(Editors note: Sorry this is going up late. It was a busy few days and sometimes real life gets in the way.)
Margaux and I say farewell to another excellent season of Better Call Saul.
Trevor: I know we say this at the end of every season of Better Call Saul, but hot damn, does this show work well in a macro sense. Don’t get me wrong, I love the individual installments (like last week’s “Wiedersehen”), but when you get to the end of Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould’s slow-burn storytelling (not to discount writers like Gennifer Hutchinson), it’s always exciting, and dreadful, and kind of awe-inspiring. This season didn’t end with anything as big as Chuck’s suicide last season, but the way Jimmy uttered those four words in the last scene – or was it a name? – made my stomach drop. My final note just reads “Oh god.” So obviously, “Winner” checked a lot of boxes for me. How did it work for you?
Margaux: Obviously, “Winner” was never going to be “Lantern,” but it does feel like we’re finally seeing the repercussions of Chuck’s death affect Jimmy in the way I expected, the birth of Saul. As a whole, and with a bit of hindsight, it feels like we could’ve gotten here sooner. But it’s not to deny how satisfying it was. My biggest gripe with the episode is, where is Nacho?!
Trevor: Yeah, I’ll give you that; maybe the show’s biggest weakness is that sometimes I want it to be all about Nacho. We got a brief glimpse of him, but of course that’s not enough. He was sidelined in favor of the Lalo vs. Mike battle of wills, which I found enthralling. You’re never going to get the drop on Mike, but Lalo is a formidable opponent, and he’s kind of like a bizarro version of Mike. Since it seems like we’re heading that direction, you want to talk about Mike and Werner, and one of the most heartbreaking shots in this history of the franchise?
Margaux: Heartbreaking, and also one of the most gorgeous shots in all of Better Call Saul, and that’s really fuckin’ saying something. I think the Werner of it all didn’t work as well for me as I’d hoped. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed seeing Mike’s crisis control protocol, seeing him deathly calm under pressure. Working the poor nerd at the money transfer spot with his sob story of his foreign, diabetic brother-in-law was an inspired way to gain his trust. It was also a nice juxtaposition to see Lalo and Mike’s incredibly different approaches to uncovering information. When Lalo can’t get the same retail worker to cough up the security footage, this asshole CRAWLS THROUGH THE CEILING like a goddamn Babadook. But as you said earlier, there is no way this dude has the smarts to get the drop on Mike, but what he lacks in nuance and subtlety, he makes up for in that trademark Salamanca rage and impulsiveness. He is very much related to Hector.
Trevor: Lalo dropping out of the ceiling was like a scary sight gag. It was funny, but the episode does such a good job with characterizing Fred that you can also understand how damn scary that must be for him. The less said of his seemingly lifeless body, the better.
Margaux: Well, once the ceiling…gag…question mark, is revealed, you know it cannot end well for that poor ginger.
Trevor: I’ll agree with you that the resolution of the Werner story was a little predictable once we saw where it was going, but the performances really saved it. Jonathan Banks was the best he’s been since maybe season one’s “Five-O,” and the way Rainer Bock (as Werner) delivered the line, “There are so many stars in New Mexico” was devastating.
Margaux: For me, it was less predictable, and more about having to buy into how impossibly stupid Werner was about the whole thing. He really did just miss his wife. He completely underestimated who he was working for, he thought he’d gained Mike’s trust and that would be enough to keep his ass in the clear. THIS MAN IS A FUCKING ENGINEER. How can he so dumb and willfully naive? He wasn’t fleeing because he was scared the next mistake would his last, he seemed to be wholly unaware of who he was working for and what would happen to him if he stepped out of line. When Mike rolls up on Werner, poolside chilling in his fuckin’ Crocs, even I was like, “you need to die”. I don’t know how they do things in Germany, but how could he not understand and realize who he’d gotten himself involved with? It sort of confounded me how someone could be so…plainly stupid.
Trevor: Yeah, I’ll agree with that. But I think a part of it is that he just fundamentally misunderstood his relationship with Mike. (I think Mike understood it too, to be honest.) There’s a naivete at play there. I really think a lot of “Winner” is about redefining relationships, be it Mike/Gus, or Jimmy/Kim. And that’s just the major pairings. I know I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. It’s just a matter of people thinking things are one way, then finding out that they are very much another way. Which is as good a segue as any, I guess, to talk about Jimmy’s Sincerity Tour. I gotta admit, Bob Odenkirk is so goddamn good, and Jimmy is so good at selling himself, that there were times where even I bought into his sincerity.
Margaux: Okay, can we talk about that cold open? Because I legit cried. We’ve never seen a single happy moment between the McGill brothers, and although some may have quibbles with the choice of ABBA’s “Winner” (not I, I fuckin’ love ABBA), it was so touching to see Jimmy and Chuck share an actual smile. Sure, Chuck tried to one-up Jimmy in their karaoke duet, but watching Chuck take care of Jimmy the way Jimmy later takes care of Chuck, was as heartwarming as a show like this will get. It ended up sort of coloring the rest of the episode for me, so much so that by the time we got to Jimmy’s bar hearing, I couldn’t tell if he doing Slippin’ Jimmy or being sincere. And I understand that was the point of it, and helps the ending gut punch be even more emotionally devastating, but I wonder if even Jimmy can tell at this point where the grift begins.
