The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Better Call Saul' Season 6, Episode 8

Episode Date: July 14, 2022

Joanna and Ben get together to celebrate the triumphant return of the final season of 'Better Call Saul', and begin their conversation by discussing Episodes 8's haunting opening scene. They then talk about Lalo's moral code throughout the series, and if his tragic end was respectful to it (12:35). Then they dissect the Jimmy/Saul dichotomy and Kim's loyalty to him, particularly within the construct of their relationship with Lalo (16:09). Next, they look at the tie-ins between 'Better Call Saul' and the movie 'Born Yesterday', which is featured in the episode, and the intricacies Gilligan and Co. have employed to develop each of the characters since the beginning of the 'Breaking Bad' universe (23:53). Finally, they debate if the final confrontation between Lalo and Gus really could've gone down differently, and theorize what will happen in the final stretch of the series (54:26). Hosts: Ben Lindbergh and Joanna Robinson Producer: Chris Sutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It matters where you stay. Hilton for this day. Back at the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson, and joining me now after he's, I think, rewatched the episode, The Fly from Breaking Bad to look for trace evidence of Lalo and Howard? It's Ben Lindberg. Hi, Ben. Joanna, we know where the bodies are buried, literally. I got to tell you, I rolled up to my mic today, like Lyle opening Los Poyos Ramos.

I showed up right on time with a spring in my step, just humming the prestige TV podcast theme song. That is how happy I am to be back with you and our audience to discuss this series and this episode. And speaking of our audience, let me say thank you to everyone who wrote or tweeted to request that we come back for these final six episodes. Not since the fine folks of Cushada mailed letters to batch for their hometown hero Hewle back in season four, have we seen. such an outpouring of support. And all the messages we got were real. So we are thrilled to be back and to take you the rest of the way. I cannot believe you rolled up with like a deep heel cut. Like, no, I can't believe. That's a classic Lindberg move to be honest with you. All right. Yeah, so we are back. Thanks to you and, you know, thanks to the kind folks at The Ringer

and Spotify. They were like, sure, coming back for six episodes. Actually, nobody hesitated. I don't know why I was worried. I just, tomorrow's never promised. And I didn't want to like promise we'd be back if we weren't. So here we are. They scheduled us to open and close. It's true. Gus and Lyle. We're happy to do it. Do you think Lyle should organize maybe like a union at Lus Poy's Ramos? That's breaking labor laws to open and close two days in a row. I'm just saying. I've been thinking a lot about Lyle, as I think everyone has. Do you think he ever gets promoted into the meth operation? I feel like he has what it takes. He's dependable. He's diligent. He's

punctual. What more do you want? Yeah, but at the same time, I feel like Lyle's the guy you really want to keep all the, all the friars afrien at your front's operation, you know? It's true. He will do an acceptable job. Look at us leading with Lyle in the big Lalo exit episode. Listen, he's the wade of this show and we got to respect Lyle. Lyle the legend.

That's an Obi-1-Kadobie reference. Go check out Ben Lindberg's appearance on the ring. Okay. Just some program reminders really quickly. So the current era of Prestige TV podcast feed is the main two shows anchoring it are this six weeks exploration of the end of Better Call Saul. And then Danny Hyphist, David Schemacher and I are doing Westworld in a pretty serious way week by week. Also, Westworld, great again. Honestly, not joking you.

So, you know, if you've been missing it. I have been missing it. If you got burned and you were like, I'm out. That's me. to pull you back in. It's good again. Also this week on the feed, you might see a Sopranos Hall of Fame episode with Woz and Van and Bill, in which Bill outs me for never having seen the Sopranos. So that's a fun time over on that episode.

So that is what's going on in the Prestige TV podcast feed. In just case you're joining us now for like the back half of the season and you weren't with us for the first half of season six of Better Call Saul. I just want to say that sort of like what we're doing around here, which is, If you want the instant reaction, hot off the presses, takes, our beloved colleagues, Chris Ryan, Andy Greenwald, are doing Monday night sort of recaps over on the watch. I believe, I mean, Andy said this week they're hopping on mic immediately after the episode wraps. So that is, those are the hottest of hot takes over over on that show. So hot that sometimes they will walk them back later.

Yeah. You're dying to hear Andy. Do his impression of Tom. Never mind. Okay. So we're kind of working in conversation, you know, Ben and I listen to that podcast. I mean, I listen to it anyway, but we listen to that podcast every week.

We listen to the insider, Better Calls Hell Insider podcast, where folks from the show talk about what they did. We stroll around Reddit. We read your emails. So it's sort of like a couple days later, we're soaking up all the information, all the interviews, all the everything that people have done, and doing like a little longer, a cooler take on an episode of Better Callsum.

So that is, you know, so in order to make sure that you're a part of that conversation, you can always email us at Kim Lexler lives at gmail.com, something that we will be addressing towards the end of this episode, whether or not that email is going to go out of date. Good thing we didn't pick Lalo lives at Gmail. Or Howard lives or Nacho lives. Yeah. We've chosen wisely so far.

And I just want to give a quick shout out. If you're not someone who's regularly listening to the Insider podcast, that's fine. We're here for the, we're here to give you the highlights. But if you're someone who's interested in the art of making television, which is like when I first started covering television and I was like a TV fan and a like, you know, a student of story, but I didn't know about the nuts and bolts of making television. I used to listen to the nerdist writers panel podcast all the time because they would have writers on talking about the nuts and bolts and process. The Better Callsale Insider podcast had a fantastic mailbag episode in between in the season break. That's really just a masterclass in how episodes of television, specifically this episode of television, but larger lens episodes of television get made. And I really, like, if that's something that interests you, if you think you might want to make TV in the future, that's an episode of a podcast. I really, really recommend you check out. Yes, I've enjoyed and learned a lot from it. Yes. It's really eye-opening to hear how Saul has been made and just how little clue they have had at any point in the process.

What would happen next, which I think we will discuss. Okay. So last thing I'm going to say before we get into everything here is, you know, this run of episodes is July 11th through August 15th. So this is the summer of Saul. We're going to be dipping into, you know, then it becomes all about dragons and hobbits. We'll get there eventually this summer. This episode is season six episode eight, point and shoot, written by Gordon Smith and directed by Vince Gilligan, ever heard of him. And we're just spoiling up through this episode.

We don't know anything about what comes next. Have we seen screeners here? Nope, we have not. We don't have them. That even if we wanted to. So that is what's going on here. This episode opens because of like the little hiatus. We get a pretty lengthy previously on, you know, longer than usual.

And then we open with sort of this shoreline. cold open with the staged aftermath of the death of Howard. This reminds me a lot of how the Nacho episode, the Nacho death episode opens with the flower sort of over his grave. In this case, of course, the body isn't there. But it's still just like a quiet moment, like a quiet sort of requiem moment for a character. What did you make of this opening, Ben? Yeah, per Vince Gilligan on The Insider Pot, this was the last scene shot in the series and

also the only scene in the series not filmed in New Mexico. It's on a beach north of Malibu. And the beach, it reminds me almost of Zawat Neho at the end of Shawshank. It's like Andy Dufrayan saying the Pacific is a warm place with no memory. But there's no happy ending here for Howard. There's no warm embrace on the beach. This is the beginning of the episode. And we end, of course, not on this bright, beautiful beach, but in the dark, dank dirt of the super lab. So it's sad. You even see. Howard's Phantom Footsteps, right? Which I'd love to know how Mike pulled that off. His wallet and wedding ring on the dash there. Mike has a hoverboard. You didn't know? Right. And then you get the

contrast between this peaceful, open air, just idyllic setting where it looks like the camera is going to keep pulling back to show the couple sitting in chairs drinking coronas. And then you're immediately just in the nightmare of this stifling apartment with Howard dead and Kim and, you're, you're Jimmy afraid for their lives. And when we transition to that scene, you even get the almost beautiful blood spatter and seepage from the body. It's like the waves rolling in on the beach. I just, I love that it only takes a minute for this series to make a visual statement

like that and just remind you that there's nothing else on TV quite like it. Yes, we left off with Howard Dead and Lalo holding our protagonists at gunpoint, but Brider Carl Sahl is still going to take a minute for a change of pace, just establishing scene. before plunging us back into the thick of things. Can I return briefly to Zawatin Aal if I may? So Shawshark Redemption is a movie I've seen 11 d-bigillion times. Of course, who has. Because it was like forever on TNT on Saturday mornings.

