Margaux and I bid farewell to a damn good season of Better Call Saul.
Trevor: It’s amazing to me – and we’ll talk about this more later – how one AMC show could so badly bungle a season-ending cliffhanger while another gets the formula so right. A lot of that is due to Better Call Saul being a straight-up better-made show than The Walking Dead – this is one of the most talented groups producing anything right now. With “Klick” it really clicks – terrible pun not intended – that this is no longer Vince Gilligan’s sole vision of New Mexico (even though he directed the episode). This is as much Gilligan’s show as it is Peter Gould’s, or Gennifer Hutchison’s, or editor Skip MacDonald’s, or composer Dave Porter’s.
Margaux: Or their editor, Kelley Dixon, who hosts/moderates their wonderful Better Call Saul insider podcast. Fun fact, Kelly’s assistant editor now works on Fear the Walking Dead and Gilligan usually teases him about it, asks how the zombie’s are doing. I just want Gilligan to adopt me already. But that’s different thinkpiece all together. Anyway, this fucking episode broke my heart in two and then kicked me in the fucking kidney. I think, beyond Saul being the top of the tops in terms of a producing/directing/writing/acting, the main difference between this show and Walking Dead is that AMC doesn’t own Better Call Saul – Sony or someone else does – and AMC just distributes it. It does always confound and astound me that these shows are, all things being equal, are on the same channel because “Klick” is how you finale.
Trevor: It sounds obvious to say that the finale was the culmination of everything that came before it, but I feel the urge to say it anyway because finales are screwed up at an alarming rate nowadays. Where “Klick” really succeeded was its focus on Chuck and Jimmy, as their cold war escalated to the point of no return. We saw a glimpse into what could have made Chuck resent Jimmy so much, in that devastating cold open, but we also saw how right Kim was when she said that Chuck is more or less responsible for Jimmy turning out like he did. Better Call Saul is both a prequel and a spin-off, two incredibly difficult things to pull off; any other show would likely screw up the introduction of a never-mentioned brother, but BCS has made a compelling case for Chuck being part of the fabric of Jimmy’s DNA (literally and figuratively).
Margaux: Chuck has proven to be an insane, manipulative asshole in the final moments of “Klick.” And apart from the whole “Gimme Jimmy” commercial that was unveiled, I feel like we can see the sliver of Saul’s becoming and it’s very exciting, and also, very very very deeply depressing. Like Ernie intones to Jimmy in the hospital when Jimmy asks Ernie why he covered for him at the copy shop, “he (Chuck) just really has it out for you”. Seeing things from Chuck end, from the story he spins Kim about their father’s convenience store to the passing of their Mother, Chuck’s resentment and bitterness towards Jimmy truly fuels him. It’s kind of disturbing how much Chuck hates his own brother which is just such a polar opposite of Jimmy, who is for all his faults, is a warm and caring person when you push past his Jimmy shit. I’ve said it before in reviews, and I’m an old so I’ll say it again, the things Jimmy has sacrificed and the way he’s taken care of Chuck I am one hundred percent sure Chuck wouldn’t ever do the same for him. Chuck is so scared Jimmy will lock him away in a mental institution because that’s EXACTLY what Chuck would do to Jimmy. Wipe his hands fuckin’ clean. It’s gross and sad.
Trevor: That’s a very good point. And what’s equally sad is how much collateral damage this war is causing. Kim is getting some, as is HHM; even Ernie laments that he misses the mail room. No one is going to come away clean, and it’s that level of anticipation that will make the wait for season three more bearable. Better Call Saul gets you excited about the prospect of good storytelling. It’s one of the least flashy shows on the air, which is deeply ironic considering how Saul dresses.
To pivot just a little bit, how are you enjoying Mike’s one-man war against Hector Salamanca? I could watch Mike be clever and intimidating all day, and that scene of him aiming a sniper rifle at Hector was almost unbearably tense.
Margaux: That was the most menacing car horn I’ve ever heard. I watched Mike track down the source of the sound through my fingers, and even though I know Mike isn’t going to die on this show, it sure felt like he was. While he was camped out, waiting for his moment to snipe Hector, I half expected someone to sneak up and choke him or worse. And it wasn’t even all that clear who Mike had in his crosshairs, at a point, I thought he was going to shoot through Nacho to get to Hector, and the entire time I was like, “HERE IT COMES, THE WHEELCHAIR IS PREPPED AND READY.” The creepiest, most unsettling thing was Nacho’s very simple message to Mike: Don’t. Like, HOW DID HE KNOW?!
Trevor: I love the unlikely ally that Mike has made in Nacho, and I love how BCS goes out of its way to show us how damn smart Nacho is. I’d watch a whole show about those two, but since Nacho never showed up on Breaking Bad, I think we can consider the clock ticking on him.
You’d think a prequel would have trouble with tension or dramatic stakes, but Better Call Saul did such a good job with characters like Kim, Chuck, and Nacho that now the tension is derived from wondering what will happen to them, because after twenty episodes we really care about these people.
