I assume that it does. Were we shown differently?
I’m not really sure about that. The motivation was to trap Jeffie in mutually assured destruction. I mean, this was microscopic potatoes compared to what he was doing in BB.
I can’t remember the end of BB. Does Saul/Gene still have boatloads of cash stashed away, or did he lose it all somehow?
Yes. We were shown the store manager opening it the next morning. Jeffie stayed in the restroom all night since he was locked in.
So why wasn’t it rolled down when they were robbing the store? I don’t recall being shown any reason for that. Was it that mark the manager saw on the floor, that she wanted the cleaning crew to attend to?
What makes you think it wasn’t? Did we see scenes during the robbery that showed that entrance? I don’t think the spot where Jeffie slipped was there. It is a very big store. I only watched once so maybe I missed something. But I’d say Gene probably made sure in his plans that Jeffie stayed away from the mall entrance so he couldn’t be seen in case someone walked by.
So Jeffie came up from the loading dock inside the store, and was inside the store the whole time? Okay, it looked as though he was moving around the mall corridors, but maybe I was mistaken in thinking that.
I found “Nippy” to be brilliant–among the best of both BB and BCS.
As mentioned by hajario, the ‘cab driver plot’ did need to be resolved. The way it was done here we were not only entertained (a heist–and one that could have gone wrong for Jimmy/Gene, as aurora_maire pointed out), but we got a full picture of Jimmy’s state of mind. And state of soul.
Everyone viewing, probably, knew that the ‘manager sees scuff mark and calls for floor-polishing’ scene would impact The Heist. And that Jimmy would have to deal with that impact.
So the way he deals with it is to play on the sympathy of the security guard he knew to be a decent guy who would give him (and not the camera-monitors) his full attention.
And to play on that sympathy, he told the truth about himself. About the way his life had turned out, and how little he had to show for all his efforts to find happiness. Devastating.
We need to know this about Jimmy at this “Gene” stage of his life. We need to know it to make sense of whatever ending his life will have (or whatever the end of the series implies that ending-of-his-life will be).
Every detail of this teleplay contributed to achieving this revelation about Jimmy: scamming Jeffie’s elderly mother; playing Jeffie and his friend into a corner so that they couldn’t constitute a threat to him anymore; working the security guards (and moving the outright-hostile one to actual warmth).
The dialog–and acting and direction–all perfection. Look at the way Jimmy/Gene fakes it with the older security guard during their first interaction: Jimmy knows nothing about what turns out to be the guard’s enthusiasm (Cornhusker football). With his con-artist talents, he’s able to fool the guy. But then he does his homework, so that on subsequent visits, he’s more knowledgeable than the guard.
The whole episode was amazing. And where we go from here is going to be enriched by our new understanding of how soul-sick Jimmy really is.
Isn’t that where he slipped? Hey, would that make him “Slippin’ Jeffie”?
He was hidden in the crate and delivered to the loading dock. He got out of the crate after getting the text from Gene. He loaded the crate with the stolen goods and then hid in a bathroom stall until the store opened. He left the store through the front entrance. He was in the store the entire time of the heist.
So I wonder what trouble Jeffie got into while he was living in Albuquerque.
I’m hoping we get more Carol Burnett.
I think I mentioned this before, but the key art for this season from AMC shows Gene putting a Saul-style jacket back on. So unless that’s just a fake out, it’s a hint of where this is going.
I would guess it was about more than a motivation for mutually assured destruction. I mean, a lot of the Gene flash forwards seem pretty much designed to show how humdrum his life is — mall Cinnabon manger, tedious repetitive manual labor, getting stuck in the garbage bay, drinking alone, rewatching the tapes of Saul’s glory days. He’s itching to get back in the game. We’ve seen a moment or 2 of Saul bubbling back up like the scene where he yells at the thief in the photobooth to lawyer up. Also, during the Jerry/Garry/Larry/Terry cinnamon bun montage, we see a close up of the “SG WAS HERE” graffiti from season 2.
I think all we have seen is a bandaid box filled with diamonds. Maybe there is more, maybe not. He doesn’t seem to have a problem when the vacuum/disappearer guy says he is going to charge him double the normal price to get him out of Omaha which would be about 250 large.
A big part of the BB Universe themes is that crime is addictive. Walt started making meth to pay for his cancer treatments, and put away some money for his kids in case he died. There’s an episode where he literally does the math on how many batches he needs to make, to make sure his kids have enough to get through college without taking out loans.
And then there’s Kim, who after getting a taste for small scams, goes all-in on destroying Hamlin’s life for fun&profit.
