Better Call Saul 6.05
In which I'm starting to wonder who in the production team has German connections.
Because the Madrigal stuff in BB could have been random, but then BCS brought in Werner and his crew, and now we return to Germany to visit Werner's widow. Meaning: what's this? An American tv series featuring Germans, and not a single one is a Nazi? (And BB did have Nazis. Just homegrown, American ones.) Doesn't mean they're stellar citizens - most are involved in the drug trade, after all - but still. That usually only happens if one of there's German money in the production, says cynical me.
Anyway, about the actual plot. Seems Lalo hit upon the right tactic to accomplish the impossible: rattle the ever calm Gus by making him wait for their showdown and disappearing from everyone's radar so everyone but Hector and Gus is aware of his survival. (Well, and Mike and now Kim, but neither is 100% sure about said survival.) Further proving he's the smartest of the Salamancas, Lalo didn't mean Nacho by saying there was "a witness" against Gus he now wants to go after, but, as it turns out, has the widow of the unfortunate Werner in mind, aka the first man Mike assassinated for Gus (and felt guilty enough about to save said widow's life). It's been years (in rl, not in the s how's timeline) since that happened, so the details have become vague to me, but I have to wonder what exactly Lalo hoped to get from the widow and/or the other Germans working for Werner, other than the location of the not yet superlab which would not exactly incriminate Gus in the eyes of the Cartel. But then I thought, maybe said secret lab etc. would serve as proof Gus means to go intro production for himself instead of running all his profits by the Cartel, and that indeed would be considered an unforgivable sin, more so than his feud with the Salamancas.
Now given Gus is alive, well, and profiting in Breaking Bad when we meet him, the outcome here is pretermined, and yet I found myself caught up in the suspense. I also hoped Lalo would not kill the widow. (Who manages to become a person, not a prop, in a few screen minutes, from the moment she provides knowledge of female astronauts.) Mind you, evidently passport controls at American airports suck in terms of catching wanted drug dealers, given Lalo (with however good a fake identity) is able to make a transcontinental trip.
Meanwhile, among lawyers: I wasn't quite clear when sleepless Jimmy told sleepless Kim the nuns in Cicero would not like it, but that he was glad that "he is dead", whether the "he" was supposed to be Lalo, given that she evidently hasn't told him yet about Mike's warning and Jimmy has no reason to bring up Lalo otherwise, or whether it was an unexpected Chuck reference. In any case, Kim is rattled enough to be sleepless (and put a chair in front of the apartment door) in the first place by the idea, but otherwise focused on the ongoing Howard saga, which takes a new turn as Howard, after proving his lawyerly convincing skills with the elderly Sandpiper clients (still awaiting their settlements), is finally told by a concerned Cliff about his various supposed misdemeanours and instantly figures out who has to be behind this. Well, the Jimmy part of it. Howard, it appears, is still clueless about the bile his one time employee Kim feels for him, let alone that she's in the driving seat in this one. The boxing match he goads Jimmy into is silly but turns out a facade for the actual (smarter) response, which is setting a detective on Jimmy. (Smarter, but not smartest, which would be setting a detective on Kim, but despite Cliff having told him that his lunch was with Kim, Howard clearly sees her only as providing support at best.)
Sidenote: Howard turning out to be convincing and with improved people skills as regards his interaction with the Sandpiper clients, btw, is actually a reminder of his more ruthless side. Because as the show has pointed out in seaosns part, what the big firms are doing here - prolonging the class actions as long as they can to get the maximum cash - happens at the expense of the actually damaged people, their older clients, who don't have much time left, and has nothing to do with Greater Justice. Methinks this reminder that Howard isn't an innocent lamb in the woods is there as to not make the audience lose more sympathy with Kim and Jimmy, given Kim's "you know what's coming" sounds pretty ominous.
Current guess: neither Kim nor Howard will be practicing law anymore by the end of this season, and I still think Kim will either be on the run or in prison, at least in the main timeframe (in the Gene flash forwards, it's another matter).
