Jack Seal

[9.0/10] I am a sucker for meta humor and good god, this episode is chock full of it. I adore all of the meta references to the way that Arrested Development was on the bubble at the time this episode aired. The discussions of possible leaps to HBO and Showtime, the Narrator asking the audience to “please tell your friends about this show” and Michael planning ways for the family to “make it past the next few weeks” are all the sort of fourth wall-nudging gags that I enjoy.

I also appreciate “S.O.B.s”’s spoof of classic desperation moves from flailing sitcoms. The promise that a character will die (replete with the fake out that it’s some minor nobody), the use of 3-D, and the gimmick of a live ending are all true-to-life ways that shows teetering on the edge try to gose some interest.

But my favorite metacommentary in this one has to do with the descriptions of the show itself and, more specifically, it’s characters. Michael is right. The bluths are self-centered and not terribly likable. That’s what makes the show so funny for much of the time -- these are ridiculous people who deserve the insane things that happen to them -- but it’s not necessarily something that endears them to a general audience. The show tangles with weird and complicated problems, from bizarre incest plots to knotty father-son relationship issues, which lack easy answers, in contrast to clear cut scenarios with the potential for comedy. The truth is that as great as it was, Arrested Development was never going to attract a broad audience, and this episode seizes on why.

But it’s also a hoot! Oh man, everything in this works. I love the way GOB manages to, in fact, accidentally work a day in his life. Him waitering at the club as a joke, only to accidentally be a half-decent waiter is a great setup. And the fact that the jig is up when he accidentally tries to flirt with Lucille, replete with a classic “COME ON!” is great. Likewise, Lucille trying to drum up support for the Save Our Bluths benefit by taking lunches that eclub, only to use up their credit and thus dissuade the club from catering the event, is more clockwork comedy from the show.

There’s tons of laughs to be had from Tobias trying to be a “discipline daddy” with Maeby by enlisting her in stalking and vaguely threatening casting directors. Her using her film executive job to get him out of her hair is a nice resolution. Lindsay trying to be a housewife and stumbling onto great recipes like “hot ham water” and “chicken with chicken sauce” brings the yuks, especially with Buster glomming onto her once she’s more mom-like.

That just leaves Michael and his son. George Michael being sent to “Openings”, a “feel goodery” school to learn to express himself is a fun premise, and George Michael cribbing off of Maeby to overcome that inability leads to some amusingly dark escalation. Andy Richter is a delight in a series of role that spoof his forgotten show, Quintuplets, and the gags about his brother Emmett not wanting to be shown are particularly fantastic. George Michael as the Muffin Man is a trademark dark gag from the show. Plus hey, the celebrity guests (some of whom hadn’t made their main appearance on the show yet!) are a lot of fun.

What sticks with me though is Michael’s final speeches -- he’s right that he doesn’t listen (most frequently to his son), and that the Bluths have had plenty of chances. I love Arrested Development. I think it’s one of the top comedies of all time. But it’s not for everyone, and despite some hurdles, it’s hard to blame the network for having trouble getting general viewers to connect with the show this off-the-wall and, frankly, avant garde for network T.V. in 2006. There’s some self-awareness in this one, without sacrificing any laughs, and it’s one of the things that makes the series great, even if it was destined to be a cult series rather than a widely popular success.

[9.3/10] I am running out of ways to talk about how great Season 2 of this show is. Every few seconds there’s another great gag or clever bit of wordplay or some ridiculous but hilarious set piece that just makes this whole thing so enjoyable from start to finish.

Let’s try to unravel a couple of these expertly tied comedic threads and start, as usual, with Michael. I love the subtle thread that Michael is just as terrible as the rest of the family, since rather than be honest with his son about his concerns, he concocts this circuitous and awful scheme to use his family to scare the Veals off so they’ll forbid Ann from getting “pre-engaged” to George Michael.

It is, as a later episode put it, an clear goal with lots of comedic potential, however insane it might be. Watching Michael interacts with the Veals is great, from his awkward attempt to defend “religious nuts” to Pastor Veal, to his efforts to keep Mrs. Veal away from his “secular ways.” Everything from his disbelief that someone as attractive as Mrs. Veal is Ann’s mother to his fight with Pastor Veal (Alan Tudyk!) are great.

And the way he lies to George Michael about it being about not taking marriage too lightly, while George Michael thinks his dad is a hypocrite for (what he thinks is) macking on Mrs. Veal is an amusing misunderstanding. I also like the subtle character motivation from Lindsey being invested in George Michael proposing (replete with her toe ring) because it reminds her of her own young love with Tobias. Plus, George Michael’s awkward reactions to a hot and bothered Ann interpreting Michael’s speech as permission to “do it” is just uproariously funny, especially with the music cue they use.

On top of that, the way that Oscar’s plan to throw Lucille an anniversary party to show her that George Sr. isn’t there for her like he is, which conflicts with George Sr.’s efforts to abscond with Lucille to show her he still cares is another brilliant comic set piece. The failed (and eventually successful) kidnapping efforts are funny throughout; Oscar’s eyeroll-worthy hints about him being Buster’s father, and the symmetrical combat between the twin brothers are all great. There’s even the slightest bit of emotional setup and payoff with Lucille appreciating that Oscar stayed and fought for her.

And my god, the comedy on the side! Maeby getting into trouble with variations on “marry me!” and “babysit me!” had me in stitches. Tobias as Mrs. Featherbottom, racing between personas, is just the comedic gift that keeps on giving. (His little jump from the second floor is such a great bit of physical comedy.) And good lord, GOB’s puppet Franklin is one of the best bits this show ever did, from the comic zoom in a tense moment, to his use as an ether rag, to Buster’s deranged use of the puppet in the tag.

Overall, this is just wall-to-wall laughs with clever, interlocking stories and gags throughout. What a great show.

[9.7/10] Another one that is just so full of brilliance that I don’t know where to begin. Everything with the election is hilarious, from Michael’s obliviousness to his son’s lack of coolness and then frantically trying to keep things from spiraling out of control after he talks George Michael into running, to GOB’s ill-timed dirty tricks, to Maeby’s “that’s like comparing apples and some fruit no one’s ever heard of” line. The idea that it’ll boost George Michael’s self esteem is a good through-line, and there’s just so many great little gags throughout the whole thing, from the “Star Wars Kid”-esque video to Michael and GOB trying to fire each other, to the reveal about Steve Holt. Wall-to-wall laughs.

That said, Mrs. Featherbottom may be one of my all-time favorite bits in the show. Tobias’s ill-conceived Mrs. Doubtfire riff is the comic gift that keeps on giving, and the way it ties everything together with Linday’s clean-up problem is superb. (Again, the running gag of “I don’t know why, but that’s it” is outstanding.) Tobias’s obvious high pitched lilt and everyone ignoring it for the sake of convenience is a hoot.

And it ties perfectly into Buster and Lucille’s storyline in this. Buster taking up with Lupe, and then a roomba, because he’s “half machine” is absurd but amazing. And Lucille hiring Mrs. Featherbottom since she knows Buster won’t sleep with “her” is brilliant.

Throw in the other amusing bits, like Ann being impressed by George Michael’s Star Wars moves, or Tobias holing up at a T.V. set, or Lucille and GOB calling out to “robot” and you have an episode that is well-connected and just uproariously funny. An absolute classic.

[9.7/10] So much glorious, hilarious, interconnected goodness in this one. It becomes pretty hard to disaggregate how awesome all of this is, but I’ll do my best.

Let’s start with Motherboy. The perfect quadrangle they make with Michael, George Michael, Lucille, and Buster is brilliant. The idea that both Michael and Lucille are using George Michael for their own ends rather than letting him go to Christian Promise Camp with Ann is a solid one, and the whole idea of the Motherboy dance is just amusing as all hell. Lucille’s scheming, the Bloth boys’ counter-scheming, and that one little boy’s desperation to be rescued were all eminently laugh-worthy bits.

There’s also some great physical comedy throughout, from big set pieces like Buster’s zipping down so that George Michael won’t have to zip up, to just him accidentally whacking Michael with the door.

Frankly, everything involving Buster in this one is great. We get another awesome “I’m a monster” moment, his little epiphany about the seal who bit his hand off being another creature raised in captivity who’s now an amputee, and him being used as the punchline of Maeby’s ghost story is a brilliant button to put on things. Plus, the other Bluths’ discomfort around him after years of scares from J. Walter Weatherman is so perfectly done.

The rest of the stories in the episode are great too. GOB trying to navigate his way through his divorce by “lying” about sex he never had is a funny bit for him (especially with Amy Poehler back on the show), and the triple swerve of her trying to prove it is outstanding. Plus it’s a great Barry episode, with Henry Winkler jumping the shark once more! (And the running bit about GOB not knowing his wife’s name is a laugh too.)

Last but not least, I also got a kick out of Tobias’s would-be star turn playing George Sr. on scandalmakers. The way that acting more like George Sr. makes Lindsay more attracted to him is weird but funny. The product placement schtick with Carl Weathers is some good meta humor. And Dave Attell has a very funny, low key guest star bit going on.

Overall, this is every piece of the show, and every cast member, at the top of their game, with great little ties between the various pieces to boot. Such a great, great episode of television.

[9.4/10] Good lord is this a delightful episode. Literally every part of this episode is clever and funny.

Let’s go with the to-do around Lucille 2. I like that the show works with the idea of her vertigo here, both for her getting cured at a clinic and Michael retriggering it with his new car, in a delightfully clockwork gag. (Not to mention Lucille 2 chalking up her getting over her vertigo for why her kitchen seems smallers.) I also really enjoy the setup and payoff with Michael’s red windbreaker, wind-tussled hair, and bug on his cheek accidentally turning him into a Liza Minelli impersonator when he ends up at a drag club with her. And the twist that she is “Standpoor”, the company that bought the Bluth stock, is outstanding, especially when she ends up maintaining control of the company.

That brings us to the love quadrangle. Starla breaks up with GOB because he hates his mother, only to start dating Buster on Michael’s advice because they both love their mothers, which re-breaks up Buster and Lucille 2, only for GOB to start sleeping with Lucille 2 in order to be installed as president of the Bluth company again. It’s an enjoyable ridiculous series of events, and I especially like the small bit of sentiment when Michael is willing to give up Bluth control of the company rather than let Buster suffer when he realizes that Buster was the only Bluth who didn’t sell his stock. Again, I don’t think of AD as a sentimental show, but there’s these little sweet moments that really do something.

I also got a big kick out Lucille’s mini-war with Lucille 2 over extending the Bluths’ bathroom into her kitchen, and Lucille 2 only realizing later. The way that Lucille Bluth hates her “rival” and Lucille Austero “loves the Bluths” until she realizes the malfeasance is a great bit.

