But he literally came home and gave Kim that speech about how “back in the day” he would have been pegged as a badass and people would have left him alone. Up to this point, he didn’t ever have to worry about staying safe from muggers. He was the mugger, dangit! Especially after he got his new tracksuit and everyone including the biker dudes were showing him respect, he wasn’t thinking he had to worry about anything.
He’s not Mike. He’s not considering every angle with precision and 15 ways to react to an unknown. He’s Slippin’ Jimmy! He goes out there and does the razzle dazzle and slips away into the night.
I think it just really never occurred to him that the mugging could be a consequence.
Jimmy doesn’t really need the money from selling the phones, he’s going into full on ‘Slippin’ Jimmy’ mode because it gives him a thrill and keeps him from having to think about what happened with Chuck and what will happen with Kim in the future. The point of him going out there wasn’t to make money, but to make himself happy. He did worry that some of the sketchy characters would attack him - he clearly had second thoughts about approaching the bikers, but after he successfully sold them he was cocky and riding the high of success while he hung around eating that last hot dog. He wasn’t unaware of danger in general, but he had already overcome what he thought was the real dangerous crowd and dismissed some stupid kids who had already disrespected him.
They have established that Jimmy is doing weird out of character and self-destructive things. He does that strange over-the-top “I’m so happy, it’s your cross to bear” bit when Howard says he thinks Chuck’s death was suicide. He successfully gets a nice easy job, then turns it down and insults the people who offered it to him. He comes up with the straight burglary sceme (which is out of character for him, he usually does scams) and when Jimmy presents it to Mike he actually comments that Jimmy is not behaving as himself. He turned down the CC Mobile job and then lied to Kim about it, then talked his way back into it. He has avoided therapy, even though he clearly needs to talk about his situation, as shown by him having a therapy-style conversation with the probation officer who just wants a short answer to fill out a form. Also, Jimmy specifically says that in his younger days he would have either spotted that the kids were a danger or they would have realized he was ‘one of them’ and not knocked him over, so the show doesn’t treat it as ‘this is how Jimmy has been all along’.
FWIW, that laundry probably has an electrical, building and fire inspection at least once a year. They likely also get a plumbing inspection and it’s possible OSHA waltzes through from time to time.
Of course, if he’s doing this in such a way that the employees don’t notice it, the inspectors probably won’t either.
The laundry is (to the outside world) currently just an empty building. Does OSHA come and inspect non-operating businesses? I’m skeptical…
One minor thing that jumped out at me this episode is the power of costume and makeup. Howard looked like a fairly normal human being. But… we’re used to seeing him look absolutely perfectly coiffed and impeccably dressed. The man can wear the heck out of a suit. That made him look like a nearly unrecognizable wreck.
They have employees coming and going every day, deliveries coming and going, chemicals getting delivered, they’re using water, electricity and gas. Steam is being expelled out the top. How would that go unnoticed? Even if it was supposedly an empty shell, either taxes are being paid on it or the city would own it.
Also, isn’t the laundry a legitimate business? It’s being a tax paying business that triggers all the inspections. Unless things are different in NM, most (all?) business have a number of annual inspections the year.
Yes, I liked that he was actually wearing a fairly ordinary black suit, but because he’s usually wearing something much nicer and more distinct (“Hamlindigo Blue”) he seems grossly underdressed and on the verge of a breakdown.
I don’t recall seeing any of that in Better Call Saul, when have they shown the laundry building active? It was active in BB, but that’s five years from ‘now’. My impression and I think Max’s, is that Gus bought a laundry facility that’s not currently active, and is going to do the super lab construction before he actually has it actually handling laundry. That doesn’t contradict anything we’ve actually seen so far, and makes more sense than trying to run a secret construction project while a regular business operates.
I think you don’t understand what “conspicuously” means – it means attracting attention. You can’t say they were conspicuous but not suspicious. Side by side suited and booted and trying to look badass, immediately I would be on guard, and if there’s anyone nearby I would say: “hey look at these two guys”.
Then, after the first two guards are dead they walk the remaining distance to the building slowly, with no attempt to conceal their weapons. Why walk slowly at that point, apart from Rule of Cool?
