In the “Better Call Saul” recap, Jimmy reluctantly helps Kim with her plan against Howard while Gus deals with the fallout from his attempted hit on Lalo Salamanca…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
Nothing ever happened by accident in “Breaking Bad” and the same can be said for “Better Call Saul” as the series enters its season.
Unlike previous installments that kicked off with a look at poor, lonely Gene Takovic — aka Saul Goodman/Jimmy McGill — after he disappeared to Nebraska to act as the manager of a local Cinnabon joint, the last set of episodes for “Better Call Saul” actually served as a different kind of flash forward for this series.
The two-episode premiere actually started with Federal authorities dismantling the mansion that Saul Goodman had built for himself as Albuquerque’s favorite strip mall attorney, who also happened to be consigliere to a criminal empire run by a former science teacher turned meth kingpin.
For all the times that Saul Goodman appeared in “Breaking Bad,” there was never any real hint about his home life so this was the first look at the house he made a home and it was everything you’d expect it to be. Saul’s place was garish display of opulence — a gold plated toilet served as his throne — with enough bright colored suits, ties and shoes to last a lifetime. Of course, Saul had a life-size cardboard cutout of himself along with a massive whirlpool tub complete with a pink thong hanging from the faucet.
The people inside Saul’s home continuously packed away the life he left behind after going on the run as authorities zeroed in on everybody involved with Heinsenberg aka Walter White and the meth operation he ran in New Mexico. Perhaps the most telling sign about the home, however, was the sheer loneliness packed into one gigantic mansion, which seems to indicate that Saul wasn’t leading some sort of double life where he was a lawyer/criminal by day and a husband to Kim Wexler at night.
In fact outside of that pink thong, there was no sign that any woman had been anywhere near this house in quite some time. Now that doesn’t necessarily tell us that Saul and Kim split long before he encountered Walter White and Jesse Pinkman but it certainly seems that way, at least based upon the belongings that were packed up at the start of this episode.
The final shot did manage to reveal one keepsake that Saul clearly treasured from his past with Kim — the tequila bottle-stopper that they took after swindling “Ken Wins” out of some really expensive drinks back in the debut episode for season 2. It was the first time that Saul — as Jimmy McGill — helped Kim learn what it meant to run a con on somebody.
Kim held onto that same bottle-stopper when she moved onto a bigger and better position at a more prestigious law firm until the end of “Better Call Saul” season 5 when she quit, grabbed her belongings and made sure to snatch that little trinket up just before leaving for good. Now we know that sentimental little treasure ends up with Saul Goodman but what does that mean for Kim Wexler? We’ve got 11 more episodes after the debut to find out.
With that said, let’s get to our recap for the “Better Call Saul” season 6 debut episodes titled “Wine and Roses” and “Carrot and Stick”…
This Little Baby Right Here, It’s Called Cocaine
In the aftermath of the scare that Lalo Salamanca was going to come for both of them, Jimmy and Kim have returned to their apartment where they are about to start the day together. Both have plans at the courthouse — Kim handling her many pro bono cases, which makes her happier than all the Mesa Verde checks she cashed while working for them while Jimmy has to go fend off the prosecutors who are determined to prove his client Jorge De Guzman aka Lalo Salamanca has no intention of appearing before a judge at his next hearing in six weeks.
Jimmy does his job while accidentally letting Lalo’s name slip momentarily but he keeps the prosecutors at bay before retiring to an empty courtroom where he bows his head while still dealing with the emotional fallout from his harrowing encounter in the desert to watching the woman he loves break bad when she suggests destroying Howard Hamlin’s reputation.
It’s that latter part that takes up the bulk of Jimmy and Kim’s time in the debut as she reveals her pillow talk wasn’t just some late night conversation between husband and wife. Kim is deadly serious about dismantling Howard’s law practice in order to force him to settle the Sandpiper Crossing lawsuit case that would net all the lawyers involved a major cash prize.
That includes the huge percentage coming to Jimmy after he first started the case all the way back when he was representing senior citizens and writing up their last will and testaments.
Kim’s plan to go after Howard isn’t so direct that he’ll see it coming but rather the kind of rumor that could ruin his reputation but more importantly force him to settle that lawsuit out of fear that his involvement will screw this up for everybody.
So Jimmy heads off to the country club where Howard is enjoying a morning round of golf alongside Cliff Main — a lawyer from past seasons who once hired Jimmy to work at his firm. While Kim keeps an eye on the golfers, Jimmy heads inside to get a tour since he’s considering membership but just before he’s about to be shown around, he runs into Kevin Wachtell — the president of Mesa Verde bank — who has quite a distaste for Jimmy McGill and his new alter ego as Saul Goodman.
