Yup, that was a pretty cool Easter egg. I wonder if they’ll start incorporating that Better Call Saul tune that Junior Brown did?
Not a whole lot directly happens in this episode, but a lot of stuff is set in motion.
Jimmy got his legal license suspended for a year, which makes sense - even if Chuck is crazy, Jimmy did kick in a door and has done some other shady stuff. Jimmy is going to have to find other income for the next year, but doesn’t want to shut down the law office or fire Francesca. I think Saul Goodman’s advertising is going to lead into some interesting shenanigans, and I think Jimmy is going to find that the Saul Goodman character fits him for more than just one set of commercials. Also we may have been wrong about Jimmy adopting the name because McGill gets too tainted, Jimmy really seemed to enjoy his Saul Goodman persona, though he was a bit embarrassed by it. Looks like Kim will keep her practice in the same space as Saul Goodman for a while.
I don’t think Hamlin was messing around with Chuck. He went in as gently as possible, with an expensive present and soothing words, but him saying “You’re at a crossroads” was not just small talk, if Chuck was an employee this would be the final warning speech. I’m sure he’s reviewing the partnership documents for HHM and getting ready to get rid of Chuck if needed, even though Chuck says he’s done with Jimmy. And Chuck’s pay phone expedition makes it clear that he’s not done with Jimmy, though I have no idea what he wants the doctor for. I think Rebecca is going to end up saving Chuck’s life from whatever crazy scheme he has, though it’s likely she won’t want to talk to Jimmy any more.
Nacho is clearly dissatisfied with his position, he doesn’t want to push his father into the drug trade but he has little choice now. I think that will be what pushes him into doing something against the cartel. Him taking the capsule that Hector dropped is obviously significant, I I think he may be responsible for the stroke that paralyses Hector (possibly by poisoning the capsule). I thought that Nacho asking for a 6th brick was a scheme of his own, that he was going to take five to Hector and sell the last one on the side. Something with the Hector and Nacho situation is going to get Mike working for Gus.
That’s more of an Archer thing.
So, yeh, it looks like Nacho will be precipitating Hector’s stroke in an attempt to take him out of the picture and protect his dad. That’ll be interesting to watch unfold.
A brief but endearing scene between Mike and his daughter-in-law. Looks like Mike got bit by the handy-man bug, though now I can’t help wondering if he’ll be hiding a body underneath that playground and concrete in the near future.
Jimmy’s montage segment was hilarious. That had to have been all Bob’s improvisation, right? And I was getting huge whiffs of Mr. Show watching his Saul Goodman commercial. I can’t wait for more commercial-making shenanigans.
Cloning makes a mess, and that’s how you get ants.
Maybe he’ll help Gus build the super lab, Gus does need someone who can do construction but won’t talk…
Hrmm… or “supervise” it.
Also, was that chili powder the cocaine was buried in Gus’s truck? Probably to throw off any DEA dogs, but I still couldn’t help but think of Jesse’s secret ingredient.
I’d guess it’s the same as the spice mix they use on the chicken, so if any of it falls and gets spotted it just looks like a container of chicken spilled.
Huh, I took it quite differently, although I’m far from certain about my interpretation. I initially thought, right after Howard left, that Chuck might be about to take his own life. But then when he held the battery, I thought he was indeed trying to go for a “new beginning” and was attempting a homemade version of graduated exposure therapy. After all, Jimmy’s trick with the phone battery proved it was a psychosomatic condition, and Chuck is as rational as they come in terms of his conscious mind–so I thought he was grappling with his condition being psychological rather than physical.
So I figured Chuck decided he wants to come back to HHM strong, and throw off this condition that he now believes is psychological. Therefore, he went to call a psychologist or psychiatrist he used to go see (perhaps to deal with depression after his divorce). I’m guessing this psychotherapist had tried to deal with the beginnings of Chuck’s electricity anxiety in a psychological manner, but Chuck insisted it was a real physical malady and stopped seeing her.
I had assumed it was coffee, for the same purpose as you are speculating–although apparently it’s a myth and those dogs are unstoppable (which actually makes me wonder how they managed it before Mike’s stunt).
If Chuck wasn’t secretly plotting against Jimmy, why the weird risky walk past neon signs looking so crazy homeless people shy away from him? He could just get someone at HHM to make the call (he should have a new errand boy soon), or use a phone at the office if he didn’t want to tell details to someone else. The only reason I can see for him to endure the torture of electrified streets at night is that he doesn’t want anyone at HHM to know he’s even making a phone call, and the best reason for that is that he hasn’t given up his vendetta against Jimmy. It’s possible that he’s super-embarrassed about seeing a shrink, but at this point that seems kind of a weak motivation for him.