But I only recently found out, probably this is very, very common knowledge, but I only recently found out that that beach scene at the end is something they tagged on after the fact. Because in screenings, people were like too bummed out by just ending with like a bus rolling out of town and like, will Andy be there? Will he not? I don't know. And they're like, give him the happy ending. Yeah, give them the El Camino.

Yeah. Give them Tim Robbins with no sleeves working on a boat. Why not? All right. So I love you comparing the blood seepage to the lapping waves. I had thought about that. I love that. We should say sort of metatextually that this scene between, we kind of knew this based on context

interviews, but this scene between Lalo Kim, Sol and Havis. Howard is the moment where Bob Odenkirk had his medical emergency. So, I mean, which is unsurprising is maybe a weird way to put it, but just the intensity of the performance by Ray Coyn and by Bob Odenkirk in this sequence. Great work by Patrick Fabian as well. I don't want to leave him out of the conversation. Finally got to share some scenes with Jonathan Banks, maybe not in the way that he had wanted, but very convincing court's impression.

And Tony Dalton, you know, just Daltoning all over the place, you know. But like knowing that, Ben, watching this sequence, knowing, performing this literally put Bob Odenkirk in cardiac arrest. Like how did that add to it? Did it take away? How did you feel about that? Yeah. I mean, it's an impressive editing job, right? Post-production stitching together.

They talked about that on the insider pod. And it's totally seamless. You would never know. I was even looking at it specifically to see if I could tell. that parts of the scene were filmed two months apart pre and post heart attack. And really, I couldn't tell even knowing that that was the case. So that's impressive just from a production perspective, obviously. And this is a scene where we're all on the edge of our seats and maybe our heart rates are elevated as it is.

So in that sense, I suppose there's some sort of link there. I don't know whether the scene actually played any part in the cardiac event here, whether this was a complete coincidence. But this is a moment where everyone is feeling at home like their pulse is ratcheted up. And so to hear that that was going on here also, I guess it is tragic but appropriate also in a sense. And of course, we are just so glad that he made a complete recovery, not just because everyone absolutely loves Bob Odenkirk and just treasures him, not only his castmates, but people who've been watching him and appreciating his work for years, but also so that we could see the rest

of this scene and the series. I'm not equating that with the life of Bob Odenkirk, which comes first, of course, but I'm also glad that we get to see how this scene ends and how this series ends. Putting Ben is a monster in my notes for future purposes. So only that I thought it was really interesting that I said in the Insider podcast that I had never really thought about is this idea. We know that Mike Ermintrad has a code, and we'll talk about that at length at the end of this episode. But this idea that Lalo Salamanca also has a code. is something that I hadn't really considered because they, you know, they were pointing to his, you know,

his Euro trip earlier in the season and how, you know, he doesn't just kill the dog or kill Werner's widow and all sort of, you know, like, so when he kills, it's not indiscriminate. It's very calculated and personal, and he has a reason to do it. And that adds heft to the death of Howard because, like, there is a kind of character, a kind of like charming, whimsical, psychopathic Quentin Tarantino character or whatever that would just like kill someone for shits and gigs or whatever, you know, or because they were talking too much. But that's not who Lalo is. And so this idea that like he's got

a plan, it's a 20-step plan and he's on step like 15. And this is all sort of part of it. Not that he walked in their plan to kill Howard, but like what he really needs. is to send the cockroach or his wife out there into the universe to cause some chaos and a distraction so that he can do what he needs to do. And if he needs to kill Howard in order to put that in motion, in order to scare them enough to get that going, then so be it. Had you considered the code of Lalas Alamanka, is that something you had thought about, Ben? It's interesting because I never know whether the code is that he doesn't want to take innocent life or that he just doesn't want to be sloppy, right? Because, yes, he doesn't kill

Marguerite. Is that because he feels some fondness for her or because he just doesn't want to leave a body trail? He doesn't want to tip off Gus that he is out there in Germany gathering information on the super lab. Like, we have seen him kill innocence, bystanders, collateral damage and not seem to lose any sleep over it, right? He killed the kid at travel wire. And then when his family shows up at court Lalo just shrugs. He doesn't seem to be bothered by that at all. If you get in his way, he will wipe you out. And I was wondering about that later in this episode because he talks about how they came to his house, right? And they killed his cook and they killed his gardener and they killed his housekeeper. Is this someone who actually cares about those people who were killed who were

under his roof? Because this is also a guy who was grooming one of his tenants to serve as his fake corpse if he needed to. Right. So I really do. don't know whether he has feelings or whether he's just able to project feelings. And I love him either way. He's an incredible character. He's not any less interesting to me if he feels that or doesn't feel that. I've just been questioning that as I've been watching him. Yeah. Who among us, though, isn't currently grooming a neighbor to be a to be our body double? Do you don't have one? I mean, it's prudent. I think that's a really good point. I don't think it's the same as Mike's moral code at all. But just what?

it means is that, to your point, like sloppy. Like, I think not indiscriminately is the point. Not like making a moral judgment of someone who's in the game or not in the game the way that Mike does, but just sort of, I'm not just going to pull the trigger just for funds. Right. He's a lot like Gus in that way, I think. There are a lot of similarities between those characters, which is why it's appropriate that they come face to face here the way that they do. So this has been clarified in interviews, this next part where Saul, and I don't know. I've decided to adopt Andy Greenwald's decision to just call him Saul now instead of Jimmy.

It's just what I'm like, yeah, I think that's where we are, honestly. Honestly, I've found it very difficult to do that. Just because we've spent so much time with Jimmy McGill at this point. And I have such an attachment to him, which is one reason why I think we need to see Jimmy at some point before the series is over. If we transition from prequel to sequel and we get Gene slash Saul slash Jimmy again, I need to see that come full circle. Because I know that Jimmy is in there, even though we don't see Jimmy so much as Saul during Breaking Bad, although maybe we will perceive him now if we were to rewatch with the knowledge that we have.

But we haven't fully seen him become Saul in his personal life yet, right? We've seen him have the office and some of the outer trappings of Saul. But at least with Kim, he's still Jimmy. And so I haven't fully switched over in my mind yet. We might get there soon. The end of this episode is what makes we feel like we might be in Saltown. I think we're almost there. Yeah.

This moment where he says send her, right? And per interviews with Gordon Smith, who wrote the episode and various people, like, this is him just trying to save Kim. And I agree with Chris and Andy that that context becomes clear based on Kim's reaction. But I did have a moment where I was like, oh, is the switch fully flipped? And he is, he completely lost and he says, send her. That didn't last very long. But I'm wondering if you were ever, ever had a moment of doubt as to what Saul's motivation is here when he says, send her, not me.

Yeah, a couple interpretations across my mind. Not that staying there with Lalo is a better place to be necessarily than going out to kill someone that he's heard described as a house cat and a librarian. It sounds like a soft target there. But I would rather be in the room with the librarian than the room with Lolo. Personally, I did think initially, from his perspective, Kim is maybe more likely to be able to accomplish this mission. Made of sturner stuff. Exactly.

Right. And so send her. Maybe she pulls it off and comes back and saves the day and Lalo lets them go, which sounds far-fetched. But at this moment, it's their only hope. But no, ultimately, I read it too as just a very tender, selfless sacrificial. act. He wants to give her a chance to get out of there and not look back. And she knows that. And she's protesting and she's trying to do the same thing, right? She's trying to offer herself up as the sacrifice and to send Jimmy. And he's basically imploring her with his eyes to get out of

Albuquerque. And I think Lalo is weighing whether she will, right? Because we know that this is not the main thrust of Lalo's plan, that he doesn't think that one of these characters is actually going to be able to kill Gus. But he does need them to be the distraction, right? And so it would be bad if Kim actually did do a runner and just left down without ever showing up at Gus's house. But I think Lalo senses that she actually loves and is loyal to Jimmy. As much as it confuses Lalo that she would be that true to someone like that, I think she is. And I think this is proof of that. And the fact that she follows through and she does do this despite being absolutely to her core terrified. And like Ray Sehorne just got her first Emmy nomination for this show long overdue.