Kevin talks to the manager of the country club, who promptly tells Jimmy that they are suddenly no longer doing tours and the backlog for membership is two years and running. That’s when Jimmy’s plan kicks into full gear after he accuses the club of denying him a membership because he’s Jewish.
Of course, Jimmy isn’t Jewish but he fashioned himself a Jewish last name that helps him throw a convincing fit that has everybody watching him go manic. In an effort to calm himself down, Jimmy asks if he can at least use the bathroom before he’s tossed out on his head.
When the manager agrees, Jimmy heads off to the men’s locker room where he clogs a toilet so the attendant will have to deal with the overflow while he sneaks off to find Howard Hamlin’s locker.
Jimmy is nearly discovered when Howard and Cliff end their golfing session early but thankfully he was able to get into the locker before stripping off his clothes and covering up with a towel to pretend he was just another country club member cleaning up after a shower. As for Howard, when he opens his locker, a small plastic pouch falls out with white powder inside.
Howard is stunned to see a packet of what looks to be cocaine stuffed in his locker and Cliff Main seems to have the same exact reaction. Of course, Howard plays it off like someone from the staff must have gotten into his locker and Cliff doesn’t think much of this encounter until later.
The next phase of Jimmy and Kim’s plan involves finding a client that can go to Cliff Main with suspicions that Howard was coked out of his mind during a case that could result in attorney misconduct. The only problem is they need a case that’s attached to Howard but also so unbelievable that Cliff won’t actually agree to work with them, which would then lead to a deeper investigation.
When all options seem exhausted, Kim comes up with an idea but she knows Jimmy is going to hate it.
The next day, Jimmy arrives at a tax return business run out of a trailer in the middle of nowhere with a blow up Statue of Liberty outside — the same one that eventually stands outside his strip mall office. Once he gets inside, Jimmy comes face to face with Betsy Kettleman — the wife of Craig Kettleman, the disgraced former treasurer for Bernalillo County in New Mexico.
Craig Kettleman was one of Jimmy’s first clients back in season 1 — that’s when it was revealed that Craig had been embezzling funds with more than $1.6 million stolen from the county. The Kettleman’s were trying to figure out a way to keep Craig from going to prison while also keeping the money that had been stolen.
Jimmy eventually convinced the Kettleman’s to accept a plea deal negotiated by Kim while she was still at HHM that ended with Craig serving a prison sentence.
These days, the Kettleman’s are running this hole-in-the-wall tax service where their only customers are senior citizens looking to get an advance on a refund check.
Betsy is none too happy to see Jimmy standing in her place of business but he promises that his arrival comes along with some very good news. He believes that they can get Craig’s conviction overturned thanks to some information he discovered about Howard Hamlin’s coke habit that may have compromised his ability to act on their behalf.
The Kettleman’s agree to Jimmy’s terms but then quickly double cross him after he reveals the information he has about Howard. Now armed with this important leverage, the Kettleman’s head off to Cliff Main’s office to see if he’ll represent them instead.
That’s where the Kettleman’s tell Cliff about Howard’s cocaine habit and they believe it’s enough to get Craig’s conviction overturned. Of course, Cliff tells them without any concrete proof that there’s no way any of this can come back on Howard much less convince a judge to overturn Craig’s conviction on embezzlement charges.
They walk away disappointed but the seed has been planted — Cliff has witnessed Howard dropping some strange white powder out of his locker and now some former clients are introducing the idea that he’s been snorting blow for years.
After the Kettleman’s are declined by every reputable lawyer in town, they call back to Jimmy after figuring out his ruse. This was all done to ruin Howard Hamlin’s reputation and they’re ready to tell him exactly what’s happening and who is behind it.
The next morning, Jimmy heads off to visit the Kettleman’s but this time Kim comes along for the ride. While he’s convinced that the Kettleman family is better tempted by the carrot, Kim is ready to use a big stick to ensure they don’t tell Howard anything.
In an attempt to keep the Kettleman’s quiet, Jimmy offers them a wad of cash from his Lalo Salamanca fund that he earned after he was nearly killed delivering drug kingpin’s $7 million for bail money. When Betsy scoffs at the payoff, Kim decides that she’s going to intervene by calling a friend of hers at the IRS where she plans to report the Kettleman’s for shady business practices.
