I think the level of security is actually wildly inconsistent - on one hand they go through the trouble to quarantine the engineers in a warehouse with a security ‘airlock’ and 24-hour monitoring. On the other hand they have the engineers seeing the name of the laundry, wandering through the laundry while workers are still busy, and now hanging out in a strip club in town. If they kept the security super high the whole time then it would work for me, but they seem to have a weird mix of over-the-top, spare-no-expense measures sometimes, and half-assed ‘lets just rent out a strip club downtown’ at others. I would have a much easier time buying it if it was consistent, whether it was paranoid over-the-top or ‘eh, whatever’. Also the security isn’t really needed for the police, Gus’s big concern is keeping the lab secret from the Cartel, since he needs to keep their noses out of it until the BB era.
I agree, the inconsistency is a significant flaw. It’s a shame, because I would enjoy seeing them maintain the initial level.
They definitely spent more than Jimmy typically does. The lawyers were $1000-$2000 for the time we saw (more if they did real work), the tableful of phones was probably another $500 (Jimmy gets them for $20 apiece when he buys by the pallet), the film students were probably around $500, the website would probably be another $500-$1000 (you need someone to build the website quickly, register the domain, and host it on a real provider), bus ticket is probably $500 round trip, then whatever they paid for materials and bus people to write cards. So that comes up to around $5000 pretty easily, but $10-$20k seems a bit much.
I don’t know about that - Kim covered more bases during the scheme, but Jimmy’s schemes usually only involve him, a trusted partner, and interested people, so there really aren’t a lot of loose ends to worry about once it’s over. Mike and Pryce were the only ones who could tell anyone about Squat Cobbler, for example, and both of them had strong reasons to never reveal it. His various schemes with Marco and Kim only involve that partner. Huell certainly isn’t going to reveal anything in this case, but the film students, website guy (someone created, registered, and arranged hosting the website), and people from the bus could all talk. There’s an awful lot of people who could blow the lid and don’t have strong incentive to stay silent. This is definitely an expansion in scope for Jimmy.
I think that the film students have been in on enough of Jimmy’s schemes of questionable legality (the slip and fall at the music store, unauthorized filming at the Air Force base, etc.) that he considers them trusted partners. The website guy doesn’t need to know about the scam, all he might know is he was approached by someone to set up a fundraising page for some church.
The people on the bus - I don’t think that was in Kim’s plan, I think Jimmy improvised it when his hand started cramping up. He also went overboard with the number of letters - Coushatta has a total population of just under 2000 and six Baptist churches. Subtlety is not Jimmy’s strong suit. Kim probably wanted a few dozen letters and the threat of a busload of parishioners showing up in Judge Munsinger’s courtroom.
Doesn’t surprise me at all. In a place like ABQ any foreigner is a novelty, and those guys may well have been in construction. Even if not, an older guy who knows his stuff is interesting. There’s a tendency to assume a foreign person is someone important.
Telling Werner he’s in ABQ may well be the slip that gets him killed. Mike’s not going to like that.
Yep, just dumb. Mike knew that Kai at least wanted more than a dance.
I don’t think we’ve heard the last of that ADA. Jimmy’s fingerprints are on every one of those letters.
The Kim story line completely surprised me too. Which is what I love about this show. I can usually see things coming but these guys continually catch me off guard.
I still think Kai doesn’t make it. No way would I trust him to keep his trap shut. And I foresee him getting worse rather than better.
Snatching that earring was so gross. When Nacho was in the front chair he hated those tactics.Now he has all the stress, and certainly nothing about his home is providing solace. He’s got everything he thought he wanted but nothing that he wants.
Shoulda said “mudbugs.”
Ol’ Kim gets hot for the con!
Well, they’ve also let them see the name of the laundry on the van, the license plate of the laundry van, any newspapers or flyers left by workers in the laundry building, the name of the strip club, and probably more. If they’re trying to keep them from knowing where they are, they’ve already failed pretty badly. (And this is what I mean about inconsistent security).
Well, this wasn’t the first of her either - I pointed out a while ago that she was the one trying to prosecute Tuco when Mike changed his testimony with Jimmy representing him. So regardless of whether she figures out that the letters are fake, I think she’s going to be back as a foil for Jimmy and Kim in some capacity.
