Better Call Saul: Bagman

 "The alternator's shot. Literally."

Wow.

You kbow, when Vince Gilligan himself writes and directs that you're getting a treat, and probably an unusual one. And crikey, we did.

The plot is simple- Lalo gets Jimmy to be the bagman in discreetly collecting his $7,000,000 bail from a discreet desert rendezvous, but he's ambushed by ne'er-do-wells and nearly robbed and killed. But Mike, watching from afar, efficiently saves him, kills the baddies, and eventually leads a desperate, fish-out-f-water Jimmy, to safety.

But it's about the nuances. The directorial touches here are frequently magnificent. The suspense is frequently exquisite. Yet, as ever, it's all about the characters. Lalo manipulating Jimmy into doing the fateful job in the first place. Jimmy demanding a $100k fee, something he may regret. The power imbalance between Jimmy and the scarily calm Lalo.

Then there's Mike's little speech about how he keeps on doing all this- for his granddaughter. And the episode's main point- Kim is now irrevocably involved in Jimmy's underground stuff. She's also the wife we don't see in Breaking Bad. She's... going to die, isn't she? I'm certain. The show isn't even trying to hide it.

Saul is getting involved in things far beyond him. And it's not just him who will be hurt in the process. This is utterly gripping, suspenseful television, even by BCS standards, but it's Kim it leaves me thinking of.

Better Call Saul: Something Beautiful

 "It never loses suction."

I was going to use a certain quote concerning gold nuggets, but decided I'd better not. Anyway...

This is a fascinating episode, which has the air of calm before the storm. Not that Nacho's extraordinary actions- faking a hit, including having himself shot and wounded twise, in order to cover up the death of that bloke- are exactly calm. But these are the lengths he has to go to, conflicted between his loyalty to the cartel and towards his father. He's badly conflicted and he can't, surely, keep getting away with this. He's lucky to survive... for now. And that doctor has such a wonderful bedside manner.

These things create ripples. Gus isaffected, with supplies disrupted and having todeal with conflicting demands from on high. Yet we also see him interact with an ambitious Gale for the first time, another old face.

Jimmy, meanwhile, is "masterminding" another dodgy scheme... eventually, when he can persuade a patsy to do the cat burglaring. I love how we spend such a long, tense scene with things almost going very badly indeed, yet with intentional bathos as the rather pathetic victim has been kicked out of his house by his wife. This is all sort of comic relief, but I suspect I ought to be seeing this as a clue that things are about to get serious.

We see Kim, working to hsrd while she should be resting, but... it she reaching some sort of crisis? Chuck's letter to Jimmy is actually nice, and it is she who tears up while Jimmy remains cold, as he always is deep inside, because what she loves is the mask, not the man. Is she beginning to realise...?

As ever... wow.