The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Better Call Saul' Season 6 Episode 10 Recap

Episode Date: July 27, 2022

Joanna and Ben get together to share a Cinnabon roll and their reactions to the latest episode of 'Better Call Saul', entitled "Nippy". They begin their conversation by praising the expert direction and writing by Michelle MacLaren and Alison Tatlock, and talking about how the misdirection within the episode's description changed their expectations. They then pivot to Carol Burnett's amazing cameo performance as cab driver Jeff's mom and speculate on what the title sequence and a recent Vanity Fair video featuring Bob Odenkirk and Rhea Seehorn may be revealing about the upcoming events in the final stretch of the series.(13:42) Next, they break down what the audience can learn from the college football dialogue within the episode and draw character and timeline parallels between Jimmy/Saul/Gene and Walter White. (34:34) After the break, they discuss how the tension during the heist sequence brought out the best aspects of Bob Odenkirk's acting prowess, their hopes for the end of the series, and how 'Better Call Saul' has changed how they view the 'Breaking Bad' universe.(47:57) Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Ben Lindbergh Producer: Chris Sutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everybody? Are you tuning in to the Challenge USA on CBS? Well, tune in to me, Tyson Apostle, as I break down each and every episode with my co-host, Amelia Weddemeier. I'm also a contestant on the show, which gives you all the insider scoop. Amelia, how stoked are you to do this? Tyson, I'm freaking excited. I cannot wait to sit my butt down every single week to watch the show, then come here and recap it with you on the Ringer Reality TV podcast. It's time to refresh your yard during special. Spring backyard days at the Home Depot. Get low prices guaranteed on propane grills starting $179, like the next grill three-burner gas grill. Or get $50 off a select Weber Spirit grill and bring big flavor to your backyard.

Then set the scene with Hampton Bay string lights that bring it all together. Shop spring backyard days for seven days at the Home Depot. Now through May 6th. Exclusion supplies to homedipo.com slash price match for details. Good sleep is everything. That's why Ali's science back support. is made with a blend of melatonin and L-thianine for both kiddos and grown-ups. So when your mind won't switch off, you've got something that can help.

You're racing thoughts and restless nights won't stand a chance. Find Ollie Sleep Solutions for the whole family at ollie.com. That's OLLLY.com. Welcome back in the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson, and joining me now after his ninth or tenths, Sinabon, I think it is. It's Ben Lindbergh. Hi, Ben.

Funny you should say that because Joanna, our listeners can't see this, but I brought props for this podcast. Now, no one will believe this because, you know, our on-mic chemistry is just so strong that I'm sure no one would ever suspect we aren't sitting in the same room. But we are sadly separated by a continent. And I know that smells and tastes don't travel over video. But I brought both you and producer Chris Sutton. Classic cinnamon rolls from Cineaban. Oh my God, you actually did. This is not SponCon.

I just, I had a hankering for some strange reason. Apparently, product placement works. Chris is also thrilled. Oh, my God, in the chat. Wow. Okay, you guys, my reaction is genuine. The crinkle of that bag was real. He's opening the box to make sure that the microphone can smell.

If only. I suppose. Yeah. Now, I'm not going to eat this while we record because there's nothing worse than the sound of someone eating on a podcast. Plus, I promised my wife she could have them. But I have heard some of the actors on Better Call Saul talk about how the props and the sets help them inhabit their characters. So I thought we might podcast better if at least one of us was basking in the authentic aroma of mass-produced baked goods. So I wish we could do a smell-o-vision edition of this podcast.

that everyone could partake, but I'll just have to describe it. You can get your whiffs through me vicariously. But let me ask you something. If you could cross the 3,000 mile golf between us or the far fewer miles between you and the nearest Sinabon, presumably, and eat this tantalizing piece of pastry that I'm holding here, how would you do it? Would you precisely saw it into pieces like the security guard? Or would you just pick it? up and go to town. Okay, well, so here's a true story about me. I've never had a Cineabon. Oh, my goodness. Oh, boy.

I don't think they're as prevalent here on the West Coast as they are on the East Coast. I only had to go a few blocks to get mine. We have more, is it, it's Antianns, I think, right? The pretzels. There's an anti-ends right next to the Cinnabon that I patronize today. Oh, God, damn it. Best World Possil World. Yeah, we have, there's, there was one in a mall, like,

that I can remember. And what I will say is, like, they smell heavenly. They smell amazing. Do they taste as good as they smell? Well, I haven't vouched for this particular batch. But it's pretty good. I don't know that I can compare to the smell. But I'm just wondering about the implements you would use to eat it.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I can answer a cinnamon roll question. Yeah, hypothetically, if I could hand this to you through the screen somehow. I mean, I was handed a knife and fork when I purchased it. And I feel like that's like when Bill Deplazio ate a piece of pizza with an iron fork. And the tabloids went wild because a real New Yorker would never hashtag, not my mayor. Would you fold your cinnabon in half and eat it like you would a slice of zaw? That's the authentic New York cinnamon roll method.

I think I would definitely, I mean, I think I would definitely, I mean, Cinebon are daunting because they're huge, right? Like a classic cinnamon roll that's like a little daintier than that. Definitely all fingers all the time, right? And I like the Chris Ryan method, which is go straight for the like cinnamon choke center. For the center, right? The role. Yeah, it goes straight for the center. Evidently, they sell just a center, but we're not doing.

I know, like a donut hole, right? Yeah, exactly. Just sell roll holes. What about you? Are you a silver guy? I think I would use my hands more so than silverware or plastic wear for this. I think it also depends on like where you. you are.

Like, if I'm around people, I don't know. You know, like how sometimes you eat a little, you know, different depending on who you're around and you're sort of like trying to be genteel with your cinnamon, maybe. I don't know. Right. I don't know that that's what Frank is doing, but Frank appears to be savoring his experience. Yeah, well, I appreciated how he played off the first dessert as a rare departure from his healthy diet.

But then once he was seated, he got down to business, like a man who has put in some serious Cinnibon time. Anyway, I asked the woman at the register who gave me the knife and fork whether there had been a post-Better-Call Sampede to Cinebond, whether there was a big run-on buns. And she was not only unaware of the part that her employer had played in this week's episode, but also seemingly unaware of the existence of the series Better Call-Sall. But both the Better Callsall and Cinebond brands are strong on the Prestige TV podcast. Wow. I love that you just did some, like, shoe leather reporting.

Yeah, man on the street. Do you think I can write off these cinnamon rolls as a business expense? 100%. 100%. We've now spent five minutes talking about that. Yeah. Well, I started last week by serenading you with my Billy Joel meets Better Call Saul mashup. So I had to top that somehow.

This is a podcast about the TV series Better Call Saul and not, in fact, a podcast about Cinephons. So we will be talking about it throughout this episode. We are here to talk about season six, episode 10, Nippy and Cinnipons, obviously. Yep. Quick correction. I said multiple time on the podcast last week that we only had three episodes left of the show when, in fact, we had four. Now we only have three episodes left of the show.

But I misspoke a couple times last week. I could not tell you why. Just got it into my head. And I'm worried that I infected Chris Ryan because this Ryan got wrong in the watch and I'm worried that's my fault. So anyway. Everyone's been a bit thrown by the extra long season and the midseason break. But don't worry. We love this show.

We aren't trying to play it off the stage early. No. There were more episodes. Absolutely. Quick program reminder before we dive further into Saul, just that Elsmar on this feed, I'm watching Westworld every week. It's really good this season. I'm talking to you, David Shoemaker, and Danny Heifitz about it every week this week. I mentioned this podcast and said, probably we'd be talking about Aaron Paul this week, and I was wrong.