That’s one of the myths where I don’t think they handled it in an unbiased manner, because they didn’t want to give advice on breaking the law. There obviously are ways to get drugs past drug dogs, but ‘coincidentally’ none of those methods were tested, and I’m positive if they did find one that worked they wouldn’t air it. Same with the ‘fool a breathalyzer’ myth they tested, they obviously weren’t going to broadcast a ‘get out of jail free’ card for drunk drivers.
Good point.
I grant your point to some extent, but why grip the battery? Why call a doctor he used to see, saying he needed to see her right away? How could any of that work for a plot against Jimmy? And why the urgency? He was willing to wait weeks for Jimmy to break in, but this plot must begin tonight?
And I think his “I’M NOT CRAZY!” outburst on the witness stand suggests that he may well be super embarrassed about seeing a shrink.
Or maybe he’s really ill, crippled with anxiety, and he’s actually calling for help.
Isn’t that more or less the same as what I said? 
As someone who has suffered from anxiety on and off, I can say Michael Mckean’s depiction is spot on.
Scratch the supposition that the doctor he called is a shrink. He asked for Dr. Cruz, who is the ER doc who twice appealed to Jimmy to have Chuck committed, and on the second occasion persuaded him to do a lesser medical power of attorney type deal.
Dr. Cruz was always sympathetic to Jimmy, and was essentially in an adversarial role to Chuck: although she would of course consider herself sympathetic to him and just trying to care for him the best she could, she always seemed to have little patience for his high-minded lawyerly preachiness.
So I don’t really have a theory any more, but I still utterly fail to see how this could be part of any plot against Jimmy. I guess we’ll see!
The critics, too, have different takes on Chuck’s actions after Howard leaves.
Alan Sepinwall of UPROXX:
Donna Bowman of AV Club:
Fascinating.
Okay, I found a pretty definitive answer in an interview with the episode’s writer on the AMC website. I’ll spoiler it and refrain from discussing it from here forward now that I know what she had in mind:
Q: Chuck is also committed to making some drastic changes. How much did Jimmy’s stunt (or the embarrassment of it) open Chuck’s eyes?
A: After the end of Episode 5, Chuck has his so-called “breakdown,” and I do think he was profoundly shaken by that moment in the court room. It’s the very first time he’s even considering the idea that his illness might be a mental condition and not a physical one. We see him slumped down on the floor, and he really is terribly broken. I don’t think we’ve ever seen him in that state of mind. He starts to play around with holding the battery and almost tests himself to try to understand how it could be in his head. That is what ultimately propels him to take that journey out of his house and make that phone call. I love that sequence so much. He’s calling for help, and it’s a heroic moment for him. He’s so full of pride that the idea that he could actually admit he was wrong and needs help is a huge moment. I feel very grateful that I got to write that moment and see it happen. It’s a big turning point.
Q: Did this plot bring up new discussions in the room about just how real Chuck’s disease is?
A: Absolutely. We knew we were going to have Chuck explore the fact that this may be mental. Once we made that decision, we took it from there and tried to find a way to portray it in a realistic way for someone like Chuck. It’s very interesting because he’s got a tremendous work ethic, and he’s very precise, and you’ll see those qualities come into the way he’s handling this journey to get better.
Obviously this did not come through as clearly to viewers as they intended.
I’m impressed with the Saul Goodman appearance. I can see how he’d be able to transition it from advertising sales to possibly something else to being a lawyer, without anyone really going “Hang on, didn’t you used to be Jimmy McGill?” - most of his clients would have died or forgotten about him by then and even judges and police officers etc would be thinking of him as Saul Goodman by that point too.
Also, the acting in this show really is superb.
That’s how I read it. Chuck knows he really needs help, but with no more Jimmy and no more Ernesto to take care of him, he really is on his own.
Except, like someone pointed out, it’s not a shrink. I thought I was misremembering, but he called the medical doctor who treated him in the ER, not a psychiatrist or psychologist, so his motive isn’t that he’s embarrassed about calling a shrink. The problem with the writer’s quote you posted is that it doesn’t contradict Chuck plotting against Jimmy; yes, Chuck is seeking help, but he’s deliberately keeping it secret from Howard, and he’s not going to a doctor that could really treat his condition, but a doctor that was involved with Jimmy.
If he was going to some shrink he used to see it would be different, but I think that him enduring anguish to secretly contact a doctor that he saw once and who has a strong connection with Jimmy points strongly to him still plotting.