Better Call Saul: "Black and Blue"

These reviews assume you watched all of Breaking Bad. If you don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t read this article

Even more so than the previous episode, "Black and Blue" is more concerned with table-setting rather than moving the plot forward, yet this is typical of the show. There are only two episodes left until the midseason break and it's important to put the dominoes in place so the subsequent episodes can knock them all down.

Howard is confronted by Cliff about his "drug problem". He quickly pieces the puzzle together and realizes that Jimmy is behind all of these strange events. He confronts Jimmy at the boxing club and challenges him to a boxing match to settle the score once and for all. Jimmy at first refuses, but the temptation of knocking Howard on his ass proves to be too tempting for him to pass up. Howard proceeds to knock Jimmy down, then states that he hopes their beef is settled. However, Howard is too smart to realize that things between him and Jimmy are far from over, and he hires a private detective to tail Jimmy.

Kim is justifiably paranoid now that she knows Lalo is alive. She barricades the door and stays up all night. Jimmy is still out of the loop and vainly attempts to comfort her by stating that he's glad Lalo is "dead". She's not the only one. Gus spends the entire episode waiting for Lalo to strike and we see how it is affecting him. Mike takes him to the unfinished superlab in an attempt to calm his nerves, but Gus is still unconvinced and leaves a gun in a hiding spot. In theory, this is the most dramatically inert part of the episode as we know that Gus survives to Breaking Bad, yet it's a testament to Giancarlo Esposito and Melissa Berstein's direction that these scenes are still compelling.

After three episodes of being absent, Lalo makes his reappearance, ironically far away from our key players. He charms Werner Ziegler's widow Margarethe, then proceeds to break into her house and search Werner's office. The scene where Margarethe comes home early is easily the tensest part of the episode, as we know Lalo has no qualms about murdering innocent people. At the last second however, Lalo notices a ruler encased in Lucite and leaves through the window before Margarethe can discover him. How the ruler will be used by Lalo to implicate Gus remains to be seen, but the showrunners have earned enough goodwill that the payoff will be worth it.

Notes:

* Out of all the main cast, Patrick Fabian has had the least amount of screentime, yet he has succeeded in transforming Howard from a one-dimensional villain to one of the show's most tragic characters. The same is true for this episode, with the boxing match giving him a chance to show off his physicality as well as his dramatic chops.

* Francesca returns as Jimmy's secretary. She's clearly unimpressed with Jimmy's setup and only stays after Jimmy offers her a signing fee and allows her to decide on the decorating.

* Kim meets with her former paralegal Viola, who sings her praises regarding her pro-bono work, all the while unaware of Kim's less than ethical work involving Howard and the Sandpiper case.

* It's rote to say that Better Call Saul's cold opens are a thing of beauty, but that's even more so in this episode, where we see the encasement of the ruler that Lalo will discover by the episode's end. Similar to the cold open in "Rock and a Hard Place", writer Alison Tatlick trusts that the viewer will piece together the puzzle by the episode's conclusion.

Barry: "ben mendelson"

It was only a matter of time before Barry returned to killing. "ben mendelson" is a necessary slow down from the intensity of the previous two episodes, focusing mainly on Barry's self-delusion and the reality of the situation around him.

Barry thinks that things between him and Gene are good now that he got Gene a part on Laws and Humanity. He genuinely believes that him and Gene can have the same relationship that they had before Gene discovered that he killed Janice. The scene where Gene asks him if Janice suffered and Barry's attempts to deflect show just how self-deluded he is. Janice's murder will forever drive a wedge between them, yet Barry's too egotistical to accept this. It takes Gene punching him during the shoot and telling him to stay away from him and his family for Barry's rose-tinted glasses to fall off and for him to realize that his connection with Gene is severed. He accepts Hank's offer because he truly has nowhere else to go, so why not embrace the worst aspects of himself?

The episode checks back in with Fuches as he is adapting to life in Chechnya. Like Barry, he initially rejects Hank's offer of returning to LA until the latter tells him that Barry no longer wants to kill him. The phone call Fuches has with Barry shows that he is just as self-deluded and egotistical as Barry, if not more so, in that he believes Barry owes him an apology for trying to kill him. His caretaker (and lover?) Anna attempts to console him by telling him a sixteenth-century parable about choosing between vengeance and forgiveness. Sociopath that he is, Fuches can only focus on the vengeance aspect of the story. The ominous music that plays over the end credits promises that this already dark season will be even darker.