Then you have the unexpected story with Maeby and George Sr., where George Sr. inadvertently gives notes on Maeby’s scripts which works to perfection. And the bit with Maeby thinking the edits came from George Michael, with the misunderstanding over the word “notes” and George Michael thinking they’re his love letters is inspired. I also enjoy that a big part of Michael’s storyline is thinking that his son is embarrassed to be seen in his car.

Last but not least, you cannot beat the pure comedy of Tobias buying a drag club, getting caught up with the hot cops posing as a street gang turned musical thespians at Lindsey’s behest, and the whole lot being sent into chaos when they run into an actual gang. It’s Tobias’s comic obliviousness at its absolute peak, and the humor that emerges where his naivete collides with reality is outstanding.

Overall, just an excellent episode with only minor, if any, flaws.

[8.1/10] Another absolute winner. The main story sees Michael and Maeby trying to make George Michael and Lindsey jealous, with the former group feeling miffed that the latter group doesn't seem to need/want them anymore. That leads George Michael and Lindsey to try to return the favor, which turns funny when both groups do karaoke versions of the song “Afternoon Delight” without realizing its meaning. Lots of fun gags to come out of this one.

GOB is in top form here, between his boasts about his suit, his “Come on!” catchphrase, and his inability to take a joke when trying to be president. Lucille and Oscar are also great here, with Lucille feeling stressed and all kinds of funny double entendres from how Oscar might get her to relax.

And Tobias is outstanding here, with the parade of goofy misfortunes that happens to him (between getting run over and, worse, missing a call from the blue man group), and his chipper, guileless declaration of “that’s my wife and my nephew...we have an open marriage.”

But the best part of the episode is the climax, where GOB’s desire to get laughs, Lucille needing to relax, and Buster playing the claw machine instead of going to basic training come together to make a brilliant ending where all three of their skills (or lackthereof) come together.

Overall, another classic bit of harmonious Arrested Development hilarity.

[7.3/10] This is the first episode this season that wasn’t totally outstanding, which is no crime, but just makes it a little underwhelming after the last batch of episodes.

Again, it feels like Lindsey gets saddled with the weakest storyline, as she flirts with Steve Holt, prompting Maeby to tell him that her mom is actually transgender. The joke doesn't age very well, and while there’s something mildly sweet about Lindsey backing off once she realizes Maeby’s crush, the whole thing is kind of weak to begin with.

The main story is solid but unspectacular. The dilemma of Michael having to choose whether to protect his dad or get immunity for himself a good engine to power the episode. The return of Wayne Jarvis and his Patriot Act-waving ways, George Sr. in Tracy’s maternity wear, and the fact that the “photos of Iraq” are actually Tobias’s testicles are all good bits of comedy. And again, there’s something a little genuinely touching when George Sr. hugs his son and tells him he’s not used to anyone standing up for him.

The other bits in the episode are more hit and miss. I wasn’t a fan of the Oscar/Lucille drama in this one, though Oscar only responding to aloofness is at least the germ of something amusing. Buster needing GOB to motivate him to climb over a wall for the army is a small but fun bit. And George Michael getting glasses that make his vision worse, both because Michael’s worried that he can’t actually see Ann clearly, and because George Michael’s too indecisive to do well on his tests, whether they’re in math or vision, is a funny idea that’s barely there in the episode but amusing when it is.

Overall, a bit of a step down from the rest of the season so far, but plenty to laugh at.

[9.5/10] Another absolute gem of interwoven storylines and brilliant comedy. The prospect of George Sr. dying has a great effect on everyone, especially George Sr. Him getting to watch his own funeral, Tom Sawyer style, is the best thing the character’s gotten to done in the show, between his befuddled commentary, to his interactions with George Michael, it’s where George Sr. really comes into his own as a character.

It’s also a nice episode for Michael and George Michael as father and son. George Michael being in the awkward position of having to cover for George Sr., but not being good at lying, makes for some good laughs. And Michael thinking that his son is covering for his girlfriend (“the mere fact that you call making love ‘pop pop’ tells me you’re not ready”!) when he’s really covering for his grandfather is a superb comic mix-up. And the way Michael flips the situation at the end (using GOB’s magic box once more!) is a clever solution.

Tobias is also on fire here, with his speech about projecting feelings and general presence throughout. Maeby trying to be emancipated by goading her mom into an affair is weird, as befits AD, but still leads to a number of good laughs as Lindsey tries to court Ice (the bounty hunter/caterer). Barry claiming to have forgotten the will while Lucille wants what’s owed her and everyone blurts out “I don’t know what I’m saying” is wonderful dark comedy.

And the running gags! Everyone doing the sad Snoopy walk is just the best. And the bit about “glisten” coming back is perfectly setup. And again, Buster is a comic boon to the series, between him pretending to be in the army using a stripper outfit, to the scenes of his young fits on receiving bad news.

Overall, this one is a laugh and a half that sets up a lot of the comic premises for the rest of the season, and brings out the best gags in everyone.

[7.3/10] Some aspects of this episode take it down a notch for me. For one thing, the Atkins humor hasn’t really aged well, since the diet is not the phenomenon now that it was then, but maybe that’s the point. Still, as a series of running gags, it doesn't hold a candle to the comparative timelessness of the “take your daughter to work” bit from just the prior episode.

At the same time, the Season 1 finale also goes for a bit of drama that falls flat. Between Michael complaining to his dad about having all of this crap fall in his lap, and George Michael telling his dad that he doesn't want to pack up and ship off because he likes their family, it’s just more melodramatic than Arrested Development normally is, and isn’t a great fit for the show’s more irreverent style.

But the irreverence is great when the show goes to it. GOB and Lindsey’s beads/bees confusion is the stuff of legend in the Bloom household, and GOB’s subsequent fixation of bees and half-hearted desire to be the head of the family is very amusing. Plus it’s the first appearance of the “file not found” card, to great effect, and the editing-based gags are especially sharp here (see, for example, the smash cut after Barry Zuckercorn wonders how he got poison oak).

At the same time, the gags about Lindsey only wanting to stick with Tobias because of his money, and then feeling ready to bolt herself after she finds out that it’s only resonating with gay men is another bit of humor that doesn't age especially well, and feels like it’s driving at an emotional force the show just hasn’t really earned. Kitty trying to grab power of the Bluth company using Buster doesn't really go anywhere. And while it’s kind of cute that Maeby’s jealous that her cousin is no longer fawning over her, her kissing Annyong to to try to teach him a lesson is a cute way to bring things full circle, but pretty meh in the comedy department.

That said, the final scenes of the episode are pretty great. The details about Iraq are a nice way to pay off the “light treason” bit. Michael and Lucille’s “more lies” exchange is outstanding. And George Sr.’s great escape and the overly literal doctor are both good bits.

Overall, it’s not the strongest note for the show to go out on, but there’s still some classic stuff in this one that mostly makes up for it.

[9.2/10] My sweet lord is this episode funny. Michael/Lucille is probably my favorite pairing in the show, and so a story that not only forces Michael to deal with pretty much every member of his family looking for a handout, which tends to bring out their most comic awfulness, but it anchors it in the mildly sweet but endlessly dysfunctional relationship between Michael and his mom is right up my alley. Everything from Michael’s ill-advised whistles, to him dealing with the would-be whistleblower, to his even more ill-advised lemon grove purchase and coming to his mom for help is hilarious. Plus Lucille is in rare form here, between her confusing hugs, her ability to clean-up messes, and the way she turns the sweet mom-appreciation vibe into joining the board. (Plus her reaction to Oscar’s song is amazing!) It’s a great main story and a great duo.

Speaking of which, it’s our first time pairing GOB and Tobias, which is a rare but potent twosome. The two of them forming “Gobias” industries, awkwardly shuffling past Michael in the coffee shop, and trying to wrangle a check makes for great comic stuff in the little bits we gets.

Plus it’s the first appearance of Oscar! Maeby and George Michael thinking Pop Pop has escaped (based on George Sr.’s “give me your hair” comment and sightings of Oscar around the pier) is a good mini-mystery, and the fact that it’s actually their uncle, a hippie, song-writing, lemonade salesman who carries a torch for Lucille and Joan Baez called “the shallowest man” in the folk scene, is the icing on the cake.

The only part of the episode I didn’t really love is Lindsey trying to protest her hairdresser going off to war. There’s some solid social commentary in Lindsey’s ignorance of the second gulf war until it affects her, and a bit of blunt political commentary in the free speech cage. But it feels like a pretty thin excuse to have Portia Di Rossi dance. That said, at least it’s set up amusingly earlier in the episode, and Lucille seeing her from afar in a passing car and declaring that she could have used a mother is a good bit.

Overall, a wonderfully-constructed, and uproariously funny episode that brings out the best in Michael and Lucille.

[7.6/10] It’s hard not to watch these episodes without just remarking on the classic, if ridiculous gags, like “this is the last time you’ll be seeing these!” But this is a really solid episode totally apart from those classic bits, with the Spring Break theme. Michael trying to fire Kitty, rehire her, fire her again, and then have GOB accidentally blow her up is an amusing throughline, with some plot relevance given how George Sr. and GOB have been blabbing to her (though George Sr. about serious stuff, and GOB about his personal life.)

I also enjoyed the cat and mouse game between Lucille and Lindsey & Maeby about Nana and her precious birthday money. It’s Lucille at her most comically conniving (including using poor Anyong as a purse), and it’s hilarious.

I’m not as big a fan of Tobias becoming a prison kingpin using his therapy technique, and the “Friend of Dorothy” bit is a little strained, but there’s still some laughs in the interactions between gentle, naive Tobias and his caustic father-in-law.

And of course there’s GOB, who both wants his brother’s approval, tries to do right by his nephew and, you know, blows up a yacht while dancing to “The FInal Countdown” during a magic show on an MTV knockoff...like you do. It’s gloriously ludicrous and fun.

Overall, a great episode. Spring breeeeeeeak!