Yeah, we all were. Danny Hyvitz was like spoilers. I was like, is it? And it really wasn't. There was a misdirect. Yeah. There you go. So we are here to talk about Nippy, directed by the great Michelle McLaren and written

by the great Alison Tatlock. Allison's also an EP on the show. Between them, they've, there were also for a lot of great episodes of both Better Callsall and in McLaren's case, breaking bad, though they've never worked together because McLaren worked more towards the beginning of Better Call Saul. And Allison Tatlock came on in season four to write some great up. episodes like black and blue, 50%, something stupid, JMM and now Nippy. We were predicting that because, or I was predicting, I should say, that because Michelle

McLaren was such a Breaking Bad heavy hitter, that this would definitely be a Walt Jesse or at least Breaking Bad era caper because why else bring McMellin McClaren back? And the reason you bring Michelle McLaren back is she's one of the greatest TV directors of all time. So that's why she's here. Do you have any thoughts or feelings about the duo working on this particular episode? Ben Lindberg? Well, it's just kind of a dream team, right? I'm glad they got to team up before the end, because the rest of the way, the three remaining episodes were going Tom Schnaws and then Gilligan and

Gould, right, directing. So bringing it back to the originals who have been such heavy hitters on this series. But I'm glad we got to see this team up. And I guess we should talk a little bit about how we thought it went. Yeah, so let's talk about our expectations versus reality, which is something We talked about last week, too, but I think it's really funny that you and I have been having these conversations the last couple weeks where we were like, well, we kind of thought that that's how that would go. No, we kind of thought that that's how it would go. And this week, I don't know about you, but I feel like this went complete 180 from where I

thought was going to go. And, you know, both on the insider pod and in various Alison Tatlock interviews, there's been this constant refrain of, like, we really wanted to catch people off their guard. they did for me in every way possible. But I really loved this episode, Bedlenberg. How did you feel? I was just saying before we hit record that I was excited to hear how you felt about this one, because sometimes we compare notes pre-podcasts. Sometimes we don't. And this time, we saved it for the session to get that organic, unpractice reaction. And I can imagine. That fresh-baked cinema feeling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can imagine, and I can even understand

a pretty broad range of responses to this episode. And I've seen some of it. But I'm with you. I really liked this episode. And I know last week I said that I look at this series more as a unified whole than as a sequence of individual episodes. But this one still stood out. I guess we can't quite call it a bottle episode. Maybe we'll talk about that.

But it was a singular entry in the catalog, I would say, with only one main cast member that still felt totally emblematic of better calls all for me. Like last week's episode was one we had been. waiting for the episode that answered big questions about Jimmy and Kim's relationship and how Jimmy transformed into Saul. And it was so well done and the character choices felt fitting and the breakup was painful. No complaints, but also fewer surprises than we're used to from this series just because we're so prescient, you know. But this week, we got another episode that we'd been waiting for, I think, right, where we wanted extended time with Gene in black and white

world, but nothing about it was what I expected, not when it happened, not how it happened. I know it wasn't as momentous or as emotionally draining as last week's episode, which as we discussed seemed like a series finale for the prequel part of the show, but I just enjoyed having fallen for the misdirect, like one of the marks in the episode and one of Saul slash Jimmy slash Gene's schemes like they dangled Walt and Jesse and saw in front of us like savory cinnamon rolls. And we were just so distracted. We didn't see Gene coming quite yet. Plus we're thinking, oh boy, Michelle McLaren behind the camera, someone's going to die or come close to dying.

And instead, we got a vintage, somewhat low stakes scheme, meticulously plotted, laid out in detail. And as usual, just well shot, well acted, very funny, also somewhat sad at the same time. just a nice temporary reprieve, I think, after Howard dying and Lalo dying and Jimmy McGill kind of dying in a sense. And Jimmy and Kim's marriage definitely dying. So my sister-in-law watched the episode a little bit before me and my wife, and she messaged us to say, oh, there's so many cameos in this episode. And I thought, of course, we were going to get a parade of Breaking Bad characters. But nope. Your sister-in-law was also trolling you. I love that. Yeah, exactly. I want to talk about some of the misdirects, but let's go back to Michelle McLaren really quickly because I just want to

like give her her laurels. Do you like do you associate a moment or a shot or anything with Michelle McLaren that submitted her as like an all-timer for you? I don't know if I have a specific shot in mind more so than you just look at the list of episodes. And I know she was involved in multiple capacities with that series, but just as a director and it's kind of a murderer's row. It's like you knew you were going to get something big. Maybe you were going to get some sort of action set piece. Like there was going to be something climactic, more so maybe than a mall heist. And yet her signature style, I think, was still on display here, right?

And if you listen to The Insider Pod, and as always we recommend that, it sounds like it was an incredibly complicated and complex exercise, even though it all took place in this mall almost entirely. It was a lot to handle. So it may not have seemed as an... ambitious as some of her Breaking Bad greatest hits, but maybe behind the scenes it sort of was. Yeah. I'll just shout out to Hajali, which is, you know, her final episode that she did for Breaking Bad. And there's just some, like, incredible shots of, like, Walt alone with just,

like, so much desert around him. That's such a big part of that episode and it sticks in my mind. And obviously, like, she was already a legend before that episode. But that's, that's an episode that I Also, because it comes right before Ozzamandias, which so many people consider, like, the height of Breaking Bad, and that's an incredible episode. I feel like Tehazali gets a little loss, but Tehazali is also incredible episode television. So, Michelle McLaren, troll number one. Number two, let's talk about the description of this episode, a new player gets in the game. And we were like, oh, here comes Walter White. But, no, it was Jeff the Cabby.

I suppose as who we're talking about here. There's a mention of Walter White in this episode, of course, which felt like an intentional extra little twist of the knife to me. Not a bad way. I liked the way that that Staboon felt. And then the high heel shot, I think, made, there's like a close about high heel shot that made, I think a lot of people think, is this Kim?

Is Kim shopping in this Nebraska Mall? Is that what we're going to get? No Kim, not happening. And the way that Alison Tatlock described this, I think this is her talking to Alan Zepp in Wall. She said, no, I think it's just. on The Insider podcast. She said deliciously, perhaps in an agonizing way, deliciously disorienting is how she described this episode. Also on The Insider podcast, we learned that Peter Gould had wanted

to make this episode happen for seasons. And by that I mean, an all gene, all black and white episode rather than little bits and bites he wanted to do the whole cinnamon roll. And this is how they finally did it. And, you know, they did it. Yeah. And, you know, people thought, But when Carol Burnett showed up, she might be Kim's mom or related to some other major character. Nope, just Jeff the Cabby's mom. And I guess I speculated that Nippy might have something to do with Winter in Omaha. Yeah, you did. So I wasn't way off, but I didn't predict a fake lost dog or that the, so after all that, a happy ending line would be about the fake lost dog being fake found.

So it also, even within the episode. episode in the shoplifting sequence, I kept expecting the maintenance man to drive in on his floor scrubber and run into Jeff, right? Because we heard that he was going to be called to fix that streak on the floor, but we didn't see it happen. And so I thought that was the way it was going to go down. I didn't realize he'd already come and gone. So I wasn't expecting it when Jeff went flying full banana peel, just like Chuck at the coffee shop, Ted Benicky and Breaking Bad. Yeah, exactly. It's slip and fall season. And so even though we knew something was going to go wrong and that it was going to have something to do with what was on the floor, I still didn't see it coming just because I thought it was going to be some kind of encounter rather than just him being upended. So even within the episode, I wasn't sure where this was going the whole time. It's like, why are they stealing this stuff? You know that Saul, whoever he is now, we can talk about what to call him. But you know he had to have some ulterior motive. But it was tough to see it even in the moment as we were watching.

One last tip of the hat I want to give to their hiding the ball is how the next time on promos, how last week, like two weeks ago, they used a black and white shot with a quote over it to, you know, to say next time on. To hide the fact that when they used a black and white shot this week, we wouldn't immediately go, oh, clearly it's a Jane episode. I mean, that's brilliant. That's so brilliant. There's also parallels, a lot of parallels, and we'll get to like one really interesting one later, but a lot of parallels. to the season 5 episode 5 of Breaking Bad Dead Freight, which is the train heist, which we've talked a lot about the ending of that episode and the shooting of the kid and how that was like a real turning point for Jesse in season five of Breaking Bad. But it's a caper heist episode, that episode and this episode.

I love a heist. I never get tired of a heist of my life. I don't know if this is quite a heist as a robbery, but I'm going to call it a heist or caper if you prefer. Ben, what's your feeling on heist, caper episodes? Like, how do you feel? Very high on heists. This one was much more compressed than the Howard one, even though it also seemingly took place over several weeks.

We can talk about the timeline here, but it did not take place over several episodes. And there wasn't the same sense that it would end in disaster in the way that the Howard one did. So I was totally into it. I don't know whether this will be the last time that we ever see Saul slash Jimmy slash jean It's a big question. Yeah. But if it was, it was a pretty good way to go out.

