I loved how they had Saul tell Mike “with a mustache like that he clearly isn’t making good life choices”. Then cut to Gene, in the future, wearing basically the exact same mustache as early-BB era Walt.
I don’t think those were all that popular in the mid 2000’s. However, a case this big, that ended with a dead DEA agent, dead cartel members, the collapse of a huge part of the meth industry (and think about all the tweakers going into withdrawal) and the remaining major players mostly disappearing, could certainly have ended up on 20/20 or Dateline. I could see Jeffie’s mom learning about it that way before a podcast. And to loop in the laptop, maybe she uses it to look up the old Better Call Saul commercials (as a fluke? because she notices similarities between him and Gene?).
OTOH, if that was going to happen, I’d have thought Francesca would have mentioned to Gene that journalists have been contacting her for an interview. I have to assume that if someone wanted to do an expose on Walter White, at some point they’ll want to track down Saul Goodman, which would almost certainly lead them to Francesca.
As noted earlier, the program producers posted an “American Greed” episode featuring James McGill:
IIRC, Lambert was the name Walt adopted when he went into hiding in New Hampshire. When he comes back to Albuquerque and stops at a Denny’s on his birthday, he shows the waitress his fake ID for the free meal, and she calls him as Mr. Lambert when she says goodbye.
Which also happens to be Skyler’s maiden name.
That does work. But it’s not the only cover a person could have for being on a neighborhood street.
For instance, he could have worn running clothes (and actually run or jogged) so anyone seeing him would assume he was getting some exercise. Or he could have been riding a bike (though that creates the same problem the dog does–he has to bring either one of them onto the mark’s property).
It’s not any kind of a big deal; it just seemed needlessly dangerous to have the dog in the house. It might have been startled by some noise outside (a passing vehicle, say) and barked. Or it might have left physical evidence of its presence (a dark mark in the hallway, for example, if you’ll pardon an impolite reference to dog anatomy).
Two episodes left. They’re not going to be able to tie explanations of ALL these little odd bits into the finale, are they? (Which makes me think: maybe the dog was purely an invention of the writers created to keep online speculators such as ourselves busy and away from more pertinent elements of the episodes…)
Toss one of those coupon magazines on everyone’s porch and people would just assume that’s all you’re doing, plus it would give you the excuse to make your way all the way up to the door.
That’s really good! And you’d think the writers would have thought of it…which makes me more suspicious that the dog will actually turn out to matter.
Well, we shall find out before too much time has passed.
For all the time, money, effort etc production would have had to put into the dog, it almost certainly comes into play at some point. Had he just walked down the block and into the house, with out the dog or any other ‘excuse’, we wouldn’t have given it any thought. On top of that, I imagine most people’s minds instantly went to the fact that all it would take is the dog barking to blow his cover.
Plus, what happens if any of these people notice dog hair or even paw prints if the dog stepped in any dirt/mud/water while outside? What happens if one of them has a dog or cat of their own?
Part of me wonders if it was a decoy, designed to be noticed. Maybe another local criminal has a dog and the police would go pick him up first, buying Gene some time. But that seems like a bit of a stretch.
That would have made one hell of a Better Call Saul/Only Murders in the Building crossover episode.
The dog was necessary to the plot, though. Its barking alerted Jeffie’s mom.
I found this episode really depressing.
That doesn’t mean it wasn’t good, or that I didn’t enjoy watching it. The flashback parallels were brilliant, the character work by the first and last marks drew me in, I was of course throughly intrigued by mention of Kim.
But… he’s on the slide again, isn’t he? I had really hoped that the “Get a lawyer!” yell betokened a Gene who had some capacity to care abuot others and that this might strengthen over time. But very much no.
Clearly, Gene was only ever meant to be a temporary identity. He had planned to lay low, live his empty little life but then emerge from exile by accessing his funds and doing… well, we don’t know waht, but presumably not keep being Gene or anyone like him. Possibly it involved Kim as well, because he did immediately call her - and didn’t hear what he wanted to, to put it mildly.
So the mask slips, he goes right back to scamming people for money (however scared he was by nearly getting caught last time, he clearly wasn’t scared enough) and not only that but starts making bad decisions even within the context of doing crime.
The flashback parallels tell us it will end badly - don’t get involved with amateurs, don’t be greedy, it’ll end in tears. I have a very bad feeling about Jeffie’s mom’s likely fate. Not necessarily dead, but bereft, impeverished and stripped of her dignity all seem like quite likely, given the record of people who get involved with Saul when he’s on a tear.
But the dog wouldn’t have been necessary for that. They could just as easily gotten her attention by knocking something over or had her overhear Gene yelling. Also, while we don’t know what her normal sleep schedule is, she was still awake, they could have just had her moving around the house and happen to look out the window and see them or notice something going on in the garage.
To paraphrase, sometimes a dog is just a dog. If the animal matters, then it’s going to bark at the wrong time, or attack at the right time. Me, I’m going with barking.
So what’s the current timeline as to how long ago he went on the run? It’s past November 2010, when did he flee?
From what I can find, he disappeared sometime between 3/15/2009 and 9/4/2009 (it might be more specific, but that’s as far as I dug into it).
So, 12-18 months.
The dog is shown to be exceptionally well trained. He leaves the dog near the entrance so he can get some warning in case anyone shows up, giving him time to cease the searching for and photographing documents. “I was walking my dog and noticed the door to this house was hanging open, so I went in to see if everything was OK and found this guy passed out. We should lock up his house and let him sleep it off.”
Much less suspicious than a jogger - what criminal in his right mind would break into a house with his dog?
I still like my idea that she wants in on the con. Not that she won’t still end up in a bad way…
Agreed. And if people desperately need every detail to mean multiple things, then we can draw the connection to the non-existent Nippy, alerting Carol Burnett that maybe Gene isn’t really a dog loving good guy, he’s a “get this fucking dog out of here” jerk.
It was when it was in the house, but it’s the same dog that (potentially) blew their cover when it wouldn’t stop barking causing Jeffie’s mom to see what was going on.
But this is in a show that has taught us that nearly everything has at least a meaning. Other than the scene with the dog barking by the garage, it was barely even acknowledged.
I’m a dog person but if I’m on the lam and discussing what went wrong with my latest victim at 3am, I’d be pretty annoyed by someone else’s dog barking up a storm and waking the neighbors.