So congratulations to her for that. And like it couldn't come at a better time watching her in this episode. But watching go through all of that, I already tweeted about this, but I am just like over the moon at the death of the really, really terrible bad theory that Kim is just long conning Jimmy in all of this. Like, obviously she's not. No, Joe, it's just an even longer con. No, no, put it in the ground under the super lab. No. Jimmy will never suspect that she's planning to turn on him if she kills someone to save him.

This is the perfect culmination of the long conter. Ben. No, no, no. Look. Put no more logs on this terrible fire. I'm happy people had their fun theorizing. I'm glad better call Saul is a rich enough text to support several readings. But like you, I never liked the long time.

con theory or wanted it to be true. Yes, it might have helped explain how Jimmy became Saul. That's one way it could have happened. But the Jimmy Kim Bond is just too central to the series and the arc of that character for it to have been fiction. And this episode proves how real it is and always was. The brilliant folks over at Reddit have made a connection between Kim leaving the apartment here when Jimmy's like, it's time to go, got to go. And she almost leaves without her shoes. And it's Lalo who's like, hey, your shoes, babe, put your shoes. one to this speech that Kim gives from season five episode three when when um she's talking about her home life and how she always had to move from house to house and how sometimes her mom would

wake her up in the middle of night and say it's time to go and she would go outside and not have any shoes on um what that does other than like sort of a nice connected tissue between childhood trauma and adulthood trauma is in those scenarios that puts Jimmy in sort of the Kim's mom position. Right. And I think we get a similar sort of vibe at the end of the episode when Mike is telling them sort of like how, you know, what they're going to do next. And it's very much like Kim has been caught shoplifting again.

Do you know what I mean? She's been caught doing this long con on Howard, not Jimmy, but Howard. And so like, and Jimmy's sort of the like, okay, all right, like person in that scene the way that Kim's mom was in the flashback. Is that a comfortable parallel for you? The like the addict, the main love relationship addict of her childhood and the main love relationship addict of her adulthood? I think so with the caveat that as we've noted before, it's not just that other people are getting Kim into trouble, right? She is playing an active role in that process. She is a participant. She is being led down that dark path, but she is also willingly following and

at times leading herself. But I think that having her be bare fit and forget her shoes on her way to assassinate a stranger, I think is a good early indication of just how traumatized she is and will be by this whole episode. She's shaking. She's shivering. She's withdrawn later in the episode when Mike is talking to them. She's almost as dead-eyed as Howard at that point. Catatonic, yeah. Yeah, she's almost sleepwalking through this nightmare in a way, which is really a tour divorce for the Emmy nominee, but also just really puts her in that headspace. And she needs Mike to be the one who in a crisis, if I am ever in a crisis like this

or any kind of crisis, I want Mike to be there. I want Mike to just sit me down, maybe slap me lightly and just tell me what to do and what is happening and how I can get through this. You're Pinkman in the scenario then. Yes, exactly. You get the light slap treatment. Yeah. But he needs to do that to cut through this haze she's in where I think she's just withdrawn.

She's disconnected. She's wondering how she got there. And I think she will continue to wonder about that in coming episodes or episode. Oh, my God. That's just scary tease for her conversation at the end of this podcast. All right. we mentioned in the last podcast we did about Better Call Cell when we were in the apartment.

We already went into sort of the significance of Born Yesterday, which is the film that's playing on the TV. But do you want to sort of recap your take on that because we get a long audio clip of it playing over Jimmy's struggling to get out of his bonds? Yeah, when we talked about it last time, we didn't think that it mapped perfectly. There wasn't a perfect parallel onto the series.

is we do get a rabbit Moranville shout out, which as a big baseball guy, I appreciate always like when baseball crosses over into the Gilligan verse. But we do have kind of corrupt characters and a love triangle sort of situation and a corrupt lawyer in this movie, right? So there are certain parallels there. And there's the blonde woman character who is underestimated at first and then turns out to be more than anyone imagined that she might be. much as Kim has both in the universe of Better Call Saul and in real life, thanks to Ray Sehorne and her incredible portrayal of this character. So I think there are some threads that tie in there, even if it's not perfectly like, yes, this scene maps on through exactly what is happening here, which would be too unsettle for this series anyway. But it's a nice moment for like

enduring classic cinema fans, Kim and Jimmy. We've seen them sit down in front of a black and white movie countless times. My old boss at Vanity Fair, Mike Hoagher, who is covering Saul the season, number one, William Holden fan as far as I know and William Holden is born yesterday. Hogan was sort of zeroing in his article that he wrote up over at VF. He was zeroing in on the aspect of born yesterday, which is about like a woman like testifying against her criminal boyfriend or partner. And so he was sort of prognosticating that maybe that's a position that Kim will find

herself in like being asked to testify or being, you know, so maybe, possibly could be, who knows. This is why it's nice to go to the theater. I like watching movies at home too, but if you go to the theater, you can't be interrupted. There's just so many more distractions at home. Do you think Lalo? Just can't finish your movie. Is a guy who puts, who gets on his cell phone in the middle of a movie. You think he is, maybe he's like one of the bootleggers, right? He's filming the screen so that he can distribute a bootleg copy of the movie. Despise Camcorder prowess.

I would say that I, to the contrary, I think that Lalo is the guy who will, like, absolutely confront anyone who's on their phone and smile at them scarily and tell them to put it away. I need to work on that because the last three times I've gone to the theater, I've had to tell someone to put their cell phone away. And I just really want to perfect my, like, scary Lalo grin. I'm like, is that what you want to do? I've never been the shusher in the movie theater, but I'm happy to have a shusher there,

right? As long as they're not shushing me. I want someone in that wall. You need me on that wall. All right, the last thing we want to say, well, two more things to say about sort of Jimmy, as Kim is out trying to work up the nerve to do this thing. Two things about Jimmy. One, we get the repeat of the, it wasn't me, it was Ignacio, the introduction of Saul

in Breaking Bad, which you and I have talked about over and over again, season two, episode eight, the Saul intro, Jesse and Wald have kidnapped him. He's afraid of Lala. We're going to talk about that a little bit. But he says, it wasn't me. It was Ignacio. And he says the exact same thing here. So we know that this is like a little thing that he has in his back pocket.

And then also on Breaking Bad, whenever someone's head is on the ground and their face is prostrated and grief, I have to think about while looking at Hank in Osamandias, like one of the most famous shots of the entire series. And I thought we got one of those as Saul is forced to stare at Howard's face on the ground. Yeah, because at first I'm thinking, you know, Jimmy's doing the rock back and forth until you knock the chair over thing that every captive or hostage in a movie or series has ever done. And the chair looks a little rickety. And it seems like maybe he could get free. But no, he's trapped, right? And he just has to lie there staring at Howard bleeding out. and he will kind of in a way be in this room forever, right?

I mean, even if we don't see that, we certainly don't see that in Saul in Breaking Bad very much, although maybe we'll be able to read that into him now. But somewhere in his mind, right, he still has to be in that room tied to that chair, just being forced to look at what he did, right? And this is not a new insight exactly, but about the it wasn't, it was a gnazio line with Nacho and Lalo both bowing out. Can we just take a moment to appreciate how that one throwaway line in Breaking Bad, United three absolutely legendary TV characters, none of whom was originally intended to be

anything close to what they became. It's clear from interviews that there was a faction inside the Better Call Saul writers' room that never thought that the series needed to explain or justify that line. Vizgillian himself was like, let's not sweat it. Like, don't worry about it. And like elsewhere, perhaps Peter Gould or. perhaps other people with equal pull were like, no, we really want to crack this nachololo thing.

