[rating=7.00]
Remember that weekend you spent hanging out with your old college roommate? Sure you do — two nights pissed away by getting smashed in a dive bar just off the campus of whatever-college, followed by a round of nibbling on the condiments from the tables at restaurants and singing until the IHOP staff called the police. It was a helluva time.
But your roommate, he brought these guys with him — his friends, he called them. You’d never met them before. They were okay. Kind of distracting, I guess, but not bad. Your roommate liked them, so they must be pretty cool, right? Eh. Probably. But you didn’t really care all that much about getting to know them. You were just there to hang out with your old roommate. You wanted to relive your glory days — playing Super Smash Bros. until 4 am, accidentally microwaving shit until it explodes — you know, those kinds of things. But these guys (they had names, but you don’t remember them), they just took up too much space. Got in the way. Whatever. You didn’t need them (or really even want them) to have a good time. Nothing personal. Things were just better the way they used to be. Know what I’m talking about?
This is often how I find myself feeling when I watch Better Call Saul. It isn’t a bad show, necessarily; it just isn’t as entertaining as the times Saul and I used to have. What I want is more from the loud-mouthed, shoot-from-the-hip lawyer whose ego was the only thing in the room brighter than his suit — and I get that, sometimes. It’s just that, in between, there are all of these other people. I’m sure they’re all very interesting in their own ways (although the only one I have found particularly interesting myself so far is Nacho, and his time on-air this week was painfully low) — it’s just that, far too often, it feels like they’re just getting in the way of more lawyer time. Good characters or not, that’s a criminal offense.
The big caveat here, of course, is that we’re still only four episodes in. Every character in the show not named Jimmy still has a lot of growing to do before he or she can ever be expected to carry the attention of an audience the way Saul can. It takes time to develop that kind of rapport. I understand that. Balancing the presence of an established character with the rapid growth of several new ones takes a deft touch. So far, Saul hasn’t really shown that. But there’s still a lot of TV left. I’ll keep watching.
Here are my takeaways from Better Call Saul’s fourth episode:
Saul’s Antics
This week’s episode firmly established Jimmy as the incredible manipulator we all thought he might be. In the episode’s cold open, Jimmy orchestrates the perfect con whereby he convinces a drunk acquaintance to give him over $500 in exchange for what he believes is a Rolex watch that they pulled from an unconscious guy in an alley. Seems totally safe. Turns out, it is. The guy turns out to be an accomplice, and the watch turns out to be fake — though, from behind beer goggles, I guess it’s hard to tell. Jimmy and his friend dupe the drunk guy out of over $500 at the cost of almost nothing. “It’s like printing money,” his friend tells him.
Later, Jimmy works with a crew of students from the University of New Mexico to film a plea for help to the public after his billboard (which he paid for with bribe money) is ordered by a judge to be taken down. As he waxes poetic about the social injustices of big business targeting smaller, local establishments, the worker in the background — the one taking down Jimmy’s billboard — slips from his scaffolding and falls. He’s dangling only by his safety harness, shouting for help.
Without hesitation, Jimmy climbs the ladders, reaches the top — without a safety harness of his own — and helps to hoist the swaying man back to something resembling stability. The entire time, the cameras — not just from the film crew from UNM, but from passersby, too — are rolling. Suddenly, Jimmy is a local hero. Oh, and his billboard gets to stay up. How convenient. Jimmy exchanges a slight high-five and a wink with his rescuee, letting him know that he’s done well, and letting us know that, yet again, it was all a set-up.
These moments, when Jimmy resorts to these kinds of cons to get what he wants or needs, are when Better Call Saul is at its best. It exemplifies Saul’s character. He’s slimy — a schemer, a manipulator both in and out of the courtroom. Is it wrong? Sure. But it’s why he’s so entertaining. This is what I want more of. Do your worst, Jimmy!
Chuck and the Space Blanket
Potential title for a post-Better Call Saul spin-off? I hope not, because I hate it. I hate this whole idea. It sucks. But I’ll admit that maybe I just don’t totally get it. Here’s what I have so far: Chuck, Jimmy’s brother, has this crippling fear of… electromagnetism, or something. He has no electricity in his house, he doesn’t allow cell phones or jewelry in (keys as well, maybe? Then how do they come and go?), and he makes every guest ground themselves outside before they come in. He spends a good portion of his time wrapped in a space blanket for protection. So far, everything makes sense. It’s weird as hell, but it makes sense.
But then, in this week’s episode, Chuck decides that this massive phobia — the one that has kept him out of work for who-knows how long, the one that has turned him into a recluse — isn’t quite big enough to keep him from the morning paper. Yeah. We get this absurdly dramatic scene whereby Chuck conceals himself in his space blanket, then sprints outside and through the street to steal his neighbor’s newspaper. But why?
As a viewer, I know why. Chuck needs to find out about Jimmy’s billboard scheme. It’s central to whatever happens in the coming episodes. And, since Chuck’s closed off from the rest of the world — no TV, no internet, no visitors — getting that information to him is difficult. The newspaper makes sense, but Jimmy is too smart to just hand him the local newspaper when his very face is on the front page. Nobody would believe that screw-up. The alternative? Dress Chuck up like an Arby’s roast beef sandwich and film him running through the streets of Albuquerque for a few minutes. Yes. That’s much more believable. It’s silly, and not in a good way — the worst part of an otherwise solid episode.
Until next week.