And you haven’t addressed the hand movements thing like slowly lowering the guns, what the logic for that?
It was established in Breaking Bad that it was more important to the twins to be/look cool than to do things in a sensible way. Marco has Hank wounded and helpless on the ground, but decides it will be cooler kill him with an axe instead of shoot him, giving Hank a chance to kill him after he goes to his car to retrieve it. After going to great lengths to disguise themselves to sneak over the border, they keep their trademark boots which allows them to be recognized. And after slaughtering a truckload of migrants after being recognized, they set fire to the truck, making a huge smoke beacon which will attract attention from 20 miles away while they slowly walk away on a dirt road.
The twins are badasses, but they are also dumbasses, which is why Nacho says “Fucking Salamancas!” when they decide to attack the Espinosas by themselves.
Of course, this is a family trait. Hector and Tuco are a lot bigger on brutality than brains, which makes them ultimately no match for the likes of Mike, Gus, and Walt.
I think you, like a lot of people on the dope, don’t understand really basic English but like to issue false ‘corrections’ for god-only-knows what reasons. Conspicuous means attracting notice. Suspicious means arousing distrust, that is making one feel that something dangerous or unusual is happening. Those are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS. Sometimes a conspicuous action may also be suspicious, sometimes an inconspicuous action is suspicious. For example, if on a typical Saturday Billy Bob the Texan strolls into the bar wearing a ten gallon hat and fancy suit with a hearty ‘Howdy Ya’ll’, and begins slapping the backs of people he knows while asking how they are, that is highly conspicuous behavior, but there’s nothing suspicious about it since it’s what Billy Bob usually does. If this particular Saturday Billy Bob walks into the bar wearing a bland baseball cap and nondescript clothes, then his behavior is much less conspicuous than normal, but highly suspicious as it’s abnormal.
The twins were walking from the car to the motel in a highly conspicuous manner, wearing their suits and boots and striding like they belong there. That is the normal way that they operate, however, and so doesn’t raise any suspicion that they’re about to knife the guards and shoot everyone in the building rather than just showing up to do some kind of business. If they were dressed abnormally (for them) and slinking around while scanning all around for possible threats, they would be less conspicuous but more suspicious.
And that concludes this season’s required pointless English usage argument.
No one, especially me, asserted that the twins are entirely logical in literally every movement that they make, and making a character who has a logical reason for every single gesture would be rather odd. What I disagreed with is your assertion that they act as though they know they can’t be trivially shot in the back by some random mook, and neither walking to ambush people nor lowering guns slowly after a firefight is over are indicative of such a belief. Incidentally, walking while sneaking up on someone generally makes more sense than running, since running makes more noise and has more possibility of tripping.
The twins have never been to the motel before (because Nacho describes the set up to them), so the guards may not know who they are or “the normal way they operate.” They should be highly on their guard with two tough looking guys approaching with a large bag. They may not expect an attack, but you would expect them to at least challenge them before they got so close.
At this time the laundry is clearly inactive. The large washers are there, so it formerly was a laundry, but is at the moment abandoned.
In Breaking Bad I always wondered how they found a laundry with a huge concrete bunker below it. Obviously the writers are acknowledging how unlikely that would be, and are going to some pains to detail how it might have been constructed after the fact.
This is what I was thinking. We know that the cartels have access to people who can build things, look at some of the real-world history of tunnels, drug processing plants, and all the various smuggling schemes. If Fring tells the cartel bosses he needs a few people to build him something, they for sure have a list of skilled people they already trust. Just tell them he’s building a secret warehouse, instead of a drug lab, and all the engineering makes sense. Once Fring has the room built, he finds his own people to move in the equipment, and the cartel has no idea he’s built himself a super lab.
It also provides some cover for the building of the lab if someone does notice. They’ll clearly need some work done to re-open as a laundry, and “upgrading the foundation” seems like a plausible requirement for that, considering the size of the equipment they use. You’d rather no one noticed in the first place, but if someone does notice, it’s a believable story.