Like, we really want to make it make sense. Yeah. Gordon Smith was on Team Explain that line also. And I'm glad that they won that debate that they got to set that up because, I mean, maybe Michael Mando and Tony Dalton would have been cast as two equally cool characters with different names, but probably not. Probably it wouldn't have worked out the same way. And it's just amazing not only that they've changed up details and laid out. the track as they've gone, but that the entire series, all of Better Call Saul has seemingly

sprung forth after it started. I mean, you hear that Jimmy was supposed to be Saul by the end of season one and that Kim wasn't intended to be a big character. And it's like, what did you think this series was? Like, what did you have when you started? Because the whole thing is about Jimmy's transformation into Saul and the part that Kim plays in that. Take that away or wrap that up by the end of season one, and why are we even watching? So in retrospect, it's just amazing that that wasn't there to begin with, that that wasn't the elevator pitch. And Gilligan talked about this at length on the insider podcast, but like this is something

that we've been, he's talked about, other people working on Breaking Bad and Solove talked about, and then those of us who talk about TV a lot always talk about, which is this idea of, do you need to know your ending when you start? Some people do. Vince Gilligan and his band of Mary Wordsmiths do not. They never have, and they relish writing themselves into corners. And it's part of why... I think there's one instance in this episode where it doesn't pay off, and I will get to that.

But, like, I think on the whole, obviously overwhelmingly genius decisions by them, and it's what keeps this show and these shows feeling so alive and lively, because they're following the characters and they're following the performances. And they're following strength after strength, you know. And so same with, of course, Pinkman on Breaking Bad, that Pinkman wasn't supposed to be a main character on baking bad. And so follow the character, follow the performance. I think more TV writers could stand to be a bit more flexible and nimble and reactive in their storytelling

based on the gemstones that you unearth as, you know, you discover an actor or you discover a key part of a character that you hadn't considered before, you know. And you can see that change continuing as, you know, Ray Sehorne as Kim is taking her drive trying to fly casual here on her bad choice road, right? And she puts down her window when the cop car pulls up alongside and she just can't really reach out. She's thinking about it. She wants to. But she and Jimmy are just so entangled in the cartel world now that it might hurt her as much as it helps her to reach out. I mean, she's sort of straddling the line between those two worlds.

And maybe this moment is when it becomes clear to her, which. side of that line she's really on. The sterner stuff kicks in and she keeps going. If you are a fan of matching shots, it's fun to go back and look at the season four episode two, Breaking Bad episode 38 snub directed by the legend Michelle McLaren, who is coming back for an episode of this show, which I'm so excited. I love a Michelle McLaren directed episode of Kim walking up to Gus's house, and it matches some of the shots they took of Walt walking up with the titular 38 snub

Revolver, planning to kill Gus. And both of them are halted at the door. Kim, because Mike grabs her and Walt because he gets a phone call telling him to just go home. Right. And there's some great comedy bit with Frings double. Like, maybe one of the funniest things that has ever happened in Better Call Saul, based on just a look. Do you think the body double gets furloughed now that the Lalo threat is over?

Like, thanks. We'll let you know if we need you again. If any other Salamaka's come after us now? It's really a shame that Lalo killed Gustavo before they could compare points on their body double grooming process. Just imagine being Gus's body double. I mean, remember how many times Gus made Lyle clean up the kitchen? Like, he's got to be 10 times more exacting with someone who's pretending to be him. So just imagine the notes the body double must be getting.

Just like straightening his tie or buttoning his jacket over and over and over. over while Gus goes, this is acceptable to you. So he's probably happy that he gets a break from this job. Maybe. I don't know. I think Gus is paranoid enough that that guy is just going to have to stay on. No breaks. Yeah. What about the family that lives next door? They stay too, I guess. They're permanent residents. I have so many questions about this set up. Great questions. Great question. I think there's, so there's this other moment of possible ambiguity, though I don't think it's that ambiguous when when gus is talking to kim on the phone uh and he asks like why did he send you um and she said oh he wasn't going to send me he's going to send uh jimmy but he he

he jimmy talked lolo out of it uh you know and then gus goes he talked he talked he talked little out of it that's right okay so i i think the best interpretation of this is Gustavo understanding that if the actor is interchangeable for someone like Lolo, if the shooter is interchangeable, then that's not the real end game of the plan, that there's a plan within the plan, and that he's got to go check it out. I just wanted, and some people felt differently about it, they thought maybe it was like a game recognized game of Gustavo respecting Jimmy's ability to talk or Gustavo, like, putting his eyes on Kim or something like that, but I think it's him, I think it's pretty clear.

That is him understanding the plan within the plan. But I just want to shout out really quickly. This might just be me, but it felt to me like a reference to one of my favorite movies of all time, which is sneakers, which is like in which Mary McDonnell, who's there with the great character actor Stephen Tobolowski, and she's, they've almost gotten away with this heist that they're trying to, like, plan. And Ben Kingsley's our big bad. And she just offhandedly says, well, that's the last time I let a computer, you know, match

me up on a day. and Ben Kingsley goes, wait. A computer matched her with him? I don't think so. And then he understands the plan within the plan. And I was like, he's happened as Ben Kingsley moment. He's like, Martin. Anyway, watch sneakers.

It's the perfect film. But yeah, I mean, like that does that that that all feels right to you, right, Ben? Yeah, totally. Because Gus knows that like him, Lalo is just too meticulous a planner to be swayed on a win. Like think of how Mike tried to talk Gus into sparing nacho, no dice. So if Lalo was susceptible to. through an audible like that, then Gus knows that sending someone to kill him at his house was not the main prong of his plan. So he knows he intuit, he knows he's been looking for evidence

of the super lab all along. So he senses maybe he's going to the laundry to gather evidence. And this is not the first time that Lalo has tried to create a diversion and get people away from the laundry so that he could sneak in there. And I think also on some deeper level, Gus just has a hunch about his nemesis. Like they've both been trying to put themselves in the place of the other and think 10 steps ahead along with the other one this whole time. And I think he's just sort of seeing the chessboard here. And even when he shows up at the laundry, like Gus looks like he's sniffing the scent of Lalo, right?

Like even before he sees the fan creaking slowly or sees the laundry bag just swinging, like he senses him through the force. Like I half expected him to do the Darth Vader of presence I've not felt since. You know, it's like. Get out the Dark Saber. Yeah, it's that kind of confrontation. And I also just say like the score is important here. Dave Porter, the composer is on the insider pod for this episode, which is fitting because

there's a lot of score in this episode and it's very effective, especially in that scene where Kim is marching up to the front door. Like when I rewatch that episode, I tried to imagine it with no music. And it just wasn't the same, right? This score just makes me jittery. It's like almost industrial music. And it's a strange sort of situation because we know that Kim is not going to kill Gus here. And we know that both because Gus survives into Breaking Bad, but more than that because we know the whole elaborate security setup he has here.

We know he's not going to just open the door when anyone knocks, right? And so we know that's a hopeless plan, but there is still some suspense about what will happen to Kim. And that's the thing. It just, what a difference it makes to have any amount of suspense or uncertainty, right? Like to have at least a couple of characters whose fates are unknown, we know that Gus and Saul and Mike make it, but Kim and Lalo at this point, their futures are still up in the air. And bringing it back to Obi-Wan, you and I were just watching that series during the Saul intermission. And the contrast seems so strong to me between this prequel and that prequel, where almost none of the core character's fates in that series were unknown. And not only that,

but there wasn't a ton to learn about what makes them tick or why they were the way they were when we first met them, whereas Saul has always been not only about whether its original characters would survive, but also just how its legacy characters, especially Jimmy and Saul, became who they are in Breaking Bad. That's why we've been watching all along. So now we're down to basically just Kim, right? That's the only domino that hasn't fallen yet. But I think that is where the suspense comes from in the series.

And we were going to get to this a little later. But since I'm on the subject, that idea of surprise versus suspense, right? Like even in the final confrontation where the Chekhov's gun, Gus's gun comes back into play. and Gordon Smith, the writer of this episode, said, I don't know exactly what the dramatic term would be, but it's the old, give them two and two, and let them be excited when it makes four. So it's like, ooh, I figured out there's two and there's two.

Come on four. You're almost rooting for this explosion of tension, even though you're pretty sure which way it's going. So there's a lot that we know, but it's still satisfying to see it somehow. I want to be the lone dissenter and say, like, in this circumstance, I feel like they gave me like four times one equals four.

