Ah, thank you. I’d forgotten about Rebecca.
The real problem with Mesa Verde’s call center plan is that Tucumcari is a horrible choice, location-wise. Other than being a Rt 66 tourist stop with some nice murals and an iconic hotel (the Blue Swallow), it just doesn’t have much going for it. (no offense to any Tucumcarians out there)
Was the bowling ball buying at the beginning a flash forward? If not, how did Saul know that he would get that offer and then want to use them that way?
I believe it was a flash forward, occurring sometime after his meeting with Howard.
Yes, it was definitely a flash forward - it had the same feel as other flash forwards that they’ve done, and Saul was wearing the same outfit that he was for the post-sleep parts of the episode. If it wasn’t a flash forward, then he would have had to wear a particular outfit, buy the (very expensive) bowling balls for no discernible reason, then later go home, take off the outfit to go to sleep, then put it back on the next day for his lunch with Howard and still have it looking crisp and clean. I am quite confident that Saul isn’t going to wear the same outfit two days in a row, he has a ton of clothes (he discussed closet space issues in E1) and wearing the same shirt multiple days in a row in New Mexico heat just isn’t the kind of image he wants to project.
I don’t really understand the bowling-ball throwing scene at the end … is he that pissed off with Howard? Does he want to stress-test Howard’s new Zen mentality? Is it somehow psychologically connected to the beer bottle extravaganza of the night before?
I was also unreasonably nervous that someone was going to come out after the car alarm went off and get whacked in the head with the third bowling ball
That all seemed a little dark for current-stage Jimmy
I think the bowling balls are a setup for something. We’re meant to believe that Jimmy is angry at Howard after their lunch, but he didn’t really give a shit. He was just dismissive of the idea of working at HHM. When Jimmy buys that bowling balls he isn’t acting angry or impulsive; he just casually browses for something heavy and throwable.
I think the bowling ball stunt will somehow tie into whatever scheme Jimmy is running for Acker the grumpy Mesa Verde tenant.
You guys were right - Kim is getting deeper into shenanigans as a lifestyle/business culture.
In fairness to her, she did have another go at finding a legit solution, but it was a long shot. (And given that she was speaking out of turn, and she did force her opposite number at Mesa Verde to call Rich Schweikart about her non-attendance, I’m wondering if there’s going to be some professional consequences for going out on a limb like this).
But when that failed, she couldn’t let it lie. For all the “rules matter, who are you to break them?” speech, Kim is now going outside the rules to get what she wants. It’s the lesson Jimmy keeps teaching her - even in the courtroom scene she watched him pull a fast one, get what he wanted, and skate. Her resolve is weakening.
But if Kim is losing it, Jimmy is throwing it away. (Do we start calling him Saul yet?) The end of last season and creation of Saul was the big cathartic moment when he abandoned any notion of being the kind of lawyer Chuck would even grudgingly approve of and embraced monkey-with-a machine-gun-ism. To have Howard come and offer a path back to “respectability” isn’t a compliment or affirmation, it’s an attack on who he’s chosen to be. He has to believe that there is no path back, and if one appears he needs to dynamite a massive hole in it. Howard, yet again, has tried to help a McGill brother and suffered the repercussions.
Other people who are on the slide include Mike (who is now wounded and lost) and Gus, who is taking out the stress of losing all that money - and risking an important lieutenant - on an innocent night-shift manager.
Coincidentally, my wife and I are binging Boston Legal right now. Over the weekend we saw an ep from the 3d season, in which the William Shatner character is accused of having done that. But that show was from 2006 or so, so I doubt that was what you remembered. That was a fun ep, because they used clips of an old show Shatner had been in in IIRC 1957, as flashbacks.
I wasn’t sure what was going on there. For some reason, I suspected he wanted the manager there as an alibi. But I don’t try to read too much into this show anymore. I know several people think it jam-packed and that it moves along, but to my mind, it really drags.
Thats a man…fucking a horse!
