from Vietnam of fire raining from above. As much as the cel-shading looks a little off, the imagery of the elemental powers used in the episode is awesome, in the original sense of the term, provoking terror and astonishment.
Thankfully we have our two favorite badass normal folks and the resident (and as far as we know) only metalbender to help destroy the fleet. It is a nice outing for Sokka, Toph, and Suki, who find a way to not only contribute to the great war effort, but to have moments of risk and drama where you wonder if they will make it out alive or not, featuring big damn hero moments for each of them.
It’s hard to even know where to begin. There is Toph launching the three of them onto the nearest ship, turning into a metal-coated knight, and neutralizing the command crew. There is the hilarious interlude where Sokka manages to lure the rank-and-file crewmen into the bombing bay with the promise of cakes and creams, with the lowly henchman making extremely funny small talk before being dumped in the bay. It’s nice that even in these heightened moments, the show has not forgotten its sense of humor.
But that humor quickly gives way to big risks and bravery from the trio. I appreciate that Sokka’s ingenuity gets one last chance to shine, when he’s inspired by Aang’s “air slice” and repositions the ship he’s piloting to cut through the rest of the fleet, downing as much of it as possible. That move, naturally, leads their vessel to go down itself, and the big escape separates him and Suki.
Still, Sokka and Toph are undeterred, and after some close shaves, Toph uses her metal-bending abilities to change the fin on another airship to send it into its neighbors. Again, it’s nice to see the show, even in this late hour, finding creative uses for its characters’ talents, which give each of them a chance to have a hand in saving the day. That includes Sokka and Toph finding themselves pursued by Fire Nation soldiers, and Sokka getting to use both his boomerang and his “space sword” one last time. And when despite having taken out their pursuers, it still looks like all is lost for the pair, there is Suki, having taken command of another airship, there to save them from their tenuous, dangling position.
It’s a superb series of sequences, one that manages to combine some incredible in-the-air action and combat with character moments that feel true to the people we’ve come to know over the course of the series. Toph still has her smart remarks; Suki still manages to be in the right place at the right time, and Sokka, far from shrinking from the moment as he feared after the invasion, employs the creative solutions to difficult problems that have become his trademark. It is a great tribute and final triumph for all three characters.
But they are not the only trio of Avatar characters who find themselves embroiled in combat on the day Sozin’s comet arrives. But far from the larger-than-life, heroic tones of the battle in the skies, the fight between Azula, Zuko, and Katara has an air of tragedy about it.
What’s impressive is how, so near the end of the series, A:tLA can make the audience feel for Azula, even as she is at her most deranged and dangerous. It is late in the day for a character study, and yet we delve into Azula’s broken psyche in a way that the show has only toyed with before. What’s revealed is scary, but also sad, the pained cries and last gasps of a young woman who never really had a chance, who was brought up by a tyrant like Ozai, rather than a kindly old man like Iroh, and it left her damaged and alone.
It also left her paranoid. One of the defining leitmotifs of Avatar: The Last Airbender is the way that Aang, despite being the chosen one, laden with a solitary destiny, has found strength in his connections to his friends, who sustain him in times of doubt and difficulty. The finale underscores the importance of that by contrasting how Azula alienates everything approaching an ally she has, and it leaves her not only vulnerable, but deeply suspicious, until she loses her grip on her own sanity.
That’s dramatized in the way she banishes a humble servant girl for daring to give her a cherry with a pit in it, in how she banishes the Dai Lee for fear that they will turn on her the way that she got them to turn on Long Feng, in her equally harsh banishment of her twin, elderly caretakers (or at least one of them), when they express concern for her well-being. Though Mai and Tai-Lee have only small roles to play in this episode, the force of their presence is felt in the way that their betrayal of Azula leads her to believe that everyone is a backstabber or turncoat in waiting, and that, poetically enough, becomes the source of her downfall, to where when the threat truly emerges, she has no one there to help and protect her.
And yet, that is not the deepest depth of her loneliness. In a particularly difficult moment, one where Azula has taken out her anger on her own hair, she sees an image of her mother in the mirror. It is a bridge too far, the ultimate pain that Azula has refused to confront, replaced with ambition and intimidation so as not to have to face it. But that vision represents a knowing part of Azula, one that understands how she’s succumbed to fear and paranoia, one that cannot help but feel the hurt of the belief that her own mother thinks she’s a monster, and one that knows despite that, her mother still loves her, something that makes that pain all the more unbearable.
It also makes her less capable, less focused, less ready to face her brother in a duel. Zuko sees the way that his sister is slipping, and is willing to face her alone in the hopes of sparing Katara since he believes he can win. Their fight is a beautiful and tragic one. The combination of Azula’s blue flame and Zuko’s red one echoes the red and blue dragons that reinvigorated Zuko and Aang’s firebending abilities, and which represented the conflicting sides of Zuko’s own psyche. The opposing forces swirl and twist in the field of battle.
But unlike the rest of the episode, this is not played as an epic confrontation. It is played as a moment of great sorrow. While the whirl of the fire blasts rings out and the structures around the siblings singe and crackle, wailing violins play. Azula cackles and cries out, her eyes wide, her smile crooked, her demeanor unhinged. Zuko is not simply conquering an enemy who has tormented him since he was a little boy; he is doing what he must do against someone who has everything, and yet has lost everything, including her mind.
That just makes Azula all the more dangerous, but that ends up making Zuko all the more noble. While Azula is wild and unsteady, Zuko is prepared, baiting his sister into trying to blast him with lightning in the hopes that he may redirect it and end this. Instead, Azula charges up her power and, at the last second, aims it a bystander Katara rather than her brother. The move throws off Zuko, and in the nick of time, he dives in front of the blast and absorbs the electricity to spare Katara. It is the last sign of his transformation, an indication of his willingness to sacrifice himself for one of the people he once attacked himself. It is a selfless gesture, and a desperate one, that shows how Zuko’s transformation is truly complete.
It also leaves Katara fighting a completely mad Azula all by herself. I must admit, I was mildly irked when Zuko cast Katara aside and intended to fight Azula solo, sidelining one of the show’s major figures, but I should have known better than to think the series would avoid giving her one of those vital moments of glory and bravery.
With a dearth of water in the Fire Kingdom capital, and Azula too crazed and unpredictable to fight straight up, Katara must also be creative. Her water blasts turn to steam against Azula’s electric fury. But Katara is as clever as she is talented, and in yet another inventive way to defeat the enemy, she lures Azula over a sewer grate where, just before Azula is able to launch a deadly attack, Katara raises the water and freezes the both of them in place.
Then, in a canny move, she nabs a nearby chain, uses her waterbending abilities to move through the ice, and confines her attacker so that she is incapable of doing any more damage. It is an imaginative way to end the fight, one that show’s Katara’s resourcefulness and gives her a much-deserved win. She heals Zuko, who has truly and fully earned her respect and admiration. Azula has only earned a bitter end – her manic screams devolve into sobs, the loss of so much, the crumbling security of who she was and what she was fading away, until all that is left is a pitiable, broken young woman.
Azula has been a one-note villain at points in the series, one whose evil seemed inborn and whose nature left her without some of the complexity that other figures in the series have possessed. But here, she becomes a tragic figure, one who has committed terrible deeds and who tries to commit more, but whose being raised to obtain power at all costs leaves her unable to enjoy or sustain the only thing she’s ever wanted, and utterly alone.
Aang, on the other hand, is trapped between two things that he wants very badly: to defeat Ozai in order to end this war and save the world, and also to avoid taking a life. Their confrontation lives up to the billing and hype it’s received over the course of the series. The mountainous range provides the perfect backdrop for their fight, with plenty of earth and water for Aang to summon as he combats the series’s big bad at a time when Ozai is infused with the tremendous power of the comet.
The two dart and dash across those jutting rocks, a furious ballet accented with mortal, elemental beauty. Ozai declares that Aang is weak, that he cannot defeat Ozai, particularly at the height of his powers, and despite the realization that this is not the kind of show where the hero fails in the final act, you fear for Aang, for what will be required of him in order to end this. This is, after all, not how this fight was supposed to happen. Aang was supposed to have mastered all four elements, to be Ozai’s equal, not a talented but inexperienced young upstart trying to best the man who has conquered the world.
So in a difficult moment, he retreats into a ball of rock that provides temporary but needed protection from Ozai’s assault. It calls to mind the big ball of ice that Aang retreated to a century ago, a safe haven when the weight of the world became too much for him, and he hid rather than rose to face it. It cements the possibility that Aang is not ready for this, that he was never ready for this, and for all the good intentions he may have, he will pay the ultimate price for that.
Instead, when Ozai penetrates the rock and sends Aang flying, he reaps more than he bargained for. The former Fire Lord’s blast shoots Aang into a nearby rock, and as a sharp point digs into the scar from where Azula nearly killed him at the end of Season 2, it triggers the Avatar state.
Aang emerges from the pile of rubble that the gloating Ozai approaches. Aang glows and speaks with a voice of thunder and fury. Ozai comes at the demigod with all his power but Aang slaps away his flaming blast with the back of his hand. The Avatar assembles the four elements, bringing them to bear against his opponent. He surrounds himself in a bubble of air; he summons earth, fire, and water in rings that surround him. He comes at Ozai with his full force, sending him reeling through rock and rubble, confining him with the land itself. Aang raises this swirl into a knife’s edge, driving it down into his prone opponent.
And then, once more, at the last minute, he stops. The whirl of elements turned into a lethal weapon evaporates into a harmless puddle. Aang stands, unable to do it. Even in the moment where he seems poised to fulfill his destiny, Aang cannot bring himself to snuff out a life in this world. It is against everything he believes in, everything he stands for. Ozai declares that even with all the power in the world, Aang is still weak, that his inability to do what must be done to his enemy renders him lesser.
It is then that Aang finds another way. He confines Ozai using the earth itself once more, rests his hands on Ozai’s persons, and begins to bend the energy itself. What ensues is a spiritual struggle, one that matches the confluence of red and blue that signified the two sides at war within Zuko. For a moment, it appears as though even in this, Ozai will triumph, that the red glowing embers that represent the cruel spirit of this awful man will overtake our hero. It’s rendered in beautiful hues, a burst of light erupting across a dark landscape.
But Aang is not to be overcome. The outpouring of pure blue light emanates from his body. He will not be moved, not be altered, not be changed. Instead, it is Ozai who falters, his ability to bend fire, his tool for committing all of this evil, is taken away from him. The threat is over; the war is done, and Aang has fulfilled his destiny, on his own terms.
There is release, a chance to reflect and take stock and enjoy the glow of having completed this difficult journey. Aang and Zuko speak to one another as Roku and Sozin once did – as friends. (Incidentally, the also confirm that the entire series took place within just a year, which seems kind of crazy.) They embrace, the two young men who were once bitter enemies now trusted allies. Mai and Tai Lee are released and seem to have new destinies themselves. Zuko credits The Avatar to a throng of people at his coronation as Fire Lord, and he is not surrounded by Fire Nation loyalists, but a balanced group of supporters from all nations, there to help rebuild the world. “The Phoenix King” promised to burn down the old world and make a new one from the ashes, and in a way, he has made good on his promise, albeit not in the way he intended.
There is such hope and catharsis in these last scenes. Aang is at peace, his mission complete, freed from the burden that created so much hardship over the past year. Zuko too is in a place of calm, having restored his honor and ascended to the throne, though not as the vicious ruler his father envisioned, but as the kind and noble man his uncle did, one ready to lead his people to a new era. After one hundred years of war and bloodshed, there is the hope that this new generation, one that has tried to cast off the scars and mistakes of the past, can make a new way forward.
We also get one last scene of Team Avatar as we knew them – simply enjoying one another’s company. Iroh plays music, the rest of the gang chats, and Sokka creates an embellished, mostly inaccurate drawing that he defends in his trademark way. This is a family – an unlikely one, filled with individuals collected from across the world from different backgrounds and temperament, but one that, through their shared vision and efforts and care for another, really did manage to save the world.
Aang gazes upon this scene lovingly as he walks out to see the new day and drink in the peace of his surroundings. Katara follows him, and in a wordless scene, with the glow of golden clouds behind them, the two embrace, and then kiss.
It’s the one scene in this finale that I do not care for. As I’ve said before, despite Aang’s crush, the chemistry between him and Katara always felt more friendly, even motherly, than romantic, a childlike crush Aang would need to one day move past than the trappings of true romantic love. It sends the series out on something of a false note, albeit one that the show has teased many times over the course of its run.
Still, it represents the larger idea of the episode – that even with the weight of the world on his shoulders, Aang chooses his own path, one true to who he is and what he believes. I’ve expressed my skepticism about his unwillingness to take Ozai’s life, but however foolhardy it may seem at times, it is a reflection of the young man who never seemed like the Avatar he was supposed to be, who instead, forged his own way. That way was often off-beat, confused, and at times, well-meaning but foolish, but it was always a moral one, and more to the point, one that reflected the unique attitudes of the young man who carried them.
He chose to run rather than be sent on his Avatar training. He chose to fight rather than sever his connection to the people he cared about. And he chose to find another way rather than violate his personal, ethical code against killing another human being. In the end, he became his own sort of Avatar, one that did not simply accede to the will of destiny or expectation and tradition but instead made his own way without sacrificing the purity of his spirit or his convictions. There is something admirable, something true in that, and it makes for a satisfying finish to this incredible series.
Avatar: The Last Airbender truly deserves that superlative. Though the series took some time to find its voice, eventually it would flesh out an incredible world, filled with well-developed characters, a deep, generational lore, and a core cast who grew more multi-dimensional and complex as it progressed. The show deserves to take its place among the great stories of chosen ones, the stellar, epic tales that offer hardship and hope, struggle and success, tragedy and triumph. With an attention to detail and character that made those larger-than-life events meaningful, it captures an amazing journey. The series is the story of a collection of young people, amid a war and a struggle they are not quite ready for, renewing the promises that this world can offer and discovering who they are in the process. In that, they returned harmony to the four nations, and to one another, and that’s what makes A:tLA so great.
[9.5/10] “My man!” So much to love in this one. The main story is so much fun, with all the humor the show wrings from the weak details of the simulated world (I love the pop tart driving a toaster bit). The aliens’ inability to deal with nudity, the expectedly great performance from David Cross, and using complicated crowd instructions to overwhelm the computer’s processors are all great elements. Heck, even the “simulation within a simulation” business, and the glee with which Rick and the aliens one-up each other, makes for an inventive and enjoyable adventure.
But my favorite part is Jerry’s story. The fact that Jerry not only doesn’t realize in the low-CPU end of the simulation, but has his most meaningful and fulfilling life experience in it, walks the line between tragedy and comedy so perfectly they should invent a new theater mask for it. The broken processing gags are familiar to anyone who’s played a glitching video game, and Jerry’s obliviousness to everything, and his emotional journey projected onto these blank slates, is just brilliant.
Overall, it’s noteworthy how confident and command R&M was out of the gate here, with a fun sci-fi adventure with an unassumingly dark bit at its core.
[8.6/10] One hell of a premiere and one hell of a surprise. It delivered what I want from a show like Rick and Morty -- crazy, imaginative, absolutely insane sci-fi experimentation and adventure, with dark introspective emotional and character material to support it. The bits of the sci-fi weirdness, from Inception-like brain journeys to transferred consciousness to battles between disparate forces in space were colorful and mind-bending the whole way through.
But what I really loved about this episode was how it asked (and maybe answered) the question I was left asking at the end of the last episode -- what motivates Rick Sanchez? Is he a hero, as Summer thinks, a demon or crazy god like Morty thinks, or somebody whose motivations are just so opaque and arbitrary that he more or less defies that sort of characterization? The episode seems to give a troubling answer, one that pulls away from the way Rick was softened over the course of S2, but it spends most of the episode teasing you in either direction, making you think he's a hero or on an opportunist or an amoral crackpot or just a complicated guy.
I'm not sure I'm any more clarified on what he wants or what kind of guy he is than I was before (and Morty clearly still has its issues), but I love the way the show leans into that complexity, even amid the crazy science fiction wonderment and disaster taking place all around.
On the whole, this was one thrill of a surprise premiere that sets the stage for the rest of the season, changes enough of the status quo to make things meaningful, and delivers another exploration of what makes Rick tick, and how that affects his grandchildren, without giving any easy answers.
[7.5/10] What do I come to Rick and Morty for? Surprisingly thoughtful emotional material coupled with beaucoup sci-fi weirdness and sci-fi storytelling, and “Rickmancing the Stone” had that in spades.
Most of the episode takes place in a Mad Max-style wasteland, and while that setting already feels a little passe (that’s what you get for going a year and a half between seasons), it makes for a nice launching board for each of the characters to find their own way to deal with Beth and Jerry’s divorce.