Like I felt like I knew a little too much. And maybe it's maybe it's because my brain's a little too cooked by being on like Reddit theories too much. But you know, the idea of Lalo being buried underneath the floor of the super lab has been such a strong theory for so long. And and then we saw Gus plant the gun and we saw him fuck with the lights. So I feel like I know exactly what's going to happen. in here. Like, there was a moment where I was like, we see the camcorder drop to the ground before, I mean, it was kind of dark before I could tell whether or not the body was there to or did or did Lalo run out the door. I don't know. But so since it all played out exactly as I expected,

like you loved it, Chris loved it, Andy loved it. So please allow me to be like the one like small rain cloud. And I loved a lot of this episode. But this and maybe it's because I love Lalo too much and didn't want him to go. But like this is just, it felt a little too. And then even, Even on the insider podcast, Kelly Dixon, who's like, voice of the people, love whenever. She's like, why did this happen? She was like, isn't Lalo way too smart to let Gustavo not only monologue, but like awkwardly maneuver his body towards a plug? Like that was the, like, it didn't even have to be that way. Like, what if he had just like already been standing near the plug?

Like the way that he was walking around and like maneuvering himself onto the extension cord that he like then kicks free. all of that, I was just like, Lala is way too smart for this. They had a fine answer that Lalo was sort of like high on the victory of I finally got the answer that I was sure was true, which is that there was a fucking meth super lab being built under this laundry. Like I was right. I've got him dead to rights. I've got him saying all this stuff on camera so that I cannot be now held accountable for his death because he's giving me all the material that I need. I can kind of buy all that.

It just was just like one step beyond that into so awkwardly obvious what what Gus was up to. And again, because we knew the gun was there. And it's not, it's not, I think, because I knew Gus was going to survive. Because to your point about Kim running up to the door, like, I was not at all. I did not think they were going to kill Kim in an episode where they were Howard's dead. And like all this other stuff is happening. Yeah. I was wondering really whether she was going to actually try to go.

through with it more so than whether she would succeed or whether she would pay a price. Like, you know, will her iron will fail at that last second or not. And it seemed like, you know, we'll never know for sure. But she was raising that gun when Mike intercepted her. I personally, I think she would have gone through with it. So the point of that is that the point I'm trying to make about that is that life and death stakes are not the only stakes to put on a show. And you sort of just said similar that there's plenty of other tension and suspense. And I felt the tension, like, I feel the tension so, strongly of the Kim and Jimmy, is this what breaks them question? Like the death of a relationship

question, you know, like watching them on the couch of the beginning of the episode and then on their bed at the end of the episode, like this is my question is like, how much space is between them? In both of those instances, Vince Gilligan did shots over their shoulders of like first Lalo standing in between them and then Mike standing in between them. Like, you know, it makes me think of gentle mild spoiler for Thor Love and Thunder. The hammer sitting between Thor and Jane is they increasingly move further and further apart from each other on the couch.

So that's something that I am tied up and knots over. But what's going to happen down in the Super Lab? I felt like the show expected me to be a bit more tense about that than I was. That being said, shout out to Tony Dalton for dying with like a bloody grin on his face. That was a real thrill for me. Yeah, I definitely want to talk about the grin.

Yeah, I'm actually pretty closely aligned with you here. I wasn't with Andy so much on this episode really answering questions or raising the level of the series so much. I've been pretty in on this season as a whole, despite the somewhat slow pace at time. So it wasn't like, oh, here we go. Finally, it's all coming together. Sorry, I doubted you. For me, this was just sort of more better call solilo, which is great for the most part. But I actually had in my notes that if I had a quibble, and I'm not sure it's a quibble, but this was the first episode in a while where, as you're saying, like the basic plot points were not particularly creative by the standards of Better Call Salt.

Like, Lalo sneaks in through a fan while a guard is distracted, right? Like Lalo takes out all of Fring's guards. Like the Chekhov, Gus's gun comes back into play. Gus does the classic cornered character monologing to stall the villain see. Like in a lesser series, some of that might have seemed lazy and perhaps even in this series or maybe we were just in too deep. It's just that usually we're in so deep and we still don't see it. Yeah. And here we did see it.

Now, maybe I'm giving these creators too much credit, but it felt at times almost intentionally tropey and winking to me like the guard stepping away from the screen for a second and Lalo sneaking in there. Like, that's, you know, like the most, like I could come up with that, right? Like anyone, how does Lalo get into the laundry? Oh, maybe the guard walks away for a second, right? Like, it's not even particularly clever. But it's like there's something almost elemental to this confrontation. Like it has to come down to the two supervillains, Gus versus Lalo. It doesn't even matter that much how we get to that point.

Like Lalo knows down to the minute how long it's going to take Gus's guys to get from Jimmy's apartment to the laundry. Like, he's rehearsed the route. He's map quested this sucker. Like, he knows the directions. He's telling Kim, which turns to take, right? And Gus is a good earner, so it doesn't hurt to have him on the record here spewing his hatred of the salamanca's. And you can see Lalo's face transition from amusement to anger during that monologue. So I think you can justify it sort of on a story or character level there. And we can maybe talk a little bit about the monologue too because Gus can't win a straight-up shootout with Lolo, right? Like, he may have training from his murky past, and maybe he makes use of that here. But as Gordon Smith said in

one of his interviews, it's hard to concoct the scenario where Lalo lets Gus reach down to his ankle and come up firing with the concealed weapon. Like, it has to have been concealed previously just as one of Gus's many contingency plans. And Gus does know that Lalo will be coming for the Super Lab at some point. So it's almost like he has a presentiment of this showdown. And I enjoyed Gus getting to have his Nacho style rant just like let it out, which we don't see him do. He's so buttoned up that he never gets to express these things. And here he's doing it for an audience of one, he hopes, but it still seems cathartic to let it out, especially because he thinks and hopes he's about to remove the most dangerous Salamanca from the board. And also, he saw Nacho deliver his rant.

And he's using that idea because he knows that worked, right? He's using it for his own ends now. And Smith wrote both of those episodes. So that was obviously in his mind when he played this out, too. I love that idea that Gus is like, I know what I'll do. I'll do what I saw Nacho do. Yeah, but it's not just an act. I mean, he is expressing how he feels here, too.

Alan Sepumal, who had a good interview with Gordon Smith, was asking him, do you have, because in the episode, Salude in Breaking Bad when Gustavo eventually does kill Donaladyo he has poisoned Donaldio but he's poisoned himself too and he's busy sort of like vomiting and I think taking an anecdote if I remember correctly he does not get to do the nacho move in that episode right because he's too busy like try not to die right and here too he's left

bleeding on the ground but he gets to deliver the monologue before the bullet. But Alan was asking, like, did you give him this monologue here? It's what he doesn't get to say to Donald Audio and Salute. And Gordon was like, I don't really think about that. It was more about nacho. But that's a good one. That's a good one.

So, yeah, I cannot, of course, fault Giancarlo Esposito's performance here. I saw a couple comments from people who would know who have a better ear than I would that, like, some of Giancarlo's delivery of Spanish in the past has been a little halting and this is sort of like his most fluid and like beautiful delivery yet. And it was kind of a pure pleasure to hear some of these very creative insults in Spanish, you know? Yeah. And unlike Nacho, he doesn't switch back into English, right, for for the theoretical Emmy Real, right? He's staying in the language that they've been using throughout this conversation. Mando didn't, Michael Mando didn't get an Emmy non, did he? Robbed. Robbed. Awful. Patrick Fabian.

Neither of Patrick Fabian. Okay. Anyway. Maybe he submitted himself just lying on the floor as his Emmy reel. I hope it was him like running up the stairs with blown out pupils and like sweaty fake tanner on him. Making coffee with a peace symbol. I'd give him an Emmy for that. Oh, man.

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you've got a real shot at getting it. Get started at redfin.com. Own the dream. All right, the last section we need to talk about here is Mike on the cleanup, right? And this stuff all, like, whatever didn't work for me in the super lab, the aftermath really did work for me.

As we mentioned earlier, Saul is forever haunted now by the specter of Lolo. And you could understand why, because if you put together the pieces of, I mean, you don't even need to do this. But if you do, put together the pieces of the elements of this season leading up to this where you have that sequence where Kim can't sleep because she knows Lalo's alive and she's freaking out. And she doesn't tell Saul. And he's like, boy, man, I am so relieved that we are fine. And Lalo's on here. to the horrifying, and we spent a lot of time on this last time we talked about this, guttering of the candle and basically like Lolo coming in like a ghost, like a demon, right?