It was not his most elaborate one ever. And the payoff wasn't the biggest. But I just enjoyed just seeing him do what he does, just getting back to what he's best at or what he has been best at before. And what this series really has been best at historically. Let's start at the beginning. Let's start with Carol Burnett, which I was not spoiled on. I started the episode. And I was like, oh, ho, ho.

And actually somehow, despite the fact that I've been like living on the writer. board and doing this podcast with you. I miss that Carol Burnett was in this season, even though it was a known and highly spectaculated about thing. So I was just like, oh, hey, Carol Burnett is here. Does this strike you as, this is the biggest cameo or guest appearance that has ever happened in the Gillianverse, right? Like, wouldn't you say so?

Probably, yeah. Yeah. Like Robert Forster, like with love and respect, is an incredible actor. you know, rest in peace. But like, Carol Burnett is huge, huge get. And apparently she's a huge breaking bad, a better call cell fan. And something I loved hearing about on the insider podcast is not just like that she was a fan and excited to be there. But like this idea that when they film this, presumably, in short order after Bob had had his like health scare, health incident and that, you know, they were saying on the insider podcast that his spirits are really low and that working with Carol Burnett

really boosted his spirits. That made me very emotional. That Bob O'Kirk has like had a, you know, had a real scare, was not feeling his best. And then he got to work with a freaking comedy legend. And he's like, oh, you know what? Life is okay. I get to work on care over that, you know. Yeah.

I've been immersing myself in interviews as you have. And so I was listening to Oden Kirk and Gould on Fresh Air this week also. And he was talking a bit about how he felt like he had a new lease on life after he came back from the heart attack and how that helped him. be present in scenes in some ways, but it also has to help when Carol Burnett shows up. And yeah, I guess she's at the level where when Carol Burnett says, hey, I like your show, I can come on. You don't say no.

You say, yes, please, what would you like to do? Or how can we find a way to fit you into this universe? And they seem to have great chemistry on the screen. You might imagine that they have similar comedic sensibilities. And I'm sure that Odenkirk really looks up to her. Myers or it's just it's cool to see these two on the screen together. And I had forgotten, by the way, that there's actually a reference to Carol Burnett in Saul season two in a flashback scene where pre-recluse Chuck and his then-wife Rebecca are discussing how to get rid of Jimmy if he wears out

his welcome at dinner. And Chuck says, how about the old Carol Burnett thing in reference to her trademark earlobe tug? And so now Carol Burnett shows up in the solvers, not playing herself, but still subtly doing the earlobe tug in the supermarket scene, I believe. So I don't know what implications this has for whether this is the real Carol Burnett in this universe and what that means based on that earlier line. But maybe that just goes to show that she was always destined to appear here or that there was a lot of admiration for her. And so it made sense, I think, and she was great. I had such a joy chain reaction watching the opening of this because you're like, oh, Carol Burnett's here. Oh, she's being delightful.

cranky. Oh, there's the Schnauz Farms team that we got earlier in the season. If you listen to the Insider podcast, they mentioned Schnau's Farms and said that'll come in later. And it was just a label on the cheese in the supermarket, fun. She said, like, I think Wisconsin you could keep it or something like that in terms of that cheddar. And then, oh, we see like him stapling the flyer in a frame. I'm like, oh, that's what Nippy is. Okay. And then we see the beginning of that interaction, I'm like, oh, it's slipping Jimmy, man. It's Jimmy doing what he does best, which is charm and older woman. Like, who does it better than Jimmy? And, like, in terms of the tone of that, because I've liked the gene sequences, they're interesting, they're tantalizing.

It's good to think about the future and how it contrasts, but they've been such, like, terrible bummers, obviously, because, like, you know, we're watching. Gene Jimmy Saul at his lowest, right? That's what it's supposed to be. And so, like, we've gotten it in small doses, but every time you're just sort of like, oh, it's a gene sequence. It's going to be beautiful and sad. Oh, no. But like, here he comes bounding out doing his thing.

I was like, oh, no, we're going to have fun here in Gene Town. That's great. Yeah, I almost expected. I have expected that, like, color would come back into the episodes, like almost like a pleasant fill sort of thing. I'm glad they didn't do that. But it would have fit totally, I think. Like Joan Allen in the bathtub? Sure.

Yeah. You know, and even like there's the slippery sidewalk at the very beginning. That was his specialty back in Cicero, right? Find an icy sidewalk and take a fall. And here he's making an extra slushy sidewalk for the start of another con. And just to see him relating to the elderly again in the way that he always has. I think semi sincerely, at least. I think it works on multiple levels, right?

He just gets along with these. people and they like him and he likes them. He is also often conning or scheming, but I think it can be both at the same time. So yeah, it was great to see him back in action again. Fun fact, if you call the number on the flyer, you get a really fun little message from Bob Odenkirk that someone has uploaded on YouTube and I'm going to have our lovely producer Chris spliced a little bit of that audio in here, but it's pretty charming. Whoever took a little mic into Bob Odenkirk's trailer and asked him to read this is a real star as far as I'm concerned. At the end of the day, he's just a cuddled bug who loves to snuggle on the couch underneath his favorite blankie.

It breaks my heart to think of sweet Nippy wander in the streets, hungry and cold. If you have any leads, any at all, please share at the beat and spread the word if you can. Nippy and I would be forever grateful. Let's talk about the title sequence. So you've mentioned this, I think even as recently as last week, the idea that the title sequence on the show has been like, degrading in quality week after week this season that like the color has been draining out of it. It's getting more,

more black and white, more warped. But like I think if people aren't watching super closely, they might not have noticed that, but surely they did notice the, the blue screen titles, the old VHS blue screen titles on this week's episode. Where do you think this is going,

the degradation of the title sequence? And I don't know where they go from here. I know that they have something planned for the last few. but they basically went almost full black and white. We saw the world's greatest lawyer mug falling, and then the tape just stops, and it sounds like it's getting ejected. You get the blue screen of death almost.

I know it's not that kind of blue screen. It's a different blue screen. But it's like stopping the tape. It's like we're off the map here, you know? Like we're off the timeline. I think we're jumping ahead. This is a different series. It's still better call solve,

but it's not the better call solve that we've known. And so the title sequence isn't either. And I don't know where they go from here, whether they go back to color, whether we rewind. Maybe we get an actual rewinding sound that tape pops back in. Who knows? But yeah, I've been enjoying seeing where they take this. So let's talk about Jeff. Marion, as played by Carolina Burnett, has a son.

He's Jeff. We've seen him before. He's the menacing cabby that we met in previous seasons, previously played by the actor Don Harvey, who had a con. conflict, and so the role was recast with Pat Healy. Did that recasting throw you off at all, or did it stick out to you at all? It did. At first, I was bummed about it, both because it was momentarily disorienting, despite the sweater, and because New Jeff is a lot less menacing, I think, than the original

recipe. But as the episode went on, I thought maybe that's okay, because the power dynamic has changed since their previous encounters. Like, this Jeff is living with his mom who's saying things like, Jeffie, don't vex me. I'm not sure that that sense of menace could have survived lines like that anyway. Plus, in his previous appearances, Jeff was the one in control. Gene was scared and on the defensive. And here, Gene is channeling his old self or his old selves. And by the end, there's the total role reversal from Jeff making Gene say, better call Saul,

to Gene slash Jimmy slash Saul ordering Jeff to say he's done. So I don't know whether the character was written that way in part because of the casting change, but ultimately it did work for me. Like I did pause the episode, flip over to Netflix, like rewatch that scene just to make sure that I was not imagining things that this actually was a different human being. But once I proceeded, it actually worked for me, I think, in the end. And it's sort of surprising that this hasn't happened before in a noteworthy way. I think Gould maybe may have mentioned on The InsiderPod that it's like lucky that this hasn't happened previously just because they have this habit of reusing characters years after their first appearance and they're not really regulars.

And so you can't lock them down to be in your show four years in the future for a single episode. And you just have to hope. And they've had a great track record, I think, of being able to bring people back. And this time, they couldn't. But I don't think it was a deal breaker. I think that's especially true of the gene sequences, but also, like, two weeks ago, we heard Tina Parker, who played Francesca say that, like, she runs a theater company in Texas and say that she would sort of figure out when they were going to be filming. And if maybe they were going to call her, she would, like, give herself a lighter assignment that time of year to make herself available. But not everyone is like a Francesca level of the they're probably going to call me, you know, at least.