My favorite of these is Morty’s. We’ve seen that Morty has deep-seated issues he doesn’t know how to process other than with rage and violence before (most notably in the purge episode) and so a Rick-injected murderous arm with a mind of its own proves to be just what the doctor ordered. It works for character development as whomping people in the “blood dome” helps him deal with his disgust at his dad’s lack of a backbone, but it also works for comedy, with the arm gesticulating and using sign language to try to communicate. Plus the heart-to-heart between them as the arm goes on a roaring rampage of revenge gives a nicely off-kilter texture to the whole thing.
Summer’s was less my favorite, but still good. Her dealing with her current issues with her dad by shacking up with the leader of the post-apocalyptic wasteland tribe (who was, I think, voiced by Joel McHale?) had some juice to it. (Their discussion about his mustache -- particularly the “hat on a hat” bit -- was especially funny.) The fact that Rick messes them up by bringing electricity and the same workaday B.S. of the real world is a fun twist, and Summer hugging her dad and appreciating his “this is all bullshit anyway” mentality is a nice bow to tie on the whole thing.
Rick is his usual amoral but story-driving self. I love his plot to try to create android to fool Beth. There’s something amusing about him trying to retrieve Morty and Summer despite his claims that there’s “infinite versions of them” because to find replacements would be more trouble than its worth. Plus the robots are hilarious, with Robo-Morty’s protestations that he wants to be “alive” and run through a stream being particularly funny in that pitch-black science fiction way that R&M does so well.
On the whole, this was a great episode to kick off the new season (aside from our April Fools Day preview) and to have the characters (and the show) process Beth and Jerry’s divorce rather than just move on like nothing happened.
(As an aside, I assume it’s Rick who’s causing the wind to whisper to Jerry that he’s a loser and having stray dogs chew up his unemployment check? Presumably to prolong this current situation and keep him from developing the stones to go after Beth again? Neat/characteristically horrible if so.)
[9.4/10] Really enjoyed this one. On the one hand, you have a just balls-to-the-walls Rick adventure. Him turning himself into a pickle, and having to climb to the top of the food chain by brain-licking his way to cockroach-based mobility, assembling a rat-based super-torso, and then make it out of the sewer is the kind of sci-fi weirdness I love from this show.
But then, Roiland & Harmon turn it up a notch, with Rick then finding his way inside some combination of Die Hard and Rambo, having to escape a secret and illegal compound run by a generic evil boss aided by a generic badass named “The Jaguar.” It’s the well-observed trope mashup and creativity that this show does well, mixed the inherent silliness that our hero is an ambulatory pickle. To top it off, it had the right details, like the enemy goons having superstitions about a pickle monster, and the Rube Goldberg traps Rick sets to defend itself.
The best part, though, is it’s not just empty violence or insanity for insanity stake. It’s a testament to how far Rick will go to avoid doing something he doesn’t want to do, particularly something he thinks is beneath him, and especially something he thinks might force him to confront the ways in which he’s created problems for his family.
Getting Susan Sarandon to play the counselor is a complete coup, and the writing is perfect, as Dr. Wong quickly teases out exactly what’s wrong with The Smiths’ family dynamic, Beth deflecting the real issue, and the kids being cautious but wanting to identify the problem. It’s the show coming clean about its psychological perspective on its characters, which could be a little too direct, but feels right with the tone of the episode.
After all, Beth idolizes her father and so justifies everything he does despite the fact that, as Dr. Wong points out, he doesn’t reward emotion or vulnerability and emotion and in fact punishes it, making Beth worried to call him to the carpet for anything lest he run away again. And Dr. Wong’s also right about Rick, the way he’s caught between his brilliant mind as a blessing and a curse and incapable of doing the work to be good or get better because it’s just that -- work, which bores him.
But what’s great and also terrible is how that accurate diagnosis doesn’t change anything. Morty and Summer both meekly suggest that the school-mandated session was helpful and they want to do it again, and Rick and Beth completely ignore them, the same way they ignore all their problems and opportunities to make things better, when their status quo is unpleasant but comfortable and more importantly familiar. It’s another episode that shows how well this show knows its characters and their hangups, while inserting fecophilia gags to lighten the tone, and a gonzo set of action sequences that actually manages to dovetail with the deeper, darker message of the episode.
It’s all part of the amazing balancing act that Rick and Morty pulls off on a weekly (or at least biannual) basis, and this installment stands out for its frankness about the problems facing two of its main characters, its creativity in dramatizing them, and the sadness of the rut they allow themselves to be stuck in, dragging poor Morty and Summer down with them. But hey, the Jaguar saves the day in the tag from the Con-Chair-To, so there’s hope yet!
[9.0/10] I don’t know how Rick and Morty keeps doing it, but somehow the show continually finds new ways to combine insane sci-fi weirdness with deep and meaningful character introspection, and I can’t get enough of it.
At the same time the show crafts and adventure where Rick and Jerry turn a visit to a resort and theme park into a snowballing bout of murder attempts and changing alliances, the show also explores both the strain Rick placed on Beth and Jerry’s marriage, and Jerry’s own unassumingly weasely ethos.
The former comes in the form of an inventive resort setting with an “immortality field.” Maybe I’m just not deep enough into sci-fi, but I love the concept as a setting that not only makes for a natural place Rick would take Jerry (at Morty’s behest, naturally) but creates an interesting conundrum for the plotters trying to take out Rick. (Plus it creates one dark as hell joke from two little kids playing together.) The show certainly has its fun with the concepts, and setting a murder attempt there on a roller coaster that dips just outside the field is superb.
The great escape part is fun too. Everything from another alien forest full of crazy creatures, to a cruise line that makes dangerous people dumber rather than preventing them from boarding is inventive as all get out. Plus, the “time-preserver” sequence is the sort of Lynchian madness we haven’t seen much of from the show, but which featured some insanely creative sequences as well.
And in the midst of all this, there’s a great exploration both of who Jerry is, how Rick sees him, and what Rick’s done to his life. The high point of that is Rick’s speech to Jerry that his son-in-law plays it off like he’s prey but that he’s really a predator, attaching himself to people and bringing him down. It makes sense that Rick would see him that way, and it’s revealing of Rick that as much as he pretends his reasons for busting on Jerry are because he gets in the way, there’s a part of him that does it to defend his daughter, whose life he thinks Jerry ruined. Rick caring about things always manifests in weird ways, but that what makes him interesting as a character.
Hell, I like Jerry, and there’s something about a guy whose only crime is being “unremarkable” being treated so shabbily by pretty much everyone that feels wrong. But he’s also not a great guy himself -- a small, petty man as Principal Skinner might say. Still, his indecision about whether to let Rick die, coupled with his feelings about Rick squeezing him out and hurting his marriage, make for very rich, complex material in a pairing we don’t get all that often.
The B-story is not nearly as deep, but pretty darn great too. It has its own spate of weirdness, with Summer trying to make her breasts larger with one of Rick’s transforming rays and ending up gigantic and, thanks to Beth’s assistance, also inside out. That, coupled with the “tech support” guys being three little dudes who live in the machine and trick her into letting them out, makes the science fiction-y and comedy sides of the story spectacular. (The same goes for Beth’s bizarre “hoof collage”)
But there’s also some good character stuff there too. I’m kind of loving the direction the show’s taking Morty this season. He’s showing his own dark side (see how he treats Ethan), and he’s become the character on the show with the most perspective, being able to identify how his mom is acting like her father in her refusal to ask for help and arrogance in her belief that she can just solve the problem without engaging emotionally. Beth turning herself gigantic and inside out to comfort Summer about her body issues is a bizarre but hilarious way to resolve the story to boot.
Overall, another stellar outing from Rick and Morty that makes me lament we only get five more weeks (maybe?) of this awesome show.
[9.0/10] Not since The Sopranos has there been a show on television so devoted to examining the psyches of its characters. I feel like I need to rewatch this episode five times to truly unpack everything there is to glean from such a dense, psychologically complex episode. If there’s been a consistent theme to Season 3, it’s been digging deep into what makes the show’s main characters tick, what makes them who they are, and “Rest and Ricklaxation” both literalizes that (by separating its title characters into their constituent parts) and plays it out in fascinating, emotionally-wrenching detail.
The impetus for that is Rick and Morty going into a psychological toxin-clearing chamber at an intergalactic spa. The catch is that the chamber doesn’t just free you from harmful it elements, it removes those elements, personified as “booger” versions of you, and keeps them trapped in a chamber. So while the real Rick and Morty are feeling happier and more relaxed in the real world, the concentrated toxic parts of them are caught in the chamber working frantically to get out.
The initial results seem predictable, if a little twisted. Toxic Rick is even more hateful and self-aggrandizing than Real Rick. He’s constantly touting his own genius, constantly belittling Morty, and constantly lashing out at the world. Toxic Morty is entirely self-hating and debased, little more than a subservient wart of a person accepting any and all abuse.
What’s interesting is that it seems to flip the good/evil dynamic in Healthy Rick and Healthy Morty. While Healthy Rick feels compelled to rescue their toxic counterparts once he knows of their existence, Healthy Morty likes his own happiness and is constantly resisting any attempt to set things back the way they were under a the guise of not questioning it.
Now splitting protagonists into their good and evil sides is nothing new. (Lord knows the Star Trek franchise returned to that well time and time again.) But the twist, and the thing that makes the episode really stand out from the pack, is that the divergence point for “healthy” Rick and Morty isn’t some arbitrary definition of toxicity, it’s what they themselves view as the toxic parts of their being.
Which leads to all kinds of interesting complications, not the least of which is that Toxic Rick isn’t just some personification of bad, and Healthy Morty isn’t some noble personification of good. It’s a brilliant, fascinating choice to depict Healthy Morty as this honest but heartless, manipulative douchebag. The things that Morty sees as toxic in himself -- his self-doubt and self-loathing -- weigh down an overconfidence and disregard for others’ that, left unchecked, turn him into an uberpopular, successful stock broker, but one who doesn’t really care about anything else or anyone.
It’s a deranged echo of Inside Out’s thesis that negative emotions are vital and valid and help make us stronger individuals. There is something so frighteningly recognizable about Healthy Morty, between his offhand quips about his food being organic to maxims about saying important things face-to-face that reveal a deeper soulless beneath despite all the crowd-pleasing pablum. Toxic Morty isn’t a pretty sight or an encouraging reflection of the real Morty -- he’s deeply unhappy, horribly self-defeating, and outright declares that he wants to die. But the idea that these are the things keeping Morty from becoming a wide-eyed, smiling little monster is one of the boldest and darkest takes this show has offered on one of its main characters.
But that’s only half the impact of the twist. The other, and arguably more foundational reveal in the episode is that Rick really does care about the people in his life, at least Morty, but he views that as toxic, as “irrational attachments” he’d rather overcome. It’s striking in that it answers one of the basic questions the show has been teasing out forever now -- whether despite his protestations to the contrary, Rick loves his family. “Rest Ricklaxation” suggests that he does, but it’s something he hates in himself, which explains how and why he’s always trying to disclaim any such affections.
Rick may acknowledge the other parts of his personality as “toxic.” He admits narcissism, of disregard for the rest of the universe in favor of his own brilliance. But without that, without the parts of him he views as holding him back psychologically, he only has a general care for the world, about the impartial welfare of all, without any personal attachments to his grandson or anything else. The episode digs into who Rick and Morty are, what they hate about themselves, and the people they become without that, which tells you so very much about the show’s title characters.
Meanwhile, amidst all this deep psychological examination is an episode that just works on a nuts and bolts level. The conflict of reconciling toxic and healthy versions of Rick and Morty propels the episode nicely. Seeing a Rick-on-Rick battle throughout the Smiths’ house is thrilling with plenty of creative turns. Healthy Morty’s quiet psychopathy builds and builds keeping a comedic hum the whole time. And there’s even some amusing social commentary as Rick’s toxicity ray covers the globe and Morty’s restaurant acquaintance yells out “sea cucumber!” The main event of “Rest and Ricklaxation” is the show boring into the mental processes and damage of its protagonists, but it keeps the tension and the excitement up for what could otherwise be an overly cerebral exercise.
Like nearly all sitcoms must, it then returns things to the status quo. But while for most shows that’s a return to normalcy and sanity, for Rick and Morty it means returning those two characters to the fraught place where they began the episode. One of the most harrowing scenes in the entire series is the two of them sitting in Rick’s craft in the intro. Morty cries; Rick screams in anguish and admits he wasn’t in control, and the episode doesn’t turn away from the unnerving distress and damage these two individuals have accumulated over the course of their adventures.
This is what the combination of good and bad in Rick and Morty gets them. There’s the sense that both need that balance, to keep them tethered and, in different ways, to keep them caring about people, but the results of that cocktail -- of self-glorification and self-loathing, of brash confidence and debasement, of personal fulfillment and global concern -- doesn’t create a pretty picture for our heroes either.
[9.5/10] At some point, I am going to stop being surprised by Rick and Morty’s brilliance and just expect it, but the show is still at that point where I suspect it’ll be good every week, but it still manages to blow me away each new turn it takes.
I take “The Ricklantis Mixup” to be Season 3’s answer to the improv episodes from the prior two seasons -- a change of pace that allows Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland to play around in their amazing sandbox of a universe for a bit without feeling the need to develop or advance their main character. In that, they give us an episode that doesn’t have Rick or Morty or any of the other main characters, and yet has all the Ricks and Morties, in glorious, The Wire-esque splendor.
And The Wire really has to be the touchstone for an episode like this. Where else are you going to find something that addresses the challenges of cops and criminals, the rise of an charismatic and unexpected leader, the frustrations of blue collar working who feels like the system is holding him down, and the difficulties of four schoolchildren to make their way in that world. Hell, throw in a Hamsterdam, and you have all five seasons of that superlative show, filtered through Harman and Roiland’s dueling deranged perspectives and deposited into one twenty-two minute chunk. That’s an amazing achievement, the sort of praise I feel like I’m throwing out all too often for this show, but it keeps earning it.
The episode can roughly be broken up into those four stories, but what makes the episode more than just the sum of its parts (and what earns its Wire comparisons) is how interconnected those stories are, both literally, since they’re connected by the Citadel are all affected by the ecosystem that’s developed after our Rick destroyed the place, but also thematically, in the way each protagonist of each story looks at a bad situation and wants change, and gets it, but gets something unsatisfying or unpleasant or worse than they bargained for out of the process, with plenty of dead bodies floating among the garbage and blasted out the airlock.
That’s clearest for Candidate Morty, trying to win the presidency of The Citadel on behalf of The Morty Party. There’s something aspirational, almost West Wing-esque about Candidate Morty, as he gives soaring, Obama-esque speeches about dissolving the lines of division between Ricks and Morties and make The Citadel something better for all. That makes it seem particularly terrible when his former campaign manager, another Morty, tries to assassinate him. The move turns out to be all for naught since Candidate Morty survives and becomes President, in something that seems like a chance to turn around this mixed up place.
Instead, it’s revealed that Candidate Morty is the evil, eye patch-wearing Morty we met back in Season 1. It’s the perfect, knife-turning twist for the episode -- a reveal that the Carcetti-esque beacon of hope for a city in turmoil is a guy running on unifying rhetoric to pursue his own Carcetti-esque ambitions (well, maybe a touch more intergalactically evil than Carcetti’s). All of that hope, all of the communal joining together and believing that things can change just puts a tyrant into power, and holy hell is that one of the darkest things an already dark show has put forward.
Then there’s Factory Worker Rick, who seems older and more haried even by Rick standards, gazing out of subway cars, seeing wealthier and cooler Ricks succeed ahead of him, and sighing. He works at a factory that makes wafers out of the satisfaction an old fashioned “Simple Rick” enjoys when reliving the experience of spending time with his daughter (a subtly revealing bit in and of itself).
Things hit the fan when he goes postal, killing his boss and co-workers, and getting into a hostage standoff with the police. There too, the show capture a certain backbreaking ennui to this place, that even (and maybe especially) a locale populated by geniuses leads to this sort of dissatisfaction, disaffection, and anomie. And this story has just as cynical an ending, with Factory Worker Rick believing he’s won, only for the Wonka-esque Rick who runs the factory to capture him and use that feeling of freedom and satisfaction to fuel his new deluxe wafers. I mean, my god, if that is not the peak of devastating, existential irony on this show, I don’t know what is.
There’s also Rookie Cop Rick, who’s paired with Grizzled Cop Morty. More than the other stories, this one feels like it’s riffing on a sea of tropes ripped right out of the Training Day playbook. There’s plenty of political and social commentary baked in through how even Grizzled Cop Morty looks down on his fellow Morties as “animals” or how Rookie Cop Rick tries to give himself up to his brethren for the difficult choices he’s made and gets let off the hook. But it has less impact since it feels like more of those tropes played straight (or at least, as straight as can be possible given the insane circumstances) than something truly new and subversive.