And I think Gordon Smith described Lolo as a demon that's been haunting Saul for years. So the fact that the first time we see him in Breaking Bad, and Lalo's the first thing on his mind, despite the fact that Mike has told him that he's dead, he's like, yeah, I heard that one before. Right. And a few years had passed by that point, too. I think that's so, it's so strong. And it's a really smart threading of the needle of the, is he dead, is he not sort of idea?

Because that was the question we were having of like whether or not Lala will survive better call Saul. How much does it make sense? If he is dead, how much does it make sense for Jimmy Saul to not know that? But this is perfect. Like he's been told he's dead and he is dead. But Saul doesn't believe it. And we know why because he's already been through this once and it resulted in one of the most horrific evenings of his life.

So I think that was like touchdown. Perfect. Perfect writing. Yeah, we know that these characters won't be the same with this weighing on their consciences, even if they're submerging that beneath the spray tan and the flashy suits, it's somewhere under there. And we know, as I said, where the bodies are buried too. So it would be hard now to watch any breaking bad scene in the super lab, obviously,

without thinking about Lalo and Howard down there in their eternal embrace. But also thinking about what is buried inside Saul at that point, right? Because those corpses, they're in there somewhere. And maybe we will learn more about what is going on in that psyche here. I will just say before we fully move on from the super lab scene, the grin, which was not in the script, right? There was something in the script about there being an ugly last breath, which apparently Tony Dalton did multiple takes. And that was the one they ended up with. And I love that choice because that's not like a rictus grin.

That's not like a little automatic death expression there. Like that's Lalo still in there in his final few seconds before he fades away. And I love that he goes out with a grin on his face because he almost always had a grin on his face, right? Which didn't make him any less scary. But here in this last moment, I think he's just like, hey, you got to tip your cap, you know? I just I got to hand it to you, Gus, right? Like you outplayed me. The chicken man outman outmaneuvered me.

I had him dead to rights. And yet here I am the one with blood bubbling through my neck on the ground. So like, well played, Gus. You know, just that is the game recognized game moment, I think. Yeah, it reminded me of just an episode ago when he was in the sewer and he's like, clever, clever chicken man, right? Yeah, like, God damn it. So, I mean, good night, my sweet Salamanca Prince.

But I mean, we've lost like the most magnetic screen presence. the Gilligan verse, I think it's safe to say, as well as just one of our finest up-and-coming independent filmmakers, just a master of cinema veritakes. It's too bad that streaming video wasn't available back then because if you could have just FaceTime done a lot of audio, this would have gone down differently. Solve a lot of problems, but I bet you don't get good reception down. Right. Might not have had reception in the super lab.

But I was thinking about the Mike Gus conversation here where Mike says this could have gone down a whole lot different. And Gus says it could have, right? He says that, but it doesn't sound like he means it. It's almost like he sensed that no matter how many precautions he took, it was going to come down to a mono-o-mano shootout here. But also, it could have if I hadn't been me and who I am is the guy who a couple episodes ago make sure there's a gun down in the super lab in case I need it, you know?

Right. Yeah. I think that's a reference just to the prequel premise of the series. too, just the idea that some things are inevitable here and that some characters had to survive, but the whole thing could have gone down a whole lot different, as we know. But we knew Gus would survive, but maybe he just had to do it personally. He has this whole elaborate security setup, the bodyguards and the decoys and the secret tunnels. And the end, he just does it himself.

I want to zoom back to the smile. I did have something I want to say about the smile, which is that it reminded me, I think, because he's in a lab. It reminded me of how Walter White goes out with just with a smile on the floor of a lab. The other thing that I think has really worked so well in this episode is the twinning of how, like, a lot of people, if you run deep in the soul Reddit, by the way, cell Reddit, one of the best places on Earth, honestly. The memes are impeccable. But if you run deep in that Reddit, like Lalo being in the ground of the lab was very popular theory. I don't think anyone had Lolo it plus Howard on their bingo cards, right? Yeah, yeah.

Sevenwall made this great observation that it's sort of like, and Gordon Smith confirmed that this is something they talked about in the writer's room is a great symbol of the two elements of the show, the cartel side and the legal side, sort of being buried down there together forever. And Gordon Smith is sort of like, yeah, we weren't sure if it was like that was too on the nose or if that was fine and we decided to go with fine. But what I love most about that is you've got someone who couldn't be, from Mike's perspective, you've got someone who couldn't be more possibly be more in the game. And then you've got Howard, someone who's not in the game.

Howard's not an innocent, but he's not in this game at all. This is not the game he's playing at all. And we know Mike's code. But in the end, it's going to come for your own audience. And it made me think, you know, Chris and Andy were talking about. the kid who gets shot and how that's such a turning point for Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad. And you and I talked about that moment a bunch in our lead-up to this. What is the too far moment for a character?

But I was thinking about the way that Mike, both that kid and Mike end up getting dissolved in barrels of chemical goo. And that's a similar thing, right? Like Mike couldn't be more in the game. And then this kid couldn't be less in the game. And the moral arc of the Gilligan verse is that it's not fair. And it doesn't matter what kind of code you can cock for yourself or what kind of excuses you make for yourself. It's like Walter built himself a castle of excuses.

Or however you shift the blame, which is what Jimmy and Saul are expert at, right? That Jimmy decides it's Howard's fault that Chuck is dead, not his fault, all that sort of stuff. No matter what you do, this game is so toxic and dangerous that it will just come for you. Yeah. No matter what. That justice is blind, right? It's not a merit death here or there and elsewhere. So I love those two bodies together forever representing that on the show.

Yeah. I was thinking about the burial scene. In real life, according to the insider pod, they were digging on the actual soundstage and apparently getting permission to do that was a very involved process. So I understand why they went with one grave in universe, though. Could they not have sprung for separate graves? There's plenty of floor space there. I actually, I thought for a second when Mike says hold it before they heave Howard in, I thought he was going to say a few words or say actually, let's make a separate hole for him here. You know, because remember, Mike must have known Howard from his

parking lot attendance days. And I bet that Howard was much more polite and considerate about the tickets than Jimmy was. So I thought that all his stickers. Yeah. Like I thought maybe he would give him something here. But no, he just wanted to rob him of his valuables the way that he was robbed of his life so that he could make this tableau on the beach more convincing. He does say easy before they throw him in, right? That's the only special treatment he gets before he is forced to basically hold hands with his murderer forever. So it's a tough, tough exit for our boy, Howard. For in terms of like logistical, real world practicalities of bearing a body, I think the real

question is why weren't the other henchmen who were killed in that gunfight upstairs also just tossed in that grave? Yeah, why not make it a masquerade? Yeah, why is that not a masquerade? Yeah, sure. Why is it a cozy hole for two? Right. I was thinking about that, though, like during the great scene after that, where,

Mike is talking to Jimmy slash Saul and Kim. And, you know, like he's giving them a talking to. He gave Gus a talking to, too, sort of scolding him about going through the laundry with only a couple of guards for backup. But he gives the scolding to Jimmy and Kim, too, kind of like they're disobedient kids almost. Like, he doesn't explicitly express his disapproval, but you can sense it. When he's talking about how they're going to sell the Howard story, there will be cocaine

in the upholstery. That's the story you were setting up for the guy. Yeah, he says it very matter-of-factly, right? So good. You keep telling the lie you've been telling. That's it. It's simple. And you can sense, like, he hates endangering people who aren't in the game.

And while he bears some responsibility for pulling the tails off of Jimmy and Kim, which allowed Lalo to get the drop on them, they bear more responsibility for getting Howard involved in the first place. And you can kind of feel that coming through and maybe that even carries over in to the Saul-Mike relationship when that picks back up in Breaking Bad. But like, this is a traumatic moment for him too. I mean, it's the latest in a line of innocence who have been killed, right, that he has had something to do with like Werner, for instance.

And in that scene when Jimmy looks over at Kim kind of nervously, like he just starts a glance at her because like he has possession of his faculties at this moment, but Kim is kind of checked out. this is having more of an impact on her. And so when Mike is saying, you two are going to go about your day, normal, same as ever, they may be Merrill Streep or Lawrence Olivia in the outside. We know Saul is from Breaking Bad, but on the inside in the short term, oof, I mean, you can't just move on from this and make your 930 appointment, right? So I think the most disturbing thing might be if Jimmy actually puts the Saul facade on in this next episode and Kim can't do it. And Kim can't. And this is the breaking point that we've been talking about, like, oh, this whole time. You know, it felt like Kim is pushing the envelope on this Howard thing, right? Like, Jimmy was a bit resistant. A bit.