Notes:

* Elsie Fisher's Katie is easily the best new addition on this season of Barry. Her facial expressions during her talk with Natalie as the latter defends Barry and her interview is an excellent bit of silent acting speaks volumes about how she's the only person on this show who can see Barry for who he truly.

* Henry Winkler gives perhaps his best performance yet in this episode. His thousand-yard stare during the episode's cold open and incredulous glare as Barry attempts to console him about Janice's death

* Some nice continuity from the previous episode where the showrunner of Laws and Humanity remembers Gene as having thrown hot tea in his face back when he was a PA. Gene having to be reminded of this specific incident speaks volumes about how tumultuous his past must've been and leads into the moment where Barry compares his sins to his own.

Better Call Saul: "Hit and Run"

After the cartel-heavy first three episodes of the season, "Hit and Run" focuses almost exclusively on Jimmy and Kim's storyline and their plan to discredit Howard It's a much slower episode than the previous ones, but not less captivating due to having the same level of quality we've come to expect from this show.

Jimmy and Kim continue their scheme to paint Howard as a drug-addicted low life, with a hilarious sequence involving Breaking Bad alum Wendy as Jimmy steals Howard's car and pretends to joyride as him while kicking Wendy out of his car right in front of Cliff Main and Kim. The plan is seemingly a success as Cliff's image of Howard is once again shaken, with the added bonus of Cliff offering to give Kim access to a group of lawyers that specialize in pro-bono work, Kim's true passion.

 But not all is well. Jimmy is now a pariah at the courthouse due to the knowledge that he scammed the courts to get Lalo Salamanca off of murder charges and has received an influx of criminal clients now that he's known as "Salamanca's guy". Kim realizes she's being followed by a mysterious car and eventually confronts them head-on, only to have a conversation with Mike who reveals to her that Lalo is still alive. It's an excellent scene between Seehorn and Banks as we see Kim's stoic demeanor crack at the possibility of Lalo coming after her and Jimmy. 

Both of these storylines intersect at the end when Jimmy takes Kim to his new "temporary" office (the same office that will be his main office in Breaking Bad). Kim is clearly apprehensive, yet she chooses to withhold the news of Lalo's survival from Jimmy, an inversion of last episode where Jimmy chose to keep his knowledge of Lalo's assassination attempt from Kim. We know Jimmy will eventually learn of Lalo's survival given that years later he will name drop him when Walt and Jesse kidnap him. It's only a matter of when he'll learn it.

Notes:

* Rhea Seehorn directs this week's episode and proves to be just as talented behind the camera as she is on-camera. Here's a link to an article where she talks about her experience with this episode, it's truly infectious.

* While the episode mainly focuses on Jimmy and Kim, we also get a scene with Gus and Mike where we get to see Gus' growing paranoia over the Lalo situation and his dissatisfaction with Mike's hired help. Giancarlo Esposito has always been a great actor, but we get to see new depths with Gus' normally unflappable demeanor shaken.

* Wendy isn't the only Breaking Bad character to appear in this episode. Among Jimmy's new clients is a much healthier-looking Spooge, who will get his head crushed by an ATM in Season 2's standout "Peekaboo".

* I feel like the writers missed an opportunity to have Howard's therapist be the same as Marie Schrader's therapist, but it probably would've felt too cutesy in an episode with 

* Kim identifies Mike as the person who saved Jimmy in the desert in last season's "Bagman". It's also in her character to recognize him as the parking lot attendant from way back in Season 1.

* Lalo has been MIA for the past few episodes, but it's a testament to both the writers and Seehorn's performance that his presence is still felt. Hopefully he'll show up soon though, if only because I miss Tony Dalton's charismatic and terrifying performance.

Barry: "limonada"

If the previous seasons of Barry presented the question of "Is Barry a good person?", then Season 3 is answering that question with a resounding "no". "limonada" is one of the darkest episodes of the series, in that it doesn't shy away from Barry's warped outlook on life and the destruction he is weaving in the lives of the people closest to him.