Still, this is the part of the episode where the show gains strength from the crazy details of the world it’s constructed at The Citadel. The entire concept of a wild Morty club where Morty’s dress up in costumes, dance for one another, and use bad math, or of a series of news anchors from the same hierarchy of subuniverses, each of whom has it worst than the next, or just the concept of Morties who’ve been turned into lizards and Ricks adopting rural affections is bizarre and hilarious and head-scratching in the best ways.
That comes through in the episode’s final story, which sees a quartet of young Morties, soon to be assigned to a new quartet of Ricks, go out in search of a fabled “wish portal” that could change their lives. The sorriest among them is Cool Morty, who has an experimental drama chip that allows him to make things “sad and a little boring,” and who’s been through Rick after Rick. Here too, there is that sense of existential dread, of things never changing, the permeates the proceedings. Cool Morty’s suicide is unexpected and lives up to the sadness his experimental chip portends, but it’s made worse that the supposed change his dive into this sci-fi wishing well effected is the hollow one President Morty offered.
That’s the rub of this one. Even in this fantastical world of brilliant scientists and their boy sidekicks, there is a kaleidoscope of pain and false promises that stretch through everything. All the geniuses, all the good-natured moppets in the world can’t change that when thrown together into their own dysfunctional society. That Rick and Morty has the chutzpah to explore that society for an episode, and to deliver that message, just speaks to the boldness and off-kilter storytelling we’ve come to expect, and to make it all as funny as it is quietly devastating, is a near-miracle. Rick and Morty keeps delivering them on a regular basis.
[7.6/10] Well, I guess I was wrong about last week’s episode replacing the improv-based interdimensional cable eps we’ve gotten previously. But I enjoy this entree full of bite-sized adventures for our heroes. It’s a throwback to Harmon’s “clip show but with new clips” bit from Community and fun to see the mini-stories thrown out rapid fire.
I particularly liked the opening pair of stories. Morty mistaking his new guidance counselor for a scary moon man is the sort of Bailey School Kids schtick with a Rick and Morty twist that really tickled my fancy. By the same token, turning the usual “humans trapped in an alien zoo” routine into a Contact-based hoodwinking is entertaining.
But I also really enjoyed the fact that Rick didn’t just zap away the memories of things that were too heavy for Morty to take; he zapped away his own minor mistakes, like the phrase “taken for granite,” not to mention things that implicate his family members, like Beth choosing Summer over Morty in her alien Sophie’s Choice scenario.
While most of the stories were amusing in that black comic way the show’s mastered, it feels like they’re all another brick in the wall of Morty getting tired of Rick’s bullshit, and the rest of the family’s bullshit too. The twist that both Rick and Morty lose their memories and have to use the vials to figure out who they are revitalizes the premise a bit, but also leads to the bleak realization that after seeing all that stuff, the pair want to have a suicide pact.
It’s played mainly for laughs, with Summer barging in on them and refueling their memories in a desultory fashion like she’s had to do this dozens of times, but like most episodes of the show, it finds the humor in something that, at its core, is pretty damn dark. (And then “no wonder you guys fight all the time and are always behind schedule” sounds like a not so veiled bit of self-commentary about Harmon and Roiland, which is a little discouraging.)
Overall, it’s a fun, rapid-fire premise for an episode that allows the show to deliver its humor and demented scenarios in quick hit format, but which still uses the form to offer a commentary on its two core characters, what they’ve seen, and the frustrations and vanity and ego that drives them to want to end it all. The fact that the show can wring comedy from that is just another pelt on the wall of its achievements.
[8.1/10] Ambiguity can be both frustrating and brilliant. There is a natural impulse in most people to want to know the answers, to resolve the unknown, but the unknown is also a part of life, and if a television show can harness that, use it to make meaning, it can hit outstanding notes. David Chase knew that with The Sopranos , his protégé Matt Weiner knew it with Mad Men, and Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland seem to know it with Rick and Morty.
Because the last thing you’re likely to think about when you flip off “The ABCs of Beth” (if you’re not reflecting on the amusingly self-aware answering machine gag) is whether or not Beth replaced herself with a clone and left to go mount the universe. Rick and Morty is a show that usually delivers answers, even if it’s content to delay them for months or, in the case of Evil Morty, even years. But maybe some questions shouldn’t be answered.
I think that’s the point of “The ABCs of Beth.” Rick gives his daughter two options: either she can create a painless substitute that will carry her current life forward while she prowls the galaxy in search of meaning or adventure, or she can live her life as is, knowing it’s what she actually chose with clear eyes and real alternatives on the table. The Beth we meet at the end of the episode could be either -- the content clone or the real, happy Beth who’s satisfied at having picked this rather than having it forced upon her.
That’s the cinch of the episode. For many of us sitting home, we have similar choices, even if they’re not quite so fantastical. We can radically change our lives, pursuing abstract principles and goals at the expense of all that we know, or we can go forward with how things are, finding comfort and joy in the day-to-day. There are multiple paths to happiness, Rick and Morty seems to posit, or at least multiple paths to wholeness, and which path you take there isn’t necessarily evident or comprehensible to an outsider observer. But it starts with accepting who you are and what you want.
That’s the noteworthy parallel “ABCs” draws between its outstanding A-story and its less-inspired B-story. Both Beth and Jerry spend much of the episode attempting to deny who they are, blaming unfortunate events on family members, rather than owning them, accepting that the consequences are a product of their own actions.
For Jerry, that means accepting that him dating an alien huntress is a pathetic attempt to make Beth jealous. It’s an interesting way to mirror the two stories, but Jerry’s half of the episode just isn’t as strong. Maybe it’s the hard-to-watch way his kids just bust on him constantly (not that he doesn’t deserve it). Maybe it’s the divorced dad humor that’s pretty tepid, even if it’s spiced up in Rick and Morty’s intergalactic fashion. Maybe it’s that the ultimate twist -- that the huntress ends up going after the Smiths, only run into her ex -- is amusing but predictable.
Jerry’s part of the episode isn’t bad or anything. The bubble gun is enjoyable. Jerry’s barely-sublimated space racism and smugness is used for amusing effect. And there’s some more frank exposing of Jerry’s true colors. But it mainly feels like Rick and Morty needed something for the rest of the cast to do while Rick and Beth hit the high notes, and little that happens in Jerry’s dating life, however explosive, can match it.
But really, who could match the horrible realization that not only was your childhood fantasy land real, but that your childhood friend is still stuck there in it. There’s so many endlessly interesting things that spin out from the unveiling of “Froopyland.” I’d be lying if I said that the reveal that Beth’s friend survived by “humping” the fantastical creatures and then eating his own children didn’t gross me out, but Rick and Morty manages to wring the humor from even that with its bizarre little forest creature play about it.
Stronger still is the emotional and character material. For one thing, we learn that Rick created this fantasy land for his daughter. He claims it’s a practical measure, something to keep her occupied and to keep the neighbors from getting suspicious. But as the Citadel episode hinted with its Rick wafers, there’s a part of Rick that really does care about his daughter, even if it means he shows it in weird ways like creating deranged toys, or letting her help him clone her childhood friend, or giving her a way out of her family.
For another, we learn that Beth, despite her seemingly greater morals and guilt and issues with her dad, is just like him. That’s been a subtle thread throughout Season 3, with particularly resonance in “Pickle Rick.” Beth admits it herself, realizing how she denies the utility of apologies, and elides her own mistakes and past by casting those things as simply how others interpret her greatness. Her unwillingness to face that she pushed her childhood pal in the honey pit, and her then getting into a bloody confrontation with him, is an odd form of self-acceptance, but also a cathartic one.
It leads Beth back to the choice that represents the crux of the episode. If you are the daughter of Rick Sanchez, the miserable, amoral, genius, do you go out and try to ride the universe until it gets tired of bucking you, or do you try a different way, a way that finds happiness in being a part of your family, in doing the everyday. It’s the clearest suggestion yet as to what choice Rick himself made when he left Beth and her mother all those years ago.
But as much as they have in common, Beth is not her father. She feels enough guilt to want to save her friend’s dad from death row, to look at those pictures of her family on the fridge and feel the wistfulness of the thought of leaving him. We just don’t know if that’s enough to change her mind.
Maybe we shouldn’t know. I bet dollars to donuts that one day we will, that the “real” Beth will come floating down in Season 5 and cause some story sparks just like Evil Morty and the Cronenberg Universe Smiths did. But regardless, the force of the ambiguity is clear. There are different ways to live, different ways to try to make your peace with who you are and what you want out of this universe. What we choose, and why we choose it, can be opaque, even to ourselves, and the art that reflects that vagueness, that uncertainty, can be all the stronger for it.
The one 16 year old girl says she's supposed to be "this great detective", the other 16 year old girl buys a bar and trades it for a diner and the third 16 year old gets crowned king of the Serpents. I don't think the writers even remember their ages at this point.
I'm not happy with the way this whole Black Hood season ended. It really feels like the writers had no idea who they wanted to put under the hood and halfway through the season they heard the theory of Hal being the Black Hood and they decided to roll with it like two episodes before the finale. For once there are no subtle hints for it to be him before episode 20 and on the other hand the whole reasoning and execution at the end felt hollow and cheap, especially the part about THE DARKNESS™. I thought at least one of the adults would finally address this as mental illness, but nope. Don't think we'll ever get to see any of them in therapy either.
Three things that I'm curious about - Chic, Alice's dead son and Polly.
Chic just disappeared and we still don't know anything. Was there even a point to begin with? I thought his creepiness would be relevant somehow, but nothing happened. I'm wondering if he'll come back next season.
Then there's Alice's dead son. I was actually thinking he's not dead because we really didn't get to see anything about him. It felt really tragic to know that Alice saw him and closed the door in his face, but I thought it would connect more with the overall story or with Chic.
And then there's Polly who definitely had something going on. I wonder if we know this mysterious guy who helped her or if her mother will get dragged into a weird cult. And I actually find this much more interesting than the cliffhanger that Archie is arrested (I was sure there would be some bloodshed after Jug's weird announcement) and Hiram is still planning to deal drugs on the New Southside. I was actually hoping for him to leave Riverdale or go to prison at the end of the season, but apparently his cheap mobster story will continue.
And even after all these complaints every week I'm still excited to watch new episodes and do enjoy it. It's over the top and crazy but at the same time I find it so entertaining :D
I kind of enjoyed this episode and that has everything to do with the fact that the parents got a bit more screentime and that for a second it looked like something really shocking was about to happen in this Gargoyle garbage which of course didn`t really.
I like seeing more of Cheryl and Toni but there has to be more there, there is not enough story there to truly get in touch with the characters. I'm actually a little relieved that Jug and Betty weren't a focuspoint of this episode, it's refreshing to see some other characters for a change, like Kevin and Josie.
Josie and Archie is a good match, way better than Varchie in my opinion and speaking of Veronica, can she possibly get more annoying? yes, of course she can. It's all about her and when her boyfriend tells her that his dad beats him up, oh well...
I liked how the parents all came together for this game and the safety of their children and that when the threat seems real that all of them come through for their kids even the ones who pretend to not care at all about their kids like Penelope. It's the little things in storylines like that that make the difference.
It is a total let down that they managed to bring forth ANOTHER Gargoyle King. How long can they stretch this out?
Well, that certainly turned DARKER rather quickly. Vanya's new beau is at the least a next level stalker, possibly a serial killer, or, on a long shot, also "special" or, has knowledge of Vanya's suppressed (since childhood) abilities, which makes her either hella dangerous, thus the suppression, or part of Daddy dearest's diabolical experiment to see what happens if you take a "special" child, and tell them they aren't worth bothering about, until they lose any and all confidence in themselves. I REALLY hope she's dangerous, cuz, otherwise, Papa needed killin' real good.
Diego has got guilt transference down really good. Kills his own "Mom" and makes Luther feel bad about wanting to shut her down. Abandons the family and turns it to "well, why did you stay, the problem is YOU". Douche. Even when his Detective Ex girlfriend / booty call FINALLY does what he's been egging her on all along to do, breaks protocol, and pays the price, he transfers the blame to HER, asking "Why didn't you wait for me? I was coming?" Dude has MAJOR issues.
What if Vanya IS the cause of the end??? Just sayin'.
Yes, Sheehan has basically been doing a glammed up Nathan, but then he always plays some version of that character since Misfits IMO.
Oh, wow, this was, surprisingly, a lot of fun! I don't know the books and, for me, American Gods was one of the biggest TV disappointments of the last few years. So, I decided to watch this without getting my hopes up (although Terry Pratchett's name did give me some hope)... And I ended up truly enjoying the amusing, light-hearted tone of the whole episode, while juggling gloomy things like Satan and Armageddon at the same time. Because of this (and the narration and colourful scenery), it even reminded me of Pushing Daisies, at times, so I'm surprised Bryan Fuller has nothing to do with this.
Both main actors excel in their roles (me being a fan of Mr. Blum on The Good Fight and, of course, Dr. Who and Killgrave), which only seems to make this show even more appealing, when there's already a solid chemistry between such a quirky duo at the helm of a show.
I think this is a mini-series (there's only one book, right?), so it saddens me that we probably won't be getting any more than these 6 episodes... But I'm sure they'll be some of the best 6 episodes I'll have the pleasure to watch for a while. And this is definitely the episode with the cutest lullaby and hellhound on TV, ever (probably)!
Now off to binge watch the rest of them!
[7.5/10] I liked this one a bit better than the last episode. The misadventures with the descendents of the most noteworthy witch and witch hunter were more amusing that the baby switcheroo act, and we got some more Sheen/Tenant goodness, which helped.
As to the former, I like the notion that Pulcifer, the modern version at least, is just an unlucky sap. He can’t deal with anything electronic, and has the worst luck overall, which makes him endearing as a sort of sad sack “didn’t ask for this” witch hunter. By the same token, adding Michael McKean to the proceedings is never a bad way to go with your show! The notion of the two of them leading a nutball witch hunt is promising.
The actual witch (or witch descendent) was reasonably entertaining too. I like the idea that for once, there’s a psychic who actually makes useful and accurate predictions, and that her family uses them to get ahead. I’m curious as to where they’re going with Anathema, and the whole bike/book mixup has potential as well.
I’ll admit, I haven’t really latched onto Adam’s quartet of kids just yet. Sure, there’s something cute enough about them misunderstanding history or playacting the British (nee Spanish) Inquisition (ole!). But it hasn’t really gotten a lot of laughs out of me yet, and I know we’re only two episodes in, but I keep waiting for a little more. It occurs to me that we might be in for a twist where it’s the third baby who’s really the antichrist but I may be grasping at straws there.
That said, I still think that the show is a solid 40% better when it’s just the misadventures of Aziraphale and Crowley. The two of them going on the hunt for the birth records of the original antichrist is especially amusing. Aziraphale’s stuffiness and generally creampuffery mixed with Crowley’s dash of sarcasm and devil’s foodcake is still a superb recipe.
I also like the little cheats here and there. Crowley helping Aziraphale with his stain, or having the corporate teambuilding paintball match turn into one with real guns that nevertheless involves beaucoup miraculous escapes hints at a nicer streak within him. And it’s just as fun to see Crowley himself get mad and threatening when Aziraphale almost calls him out on it.
The bike crash incident is amusing as well, with the pair using their powers in fun ways to try to keep Anathema from getting suspicious. I also got a kick out of Gabriel in the book shop making alien attempts to be discreet. At times, you can still see the strings of this show trying to capture a certain tone and voice that works in literature but is hard to translate to a different medium, but this episode fared a little better on that front.
Overall, I’m still in this for the angel/demon team-up moments much more than I’m in it for any of the other apocalyptic shenanigans, but the show had a better balance of that this time around, which helped.
[8.3/10] Look, I know it’s important that stories have conflicts and that six-hour shows expand their reach beyond just two people and that you need rising and falling action and all that good stuff. But damnit, I would watch the hell out of a version of Good Omens that was just “Aziraphale and Crowley hang out throughout history.”
The section of the episode before the opening credits is just so damn fun! Beyond the amusement of the costumes, and the takes on different biblical or historical moments, and the continually great banter between the angel and the demon, you just have lots of fun developments. Everything from the unicorn missing Noah’s arc, to the triple cross of the Nazis, to the secret history of why Hamlet was such a hit are all brilliant.
But I also love these segments as a way to show millennia-long bits of character development in between those two. I really like Michael Sheen’s performance in these segments, the way that he questions the brutality of old testament justice and seems appalled at the violence, but is so conditioned (and frankly repressed) that he refuses to the plan. I also really like how Crowley convinces himself he’s as evil as ever, but throughout history pops in to help his dear friend when he needs it. And I particularly like the way that, through the ages, the two slowly discover a certain futility to the way that they’re continually canceling one another out, and decide to just lay low and enjoy themselves and even help one another out rather than fighting to a stalemate between good and evil.