This has everyone involved play to their strengths. It's another tale of Scorsese deconstructing the myth of the American dream, but with a thematic approach I found quite refreshing for him. The way that the film tackles racism, and how it's tied to issues of money, power, greed, trust and systemic injustice, feels authentic and well constructed. It's a movie that's unsettling and will leave a mark on your brain emotionally, you should know that going in. De Niro has a lot of fun playing a sinister crime boss with a wholesome facade, it's a performance that could be compared to Giancarlo Esposito in Breaking Bad. DiCaprio is always at his best when playing a pathetic dumbass, and he also shines here. It almost feels like he's in Tarantino mode, it's not similar to any of the previous work he's done with Scorsese. Yet, despite both of Scorsese's go-to actors having prominent roles here, it's actually Lily Gladstone who ends up delivering the most emotional, subtle performance. Technically the movie is pretty much flawless. The production design, lighting, cinematography and score are all immaculate, and despite the long running time, Thelma Schoonmaker’s editing kept me engaged for the entire runtime. However, the pacing is still somewhat of an issue. As Scorsese has matured as a filmmaker, the choices he's making are becoming more and more understated. The tracking shots and montages are still here, but they're less energetic and he's relying more on pauses instead. There's nothing wrong with that, given that the substance carries the movie, but with a movie this long I want a little more pop. There's one scene involving fire that'll stay with me, as well as another couple of haunting moments, but besides that he's not turning up the intensity too much. It would've been nice if the movie ended with an extended courtroom scene where all the actors get to really show off with some incredible dialogue, for example. This movie still ends in a pretty weird way, having some creative use of what are essentially ending title cards, but it involves a major tonal shift that didn't work for me. Finally, I thought Brendan Fraser's performance was flat out bad, showing up for a small part and overacting every line. All in all, while I do recommend this movie, I don't think it's a masterpiece. Martin 'this is cinema' Scorsese would probably hate me for saying this, but given the pacing issues, there's an argument to be made it would've worked better as a miniseries.

7/10

Everyone keeps suggesting there is a paradox concerning the 5D future humans and their ability to save humanity in the past. It's really not a paradox at all. Everyone assumes humanity survived to ascend to the 5th dimension but how could humanity exist in the future if not for the actions of Cooper.. who was guided by future humans (begin endless loop).

Did anyone ever consider the other important character in the movie? Amelia Brand carried on with the rest of her mission (thanks to Cooper). I postulate that Brand used the human seeds as intended and set up a colony. A colony that would thrive and eventually evolve beyond human. Thus Earth is of little importance, and may have indeed died. These colonists, and the generations that followed, would have been told the story of a great man (Cooper) who saved them from extinction. With the ability to manipulate space-time, they would pay homage to their hero "God" by helping him in the past so he may fulfill the mission most important to him, to once again see his daughter. Plan B worked beautifully. But the 5d humans, having the power to bend space-time, decided there's no reason why Plan A had to fail.

Not bad, but definitely a step-down from the original. The humor is still more hit than miss, though the ratio is down from the first. The story is serviceable. I was actually pretty happy with things until the last act when the CGI budget spiked and my interest cratered. It makes the classic sequel mistake of assuming bigger equals better. Unfortunately, much of the increased scope ends up feeling half baked and/or obligatory. For example, the movie really lost me with the random mythological creatures getting birthed from the tree. It feels like the movie just needed a lower level threat for non-super powered characters to face off against so that they have something to do. It's completely superfluous and I would have preferred to just not see those characters for a while. Black Adam did something very similar in its finale, with zombies/skeletons randomly popping out of the ground. Not sure which is worse. In this case, the issue culminates in the unicorn sequence, which got a big fat eye roll from me. I'd also criticize the pacing of the finale, as certain sequences seemed to drag way longer than necessary (e.g. waiting for the lightning staff to blow up). All in all, way better than Ant-Man Quantummania.

We definitely have more of a shift in the show now that they've showed all of their cards (even though we already knew what was going on). But the show gains a lot from now being set completely in the present and showing us both Danny's and Rya's experiences with Danny's multiple personalities. This episode took a big swing and gave us a very symbolic yet tangible take on what the inside of Danny's mind is like, and it doesn't always work but I thought overall it was a pretty cool way to show us his internal conflict. Seeing more on Rya's side of things as she attempts to legitimize Danny's disorder to her colleagues and prepare for his trial adds a nice element to the show as well. Her character also has some good nuance with both selfish and selfless motivations. The final scene of Danny showing just how utterly terrified and confused he is about what's going on in his head was expertly done and made me really feel for him. Tom Holland is great and super believable in this difficult role in my opinion, including the emotionally heavy moments and his ability to switch between his different personalities. I feel like I can tell who he is in a given moment just by the look in his eyes. So overall, a bit of a silly episode in some regards and it's still not the best script, but there's also a lot that's great here.

This was one of my favorite episodes of Ted Lasso in recent memory, there was a lot of great character work here. Ted was more or less a supporting character in this episode as they focused in on a lot of the side characters, giving them all some really great moments. The standout for me was Roy, who we see dealing with his breakup with Keeley in the most Roy way ever which was really funny as I love the humor he brings. But then we see a great moment between him and Trent Crimm (who I am very happy to have more of by the way), and a really touching moment at the end as he opens up to Ted and Trent about his time at Chelsea, which was also clearly a metaphor for his relationship with Keeley. That's just smart writing and it's so cathartic when he drops his Roy facade to open up to others. I loved the moment between him and Jamie as well, and am hardcore rooting for a bromance between the two of them. I really liked seeing Keeley's more subtle way of dealing with the breakup, as well as how she's handling her new job, and Rebecca had a great standout moment too. I liked what they hinted at with Jamie and how he seems to feel about Zava joining the club, and would be happy to see more attention given to him this season as he's become one of the most likable characters for me. I'm also excited to see the dynamic that Zava brings to the team and how everyone deals with that. And the final moment shows Ted again feeling lonely as everyone else has something to do at the end of the day and he's left alone, really hinting at the internal struggle he's going through about what's really keeping him at Richmond and away from his son back home. They're setting up his season arc in subtle ways that I really enjoy, and I'm excited to see how it all plays out for him.

Starts very well, the way they handle the death of Boseman is very tastefully done (so many well executed emotional beats) and I like the new conflict that they set up, which is a little more grey and intelligent than the usual blockbuster, like the first movie. The new villain is an interesting character, and I quite liked the creativity that went into the design of his powers and world, but for the love of god, never show me those goofy wing boots again. From the second act onwards, the movie starts to get bogged down by the Marvel machine, i.e. the movie slips out of Coogler’s hands. It’s unfortunately forced to function as a backdoor pilot for Disney + shows and used to drive the corporate machine forward, instead of focussing on the development of its own premise and character arcs. The way it rushes through the arcs of Okoye, Shuri and Namor leaves a lot to be desired. Meanwhile, cutting/writing out Riri, Martin Freeman and Julia Louis Dreyfus would improve the overall cohesion and pacing a lot. What doesn’t help either is that the action and visual effects get increasingly worse and worse as the movie goes on, to the point where we again have an ugly third act on our hands, which includes some of the most hideous looking costumes the MCU has ever put out. Moreover, the soundtrack is kinda bland this time around. It’s not like Kendrick et al. were putting out their best material for the first film, but the music here is just so vanilla and forgettable. Finally, I’m not enitrely sure what the script is trying to communicate on a deeper level, besides being a general statement in favour of diplomacy. If it’s meant to be just that, I don’t think this is anywhere as bold as the first movie. Not that it needs that in order to be good, but it’s another layer stripped away from what made the first movie special. What saves the film ultimately is a lot of its craft: the directing, worldbuilding, acting, score, cinematography, costume and set design (underwater world looked great, much better than Aquaman IMO) are all very well handled and stand out in the blockbuster field. It has those strong foundations in place that make it hard to produce a flat out bad Black Panther film, but man does this movie also show that Marvel is its own worst enemy at this point.

5.5/10
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I just picked up on Criminal Minds starting this season, and I sense I'll be bingeing the entire series after this one ends despite the fact that I sort of dislike Rossi's character.

I know I need more input about the character's history and how he joined the unit and how he evolved before I can judge his personality and the decisions he makes. So, With the help of today's awesome AI research tool I asked ChatGPT to tell me a little bit about his personality and background... and here's what it said:

David Rossi is depicted as having extensive experience and a long career in the FBI. He is a founding member of the Behavioral Analysis Unit and has worked on numerous high-profile cases over the years. He is considered a subject matter expert in several areas of criminology and has a deep understanding of criminal behavior. He is often called upon to provide insight and guidance to his colleagues, and is respected for his knowledge and expertise in the field. Throughout the series, Rossi is shown to have a wealth of experience in the FBI and is often described as a "legend" within the organization.

I guess that's good enough for now until I - maybe - develop a connection with his character

[6.4/10] You can’t review your way into caring about something that your brain has tapped out on. For that, I’m sorry. I have a compulsion to review the things I watch. It’s my sorry way of trying to hold onto my thoughts before they slip through the cracks of my mind and dissipate into the ether. Part of the goal is to make myself watch more closely, to strive for a deeper, richer experience from the art I consume rather than to just shut my brain off and imbibe uncritically.

But I have written something about the significant majority of The Walking Dead for years and years now. And one episode away from the series finale, I can hardly be bothered to give half a damn about anything here.

Stuff happens, at least! The Virginia Survivors invade The Commonwealth! Mercer foments rebellion on the side! Pamela spurs a zombie attack that leads them to start climbing the walls! Eugene escapes! Judith gets shot! Nearly everyone reunites! This isn’t a boring episode.

Except, it kind of is? Because none of this stuff really matters. Few of the characters feel like characters anymore. Instead, they’re just action figures to be moved around the Commonwealth play set. I don’t really know what’s at stake for anyone personally, and even the more practical stakes are pretty vague. Take out Pamela? What happens then? Presumably Mercer takes over and Yumiko advises him and things go easier, but even then, the problems of the Commonwealth run much deeper than one person, and rolling into take her down doesn’t seem like much of a fix.

I also low-key hate Pamela, and not in a “I want to see that villain get her comeuppance” sort of way. She turned from a semi-interesting character who thought the ends justified the means and felt like a formidable player even when she was doing bad shit, to snarling bad guy who’s all “Leave the poor to die to save the rich!” and shoots a child. I get that she’s supposed to have snapped after the loss of her son, and even the kid-shooting thing is an accident that leaves her aghast and blaming the other side. But she’s become a much less complex and less interesting character since Sebastian died.

I also low-key hate the Judith getting shot beat. It’s a lose-lose. If she lives, it’s more plot armor for the important characters. If she dies, then it seems extra stupid that Daryl and Carol brought her on a veritable suicide mission for the flimsy reason that “She wants to fight for what comes next” and cruel to have the death of another child on this show.

And miss me with this “last scion of the Grimes family” nonsense. I get that Rick and Lori and Carl and Michonne were are all a big part of the show once upon a time, and Judith is the closest thing season 11 TWD has to pay tribute to them in some way. But the way they shoehorn the homages to them,awkwardly saddling Judith with them and giving the poor young actress reams of clunky dialogue that immediately fall flat to work with, is the pits.

If you want clunky dialogue, “Family” has plenty of it. The first two-thirds of this one is “calm before the storm” type material with various characters having overwrought, portentous conversations meant to put a bow on several relationships or emotions before the shit hits the fan. Normally, I love this sort of thing. It’s a chance to do character work instead of just immediately devolving into grand action. But even after eleven seasons, the writers have never been able to consistently make that sort of thing work. Why change now, I suppose?