I have to say I’ve enjoyed seeing Barry Corbin again- it seems like its been awhile ! He’s almost unrecognizable except for his voice which is unmistakable.
I wouldn’t say the show is crammed full of action. A lot of what it does is to explore the minutiae of people’s lives and how these experiences shape them. I find it very engrossing, precisely because of that. I find it really gets you under the skin of the characters.
In that scene, I did wonder about the alibi - and that might have been Gus’s rationale - but I think we were just witnessing the control freak in action. Some really important shit was going down - Gus needed his guy to convincingly make it seem like he’d made the DEA stakeout instead of being forewarned, to lose the money, and to escape the dragnet. He was powerless to do anything about that. All he could do was sit and stare at the phone, willing it to ring. For Gus, the ultimate control freak, this situation is unbearable and so he exerts what control he can by bullying Lyle over a fryer - which was, basically, fine.
I mean, this is the other reason I love the show.
Yeah - I know a lot of people say that. I don’t get it, but different strokes…
I coulda done w/o repeated shots of them spitting out toothpaste. I think some of those scenes are - at least in large part - the makers being cute. “What if we shot this one thru the small mirror? Hey, no one else spends so much time on tooth brushing!”
I keep watching it because I enjoy the Jimmy character, and feel the show give some of the most true-to-life (albeit somewhat exaggerated) representations of my chosen profession. (No, not drug dealing! Something even LESS reputable! ;))
Nah, Gus has zero use for an alibi. No one in law enforcement suspects that he’s involved with the drug trade, so no one is going to try to pin down his location. And he’s not a street-level dealer, so even if Hank figured out who he is 5 years early, they’d know he’s the guy giving orders and raking in cash, not the schmuck putting cash into a pipe at 3AM. Lyle would also be a terrible alibi for him, since Lyle is Gus’s subordinate (so his testimony is suspect) and Lyle doesn’t know he’d need to cover for Gus, so would honestly describe Gus’s unusual behavior. For Lalo, he knows for sure that Gus isn’t out there poking around in dead drops himself, Lalo would only be concerned that Gus knew about his scheme and gave orders, that Gus gave orders from his office instead of somewhere else wouldn’t make a difference.
When Gus does want an alibi in BB, he goes to a public place and has respectable people see him there laughing and smiling.
I thought they said their goal was to make Tucumcari a “company town”. So, the call center wouldn’t be the only thing out there in the middle of nowhere.
I was trying to remember where else I had seen him recently. He was an old war vet in an episode of “Young Sheldon”. Sheldon’s mom is tasked by the minister to go check on him since he is a shut-in. He had basically the same bad attitude in that role too.
So I’m sure everyone thinks Mike is in Mexico (almost assuredly due to the “yellow” filter on the camera) but I’m guessing most people think Gus took him there.
I’m thinking it was Lalo on behalf of Hector Salamaca. I think they see Mike spiraling down and want him to “flip” on Gus (or at least get some inside information).
What do you all think?
MtM
Yeah - good points. But absent that, I didn’t see reasons for him acting that way. I don’t have familiarity with him from BB. It struck me as out of character for him to be so out of control as to unnecessarily beat up on a helpless manager.
He’s shown himself to be ruthless and decisive enough. Given his HUGE plans, I would have thought that once he decided upon his course of action, it wouldn’t cause him to act out of character. Instead, he now has an employee of his cover business who thinks his boss extremely unreasonable. Where is the upside in that?
I don’t think it’s in Mexico. There’s a lot of NM that would look the same.
But I was thinking the same thing: that it was Lalo that took him there. He’s the only one who’s been following him (or trying to), and with Mike’s drinking, he’s probably getting sloppy about checking for the tail.
I would doubt Lalo is trying “turn” Mike - more likely just trying to get more info on Gus and Gus’ plans.
Every time they show the chicken restaurant, I marvel that thus far, we haven’t seen anyone’s head forced into a vat of boiling oil. For that, I am deeply thankful. Gus’ lackey slaving away in that kitchen certainly dodged a bullet.