Despite all that, I think my favorite part is Aziraphale’s refusal to let his friend risk or even end his life. Even though the show has had its semi-dramatic moments at times, it’s been pretty irreverent, so digging into Aziraphale’s line in the sand about the holy water, only to show him bending and finally outright breaking the rules for his friend, sells the impact of their friendship on one another. That adds real weight to the final scene where the pair “break-up”, which feels both impactful given the history and change between them we’ve just witnessed, and has a certain combination of drama and humor to it given how the pair can seem like an old married couple at times.
The rest of the goings-on in the episode are fine. I’ll admit, I’m not quite sure what to make of Adam being influenced by Anathema and using his powers to neutralize nuclear power plants, but it’s an interesting development. The discovery that Aziraphale and Crowley’s “agents” turn out to be the same conspiracy nut is a funny one. And I like how Pulcifer discovers something genuinely witchy, that just happens to point him to the town where the real antichrist lives. (I also like that it’s something as subtle as always-perfect weather, and bits like “Lieutenant Milkbottle” are worth a laugh.)
Still, the heart of the episode comes from the way it focuses most squarely on the friendship between these two opposing beings who have nevertheless grown close and yet find themselves at odds. The notion of the two “running away together” has a certain potency given some subtext here (and Sheen sells it accordingly), but the way that their personal friendship and professional opposition collide here gives “Hard Times” both a dramatic and comic force that hasn’t been nearly as present in the prior episodes.
Overall this is the pick of the litter so far, and gives me hope for what the show can do going forward, particularly if it builds on the neat Aziraphale and Crowley work it did here.
[7.4/10] Not to beat this drum yet again, but I like this show best when it’s the adventures of Aziraphale and Crowley, and this one put them on the backburner. Still, there was enough to enjoy here to make things worthwhile.
For one, I’m actually on board with what’s going with Adam. I like the idea that he can make things real just by sort of willing them into existence, and with the mental influence of Anathema’s conspiracy magazines, that means the rise of Atlantis, and spying Tibetan monks, and friendly alien constables. It’s a bit of a hard shift from that to him deciding to remake the world with his three friends as captives, but there’s at least a bit of genuine scariness to that.
I’m less on board with Pulcifer and Anathema meeting and then nigh-instantly going into the throes of passion, but whatever. Shadwell realizing that he’s put Pulcifer in danger, and Queenie giving him bus fare and enough for a coffee and a snack is a kind of cute response to all of it.
And what we do get of Aziraphale and Crowley is pretty good! The “old couple having a tiff” routine between them is particularly enjoyable (especially with the random bystander telling Aziraphale that he’s been there and “you’re better off without him”). Aziraphale being roughed up by his fellow angels, and his mounting dissatisfaction with the way things are going is intriguing, and it being enough for him to utter a curse-word when being accidentally shuffled off to Heaven is a neat development.
I particularly like Crowley’s caper here too. Using Home Alone tactics to defeat his foes with holy water is a nice touch, and while a little cornball, the chase in the space between atoms has a bit of verve to it as well. But I particularly like his little breakdown before that. The discussions about being punished for asking questions, about testing but not to the point of oblivion, are pointed and sharp.
I also enjoy the introductions of Pollution and Death, and the shading given to the delivery man. His preternatural devotion to his otherwise mundane task is great, especially his “ours is not to know why” approach to it. There’s even some legitimate pathos when he writes an “I love you” note to his wife before taking the grim step toward delivering a message to death.
Otherwise, it’s interesting to see the show pulling the trigger on Armageddon with two episodes to go still. Bits like Heaven seeming as interested in the fight as in preventing it, Crowley wanting to run away to Alpha Centauri, and Adam’s view on remaking the world in his own image all have some juice and intrigue to them that makes me curious to know what happens next.
I'm glad that this was not a case of an intriguing and genuinely good pilot episode, followed by a bland rest of a season, like it tends to happen a wee bit too much in these days of the abundance of TV series. The fun and quality that was originally presented to us was steadily kept throughout the whole season, and it ended in a very satisfying and comfy way.
After these six episodes, I got vibes of Pushing Daisies (because of what I mentioned in the pilot episode), Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (for its overall quirkiness), Supernatural (a demon named Crowley and the whole bromance thing), and Stranger Things (kids on bikes trying to save the world — and, yes, I know Stranger Things was hardly an original snow). But, in the end, Good Omens was its own thing, and quite some of the most refreshing TV time I've had in a while. And it's impossible not to love Michael Sheen's and David Tennant's ineffable chemistry on screen.
A special mention to the little girl of the gang... Shows these days tend to shove SJW characters down our throats (the "politically correct" is becoming such a nuisance), but the way they handled her character turned out to be both adorable and hilarious! Characters like her often annoy the hell out of me, but she actually provided some genuine comic relief while trying to sound serious. Unintentionally or not, I say well done, show runners!
Also, did Agnes Nutter foresaw season two?
Jonathan Banks is ridiculous good. He does so much with so little; plays the stoic, taciturn old hand so well, that it's tempting to think of that as the sum total of what he is. In both Breaking Bad and Community, he plays a perpetually grumpy, vaguely prideful, uber-competent ruffian, and does so with such skill, that it's easy to go back to that well again and again.
But then in an episode like "Five-O", he hits a note of vulnerability. He sits in the dark, and the tears well in his eyes as he talks to his daughter-in-law about how he "broke his boy." Mike Ehrmentraut is not made of stone. He is a simple man in many ways, who is remarkable for how unremarkable he is at times. But there is a beating heart beneath his steely exterior, one that grieves for his lost son, that blames himself for allowing it to happen, and who throws himself at the mercy of his son's wife out of a sense of guilt and fairness for having taken the man she loves away from her.
That scene is so damn quiet. There's no music to subtly or not-so-subtly massage our emotions one direction or another. There's little of the cinematic flourishes that made Breaking Bad and its successor stand out in a sea of often bland direction on television. There's just close ups of a wounded animal spilling his guts over his greatest regret, and a similar shot of his daughter-in-law, who carries a similar look of hurt but also one of understanding. It's one of the most powerful, tragic scenes in this young series, but also in its more celebrated predecessor, that deepens an already enthralling character and shows that Mike is far more than just grump and handguns.
At the same time, as good as that final scene is, it shouldn't overshadow how well the episode that precedes it is constructed. Apart from the story of Walter White, apart from the story of Jimmy McGill, "Five-O" is a wonderful little short story that works almost entirely separated from the narratives of the protagonists that Mr. Ehrmantraut finds himself associated with.
It is both a mystery and a character piece, offering details both about what led Mike to where he is when we meet him at the parking booth in the beginning of Better Call Saul, but also examining who he is and the baggage he carries with him when we first meet him in Albuquerque.
The episode begins by, not in so many words, asking a number of questions. How did Mike get shot? Was he speaking on the phone with Matty the night before he died? What brought him to Albuquerque in this state? Why won't he tell his daughter-in-law? What did they talk about? Who killed Matty? Who killed his partners on the force.
Then, one by one, the episode cuts back and forth between the present and the future, answering these questions and presenting new ones as it goes. At one point, I believed that Mike had killed his own son for some reason. Or that he at least knew what was going to happen, but didn't stop it.
Instead, the episode doesn't leave the audience guessing for long. Even as it tosses out breadcrumbs, and lets silences linger that make more of an impact than any dialogue, it eventually shows you what happened before it tells you the rest of the story.
The sequence where Mike takes out his son's murderers is masterful. The subtle touches show who Mike is and what he's about. He's capable and smart, as seen in the way he anticipates the dirty cops taking his weapon and breaks into their cop car to plant another one. Despite his anger, he's nervous about his plan, as seen in the way his hand shakes as he makes sure to let his targets know that he's having a few as he holds his glass of whiskey. And he's wily, playing into their expectation that he's drunk, leading them to take him somewhere that an execution can take place without too much notice or trouble.
Then his demeanor changes, and he does what he feels he needs to, and we get everything we need to know except the last piece of the puzzle -- how Matty got mixed up in this in the first place. And that leads us to that final scene, with Mike at the most open and honest and wounded as we've ever seen him.
And we learn things about one of this franchise's greatest characters that were unknown before "Five-O." We know that he's a drunk, who managed to crawl his way out of a bottle. We know that he was a dirty cop, or at least one dirty enough not to raise any suspicion because That's Just How Things Are. And he is a man who carries on with a tremendous sense of shame for the man he was and what it led to. He views himself as someone unworthy of his son's admiration, as someone whose failure to live up to the sterling image his son had of him led to his son's death. Mike is not a sentimental man, not one to wear his emotions on his sleeves, but "Five-O" makes it clear that he carries that weight with him wherever he goes.
While Saul appears for an important segment here, this episode is not about him. He's a supporting character in Mike's story. And yet in the midst of all this great standalone storytelling and character development of Mike, the folks behind Better Call Saul still take time out to lay the groundwork for why a pair of individuals like Jimmy McGill and Mike Ehrmantraut would find each other useful and build a relationship, if not necessarily a friendship together.
To that point, "Five-O" is a great episode of Better Call Saul, that deepens our understanding of one of the series's major players. But even apart from that, it's just a wonderful, heartbreaking, self-contained story about a man who went along to get along, with booze and kickbacks and thirty years of the usual business along the way, and woke up when he failed the person in his life who mattered the most to him. It's easy to love Mike Ehrmantraut, the old badass with a code; but it's even better to love Mike Ehrmantraut, the grieving father ready to live with whatever consequences are to come for killing his son's murderers, who still struggles with the thought that he corrupted something pure and beautiful, and feels responsible for taking away his granddaughter's daddy, his daughter-in-law's husband, because he was not as good of a man as he might have been.
Jimmy has hustle. Mike feels obligated to help his daughter-in-law. And Jimmy loves his brother.
It's so easy to boil these episodes down to a few simple themes, and yet it's the way the show depicts and explores them that makes it superlative.
Take Mike's storyline for instance. It's literally three scenes, each of them fairly short, and yet all of them communicate a great deal about who Mike is and what his motivation and moral calculus is in that brief time. When Mike is on the phone with his daughter-in-law in the tollbooth, we see him not only stand at attention, but wave someone through the gate without bothering to check their stickers. If there's one thing we've seen from Mike in Better Call Saul, it's a devotion to the rules of the parking lot, where he hassles Jimmy and even if it seems dumb, he falls back on the fact that it's just "the rules." And yet he tells his son's wife that he'll drop whatever he's doing, whenever he needs her. We see that dramatized as suddenly those same rules have no purchase with the previously doctrinaire Mr. Ehrmentraut, and it emphasizes the truth of his promise to help her however he can, with the subtext of his guilt for, in his mind, taking her husband away from her.
Then we see the not-so-subtle manipulation from Stacey, who initially asks Mike if it's okay to spend the money that effectively got her husband killed, and after receiving Mike's blessing, seamlessly segues into talking about how hard it is to make ends meet without him. She let's the silence after this statement hang in the air before sneaking a furtive glance at Mike. Mike's a smart guy; he has to know that Stacey is effectively using Mike's guilt to convince him to help them out financially. It's not necessarily craven; as a single mother of a young child, she likely needs a great deal of support. and yet at the same time, it does feel uncomfortable to see her taking advantage of Mike's guilt rather than simply asking him for help. But the look on Mike's face says it all, and speaks to the depth of those feelings of remorse and regret. So when we see him back at the vet's office, looking for "work," we get one step closer to the Mike we know and love Breaking Bad.
Throughout all of this, Mike never once says how important Stacey and her daughter's well-being are to him; we never hear him say how much his guilt over his son's death still drives him; and we never hear him say that's he's dipping into the underworld in order to help support Stacey and clear his conscience for what happened with Matty. And yet all of those things are 100% clear from his actions, from what we know about the character from prior episodes, and from the relationships the show has built so far. It's not even that big a part of the episode! And it still moves Mike's arc forward quite a bit in a very limited amount of screentime because of how much it says without saying anything.
That's the beauty of Better Call Saul (or, at least the beauty apart from wonderfully composed and framed shots like the one at the end of this episode). Vince Gilligan and his lieutenants know how to tell you what a character is thinking, what they're feeling, what's pushing them in one direction or another, with the characters rarely having to announce or vocalize these things. In fact, the show's pretty good about having a character declare something about themselves or their intentions while conveying the opposite. It's the epitome of "show, don't tell" storytelling, and it's one of the things that makes the series so engaging despite the fact, or perhaps because, you can boil a given episode's big ideas down to a few short sentences.
In the same vein, no one in "RICO" ever tells us that Jimmy has the utmost admiration and affection for his brother, or that what he lacks in Chuck's brilliance he makes up for in sweat, or that the scales are tipped against him. But it all comes through loud and clear.
The hustle is the easiest to process. The idea that Jimmy worked in the mailroom of his brother's firm, that he used distance learning to make up his remaining credits, that he found a law school that would accept him and managed, after a couple of failed attempts, to pass the bar, shows remarkable commitment and perseverance. And when we see him combing through a dumpster in order to find the shredded documents he needs to make his RICO case against the nursing home, when we see him tirelessly trying to piece together the shredded documents, we see him working harder than his well-heeled colleague on the other side of the case would ever have to. It comes through, and we learn a little more about who he is, what makes him admirable despite a certain shadiness, and what differentiates him from the other folks in his orbit.
But we also see some really cleverness from him. He's obviously not the precedent-spouting legal whiz that Chuck is, but he picks up on the irregularities in the story his wills client is telling him; he figures out a MacGyver-esque plan to write a demand letter and try to stop the spoliation of evidence then and there, and he even has the wherewithal to stake out the nursing home's garbage to collect the evidence (with proper legal support for why it's acceptable!) even if he's not quite clever enough to check the recycle bins first.
And it's also clear that Jimmy both loves and admires his brother. Again, the show never outright says that Jimmy became a lawyer because 1. he wanted to make his brother proud of him and 2. he respects Chuck so much that he thought the best way to make himself respectable would be to emulate his brother, but that subtext (and Chuck's bemused, slightly incredulous, but warm surprise at the news in the flashback), is palpable throughout. There's something aspirational about Jimmy here, and that makes the audience all the more apt to side with him when Hamlin crushes his dreams of working alongside chuck (in a wonderfully effective, dialogue-free scene), or when the nursing home's lawyers try to intimidate and condescend to him.
Jimmy wants to become his brother's equal, to measure up to the man who always stood out as the best a McGill could be in contrast to his good-for-nothing little brother. He loves Chuck, and while Chuck can be a bit patronizing to Jimmy as well, the affection is clearly mutual, as is the pride when Chuck realizes what Jimmy's managed to uncover. And Chuck is revitalized by that. He's quiet and nervous in the negotiation until he speaks up and demands the $20 million like the legal ace we see in the opening flashback.
The series has yet to tell us how Chuck went from being the star partner we see in that flashback to the beleaguered shut-in we meet at the beginning of Better Call Saul, but what we've seen thus far suggests that he's suffered a loss, a setback, that made him not himself, that made him feel less than capable, and that he became convinced of his electromagnetic sensitivity as a way to shield or excuse himself from that. And we see Jimmy putting little breadcrumbs to help bring his brother back to who he was. That's what makes the scene at the end of the episode so flabbergasting, where Chuck is once again in his element, to the point that he doesn't even realize he's stepped outside without any ill-effects. There's still problems on the horizon (Chuck's partnership agreement and the use of his billing code seems like a Chekov's gun for one thing), but the enormity of that moment, and the build to get there, are all expressed with hardly a word, and without ever making those concepts too literal or blunt. It's a thing of beauty, and part of what makes "RICO" such a superlative episode of television, and Better Call Saul a great series right out of the gate.
9.5/10. You got me, Better Call Saul. I bought it. I bought the twist hook line and sinker. I thought that Chuck supported his brother, despite being a little patronizing at times. I thought that Hamlin was a snake. And the show had them look the parts, with Chuck looking like something of a fumfering nerd even when he's not in his space blanket, and Hamlin with his pressed suits and elegantly coiffed hair making him seen like the high school jock poured into the mold of a barrister.
It's tough to do a good twist. Every since Fight Club, more and more works have tried to have that reveal that changes how you look at past events, that flips your expectations. Roger Ebert complained about it; J.J. Abrams nodded toward the idea in his "mystery box" TED talk; and everything from Mad Men to Game of Thrones invites us to unravel the clues to figure out the real deal.
What makes it hard is the balance. Telegraph the twist too much, throw out too many clues, and the audience guesses it too early, and the reveal feels unremarkable, eliciting a reaction of "duh" rather than "ooh". But make it too out-of-nowhere, don't leave enough breadcrumbs for the viewers to follow, and the twist feels random and forced. The sweet spot, the one that Pimento hits is where there's enough there that in hindsight everything fits together, but it's also not an obvious trajectory. Maybe I'm giving the show too much credit because the show suckered me into believing that Hamlin was the fly in the ointment. In retrospect, it seems a little too easy for a show spawned from Breaking Bad to have a character as one-note evil as Hamlin. But still, it works and it works well.