I think everyone wants to be on this show if you're an actor, right? Yeah, yeah, of course. They will probably do what they can to make it back, but it's perhaps not always possible. Pat Healy came to this episode straight off the set of Killer of the Flower Moon, the new Scorsese film, so, you know, we're not scraping the bottom of the barrel. What they did say on the insider podcast that Pat originally auditioned for this role and didn't get it, and actually has been auditioning for both Breaking Bad and Better Crosswell for a long time. So he was like one of their almost cast him guys.

So I'm sure he was thrilled to get the call. And, okay, something that I loved. So Ray Sehorn and Bob Odenkirk did a video with my old employers, Vanity Fair. They were reading internet theories. This is a great series that Conningast video does. And Ray said that she, in that video, and wholly sincerely, she said she didn't know that the Albuquerque isotopes air freshener that she was using in the trial earlier this season. she had no idea that that was a reference to something else. And nor did Bob.

And I was like, it's just, I mean, the writers know and the director knows and the producers know or whatever. But the cast doesn't know. And so it's just us at home pouring over screenshots trying to figure something out and them laughing back at the old office. So that makes me laugh. I mean, they're busy actually appearing on the show or directing episodes, as the case may be. This is all we have.

We have a lot of time on our hands. It's just this in Westworld. What else am I going to do? All right. Let's talk about the montage. Peter Gold said this is one of the last montages that they're doing for the show. And he didn't say, it's not the last, but he said one of the last. Okay, we only have three more episodes to go.

So that's not like breaking news necessarily, but it's sad to think about. Yeah. And there's a couple great visual references within the show that we could point to here. Season 2 has the episode inflatable. There's the montage where Jimmy's trying to get fired from Davis and Maine, and it has a lot of the similar split-screen effects that we get here as Saul is doing his, I believe, weekly trip to the security guard office to offer up the Cinebon. And then also in Marco, the season one finale episode when we see Marco and Jimmy, Marco is Jimmy's old. We're going to talk about Marco in a second, but Marco's Jimmy's old, like, grift buddy from back in Cicero. They do a con montage there.

It's a little different. It's not the split screen. It's sort of like overlays, but just sort of similarly jaunty music during a montage. Did it make you think or feel anything, Ben, as you were watching these? It was just a lot of fun. As you said, I mean, things have been heavy lately on this series. Last week was the rare exception, I think, to the tone varying a lot in this series, where even if it's dark, it's darkly comic. And that wasn't really the case last week.

It was largely dark. And this one was much more comic. I mean, there are just a lot of really, really funny lines and sequences in this episode. And we can probably shout out a few of them. But it was great to see Jimmy just being up to his old tricks. If this was Jimmy, I guess we really have to figure out what we're calling at this point. It's complicated, right? We finally decided he was Saul last week.

And now that's been thrown into question again because he could be teen. He could be Jimmy. He could be Saul. He could be Walt. He could be some amalgamation of all of them. So it's tough to pin that down. I've been saying a lot of people be very insistent that this is a Jimmy scheme. But I've also seen Allison Tatlock, the writer of the episode,

refer to this as like Saul Goodman emerging. So I think it's maybe everyone in the pool, like all personalities all at once. And I think this idea, I just want to shout out the split screen that's using this montage here. Whenever I see that, I always think of the Thomas Crown Affair, 1968, which my dad showed me, and it was the first time I'd ever seen split screen as like a kid. And my dad showed me the original Thomas Crown Affair. And I was so confused. I'm like, how are we meant to watch all of this all at once? But since that movie is such like, yeah, that movie is so is like caper wall to wall.

I always get the Thomas Crown Affair vibes off of something. Yeah, it's a great montage time saver too. It's true. But what I liked, when they were talking about deciding how to roll this episode out, they were like, okay, Gene's got his back up against a wall because this cabby is threatening him, right? So what are the tools in his pocket, right? And a Walter White reaction would be wholly different. It would probably Jeff would be dead or something like that, right? But that's not what either Gene Jimmy or Saul are going to do.

And what Gene Jimmy Saul does is use the tools that Gene has. which is literally a synobon and his tenuous relationship with the security guards in the mall and his knowledge of the mall department sport. Like, that's all he knows and that those are all the tools he has. Plus his seductive charm and something that they were saying on The Insider podcast is like that Saul has, or Jimmy or Gene, less so Gene, can rely on his seductive tricks that they always work. But something that I thought about when hearing them say that is I was like, yeah, that's always true. Like whenever he turns on the charm offensive, almost always, right?

It works. But what I love is that we never saw him do that with Kim. Like, that's never how he approached Kim at all. He was never conning her. He wasn't always honest with her, but it never felt like he was doing the charm offensive with her. What do you think? Yeah, right. And we didn't see him studying up as far as I can recall doing research to land Kim or Wu Kim

or convince her that he was something he wasn't. He'd definitely like put on fronts at times. And as you said, they weren't always honest with each other. But usually they were in on the con together or just kind of drafting on it together more so than one being the victim of it. There are exceptions to that too, right? I suppose with the Toekam Carey episode where Saul was kind of conning and Kim wasn't in on every dimension of the plan. But for the most part, they were more or less on the same page. They were in it together.

So I think that's a good observation. All right. I'm going to have you take this next part, which involves knowledge of college football. And I, like Gene Tachovic himself, know nothing about college football. So what have we learned from the college football conversations in this episode? Yeah. I wish I could say that I started out knowing much more about college football than you. Know about baseball.

College football, not my strength either. But we did get a lot of emails. And we do appreciate all the research that went into them. people doing deep dives on the Nebraska Cornhuskers and where this was all playing out on the Better Callsall breaking bad timeline. So I guess we should shout out our listener, Mark, right, who did some exhaustive work here. So this helps place us, all of these references to specific incidents during that Cornhusker season, help us situate this within the Gilliganverse timeline. So during the 2010 NCAA college football season, the Nebraska Cornhuskers coach was Bo Polini, who was mentioned. The quarterback was Taylor Martinez, who is first lamented and then praised.

One of their receivers is Brandon Kinney, right? All three of these people are mentioned during the episode. So on Saturday, September 4th, 2010, the Oklahoma State Cowboys quarterback Brandon Whedon sprained his thumb in a game against Washington. state hitting it on a cougar helmet. So we heard the reference to that, that specific injury. So we could place that down to the day. And then in 2010, Nebraska and Oklahoma State were rivals in the Big 12 conference. So that would be significant to a Nebraska fan.

In 2011, Nebraska moved to the Big 10 conference. And that comes up to. And some of our listeners were quibbling with that being a hypothetical in this episode. We hear Frank saying, do you think they're going to move? Apparently, by that point, they would have had to commit to that move already. But I think we can infer from that that Gene is going to this office. As you said, it seems like weekly visits, presumably. Maybe it's Saturday nights after the football game so that he is fresh material to talk about,

which would suggest that this is all taking place from early September, September 4th to October 23rd or thereabouts, 2010. So not a ton of time here has passed, really. since Gene was relocated, we're talking about maybe like eight months or so have gone by. Yeah, he's been in Omaha at the synabon. So if he starts this on September 4th, it was also pointed out that that's the same day. Walter White left Maine and headed home to New Mexico and to his doom. So presumably at the start of this, Walter White's still out there. But by the end, he's gone.

not that Jean knows that, right? But not a lot of time has passed. It's always surprising to hear just because of how much happens to these characters and how much we have to keep track in our heads, just how little time has passed in all of these series, really? So we're in late 2010 here. Like, when this starts, we're in the Breaking Bad timeline still, even though this is not Saul in the Breaking Bad timeline.

I don't know if this is why we got so many of these emails breaking out. Like, Mark's was the most exhaustive, but we got a few emails about this particular Cornhuskers, data set. But have you seen there's this guy on TikTok who does only this where he like takes sports footage in the background of scenes in film and television and sort of breaks out exactly what game it is? It's really fun even for someone like me who knows nothing about sports.