There’s a few exceptions though. I love the exchange between Ezekiel and Negan over why one chose to save the other and why one tried to martyr himself for the cause. Khary Payton just quietly kills it every week despite being stuck with the same rough dialogue everyone is. The reprise of his “And yet I smile” speech is an all-timer. Even Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who’s another consistent highlight, isn’t quite as good in the same scene, but his explanation of knowing the Virginia Survivors are better than him, and wanting to redeem his name a little for his wife and kid after all he’s done, is a good one.

God help me, I also love the exchange between Princess and Mercer. Princess making her code name Aurora is a funny little gag. And I don’t know, there’s just something about their chemistry together that’s impossibly cute. Chemistry is magic sometimes. The way the two gently, verbally nudge each other on the radio, and even the way Mercer says, “yeeeaaauuuhhh” when he realizes Princess is coming back works like gangbusters. Why do the two of them soar when I couldn't give a damn about, say, Gabriel and Rosita, who are theoretically more established and have more scenes together? I wish I could tell you, but how two performers, and two characters snap into place, or don’t, is part of the peculiar alchemy of television.

Hell, I even liked the business with Lydia’s amputation. It feels like a throwback to the earlier days of TWD, where the stories were somewhat smaller in scale and the danger was as focused on the threat from the walkers as anything. Losing loved ones in the horde, a major character paying a cost for an understandable but emotional and dangerous decision, and Aaron reassuring her having been through the same thing all contribute to an effective vignette amid the other world-shaking, bullet-blasting nonsense. The events feel tense and personal in a way little else here does, and as meh as I’ve been on this particular corner of the show, it’s the most personal, lived-in element of this one, and stands out for that reason.

Otherwise, I appreciate that they at least set up the climbing zombies a few episodes ago, thereby earning it a little when they begin scaling the walls of the Commonwealth and screwing up Pamela’s plans. It still feels really late in the day to go back to that idea, but whatever. Our heroes are very conveniently able to beat armored stormtroopers carrying guns on a regular basis, which strains credulity. Likewise, I don’t know why we’re pulling a Jaws and shooting a fire extinguisher like that turns it magically into a Batman-style smoke bomb. And the geography of what happens, and where the good guys can advance from or retreat to, is really opaque.

But honestly, those are trifles at this stage of the game. As The Walking Dead approaches its final stand, it gathers every major character into a big bunch for the last battle. And I’m struck by how little I care about most of them. It’s been a long time since the series gave me a reason to, and this batch of episodes in particular has turned into a shallow pulp so quickly. I will watch next week, because I’ve already wasted twelve years of viewership on this show. What’s one hour more? But my brain gave up long before I did, and I can’t pretend to be even halfway moved by the impending conclusion to a series I’ve watched for that long -- a sad indictment of a series I’ve somehow stuck with to this bitter end.

[7.4/10] Remember when The Walking Dead wanted to be prestige television, on part with the likes of fellow AMC shows Breaking Bad and Mad Men? Hell, maybe it still does. But increasingly, it feels like TWD has given up those aspirations and is content to be more of a pulpy, soapy, TNT-style cable drama.

There’s nothing wrong with that. In truth, this show was never particularly good at doing the prestige-style thing that it so often aspired to. Leaning into the cheap thrills at play isn’t the worst idea in the world. And yet, something about an episode like “A New Deal” comes off a bit shallow and easy, despite the theoretically momentous things at play.

I’ll admit, this one could have been called “A Series of Pointless Conversations: The Episode!” The status quo-restoring trade of the Alexandria/Hilltop survivors trading Hornsby as a fall guy in exchange for them getting the supplies to rebuild their original homes is a touch convenient, but you can see the appeal. It provides the writers with an excuse to have a bunch of characters jaw back and forth over whether to stay in the Commonwealth or retreat back to the lives they’d known before.

Most of the conversations we get are a big nothing, full of bland platitudes and characters who end up one place or another because it’s narratively convenient more than because it reflects what we know about the characters and what they want. The discussions themselves aren’t especially compelling either. As I’ve said before, Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a good actor, so him expressing the pull of parenthood that spurs people to make different decisions has some extra life to it. Otherwise, this one is full of wheel-spinning.

The exception is Daryl and Judith. The two have such a history that it’s hard not for there to be something to a conversation between the two of them. All the talk of “We should make it better, you’re just giving up” is tedious, the sort of thing the show’s done a thousand time. But Daryl struggling when impressed into service as a parent, having not had the best example himself, is much better and more unique. Carol giving him advice, and him meeting Judith on her level with honesty and vulnerability, is good stuff amid an ocean of blander, less interesting exchanges.

I also appreciate the big ploy and set piece. This one wears its themes on its sleeves. Sebastian Milton practically announces that he’s the bad guy, in the way few, if any, actual privileged folks would. There’s a pro-wrestling match that features a Hulk Hogan-esque patriotic hero getting the crowd to chant “Com-Mon-Wealth!” a la “U-S-A!”. And there’s big patriotic speeches and fanfare.

Hell, I even like Max’s scheme. The Tommy Wiseau-esque plan to use a tape recorded to catch the bad guy revealing his true feelings is a stock one, but one they set up, and shows Max’s resolve and steel. Her and Eugene playing his villain monologue for the assembled naturally turns the tide, and plays into some class war chaos that’s already been brewing.

It’s fun to see everything go to pot in the otherwise idyllic (or theoretically idyllic) town after so much cloak and dagger. There’s irony (and also convenience) to the fact that Hornsby has his goons kill the lower class workers, who aren’t allowed to participate in the festivities, turning them into zombies who literally eat the rich. The mechanics of who survives and who gets eaten and who’s able to get away doesn’t make much sense if you keep your eyes peeled and follow the action, but that’s par for the course for TWD at this point. The idea is clear: as much as some members of our protagonist group want things to stay better, even a place like the Commonwealth can promise that for very long, and reflects grave moral compromises to present the appearance of stability they offer.

And yet, it’s hard to shake the feeling that none of this is as deep as it could be. There’s a surface level of social and political commentary. But at base, this is just standard pulp with a thin veneer of social critique. You could make a fair argument that this is what TWD has always been. But something in the presentation and approach seems to have changed, to where the show plays like any other laundry-folding cable drama, rather than a series that aspired to the artistry of the big boys. That’s not necessarily a problem -- The Walking Dead rarely, if ever, met that standard -- but it is interesting as the mainline show rounds out its final season.

[9.8/10] What an episode! It's hard to imagine an hour of television that could draw out the differences between Jimmy and Kim better than this one.

In the wake of Howard's death and all the sins she committed and enabled, Kim numbs herself in a colorless world of banal conversations and empty experiences. Everything about her day-to-date life is colorless and dull, resigning herself to a sort of limbo as both penance and protection from inflicting anymore wrongs on the world. And even there, she won't make any decisions, offer any opinions, as though she's afraid that making any choice will lead her down another bad road.

Until Gene intervenes, balks at her command to turn himself in, and tells her to do that if she's so affronted by what they did. And holy hell, she does! If there was ever an indicator of moral fortitude in the Gilliverse, it's that. The courage of your convictions it takes to have gotten away with it, lived years away from the worst things you've ever done, and still choose to return to the place where it happened and accept your punishment, legal, moral, or otherwise, is absolutely incredible. Rhea Seehorn kills it, especially as Kim comes crumbling apart on an airport shuttle, amid all the hard truths she set aside for so long coming back in one painful rush. It's a tribute to Seehorn, and to Kim, how pained and righteous Kim seems in willfully choosing to confess and suffer whatever fate comes down, unlike anyone else in Better Call Saul or Breaking Bad.

It makes her the polar opposite of Gene, who finds new depths of terribleness as the noose tightens around him. As he continues the robbery of the cancer-stricken man whose house he broke into in the last episode, he finds new lows. Even when this risky excess has worked out for him, he pushes things even further by stealing more luxury goods as time runs out. He nearly smashes in the guy's skull with an urn for his own dead pet. He bails on Jeff. And when Marion finds him out, he advances on her with such a physical threat, a dark echo of the kindness to senior citizens that once defined his legal career.

The contrast is clear. Kim will turn herself in even when she doesn't have to and has excuses and justifications she could offer. Gene resorts to ever more cruelty, fraud, and craven self-interest to save himself from facing any of the consequences he so richly deserves. Kim is right to tell Jesse Pinkman that Saul used to be good, when she knew him. The two of them will understand better than anyone else in this universe what it's like to attach yourself to someone who sheds everything that made them a decent human being. Jimmy lost the part of himself that was good, or kind, or noble, even amid his cons. But Kim held onto her moral convictions, and it's what makes her not just Jimmy's foil, but the honorable counterpoint to the awful person he became.

EDIT: Here's a link to my usual more in-depth review of the episode if anyone's interested -- https://thespool.net/reviews/better-call-saul-season-6-episode-12-recap/

[8.1/10] For the entirety of this season, Kim Wexler, and the audience, have been waiting for Jimmy McGill to genuinely deal with his brother’s death, to confront it in some way, rather than moving on as though nothing happened. From the season premiere, where he brushed off Howard’s tortured confession with a happy air, to last week’s raging out, we’ve seen Jimmy sublimate his feelings about Chuck and his brother’s death. We’ve seen him repress them, run from them, and act out because of them, but never really face them head on.

Those feelings are at the core of “Winner”, the finale of Better Call Saul’s fourth season. The latest scheme from Kim and Jimmy requires Jimmy to cry crocodile tears at Chuck’s grave on the anniversary of his death, to get earnestly involved in the scholarship grants made in Chuck’s name, to loudly but “anonymously” throw a party for the dedication of the Chuck McGill memorial law library and seem too broken up to enjoy it. It’s all a big show, to attract as many members of the local bar as possible, in the hopes that word will get back to the committee judging his appeal for reinstatement as a lawyer.

It is an effort to put on grief, wear it like a mask, for self-serving purposes. The knock on Jimmy, the thing that held him back in his first hearing, was a lack of remorse or concerning or mournfulness about his brother. So he and Kim send every signal imaginable to the legal community, in lugubrious tones, that Jimmy is a broken man still shaken up by his brother’s passing, only withholding mention of Chuck because the memory is too painful to bear.

As usual, it’s a good plan! It’s hard to know for sure whether the signs of Jimmy’s faux grief make it back to the review board, but they at least seem to be effective on his immediate prey. And Kim is there by his side, shooting down his more outlandish ideas, workshopping his speech to the committee, and helping her partner mislead people in the hopes of regaining something that was taken away from him.