Margaux: Similar to People vs O.J. Simpson (bear with me here), we all know how that trial turned out, yet they managed an unbelievable amount of tension and high stakes. The whole time during the jury deliberations and verdict reading, everyone held their breath like, “what will the verdict be?” and Saul shares so much of that from the standpoint of, you can’t rewrite history, but that doesn’t mean you can’t become emotionally invested in ways you didn’t know. It just speaks to the entire team’s commitment to treat this as if Breaking Bad is still unwritten, and if the characters don’t what’s going to happen, you buy into that and go along for the ride with them. You’re discovering with the character and that changes and raises the stakes not only for the audience, but for the actor as well. And I’ve heard a shocking amount of viewers of Saul haven’t necessarily watched Breaking Bad.
Trevor: That’s very well put, and makes me realize that I would totally watch Saul even if Breaking Bad never existed (I also realized that Breaking Bad would be the absolute weirdest sequel to Better Call Saul).
So: let’s talk about the ending. It was one of those quiet “holy shit” moments that this show excels at, and once Jimmy comes clean about the forged documents your stomach drops because you realize he just walked right into Chuck’s trap. And the scene even tells you what’s going to happen: Chuck and Jimmy both refer to Chuck’s house as a cage.
Margaux: Wow, good point about both McGill brothers referencing Chuck’s abode as a cage, it was definitely a McGill brothers mental cage match. But oh my, that was serial killer levels planning, deceit, and gerrymandering. Chuck isn’t crazy, he’s just a fuckin’ asshole; I probably wrote Chuck is a prick/asshole/piece of shit in my notes more than I took down actual notes. I was shocked (and mildly impressed, he did just get out of the dang hospital with a concussion) at the puppet mastery, the lengths he’d go just to be right, to ruin his brother out of nothing but spite. And the way he played Jimmy like a fuckin’ fiddle was heart wrenching. So hard to watch, and even harder to think about because it forces you to remember every single domino Chuck had to set up for this incredible fall (or shove) of Jimmy. And for what? Revenge? Jimmy didn’t do a good thing by doctoring the Mesa Verde address, but what Chuck did was worse. It’s your worst fear, someone you love using what they know of you to incriminate yourself. Because, law? I don’t know Chuck is a monster.
Trevor: Chuck preyed on Jimmy – that’s the only word I can think of to describe it. He used Jimmy’s love as leverage. Jimmy isn’t as willing as Chuck to throw in the towel on his brother, and Chuck used that to his advantage. It was disgusting and shameful – but like you said, very smart. That’s almost worse. Not the level of anger or selfishness, but the level of planning and commitment. It ended Better Call Saul’s second season in the best way possible: blunt, tragic, bleak, and quiet. This show doesn’t need flashy finales. We didn’t need a buildup to a Negan character – hell, if this season had a villain besides Chuck it was Hector, and he just casually entered the show to have coffee with Mike. The level of confidence on display is truly astounding. Gilligan and Gould know they have a great story, and they trust and respect the audience enough to take their time with it.
Margaux: No one had to have a bat to the dome to make this finale just as, if not more so, tragic. Like you said, the willingness to give up on someone like that is a total gut punch, especially because Bob Odenkirk does play Jimmy a little like a Golden Retriever, he just wants to please. Chuck used it all against him because: asshole. And nothing is more depressing than an asshole who will die alone.
Okay, now that we’ve got the sad stuff out of the way, I want to engage in a little fun speculation. There has been chatter about Ernesto either being a proxy or directly related to Gus Fring, from his demeanor to his name to Ernie’s attention detail. They usually portray Ernie in the shadows (to be fair, it’s because we see him in Chuck’s house most of the time), but he also has a touch of Jimmy to him – the whole mail room thing. Been meaning to bring this up to you, thoughts?
Trevor: That’s interesting, for two reasons. One, I hadn’t heard that theory, and I dig it. Two, I read that if you rearrange the first letter of every episode, it spells FRINGS BACK. Granted, we didn’t see Gus this season, and that seems like something Gilligan and Gould would do to mess with obsessive fanboys and girls, but it’s definitely fun to speculate. On the one hand, BCS has done such a good job establishing its own universe; on the other, it’s pretty necessary to see how Mike went from cop to parking lot attendant to muscle for a meth kingpin. I think Gus would be a natural fit for the show, and I’d be surprised if we didn’t see him soon (I’m surprised that we got Hector, honestly).
See, Walking Dead? This is the kind of speculation and dot-connecting you want people to do when your show’s not on the air, not breaking down the finale frame by frame to see who Negan killed. Sorry to keep coming back to that, but “Klick” was so goddamn good. You want to talk stars?
Margaux: Such a relief to review a finale that doesn’t make you want to scream, or worse, makes you not care about the characters. “Klick” was the most devastating episode so far in Better Call Saul and I’m sure will not be the last judging by the way things are left. The show is so confident in its storytelling and has accomplished so much, yet hasn’t gone overboard with too many cameos of ghosts of Breaking Bad past – it tells you all you need to know each week. It felt like the end of the season snuck up on us, but I don’t think any amount of prep would of shielded you from that shrapnel of this finale. We’ll be licking those wounds till the premiere next year.
We sort of did star rating last week for the season and episode, any drastic changes of heart?
Trevor: Nope. This season started out strong, got better somehow, and gave incontrovertible proof that Gilligan and Gould are just way the hell smarter than us.
Margaux: Also, I want to nominate Rhea Seehorn as MVP of this season, she K-I-L-L-E-D IT. SOMEONE MAKE THAT WOMAN A STAR ASAP. KTHANXTILLNEXTSEASONY’ALL.
“Klick” score: 5/5 stars
Better Call Saul season two score: 5/5 stars
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