But I'm obsessed with this idea and I've learned never to trust the Breaking Bad, Better Crawls Sault Timeline. I think I told the story on the watch that like back in the day when I was watching Breaking Bad, I was doing a freelance piece for Vulture where they tried to get me to like exactly nail down the timeline. And I watched every single episode and wrote down every single time someone mentioned even a single minute passing, let alone a day. I did a full rewatch, did the whole thing. And then it wasn't adding up. And then Peter Gould told me, oh yeah, we totally fudged the timeline. So anytime people get like wrapped up in the timeline, I have flashbacks to that particular project that got thrown out the window. That being said, the September 4th date. I'm, more than delighted to to read into the fact that Walt left Maine on September 4th and Gene started to turn back into Jimmy and Arsall, like really started his work in earnest on the same day. Why would you say, like, why did Walter White leave Maine to go back to New Mexico? Like, why did that happen, in your opinion? Well, at least partly probably because he just

wasn't content being anonymous, being under the radar the way that Gene has been and still seems to want to be, at least a large part of him, wants to remain incognito. And I don't think Walt's having ascended to the heights or sunk to the depths that he did in that series just could go back to being a non-entity, even if it meant that he could continue to survive. I think there's a lot to say in this episode about that need for credit or like, or something like that. And also that idea of, like, you can't... Ray Seahorn said this in that theory video,

that Vity Fair published this idea that for both Kim and Jimmy, there's, like, a rattling lid of their true nature is sort of like on the boil constantly. And they can try to put a lid on it, but it won't work and it will always bubble to the surface. And so the fact that, like, both Walter White and Jimmy McGill or whoever you want to call him, like, tried to put a lid on it for a while, tried to do the vacuum salesman escape, and then eventually

their true natures for Walter White, it's this very toxic, vanglorious sort of thing. And for Jimmy McGill, it's a little more benign, but still criminal. Instincts have to come bubbling. You know, the lid has to come off. And the same day, that's why. I don't know if they planned it that way, man, but it's really good. They probably planned it that way. I'm going to guess.

I hope so. Okay, so let's talk about Gene putting on Jimmy and Orsall. And chiefly, the real visual that we get for this is this Pinky Ring that he puts on. It's in the promo for this episode. There's like a Cinebon with some crumbles around it and then the Pinky Ring. This is from his pal, Marco Pasternak, who we already mentioned, who died in season one, episode 10, Marco. And it's his pinky ring. It's something that Saul wore in Breaking Bad.

But it was one of those like, how did Hans Sol get his blaster moments? Right. In Better Call Saul prequeldom of like, how did Saul get his pinky ring? Oh, now we know that that pinky ring has a lot of meaning attached to it. That every time Saul fiddles with it, it probably means he's thinking about Marco or he's thinking about being Jimmy McGill or is thinking about this, that, or the other thing. I mean, I think the read is fairly obvious, but do you have any deeper read on sort of like him putting, slipping the pinky ring back on in this episode? Well, I think that just speaks to the confusion of does that mean? that he is transitioning back to Saul,

or is it to Jimmy, or is it to both? Because Saul wore that ring, but Jimmy was the one who retrieved it from his friend, and Jimmy was the one whom Marco was so significant to, and they were partners in low-level crime, right? So is that a signifier of Saul, or is it a signifier of Jimmy? Or is it both?

Are these lines just so blurry now that we can't even really draw those distinctions? We get the, like, showtime move. Yeah. That feels like a Jimmy move? Also, Alan Semplemole pointed out in his recap, and I thought this was brilliant. I hadn't thought about that when they're running the floor plan out in the snow. And Jimmy's on the bullhorn, which is the audio that we got in the teaser, right?

The like, you know, two to, I don't know, cash for sweaters for you or whatever it is. That Jimmy's playing like the director in that sequence. And that he was rarely ever so happy as he was when he was like directing these commercials or build board shoots or whatever it was he was doing in the Jimmy McGill timeline. I hadn't really thought about that about Jimmy McGill and Russell Goodman as like the director. But I guess that goes in with the whole storytelling aspect of being a con man. What do you think? Yeah. And I think there are a few other shoutouts, callbacks here, just like symptoms of Jimmy or Saul coming out. I mean, we talked about his rapport with the elderly. We talked about the slippery sidewalk. I think also in addition to

being a director, just calling out the numbers of each station in the store were kind of a throwback to his bingo days where he would call out numbers, right? I love that. He was the bingo administrator slash stand-up comic at times. And we see him do some social engineering on the phone with the department store manager, which is, I guess, both a Jimmy and Saul sort of tactic. And also, like, just bringing the roles to the security guard kind of reminded me of Jimmy bringing the beanie babies to court to get better court dates for his clients, right?

Yeah. He has that ability to see what people want, like what will get them on his side and then make the most of that. And there's more even. Some of these are things that I picked up on. Some of them are things I saw on Reddit. Those lines are blurry, too. The distinction between Ben the critic and Ben the Reddit reader. That's kind of tough to draw those lines too.

But I think it's also kind of a callback to the first episode of the series where he's showing the skateboarders how to be better scammers, right? Like this is one more time where he's taken a couple amateurs under his wing for his own purposes, of course. You love those skateboarders. Yes, I do. I guess we're not going to see them again. But this reminded me of them at least. And also getting Jeff and his friend to cross state lines to make their crime a RICO can. case potentially, that could be a callback to the sandpiper case where Chuck realizes that I think

it was syringes were shipped across state lines to the sandpiper facilities, which then converts it into a much bigger case. So that's another reference to the Jimmy days, but also suggests that maybe he actually learned something from Chuck during that time. So there are a lot links there. And even like Marion Terrell Burnett's character saying that Gene is a good influence on Jeff is kind of like Viola

telling Kim how much she admires her and how much she makes her feel better about the law. Earlier this season episode 5, Black and Blue, that was another Tatlock episode. Yeah. And in each of those cases, Kim or Jimmy is being praised by someone that they are actively

deceiving and they don't really feel great about that or at least Kim doesn't. So there are just so many parallels here that, I mean, he's just sort of a synthesis of Saul and Jimmy and Gene and even Walt's. Like, it's like a captain planet, like with their powers combined. You know, Captain Scammit, I guess. I don't know. But even like at the end, like Walt's line to Saul from season five of Breaking Bad, like, we're done when I say we're done, right? Which we see him kind of have that steely will and iron delivery at the end of this episode, which makes me think he's picked up something from Walt too. So he's just kind of been learning from his past experiences

and from people he's encountered. And I guess the question is whether he is a better version of himself or himself or a new version or whether he's just ultimately the same guy at bottom. But I think we see just a lot of wrinkles. That's one thing I really appreciate about this episode. is that on the surface, it might seem sort of low stakes are sort of simplistic, but there's just a lot going on there. We're kind of like retracing the evolution of this character, like all the way from the beginning of this series through Breaking Bad and now into this future timeline. So that's really satisfying, I think. My favorite parallel was point out to me by one of our listeners, Elizabeth wrote this really great email that I'm going to read in a second. But I just want to say that like for some reason, and I couldn't tell you why, because I think I usually do.

I was not paying attention to the opening credits, like listing out who the actors were. But I do want to say that as soon as I heard Jim O'Hare's voice, I didn't have to see him. I just heard him from the other room. I was like, oh, that's Jerry Gerkic. I know that Midwestern voice. That's Jerry, man. I love to see him here as the art security guard. Perfect, perfect casting.

Great job by him. And I love that they cast an actor whose best known role is one where he went by many names, right, which is. Appropriate for a gene slash to be slash Saul to be talking to Jerry slash Gary slash Gary slash Larry slash Larry slash Terry. I also like that Frank seems to have the same idyllic happy home life as Jerry on Parks and Rec. Like he thinks other people have hard days, but not him. Oh, not me. People go through this, not me. I'm married to Christy Brinkley, but everyone else, sure.

You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get lost! Or you could book a stay with Hilton. Welcome to your ocean front room. Just steps from the water.

The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. Some things work better together. Like Nars's softness.

Matt complete concealer and radiant creamy concealer. Soft matte complete concealer erases and blurs imperfections with full coverage. Then, radiant creamy concealer evens and brightens with a luxurious texture and radiant finish. Two concealers. One flawless look.