What I like is that they don’t do it in a cheap way, the surprises don’t contradict what we know of the characters or come completely out of nowhere. We’ve seen that Kim enjoys scams throughout the series, she’s just been averse to the risks and trying to live legitimately. It’s not like they decided to have Howard or Chuck suddenly join in one Jimmy’s tricks, or have Mike decide he likes Cracker Barrel.
Werner talked about how much he misses his wife back home, said this is the longest he’s been away from her, and made plans to tell Mike a story once this is over. I think he’s a goner. Talking about loved ones is setting you up for the pathos!
This show loves doing that to people.
So I think we’re seeing the seeds of the end of Jimmy and Kim’s relationship. He’s a very bad influence on her. You could just see how utterly bored Kim has become with her banking law work - it can’t hold a candle to the excitement and adrenaline rush she’s getting from pulling scams with Jimmy. She may even become more reckless than Jimmy. He seems to be an opportunistic scammer - only pulling a scam when an opportunity to do so lands in his lap, or when necessity seems to require it. Kim wants to go looking for another one just because she gets off on it. That’s really dangerous.
She’s either going to get caught in one of these scams (maybe the last one - I don’t think we’ve seen the end of that DA) and be disbarred in the state, or she’s going to realize she’s destroying herself being with Jimmy. Either way she eventually packs up and leaves the state, and Jimmy, behind. That’s my guess anyway.
I also suspect that Gus is going to solve the German engineer problem by having them murdered after the project is finished. Or at least, by having the foreman murdered because he’s shown a willingness to blab about a ‘secret’ project. That will be the incident that eventually causes Mike to ultimately betray Gus.
As for the Nacho storyline - Having a Salamanca stooge show up to take over is an interesting development, but how it plays out will depend entirely on Gus’s reaction. Gus thought he had solved his Salamanca problem by putting Nacho in charge, since he ‘owns’ Nacho. Having another Salamanca show up throws a wrench into that, but killing him could be bad news with the Cartel, since this probably has the Cartel’s blessing. So Nacho is really caught between a rock and a hard place.
Why are you expecting that? Mike doesn’t betray Gus in BB, Mike kept loyally working for Gus until Walt killed Gus without any help from Mike. He beat the crap out of Walt when Walt tried to get him to conspire against Gus, and even laments how Walt destroyed the ‘good thing’ they had going once it’s over. If you expect him to betray Gus in BCS, how do you expect him to end up working as a higher up for Gus when BB rolls around?
I’ll bet Mike totally loves Cracker Barrel!
Gus has anticipated this eventuality. He told Nacho to rest & that he wasn’t done yet. I expect this will be a substantial part of the next season (assuming there will be another season). I think it is safe to assume that Lalo is dead by the time of BB because Gus tells Hector that he (Hector) is all alone, that he (Gus) has killed everyone, even Hector’s grandson.
I loved seeing Crazy 8 sitting in the front chair. He looked absolutely terrified… especially when Lalo was in the kitchen. Even if we don’t know much about Lalo, it seems clear that Crazy 8 knows all that he needs to know about the guy.
It was announced that there will be a fifth season.
Gah. It’s been too long. I thought Mike had turned on Gus at one point, but I guess not.
Makes sense.
Could be, yes. (I just found Bob Odenkirk’s voice to be very distinctive, and accent-quality aside, thought the ADA would recognize him…but I’m happy to drop the subject. Show-world isn’t real world.)
Yes, indeed.
Yay!
Anybody else think Jimmy’s Louisiana accent was reminiscent of his Senator Tankerbell character from Mr. Show?
If David Cross doesn’t have a cameo on this show at some point, even if it’s just for two seconds, I’m going to be really disappointed.
Yes, Jimmy and Kim got away with their scam (which was her idea), but what does it do for her reputation in Albuquerque legal circles? Certainly word will spread about the kind of clients she represents. Not really the sort of clients one expects from a respectable attorney, especially not one in the banking business.
This whole thing is “Mr. Show”.
So she’s doing some pro bono work at the assignment of a judge, and really couldn’t turn it down. BTW, I think here willingness to do whatever it took to win was more a reaction to the DA calling her boyfriend a “scumbag disbarred lawyer” than any real desire to help Huell.
It’s a good thing no one in the DA’s office knows how to use WHOIS:
Obviously the date in the TV show wouldn’t have been 2018, but it would have only been a few days before the “save Huell” campaign. And this isn’t a “save Huell” website; this is the church website, so presumably it would have existed long before Huell’s legal issues.