And it works, to my mind, not just because of how well the reveal (that it was Chuck who was keeping his brother from HHM, and that Hamlin was only his smokescreen) was set up, but because it's a twist based on an emotional truth rather than on a simple plot hurdle. It matters beyond the fact that Jimmy is thwarted in his attempt to work at the firm his brother founded, it matters because he is hurt to his core that he'll never realize his dream to work for his brother, not because he wasn't good enough or that he couldn't get his act together, but because his brother doesn't want it.
For a minute there, I thought "Pimento" wasn't going to go there, or at least not directly. If there's one thing that the prior episodes of the show have established it's that Jimmy loves his brother, as seen in the sacrifices he's willing to make for him and the way he protects and encourages Chuck despite the questionable nature of his self-diagnosis, and that he's willing to sacrifice his own success in order to do the right thing and help the people he cares about, as seen when he gives up the Kettlemans' case, both for their sake and for Kim's.
So for a little bit in that last scene, I thought Jimmy was going to demur. He clearly had pieced together that it was his brother who was behind Hamlin's statements about "the partners" having made a decision, but maybe he was going to see how much progress Chuck had made, how enlivened he was by the chance to do genuine legal work again, how heartened he was by the standing ovation he received back at HHM, how wonderful the idea of his brother not being trapped in his house day-in and day-out would be, and he would let it go. Maybe that's what he was trying to do in that moment where he's clearly devastated by the news, but tries to take on a c'est la vie attitude. Maybe he was genuinely attempting to put it aside and keep his pain to himself so that his brother could recover.
But then Chuck starts the lies again. Then he starts talking about working on Hamlin and trying to figure something out, with the proviso that he may not be able to do anything but that he'll do his best. And that's when Jimmy corners his brother, that's when he brings up the cellphone, and challenges the lies, and confronts him as to why, and it all comes spilling out.
"Because you're not a real lawyer." Good lord that's cold. But it's angry. And for Chuck, it's a truth. It's hard for Chuck not to seem like the bad guy here, and in some sense he is, but one of the great things about Vince Gilligan's shows is that (short of a group of neo-Nazis) there's rarely a true bad guy, just people with varying shades of perspective and motivation that lead them into conflict with one another, each seeing themselves as justified in both.
When we see Jimmy McGill, Breaking Bad fans see the craft counselor who helped Walter White out of an absurd number of jams. And even folks who (puzzlingly) only know the character from Better Call Saul see him as someone who can be more than a little underhanded, but also as someone who, as Hamlin puts it, is constantly hustling out there, in the positive and negative sense of the word. Jimmy works hard. Sometimes he plays a little dirty, but he tries, and more than once in this series, we've seen him do "the right thing" even when it went against his own interest, often out of some concern for living up to his brother's strictures.
But Chuck doesn't see the work ethic, the commitment, the changed man who goes straight, finds his niche, and by dint of his own wits and effort uncovers a million dollar case that he has every right to pursue. Chuck can only see Slippin' Jimmy. All he can see is the guy who took shortcuts his whole life while Chuck built a legitimate practice the hard way. All he can see is the guy who constantly skirted the rules while Chuck stayed on the straight and narrow. Being generous, he's only known Jimmy McGill, the changed man, for a few years; he's known Slippin' Jimmy his whole life, and it's too hard for him to shake that image of his brother. With that narrative in mind, when he sees Jimmy earning his law degree and passing the bar and building his practice, all he can see it as is just another con, just another attempt to cut in line.
And that's what makes it so powerful and so devastating. Because the only thing in the world Jimmy wants is his brother's approval. Jimmy never says that he looks up to Chuck, but everything he does to emulate his brother, to try to earn his approbation by imitating him, is to get in his brother's good graces, and he comes to find out that all of it, every bit of it beyond being the reliable mail clerk, not only made his brother scoff, but annoyed him, reinforced the idea that Jimmy wasn't worthy, and that led Chuck to undermine the only person we see in the show who seems to truly love him. It's well constructed as a narrative, it's grounded in what we know about the characters so far, and it's a harrowing, heartwrenching, incredible scene of the two of them putting it all out on the table, with Jimmy walking away more wounded than we've ever seen him.
And I haven't even gotten to the Mike story! In any other episode, that would be the main event. Sure, his scene with the mouthy racist guy and the "man mountain" reeks of fan service and an attempt to make Mike the Batman of Better Call Saul, but it still had me laughing and cheering the whole way through. His was by far the funnier of the two storylines in "Pimento" (though Jimmy's insults for Hamlin were pretty amusing), from his dry sarcastic responses to the other thug, to the bumbling suburban pill-dealer who hired him, to his usual grumpy, withering stare.
But even that story had some heft that came from Mike's speech to the dealer. Mike's philosophy has been clear in his actions, even if he's not the type to vocalize it, and in truth the speech was a little on the nose, but in truth the writing is so good, and more than that, Jonathan Banks is so good, both in his presence and in his delivery, that it works like gangbusters. There are all kinds of people on both sides of the law -- that doesn't make you a good or bad person. That comes from something else--the kind of cop you are, or the kind of criminal you are--and Mike is an honorable, and thoroughly capable criminal.
Maybe that idea works in parallel with the Jimmy and Chuck story here. I don't want to paint Chuck as a bad person just because he's stuck in a bad mode of thinking, one that's understandable from his perspective even as it's patently unfair to his brother. But Chuck is somebody on "the right side", who sees himself as noble and just and good, and yet he has done wrong by the person who loves him and admires him the most in this world. And then there is Jimmy, who is a reformed con artist, who uses billboard stunts and Matlock-inspired clothing to make his way in the world, and he's the one who sacrifices everything not only to help his brother, but to be the kind of man he thinks his brother is.
There are good and bad men on both sides of the line, and sometimes the harshest, and most hurtful thing imaginable, is to realize the difference between where you think you're standing, and where the people closest to you, the ones whose approval and respect you crave, still see you stuck. Poor Jimmy. Poor, poor Jimmy.
When I wrote about RICO, I talked about how much of what makes this show great is its commitment to a "show, don't tell" ethos in its storytelling. The show generally takes care not to lay its points on too thick, or be too obvious with its points and themes, preferring to let them emerge from its characters' interactions and the performances of its superb cast.
That's why I felt let down by "Marco". It's not a bad episode--it's hard to imagine any show in the Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul pantheon sinking that low--but it's not nearly so subtle or deft in how it communicates Jimmy's internal struggle after the revelation that the brother he loved, and sacrificed for, and emulated, doesn't respect him and actually resents his attempts at self-improvement.
At the end of the episode, when Jimmy rolls up to Mike's tollbooth, asks him why they didn't take the money stolen by the Kettlemans for themselves, you get hints at what Mike started in "Pimento", both his falling in as a regular enforcer for the bumbling pill-dealer, but also his code--that he may be a criminal, but he's also a good guy, who's just out to do the job he's hired to do. And yet when Jimmy declares that he's never going to worry about doing the right thing again, it's so on the nose that the moment meant to cap off the entire season feels like it warrants a response of "duh." Let us see what your characters are feeling about their circumstances through how they behave, or even through dialogue; but don't just have them announce the shift you've already spent the entire episode setting up.
It doesn't give me great faith in Peter Gould, who both wrote and directed the episode and, with his Executive Producer credit, would appear to be the main creative force in the show beyond Vince Gilligan. Too many scenes in the episode that are supposed to put a bow on the events we've witnessed for nine episodes feel clumsy, awkward, without any of the flair, in either dialogue or direction, that the franchise is known for.
It comes through in the Bingo scene, where Jimmy's breakdown at a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead level of recurring Bs sets him off into a semi-stream of consciousness rant about the foolish act that set him on this whole path. It's a strange, disjointed sequence that tries to lean into Bob Odenkirk's great skill as an actor, but makes so much explicit that has otherwise been subtle but palpable subtext that it just seems like an odd outburst that's tonally inconsistent with the rest of the show rather than the moment of great emotional weight and character development it's meant to play as.
The same goes for the montage of Jimmy and his old pal Marco getting back into the grifting game. The flying signs and reds and blues have the characteristics of an old cop show (it's the same kind of montage The Simpsons has parodied time and time again), and it's kind of fun in the attempt at stylized filmmaking Better Call Saul and its forebear regularly traffic in, but the sequence itself still comes off oddly flat, and the recurring lines about telling secrets and swirling images descend into the cheese rather than transcend it.
To the point, the entire storyline feels kind of rote. The idea of Jimmy learning his brother is a false idol, that the backstop that kept him from sliding back into a life of flim-flamming rubes at the local bar, that motivated him to achieve all he has since Chuck helped him out of that jam in Chicago, was predicated on a falsehood, is a good one. But the consequences feel too easy, the following events and conflicts too convenient, even cliche.
Jimmy attempting to restart his old life and finding that regardless of his brother, he feels a pull to be good, to help his clients and the people he's made commitments to, is hokey enough on its own, but kind of works. It's believable enough that in the throes of lamenting what he gave up at the behest of an implacable sibling would send him back into that familiar cesspool to blow off the steam he'd been holding in for so long, and yet eventually find that once that's out of the system, his old life doesn't have the same allure it once did. Sure, that's a pretty conventional story in a show that's made its bones from being more than conventional, but it's enough, even if it's not superb.
Then, of course, Marco wants to pull off one last con. And, of course, his trademark Hollywood cough early in the episode, pays off in a by-the-book Hollywood Death to Teach the Protagonist a Lesson™, that this is the most exciting thing Marco's life and it's a sad and pathetic thing to hang your hat on as you're dying. It's set up well enough with the audience having seen Jimmy and Marco pull off the same con episodes earlier, but again, it feels like laying the stakes of Jimmy's internal conflict on too thick. We already know he's struggling with whether to, as Mike puts it in "Pimento", be a good guy or a bad guy. We already know that his moral compass it out of whack after what happened with Chuck. And thanks to his scene in Marco's basement, we already know he's feeling the pull of the changed man he's become.
Perhaps this is all supposed to build to the subversion at the end of the episode. After all of these fairly weak and typical lessons and reminders about living right, Jimmy's still so miffed at what he gave up for his brother, or so bound to what may be his true nature, that he can't bother to follow up on Kim and Hamlin's help and make good on going straight. There's something to that, but the hamfisted way in which the episode hammers that point home in Jimmy's exchange with Mike sucks all the power from the twist.
When Better Call Saul began, there was no way to know if it would have a Season 2. Maybe the rushed nature, the flimsy finality of that this episode tries to impart is a symptom of that. If there were never another episode of Better Call Saul after this, there's more than enough for the audience to fill in the gaps and understand the trajectory for Jimmy and Mike between here and Breaking Bad, and anything more ambiguous might fail in that regard. As Season 1 of the show draws to a close, there's a clear explanation for how small-time lawyer Jimmy McGill could turn from the scrappy-if-underhanded guy we meet in episode 1 to talented huckster Saul Goodman, and how Philadelphia policeman Mike Ehrmentraut finds himself as the go-to-guy in the company of criminals. But something about that tidiness, about that blatant declaration to that effect, feels too simple in a show that thrives on complexity, and it sends a tremendous season of television out on a disappointing note.
From the beginning, that coffee mug has been a symbol of the way that Jimmy doesn't really fit in his new circumstances. "Bali Ha'i" doubles down on that symbolic motif throughout the episode, to show the several ways that the nascent Saul Goodman is a square peg who does not quite belong in the hole he's trying to fit into.
It's clear in the episode's creative and enjoyable cold open, which features Jimmy fighting insomnia in his generic corporate apartment. He takes those odd wicker balls that seem to be the default decoration for an upper class setting and turns them into fun and games, whether it be an impromptu hallway soccer game or a spate of trick shot basketball. He turns on the television and finds that Davis & Main has decided to adopt his idea to use commercials in order to reach more potential Sandpiper clients, but went with a bland white text with voiceover production in lieu of his attention-grabbing spot. Eventually, he returns to his hovel in the back of the old salon, clears out enough room for his fold out couch, and is finally able to get to sleep.
The broader implications are straightforward. Try as he might, a man as colorful as Jimmy doesn't fit into the antiseptic world he's stepped into, with the generic living space, the anodyne commercial, and the slick corporate car that doesn't quite accommodate his oversized novelty coffee mug. So when, at the end of the episode, he pulls out a tire iron and bashes in the cupholder until there's enough space, it's not just a scene of day-to-day frustration, it's a quiet act of rebellion that speaks to the way in which Jimmy is growing ever-weary of the space he inhabits.
But the episode's focus is on the way that the same weariness and frustration extends to Kim, who is out of the basement, but not out of the doghouse at HHM. The episode features scenes showing how both Kim and Jimmy are feeling boxed in, cornered, and unfulfilled by their current circumstances. Jimmy is cataloguing clients in a tedious session where the meticulous Erin is triple checking his every word. Kim is trying to do the very simple act of going to lunch, while Hamlin sends an envoy of his own to keep her at her desk during the lunch hour with only the promise of ordered-in lunch from "that fancy new salad place" to placate her.
Interestingly enough, Kim, unlike Jimmy, is offered an attractive out. After Kim is left to argue a losing motion in court, Schweikart her opposing counsel, compliments her for going down swinging and takes her out to lunch. There, he offers her a golden ticket: a partner-track position, a clean slate in terms of her student debt, and the benefits of being hand-picked by the partner with his name on the door. But more than that, Schweikart's best point comes when he tells her an old war story and explains that he left his old firm because he felt like the folks in charge there didn't have his back. (Incidentally, the Pacino-like Dennis Boutsikaris does a lot with a little in that brief scene and his performance helps to cement the attractiveness of what Schweikart is offering.) It's particularly salient at a time when Kim is questioning whether she has a future at HHM given the frosty reception she continues to receive from Hamlin.
It's clear that Kim feels a certain loyalty to HHM that she is loath to give up on. She tells Schweikart that she's been there for a decade, that they brought her up from the mailroom, and that they put her through law school. But Schweikart responds by noting that they're making her pay them back, that it's not kindness or generosity on their part, but sheer self-interest -- they not only didn't give her a "gift" by sending her to law school and putting her to work, but they're taking advantage of her by not using her to her full potential and sending her on fool's errands like arguing that motion.
The accusation has all the more force when, in an excellent scene, Hamlin is stone cold to Kim as they walk to meet the Mesa Verde clients, and then mechanically turns on the charm a few steps before they walk into the room. Not only does Kim have reason to doubt that Hamlin, and the firm he oversees, truly have her back, but she has reason to doubt he ever did, or at least sees that with an ability to shift his demeanor and put on whatever mask suits him at the moment, she can't trust that she'll ever really know where she stands with him.
As much as last week's "Rebecca" was a showcase for Rhea Seahorn as Kim, this week's episode gives her all the more opportunities to convey her character's emotions in subtle ways: the way her eyes light up for split second when Schweikert encourages her to imagine what she could at a firm that acknowledged her talents and abilities, the look of longing she takes on when sitting at the bar and looks at Schweikert's business card, the gradual smile that spreads across her face as she listens to Jimmy's voicemail, the clear conflicted stare she offers Jimmy when he asks her about the job offer. It's a virtuoso performance that does a good job of selling the thoughts Kim is turning over in her mind without ever requiring her to say them out loud.
"Bali H'ai" brings these two individuals, each feeling the desire to buck against the tides meant to hold them in place, reunite to blow off steam by conning another rube at the same bar. The rub of that sequence comes later, when in the morning after setting, Kim admits she has little interest in cashing the mark's $10,000 check, she just wants to keep it as a trophy, as a symbol of what both she and Jimmy are capable of when they're not constrained by the strictures and authority figures that keep them in their gilded cages. Jimmy is trying to convince himself as much as Kim when he tells her that he took the Davis & Main job because it's what he wanted, not because of her, and Kim is trying to figure out what she really wants and where her talents are best used. There's a greater strength to Kim that suggests she'll find her path, even as the more temperamental, if charming Jimmy McGill (whose answering machine song was adorable) seems more and more poised to trade in the good life for the much scrappier one in which he's much more comfortable, whether he means to or not.
Mike also finds himself backed into a corner in this episode, locked into a world he's been trying to get away from. After what was supposed to be a one-off transaction with Nacho, Mike finds himself embroiled in a dispute with the Salamanca family that requires him to continue to dabble in a criminal world he never wanted to return to in the first place.
There's something undeniably compelling about Mike as the reluctant badass. When he stands up to Arturo (Hector Salamanca's henchman) without intimidation, when he slips carbon paper under his newly purchased doormat in anticipation of another attempt to rattle him, when he uses his incredible sense of anticipation and misdirection to neutralize his would-be assailants, it's exciting and culminates in one of those trademark sequences that keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time. But when Mike's hand trembles after he methodically cleans off the gun he used to pistol whip the intruders, much the same way it did while he sat at the bar and waited for Matty's killers in "Five-O", it's clear that he wants no part of this.
