I thought there was an interesting parallel with the law firm’s talk of a corporate jolly, and the Germans’ need for R&R. If this was a sitcom the season would culminate in a farcical skiing trip, with lawyers racing against covert builders.
I did think reactions to Jimmy’s drunken boorishness at the law firm party were perhaps unrealistically stuffy and disapproving. Jimmy wasn’t the only one drinking, and you’d think the firm’s boss, or Kim, would have the charisma to fend off Jimmy’s teasing.
Obviously Mike is creating the impression of not speaking fluent German, that much is obvious. I just believe his German is much better than those conversations would suggest.
Re Kim’s office party. It did cross my mind that Jimmy realizes that his relationship with Kim is sputtering out, that his lifestyle would drag her down, that she is more at home with these ‘respectable life’ people, having a lucrative career, doing noble lawyer things on the side. So he acted like a boor - saying something stupid - insulting her boss to drive that point home to Kim, to save her from himself?
No? He really is a clueless boor?
Because I always saw Jimmy as being more clever, more in tune, better at reading people and situations …
Yep, it’s not good enough that Coati Hector is alive – Gus wants him to suffer and he wants him to know that he’s the one torturing him.
BTW - I heard some talk on TV that Don Eladio once said he spared Gus’s life because he knows who Gus is, and warned him that he “isn’t in Chile anymore.” And one time Hector mockingly called Gus “Grand Generalissimo” … maybe implying that Gus had connections to the Pinochet regime.
If anyone wants it, I have the recipe for Gus’s Chilean seafood stew - Paila Marina.
And this has been driving me crazy. Please, what is that rocking machine on the floor, a button nearby, at about 1:27 in this collection of opening titles?
The story, laid out in the official podcast, of how they commissioned the music for that opening montage (an incredible piece of cinematography in its own right) is truly astonishing. I’ve never heard of anything that elaborate being done for a TV show before. The music coordinator is spot on when he talks about putting in incredibly hard work to make something look easy.
Jimmy has been shown repeatedly to be a really boorish person when he’s emotional and not putting on a slick front. In past seasons there was the rant at the PD woman when he was getting paid once for three defendants, the blow up at Mike when he didn’t have his parking validated, various rants at Howard before he realized Chuck was behind things, then rants at Chuck, the Bingo breakdown, the F&M scheme, and more that I’m forgetting. In this season we have the blowup at the copier guys, “you’re a shitty lawyer but a great salesmam” speech, and even the rant at the cop before Huell screwed up. His reading people skills are mostly good for sales or finding marks for scams. He’s gotten shut down trying to get Mike to engage in schemes and conversation multiple times and doesn’t seem to understand how to relate to Mike at all. I’m pretty sure he thought he did well in the scene where he was ‘cleverly’ spying on Gus’s operation in Los Pollos Hermanos for Mike.
But let’s not forget that before the Aspen scene, Jimmy was shown to very skillfully schmooze with various guests at the party. Then he just had a “fuck it” moment.
Now we’ve seen it, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense, at least to me. The level of security at different parts of the transfer seems wildly inconsistent.
When the Germans are boarding the van (which is indeed windowless) at the warehouse, they are careful to have them board inside so that no one can see them, despite the fact that they are in the middle of nowhere. (They are, however, going back and forth in daylight, despite the fact in the last episode they said they would be working at night.) Yet when they arrive at the laundry, although they are again careful to avoid exposure to outside witnesses, they casually troop right past all the laundry workers. Now I don’t care how incurious you are, you’re going to wonder about what’s going on if it’s continuing for months.
I agree that the laundry workers are unlikely to report anything to the authorities, especially if they are illegal. But they are likely to gossip to family and friends. “You won’t believe what I saw at work today!” is always a hot topic. And word getting to the authorities isn’t the only problem. If the cartel gets wind of it they could put two and two together. (It’s no secret that Gus owns the laundry.) Now maybe they consider that one of the laundry workers blabbing is a small chance to take. It still seems to me to be a loose end when you have a multi-million dollar investment at stake.
In Breaking Bad, it always struck me as implausible that they didn’t care at all that the laundry workers could see that people were descending below one of the washers. Even when Walt let three of them into the Superlab itself, they apparently sent them back to Mexico rather than shutting them up permanently. (If Walts’ actions had resulted in three more innocent people getting killed, I’m sure it would have been shown even if Walt were informed differently.) But that was just a couple of guys in regular clothes, not seven guys dressed like coal miners.
I was also disappointed that they missed the chance to play Hi ho! Hi ho! It’s off to work we go! instead of Big Rock Candy Mountain as the Germans filed in, although maybe that was too obvious.
If Mike were hiding the fact that he understood Kai’s insult, when Werner gave him a phony translation he would have said “Thanks for the compliment!” rather than “Bullshit!”
ISTM, you are really asking too much. When we assumed that the laundry wasn’t active, a single truck arriving every day was too risky. Now that we see it’s active, laundry workers seeing stuff is too risky. The fact is that major construction like this is inherently going to get noticed by someone. The only real solution is having a decent cover story if the wrong people notice.
I reckon Mike is canny enough to recognise facial cues and Werner is canny enough to pick that up. There’s no direct evidence, just a conversation that serves to indicate to both the Germans and the viewers that Mike’s German is poor is a good cover to show that he’s been understanding it all the time as a reveal later. Or not.
If I recall correctly, the laundry workers in BB were Guatemalans who were bused in daily from someplace - when Jesse bribed a few of them to go downstairs and clean the lab, Gus told Walt that they would be taken back to Guatemala. After seeing the arrangements for the German workers in BCS, I would guess that Gus had some sort of less restrictive but similar security setup for the laundry workers - maybe a dorm set up well outside of town.
A massager you say? I must’ve missed that BB episode. You wouldn’t believe the exotic ideas my gang came up with … especially with the button being on the floor. Thanks everyone.
Yes, Pantastic, I take your point that Jimmy has a temper - and I’ve enjoyed each funny and witty blow-up - but he wasn’t really showing anger at the office party. He came out of Kim’s glossy new office after pacing it off and realizing that the one he was going to offer her is pathetic in comparison. (That the life she is carving out for herself is much better than the one he is planning.)
So he walked back out to the party and joined a conversation about the upcoming work retreat. He suddenly drew a smiling crowd with his charisma and showmanship as he challenged Kim’s boss (who wasn’t smiling) to go bigger. “Fly everyone to Aspen. You’ve got the money, right?” Jimmy does this under the guise of being facetious, a fun riff … but Kim sees the spite, and is embarrassed.
Yes, maybe he was a little drunk, and maybe a little sick and tired of trying to fit a mold of what others - Chuck and Kim - want him to be.