It took Kim about two seconds to realize that the Kettleman’s were doing refunds for senior citizens but then skimming money off the top and paying out a smaller portion. Once an embezzler, always an embezzler.
When Kim gets transferred to the investigating agent who will surely come and arrest them both with Craig looking at many, many years behind bars as a second-time offender, Betsy finally hangs up the phone. She tells Kim that they’ll keep quiet and not say a word to Howard Hamlin about what they have planned.
After leaving, Jimmy follows Kim out the door but back in the car she realizes that her better half still gave the Kettleman’s the money out of his own pocket.
In both episodes, it’s rather evident that Jimmy is just going along for the ride with Kim while watching the woman he loves transform into the man he was already becoming after he accepted his role as a “friend of the cartel.” Jimmy has been sinking deeper and deeper into the criminal he was always destined to become as Saul Goodman but this final season seems to hint at Kim Wexler’s total transformation instead, which in turn may reveal why Jimmy finally breaks bad once and for all.
At one point, Kim even suggests to Jimmy that he needs to get an office in a prominent location near the courthouse — all but signifying his future home at that strip mall — and she even tells him that he needs to upgrade his car to something a little flashier. Perhaps a Cadillac with license plates that read “LWYRUP,” which is also featured in the opening scene of the first episode when Saul’s house is being dismantled by the authorities after he made a run for it to avoid prosecution.
Everything points towards Kim being the reason that Jimmy finally becomes the morally bankrupt lawyer who works with Walter White and Jesse Pinkman. Not that Kim convinces Jimmy he needs to become a criminal but perhaps he does it to stop her from doing the same. Either that or some terrible fate befalls Kim that makes Jimmy lose all connection he has to his former life and he finally embraces the new one that leads him to owning a home with a gold toilet in it.
No matter what, things aren’t looking great for Kim Wexler’s future once the events in “Breaking Bad” start to unfold.
On the Run
Down in Mexico, Nacho escapes Lalo Salamanca’s compound just as the hit squad heads inside to kill him — although they fail spectacularly at that mission. Nacho runs for hours just trying to get as far away as possible before he talks to Gus Fring’s henchman Tyrus, who tells him the plan to get him somewhere safe until he can be picked up.
Tyrus warns Nacho that he’s in Salamanca territory, which means anybody and everybody is after him including the local authorities.
Finally after some tireless travels on dirt roads and hiding in nearby woods, Nacho arrives at a rundown motel where he’s handed a key to a room without any questions. When he gets inside, Nacho finds an envelope waiting for him with two stacks of cash, a gun with two clips and a new phone charging on the dresser.
The voice on the other end of the line tells Nacho that he’s supposed to wait there for two days and then a truck will arrive that will take him back across the border. Until that rendezvous, however, Nacho needs to lay low and shoot anybody who comes through that door to his hotel room.
As for Lalo, he ends up at a nearby farm where he’s greeted with a hot cup of coffee and an offer of breakfast but really he’s just looking for a place to rest before the next stop on his revenge tour. Lalo knows that Nacho sold him out and he’s convinced that Gus Fring was behind it so he’s looking for the easiest path back to the United States so he can exact his revenge.
Sadly, the couple who offered Lalo a safe place to stay end up dead because the husband happens to bear a striking resemblance to the supposedly dead Salamanca. Lalo needs everybody to think he’s dead if he’s going to spring a surprise on Gus in the states.
Lalo then ends up with a coyote ferrying people across the border but before leaving, he calls his uncle Hector to inform him that he’s still very much alive. Hector is overjoyed to hear his nephew’s voice and he’s not surprised at all to hear that Gus was the one behind the hit but Lalo can’t just return to the states and start killing people without the cartel reacting.
So Hector suggests to Lalo that he finds proof that Gus was the one who orchestrated the hit against him. Rather than leaving with the coyote, Lalo changes his plans to head back into Mexico to find this proof against Gus — what that proof might be remains to be seen but given the reappearance of the Salamanca cousins in the same episode, it’s safe to assume everyone is gunning for Nacho.
When the coyotes refuse to return his money, Lalo kills both for being so rude and then he takes the pickup truck they were driving to get back down into Mexico for whatever plan he’s cooking up to expose Gus as the man behind his attempted murder.
Meanwhile, Gus seems less and less convinced that Lalo is actually dead, especially after receiving photos from the compound where every member of the hit squad was killed but somehow they still managed to kill their target as well? Gus isn’t buying it but all the proof points towards Lalo’s death.