He's definitely still entirely culpable, but a bit resistant. And she's like, no, come on. Let's go for it. And you and I, students of story, we're like, this is not going to go the way you think. Kim, this is obviously going to, like, go. Badly, the reaction to how it goes badly is what's going to be key. And we, my memory is that we were of two minds about it because it was possible that, like, Kim would be the one who would just, like, sort of be even further all in and just sort of, like,

whatever. And Jimmy would be horrified. But it makes much more sense that Jimmy, who's already had to solve himself through a number of things, because this audio we hear in this little teaser that aired, I watched this on the AMC app, It aired at the end of the episode that I watched the MCF. My understanding is it didn't air everywhere, but you can find it online. But it's just a little black and white teaser. We've seen similar footage in the season teaser before.

But it saw reciting some of the things that Mike said to him in that Road of Choice's monologue that Ben is loves to quote. When they come out of the desert and Mike, you know, and Jimmy at that time says, like, you know, when will this feel better for me? And Mike says it's different for different people, I suppose, right? So that's the key, right? It's different for different people. Kim and Saul are already on two different reactive trajectories to this. Her at a catatonic state, him already thinking about the plans they have to make the next day. But the audio that we hear of this black and white teaser is Saul paraphrasing the thing that Mike says to him in that model when he says, one day you're going to wake up, eat your breakfast, brush your teeth, go about your business.

And sooner or later, you're going to realize that you haven't thought of it. a thought about it, none of it, and that's the moment you realize you can forget when you know that's possible, it all gets easier. So this is a talk we presume Saul is going to give to Kim in the next episode. And I don't think Kim is ever going to be okay with what happened in this episode, whereas Saul who has already yada yada yada over Chuck's death and yada yada yada over this desert situation, has already sort of chiseled away at his gym. and paste it over this sawness.

And again, that will disturb us now when we watch Breaking Bad. And we know that Jimmy is gone, or at least, as you put it, a corpse buried all the way down deep under the layers of concrete that our saw in that show. And what's possible is what we're watching with Gene is maybe the reemergence of Jimmy, the long, long gestating reckoning with everything. thing that happened, you know? Right. Yeah. And so in this next episode, does Kim take stock of this relationship and look back and think, how did I get here? I am up and coming partner track lawyer, Kim Wexler. Now I am a party to all kinds of crimes and maybe does she turn on Jimmy slash

Saul and decide this relationship is bad for me, bad for him, bad for both of us. Or if that one day that he's talking about where one day you're going to wake up and go about your business, if that's today for him, if he can do that day one, then does that make her see him in a new light, right? Like, who is this guy? You know, how can he do this? Like, how could I be married to this person? How can I be willing to kill someone for this person who is such a chameleon who can just pivot from one situation to the next and talk himself out of anything?

Like, is there any there there? or is he just constantly morphing who he is and submerging his old identity, does that make her walk away? Now, is it walking away or is it something more final? And I guess that leads us into some other theorizing that is out there that is immensely disturbing. We're going to do some prognostication theorizing corner. Again, we know no spoilers. We have to see no screeners. This is not a spoiler section.

This is a theorizing section. I do want to mention one last thing before we go into that section, which is that, you know, For folks who don't remember, the first time we meet Mike, as Ben alluded to earlier, the first time we meet Mike in Breaking Bad, he is giving Jesse Pinkman. He comes and he cleans up after Jane has died of an overdose and Walt just watched her. And he gives Jesse a similar, a very similar pep talk, season two, episode 13, ABQ. Really fun fact about that scene is that that was supposed to be a Saul Goodman scene, but Bob Odenkirk had a, had a, episode of How I Met Your Mother that he had to film. And so he couldn't do it. Priorities. So they brought in Jonathan Banks as this sort of like cleaner character. And then that's how Mike Armentrout came about.

Like that's, again, that speaks to the reactive nature of this show that they were like, well, we can't get Bob. Could have gone down a lot different. Let's get Jonathan Banks. And all of a sudden we have Mike Urban Trout for the next, you know, several years. Yeah. And I will also say before we close, I always appreciate just the range and the variety of tone on this series.

So, like, Mike asking whether they need any toiletries to start their day while their old boss's body is being stuffed into their fridge and lugged out in the next room, like a literal instance of fridging. Like, on the plus side, new stainless steel fridge. So that's nice. But that is just one of many darkly comic moments in this episode, right? Like amid all of the horror and the intensity and everything, you still get Gus being such a considerate boss that he's worried about the shifts of his. Poyos Hermanos employs the next week, which, hey, I mean, you do right by him. He'll do right by you. He's always looking out for his Poyos family.

But it's not just that. It's like wallow-tisking Jimmy's Tope Ford Taurus or like the Gus body dabble, which was hilarious. Yeah. Just like I appreciate so much the way that this series never sticks to one tone because real life is rarely all funny or all sad or all tragic. Right? And sometimes the most sad, dark, tragic moments, you get gallows humor to try to lighten the mood. And that's something that Saul always remembers. It's never a one-note type of script.

So let's talk about some disturbing things. We are cooking up in our brains, right? Yes. As you mentioned, Nacho's dead. Lalo's dead. Our last question mark here is Kim. Our email for the show is Kimwexler lives at Gmail.com. We are hoping to will us into existence.

There's a couple things going on, though, that we want to talk about. Okay, so first of all, when I went earlier today, when I went to look up the future episode titles for this season, on Wikipedia, not necessarily a sterling source of information, but on Wikipedia, episode 10 was listed as Walt and Jesse directed by Michelle McLaren. Michelle McLaren, as we already mentioned, legend. I was like, they wouldn't just put the names Walt and Jesse in the title of the episode where they're going to appear because we know Brian Crasson and Aaron Paul are going to be in this season. I was like, they wouldn't do that, right? And then mere like minutes later, Ben was like the episode's called Nippy. And then I looked up in the Wikipedia, I did not, I swear I did not like dream this. This actually happened.

The episode title is now listed as Nippy and it's on like a couple other, you know, TV concierge website. or whatever. Nippy is significant only because it breaks the X and Y pattern that we've seen this season. Do you have any like theories as to what like the word Nippy could refer to? Maybe it refers to winter in Nebraska. I don't know. It's pretty pretty Nippy out there. Yeah.

Maybe it's the mood, the chilling of the relationship that's going on here. Maybe it's Howard in the fridge. I don't know. It could go a bunch of different ways, but more so than what nippy means, I think, the significance of the switch from the X and Y episode title format. That certainly seems suggestive. The Saul episode titles, you know, because like season one was like Uno Miko, Nacho, Hero, 5o, Bingo, Rico, Pimento. Like, that was season one. And then season two.

Oh, it was like Fring's Back was the anagram of the first letters of the title season two. I just remember we spent a really long time trying to figure out what the episode title Fifi meant. And then I don't really know that there was like a theme of the last two seasons, or three seasons actually. But it does seem significant that this is a departure of the next week's episodes called Fun and Games. And then is episode 10, are we done with the prequel part of things? Is this the bridge interstitial episode? Is this actually where Walt and Jesse show up, but it's called Nippy? And then the last three episodes are in the future in the gene timeline.

We don't know. Yeah. I mean, there's always the temptation to do the close encounters. This means something with the mashed potatoes kind of interpretation with this series. But so often it does pay off. Like in season one where almost all, all but one of the episode titles were one word that ended in O. and then episode five was Alpine Shepherd Boy. It's like, what does this mean?

Well, it turns out that it was originally supposed to be called Jello, but they had to rename it because of trademark issues. So that was all that was. So maybe there's something similar going on here, but you have to think. I know, but I just have to say that like this season where the anagram of the first letter of every episode title, season two was Frings Back.