But the key to it all working is Jimmy’s speech to the review board. He goes in with a plan to recite Chuck’s letter to him. Jimmy wants to let his brother’s eloquence and feeling carry the day so that he doesn't have to put on that mask of true feeling and seem insincere. But he departs from the script. He improvises. He offers what sounds like an honest assessment of his relationship with his brother, the reasons why he became a lawyer, the difficulty of gaining Chuck’s approval, the truths about Chuck’s demeanor and the hardships their sibling relationship faced at times.

The the impact of those words is heightened by the karaoke cold open that shows Jimmy as needling but caring, Chuck as condescending but proud, and the two of them as loving siblings. It clearly moves the review board. It causes Kim to wipe away a tear. And you’d have to be made of stone to sit in the audience and not feel something as Jimmy offers what sounds like a heartfelt and honest eulogy for his brother and their relationship.

But it’s a canard, a put-on, a lie. It is an echo of similar faux-sentimental assessments from Chuck, and once again, I almost believed it. Jimmy revels in having put one over on the review board. His cravenness about tugging their heartstrings astounds Kim, underlining her worst fears about the man she loves. After tearfully echoing the passage from his brother’s letter, about his pride in sharing the name McGill, Jimmy asks for a “doing business as” form to practice under a pseudonym instead. Saul Goodman, scruple-free lawyer to the seedy underbelly of Albuquerque, is born out of the ashes of his brother’s life and name.

There was no truth in Jimmy’s seemingly sincere pronouncements. There was no outpouring of grief or real feeling in that confessional moment, or if there was, it was anesthetized and calibrated to be used for dishonest purposes. For ten episodes, we’ve been waiting for Jimmy to acknowledge what his brother meant to him in some genuine way, and instead, he gives us, the review board, and most notably Kim, what turns out to be just another performance.

It is, in a strange way, a negative image of how Mike behaves in this episode. When he speaks to Gus about Werner’s disappearance, he seeks mercy on his friend’s behalf, trying to avoid a mortal response from his employer. He pleads caution, forgiveness, the possibility of correction. But when he speaks to Werner himself, he’s colder, angrier, more taciturn and practical in the way we’ve come to expect as the default for Mr. Ehrmantraut. He too has a divide between the face he presents in his profession and the one he presents to his erstwhile friend.

But at least “Winner” gives us some good cat-and-mousing in that effort. For all the heady material in Better Call Saul, it’s hard not to enjoy the petty thrills of detective work and chases gone wrong all the more. Seeing Mike pose as a concerned brother in law, and piece together where Werner’s likely to be is an absolute treat. And the way he manages to loses Lalo Salamanca -- with a gum in the ticket machine ploy -- is a lot of fun.

Lalo himself, though, really drags this portion of the episode down. He’s a little too cartoony of an antagonist on a heightened but still down-to-earth show. The fact that he crawls through the ceiling like he’s freaking Spider-Man was patently ridiculous. And his single-minded pursuit of Mike and ability to ferret details out just as well veered too far into the realm of contrivance. I appreciate the promise of greater friction to come between Gus and Mike’s operation and the Salamancas, but the bulk of Lalo’s business in this one was unnecessary, and kept Nacho, who’s been underserved in general this season, on the sidelines.

Still, it leads to a tragic, moving, heartfelt scene between Mike and Werner where what needs to be done is done. Between Werner’s naive requests to see his wife, Mike’s matter of fact resignation about what needs to happen, and Werner’s slow realization of the position he’s in all unspools slowly and painfully.

The upshot of it is simple though. Mike found a friend, and he has to kill him. There’s sadness in Mike’s eyes, evident beneath the anger that it came to this. There’s pain in Werner’s, and for yours truly, when Werner tells Mike that he thought his little escapade would result only in frustration but ultimately forgiveness and understanding from Mike, because they’re friends.

There’s not room for friends in this line of work, at least not under Gus Fring. Ultimately, it’s not up to Mike, and underneath the stars of New Mexico, at a distance, with a spark and a silhouette, we see him have to end the life of someone he’d rather let go, because it’s his job. Werner is the first man that Mike kills for Gus, but he won’t be the last. And it all starts with a man who made one mistake, that can’t be forgiven, because the powers that be would never allow it.

That’s what ties Mike’s portion of the episode to Jimmy’s. Jimmy delivers what is basically the Saul Goodman Manifesto to a young woman who was denied one of the Chuck McGill scholarships since she was caught shoplifting. He tells her that chances at respectability like that scholarship are false promises, dangled in front of lesser-thans to convince them they have a shot when they were judged harshly before they even stepped in the door. The system is stacked against you. The rules are to their benefit. So don’t abide by them. Make your success without them. Do what you have to do. Rub their nose in your success rather letting yourself be cowed by something unfair and biased against you. The world will try to define you by one mistake, but fight back and don’t let them win.

That’s a comforting worldview, one that lets the viewer off the hook to some degree. We want to like Jimmy. He’s affable. He’s fun. He’s good at what he does. It’s easy to buy in Jimmy’s own sublimated self-assessment -- that the white shoed system is unwilling to overlook less credentialed but hard-working individuals who’ve had missteps but overcome them, so he has to fight dirty. It’s tempting to buy into that narrative -- that the people with the power aren’t playing fair, so why should he? Why shouldn’t scratch, claw, fight, and cut corners along the way to getting what he deserves?

But the truth is that “the system” hasn’t done much to keep Jimmy down. Howard Hamlin wanted to give him a job after he became a lawyer. Davis & Main gave him every opportunity to succeed. Even the disciplinary committee is not unreasonable in questioning Jimmy’s penitence when he offers no remorse for the person he hurt with his scheme. Jimmy’s made plenty of his own mistakes, but it’s not “them” trying to hold Jimmy McGill down; it’s “him.”

That’s the trick of this season finale. Despite all the put-ons and subterfuge, Jimmy does genuinely reckon with the death of his brother, he just does it in the guise of unseen forces set against him rather than a cold body in the cold ground. It’s Chuck who tried to keep Jimmy from being on the same level as him. It’s Chuck who instigated the disciplinary proceedings that continue to be a thorn in Jimmy’s side. It’s Chuck who judged his younger sibling solely on his mistakes, who overlooked his hustle, who saw those missteps as all that Jimmy was or could be. When Jimmy rails against the system that he sees as holding him down, when he uses that as an excuse to color outside the lines, he’s really railing against the brother, and his feelings of anger and pain and grievance, that no longer have a living object of blame to sustain them.

Because Jimmy has to be the winner. If Jimmy is denied his reinstatement, if a young woman with a checkered past but a bright future can’t earn a scholarship in his brother’s name, if it’s ultimately judged that someone like Jimmy isn’t allowed to be in the profession of someone like Chuck, then it means that Chuck won, and Jimmy can’t bear that.

Despite the loss of his sibling, we only see Jimmy truly cry once this season. It’s not in front of the review board. It’s not in a quiet moment with Kim. It’s in his car, by himself, when the engine won’t start, when he feels stymied, when it seems like the forces Chuck set in motion will pull him under for good, cosmically confirming his brother’s harsh assessment of him.

There is grief in Jimmy McGill, pain caused by a severe loss. But that loss didn’t happen when Chuck died. It happened when Chuck broke his heart, turned him away, told him that he didn’t matter. As with others on T.V. this year, death didn’t mean the loss of a confidante for Jimmy; it meant the end of the possibility of approval, of pride, of the sort of family relationship Jimmy had always wanted and thought he might one day gain.

There is truth in those tears behind the wheel of an off-color sedan, a mourning in private to contrast with the show he puts on in public. And Saul Goodman -- the real Saul Goodman -- is born. Because if Jimmy couldn’t earn his brother’s love, then at least he can win, he can try to become what Chuck never thought he would, reach heights his brother never reached, no matter what lies he has to tell, what corners he has to cut, or who he has to hurt or deceive to get there. That’s Jimmy’s truth now; that’s his response to his Chuck’s death, and that’s the force that moves him from the decency and concern of the man we meet at the beginning Better Call Saul to the amoral, win-at-all-costs mentality that comes with the new name that distinguishes him from his brother.

I’ve known the evenings, mornings, and days alone,
I have measured out my life in Mesa Verde awards and burner phones.

[8.7/10] With my sincerest apologies to T.S. Eliot, it’s amazing how Better Call Saul can move so slowly, and then so quickly, without missing a beat. It’s hard to know how much time has passed up until this point in the show, but season 4 picked up right where season 3 left off, and has more or less crept along in the aftermath of Chuck’s death and Hector’s “accident” ever since.

Until now. I spent a great deal of time talking about how the last episode set Jimmy and Kim on diverging trajectories, to the point that it was even occasionally literal. “Something Stupid” takes that idea up a notch with a cold open set to the titular crooner melody. The show’s unrivaled montage abilities depicts the passage of time with unwrapped statuettes, file cabinet labels, and holiday sale signs. But Better Call Saul once again gets a little formally creative, using a well-placed split screen to show how both Kim and Jimmy are flourishing in the new lives each has embarked upon, but also how those lives are slowly but surely pulling them further and further apart.

It’s an interesting choice, since Better Call Saul is very much about the slow burn. But it’s part and parcel with one of the most noteworthy creative decisions the show consistently makes -- how Jimmy and Kim are meant to be a real relationship with slow ups and downs rather than the constant shocks and fireworks of romance on a standard network drama. When this season started, I feared for Kim, because the show seemed poised to concoct some grand accident, some big mistake on Jimmy’s part, that either scares her away or worse.

Instead, “Something Stupid” gives us the death of a thousand cuts, and it gives us small scenes and the changing of the seasons to make it happen. The show may still be building to that grand incident and gesture, that will sever the only couple it’s ever truly put together. But Jimmy and Kim didn’t start with fireworks on this show, and rather than end them with something explosive, Better Call Saul is content to just show them drifting apart, more and more living separate lives, until that division just happens without either of them realizing it, or wanting to admit it.

Because “Something Stupid” isn’t just about the passage of time. It’s about the little signs that things have changed or are changing, the ones that are almost imperceptible but nevertheless tell the story. That comes through in our glimpse of Hector. Time has been kind to the old man after the incident with Nacho. During some rehabilitation exercises with the expensive doctor Gus provided, Hector knocks over a cup of water. The medical staff writes it off as an involuntary reaction from a man still trying to regain control of his motor functions. But the perspective shots and editing let the audience know otherwise -- that this was a minor stunt from Hector so he could leer at his nurse.

Gus, observant man that he is, sees it too. He recognizes more than that his longtime foe is still a lech. He recognizes that Hector, the awful man Gus wants revenge, is still in there. Vengeance is no good if there’s no one but the shell of a man to appreciate. Gus too has his own almost impercetible moment, a slow malevolent smile, that conveys his recognition that the man he wants to punish is still awake and aware enough to appreciate it.