Continuing from last week's episode, it's revealed that Barry's plan for earning Gene's forgiveness amounts to getting him an acting job to revitalize his career. From the start, it's clear how self-centered Barry's "good deed" is and how it's simply a way for Barry to absolve himself of his sins. We see this in the way he viciously tears into Sally when she is unable to give Gene a part on her show (one of Hader's most terrifying moments) and threatens to kill Gene when he refuses to acquiesce to Barry's self-deluded quest for forgiveness. He refuses to consider how Gene's checkered past has basically blacklisted from the industry and ends up using a speech that Gene gave him about how he made him a better human being to get him a part on Laws and Humanity.

Gene himself wants nothing to do with Barry, as we see when he eventually escapes from Barry's trunk and makes a run for it. It's a scene that somehow manages to be both terrifying and hilarious and ends with Gene succeeding in escaping Barry, only to come home and find Barry waiting for him. It is here that Barry threatens his son and grandson, and we see the true fear in Gene's expression when he's forced to say he loves Barry. It's a wonderful bit of acting by Henry Winkler and Bill Hader and drives home just how the Barry/Gene relationship has permanently changed.

Notes:

* Cristobal's father-in-law Fernando arrives in LA and announces his plan of raiding Hank's hideout and killing all the Chechens so Cristoball can return home. Fortunately, Hank is alerted by Cristobal and manages to evacuate, only for the latter to then break up with him and tell him to go on the run. It's a subplot that manages to be both funny and heartbreaking, even if the fifteen second shot of Hank's face as he watches Cristobal drive away is the one flaw in an otherwise superbly directed episode.

* Sally's storyline intertwines with Barry's in how afraid she now is of him by his outburst. We see her regressing back into the person she was during her relationship with her ex-husband when she leaves work early to make him dinner and buy him a new Xbox controller (a call-back to the premiere when Barry complained about his controller not working), as well as apologizing to him rather than the other way around. Added to her growing stress is the news that her show's premiere is being pushed and I don't see this relationship ending well.

* The actress who plays Sally's on-screen daughter bears witness to Barry's outburst and approaches her coworkers to discuss reporting Barry, only to be told that there's nothing to be done, as Barry wasn't physically violent with Sally and it risks their jobs if they get involved.

* No Fuches this week.

Better Call Saul: "Rock and Hard Place"

These reviews assume you watched all of Breaking Bad. If you don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t read this article.

Nacho's fate was inevitable. Breaking Bad had already done the "run off into the sunset" ending with Jesse and jail seemed like too simple a solution for him. Aside from Kim, Nacho seemed like the character most guaranteed an unhappy ending. But in typical Gilligan/Gould fashion, the show upended my expectations and still made the moment as shocking as it was heartbreaking.

"Rock and Hard Place" wisely focuses the bulk of its runtime on the cartel storyline. Nacho continues to make his escape from the Cousins and gets into contact with Mike, offering to do whatever Gus wants him to do on the condition that Mike protects his father. Mike smuggles him back to Albuquerque to await his death. The way Gordon Smith writes this sequence of events makes it clear that Nacho is going to die. He makes one last phone call to his father. He has one last meal and drink. Mike offers to be the one to put him out of his misery. Yet because this is only the third episode of the season, there's the expectation that somehow, Nacho will make it out of this. Similar to Hank's death in the desert years from now however, Nacho goes out on his own terms. He mocks both Gus and Hector, revealing to the latter he was behind his stroke. He shoots himself in the head rather than let Victor do it. It's a somber end to the character, yet entirely fitting with the slow-motion tragedy that is Better Call Saul.

The episode gives just enough time to Jimmy and Kim's story so that it doesn't feel like it's spinning it's wheels. They plan out the next phase of their plan to discredit Howard, in an electrifying sequence where they swipe the keys to his car with the assistance of Huell, Ocean's Eleven style. Kim is confronted by Suzanne Erickson on Jimmy's association with Lalo and the possibility of him giving up information on Lalo despite lawyer-client confidentiality. Lalo doesn't appear physically in this episode, yet his specter still looms over Jimmy and Kim. We get see more of Kim's dark side as she delivers the matter of the situation to a perturbed Jimmy: "Do you want to be a friend of the cartel or do you want to be a rat?" With Nacho's story over, the show will presumably focus more on Jimmy and Kim's story and how it'll pan out. If it it's anything like the way Nacho's panned out, it won't be any easier to watch.