I was doing a Better Call Callsall podcast at the time when I floated it on the podcast because this was like a theory going around Reddit, that that was like what it meant. And my coes mercilessly made fun of me because they were like, that's the stupidest thing we've ever heard. It could mean anything. It could mean brick fangs. And so I always think about brick fangs when I'm like, no, it's frings back. Like that's what it is and that's what it was. You know, so like sometimes we are making potatoes out of mashed potatoes. And sometimes, you know, we're not. Right. But we do have to shout out this theory, which we saw posted on the Sall Reddit by user Yojimbo 2095, although

apparently it was found by that person on Facebook. So I don't know who the originator of this analysis was. The rabbit hole goes deep here. But there seems to be a pattern of foreshadowing where we see numbers on screen associated with characters that telegraph when those characters are going to die. So we see one of Nacho's lady friends, the less drugged up lady friend, I believe, who has some dominoes stuck to her foot. And she has a six and a three. And as we all recall, season six, episode three, that is when Nacho checked out. And I believe when Lalo visits Margarita's house, she's at number 68. And you see him next to 68. And of course, he exits season six, episode eight. So disturbingly, there seems to be a pattern here, and there's a screenshot in this

thread of Kim. I believe this is at the end of season five, right, where she and Jimmy, yeah, they're shacked up in the hotel, they're hiding from Lalo, and the room number is 609. And she's going out the door that is labeled 609. Now, this was, again, last season. So did they know? They have timed that. I know that this season's episodes were written earlier than usual because of the pandemic and other factors. So perhaps, perhaps they could have known something. And if it does foreshadow an end, is it a lethal end? Does this take us back to the theory about Kim possibly just deciding that she cannot live with herself? And maybe that will then explain the line from Breaking Bad where Saul says, just don't hang yourself in the closet to

Walt and then we see him go back to his car and hang his head and have a solemn moment as if he is remembering someone who perhaps did that. Could that be Kim? Could that be happening here? Or is this, well, a complete coincidence? Or is it just another type of severing of this relationship? It's not death doing them part, but they're going their separate ways. They just decide or Kim decides that they can't be together anymore. Either way, it seems like it could suggest that this will be the for these two. And that's why perhaps maybe with episode 10, we will move from the X and Y to just the one word title because single again, right?

Single Saul. Single Saul. No longer partners in crime. Yeah. So Gordon Smith told undertimically that episode nine is bigger, quote, bigger and better. And to my mind, even more part breaking than this one. Jesus Christ. I have a theory.

It's like a yes and to the Kim suicide theory. He's like, here's the deal. I know we're in the end game. We need to get players off the board. But if Nacho and Lalo and Howard and Kim all die within like, and especially Lalo Howard Kim within like boom, boom, boom, Domino's falling down. Like that's pretty wild to me.

And also, so yeah, so there's this idea, this theory that Kim's going to hang herself in the closet. It's not as hated to me as the Kim Long Con thing, but it's still not a theory that I enjoy. But I had to maybe work around to it because which is we do keep getting these shots of the neckties, right? The necktie cold open. And in the season teaser, there's a shot of Saul presumably in that mansion that we saw in the opener, like in his closet with just like the rafts of ties and the and the suits and stuff like that. And he says like till the heavens fall, justice for all till the heavens falls is what he says.

Right. So what I mean, this is so dark to talk about. But then again, this episode ended with a lawyer and a truck cartel guy in a hole. But what if she, like, tries to kill herself using the neckties or otherwise in the closet? And then he, like, finds her. And then he's just sort of like, she's like, I can't do this. I got to go. Or he's like, you need to leave because this is killing you.

And I can't. Sending her away for the second time in two episodes. Yeah. Throwing rocks at her. Like, she's, you know, Nimerian, Game of Thrones. I never loved you get out of here sort of thing, like going full salt to get rid of her to protect her, something like that. But like the idea that we could sort of like still have that don't hang yourself in the closet line resonate, but not lose Kim in that way. Do you know?

Right. That was sort of a middle ground I was marketing for. That's a pretty good needle thread like the Lalo needle thread. I'd be on board for that. I mean, it's just that there's only so much left in this timeline, right? in this prequel setting, we still have some questions about Kim. We know that Cliff is coming back seemingly that maybe there will be some consequences. And Howard is, you know, probably put on the scene at the apartment before he died.

And Cliff was warned. And I think Howard's wife was warned that if anything happened to Howard, look to Jimmy, right? Look to Saul. Maybe he had something to do with it. So there's going to be some suspicion here. Maybe. And maybe they will be called on the carpet. in some way. But I'm more interested in the relationship between Kim and Jimmy, of course,

and the fracturing there that almost has to come. Doesn't definitely have to come. We don't know that definitively, but you would think that it probably will. Because other than that, there's just not that much to wrap up with the cartel storyline in this setting, right? I mean, I guess there are a couple things. Maybe I like the idea that we learn here that Saul maybe knew more than he led on initially in Breaking Bad and that perhaps he was helping. engineer Gus and Walt's meeting. I mean, he doesn't meet Gus here, but he is pretty tied to that world. And maybe there's more going on in the surface there than we knew at the time or that Fitzgilligan and Peterer Gould know at the time. I also wonder whether Gus is going to tell

Hector that he killed Lalo and that he did it because Hector gave away that Lalo was alive, right? Which is why Hector never looks at Gus in Breaking Bad until he's about to blow him up. I want to know him to know it was me. So I sort of want to see that scene, but there are only so many loose threads to tie up here. And I guess they could go more than one episode with Kim and Jimmy. But we know a time jump and possibly multiple time jumps are coming here, right? And that presumably we are going to see Walt and Jesse. We don't know exactly when that will take place, but that could take place during the Breaking Bad timeline at some point.

Presumably we are going to see Saul during that series. And then presumably we are going to see Gene. and perhaps if Kim is still out there, Kim as well. So how do you want to parcel out the real estate here, right? Like we only have five episodes left. How many personally would you prefer to devote to prequel setting Albuquerque where we figure out how Jimmy became Saul, what happened to this couple, how many would you want to devote to breaking bad time, and how many would you want to reserve for Gene in the

future? I think it's pretty easy, right? It's six episodes total in this back half here. And even though they did not mean to split it this way, that that was a quirk of like Emmy qualifications and all that sort of stuff like that. That's what we got. So if we get 8 and 9 our prequel, 10-11 are concurrent with Breaking Bad, and then 12 and 13 are Nebraska Gene. You know, that I think would be my ideal. And 10-11 are, if 10-11 give us concurrent with Breaking Bad, but like a Rosenkrantz and Gilden are dead sort of like.

here's what was going on with Saul while Jesse in the fuzzy background so we don't have to address that Aaron Paul doesn't look like that anymore. Yep. What were they doing, you know, sort of thing? Right. Yeah, that would work for me. I'm so excited. I mean, look, this is, I think, safe to say, the best prequel ever.

I'm the low man on prequels in general, and I just absolutely cherish and relish this series. So it's been an incredible prequel, but I am pretty excited. for this prequel to provide the last word on this entire franchise, presumably barring another spin-off. So to switch gears into sequel territory, that is just, I mean, I cannot wait to see what will happen. I really can. I guess I can wait.

I can wait an episode or two or three or four because I'm sure that what we get in those episodes will be riveting too. But it's going to be super exciting when we finally flash forward. The last tease I'll give is this. There was a, I think it was a Tribeca right screen. reading of this episode where Tony and Ray and Bob are all on stage talking about sort of, and they were asked about the end of the series. And these are the quotes they gave.

Bob says, A second life, but I don't even know what that means, right? Okay. So something to do with Gene, presumably. Ray says, productive and psychologically disturbing. And then Tony Dalton says,

I'm dead, so who cares? What a mood. What a mood, Lalo. We love you forever. I'm sure he was grinning when he said it. Maybe that's a great way for us to end. We can go out with one more Lalo smile. Sounds good. Please email us. Kim Wexler lives and doesn't hang herself in the closet at gmail.com or just simply Kim Wexelel lives at gmail. We love your emails. We love your insights. So thank you so much for sending them over. Thanks again, as Ben said at the top for your support for us doing the back half of the season. We really appreciate that. And of course, huge shout out to our producer Chris Setton who makes us all sound so polished so beautiful so well balanced he really is the mic germitrout of this uh this podcast so thanks for putting my corpse and Ben's corpse into a great together on this podcast that ran away with me Ben anything else you want to say before we go libel lips hashtag uni-nidlis liele all right bye