But the appearance of Hector's twin nephews (a thrilling moment for Breaking Bad fans) forces Mike's hand. In my review of "Gloves Off" I wrote about the ways in which Mike has common ground with Batman. "Bali Ha'i", on the other hand, puts the grizzled grump in the unexpected company of Superman, the "big blue boyscout" who occasionally teams up with his counterpart from Gotham. The challenge for writing Superman stories is how to create stakes and tension for a character who is impervious to nearly every threat. Similarly, when a character is as uber-capable as Mike has been depicted in Better Call Saul, it can be difficult to make it seem like anything is a genuine threat to them. And yet, the answer in each case is to show that no matter how strong the character at the center of your story is, the people close to them, the ones they're trying to protect, may be quite vulnerable. The striking image of The Cousins gazing at Kaylee from the distance, and the sharp change in Mike's demeanor says everything about how to put pressure on someone as calm and collected as Mr. Ehrmantraut.
But the end game in the episode is telling. In a wonderfully tense scene, Mike stands up to Hector even as he's acquiescing. And when Nacho comes to his house to make the delivery of Mike's ransom money, Mike offers him half. Even though Mike himself has gone through quite a bit, he has a code and principles, and the fact that he didn't do the job he hired to do means that Nacho is entitled to some of his investment back.
Sure, it's partly just good business, but that sense of honor is also a part of Mike that he cannot turn off, even in the "no honor among thieves" setting he finds himself in, in the same way that Jimmy cannot escape the colorful conman side of who he is, and Kim cannot ignore the conflicting parts of her that value loyalty but also the thrill of that con and the idea of living up to her potential. "Bali Ha'i" finds three of the major characters in Better Call Saul each being walled in through circumstances beyond their control, and explores the way that who these individuals are at their cores is something they cannot ignore or squelch, even when that part of them is clawing at the walls.
[8.5/10] You could be forgiven for asking, “Hey, isn’t there some guy named Saul in this show?” for most of the runtime of “Sabrosito.” It’s an episode that turns over most of the proceedings to the happenings in the orbit of Gustavo Fring, with enough of a narrative side dish for Mike and Jimmy to remind you that they are main characters in the series.
But I’m not complaining. Giancarlo Esposito has a presence that can hold your attention like few other actors can. The details we see here -- the cold war brewing at Don Eladio’s compound, the affronts between Gus and Hector, the declaration of resolve from Fring himself, add so much shading to what we already know about the grudges and rivalries within the cartel from Breaking Bad. In a way the rest of Better Call Saul hasn’t really, “Sabrosito” serves as a direct prequel to the events that Walter White would eventually get tangled up in, and by using Gus as a conduit for that, the show practically guarantees a compelling episode.
And, as usual, there is some connective tissue between the seemingly disparate, constituent parts of the episode. Gus’s story is ultimately about standing up to bullies, standing up to intimidation, standing up to the people who believe that you deserve less. It’s about pushing back against those who do not respect you, who believe that your new ways don’t measure up to their old ones, and who believe you need to kowtow to their wishes.
But so is Jimmy’s. Sure, an ornery older brother trying to drum you out of the legal profession is not exactly the same thing as a rival drug dealer using his standing in the cartel to lean on you, but “Sabrosito” draws a line between Chuck and Hector. Both of them are old timers, long entrenched in the systems in which they operate, ready to use their connections, their standing, the power and network they have amassed in their time, to stamp out the people who challenge their hegemony.
For Hector, that means preventing the upstart Gus from infringing on his territory. The opening of the episode in Don Eladio’s pool not only puts Breaking Bad fans on alert for little pink bears, but it calls to mind both Gus’s partner being killed at the edge of that pool, and Don Eladio himself meeting his end there. It’s an interesting shot that immediately makes the setting of the scene laden with meaning before a single word is spoken.
Don Eladio, gregarious shit-stirrer that he is, makes Hector feel the lesser man next to the bigger stack of crisp, clean bills Gus sends Don Eladio’s way, and the Los Pollos Hermanos shirt Don Eladio puts on only adds insult to injury. So Hector goes to throw his weight around with Gus, in the best way he knows how - by messing with him at his restaurant.
It’s unexpectedly tense for a scene set at a fast food chicken restaurant. Still, Hector knows the best way to violate the sanctity of Gus’s domain, to twist Gus where it will bother him the most. He wanders around the meticulously kept restaurant violating every norm of cleanliness and decorum imaginable. He intimidates customers; he smokes; he wanders in the back and carves gunk off his shoe. The message is clear -- I am in charge here, and even if there’s a greater authority than myself to consider, you’ll accede to my wishes.
That’s the message Chuck sends as well. There is the same air of tension as the McGill brothers, and their legal representatives, file in to accept the A.D.A.’s deal. Chuck, true to form, leans on his brother about every niggling detail, from the wording in Jimmy’s confession to the cost of the destroyed cassette tape. And from the minute Ms. Hay converses with Chuck about his condition, it’s clear that this is far from a neutral proceeding, removing any doubt that she is, knowingly or not, taking Chuck’s side on this. The peak is when she requires Jimmy to not only sign his confession and make restitution, but to apologize to his brother.
This is where Gus and Jimmy stand in the same position. Both are clearly on edge, facing the men who want to squeeze them out. But each maintains their composure, not rising to the bait meant to throw them off balance, letting their tormentors believe that they have won this battle. Gus, stoic as he is, simply makes velvety threats and stands there dignified and unmoved. Jimmy, a little more heart on his sleeve, turns his supposed apology into a recrimination, albeit one subtle enough to pass muster with the A.D.A.
But neither of them is beaten. Through Kim’s clever phonebooking and Jimmy’s use of Mike’s combined conman/handyman skills, the pair not only have a plan to thwart Chuck from getting Jimmy disbarred, but they have evidence and the benefit of Mike casing the joint to go on. Gus, for his part, stays resolute, but clearly is unspooling a big plan in his own mind. When he speaks to his frightened employees, he speaks off a refusal to bend, to allow the old guard to flex its muscles and have the newcomers cower in fear. He resolves to stand his ground, and the people who work for him applaud him for it.
And poor Mike may be a big part of that big plan. His is the most understated story in the episode, but it’s also, in its way, the most poignant. Mike is a taciturn individual by nature, which calls upon Jonathan Banks to fill in the blank spaces of dialogue with his world-weary expressions. With his granddaughter Kaylee nestled in his arm, there is a hint of wistfulness, of regret in his eyes, enough for his daughter-in-law to pick up on it. These are the loved ones for whom he committed those terrible deeds for, for whom he got other innocent people killed. Better Call Saul plays its cards close to the vest, but Banks’s performance gives the sense of the moral calculus of those acts weighing on Mike in that moment.
When sitting down with Jimmy at the diner, Mike remarks that it was nice to fix something for once. When we see him later in the episode, he’s reading Handyman Magazine. Mike is good at what he does -- the way he manages to nonchalantly shoo Chuck away with his power tools shows that -- but there’s also a sense that he’s weary of this. Keeping his daughter-in-law and granddaughter in that nice neighborhood, with the good schools and safe havens, costs real money, and Mike’s most marketable skill, the one that brings those brown paper bags full of dollar bills, isn’t a pleasant one. Maybe, Mike just wishes he could rest -- build things instead of tear them down.
One of the best qualities of Better Call Saul is the way it uses its status as a prequel as an advantage rather than a difficulty. The tension between Gus and Hector in “Sabrosito” is heightened because we know there is enough bad blood between the two of them in the future that Hector sacrifice his own life so long as he can take out Fring at the same time. Jimmy’s tet-a-tet with Chuck has added intrigue because it seems as though Chuck has his brother dead to rights, and yet we know that Jimmy will continue practicing law, by hook or by crook, leading the audience to wonder how he’ll wriggle out of this one.
But it also creates a sense of tragedy, of star-crossed destiny for characters like Mike. It isn’t a bully who compels him, and it’s hard to imagine someone being able to intimidate him into doing anything. And yet, he is no less pulled by forces beyond his control -- the need to care for his family, the need to make up for the death of his son that he feels responsible for -- that we know will keep from the life of a contented handyman.
The encounter between Mike and Gus at the end of the episode, where Mike agrees, in his typically cagey way, to work for Gus, is in part a momentous one, because it serves as a milestone for a partnership that will pay dividends for each of them. At the same time, it’s a recommitment to a line of work that will ultimately grind away at Mike, that will lead to his death, that will jeopardize those stacks of dollar bills he has stashed away for his granddaughter.
It’s hard to say it will lead him to ruin. Mike is not a young man and he enjoys close to a decade of being able to care for his family. But for at least a moment in “Sabrosito”, it seems that at a time when Gus and Jimmy are desperate and resolute to stay in the game, Mike wants out. And we know, however much he may want that, the ability to while away his time fixing doors instead of dusting cartel goons, he’s fated to keep at this until, one day, it kills him.
[9.8/10] One of the ways you can tell that a show is great, not just good, is when it’s engrossing even when there’s not anything particularly exciting or notable happening. It’s easy to be engaged, even giddy, about Better Call Saul in the midst of McGill-on-McGill courtroom combat, in the middle of another of Jimmy’s capers, as Mike Ehrmantraut is springing another one of his traps, or when another little Breaking Bad easter egg pops up. But the mark of a great show is that it can be just as transfixing, just as mesmerizing, to watch Chuck have dinner with his ex-wife, the moment laden with hopes and expectations, with little more happening than a conversation between old friends.
Better yet, that flashback to a time when Jimmy and Chuck were using their scheming in concert and not against one another isn’t simply a flight of fancy to contrast their later antagonism, or a simple pleasing vignette of the early point of Chuck’s condition. It’s a character study, a set of scenes that never comes says anything outright about Chuck McGill, but tells us so much about who he is, how he reacts to obstacles and difficulties, and quietly sets up the bigger fireworks to come.
It shows that Chuck is a prideful man. That’s not much of a revelation, but what’s striking about the flashback are the lengths that he goes to hide his condition from his ex-wife, Rebecca. He concocts a story about a mixup with the electric company (poetically enough, involving transposed letters on an address), and tries to keep it all under wraps.
When Rebecca uses a cell phone that causes his “acute allergy to electromagnetism” to flare up (featuring superb camera work and sound design to convey his perception of it), he throws it out of her hands. But when called to account for his behavior, he doesn’t come clean about why he did it. Tellingly, he not only comes up with an excuse, he not only turns the blame onto Rebecca herself rather than accept it for be honest, but he frames it in terms of propriety, in terms of what’s “right,” in terms of a decorum that he sees himself as adhering to and chastises others for not meeting his standard. It is a defense mechanism, a self-preservation method, one that in that moment and in the future, causes him to mask his frustrations in grandiose notions of propriety and principles rather than face his own failings and prejudices.
But most importantly, even when Rebecca is effectively storming out, an act that would thwart the elaborate lengths he went to under the clear purpose of winning her back, he keeps Jimmy from telling her the truth. Even though Chuck seemed on the cusp of making a breakthrough with a woman he clearly still had feelings for, he could not bear to be thought of as sick; he could not bear to be though of a lesser; he could not bear to be thought of as crazy. Jimmy McGill knows that, and though he clearly takes no pleasure in it, it’s how he takes his brother down.
In just five minutes, Better Call Saul gives its audience a snootful of character detail and foreshadowing that establishes and reestablishes every hint and bit of shading to make the series’ peak drama at the end of the episode that much more understandable and meaningful. It’s a sign of this show’s virtuosity, and the way it understands tension, character, and storytelling like no other show on television.
And that’s just the first five minutes! “Chicanery” goes full courtroom drama in a way that BCS, despite being one of the best legal shows to grace our television screens, hasn’t really done before. The show sets it up nigh-perfectly, laying out witness testimony, objections, and grants of “leeway” that make sense in context while also providing enough wiggle room for the major characters to be a little more theatrical that would be typical for a disciplinary proceeding.
That extends to the episode’s supporting characters as well. Kim Wexler, who is Better Call Saul’s secret weapon, is not only sharp and decisive in the courtroom, but amid all the intra-McGill squabbling, gets a big win. Rather than relishing in her success, Kim distinguishes herself from both McGill brothers by coming clean to the representatives from Mesa Verde about all this ugliness, only to have the head of the bank brush it off and call her the best outside counsel he’s ever had. It’s subtle but important way that Kim and Jimmy fully win here, and that the blowback from Chuck’s machinations do not sink the client and the work that Kim has put so much effort into.
It also extends to Howard, who, while frequently a cipher on this show, continues to offer some of the most pragmatic and complex approaches to these situations of anyone. He is clearly on Chuck’s side, and clearly interested in preserving the good name of his firm. But he is also firmly honest on the stand, complimentary about Jimmy when he doesn’t have to be, frank about how his rise and fall within HHM, and cognizant of Chuck’s limitations and liabilities in a way that Chuck himself simply isn’t.
What ensues is an incredible chess match, a battle of wits and wills, between Jimmy and Chuck. Chuck carefully rehearses his testimony, again careful to couch his attack on his brother as not coming from a place of affront or weakness in himself, but to an abstract, platonic ideal -- the law. Chuck is out to show that he does not hate his brother; he cares for him, wants what’s best for him, but also wants what’s best for the legal professional he claims to hold so dear.
“Chicanery” subtly undercuts the sincerity of Chuck’s words not just by their rehearsed nature, but in the selection of detail that precedes them. He professes to love the law because it guarantees equal treatment to everyone under the same rules and regulations, and yet he is driven to these proceedings in a jaguar, pulls up to the courthouse in the presence of reserved parking cones, and saunters in as the concerned god on high, blameless for his own misfortunes and ready to direct judgment at those he sees as at fault.
But Jimmy is ready, as always, with a plan of his own, one that is not completely above board. His official goal is to not to dispute that it’s his voice on the tape or that it was tampered with, but that he said what he said because he was concerned for his brother’s wellbeing and more importantly, his sanity. In that, he hopes to convince the disciplinary committee that he did not undertake the elaborate, “baroque” scheme to disrupt his brother’s dealings with Mesa Verde that Chuck alleges, but that he gave into Chuck’s paranoid fantasy so as to prevent his brother from slipping further.
And like the best of Jimmy’s lies, it works because there is a grain of truth to it. We know that Chuck isn’t wrong that even if there was no hard evidence of it, Jimmy unleashed an elaborate ploy to trip up Chuck. But we also know that Jimmy means it when he says he would say anything to make his brother feel better, to prevent Chuck from slipping back into his aluminum foil-lined nightmare. Jimmy may have been admitting what really happened rather than telling Chuck “whatever he wanted to hear,” but coming from Slippin’ Jimmy, that is the truest sign that he genuinely would have said anything, even the god’s honest, to make his brother feel better.
That’s also what makes it so tragic, so impressive but sad, that Jimmy will now do anything to show that his brother is insane. Better Call Saul is tremendous at muddying the moral waters in complex, unassuming ways, but Jimmy’s plan to provoke Chuck may be the apotheosis of an act that is clever, resourceful, full of Jimmy’s trademark showmanship, understandable, and yet also more than a bit diabolical. It’s easy to root for Jimmy, particularly in the shadow of his brother’s superciliousness, but it’s one more case of Jimmy covering up one dirty trick with yet another.
While Jimmy normally revels in that sort of gamesmanship, in the razzle dazzle that makes him as effective as lawyer as he was a conman, he seems to take no joy in it. He reveals that he had Mike take those photographs of Chuck’s apartment to lure Rebecca back, something that he knew would put his brother off balance. But when he stands by the vending machines (which create a subtle buffer to prevent Chuck from confronting him about it) he does not have a wisp of glee at his plan coming to fruition, just the hurt resignation that it’s come to this.
Jimmy, however, is not done. In his final act meant to prove to the disciplinary board that his brother is unbalanced and thus untrustworthy, he resorts to some of the titular “chicanery.” He employs Huell(!) to slip a cell phone battery in Chuck’s pocket, and what follows is one of the best scenes in the show’s history.
It involves a back and forth between Jimmy and Chuck. Jimmy seems to pulling every rabbit out of his hat that he can come up with to expose his brother as a nut. He shows pictures from inside Chuck’s house. He gestures to Rebecca in the audience and even garnishes an emotional apology from Chuck to her. He plays “commit and contradict” with Chuck about his alleged illness, trying to establish for the disciplinary committee that Chuck’s issues are psychosomatic, and getting his brother to affirm that he is not feeling electromagnetic waves from anywhere in particular in the room.