So Gus turns the knife a little. He sends the doctor onto her next assignment. In effect, he halts Hector’s progress, despite the doctor’s protestations that there’s more recovery to be had. Hector has recovered enough to appreciate what Gus has done, while still being limited enough to hate it. The simple flick of a cup sets in motion a series of events that changes Hector’s life, and lays the groundwork for Gus’s death.

That’s the interesting thing about the passage of time in “Something Stupid.” It can either elucidate how much progress has been made and imply the trajectory that’s being halted, or it can show how much things have deteriorated. When we see Mike and the Germans, it’s very clearly the latter. The crew that Werner the engineer hired have made great strides in constructing Gus’s underground meth lab, but there’s miles to go before they sleep, and it’s starting to get to the workers.

When an accident on the job sets them back months, on a job the whole group knows won’t be finished anywhere near on schedule, tempers flare, scuffles break out, and it becomes clear to both Mike and Werner that things can’t continue on as they have. There’s more suggestion than development here, as we see more of the restlessness bubbling under the surface for the workers than anything actually coming to a head. But we see a growing camaraderie between Mike and Werner, a shot down suggestion that things might flow easier without Kai that feels portentous, and the slightest change in expression from Mike to show us his acceptance of the idea that the workers need some “R&R”, lest things spin out of control.

But bad feelings are bubbling under the surface for Jimmy and Kim as well. Jimmy and Kim have growing resentments about one another, but are either too ensconced in the status quo to rock the boat or, more charitably, care about each other too much to make an issue out of them, so they come out in odd ways.

When Jimmy tags along with Kim to a Schweikart office party, he can’t help taking a powder in her office. And there, he starts to get a little jealous. He walks the floor and finds out that her office is almost twice as big as his. He looks at a framed note from a pro bono client, and sees that Kim has already had more success, engendered more appreciation, in her spare time as a substitute public defender, than he had when it was his regular gig. Jimmy is scraping by and seeing his partner soar. It bothers Kim, but he loves her, so he lashes out in other ways.

That means causing trouble at Schweikart, using his small talk expertise to “spitball” a fantastical company trip to Mr. Schweikart himself, with all the employees in eartshot. After Jimmy finishes laying out this extravagant ski trip and creating expectations, Schweikart will either have to break the bank to pull it off or disappoint his employees when the real trip fails to live up to the image of a winter wonderland that Jimmy creates. It’s Jimmy’s way of stomping on the Schweikart sandcastle that Kim’s helped to build, a quiet little F.U. and “you’re not so big, huh?” His little conversation has plenty of plausible deniability for the trouble it’ll cause, but Kim knows better, even if she’s unable or unwilling to call him on it. The icy trip home says as much.

But they’re still a team. So when a misunderstanding with a bag of sandwiches, a pair of headphones, and a plainclothes cop leads to Huell facing jail time, Jimmy goes to Kim for help. It’s a well constructed conundrum because it has good and bad elements to it. There’s some real injustice in Huell potentially having to go to prison because of a legitimate misunderstanding as regards a less-than-legitimate business. But there’s something questionable at best about Jimmy’s wilful blindness and obstinance to the cop about his burner phones, and something mixed about Jimmy’s motives, even if it seems unfair for Huell to have to take the fall.

And then there’s Kim’s role in all of this. The most striking reaction, in an episode full of them, is Kim practically suppressing a gag reflex when Jimmy suggests solving this problem by making the policeman crack on the stand. It’s too close to what she helped Jimmy do to Chuck, too much like the sort of life destroying ploy to save one’s own bacon that she’s been trying to make amends for since. So she takes the case but rebuffs Jimmy, resolving to do it her way -- with facts and precedents rather than hustles and manipulation.

But that fails. The prosecutor not only rejects Kim’s tactics, but questions why Kim’s even doing this, and unwittingly slags Kim’s partner in the process. It’s a tense scene, of Kim trying to do everything in her power to make this work, the right way, to help Jimmy even as she’s seeing more and more the ways that he is not the kind-hearted soul with rough edges she once thought. The edges are starting crowd out the parts of Jimmy she always appreciated, even as, in true Breaking Bad fashion, the show puts her in a tight spot and dares the audience to find out whether and how she’ll escape it, and what it will cost her and Jimmy, to do so.

The close of the episode seems to be setting up the sort of dramatic, high stakes moments that drove Breaking Bad. But Better Call Saul has been a show about slower burns, about more gradual, softer transformations than the collection of inflection points that pushed Walter white from “Mr. Chips to Scarface.” And it’s taking the same tack with Jimmy and Kim. Even as the seasons shift, there’s not some big moment that changes everything. There’s just a gradual winnowing of the trust and mutual admiration they once shared, until the image each had of the other is too tarnished to go on.

[8.8/10] Better Call Saul has never been closer to Breaking Bad. That’s not just because the episode opens with this show’s first glimpse of Jimmy as the Saul Goodman we met on the prior show, in the midst of his fleeing from justice. It’s just because Gus Fring seems to nail down the plans for the facility that will one day be Walter White’s laboratory. It’s not just because Jimmy visits The Dog House, the fast food restaurant and hangout where Jesse Pinkman sold meth.

It’s because this is an episode about people who are outstanding at what they do, who have near unrivaled skills, and what direction that takes them in. That was the larger story of Breaking Bad, a story about a man who had an undeniable talent, and who could not set it aside when the recognition and lucre came with a side of human misery, and who didn’t know when to walk away until it was too late. It’s a show that lived on the conflicted thrills of watching someone so skilled ply their craft, and earned its emotional resonance from both the uncertainty and foreboding sense of where it would lead him.

“Quite a Ride” positions Jimmy in the same way, as someone who has a gift for persuasion, the ability to make an anthill sound like Mount Everest, and a lack of scruples that mean he doesn't mind skirting the law if it suits him. The difference is that Walt was running from a life he resented, whereas Jimmy seems to be running from his own grief.

There’s a version of Jimmy that could maybe have been happy, at least temporarily, working at the mobile phone store in a semi-normal way. Sure, his efforts to convince a passing customer that he can evade the taxman by buying these phones that are allegedly selling like hotcakes isn’t exactly on the up-and-up, but it’s a pretty straight job by Jimmy’s standards.

But it’s not enough, at least not when he has a moment of quiet, a moment to let his grief catch up with him. Sitting on the couch, watching Dr. Zhivago, Jimmy starts to tear up, as the pain of the events with his brother seem to flood back in a way he’s been able to keep at bay. So Jimmy turns to his drug of choice, his favorite distraction, and the thing that makes him feel better than anything else -- a nice, lucrative hoodwink.

He buys a heap of burner phones from his own store, and ventures to The Dog House to unload them to whatever criminal element is around to purchase them, in another one of the show’s sterling montages. There’s a sense in these scenes that Jimmy is both at the top of his game, but also wants to be punished for it. He doesn't know when to leave well enough alone, and seems to be pulled between the part of himself that wants to see exactly how far his talents will take him, and the part that wants to push him into something so bad that it’ll be the wake up call that snaps him out of this.

That wake up call comes. It doesn't happen when Jimmy wanders into a crowd of bikers who are enough to scare away the rest of the riff raff. It happens when the three young hoods who turned him down earlier in the night rough him up and take his spoils from the evening. He returns home, worse for wear, and after a sweet scene of Kim tending to his wounds, he agrees to go to the shrink she recommended.
He seems to realize that this isn’t healthy, and enough is enough. Just the image of Kim standing across from him, a symbol of his conscience and the better life he can have, is enough to spur him to be better and not let another night like this happen again.

Kim, however, is running as well. Instead of grief, she’s running from guilt, and instead of devolving further into a life of questionable morality, she’s hurtling herself headlong into an effort to regain her ethical moorings. That means working as a public defender in her spare time, going toe-to-toe with the same local prosecutor that Jimmy himself used to joust with. But unlike Jimmy, Kim isn’t just using subterfuge and bombast to get criminals off. She’s using prosecutorial screw-ups to hold the other side accountable, telling the young man she works out a deal for to get his life right or she won’t be there to bail him out, and goes above and beyond to help a young woman too scared to show up to court do what she needs to do.

This is all wildly successful, because Kim is damn good at what she does. She knows how to put the prosecution through their paces; she knows how to read a young screw-up the riot act in the hopes that he won’t be back here, and she knows how to be sympathetic but forceful with her clients who need both a helping hand and a little push.

The problem is that it means Kim is shirking her responsibilities elsewhere, specifically with Mesa Verde. She blows off a call from Paige, her contact at the bank, so that she can see things through with her pro bono client. It’s the negative image of Jimmy’s choices in this episode -- a decision that’s foolish and a little self-destructive, but noble, and one Kim promises never to make again. Both Kim and Jimmy are trying to regain their souls, but in very different ways, and for very different reasons, even if both use their god-given skills to great effect in the process.

Mike is employing his expert skills as well. The top of the line, undetectable meth lab that Gus is putting together is part of his grand plan, and so he needs people he can rely on. That’s why he brings in Mike to scout the architects for his place. For one thing, Mike’s shown -- through his escapades at Madrigal -- that he knows how to cover every detail to make sure that their illicit dealings aren’t found out or shut down -- something the show again conveys with a great visual sequence involving point of view shots from under a hood and communicating the passage of time through quick cut changes in sound and lighting in the back of a rocky van.

But he also knows people, like we saw last week, and he can tell when someone is blowing smoke at him and when someone’s being straight. That’s why Gus trusts him, and why Mike sends the boastful guy who claims he can build the lab in six months packing. And it’s why when Werner Ziegler, the nauseous German architect who tells his would-be employer straight up that the job is not impossible, but that it will be difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. Mike and Gus are birds of a feather, they’re frank, thorough, and careful, and it means when taking on a project of this size, they want people who’ll treat it the same way.

We know, though, that no matter how cautious Mike and Gus are, how close they come to bringing this long-brewing plan to fruition, that it all ends in ruin. No matter how well you plan, how good you are at what you do, there are unpredictable elements that can disrupt everything. For Gus Fring, that unpredictable element is Walter White, but for Jimmy McGill, it’s Howard Hamlin.

After his incident with the burners and the muggers, Jimmy seems on the straight and narrow again. But then, during a trip to the courthouse to check in as part of his suspension, he runs into Howard in the bathroom, who looks worse for wear. This typically ever-composed individual is out of sorts, looking disheveled, complaining about insomnia, and stressing over a case that he admits isn’t particularly significant. It’s clear -- to both Jimmy and the audience -- that Chuck’s death has gotten to Howard, that’s Kim’s speech landed, that the very thought is torturing him. It’s enough for Jimmy to offer some kindness, recommending the same shrink that Kim passed on to him.

It’s then that the worm turns. Howard tells Jimmy that he’s already seeing a therapist twice a week. It’s startling admission to Jimmy, one that changes his path yet again. Howard has all the advantages Jimmy doesn't -- his wealth, his position, and his father’s name. He has lived as traditionally successful a life as someone like Jimmy could imagine, the kind of life Jimmy was once trying to emulate.