Notes:

* Michael Mando has consistently given one of the show's most underrated performances, but he truly shows his range in his final episode, from his tearful final phone call to his father to resignation regarding his fate to his hate-filled spiel to the Salamancas. If he doesn't get at least an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor, I'll eat my hat (then again, the Academy has consistently failed to reward Rhea Seehorn for her work, so why am I placing any stock in the Emmys?).

* Gordon Smith is mainly known for writing many of the show's best episodes including "Five-O", "Chicanery" and "Bagman" (and rightly so), but he also knocks it out of the park with his direction. The cold open alone makes this episode one of the best he's ever helmed.

* I don't want to think about how many takes it took for the scene where Nacho submerges himself in oil while hiding from the Cousins.

* Some people have complained that Gus' plan for dealing with Nacho in the premiere was sloppy (true) and out of character for the consummate professional he is on Breaking Bad. That's exactly the point. This Gus is years away from the mastermind he will eventually become.

* The scene of Huell asking Jimmy why he is going to the trouble of pulling the scam when he and Kim are already making money as lawyers runs the risk of being the one flaw in an otherwise outstandingly written episode with how on the nose it is, yet Bob Odenkirk manages to convey so much emotion as he attempts to justify what he and Kim are doing that the scene is saved.

* I love the fact that Jimmy pretends to be shocked by the news of Lalo's "death" upon being told by Kim. Another white lie to protect the (eroding) innocence of the woman he loves.

* One detail I forgot to mention in my review of the premiere is how the opening intro is now black-and-white. A nice callback to the Gene scenes, especially if you subscribe to the theory that intro is him watching his old lawyer commercials repeatedly from the pilot.

* With Nacho dead, it remains to be seen how the rest of the season will deal with Lalo, Gus and Mike. I can easily see a scenario where Lalo goes after Nacho's father upon finding out he missed his chance to get revenge. Whether Mike will be able to keep his promise to Nacho is an entirely different question.

Barry: "forgiving jeff"

Returning after a three-year hiatus, Barry has proven to be one of TV’s most unexpected gems. It’s simple premise (a hitman deciding to become an actor) could’ve easily been a Breaking Bad/Dexter rip off, but not only was it's first season very good, Season 2 proved to even better by delving into the titular character’s past and begging the question if he could truly change while fleshing out the world and characters around him.

The scene that opens "forgiving jeff" may very well be the show's thesis statement. Barry prepares to execute a man named Jeff for having an affair with another man's wife (a call back to the pilot, where he was contracted to kill a fellow actor who was sleeping with a mob boss' wife), only for the latter to call it off and forgive him. Barry's response? Execute the both of them and storm off, shouting that there is no forgiving Jeff. If the past two seasons were about Barry trying to become a better person and leave his hitman past behind, this season opens with Barry completely given into his murderous urges, scouring the Web for contracts while lying to Sally that he is lining up acting gigs. Bill Hader is fantastic in this episode, conveying the appearance of a man who's completely given up and has numbly resigned himself to the darkness that is his life.

Meanwhile, Hank is dealing with the aftermath of Barry's assault on the monastery. In a hilarious scene, Hank goes into an interrogation and pins the blame on Fuches, who he dubs as a mysterious assassin called "The Raven". His and Barry's storylines for this episode intersect when Barry shows up late at night to his house and asks for a job, only for Hank to furiously rebuff him and inform that "forgiveness must be earned".

The true star of the episode however is Gene and his reaction to the news that Barry killed his lover Janice. Barry has always excelled at plotting and the way the premiere upends the status quo and the Barry-Gene relationship is no exception. After his attempts to go to the police fail, Gene invites Barry over to his office and confronts him with a gun. In true comic fashion, the gun falls apart before Gene even points it at Barry and the latter takes him out into the desert to kill him. Gene begs for his life, promising to not tell anyone and that he forgives Barry. Still hearing Hank's words that forgiveness must be earned, Barry is suddenly jolted by the idea that he can earn Gene's forgiveness, before telling Gene to get back in the truck. Where the show goes next I have absolutely no idea, but color me excited to find out.