Perfect for a no foundation base. NARS. Better Together. Visit Sephora to shop now. Ryan Reynolds here from MintMobil. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistants assistants assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do at

mintmobile.com slash switch. Up front payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. Seeful terms at mintmobile.com. All right. So we got this email from Elizabeth and this is the moment in the episode. If you want to talk about like what's going on below the surface, this is the moment like in the words of real world where people stop being polite and start getting real is when the cabby, Jeff the cabby takes the old slip and fall and he's out for a while. And that means that Jimmy has to extend his three-minute cinnabon eating window. And he does so with a story.

This isn't the first time we've seen Jimmy do this, obviously. But I thought Elizabeth made a really smart parallel. She says the scene where Jean resorts to fake crying in order to distract the security card, and keeping from turning to look at the screens was an interesting parallel to the scene in Breaking Bad, where Walt is in Hank's office with the intention of bugging it. And I had, I, Joanna, had to go look up which episode this was, and it's freaking dead freight, the train-iced episode. Walt uses crocodile tears about his marriage, especially by drawing comparisons to Hank relationship

with Marie like Saul does with his life and the guard's marriage, to distract and cover for his visit to Hank's office, and especially when Hank comes in, and Walt is still replacing the photo in the frame. A significant difference, however, is that in the case. of Walt, they truly seemed like fake tears. With Jimmy slash Gene, we see real emotion and torment coming through. It's also interesting to think about these scenes in the context of the hegemonic. Is that how you said that word? Masculinity, which I think you could argue is a major theme in breaking bad. Walt uses his quote-unquote provider role for his family as a justification for his acts.

In these scenes, these distractions in the form of an emotional breakdown would not be affected. Were it not for the case that vulnerable displays are unusual, largely via male, on male policing and thus shocking and highly uncomfortable when they unfold between two men. In our society, where this to play out between two women, the person on the receiving end of the emotions likely would not be so stunned and uncomfortable that they would be so highly distracted. So I love that observation. Do you agree that there is no real emotion behind Walt when he's talking to Hank in Dead Freight? man, it's hard to say what is left of Walt by that point or whether like the original Walt wasn't the real Walt and the final Walt is the real Walt. I think he also does that tactic a couple episodes later in say my name where he goes back to retrieve the bug that he had placed in dead freight and he tries the same tactic of crying about his marriage and it just makes Hank so uncomfortable.

So I think with Walt it's probably mostly manipulation. I mean, I'm sure there's something to the fact that he's upset about the splintering of his relationship with Skylar, but not to the extent that we get with Jimmy in these rare windows into what is actually going on inside him. I mean, especially because we get that moment outside of the range of the security cameras in that, like, corner the mall that Jimmy could take a moment. We've seen him take a breather there before to be like, woof, my my con. It's working, but this is a real, like, steady breath. that got really real, this feels like, and again, we've seen Jimmy do this before, like, when he's talking about Chuck, you know, in the courthouse and stuff like that, and then to turn around to Kim and be all smiles. And that was like a really shocking and uncomfortable

thing. But it just felt like a real, real upsetting processing of information, especially about Chuck and about Kim. And it gave this episode, which is largely a romp, some real, real weight and have to. Yeah, it's like he can only be emotionally vulnerable when he's conning someone because that's just like when he's most in touch with himself. Like that's who he is. He has to use every tool at his disposal to persuade people. And in the process of doing that, sometimes the real hurt kind of broken kid inside him comes out, I think. And initially he starts, he says like, my parents are dead, which is true. But I don't know that he says it with the same emotion. But Then when he gets to his brother, my brother is dead.

It seems like it actually hits him there. And maybe Chuck's death is sort of sinking in belatedly. And we have seen him do that before, that kind of tactic. Like, I guess it was in the season four finale when he's making the speech to the bar association. Yeah. He's using Chuck's letter to him as a prop. And he plays on the sentiments of the review board to get reinstated as a lawyer. and his emotion seems so genuine that Kim comes up to him afterwards is kind of comforting him and then is taken aback when he reveals that it was all at work.

But was it? It's all good, man. Right. You know? And maybe that time, less of him actually came out because he was still sort of in denial, I think, about Chuck's death and his role in Chuck's death. But maybe now, all this time later and where he is in life, it is actually coming out. because when he makes that speech to Trank and he's talking about how no one would notice or care if he died, right?

And he has no friends and he has no family and all these things. Like, I don't know whether in that moment he even realizes how completely that applies to his actual life or not. Or whether that's coming out kind of unconsciously. But obviously, as viewers, we're watching that and we're saying he's not putting on an act here. Not really. I don't know how he feels underneath all of the artifice and all the many layers he's put on over the years. But he is basically accurately describing his life right now, which is sad. I love that in that interaction.

I mean, I don't know if anyone listening knows this, but Bob Odenkirk is very talented. That he has to play that emotion and the tension of the scene and the comedy of the scene. And he does it all in perfect tandem. And again, that's all Jimmy saw Gene all just in the mix there. And it's so brilliant. And the heist, the tension around the heist, we probably knew this was going to work out, right? But for the first time, outside of those little gene interludes of like, is he okay after he fainted? Or is that Cabby going to recognize him or all that sort of stuff?

Like, this is the first real, real investment in, we don't know how this is. going to shake out, right? Because we knew Jimmy was going to be quote unquote okay if that's what you want to call, Salt Goodman, all through the the prelude to Breaking Bad. We knew

how all that was going to turn out. We knew how he survived Breaking Bad. We knew all of that. But we don't know what happens to Gene Takavik, you know? And so that changes the stakes a little bit in all of that. What that means is

I'm not wholly certain how to interpret this final moment when Jimmy, I think similar to Walt, can't resist but go back. This is a real murderer, serial killer move. You've got to go back to the scene of the crime, right? Just go back, bask in his victory. And he pulls out the shirt and the tie, which are horribly clashing patterns because we can't see color in this episode. So we've got to, like, make the Saul Goodman come through in the pattern of the shirt and the tie. And then he puts them away on the rack. Now, Alison Tatlock has given some interviews about what this means in certain regard.

But she's being kind of circumspect about it in other ways because I don't think she can say, and that's the last we'll ever see of his inclination to be Saul or anything like that. They're trying to hide the ball as best they can. How do you interpret this? What do you make of this? Yeah. I'll be honest, until I read Soppenwall's piece right after my first watch, it hadn't really occurred to me that this could be the end of,

Gene that we might not see him again. I'm still leaning against that being the case and I'm not sure I want it to be the case. Obviously, we're going to get Kim in some context, but can the ending be fulfilling if those two don't come together again? And speaking of dates in the calendar, don't we need to find out about that phone call that Saul told Francesca to expect when they were packing up the office in the season four flash forward, right? Like he tells her she's supposed to pick up a call on November 12th at 3 p.m. precisely. And I think we know from all the Cornhuskers references that we aren't quite there yet. So I'd like to think that this is not the end of Gene. But it's tough because at first I was sort of sad feeling like he was falling back into his old ways here, right? Like,

oh, this is just the old Jimmy Orsall coming back out again because this is not like, clearly he didn't quit cold turkey like Kim seemed to in last week's episode when she wouldn't even tell an innocuous lie to withdraw from her hearing because she had just turned over a new leaf seemingly. So at first I was worried because it seemed like he was slipping, so to speak, right back into his old ways. And I wondered whether he'd learned anything. It reminded me of that old Chuck quote, always the same, couldn't keep his hands out of the cash drawer, right?

But maybe he really did need to do one last job to get it out of his system. this time he was doing it largely out of self-preservation so that he could stay off the grid. And as far as we know, no one got hurt from this scheme, it seems like. So maybe the suit, the Saul slash Dan flashes attire that he just hangs up and walks away from there, maybe the suit is just a signature. It's like a sign-off, right? It's like the SG was here that he wrote when he was trapped in the garbage room. So maybe he can walk away from that now.

he is a new person, perhaps a better person. But who knows, he's never been able to walk away permanently before. Alison Totlock told Seppinwall, to me, that moment of longing is almost a longing for a lost lover. I like how you say that he leaves it public for others to see. It's almost like an actor leaving his costume behind or even the ghost of something. He can't fully own it. Yeah, Saul Govner was here.