So yeah, Jimmy falling off the wagon, so to speak, and getting back into crime just fits.
Bad Santa did it better.
I thought it was a great episode. I like that it was a stand-alone ep and -it appears- reached a full resolution.
My thoughts and observations.
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This is the third time they’ve used a guy running at full speed and taking himself out. In Breaking Bad Season 1 (?) one of the drug guys was making an escape and runs right into a tree. (It’s the one where Walter detains him in the basement and later discovers that a large swath of the broken plate is missing.)
When Ted is being held captive in his house, he makes a break for it and then trips over a rug and winds up in traction.
And now Jeffie. I dunno. I think the writing team should have come up with something they hadn’t already made use of twice before. -
Carol Burnett was great. At the end, I was expecting her to reveal either that she was aware of the scheme the boys were running / had run or that she knew that Gene was Saul or at least more than he was letting on. The fact that she was standing and not using her motorized chair led me to think something was afoot.
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I was expecting at least one piece of a colorized shot to appear. When Gene was looking at the shirt and tie combo at the end, I was expecting that -just the shirt and tie- to go to color briefly and then fade back to black-and-white. Maybe that’d be a bit too clichéd.
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I like the thoroughness of Gene working over the guards but was thinking, sheesh, who can eat that many Cinnabons without getting sick of them. I also thought that Jeffie was going to run into the maintenance guy cleaning up the spot rather than the slip and wipe-out.
Kind of a cool idea, but it might also invite comparisons to the little girl in Schindler’s List; don’t know if the BCS producers would want that kind of thing!
If we’ve learned nothing else through both of these series, we know that Vince Gilligan seldom does the expected. I don’t see him pursuing the heist any further, since Jeffie has effectively been silenced and that storyline is resolved, although he could pop up at the end in some sort of cops/Saul scenario, where Jeffie trades his knowledge of Saul’s whereabouts for a light sentence after being busted for some other petty crimes. I’m hoping the last ep will end with Walter and Jesse walking through his door, but, as noted, Gilligan is a sneaky git.
A nice thing about the way they wrote the heist plot is that it would be plausible for it to go either way from here. The store really could just write off the losses and have nothing ever come of it. Or, if someone really decided to dig into it, it’s plausible that the scheme could be uncovered. Or, Jeff could just decide to turn Gene in, if circumstances change.
Eh. People who use motorized chairs can stand. They’re usually more for helping people move - for people who can’t walk long distances, or even short distances (like from a parking lot to a sidewalk). If you can’t stand at all you typically are in a wheelchair. If you saw Carol Burnett’s character take off walking down the street instead of using the scooter that’d be strange. But if you saw her walking to the mailbox, it’s perfectly normal.
As a stand alone episode I really enjoyed this. It had a lot of the elements that make BCS stand out - elaborate criminal schemes, Jimmy/Saul/Gene using charisma and hard work to manipulate marks, lengthy montage, crisis-enforced improvisation, and well-realised secondary characters.
As part of something bigger… I literally don’t know. It didn’t seem, as @minlokwat said, to set up anything else. BCS and BB are very good at giving you a sense of what the overall season plot is - but now, I don’t know what we’re working towards. Is this about Gene becoming Saul again? Something redemptive, as hinted at by the “Get a lawyer” outburst? Finally facing his many demons? In a way it’s refreshing that there’s no plot armour, as @aurora_maire says but equally it can feel a little directionless.
I know what you mean here but I didn’t read that as being sincere. It was very reminsicent of how Jimmy landed Chuck in trouble with the insurance provider - in his meeting with the agent, he had a big breakdown about how he’d screwed up his career and his relationships, in which he just happened to mention that Charles McGill was delusional. Cue insurance company removing coverage, Chuck’s hearing etc. etc.
It seemed like a really heartfelt breakdown! But it was in service of a scam. And Gene’s breakdown was the same. Is he only capable of genuine introspection in the context of manipulating other people? Can he even distinguish between genuine emotion and manipulative performance? Is the con the only way he can even cynically express his true feelings?
This does tie in with @Horatius point about crime being addictive - lonely Gene with his empty life is crying out for interaction and stimulation, and what other outlet would he allow himself?
Speaking of no plot armour, it would be really interesting to see one of Jimmy’s schemes fail. Not nearly go wrong and be rescued by some desperate/hilarious tap-dancing, not screw up other people’s lives, but actually just bust wide open leaving him bang to rights, nowhere to run, no chance of talking his way out, just caught flat footed and red handed.