While that’s a major concern to Gus, he’s also got to worry about Nacho Varga because the former right-hand man to the Salamanca family is on the run with everybody looking for him right now. In fact, Don Eladio has declared Nacho a traitor to the cartel and put a bounty on his head, which only makes matters worse.
Gus does his best to deflect suspicion on him by calling Juan Bolsa — who let’s not forget also wanted Lalo gone a season ago — while offering his sympathies and help to track down the people behind the attempted hit. Bolsa doesn’t know if the perpetrators are a Colombian gang or somebody else that had a reason to want Lalo dead.
The next step in covering up his tracks has Gus send Mike and the rest of his crew over to Nacho Varga’s house where they evict the two women who have been living there with him before going to work. They wreck the place to make it appear someone has been there looking for Nacho and they break into his safe, remove all of the money and fake ID’s inside before replacing it with the same exact safe except this one will contain a key piece of evidence that will point the cartel in a direction away from suspicions about Gus.
While cleaning out the safe, Mike manages to snatch the fake ID that was built for Nacho’s father because he doesn’t want him getting involved in cartel retribution. The fake safe is put in place and like clockwork, the cartel arrives to look for information, which is when Bolsa discovers a bank transfer letter along with a phone number attached to the motel where Nacho is stashed.
Gus Fring has obviously decided that Nacho needs to take the fall and he’s sending the cartel after him to get the job done.
None of this sits well with Mike, who has been trying to get Nacho free from Gus’ grip for the past season. Despite everything that Nacho has done, Gus still views him as an expendable piece on the chess board, which means he’s considered an acceptable sacrifice.
Mike disagrees but at this point he’s given up on saving Nacho and decides to do everything possible to keep his father safe instead.
As for Gus, he calls on Bolsa with an idea to keep the peace by taking a trip to the retirement community where he will pay respects to Hector on the loss of his nephew. While Bolsa sees this as a way to mend fences between two people who hate each other, Gus wants to look Hector in the eye while talking about his supposedly dead nephew to find out if Lalo has really shuffled off this mortal coil.
When Hector extends a handshake, Gus returns the favor but realizes beyond a shadow of a doubt that Lalo Salamanca is still very much alive.
In Mexico, Nacho is growing more and more paranoid as the days pass and he’s not heard a word from Mike much less the handlers that were sent by Gus to get him out of there. Nacho then notices a man wandering around a nearby building and it doesn’t take him long to figure out he’s being watched.
After kicking out the air conditioner in the back of his room, Nacho escapes and circles back around to get the drop on the man who’s been watching him. The man tells Nacho that he’s been paid by a middle man to keep an eye on that front door and report if he ever leaves.
Nacho calls Tyrus to ask for help but he’s using that to prove his suspicions because after hanging up, the man watching his room receives a call. Now Nacho knows that Gus wants him dead just as much as the Salamanca’s want him alive to find out who ordered the hit on Lalo.
Nacho prepares to make his escape at the same time the Salamanca cousins arrive to retrieve him. He ends up in a gun battle with the would be assassins coming after him and the Salamanca cousins actually take out one of their own men after telling everybody that they need Nacho alive for obvious reasons. It’s a harrowing encounter but somehow Nacho escapes in a stolen truck and the Salamanca cousins are once again left looking or him.
As for Gus, now that he knows Lalo is alive he needs to make sure Nacho Varga is dead so he can never be captured and compelled to give up the person who really orchestrated the hit. When Gus suggests using Nacho’s father as a bargaining chip, Mike refuses to cater to those commands and he ends up in a face off with his boss and Tyrus, who holds a gun on him unaware that Mike has a sniper parked outside with a rifle pointed at the building.
Just as it looks like this is going to turn into the final scene from “Reservoir Dogs,” Mike gets a call from Nacho, who has been trying to reach him ever since this ordeal started. He tells Nacho that it wasn’t his decision to make him expendable but that was the call made to protect Gus from the cartel coming after him. Nacho then requests to speak to Gus personally.
We’ll have to wait to find out what Nacho said but it’s obvious Gus has been rattled by this entire scenario. He even accidentally breaks a glass, which shows the frustration and distraction this situation is causing him.
Gus is nothing if not calculating and meticulous in every part of his business, which goes to show just how far this feud with the Salamanca family will push him. In fact, as we all know, Gus’ hatred for the Salamancas will ultimately be his undoing.
“Better Call Saul” returns for a brand new episode next Monday night at 9 p.m. on AMC.