It’s then that Jimmy takes out his cell phone, presumably expecting a reaction from Chuck to prove that his brother would respond to it on sight. Instead, Chuck, appearing wise to Jimmy’s machinations, determines that the phone is without is battery, and it seems, for a moment, like Jimmy’s stunt has been foiled, more fodder for Chuck to demonstrate that his brother is a two-bit huckster, not a lawyer. Instead, Jimmy plays the magician, revealing the final element of his trick -- the battery that Huell slipped into Chuck’s breast pocket.
That is what sets Chuck off, as he pulls the battery out like it’s radioactive and tosses it on the floor. He goes into a deranged rant that ought to earn Michael McKean an Emmy. He howls about his brother’s irresponsibleness, about how Jimmy’s billboard stunt had to be staged, about how defecating in a sunroof, about slights going back to childhood. The camera zooms in slowly on Chuck as he digs himself deeper and deeper, each word making this crusade seem more like the childish vendetta from a mentally-disturbed man against the imagined slights from his little brother than a high-minded mission to uphold the law. As more and more of his angry, pontificating face fills the frame, he stops, and the ensuing shot of the disciplinary board’s reaction says it all.
Jimmy has done it. In front of the state bar, in front of their partners, in front of the women they love, Jimmy exposes his brother as a mentally ill person ranting and raving, not the dignified legal lion he tried so hard to present himself as, in the courtroom and in that dinner with Rebecca way back when. The episode cuts to a far shot of Chuck, seeming so small, so defeated in the frame, as the buzz of the exit sign looms large next to him. This is his Waterloo, the terrible culmination of two brothers’ issues with one another, laid bare in a court of law for all the world to see.
Chuck, more than Hector or Howard or the cartel, is the villain of Better Call Saul. That makes it easy to hope that Jimmy overcomes him. But in that final moment, Jimmy again mixes fact with fiction. His brother is telling the truth. As paranoid as it sounds, as childish as it is to hold onto certain grudges and resentments, Chuck is correct in all of his assessments. And yet, as the opening scene tells us, he is a prideful individual, unwilling to admit to his illness, to his difficulties, as anything that would make him seem the lesser or not in control. That is his downfall, the fatal flaw that not only keeps him from carrying out his plan, but from what we see in this episode, which costs him the love of both his wife and his brother. That is unspeakably sad -- the story of an individual, even a villain, coming so close, and losing everything worth having in the end, when the worst of him is put on display.
[8.8/10] One of the great things about The Sopranos was the way it would show a character meeting someone or having a moment that changed their emotional state, planted some idea or bit of perspective in their head, that they would then carry throughout the rest of the episode, often taking it out on people entirely divorced from that inciting incident. It was part of the show’s deft emotional calculus, where it could capture the way thoughts and feelings flit around in the background, popping up in surprising ways or at unexpected times.
As much as the aptly titled “Expenses” is devoted to the financial corner Jimmy finds himself in, it’s also devoted to that same idea, the notion that one interaction, one exchange with another person can reframe the way you feel about something or someone, in a way that lingers and cannot be easily erased.
It starts with another of Better Call Saul’s cold opens, that again succeeds in displaying visual virtuosity -- in the motley crew of individual framed against a blank wall and the cars and trucks rushing overhead -- but in the way it serves the message being communicated -- that here, Jimmy is just another guy and he’s hindered from doing what he does best by all this noise.
That’s the overarching theme to Jimmy’s portion of the episode. The now Saul Goodman is used to being able to use his powers of persuasion, his winning attitude and ability to feel out any situation to bend things to his advantage. For all Jimmy’s faults, there’s always been a cleverness to it, and a way with people, that have kept him from the harshest of consequences in any jam he’s in.
But now he finds himself embroiled in circumstances where all his winning ways can’t extricate him from the financial difficulties he finds himself in. It begins with the Community Service Supervisor docking him all but a half hour of the four hours he worked picking up garbage because he was using his phone to answer calls for Saul Goodman productions. He tries to negotiate, to rally his fellow garbage-pickers to his side, to appeal the the man’s sympathies, but all he gets in return is “we could make it zero.”
That’s the response Jimmy gets throughout the episode, as the thought of his remonstrations falling on deaf ears continues to wear on him. At a time when his dire monetary straights require the best of his salesmanship abilities, the desperation and unavoidable strictures of him circumstances seem to hobble him. His attempts to upsell his commercial-shooting services on the phone lead to hang up. His effort to try to upgrade a paying customer to a bigger package gets him nowhere. And in his desperation, he actually allows a couple of savvy business owners (played by the Sklar Brothers of the underrated show Cheap Seats) to hold him over a barrel and get him to work for free.
Jimmy is used to having power, It may not be the sort of positions of privilege that the Chucks and Howards of the world enjoy, but he’s accustomed to being able to use his silver tongue to give him an advantage in any random situation in which he needs it. But from that first moment with the Community Service Supervisor, he feels stymied, closed in, powerless. It’s natural, then, that he takes that out on others where he can, repeating those words, “we could make it zero” to a Chinese food delivery boy who looks askance on him for a low tip. Each indignity seems to snowball from that first one, until Jimmy is at his wits end and blowing off his steam at delivery boys and random marks in bars for whom his scorn is misdirected, intended for causes of his frustrations that are out of his reach.
Mike finds himself with solace, rather than frustration, when he meets Anita, a woman who attends church with Stacey. When Anita initially offers to help Mike build the playground he promised to assist with in the last episode, he brushes her off, with hints that it’s due to a certain strain of sexism. But Anita won’t take no for an answer, something Mike clearly admires, as he acquiesces and she proves herself a capable aide in the effort.
Mike’s respect and interest in her only grows when he learns at their support group that she lost her husband, who was also a man in uniform (albeit a navy man, rather than a cop). The show seems to be setting up Anita as a love interest, which is an interesting, though mildly concern direction to go with the character. But what’s particularly notable is how his interactions with Anita -- where she tells him that her husband was lost while hiking with the body never being recovered -- effect a change of heart in him.
When Nacho leans on Daniel, of “Squat Cobbler” fame, to get him some heart pills that he can use to poison Hector, Daniel seeks out Mike’s protection once more, explaining the scheme (or at least as much of it as he knows). Mike initially wants no part of it, brushing Daniel off and washing his hands of it.
But something about his conversation with Anita changes his mind. Maybe it’s the idea that her husband, somebody who left and never came back, reminds Mike of the innocent person whose death he indirectly caused when he knocked over one of Hector’s trucks. There’s hints that Mike has been trying to buy his soul back, from what happened with Matty and with the cartel, when he donates all the materials for the church playground. His agreement to be Daniel’s muscle seems unlikely to be out of a particular care for that dolt’s well-being, but Nacho may be a different story.
Nacho isn’t exactly pure of heart, but Mike does take a certain paternal tone with him -- here and in episodes past. It was Nacho’s presence that gave him pause in “Klick”, and Mike’s smart enough to read into what Daniel’s telling him, figure out what Nacho’s planning, and feel the need to warn him to cover his tracks and protect himself. “Expenses” stays a bit cagey about what exactly’s pulling Mike here, but it’s clear that the small emotional reminder from Anita is enough to move him to do something different.
Kim might be moved to do something different as well, though in a far less pleasant manner. When Paige from Mesa Verde compliments Kim on how she and Jimmy won at Jimmy’s disciplinary hearing, deriding Chuck all the while, the persistent guilt bubbling within Kim rises to the surface. In going over some numbers with Paige later, Kim is unexpectedly short with Paige, immediately realizing the slip and apologizing. Without ever saying as much, Kim admits that she’s bothered by being complimented on what happened with Chuck, telling Paige that as far as she’s concerned, all she and Jimmy did was tear down a sick man. It’s a small part of a larger conversation, but it brings out something that’s been bothering Kim, that manifests itself in a sideways fashion.
Still, once that thought has reared its ugly head, it’s hard to tamp it back down. When Jimmy and Kim are together at a bar, sizing up potential marks as they did in “Switch” as Jimmy is trying to get his mojo back, Kim starts to seem just the slightest bit aghast. Jimmy speaks with a malevolence about taking down certain marks, going to elaborate extremes (frankly sounding like Chuck) in his imagined schemes against certain unkind gentleman in the establishment.
There was a mutual allure between Jimmy and Kim when they first tried to pull this sort of con off in “Switch.” Kim seemed impressed by Jimmy’s ability to persuade and flim-flam and Jimmy was enthralled by a partner who could also be an effective partner in crime. But that one moment with Paige, the glee at a mentally ill man’s downfall, fostered a nagging impulse within her, one that seems to make her question whether the man she’s thrown in her lot with is a decent person in a bad situation or whether he is the scorpion atop the frog.
Jimmy seems to embrace the latter label in the episode’s closing scene. His efforts to get a refund on the malpractice insurance he’ll no longer need are the last bit of insult to injury. Not only can he not received a refund, he’s told, but when he returns to practice, his rates will go up 150%. The one minor life raft in the midst of his stormy financial sea turns out to be the promise of an anchor.
It’s then that Jimmy starts crying, and just as I did for his brother in “Sunk Costs,” I almost believed him. “Expenses” does a superb job at showing how far Jimmy is being stretched, how much he’s willing to break his own rules and grasp at whatever straws he can to get the money he needs to keep going. This could be the final one, the thing that breaks the emotional defenses of the normally unshakeable Jimmy McGill.
In truth, it could still be that. Jimmy is not above mixing truth with fiction to serve his ends. But whether they’re real or fake, he uses those tears to subtly cue the malpractice insurance adjuster, who also insures Chuck, to the disciplinary hearing transcripts that expose his brother as a sick man. It’s a way that, even in what seems like his lowest point, Jimmy can regain some joy, some pleasure, in sticking it to his brother once again. While Kim is coping with guilt over what she rationalized as a necessary action, Jimmy is twisting the knife.
And why wouldn’t he? From the start of “Expenses,” Jimmy finds himself stymied and rebuked in everything he tries to do, whether it’s get full credit for his community service or get a refund on his insurance premiums. He sees Chuck as the person who put him in this situation, and the one thing he can still do, even if he’s caged and neutered in every other respect, is stick it to his brother. Jimmy is still powerless for much of the episode, unable to deploy his persuasion in the way he’s used to for his own personal gain, but he can still use it for Chuck’s personal loss, and for now, that’s enough, something the devilish smile on his face as he leaves the office reveals.
Often times it’s the little moments that move us, that create some niggling thought in our brains that festers or flourishes into something more. For Mike, it’s a reminder and a call to action. For Kim, it’s a warning, a lingering concern about the individual she’s tied her life to. And for Jimmy, it’s a nagging impulse, a prickling thought, that he can only stamp out by running up the score on his brother, to prove to himself that he still can.
[8.6/10] The opening of “Slip” is a little more direct than episodes of Better Call Saul tend to be, as it fills in some gaps Jimmy’s backstory and perspective. When pressed by Marco about Jimmy’s parents’ shop, about how they worked hard and everyone liked them, Jimmy admits it’s true, but questions the value of it. He declares that it got them nowhere, and characterizes his own dad as a sucker.
Jimmy’s philosophy becomes a little clearer, snapping into place with the flashback to his youth. His dad was someone who refused to bend the rules, who wouldn’t take even so much as a valuable coin for himself, who wouldn’t sell cigarettes to the kids from the local religious school to make ends meet, and in Jimmy’s eyes, that got him nothing. It’s a little too tidy and pat, but Jimmy sums it up nicely -- Papa McGill wasn’t willing to “do what he had to do,” and Jimmy definitely is.
That’s the thrust of “Slip,” which is as much an ensemble piece as any episode of Better Call Saul so far. Jimmy, Mike, Chuck, Kim, and Nacho are willing to go the extra mile, to do the difficult thing, not because they want to, but because they believe it needs to be done. It’s what unites those disparate individuals and their different challenges here. Each of them strains a little more, goes a little farther, in the name of biting the bullet and doing what needs doing.
For Jimmy, that means going back to his old ways. What’s interesting is that Jimmy tries to be good here. He tries to build on the success of his first ad with the owners of the music shop, and all they do is try to squeeze him. Granted, it’s Jimmy, so he’s probably inflating costs a bit, but still, the episode sets them up as jerks, and Jimmy as at the end of the rope. So hey lays out a drumstick, asks them one more time if they’re committed to not paying him what they originally agreed to, and then he intentionally takes a painful looking spill in their store to get leverage. Look out, Slippin’ Jimmy is back.
He also returns to his huckstering to get back at this community service supervisor and make a little scratch in the process. His big show of a potential lawsuit and deal with a fellow worker grow a little farfetched in terms of persuading the grumpy supervisor who eventually gives in, but the purpose of these scenes is clear. Jimmy tried doing things his parents’ way, the good way, and the only thing it got him was an empty bank account. Now, he’s back to taking the (literally) painful, less-than-savory steps that ensure he has enough money to hold up his end of the bargain with Kim.
But Kim’s willing to go the extra mile too. When Jimmy offers her the money, she obliquely hints at the idea that he might need time to regroup, that she’s willing to carry the load for the two of them for a little while. It’s not entirely clear whether she’s worried he’ll return to conning people full time and wants to alleviate the financial incentives to do so, or she’s simply concerned that whatever his assurances, unreliable Jimmy may not be able to come up with his end on a monthly basis without his legal practice. Either way, she takes on a new client, one where she already seems pretty slammed, to make sure that they’ll be able to make ends meet, with or without Jimmy’s contributions.
The Mesa Verde head honcho refers that client to her at a lunch meeting, where she just so happens to run into Howard. Howard, ever the politician, is plastically cordial, but Kim, unlike her beau, still has pangs of guilt and offers him a refund on the law school tuition he put up for her. Howard, letting the scales fall for the first time in a while, reveals that he too is working overtime, having to reassure scores of clients after the incident with Chuck gets out. Kim’s willing to take the (figuratively) painful step of handing over $14,000 dollars to assuage her conscience, and Howard is out there hustling to preserve his firm’s good name after his partner’s public breakdown.
But some good seems to have come out of it. Chuck is back with his doctor and (self-)reportedly making great progress. He may be overestimating himself a little bit, but he’s pushing through his exposure therapy and accepting that his illness is a mental not physical one. When Dr. Cruz warns him about taking it easy and not setting his expectations too high, he remains optimistic, anxious to get better.
In a tremendous sequence, without a word of exposition, “Slip” suggests that Chuck might overexert himself in this effort. He’s using the coping techniques the doctor suggested for him when standing in front of the blaring fluorescent lights of the grocery story. He lists the colors and objects he sees, taking his focus away from the pain. Director Adam Bernstein uses the tools in his toolbox to underscore the severity of what walking through the freezer case does to Chuck, the zooms, the noise, the vertigo of it all. It seems like Chuck has pushed himself too far, that he’s about to suffer another attack
But when we see Chuck later, he has the groceries and is no worse for wear. These things are difficult for him, painful for him, but he is ready and willing to push, to take that damn step, in the same of what he wants to achieve.
The same is true of Mike, who is clearly still haunted by Anita’s story from the prior episode of her husband dying in the woods without anyone ever finding the body. He digs and digs in the New Mexico desert, metal-detector in hand, until he finds where the unfortunate Good Samaritan was buried by the cartel. He calls it in anonymously, presumably in the hopes of ensuring that another family won’t have to go through the uncertainty that Anita did.
But he’s worried about leaving his own family in a state of uncertainty too. He still has his cash from his various extra-curricular activities, but he’s worried about how he could get it to his family should something happen to him. So he goes to Gus Fring, in the hopes Gus can help him launder it. It’s a scene that shows the two men’s growing mutual respect. The meaningful handshake that closes the episode (along with Gus turning down Mike’s offer of 20% to launder it) signifies the ways that their values are the same. They are both smart, decent men who get mixed up in indecent things, and they’re willing to do what it takes to make that work.
That just leaves Nacho, who has what is possibly the most difficult task of all. What I love about this series of scenes is the way they show how meticulous, how careful, how deliberate Nacho is about all of his. There is nobility in Nacho wanting to protect his father from Hector, but he is not in any way reckless about it.
Instead, he does the legwork, he takes the extra steps that will make his operation successful. He is delicate and careful as he grinds the poison into dust and fills the lookalike pills under a magnifying glass. He practices, over and over again, the act of palming the pill bottle and depositing it into a coat pocket, so that when the moment comes, it will be second nature. And he even goes so far as to climb onto the top of the restaurant that serves as Hector’s headquarters the night before, messing up the air conditioner so that Hector will have a reason to take off his jacket.
The subsequent scene where he actually makes the switch is masterful. “Slip” holds the tension of each step in the process: from the would-be fake bill, to the probing of the wrong pocket, to the pill switcheroo, to that grand moment of truth where Nacho has to make the move he rehearsed so many times and land the pill bottle into Hector’s jacket without him realizing. It’s a great outing for Michael Mando, who conveys the way that Nacho is trying to exhibit a practiced, casual calm, but inside is anxious beyond words. His deep exhale and clenched fingers in the back after it’s all done says everything.