But Howard is haunted by the same grief Jimmy is, and he’s no better for all the more that he has. Howard’s visible unmooring in the wake of the same loss sends a message to Jimmy -- that following the right path, doing what’s expected of you, doing things the normal way, don’t get you where Jimmy wants to go, and don’t seem to make you better either. So when he speaks to the D.A. about his plans after reinstatement, he speaks of wanting to go bigger, go better. His refuge from grief is his refuge from everything -- to follow his talents to their apex until it either makes his dreams come true or leads to his end.

“Quite a Ride” suggests the former rather than the latter. We know the heights that Jimmy will hit: the Saul Goodman billboards and commercials running 24/7, the suitcase full of money, the cheesy but lucrative law office he maintains. But we also know his fall, his paranoid, button-down life as Cinnabon Gene, that requires him to be demure and inconspicuous, the greatest punishment there is for someone like Jimmy.

And maybe “Quite a Ride” suggests and end even beyond there. After Jimmy is laid out by the thugs who rob him, he lays on the ground in pain as the camera pulls back skyward. It’s the same shot Breaking Bad used in Walt’s final moments. It’s a visual echo and a portent, one that seems to preview what a myopic quest to make use of your own greatest talent, regardless of the ethical or practical consequences for you and the people you love, gets you. We know where that sort of quest ended for Walt, and as he veers ever nearer to going full Saul, Jimmy gets a taste of that too.

Better Call Saul has never been closer to Breaking Bad, and that’s bad news for Jimmy McGill.

[8.7/10] The close of “Something Beautiful” makes me think of a scene from “Nailed”, the penultimate episode of Season 2. In that episode, Chuck McGill confronts his brother and Kim about his suspected switcheroo with the Mesa Verde files. He impugns Jimmy’s character and says Kim should open her eyes. And he tells Kim that Jimmy did it for her, that it was a “twisted romantic gesture.”

But Kim defends Jimmy. She admits that he’s not perfect, but essentially argues that he’s a good person, a person she pities for how much he wants his brother’s love, a love that he’ll never get. She chastises Chuck for denying him that and judging him, for threatening to inflict such consequences on Jimmy, denying his theory as crackpot. But when she’s alone with Jimmy, she betrays her true feelings. She punches him in the arm. She expresses her frustration, because she’s no fool; she knows he did it, and she knows Chuck’s right -- he did it for her.

So when Kim returns to the offices of Mesa Verde, the crown jewel of her ill-gotten gains, and sees their vaunted “models” of their expansion plans, it’s overwhelming for her. The camerawork and editing is tremendous, zooming in on this miniature world and making it larger than life, especially with Kim’s place in it. She sees a tiny man and woman in front of the building, the sounds and the feelings rush back, and she can’t help but remember how this all started. It started with this man that she loves taking revenge on his brother on her behalf. That’s not something Kim Wexler can shake as easily as Jimmy seemingly can.

Sometimes you start something, and you don’t know how big it’s going to get, or the difficult places it’s going to take you. “Nailed” is also the episode where Mike knocked over one of Hector’s trucks. In a bitter echo of that scene, “Something Beautiful” opens with Gus’s henchmen recreating that tableau with Nacho and the dead body of Arturo, to make it look like the same goon who attacked Hector’s soldiers before have struck again. It is, in keeping with Gus’s M.O., a meticulous job. No detail is left unattended, and to complete the cover-up, they shoot Nacho in the shoulder and in the abdomen, leaving him to bleed in the desert with nothing but a phone call to the twins to potentially save his life.

There too, the scenes are beautiful, but harsh, as director Daniel Sackheim uses Nacho’s injury and rescue to show both the efficient brutality of Gus’s plan and his goons as Nacho is left to bake and bleed under the desert sun, and the impressionistic resplendence of the flashes of night-lit faces he sees on the operating table of the same veterinarian who associates with Mike and Jimmy.

After that vet gives Nacho his diagnosis and medical advice, he leaves Nacho with one last instruction -- “leave me out of this.” The vet says that the work with the cartel is too hot for him, and he wants out. It’s another bitter irony, because Nacho wants out too. He told his father he was trying. He wanted to keep his family from getting involved deeper with the Salamancas, deep into this morass. But like Kim, he’s too far into it now, and he’s suffering the physical and mental consequence of something he can’t escape from, that’s happened because of him.
And yet, as much as Nacho desperately want out, there are those who desperately want in. Gus, ever the mastermind, has made it so that the Salamancas are without leadership and supply on the streets is running thin. He gets to play the reluctant subordinate to Don Bolsa, agreeing over feigned protest that, if he must, he’ll find an alternative supply of meth with the Salamanca’s pipelines shut off for the time being, a contingency he has clearly been planning for some time. His almost undetectable smile while on the phone with Don Bolsa betrays it. While everyone else is scrambling, in too deep, Gus knows how to play the hand he’s dealt.

But this new situation requires him to go Gale, the latest Breaking Bad alum to appear on Better Call Saul. Gale is as delightfully geeky and puppy dog-like as always, singing along to a rondelay of chemicals sung to “Modern Major General”, reporting his results from the tests that Gus had him run, and practically begging for Gus to let him be the official Pollos Hermanos meth cook.

Gale is one of this universe’s more endearing inventions, to the point that his presence is a welcome little joy in an otherwise fairly heavy episode. It even makes me forgive the show’s increasing, and frankly kind of cheesy, willingness to dip back into the Breaking Bad pool. But here that crossover quality works, because we know Gale’s fate, and what lies in wait for him on the other side of that desperation to join up, the harsh realities that Nacho is facing as he wants out of what Gale wants into.

Sometimes, though, that life on the other side of the glass is just too appealing. That seems to be the case for Jimmy, who returns to the sort of small time hustles we saw him running with Marco back in the day. This time, it means replacing the secretly valuable hummel figurine owned by the copier salesmen he rejected in the last episode with a common, otherwise undetectable replacement, and pocketing the profits.

The ensuing sequence -- where Jimmy’s hired goon tries to make the swap, and inadvertently gets trapped hiding from the company’s owner, who’s in the doghouse with his wife -- is one of the funniest in the show so far. (It had echoes of “squat cobbler” with its absurdity.) The humdrum, almost cliché problems of the owner buying his wife a vacuum cleaner, listening to self-motivational tapes, and ordering pizza in the middle of the night while the would-be thief hides under a desk is a brilliant and hilarious setup, made funnier by how much patience Better Call Saul shows with it. And the coda, with Jimmy misdirecting the owner and rescuing his accomplice with little more than a coat hanger and a car alarm, is the icing on the cake.

But there’s more going on than just comedy here. Mike recognizes that when he turns down the job. He realizes that Jimmy’s after something else, something beyond just an easy score, and that’s a complication Mike is smart enough not to want to get involved in. Unlike Nacho, and unlike Kim, Mike knows when he’s walking into a briar patch he might never walk out of, and he’s been reminded recently enough that few things in the circles he runs in are as clean or “in and out” as he might hope. There’s warning signs going off about Jimmy, and though we know they won’t keep Mike away from the once-and-future Saul Goodman forever, they’re enough to keep him away for now.

And maybe that’s the same sort of realization that Kim is starting to have. At the end of the episode, Jimmy sees the piddling distribution Chuck left for him, reads a mildly condescending but still genuine and heartfelt letter from (so Jimmy knows it’s really from Chuck), and yet he’s nonplussed. Yet again, something that would seem to provoke some outpouring of emotion from Jimmy gets bupkus, while it’s Kim who breaks down and tears up and needs a minute.

Chuck’s letter talks about he and Jimmy’s bond as brothers, about the connection they share despite their differences, about the resilience and hustle Chuck admires in his younger sibling. And there’s two ways to take Kim’s wounded reaction to that.

One is a sense of guilt for having been the thing that motivated the rift between the McGills. Chuck told her it wasn’t her fault back in “Nailed” but he also told her that Jimmy did all this for her. As I’ve mentioned before, part of the larger story Better Call Saul has told thus far is of Kim slowly but surely replacing Chuck as the major person in Jimmy’s life. Maybe being reminded of what led to her getting Mesa Verde, of the bond between brothers that was severed on her account, is too much to bear.

But the other is that she realizes she picked the wrong side. The last time Kim was in Mesa Verde’s offices, she told her counterpart that all that had happened with Chuck at Jimmy’s disciplinary hearing was the tearing down of a sick man. In that scene in “Nailed”, Kim took Jimmy’s side over Chuck’s. Whatever the truth was, she believed that Jimmy’s heart was in the right place, that he was the victim, and that he was a good man.

Now, in the wake of Chuck’s suicide, maybe she’s starting to see his decency, maybe she’s starting to reevaluate the set of events that led her to this place, and her choice to be with a person who seems fine with them all. In “Something Beautiful”’s final image, we see only half of Jimmy’s face, the other half obscured by Kim’s closed door, and there’s symbolism in it. As perceptive as Kim is, she didn’t see the whole picture with Jimmy; she didn’t see the whole picture with Chuck. Now that it’s coming into focus, she finds herself so immersed in something awful, so bound up in it, and all she can do is buckle and try to bear it.

Breaking Bad has already shown us the fates of so many of these characters, how Jimmy, Gus, Gale, Mike, are all sucked in and battered by this world. But Better Call Saul leaves us people like Kim and Nacho, who we can only hope escape this terrible orbit in better shape than Chuck did.

[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.

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.

I have a bitter-sweet feeling after this episode. While it is true that I have mostly enjoyed this season, especially some episodes, the ending just made no damn sense. I feel like the other ones who have commented here. That's how you destroyed a 14-year friendship. I kept on expecting Reid to talk to JJ before the wedding and comment on it being "a good tactic" or something. Have the writers forgotten that JJ has a family? And what was Will doing while JJ and Reid has the strangest and most awkward conversation ever? Eating cake? It doesn't feel right. Some would say it's fan service because the show is ending, but I don't think it was like that. In fact, I don't think anyone in the fanbase wants JJ and Reid to be a thing. Their relationship has always been brotherly. JJ worries about him the same way she's do for a brother, especially given the fact that her sister committed suicide and that Reid was a sort of substitute of her. But to actually end a season like this? It was too much. I kept on expecting someone to actually die. My sister thought I'd be Rossi, given the fact that he was so happy. Fortunately, the wedding took place and, apparently, everyone is happy. Except me! I cracked up with Prentiss speech and also with the guys dancing. And Matt is going to have another baby! Jesus, how many kids are they going to have? I'm so happy for them. That is a very good, well-written and interesting relationship.
Does Krystall have family? Friends? Relatives? Work buddies? Only her daughter Portia came to the wedding. I was definitely expecting someone else. Only the BAU members attended the wedding. And, if there were that few guests, why that big-ass wedding cake?