Saul, like, signing his work, his murder scene. it is a question. This is like the big question that we have right here, right? We see that he's got the Kansas City Royals lunchbox. We have been wondering if Kim was going to show up in the Nebraska timeline. But like, would you be mad if this is the last week get of Gene Takvik? Yeah. So if this is the serious finale for Gene, the way that last week was perhaps the season finale for the prequel part of the show, it would be on some level. a fitting, satisfying ending, I think, here to see him draw on everything he's been here, just do one last job, even if we can't be completely confident that this will be his last job,

that he will actually be able to resist the temptation forever. I wouldn't mind leaving him on that semi-ambiguous note, right? Like, who knows what the future holds for Saul slash Jimmy slash Gene, except for the fact that I just, I want to see him and Kim cross pass again, right? And it's just hard for me to imagine if we see them in an earlier point in the timeline. Yeah, if we see them in the solvers, would that satisfy you? Like, I agree with you. It was not until I read Seppin Wall that I was like, oh, wait.

And as far as I know, Alan hasn't watched ahead. So I don't think he's like tipping his hand. And I don't think Alan would tip his hand that way. But Andy came to a similar conclusion on the watch where he was like, maybe this is the last we've seen of Gene. And it hadn't occurred to me. But then I started thinking about, like, the quotes we keep getting from Peter Gould, etc., from people saying, like, we made some risky moves. We don't know if people are going to like all the moves we made. And we, you know, we did some unconventional things.

And so this idea that we might watch the next few episodes thinking, well, and then we're going to return to the gene timeline, but we never returned to the gene timeline would be a way to keep us on the back foot, right? And that idea of like, well, surely Jimmy and Kim are going to meet again and maybe they've traveled enough in their own moral reckoning that they now deserve each other. They can find each other or whatever. But like, what is the moral bent of the Gilliganverse, I guess is the big question. Like, what if we look at the scales, the scales of justice in Jimmy Saul Jean's life, like, let's count all the sins on the one side. And I'm like, Walter White deserved to die at the end of Breaking Bad for all that he did. I love Jimmy Saul Jean. I especially love Jimmy McGill.

And I want happiness for him. But is the degree of happiness he deserves? Is it not minding his job at the synobon at the mall anymore? Is it, you know, enjoying his work so much he forgets his lunch break? Like, is that the degree of happiness he deserves? Is he really deserve, you know, a life with you. Kim is my question. Part of me is just like, hey, they should stick to their guns. Like, they've conditioned us to think one way about the consequences of characters' actions in this

universe and that they should stay with that right up until the bitter end. And we've just seen Jimmy do too much to feel good about him getting to ride off into the sunset or get the girl after all, right? And live happily ever after. At the same time, I would kind of appreciate them straying from that formula a little. Like we've seen so many characters in this universe meet bloody, brutal ends, often well-deserved. And we've spent so much time with Jimmy. And he's such a sympathetic character, despite everything he's done, in a way that Walt wasn't really, or at least I think that Gilligan and Gould didn't really intend Walt to be,

although a lot of people still were pulling for Walt right up until the end. But I think there are a lot of breadcrumbs in there that make you think, oh, maybe there's still a lot of good in Jimmy. Like, maybe he can find his way back to that. And maybe the last shot of this episode is all we get. Just that hint that, yeah, maybe he has finally moved on. He has left Saul behind him. He's going to be a better man now.

But I don't know. Like, there just still seems like a lot. We don't know, you know, where do the diamonds come from? Like, what part do they play? Maybe we find out about that in the Breaking Bad timeline episodes. But what about that phone call that Francesca's waiting for? after this point. And if he and Kim meet up for the final time during the breaking bad timeline, when we know that he continues to be Saul after that, right? So is there a possibility of anything

transformative coming from that interaction? Like, is it for the best if Kim just blazes her own trail and leaves him behind and finds fulfillment somewhere else? Like maybe the happy ending is that she's free of him and he's free of her, right? And they can't keep dragging each other down. But it would be, tough. I think I would have a hard time. I have so much faith in these creators to steer the ship to a great destination that I wouldn't say I'm worried necessarily. But I have some misgivings, I think, if this is the last time we see Gene, just because there is part of me that wants something a little bit better for him or more for him than we saw here. They seem very invested in surprising us. So that's something that I'm considering. So I'm just going to like, I'm just going to watch the next few

episodes and not assume I'm going to see Jim again, Gene again or whatever. Or maybe the next time we see him, we're, as you say, we're in color because he's no longer living this like drained of all life, black and white experience or whatever. I don't know. I have a lot of questions. But like, Peter Gould said this thing on the official podcast very subtly, and I don't know if I should read anything into it. But he said this would be a different string of episodes with Dawn, meaning the original

actor who played Jeff the Cavie. And string of episodes makes it sound like we have. haven't seen the last of Jeff the Cabby, which is, if I were Jeff the Cabby, I would not leave it there if I were him, but, you know, whatever. Right. But I don't know. I like this idea. You know, Andy has harped on it a lot.

This idea, I never really thought, I never really subscribed to this idea that Breaking Bad has like multiple endings. But I think it does have different, very different flavors in its final three episodes. And I don't know, I never liked the interpretation that the end of Breaking Bad was just a dream. that's not my preferred interpretation of that show. But I like this idea if they're like, okay, these are our endings. We've got here's the end of Jimmy, here's the end of Saul, here's the end of Gene. What if we tell it in the order they're not expecting?

Right. I can kind of see that happening. Yeah. I mean, maybe it was just that we got this episode when we did. We still go back to the Gene timeline, but just, you know, confusing all of us throwing us all off the scent because we were expecting Saul and Walt and Jesse now. even like midway through this episode, I was thinking, okay, we're going to flashback at some point here, right? I almost, I didn't do it, but I almost scrolled ahead to see if like, just if the thumbnails ever turned in color. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So maybe that was what they meant by just like going out of sequence, out of temporal order. But I don't know if that is enough of like just throwing a wrench into what we expected for these writers. I should say I'm excited to see Walton Jesse and I'm especially excited to see like if they manage to deliver on what they're promising, which is like we found a really thoughtful, like smart way to use them. It's not just like random. We found a good way to use them. I believe that they would have and I'm excited to see that. But like that's not why I'm watching the last of these episodes, right? Like I still feel very much, this is still Bob O'Don Kirk's show for me. And like, you know, Aaron Paul and Brian Kranson are phenomenal. But like, you know, And to zoom back to that, like, morality question of the world, like, I don't know. We talked about this before, but I don't know what it is that, like, Jesse Pinkman did that makes him deserve, you know, his after all this happy ending moment. But if after all this a happy ending, even though it seems like it's about a fake dog, but maybe that is the happy ending, as close of a happy ending as we can get for Gene Tachovic, I don't know. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, we've talked about this before, but I think we both. think too highly of this series to want the last word to be, oh, and it changes the way we view Breaking Bad. Like, I think that is a great offshoot of this. And I look forward to rewatching, knowing what we know now. But it's never really been about like, oh, Breaking Bad is one of the greatest series of all time. Like, this is just setting the stage for that.

And the way that this prequel triumphs is by just handing the baton over to Breaking Bad. So you can just seamlessly watch them. Like, I think they kind of are comparable in our minds. at this point, just as artistic achievements and as storytelling journeys. And so, yes, if we go back to breaking bad time and it brings everything to fruition, everything we saw of Jimmy and Saul to that point, great, if that is a great coda for that character. But I wouldn't want it to be, oh, we finally got to see Walt and Jesse again.

All right, this is what we've been waiting for. That's how we're going to go out. I'm sure that they won't do it that way. But that's my misgiving, I guess, about ending in that timeline as opposed to jumping forward again beyond that series. And I think they've already mission accomplished that whole like change the way that you would watch Breaking Bad. Because like whenever I've like in the last couple weeks when I've been rewatching clips to talk about scenes or whatever, it's really upsetting to watch Saul Goodman. Like unbearably upsetting to see what Jimmy becomes for several years of his life. Let's talk about another timeline question.

We got a lot of emails from people and I got a lot of tweets from people saying they thought we missed a trick about the timeline in the end of fun and games last week's episode because when Saul is on his Bluetooth in the shower, he talks about a case with the public masturbator. So that when he goes to see Baja for the first time, this is the first time we see Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad. He accidentally has like a file on a public masturbator with him. And so a lot of people thought that that meant that we were in 2008 and you and I had them. whole debate. Are we in 2005, according to the car registration, or are we in 2008, according to the Nutra Green Bar wrappers? A lot of people thought we were in 2008 because of this public masturbation reference in the case. What I will say is that if we are, it's not the day that Walt walks into his office because he's not wearing the same clothes at all.

