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Tag Archives: Nacho Varga
Better Call Saul Uses its Timeline to Show Us What’s Bothering Mike in “Talk”
Despite a few similarities (trunk shots for example), Better Call Saul rarely goes for the non-linear storytelling tricks that you might see in a Quentin Tarantino movie. Sure, you may get the periodic flash forward to Cinnabon Gene, or the occasional flashback to some illuminating incident from Jimmy McGill’s old life, but it’s rare that the show depicts the events of the present in something other than chronological order.
It’s noteworthy, then, that in this is episode, we see the end of Mike’s speech in group therapy before we see its beginning. The episode opens with a scene from his past, where Mike is meticulously laying down a slab of concrete and letting his son write his name in the wet cement. It’s a sweet moment, but one tinged with melancholy, and a dissonance when the episode then quickly cuts to Mike in the present, looking out at a stunned room and gruffly remarking that, hey, they wanted him to talk.
Better Call Saul: Nacho and Kim Are in Too Deep in “Something Beautiful”
The end of “Something Beautiful” makes me think of a scene from “Nailed”, the penultimate episode of Better Call Saul’s second season. In that episode, Chuck McGill confronted Kim and Jimmy about the suspected switcheroo with the Mesa Verde files. He impugned his brother’s character and told Kim to open her eyes, saying that Jimmy committed these misdeeds for her as part of a “twisted romantic gesture.”
But Kim defended Jimmy. She admitted that he’s not perfect, but argued that he was still a good person and someone she pitied in light of how much he ached for his brother’s love, a love that he would never get. She chastised Chuck for denying Jimmy that and for judging him, for threatening to inflict such consequences on him, and denied Chuck’s theory as crackpot. But then, when she was alone with Jimmy, she betrayed her true feelings. She punched Jimmy in the arm. She expressed her frustration, because she’s no fool; she knew he did it, and she thought that Chuck was right — that he did it for her.
Better Call Saul Leaves Its Audience to Wonder in “Smoke”
Jimmy McGill’s part in “Smoke” begins and ends with normalcy. In his first appearance in the episode, he gets up, feeds his fish, and makes coffee — the regular, mundane tasks of his new life. And in his last scene, he does the same things: joking about his fish’s appetite, tossing out coffee grounds, and seeming like a man very much returned to his routine.
Better Call Saul: The Winding Road between Jimmy McGill and Saul Goodman in “Lantern”
If you graphed Walter White’s transition from mild-mannered chemistry teacher to meth-dealing kingpin, there would be a few bumps here and there, but the line would mostly run straight. Breaking Bad always gave him these inciting events, these decision points, that would push him further and further toward becoming Heisenberg.
But the line that runs between Jimmy McGill and Saul Goodman isn’t that neat or that clear. It’s more of a series of deepening, parabolic arcs. Time and again, Jimmy stumbles close to the brink of giving in, of becoming the shyster who runs cheesy ads on daytime television and joins up with criminals. But time and again, he pulls back.
Better Call Saul: Everyone Takes an Extra Step in “Slip”
The opening of “Slip” is a little more direct than episodes of Better Call Saul usually are when filling in some gaps Jimmy’s backstory and philosophy. When Marco presses Jimmy about his parents’ shop, about how they worked hard and everyone liked them, Jimmy admits that’s true, but questions the value of it. He protests that it got them nowhere; he characterizes his own dad as a sucker, and he takes the coin his father once planned to put in the poor box for use in yet another scam.
With that, Jimmy’s perspective on life becomes a little clearer, aligning with the prior flashback to his parents’ store. Papa McGill was someone who refused to bend the rules even a little, who wouldn’t take so much as a moderately-valuable coin for himself, let alone sell cigarettes to the kids from the local religious school to make ends meet. In Jimmy’s eyes, that approach got him nowhere. It’s a little too tidy and pat to account for Jimmy’s actions in the present day, but the man himself sums it up nicely — Papa McGill wasn’t willing to “do what he had to do,” and Jimmy assuredly is.
That’s the thrust of “Slip,” which is as much of an ensemble piece as any episode of Better Call Saul so far. Not only Jimmy, but also Mike, Chuck, Kim, and Nacho, are each willing to go the extra mile, to do the difficult or painful thing, not because they wish to or because it’s easy, but because each believe it’s what they simply need to do to go on. It’s what unites these disparate individuals and their very different challenges here — each of them strains a bit more, goes a little farther, in the name of biting the bullet and doing what needs doing.
Better Call Saul: Everyone Gets an Unexpected Push in “Off Brand”
There’s a sense in “Off Brand” that many of Better Call Saul’s major figures have not been doing the things they’d really like to. The demands of finances, family, and the intersection of the two have kept the likes of Jimmy, Chuck, Mike, and Nacho reluctant or bitter or scarred by the efforts each has been immersed in over the past couple seasons. But for each of them, there is now something pushing them, almost against their will, to move closer to new activities, to different lives, that might be better for their souls.
Better Call Saul: “Gloves Off” — Tension, Motivation, Moral Codes, and Batman
It’s difficult to build tension and create real stakes in a prequel, and that problem is magnified the closer a film or television show gets to the familiar part of the timeline. If the audience already knows who lives and who dies, and who has to reach a certain point of the story unscathed for that matter, it can mute some of the excitement and intrigue of a particular plotline.
On the other hand, it can also heighten the tension in an episode by spotlighting the mystery between the known beginning and the known ending. As Better Call Saul shows Nacho planning a hit on Tuco, we know that Tuco lives; we know that Mike lives, and thanks to the opening scene in “Gloves Off”, we know that the crafty Mr. Ehrmantraut ends up bruised and battered, presumably in the attempt. All of this raises the question of how we get from Point A to Point B.
Does the hit go wrong? Does Mike beg off from Nacho and catch a beating for his troubles? In true Breaking Bad fashion does some unexpected intervening factor come into play and throw the whole situation out of whack? We don’t know, but we want to know, and that’s just part of the masterful job that BCS does in using its prequel status as a boon and not an obstacle when it comes to holding the audience’s attention.