Anyhow, like I said before, the season left a bitter taste in my mouth. Some episodes were excellent, and those that weren't, weren't that bad. Overall, it was a good season, only messed up by the JJ-Reid stuff.

[6.0/10] I think Maggie is the new Rick. I don’t just mean that she’s a rough-hewn parent shepherding her young son through a dangerous, post-apocalyptic world. I mean that the show wants me to care a lot about her -- in whom she chooses to trust and whether she’s being a good leader -- mostly by dint of the fact that she’s been around for a long time.

And I just can’t. Somewhere along the way, I stopped caring about what happened to Rick Grimes, let alone the battle for his soul. It’s hard to say why, but it had something to do with how much focus he got relative to more interesting characters, to where his scenes started to feel like a chore. The Walking Dead is more of an ensemble now than in Rick’s heyday, but still, I find myself waiting for the show to move its spotlight to someone else whenever Maggie’s front and center. Sometimes characters run out of gas or just lose your interest. Whatever the reason, I’m there with Maggie.

Which is rough since she is, more or less, the main character of “Acts of God”, the show’s mid-season finale. She’s not the only person with stuff going on. Daryl, Gabriel, and Aaron have to evade Hornsby’s extermination attempt. Leah makes a pact with Hornsby to eliminate a common enemy. Max has to thumb through Pamela Milton’s files to find fodder for an expose. And the muckraker squad of her, Connie, Kelly, Magna, Eugene, and Ezekiel is pooling their resources to expose the dark underbelly of the Commonwealth. There’s plenty going on.

But the main story here centers on Maggie. She decides to hide little Hershel away. She looks for Negan’s group, seeks out his friends and allies, and decides to trust him as a temporary caretaker. She’s the target of Leah’s hunt. And she’s the one who directs her people out of and back into Hilltop in order to “end it” with Hornsby. She’s the main character for this one, and if you’ve run out of interest in the character, that makes this a less-than-engaging capper to this block of episodes.

There’s a good story to be told about whether someone like Maggie could ever forgive someone like Negan after what he did, no matter what personal changes he may have made in the meantime. And it’s not like TWD is failing to do the work. There’s major choices and scenes devoted to the question throughout season 11. But in the end, it comes down to the same big speeches and on-the-nose conversations that don’t have the power they ought to.

Likewise, it’s striking to see our group of survivor’s returned to their roots -- wanderers scraping by in a rough landscape. Alexandria and Hilltop have been a part of the show for so long at this point. Seeing Hornsby turn them into his personal colonies, replete with Commonwealth banners draped across their gates, is jarring. Our heroes had found some measure of stability in these places, and seeing them torn away makes this into Serious Business.

But Maggie leading the charge against Hornsby doesn’t, if for no other reason than she comes off like the same sort of “generic leader guy” Rick once did, and because it’s episode 16 of 24, so we know there’s plenty more that has to percolate before things come to a head. The survivors skulking around is fine enough, but also plays as interstitial ahead of the real fireworks.

Though we get some of those too. Daryl, Gabe, and Aaron have a shootout with some Commonwealth goons, including one soldier who gets just enough shading for us to get the mildest bit of satisfaction when Daryl neutralizes the dude. Maggie and Leah have a mutual stalking session when trying to locate and stop one another. And they also have a knock-down, drag-out fight once things settle out.

All of it’s fine. It all features the fast and loose presentation of trifling things like physics, combat effectiveness, and human anatomy. But if you’re not used to that on The Walking Dead after eleven seasons, this show has nothing for you. None of them are bad. The Maggie/Leah fight in particular is sufficiently raw and intense as befits the emotions at play. But none of them can muster the level of big thrills or emotional investment to bump any of them above a mild thumbs up.

The most interesting part is Daryl choosing to shoot Leah to save Maggie, something he was more reluctant about earlier in the season. That's a big deal, given how much has gone on between him and Leah. But unfortunately, we have to leave the processing of such a big decision until months from now given where this episode’s focus is.

(Side note: If anyone should have stumbled into the “Rick Grimes vortex of apathy” it’s Daryl. He hasn’t changed much in ages and falls into some pretty traditional archetypes. So why do I and so many others still care about the lug? I’d chalk it up to two factors: (a.) Norman Reedus is so good and so natural in the role and (b.) he’s one of the more taciturn characters on the show, which means he’s less subject to the show’s big dumb speeches. Both of those things help spare the him from the worst of TWD’s flaws in the writing department.)

The other storylines have their ups and downs, with some truly baffling choices along the way. With the explicit “act of god” talk, I expected this to be some kind of Exodus riff just in time for Passover. But the presence of locusts or some other insect infestation doesn’t really mean anything to the plot. I guess it’s just symbolism, a sign that the Heavens themselves look poorly upon the Commonwealth’s largesse, but who knows with this show.

What I do know is that the decision to turn Hornsby into a store brand version of Two-Face, replete with scarred cheek and a propensity to flip coins, seems downright bizarre. I like Hornsby as the smiling bastard, but making his two-facedness more literal is a step down. He’s a mustache-twirler rather than a chilling, conniving baddie here, and it weakens one of the better new characters from this arc.

The strongest material here comes from the muckraker. Watching Max and Eugene find the comfort they’d sought and missed out on before is really heartening. And despite the cheesy attempt at tension when Sebastian finds Max rifling through his mother’s files, I love that Max gives Pamela one more test. The asks her boss if the extra money could go to a scholarship for the less fortunate and is rebuffed in a politician-friendly fashion. It’s on-the-nose, like so much in this show, but a good use of a small test of character to tell the story of whether and why Max is willing to go that far.

But like so much here, it’s mostly a tease. We get Leah as the terminator, Hornsby and the Commonwealth rounding up survivors from Alexandria to Oceanside, and one glimpse of Connie’s expose. The bulk of this one, though, is centered on the adventures of Maggie and her troupe of loyal followers. I’m ready to tap out on that story, and my only hope is that over the final eight episodes, TWD is more willing to spread the love to the rest of its cast, who have more to offer and more worth caring about at this point in the show.

[7.4/10] There’s a viral tweet that goes...

me: i hate clichés”
author: the grumpy one is soft for the sunshine one
me: [sobs] omg the grumpy one is soft for the sunshine one

That’s pretty much how I feel about Carol and Ezekiel. I was a little skeptical of them back in the day, but they became one of my favorite couples on the show, and stories like the one we get here are why. There may be no more low-key touching scene in the series than the “You make the light” exchange between the two of them. And it works because for however much Carol believes herself to irrevocably steeped in darkness after all she’s been through, Ezekiel not only recognizes the good she does, but the good she is. That means a lot, especially given all they’ve been through.

Their story connects with the broader theme of “Trust”, which is when it’s worth it to work outside of the system to achieve the greater good. It’s so true to form for Ezekiel that even with his qualms about accepting the special treatment thanks to Carol’s actions, he decides to use the extra time to pay the kindness forward one hundred-fold. He creates an off-the-books clinic to help those who otherwise can’t afford the cost of healthcare or refuse to burden their families, a not so subtle commentary on real life events.

Separate and apart from the social critique, I like it as an example of someone like Ezekiel trying to be worthy of the blessings he’s received by sharing them with others. I’m still not a huge fan of Yumiko’s brother, Tomi, because he’s a generic character, but even he has a solid character beat here. After how bad he feels being part of the upper crust, with it apparently affecting his work, the fact that he not only warms his soul working in Ezekiel’s clinic, but that it produces better doctoring from him, is a nice place to take the character. Carol recognizing the good her questionable activities with Lance made possible gives her a win as well. It’s one of my favorite storylines in the show in some time.

The other two plots in this one aren’t nearly as good, but still solid. There’s tension in Hornsby knowing that the likes of Maggie, Aaron, and Gabriel are lying about what happened at that apartment complex, but not being able to prove it. So he parcels out these little tests, each of which the good guys pass, but it drives enough of a sense of foreboding to make weight.

We know Aaron and Gabriel can handle themselves while fighting a bunch of Walkers. But the mere fact that he sends them in as a gotcha moment and then smiles with a faux-pleased “good job” at the end adds to the sinisterness. The tension of him trying to start the car at Hilltop while Maggie looks on speaks to the tone of a well-constructed scene. And there's something downright menacing about him iterating with little Hershel, finding a hat that fits and trying to get the kid to turn on his mom in his own insidious way.

Hornsby’s quickly become one of the show’s best villains, and his ability to play games with the good guys, and seem that much more scary and dangerous when he loses contributes to that. At the same time, it’s interesting to see Daryl be torn between his loyalty to the usual group of survivors and his attempt to fit in and get along at The Commonwealth, if only for the good of Judith and RJ. This whole thing puts him in an uncomfortable spot, and “Trust” plays that up.

That just leaves the various other players within The Commonwealth putting together that Sebastian and others are involved in some shady shit. I appreciate that the show is connecting the dots here after some disaggregated storytelling. Eugene and Rosita go to Connie and Kelly to break the story. Eugene connects with Max who connects with Mercer. I’m doubtful this will all come to fruition before we hit season 11c, but it’s still nice to see things start to lock into place rather than keep expanding out as we head into the show’s last batch of episodes.

The connection here is people confiding in one another, helping them see the right path, even when it’s hard. That’s a little too on the nose with Max and Eugene, but I appreciate the theme of their corner of the episode. Something may be difficult, but when the change is needed, when people are suffering, there’s no other choice but to act to help.

But my favorite part of this one, as has often been the case in this batch of episodes, is Mercer. Some of the dialogue between him and Princess is pretty cringey (especially their discussion of sex, which feels like it was written by thirteen-year-olds). But I love the idea that their connection is more than just kindness and mutual attraction. Princess wants to be there for Mercer, help him deal with the psychic burden of all that he sees and takes in. It’s a great T.V. example of someone being a supportive partner, and speaks more to why they might work than all the meetcutes and other nonsense T.V. shows try to pull.

Mercer’s burden is, again, very compelling. He acknowledges the bullshit of The Commonwealth, but basically feels there’s nothing he can do. He points to the overall good, arguing that just like the old days, protecting fifty thousand people from what’s beyond the city’s walls is worth tolerating the mortal excesses within it. There’s a logic to the argument, but I appreciate Max’s retort that given his standing in the community, he could do something to change it. The show seems to be setting up a coup, or at least the idea that Mercer is the right person to lead this community in a way that works and is more humane, and I’m interested to see where that goes.

Overall, TWD still has its limitations, and the exploration of these ideas is often basic. But the human connections here are vivid, and the acknowledgment that even the people who don’t see themselves as angels can be forces for tremendous good is a heartening one to build the episode around.