Leaving aside, like, that Bob Odenkirk looks a little trimmer and healthier than he did, like just the suits are not the same. So this is not the same day. Maybe it's a couple days before, maybe. But, like, I also got emails about, like, there's a guy who a pair of legs you see in the office and Francesco walks around him. And is that Walter White? I don't believe it is. So, like, I don't think they were trying to show us the moment right before he meets Walter White. But I don't know.

Again, am I making a mistake getting too caught up in timeline questions? What do you think? I think I'm still on Team 2005 for the reasons that we laid out. last time. But it's possible. I mean, I don't know. There could be a bunch of public masturbators, right? Albuquerque's lousy with him. And then I want to go back to that, like, fan theories video that I mentioned that Bob and Ray did and a couple things that they mentioned there. None of these are spoiler, spoilers, but just in case you don't want to know things that they said, here are some oblique things that they referenced that may or may not fan out on the show.

talking about Kim's hair and you Pat had already informed me that like the ponytail on Kim was very important like when it was tight and up when it was down and loose

when her hair was down altogether they always were very intentional with that and Bob Bonnaker says I'm not saying the ponytail dies

but the ponytail is not long for this world he could have been talking about the final scene when Kim walks out and her hair is down or when Kim shows back up

does she have like a haircut or something like that. Like, do you have any ponytail series? Maybe she gets lice? Okay. Great. Love it. I don't know.

Bob also says that he, meaning Jimmy, can't remain in hiding. It's killing him. That seems to me like it could refer to this episode that we just watched. I don't think that that's necessarily anything bigger. What do you think? Yeah, I think so too, just given the way he walks away at the end. I mean, it's killing him to be in hiding and not to be using his skills and his expertise here. So, again, I hope that this is just the last hurrah.

One last job as the saying goes. I would love for Jimmy to still be able to somehow, like, are there fun cons he can do that are not crimes? Victimless cons? Yeah. Use his con powers for good. I don't know. Right. Everybody can't die, he says.

He was saying, Lalo died, Howard died, blah, blah, blah. So Kim Wexler lives at gmail.com. Still feeling like a good purchase is what I have to say about that account that was actually free and I didn't purchase it. Okay. And then Walton Jesse smartly and economically used. Again, no spoilers here. Just fun teases for what's to go. Yeah.

Before we close, one thing I wanted to say just about the heist scene, first of all, there's one more callback there. And there must just be like a full-time callbacks specialist. in the writer's room because it's really impressive just how many there were in this episode alone. But in episode four of season two, Jimmy is trying to get Chuck to pull Kim off of Doc Review and Jimmy is

offering to quit being a lawyer in return. And Jimmy says no more Jimmy McGill Esquire, poof! Like he never even existed. And here he says, Gene Who, poof, I'd be gone a ghost. So maybe poof is just something he says. But

again, this is just another link back to Chuck, back to Jimmy, which I like a lot. And I did, in addition to my man on the street, purchasing of cinnamon rolls, I did also break out my stopwatch for this scene here just to see if they were playing by the rules here. And I think they may have been cheating a little bit with the timing. I mean, on the end center pod, they said it actually, the run actually was 11 minutes because I was like, no way you can do that in three minutes. I don't know why they didn't make the security guard, good old Jerry Gergich, a slower cinnamon roll eater so that they didn't have to cheat anything. Why they put three minutes in the clock, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, it's like they cut from Jeff in the department store to the security room and you can see Jeff pick up on the security cameras where he left off on the preceding shot.

So I was thinking that they were trying to suggest it's like, hey, you have three minutes. Like, this is all taking place in that time. I set my stopwatch, which I started when Gene sends the text to Jeff to tell him it's go time. And at that point, Gene hasn't even started his own stopwatch yet. But later, you see Gene look at his watch and it says two minutes, 15 seconds, whereas my watch had just hit three minutes by then. And by the time Frank is done chow and down, my watch was at four and a half minutes. And granted, Gene was doing his best to keep him talking and not chewing. But they may have bent time just a tad there, which it's tough.

I mean, they were on a tight schedule, but I was kind of curious to see whether that would actually match up. And it didn't quite. So I don't know if that is just them taking some liberties or if it was actually supposed to take a little longer than that. But it did take longer than it had in his scouting missions to the security room before that. And I just, I love the humor in that whole scene, like the litany of items that Jeff is repeating to him. during his supermarket department store sweep and the whole Nathan Fielder-esque rehearsal of the heist. And also, one of the thing I learned during the InsiderPod was that they made that store up

out of whole cloth. I mean, it was just an empty space. Apparently, they tried to convince some actual stores to let them film there and they couldn't. And so they populated that entire store. Yeah. It's incredible. It's very convincing.

So that is just an unimaginable amount. of work. But I just, you know, give Odin Kirk the Emmy, I think, just for that, like, extended groan that he does alone when he has to buy the last few seconds. And he just does this long groan. And he's like craning his neck to see the screens behind Frank and the whole like Nebraska football trivia training montage and the way that Nick, the other security guard, warms up to Gene. Yeah. Yeah, after like countless cinnamon rolls. So I just, I enjoy. enjoyed all of that. And I think that the fact that he is able to really get in touch with the inner Jimmy there and mourn Chuck and yet also play it almost as a skit in that same scene is just really an incredible display of all of his acting talents. And I guess the fact that he gets more emotional than Frank is ready for and things get kind of awkward gives him a great excuse to stop showing up there with cinnamon rolls after that. If he doesn't show up the next Saturday, I feel like Frank would be like, okay, I don't want this guy to unburden him. himself to me again.

I do want to say, so, you know, we discovered last week listened to The Insider podcast how they made that final conversation between Kim and Jimmy, like, technically very hard for themselves because they decided to film these long shots that they've been edited together in a way that is invisible to us. So Chris McKeel, who's the host of the insider podcast and also the editor on the show, is this like this crack me up? He kept asking Michelle. etc. He's like, so how many cameras did you have? Like, that was really hard to do, huh? How many

cameras you had? And they had like 16 security cameras, all this stuff. And eventually he's like, it was really hard to edit, man. We had all this footage. Then we had to cut together and sync up and all those security cameras and like make it all time out with the scene that Bob was doing with Jim and all the sort of stuff like that. So like, you know, shout out to Chris and the editors on this episode. I am getting my stopwatch out to check their work. Sorry, Chris. Sounds like a nightmare. You did a great job. All right, let's end as we like to do with the tease for next week, which comes via Allison Tatlock's interview with Entertainment Weekly. She says, we're going to keep you on your toes.

And she said, harrowing. So no more fun capers with Carol Burnett, I guess, next week. Back to something devastating. Great, great stuff. We got a one week break from the pathos and just being on the edge of our seats. I'm ready. I'm ready for whatever's in store. All right. So please do email us. Kim Wexler lives at gmail.com.

If you've any Cinnabon questions, any, please feel free to. I feel like oftentimes I'll make like California references. And I'm like, we don't really have Cinnabon out here. We have some. I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of emails from people being like, how dare you have you ever been in a mall? I have Mrs. Fields, certainly. But I don't know about Cinnabon. The other thing I want to say, you made a supermarket suite reference.

I had that exact same. I used to watch that show regularly with my sister as a kid. And if you ever put me on supermarket sweep, I know exactly where to go. It's to the frozen turkeys and the ground coffee. Like, I know the big ticket items from supermarket sweep. And I just love that they took the same approach to this ice. What's the frozen turkey of the department stores, the cash in the sweaters? Yeah, the Armani suits.

You want to do a heist together? Maybe after we're done podcasting, we can take. You could do a supermarket. Yes. Great. All right. And I'm going to get my stopwatch out again because it's time to snack for me. I've been staring at and smelling these cinnamon rolls this entire episode.

I can't believe you've like restrained yourself. I know. This is like the marshmallow test here. I'm showing my restraint here. All right. Well, you guys are all our alibis should Ben and I try to pull off a heist in the future. And we will see you here next week for an episode that we don't even know the title of. So we'll see what's up.

Is it Weldon Jesse? Who knows? We'll see you next week. This episode was produced by the great Chris Sutton, who definitely deserves Sinneubon, and I'm sorry we can't keep him on. Bye.