Notes:

* Sally's plot is separate from the other storylines in the episode, but no less compelling. Following her showcase last season where she spun the story of her abusive ex into a much more shallow, Hollywood-type story, Sally is now the creator and star of a semi-autobiographical television show called Joplin. Judging from the few snippets we see, it's a by-the-numbers melodrama about a mother trying to save her daughter from an abusive relationship.

* The one scene we get of Fuches shows that he is in the Chechen mountains following his escape at the end of Season 2. He's not living his best life, having to get milk for his cereal from a goat and complaining about the lack of cable, but at least he has Anna to keep him company.

* Speaking of people living their best lives, Hank and Cristobal are finally(!) an item after Season 2 endlessly teased their romance. While I'm glad they were able to patch things up following Hank's rogue assassination attempt, there is some trouble in paradise with Cristobal still upset over the fact that Barry killed all his friends. The look on Anthony Carrigan's face as Cristobal says he has no one is both hilarious and heartbreaking.

* Another hilarious scene; Barry on the phone with a potential contract who wants Barry to kill her husband while trying to buy flowers for Sally. 

* D'Arcy Carden's Natalie was mainly a joke character in the first two seasons, so it's great that she semes to have a bigger role this season shadowing Sally at her television gig. The change in her facial expressions as Sally condescendingly tells her to make her a snack is exceptional.

* Gene has managed to fully reconcile with his son, enough that he's living in his house for what seems to be a permanent fixture and has a relationship with his grandson. He's also closed his acting school, presumably because he wouldn't be able to face Barry at that point.

* Some truly wonderful shots in this episode, my favorite being the tracking shot of Sally walking through the set giving orders to the crew.

*Nice visual motif of Barry imagining Sally and Gene getting shot with sniper bullets while talking to him. A reminder of his Afghanistan experience and detiorating mental state

* That two-minute "Previously On" was probably done by HBO on account of the show being on hiatus for three years. At least it caught my dad up to speed.

Weekly Log 4-24-22

Movies:

Everything Everywhere All at Once

The multiverse is pretty big in movies nowadays, the MCU in particular having a field day with back-to-back features of Spiderman: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness. Leave it to Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert to use this concept to craft one of the year's best films, if not the year's best film so far. Everything Everywhere All at Once features brilliant performances from Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan and a story that tugs at the heartstrings while featuring some of the most fun and creative action sequences I've seen in quite some time. See it in theaters while you still can.

Television:

Better Call Saul

Look, I've already written about the premiere and gushed about how great the show continues to be here, so you can check that out. I'll be covering the entire season along with Barry, so check those out if you want to hear my thoughts!

Video Games:

Horizon Forbidden West

I've taken a hiatus from Elden Ring for the time being in favor of much less stressful, challenging games and Horizon Forbidden West has proven to be the perfect antidote. Continuing the story of Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn as she searches for answers regarding her mother, the game improves on the formula introduced in the first game to great effect. The sci-fi setting has some of the most original worldbuilding I've ever encountered in a game and the combat is much more fluid and fun. It's a shame that both Forbidden West and Zero Dawn released around the same time as Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring, because this a truly great series that deserves to be savored.

Books:

Goodbye, Eri

As someone who only recently got into manga, Tatsuki Fujimoto's one-shot about an aspiring filmmaker coming to terms with his mother's passing is a beautiful, beautiful meditation of grief. The characters and art are so richly drawn and Fujimoto really taps into what it means to be a filmmaker. As an aspiring filmmaker, this resonated with me so much and it's a brilliant example of what manga can be.

Miscellaneous:

Lindsay Ellis

YouTube video criticism suffered a major loss this year with the departure of Lindsay Ellis following major online harassment. I've recently been going down the rabbit hole of her videos and come away impressed by the sheer volume and style of her videos. My back-to-back viewings of her videos regarding Stephanie Meyers and JK Rowling in particular have proven to be a surreal experience. If you value film criticism at all, you owe it to yourself to check out her videos.