Because the Madrigal stuff in BB could have been random, but then BCS brought in Werner and his crew, and now we return to Germany to visit Werner's widow. Meaning: what's this? An American tv series featuring Germans, and not a single one is a Nazi? (And BB did have Nazis. Just homegrown, American ones.) Doesn't mean they're stellar citizens - most are involved in the drug trade, after all - but still. That usually only happens if one of there's German money in the production, says cynical me.
Anyway, about the actual plot. Seems Lalo hit upon the right tactic to accomplish the impossible: rattle the ever calm Gus by making him wait for their showdown and disappearing from everyone's radar so everyone but Hector and Gus is aware of his survival. (Well, and Mike and now Kim, but neither is 100% sure about said survival.) Further proving he's the smartest of the Salamancas, Lalo didn't mean Nacho by saying there was "a witness" against Gus he now wants to go after, but, as it turns out, has the widow of the unfortunate Werner in mind, aka the first man Mike assassinated for Gus (and felt guilty enough about to save said widow's life). It's been years (in rl, not in the s how's timeline) since that happened, so the details have become vague to me, but I have to wonder what exactly Lalo hoped to get from the widow and/or the other Germans working for Werner, other than the location of the not yet superlab which would not exactly incriminate Gus in the eyes of the Cartel. But then I thought, maybe said secret lab etc. would serve as proof Gus means to go intro production for himself instead of running all his profits by the Cartel, and that indeed would be considered an unforgivable sin, more so than his feud with the Salamancas.
Now given Gus is alive, well, and profiting in Breaking Bad when we meet him, the outcome here is pretermined, and yet I found myself caught up in the suspense. I also hoped Lalo would not kill the widow. (Who manages to become a person, not a prop, in a few screen minutes, from the moment she provides knowledge of female astronauts.) Mind you, evidently passport controls at American airports suck in terms of catching wanted drug dealers, given Lalo (with however good a fake identity) is able to make a transcontinental trip.
Meanwhile, among lawyers: I wasn't quite clear when sleepless Jimmy told sleepless Kim the nuns in Cicero would not like it, but that he was glad that "he is dead", whether the "he" was supposed to be Lalo, given that she evidently hasn't told him yet about Mike's warning and Jimmy has no reason to bring up Lalo otherwise, or whether it was an unexpected Chuck reference. In any case, Kim is rattled enough to be sleepless (and put a chair in front of the apartment door) in the first place by the idea, but otherwise focused on the ongoing Howard saga, which takes a new turn as Howard, after proving his lawyerly convincing skills with the elderly Sandpiper clients (still awaiting their settlements), is finally told by a concerned Cliff about his various supposed misdemeanours and instantly figures out who has to be behind this. Well, the Jimmy part of it. Howard, it appears, is still clueless about the bile his one time employee Kim feels for him, let alone that she's in the driving seat in this one. The boxing match he goads Jimmy into is silly but turns out a facade for the actual (smarter) response, which is setting a detective on Jimmy. (Smarter, but not smartest, which would be setting a detective on Kim, but despite Cliff having told him that his lunch was with Kim, Howard clearly sees her only as providing support at best.)
Sidenote: Howard turning out to be convincing and with improved people skills as regards his interaction with the Sandpiper clients, btw, is actually a reminder of his more ruthless side. Because as the show has pointed out in seaosns part, what the big firms are doing here - prolonging the class actions as long as they can to get the maximum cash - happens at the expense of the actually damaged people, their older clients, who don't have much time left, and has nothing to do with Greater Justice. Methinks this reminder that Howard isn't an innocent lamb in the woods is there as to not make the audience lose more sympathy with Kim and Jimmy, given Kim's "you know what's coming" sounds pretty ominous.
Current guess: neither Kim nor Howard will be practicing law anymore by the end of this season, and I still think Kim will either be on the run or in prison, at least in the main timeframe (in the Gene flash forwards, it's another matter).