Kim did try very hard all episode to attempt to make Jimmy deal with his one hundred percent unresolved feelings over Chuck’s death, but it was all for not. She looked exactly like Kaye in the final moment of The Godfather when she sees people line up to kiss the ring. And knowing how much Gould and Gillian love that movie, I’m sure that reference was not a mistake.
Trevor: That’s an excellent catch. I really like that comparison. To backtrack a bit, yes, that cold open was a stunner, and shows just how judiciously this show uses Michael McKean as a guest star. Chuck flashbacks are never made a huge deal of, and it’s done to show that even though he’s dead he’s still a part of this firmament. And also, McKean has never gotten the love for his performance that he deserves (at least from awards-giving bodies). He’s terrific. It’s fun to watch two of the funniest actors and improvisers alive – Odenkirk and McKean – play it straight with each other. Neither is afraid to dig into the sadness at the cores of their characters.
The ending was especially effective because it felt like the natural culmination of the preceding hour (and season). We knew that a certain amount of Jimmy’s sadness was performative – like his vigil at Chuck’s grave – but I really fell for his speech to the hearing committee. And once again I applaud BCS for not taking pains to make Jimmy likable, as when he crows “That one asshole actually cried!” Saul Goodman is a fun character, but the way Jimmy turns into him is ugly. That last line is going to stick with me for a long time, if I’m being honest.
Margaux: We’re only beginning to see the turn, surely…it gets worse. It was always does. The way he almost spits out the words, “it’s SaulGoodman” at Kim, it had a tinge of “fuck you” for not wanting to get a lawyer office together to it. Like the whole official Saul persona was built on spite. As we all know, it worked out well! Just ask Gene Tacavik!
Trevor: It felt in that moment like he used her, and it calls into question how much of their argument in “Wiedersehen” was real. Was Jimmy faking his outrage, knowing that Kim would do what she always does, which is drop everything to help him?
Margaux: Ugggh that’s so dark! But yeah, probs.
Trevor: It is! But goddamn, that last line. I’m a sucker for a great last line (like “I’m finished!” from There Will Be Blood), and this is up there with the best. He didn’t tell Kim his plan; as soon as he got the news he was reinstated, he cast her aside, asking for a DBA, and leaving her side and her life. In this season of Better Call Saul, we saw a man truly lose his soul, and it was so much worse for the smile it left on his face.
Margaux: Yikes. Does it always feel so bleak when you finally get what you’ve been asking for in a show? Cause it feels real bleak. I’d always figured Kim wasn’t around for the Breaking Bad timeline, but now my hope is she makes it out of Better Call Saul because truth be told, I’m more invested in her wellbeing and success than that of Saul that is rising out of Jimmy to fully consume him.
Trevor: I just hope Kim needs a vacuum fixed soon.
Should we wrap this up, or is there anything else you want to discuss? Besides Gale being totally on board with cooking in a cave. God bless David Costabile, who effortlessly plays characters as opposite as Gale and Wags on Billions.
Margaux: Oh! Glad you brought it up. Counterpoint: we didn’t need that scene. It didn’t really do anything other than annoy me with another Gale cameo. Nothing against the character or actor, it just feels like it’s winking too hard at the audience and it doesn’t work for me. Give Gale something to actually do or don’t bother, please. And Gus’s delivery in that cave that scares Gale up a ladder was a little too Disney villain of a read for me. Or are we just making Gus extra evil now that we’ve heard his backstory about how he’s a borderline sociopath?
Trevor: I’m not even going to argue against that, those are all good points. We all love seeing Gale, but it didn’t really add to the plot in “Winner.” More of a way to start tying up loose ends as we approach the Breaking Bad timeline.
Margaux: You know what loose end I’d rather have tied up? NACHO AND HIS DAD.
Now that we’ve come full circle, let’s wrap it up
Trevor: Well, let’s say goodbye to this penultimate season of Better Call Saul. You know the drill, grade the episode, then the season as a whole.
Margaux: Even though “Winner” feels like it showed a up an episode or two too late, it’s hard to deny that watching it isn’t satisfying and mostly entertaining (GALE…), despite some characters behaving in infuriating ways. It was the Viking funeral Jimmy McGill needed, but didn’t quite deserve. In fact, Jimmy’s final act was to completely freak out high school girl with a devastating monologue basically to his younger self which will end up being the framework behind the creation of Saul: fuck everyone. Lie, cheat and steal your way to the 59th floor and laugh at everyone beneath you. It was nice knowing Jimmy while we did. RIP.
This season though, I had issue with. Mainly, the pacing. Probably the first time I thought the stately speed of the show was working against them. Like you said earlier, sometimes this show wants to be all about Nacho, or Mike, or Kim, and maybe these are just the growing pains of not having an antagonist for Jimmy with Chuck dead, but I think that Saul has officially arrived, it’s going to fall apart pretty quick here.
“Winner”: 5/5
Better Call Saul season four: 4/5
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