Better Call Saul: Lantern

 "In the end, you're going to hurt everyone around you. You can't help it. So stop apologising and accept it."

The above quote is, of course, from the key scene of the episode, the last conversation Jimmy and Chuck will ever have, in which Chuck tells little brother some hard truths. And we know he's right. And this conversation will go on to shape one Saul Goodman.

t's not that Jimmy doesn't care. He's genuinely caring with Kim, looking after her,and he is willing to humiliate himself- and presumably end all future hope of working in elder law ever again- to un-ruin Irene's life. He's not evil. But he's self-centred and, crucially, totally lacking in integrity. And we see it in his relations with those around him. He made Kim work too hard, and nearly die, for him, because he does that to people. Yet Kim, unlike Jimmy, has integrity, as we see in this episode. She insists on taking responsibility for her actions, and cares about her clients even at a time when she shouldn't even be thinking about work. Such thoughts, to Jimmy, are alien.

Chuck is self-centred, too: the brothers are not completely unalike. See what he does to the firm he helps to build, from nothing but pride... and how Howard saves the firm by paying Chuck out of his own pocket. True integrity. Howard may often come across as arrogant, but underneath he's a decent sort. Chuck? Well, he's neither a Jimmy nor a Howard. Self-centred? Oh yes. But he believes in values other than himself, not least the law.

Or, at least, used to beieve. Because I'm in no doubt as to what that last scene means. To bookend the episode with this scene and the opening teaser, the only flashback we ever get of the two brothers as kids, both with the motif of a lantern, is very nicely done.

No Mike this episode but, in a scene where we can absolutely see the tension for Nacho, Don Hector finally succumbs to the doctored pill... and Gus twice gives Nacho a look. He knows.

I'm running out of ways to say that a given episode of Better Call Saul is as good as television gets. But it is.

Better Call Saul: Fall

 "This is not what fine looks like..."

This episode is eventful, as penultimate episodes of seasons often are. We see Mike's first day as a contractor, for purposes tof proper money laundering, with Madrigal, whom we remember from the final season of Breaking Bad... along, of course, with Lydia.

We also see consequences happening to those who are under pressure. Nacho, unable to wait any longer for the poison to take effect on Hector, is forced to come clean to his appalled father, who must submit to Hector after all, the one thing he didn't want to happen. Meanwhile, conscientious and professional Kim is burning the proverbial candle at all possible ends to make up for what Jimmy isn't doing, overworking and spreading herself too thin. There's a nice bit of foreshadowing early on: the concluding car crash, redolent in metaphor, isn't meant to be a surprise.

Jimmy is oblivious to what Kim is doing for him, of course. Much of the episode focusres on his truly evil mind games with the Sandpiper old fols, manipulating them into accepting the settlement now rather than a larger one later... as Howard says, it's purely because Jimmy needs the money. Slippy Jimmy with stop at nothing for his own selfish needs, and he cares not who suffers along the way.

Chuck, meanwhile, is far more urbane, respdctable and, in some ways, principled. Yet, if his condition isn't real (the jury, I think, is very much out), he may be just as much a con man as his father. And his decision to go scorched Earth on Howard and the firm, rather than accept retirement, is very much a prallel with Jimmy. Both brothers are very much capable of cdestroying others to get what they want. Both of them are far more terrible than they seem.

A brilliant and eventful episode, first class telly... but the characterisation is even more suble than it may at first seem. Superb.