[rating=9.00] “Lantern”
With the end of Better Call Saul’s third season comes a new era in the life of Jimmy McGill. Tempered as he’s been by his attempts to please and placate his brother, Jimmy has been able to keep himself (more or less) along the paths of the straight and the narrow, and though he’s had dalliances with his dark side we’ve still seen Jimmy (more or less) win out against his inner Saul time after time. Though we know how far he has yet to fall, the question has now become how quickly his descent will be.
As of now, he’s still too concerned with appearances to be fully Saul Goodman, despite the few inklings we got this season of his impending fall from grace. Even with his despicable actions last week, he still found a way to redeem himself and proved that he’s not willing to ruin the life of a sweet old lady for his own selfish gains (not yet anyway). It was almost relieving, in its own way, to watch Jimmy come clean—even if he couldn’t come clean without resorting to theatrics and showmanship. What it ultimately means is that we’ve still got time to know Jimmy before the dirt bag we meet in Breaking Bad takes over.
Of course, much of Jimmy’s baser instincts have been kept at bay by Chuck. For the last three seasons, we’ve seen Jimmy try to improve the way his brother saw him, to become something more than a two-bit conman from Cicero, Illinois in the eyes of his brother. Even as Chuck’s refusal to see Jimmy as anything but a nuisance, at best, hindered his growth, the thought that maybe, somehow, one day, he could make his brother proud has kept Jimmy from completely turning into the man his brother already thinks he is—the man we know he one day becomes.
This season, we saw how much not having Chuck in his life ultimately affects Jimmy. Since the bar hearing, as the two brothers have diverged and disowned each other, Jimmy has fallen more and more into his Slippin’ Jimmy ways. For better or worse, Jimmy has wanted nothing but to make his brother proud. As they’ve parted ways, Jimmy has gotten lost along his righteous path. But so too has Chuck slipped.
The great irony of Chuck’s life was how much he relied upon Jimmy to keep himself together. Whether it was as simple as having someone to bring him his necessities when he couldn’t leave or if the job of keeping Jimmy straight was enough to keep Chuck going, as he lost his connection with his brother he lost his connection to himself. His hubris has always been his weak spot, and now it has brought him down.
Not only did he ultimately lose his battle with his former partner—Howard went to great lengths to push Chuck out of the law firm, dipping into his personal finances to pay for the first part of Chuck’s partner buyout—but he lost the battle with himself. Despite getting better throughout the season, last night found Chuck slipping back into paranoia and delusion. It’s telling that what finally broke him was his conversation with Jimmy, where he tells him that Jimmy never mattered much to him. That seemed like it might break Jimmy, but Jimmy has become more or less used to that over the years. What Chuck actually broke was himself.
Without Jimmy or the law to keep him occupied, Chuck has nothing left to do but face his own delusion, and that proves to be too big an obstacle to overcome. It was hard not to see him tearing his house apart, hoping to find an errant source of electricity after once again removing all electrical devices from his home, as a metaphor for tearing himself apart. He’s looking for something broken, something that will justify the pain and discomfort he’d been feeling. In the end, the only broken thing he found was himself. And now that’s all that’s left to take care of.
The fear that Chuck might one day burn his house down has been present since the first season of Better Call Saul, but until last night it was always assumed it would be an accident. That’s certainly what it will look like, but we know better. It was heartbreaking to watch, even as much as we all kind of hate Chuck for the way he treated Jimmy. Did he deserve better? Maybe not, but as he knocked the lantern on the floor and his house went up in flames, perhaps so too did Jimmy’s chances.
Right now, we can only speculate how Chuck’s death will ultimately affect Jimmy, and certainly Kim plays a role in keeping Jimmy in line. But as much as Kim inspires Jimmy to be better, so too does Jimmy inspire Kim to cut corners. Just a season ago, the thought of Kim taking any time off, even for a serious injury, was unheard of. Now, she’s content to abandon responsibilities and just watch movies all day. You could argue that she’s earned it, and certainly she has. But being around Jimmy seems to inspire her to give in to her worst instincts.
From the very outset of the series, Kim has been on the clock, and her absence from Breaking Bad has never boded well for her here. Better Call Saul being a tragedy, we know that eventually she’ll be gone, and with her the last threads holding Jimmy McGill to a legitimate life. It’s too early to sound the alarms just yet, but the warning signs are there and it might be time to start getting wary. (I cringed when she told Jimmy to always give her the good stuff when it comes to her pain medication; could she be on the road to addiction? A pill problem could spell the end of her career, or even her life, and the addiction themes as a parallel to Breaking Bad might be too hard to resist exploring.)
Last night also gave us answers about Don Hector, who finally had the heart attack they’ve been teasing all season. There’s something fitting about his anger at Gus and Don Eladio being the cause of his downfall. All season, Gus has insisted on being the one to bring down Hector, and in a way, he was, just now the way he planned or intended. That’s sort of the great theme of Gus’s existence. For all his planning and calculating, it never goes the way he expected or wants.
There was something knowing about the way he looked at Nacho, however. Nacho is no doubt pleased that his subterfuge has paid off. With Don Hector incapacitated, he father’s business can go back to normal (even if their relationship is irrevocably damaged). But Gus is nothing if not aware of the angles, and even though he was ostensibly preoccupied with trying to save Hector’s life (how interesting is that? If he can’t get rid of Hector his way, he wants him to survive. Goes to show just how cold Gus really is) he must’ve noticed Nacho switching back Hector’s medication. Will this bode well for Nacho—Gus could certainly use him—or is he now in the crosshairs?
Either way, we know that he too doesn’t make it to Breaking Bad. We’re still five years out from the onset of that show (Jesse is probably still failing Mr. White’s chemistry class as we speak), and a lot can still happen in the ensuing half decade. Nacho has certainly flown pretty close to the sun, and now he’s probably gone too far. The imminence of his demise is nerve wracking, though. Like Kim, he’s on the clock, and time is not on his side.
All in all, this was an outstanding season of a series that’s better than it has any right to be. As an exercise in character and narrative, it’s quickly eclipsing even Breaking Bad as one of the most fascinating shows to come out during an era of fascinating shows. It’ll be a long hard year waiting for the return of Better Call Saul, but for now they’ve given us plenty to digest. It’ll be a long wait until season four, but as they’ve shown us again and again, it’s always worth it.