Each of the tasks taken up by the main characters in this episode -- planting poison pills, finding a dead body, braving the height of your illness, taking on extra work, and even breaking your own back -- require something extra, more sacrifice, more pain, more difficulty. But when something important is at stake -- your livelihood, your well-being, or your family -- the major figures of Better Call Saul are the type of people who face that head on and take whatever measures the situation requires, even if that means drastically different things for each of them. Those steps are painful, tense, and even dangerous, but for better or ill, Jimmy McGill and the people in his orbit, are the people who do what they need to do.
[8.2/10] There is no show on television that threads the needle between symbolism and literalism better than Better Call Saul. Part of the show’s success, and that of its predecessor, stem from the fact that it works equally well as an exciting story as it does a commentary on human nature and what relationships with bad or shady people do to us. No character represents that idea better in “Fall” than Kim Wexler.
The scene with her out on the Texas-New Mexico border to interface with her new client works well as foreshadowing, and as a sign that Kim is trying to take on too much by herself and coming close to suffering for it. When her car gets stuck in the dirt, she has so much going on, another tight deadline to meet to try to make up for Jimmy’s possible shortfall, that she tries to take care of it all herself. She find a nearby board, heaves and pushes on the car until it budges, and panics when it starts heading toward a nearby oil derrick. Only by racing into the driver’s seat and slamming on the breaks at the last minute does she avoid a grisly wreck.
It functions as a sign that Kim is juggling too many balls, that she’s letting small but important details slip, with her car as a particular conduit for this idea, in a way that could come back to bite her.
But it also functions as a larger metaphor for what Kim’s going through with Jimmy. She has a problem of being stuck in the muck herself -- with the threat of Chuck’s machinations to get his brother disbarred and Jimmy’s ensuing suspension putting pressure on her to carry the firm. So Kim does what she always does -- she pushes and pushes and pushes until she can get things moving again. Little does she realize that in all that pushing, she may be headed for disaster, and it’s only her frantic heroics that allow her narrowly avoid it. Sooner or later, those heroics will come up short, sooner or later, trying to expend all of her efforts to keep Jimmy out of that muck will backfire on her. It’s only so long that she can go to such lengths and avoid that crash.
Everyone’s hustling hard to avoid a crash in “Fall,” though most of the plots of the episode involve financial decisions rather than ones involving dirt and chrome. That includes Mike who, in a brief scene, does his due diligence with Lydia to make sure he’s putting his name down with the right people, but it also includes Jimmy, who is pushing hard to speed up the timing of his payment from the Sandpiper case.
To that end, he finds roundabout ways of putting pressure on Irene, the named plaintiff, in settling the case so that he gets his percentage of the common fund. That means, plying her with cookies to take a look at the latest letters advising her as to the status of the case. It means giving her a free pair of walking shoes to make her look like a big spender. And it means going so far as to rig a bingo game to make it look like fortune keeps smiling upon her at the expense of all her friends and erstwhile well-wishers.
Many of these sequences are funny. It’s amusing to see Jimmy decked out in full mall-walker gear as he puts in plan into motion. There’s something undeniably entertaining about Jimmy being ensconsced in a spirited session of chair yoga when turning Irene’s friends against her. And it’s enjoyably silly hearing him play “let’s you and him fight” while playing innocent in the Sandpiper lobby. There is a prosaic quality to Jimmy’s treachery here, and his million dollar payday requiring him to hobnob with a pack of old ladies creates a certain amount of inherent farce.
But it also brings a cruelty, a cavalier and callous quality to the story. Jimmy is not entirely without scruples – there is a moment of hesitation, a momentary wince, when he sets the rigged bingo balls into the chamber – but in the end he’s willing to turn poor, innocent Irene into an outcast, to leave her crying in a back room from the ostracism, to get what he wants. That’s who Jimmy is. When he’s in a tight spot, it doesn’t matter that this is someone who is kind to him, who trusts him, who was his key to getting the Sandpiper case in the first place – he wants what he wants and he’ll do what he needs to do to get it, regardless of how dishonest, crafty, or cruel he has to be to do it.
The same, appropriately enough, is true for Chuck in “Fall.” When the malpractice insurance providers show up and declare that they’ll double the premiums on every lawyer in the firm so long as Chuck is in practice there. Chuck vows to see them in court, and Howard, initially kindly and then more forcefully, suggests that Chuck ought to retire. Howard tells his partner that there’s a place for him at the local law school, and less gently, that he no longer trusts Chuck’s judgment.
It’s easy to see Howard as just as mercenary as anyone here (including Jimmy, whom Howard accuses of being like Golem as he tries to move a settlement along), but he’s not wrong. Chuck seems to legitimately be a great legal mind, and he genuinely appears to be getting better, but he has his vendettas, his blindspots, his irregularities that, understandable or not, have made him a liability to the firm he helped create. It’s hard to accuse Howard of any sort of altruism in this, but he’s been supportive of Chuck, stood by him, and it’s not unreasonable for him to reflect and say that Chuck is doing more harm than good to the company that bears his name.
But Chuck doesn’t care about that. He doesn’t care about outrageous premiums or putting his firm’s good name on the line as part of a byzantine plan to catch his brother in the act, or even about destroying his firm by trying to cash out his share. He puts on a show for Howard, one that sees him having turned the lights on and used an electric mixer to try to puff himself up in front of a friend-turned-adversary, to show Howard that he is not the crazy man who ranted and raved on the stand but a sharp thinker making great strides who can either be a vital asset or a one-man poison pill depending on which side Howard chooses.
That’s the thing about Chuck, and his brother for that matter. They are willing to destroy, or threaten to destroy, the lives and livelihoods of the people around them to achieve their own goals, and damn the consequences. (Those consequences may, providently enough, make Howard more likely to want to settle the Sandpiper case in order to have some liquidity and cash on hand.) Even the people close to them, who have helped them and looked out for them, are not immune from suffering in their wake.
That catches up with Kim in the end. She can’t celebrate with a miffed Jimmy when he brings in a fancy bottle of booze in honor of his scheme to prompt a settlement working, because she has to do much to do to try to cover his behind. There’s been hints that her efforts to do it all herself rather than deal with her lingering concerns about Jimmy were going to hurt. There’s the five-minute naps in the car before meetings at Mesa Verde. There’s the near-miss out at the oil derrick. There’s other instances where simply being proximate to all this mess has put Kim in harm’s way.
As always, the show shoots it beautifully. There’s something quietly ominous about the silence in the car after Kim rehearses her speech. The scenery outside the window starts to fade away. Suddenly, in a blink, the accident hits. She moans in pain as she pulls herself from the wreckage. Her carefully-crafted binders blow away in the wind. Smoke billows into the austere New Mexico landscape as she surveys the tumble of metal and legal documents before her. This is, despite all her efforts, despite all her attempts to carry everything on her own back, something unavoidable.
That’s the rub of “Fall” and of Better Call Saul. Except when facing one another, the McGill brothers almost always get what they want. They know how to work the system, to tilt things in their favor, to intimidate or challenge or call the bluff of whomever is standing in their way. And because of that, they rarely suffer.
But the people around them do. The people who care about them, who try to help them, who do anything to tarnish their pride or their patience end up worse for being in the unfortunate orbit of these two men, just as Nacho’s father is worse for his son’s association with the Salamancas. It’s never Jimmy or Chuck who has to face the consequences, has to stomach the hardships of their failings or difficulties -- it’s the poor old lady made a pariah so that Jimmy can have a payday, it’s the man who stood by Chuck until it threatened to destroy his firm, and it’s the smart, decent woman who became Jimmy’s confidante, accomplice, and caretaker, straining to keep the two of them from ruin, and finding herself asleep at the wheel, surrounded by crushed chrome and the detritus of her meticulous work.
There is no escaping the McGill brothers. There is no fixing them or correcting them or saving them. There is only the doomed efforts that emerge in their wake, that inevitably end in a crash.
[9.1/10] If you graphed Walter White’s transition from mild-mannered science teacher to Heisenberg, there would be a few peaks and valleys, but it would pretty much be a straight, diagonal line. There were always these inciting events, these decision points, that pushed him further and further into becoming the man he eventually became. But the line between Jimmy McGill and Saul Goodman isn’t that neat. It’s more like a series of deepening parabolic arcs, where time and again, he reaches the brink of giving in, of becoming the shyster running cheesy ads on daytime television and linking up with criminals, and then he pulls back.
Because Jimmy has been fortunate enough to have wake up calls, to have people who pull him toward the light. Whether it’s Marco’s death or Chuck’s episode or Kim’s crash, there are moments that tell Jimmy he’s gone too far, that he needs to feed his better nature rather than settle into his Machiavellian talents. Those have been enough to keep him in the realm of the (at least mildly) righteous. Each time, some setback emerges that prompts him to gradually drift back to his flim-flamming ways, but time and again, he has the presence of mind to recognize that he’s in a bad place and hold back.
That’s one of the nice things about “Lantern,” the finale of Better Call Saul’s third season. It doesn’t overplay its hand on these sorts of moments. Kim doesn’t have some big monologue about how she’s been pushing herself too hard and it’s all Jimmy’s doing. Instead, she responds to Jimmy’s apology by declaring that she’s an adult and chose to get into the car. She comes close to jumping back into the breakneck schedule that brought her to that point and chooses to rent ten movies and actually relax and convalesce instead.
By the same token, Jimmy doesn’t have any long, drawn out confession or apologia. The look on his face, the held hand between him and Kim, the way he dotes on his friend and partner, says it all. “Lantern” plays the remorse, the realization, in Jimmy’s actions, not in the words he uses so often to bend and blister the truth. After fighting so hard to keep the office going, Jimmy immediately has a change of heart and says it doesn’t matter, setting that dream aside after seeing what it did to the woman he loved.
There’s a good deal of repentance to Jimmy here. He tries to make amends with Irene, to set things right with her and her friends, and continually comes up short. Until he reaches a strange epiphany. He admits to Kim that he’s only good at tearing things down, not at building them up, but then realizes that he can fix things by turning that quality against himself. So he uses that Jimmy McGill cleverness, this time setting up a ruse (that takes us back to chair yoga) and hot mic so he can stage a confession with Erin, the young Davis & Main associate we met back in Season 2. Jimmy applies that same manipulative quality to his own detriment, and it proves to be a clever solution to his attempts to correct his mistakes.
It’s not like Jimmy to be self-sacrificing, to make a move that will not only make him look bad, but effectively screw up the elder law niche he’d carved for himself in Albuquerque. That has the benefit of foreshadowing how Jimmy will need to find a new racket whenever his license is reinstated, but more importantly, it shows the lengths Jimmy is willing to go to, the surprisingly selfless moves he’s willing to make, for Kim and for Irene, in an effort to straighten out and fly right.
(Amid all of this fascinating, unexpected, but largely internal drama, it’s notable that Nacho’s portion of the episode is downright straightforward. The episode pays off the dummy pills it set up in “Slip”, and Hector’s debilitating infuriation at having to put his lot in with “The Chicken Man” established in “Fall”. There’s some minor tension in the scene where Nacho’s father seems poised to stand up to Hector but relents (with a great performance from Juan Carlos Cantu), a bit more when Nacho shows himself willing to train a gun on his boss rather than risk Hector hurting his father before his pill plan works, and the knowing look Gus offers after Hector succumbs. But for the most part, this is where the show simply dutifully knocks down what it previously set up.)
It ties into the symbolism that the episode is steeped in. “Lantern” opens on a young Chuck McGill reading to his brother by lantern light. He’s still supercilious (and it’s a great vocal mimic from the young actor), but the whistle of that gas lantern symbolizes the connection between the two siblings, the fact that despite Chuck’s issues, there is a light still burning for him.
That’s the difference between Chuck and Jimmy. Chuck manages to systematically alienate anyone and everyone who cares about him, from pride, from overconfidence, and from self-centeredness. We don’t know exactly what happened with Chuck and Rebecca, but we know that Chuck pissed away a promising chance for reconciliation rather than admit his condition. We see him push away Jimmy, the one person who really loved Chuck, giving him the devastating pronouncement, “you never mattered all that much to me.”
And when he goes to shake Howard’s hand, with the expectation that he will be welcomed back with open arms, Howard not only rebuffs him, not only sends him off from the firm he helped start, but he reaches into his own pocket to do it. He is so ready to be rid of Chuck, so tired of his crap, so devoted to the good of his firm, that he is willing to pay personally to be done with his erstwhile partner.
That is a wake up call of a different sort of Chuck, one that severs his last connection to the world, that sends him on a downward spiral away from the progress he’d made on coping with his condition. In “Lantern”, Jimmy admits that he’s not good at building things, only tearing things down, a pathology that seems to affect both McGills. For Chuck, that becomes more literal, as he methodically tears his own house apart trying to find the source of the electricity that is driving him deeper and deeper into his insanity.
“Lantern” revels in this, taking the time to show the escalation in Chuck’s madness when he realizes he is truly and utterly alone. It starts with simply shutting off the breakers, then checking the switches, then tearing at the walls, and finally ripping the whole place apart. We’re back to “Fly” from Breaking Bad, an unscratchable itch, an unattainable goal, that stands in for deeper issues the character can’t bear to confront directly. Better Call Saul holds the tension of these moments -- the threat that Chuck will fall off the ladder in his light-bulb snatching ardor, that he’ll electrocute himself grasping at wires buried in drywall, that he’ll cut himself on the shattered glass or sparks of his smashed electricity meter. Instead, it’s Chuck’s own deliberate hand that seemingly does him in.
The last we see of Chuck is him sitting delirious on in his torn apart living room. He is in a stupor. The whistle of the gas lantern returns. And throughout the scene, there is the knock, knock, knock of Chuck kicking at the table where it rests. Chuck’s descent is a straight line, a gradual peeling off of all the people who would give a damn about him. The lantern symbolizes his connections to other people, the quiet hum of the other lights in his life, that he continually had to snuff out to make sure his shined the brightest. That is, in a symbolic and more literal sense, his undoing. The distant crawl of flames that ends the episode sees to that.
And yet, once again, he is right about his brother. That’s the inherent tragedy of Better Call Saul. There’s room for decency in the parts of Saul Goodman’s life we never see in Breaking Bad, but whatever strides he makes here, whatever changes he commits to, we know that eventually, he backslides into becoming the huckster who helps murderers and criminals take care of their problems by any means necessary.
Before he descends into his mania, Chuck offers one last, unwittingly self-effacing assessment of his brother. He asks Jimmy why express the regret, why go through the exercise of pleading remorse and trying to change. Chuck tells his brother that he believes his feelings of regret are genuine, that he feels those feelings, but that it’ll never be enough to make him change, that he will inevitably hurt the people around him. There’s the irony that Chuck himself is scelerotic, that he is just as un-self-aware, incapable of overcoming the lesser parts of himself, but he isn’t wrong. The audience knows that and knows where kind-hearted Jimmy McGill ends up.
That’s the idea this season opened up with, and maybe the theme of the whole show -- you cannot escape your nature. Cinnabon Gene has every reason to keep his mouth shut when a young shoplifter is taken in by local cops, but he cannot help but yell out that he should ask for a lawyer. There are parts of Jimmy that he will never tamp down. Maybe, if his brother had truly loved him, had helped him to channel those parts of himself in a good direction, he could have used his charming, conning ways in service of helping old ladies with wills or other injustices. But there is a part of Jimmy always ready to slip, always ready to go to color outside the lines, to go to extremes, to get his way.
When he does that, people get hurt, people like Chuck. Jimmy is not to blame, at least not solely to blame, for his brother’s (probable) death. Chuck has brought more than enough of that on himself. To paraphrase Kim -- he’s an adult; he made his choices. But Jimmy had a hand in the catalysts for what happened to Chuck, in the things that drove him apart from Howard, that threw a monkey wrench into Chuck’s recovery, that made it impossible for him to return to practice and the life he once knew, the prospect of which seemed to energize and inspire him.
That is going to haunt him. The one thing Jimmy wanted almost as much as his brother’s love was his brother’s respect. Chuck’s likely last words to him will be essentially that he never really loved Jimmy and that he’d only really respect him if he embraced the harmful person he is deep down, and owned it, rather than fighting it. Jimmy won’t learn what happened to his brother and wake up the next morning as a fully-formed Saul Goodman, but that final thought, that warning and proclamation, will linger with him, eat him, even as he makes these grand gestures in the name of being a better man. It’s Chuck’s last awful gift to his little brother.
The changes that happen to people as they grow and evolve are rarely as neat or clean as Walter White’s elegant descent into villainy. They are an accumulation of little moments, stops and starts, peaks and valleys, until another person emerges from the slow tumult. Few people turn into monsters overnight or have one grand moment where they change completely. Instead, for most, it’s just that little by little, moment by moment, person by person, the light goes out.
