Jimmy McGill is back on the case on this week's Better Call Saul. My thoughts on all the shrouded judgement, alligator skin, and the (sigh) squat cobbling are after the jump.
We are finally making some good story progress in this second season as Jimmy begins work at his new firm and Mike ties up some loose ends. My one quip with last week really was that it was kind of a retread of what we had in the season 1 finale as far as character development goes, but I loved the interactions between Jimmy and Kim. We got more of that this week as their implied romance got even more explicit with stolen kisses and playing footsies during important meetings. I thought it was all incredibly sweet and delightful, which just makes me all the more nervous seeing Kim give Jimmy the cheeky "World's Second Best Lawyer" travel mug.
Breaking Bad fans fondly remember Saul having a "World's Best Lawyer" mug as one of his iconic desk objects and it has made brief appearances on Better Call Saul already. When Kim gives Jimmy her version of the mug, Jimmy proudly displays it in his cup holder, which later is shown to not fit in his new car. Jimmy obviously has a great deal of affection for Kim, and vice versa. I am predicting that this is 100% going to be the final icing on the cake for Jimmy's transformation into Saul Goodman. It is obvious that Kim will not fit into the life that he is creating for himself. Even though they care for each other deeply, they will not fit together for the long haul. As hinted by the final scene of episode when Kim chastises Jimmy for falsifying his pie sitting video with Wormald (more on that wonderful mental image in a second), there is most definitely some heavy fallout on the horizon. At some point, I hope it is not soon, Jimmy and Kim are going to reach a breaking point to their happiness together and Saul will rear his head permanently. Same as it was with Breaking Bad when we finally reached the end of the series and witnessed Walter White's downfall, Jimmy's "death" is going to be absolutely heartbreaking. It is going to be extremely hard to witness, possibly even more so than with Walter. I feel more sympathy for Jimmy than I do for Walter, so it is going to be all the more emotional and painful at the end of this series. Now it is just a question of when this will all go down.
I am sure this fallout will also feature more Chuck, who has already played his part in the creation of Saul Goodman. The new implications of the lights being turned off whenever he enters the room are completely fascinating. When before it was a sad representation of the mental illness that no one will have the courage to acknowledge, it is now a literal darkness for Jimmy whenever Chuck comes along. They both become shrouded in moral ambiguity and judgement of each other that is impossible to shake. I am still not sure where this resentment of each other will lead, but it will be nowhere good. It may quite possibly lead to the next reason why Jimmy does something morally questionable.
We also got more information to how Saul and Mike will be together after Jimmy's downfall. Mike finally had to deal with the not-so-bright Wormald and make sure their police tail goes away. Seeing him track down Nacho at the upholstery detailing place was impressive and I loved the dialogue between the two once they got some privacy. Mike is slowly becoming that fixer that fascinated us so much in Breaking Bad. It eventually comes to an amazing scene where they recruit Jimmy to wave the detectives away with the false explanation for why there was a hidden area in Wormald's house. Not only did this show us more evidence for how Jimmy is so good at the con game, it gave us the absolutely outrageous dialogue about "squat cobbling". This was all absolutely hysterical and the fact that the detectives still wanted to see proof of these fetish videos was too much for me to handle. This was probably the funniest scene in the show's history so far. Once we see more of Saul Goodman's rise, I really hope we see more scenes like this with Saul improvising his way out of tight corners with his signature snark and crassness. This was quite the stand out. And back to the former topic, the fact that Kim was more disgusted with Jimmy faking evidence than with the prospect of having possibly ingesting some "squat cobbler" is really telling of where their relationship and this show are going. This is going to be quite the ride.
Grade: A.
Better Call Saul airs every Monday night on AMC.
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