I would expect the guards to recognize the extremely flamboyant enforces of the absurdly violent drug gang they operate right next door to, especially when those enforces have enough of a reputation that a random kid crossing the border can recognize them in a chance encounter. The Salamancas are not exactly a quiet bunch, and they’ve obviously interacted with the Espinosas before since they each have defined territories who’s borders they respect.
And I would certainly not expect them to challenge the cousins before they got so close. If they’re so dumb and lax on security that they don’t recognize major, flashy Salamanca figures then they’re just not on the ball at all. And if they do recognize the cousins, then they know that they’re members of another gang who are under the cartel and who should resolve any disputes with them through higher ups, and doing some kind of challenge as they approach just looks weak. Plus they just had some of Fring’s men visit with either a gift or business for them, and Fring’s men may well have told them that the Salamancas would be doing something similar to get them to let their guard down, so it’s not even unlikely that they were expecting Salamancas to turn up with drugs for them.
I’m pretty sure he’s not going to tell the cartel bosses anything - he doesn’t want them looking into his warehouse as a resource, or Hector getting pissed and tracking dog poop into it to make a point (metaphorically speaking, since we know Hector’s physical recovery will be limited). I’m pretty sure that’s why the engineers he brought in spoke French and German rather than Spanish, he is recruiting criminal people who might be willing to work with the cartel but aren’t part of it. (And another reason to not hire the talkative French guy).
Maybe, but the twins behave as if they believe they are invulnerable. I don’t care how big a badass you are, attacking a stronghold of another gang with almost two dozen defenders (which they know from Nacho) without the slightest attempt to reconnoiter or plan is simply idiotic.
There were about 20 ways this could have gone badly, and in the real world virtually no chance an attack like that would have gone well.
But the twins are illogical in almost everything they do. They have the common sense of rabid honey badgers.
Yeah. I did expect better of Jimmy (despite the ‘long time since he was Slippin’ Jimmy’ facts of the matter, as posted in this thread.) I wasn’t actually yelling at the TV during that scene, but I did address a couple of out-loud “what the hell do you think you’re…”-type remarks to Jimmy as he sashayed around that parking lot.
There’s the obvious significance of the movie being known as a very romantic one. Not quite a chick-flick, but approaching that status–making Jimmy’s invitation to Kim a definite ‘let’s have your kind of evening, darling’ type of self-sacrifice. So her saying ‘no, gotta work’ would be doubly frustrating for him.
It’s also possible that the writers are going for something specific to that movie, to be reflected in an upcoming BCS plot. One thing that occurred to me has to do with a major plot point of the movie, which I’ll spoiler:
A major theme of Doctor Zhivago is that the star-crossed, tragic love of the main protagonists results in a child. Could there be an upcoming story-line in which Kim gets pregnant?
Could be a long shot. But with these writers, you never know.
It wasn’t a coincidence that we opened with the flashback to where it all went wrong for Saul. We saw the panic, we saw the absence of any meaningful relationships, we saw the literal destruction of everything he’d built. Yes, he had a sack of money - but that’s going to the vacuum repair guy and all Saul will be left with is a Cinnabon gig, an empty apartment and lifelong fear of both legal and criminal retribution. How does a guy end up like that?
Well, by making more bad choices than good ones. Jimmy is directionless now, and it seems like it doesn’t make much to push him one way or another. He starts drifting towards criminality; that goes wrong so he has a moment of reflection on where he is in life and decides to get the help he needs rather than try to recapture Slippin’ Jimmy; then sees Howard clearly suffering despite regularly seeing a good shrink so decides to blow that off; and ends up attaching himself to a fantasy about getting back to work with Kim and then showing them all, godammit. Which is the wrong motivation for the right choice. By the end of the episode it’s clear how vulnerable Jimmy is to his bad impulses, and how dependent the good impulses are on the presence and influence of Kim. Jimmy at this point in his life doesn’t have the internal resources not to make the bad choice when it’s offered to him. Hence both the rise and fall of Saul Goodman.
We always knew Kim and Jimmy had a limited future, but I think this episode has really started the clock ticking on that. Not by giving us a literal timeframe but by emphasising that after losing Chuck, the next major event in Jimmy’s story is losing Kim.