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Tag Archives: Mike Ehrmantraut
Better Call Saul: There Are No Happy Endings between a “Rock and Hard Place”
It’s a fool’s errand to wish for happy endings in the world of Better Call Saul. But I had a faint bit of hope for Nacho Varga. I thought maybe, just maybe, he would find some way to get out. He could leave this life behind and start again with his father by his side. I even imagined Jesse Pinkman arriving in Alaska years later and meeting Ignacio under an assumed name. Wouldn’t that be nice? Mike’s two surrogate sons coming together, looking after each other the way he might have done himself.
(more…)Better Call Saul: Why His Girl Friday Speaks to Kim Wexler’s Fate in “Bad Choice Road”
I’ve always thought of His Girl Friday as a tragedy. When Kim and Jimmy sit down to watch the film in “Bad Choice Road”, they’re watching the story of someone who nearly breaks free of a life and a job she excels at, but which doesn’t make her happy. But then she’s lured back into it through the dirty tricks of her conniving former paramour and the inexorable pull it has over her. (The movie is also, not coincidentally, the story of a talented and dogged female professional who ends up hitched to a manipulative, morally-dubious huckster.) That subtle call out to the 1940 classic carries meaning for both Jimmy and Kim.
Better Call Saul: The Reason to Keep Walking Through Hell in “Bagman”
One of the kindest things you can say about Better Call Saul is that it rarely feels like Breaking Bad anymore. Sure, there’s still bits of cartel intrigue, and preludes to the war between Gus and the Salamancas, and a shared propensity to write characters into corners and force them to think their way out. But despite its roots, Better Call Saul has become its own show, with its own world and voice and style that are distinct from the story of Walter White.
Better Call Saul: The Clash of the Personal and the Professional in “JMM”
It’s supposed to just be business. You come in. You sign the forms. You check the boxes. You pay the fine. What you don’t do is get sentimental. There are practical reasons to take this step — reasons that, not coincidentally, help preserve your ongoing safety and non-incarceration.
But then you look at the person standing across from you, someone whose joy and pain matters to you, and all of a sudden, it’s impossible to pretend that this is just a ministerial act or some necessary concession to the gods of legal privilege and bureaucracy. Instead, it becomes something more, something meaningful, something personal, with an emotional charge and an attendant importance that elevates it above business as usual.
Better Call Saul and the Plans and Schemes that Rule the Day in “Wexler v. Goodman”
Better Call Saul’s major players are always making plans. It’s one of the features that makes this show (and its predecessor) so engrossing. In between the committed character work and gorgeous desert styling, there’s intersecting schemes that either merge together or crash into one another, until our champions and villains are left to pick up the pieces.
Better Call Saul: When Something Means More Than Just Business in “Dedicado a Max”
We’re used to Jimmy McGill pushing limits and crossing lines. Time after time, Better Call Saul serves up scenarios where its title character faces two options: do things the safe and expected way, or do them the Saul Goodman way. The latter might gain Jimmy a little more, but it’s also riskier and sometimes even dangerous.
For once, though, it’s Kim taking that type of risk. She’s obviously no stranger to participating in Jimmy’s schemes and even concocting some of her own. But she’s also always had a limit, a certain line she refused to cross, even if doing so would get her what she wanted. It’s in Jimmy’s nature to cheat and finagle and squeeze the last bit of juice out of everything. It’s in Kim’s to dabble in those conman ways, even excel at them, but to ultimately come back to the light.
Better Call Saul: The Good Guys and Bad Guys Fight the Same Fight in “Namaste”
If there’s a persistent thematic undercurrent that touches each part of Better Call Saul (and maybe even Breaking Bad), it’s that people from very different walks of life are not all that different. Respected and superficially decent men like Chuck McGill and Walter White can be cruel and self-serving. Those on the margins of society like Nacho Varga and Jesse Pinkman can be intelligent and empathetic. And crime bosses and young attorneys can be equally determined, equally dogged, and equally committed to doing what they must to win the long game.
Better Call Saul: Misdirected Anger, Urban Antpiles, and Broken Glass in “The Guy for This”
I could write an entire review just trying to decode all the little images that “The Guy for This” parcels out for the viewer. One of the things that sets Better Call Saul (and its predecessor) apart is a penchant for that type of symbolism. The visual conveys as much of what the audience is supposed to take away as the dialogue. So when an episode begins with ants slowly but surely descending on Jimmy’s ice cream cone, and ends with the aftermath of that miniature invasion, it’s clear that Peter Gould and company are trying to tell us something.
Better Call Saul and the Lines We Cross for Those We Love in “50% Off”
People will go to incredible lengths if something really matters. When someone or something important hangs in the balance, it stirs the blood, pushes us to take chances we wouldn’t otherwise take, and cross lines we wouldn’t normally transgress.
That’s certainly true for Nacho here. If he’s had one consistent character trait over the course of Better Call, it’s that he’s apt to keep things stable and not rock the boat unless he has to. He’s more thoughtful and more calculating than the hot-blooded Salamancas he answers to. But his other consistent throughline is how much he loves his father. That means Nacho will take chances and put himself at risk in ways that he wouldn’t normally do, if it allows him to protect the man who raised him.
Better Call Saul: The Beginning and End of Saul Goodman in “Magic Man”
Five seasons in, and I still don’t know what to make of the flash-forwards to Cinnabon Gene. I always think of The Wire’s approach to these opening vignettes, with the idea that they’re meant to be microcosms of the themes of the season. But that doesn’t seem to fit here, since Gene’s choices largely track with Jimmy’s in the show to date. The cold open shows Gene panicking, worrying that he’s in too deep and looking for a way out, only to decide to take matters into his own hands. That’s been Jimmy’s M.O. for basically the whole series, most recently and notably overcoming his disciplinary suspension despite some serious headwinds.
