In the latest Better Call Saul recap, Jimmy realizes his days at Davis and Main are numbered, Kim decides her future and Mike can’t let an old grudge go…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
A square peg in a round hole.
That’s been the recurring theme for Jimmy McGill throughout the first two seasons of Better Call Saul as he tries to be the man everyone else wants him to be rather than just be the person he’s destined to become.
The source of Jimmy’s internal struggle stretches all the way back to his childhood when he was first sweeping up his father’s corner store and sneaking a peak at the Playboy issues on the top shelf. When a grifter comes by one day asking for $5 to help get back to his stranded car and a sick kid, little Jimmy realizes right away that this guy is a con artist. He tries to convince his father that the man is just trying to take his money, but old man McGiill won’t have it and instead of handing the grifter the $5 he asked for, he hands over $10 and offers to help repair his car.
When his father leaves to go find some spark plugs, the grifter finally shows his hand when he asks to buy two cartons of cigarettes. At first, Jimmy is boiling with anger than this man just got one over on his father. Then the grifter drops some knowledge on Jimmy that he’ll keep for the rest of his life.
“There are wolves and sheep in this world, kid. Wolves and sheep — figure out which one you’re going to be.”
At that moment, Jimmy realized that he tried to warn his father but no matter how much he pleaded with him, old man McGill was destined to be a sheep. So Jimmy pocketed the extra $8 made from the cigarettes and immediately felt like a wolf. Like the old poker saying goes — it’s immoral to let a sucker keep his money.
Jimmy McGill has been living that philosophy ever since.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of Better Call Saul titled ‘Inflatable’….
Optical Migraine
It’s clear after popping off the odd shaped cup holder in his Mercedes a week ago that Jimmy’s had about enough of conforming to everybody else’s rules for him. He goes into Davis and Main determined to file a letter of resignation — until his helpful assistant Omar reveals that if he quits, he has to pay back a rather large signing bonus that he got based on working for the law firm for at least a year.
So following a miserable drive one day, Jimmy spots one of those inflatable Air Dancers jumping around in the wind, going every which way but loose, and all the while having a giant smile plastered across its face. Jimmy realizes that he needs to be more like those obnoxious windbags outside every car dealership in the universe — and I’m not talking about the salesmen.
So after reading his fully executed contract, Jimmy knows the only way to get out from under Davis and Main’s thumb is to get fired for something other than malpractice. So he busts out his best pastel colored suits to annoy the bosses, buys a very loud juicer that sprays a few co-workers with varying colors of fruits and vegetables as well as using the bathroom while forgetting to flush after taking the Browns to the Super Bowl.
The final straw is Jimmy’s attempt to model ‘blowing off steam’ after his boss when he tries to learn how to play the bagpipes in his office in the middle of a work day.
Cliff Main finally has enough and he fires Jimmy, but not before letting the biggest employment mistake of his life know that he’s aware this entire mess was all so he could keep his signing bonus. In a way, Jimmy almost feels bad — so much so that he offers to buy the $7000 desk that the firm purchased for him when he started.
Ultimately, Jimmy didn’t dislike Davis and Main — he just wasn’t meant to work there.
Jimmy: “Hey Cliff, for what it’s worth, I think you’re a good guy.”
Cliff: “For what it’s worth, I think you’re an asshole.”
Jimmy then decides it’s time to move onto bigger and better things — like a practice shared alongside his gal pal Kim Wexler.
The Grudge
Mike finishes up his business with the District Attorney by having Jimmy represent him in the Tuco Salamanca case where he now claims the gun used in the incident didn’t belong to the thug who attacked him. Mike doesn’t know where the gun came from or how it landed in Tuco’s hand — perhaps a bird picked it up and fell from the sky? — but all they know is that Tuco can’t be charged for possessing a firearm and much to the DA’s chagrin, the assault won’t equal much time in jail at all.
On the way out of the courthouse, Jimmy tells Mike that he made the smart play by backing off the gun charge because Tuco Salamanca is a psycho and nothing but bad news. But Mike just can’t let it go — as he grits his teeth together, he’s secretly seething that he bowed down to the gangster and his uncle and that’s something that just won’t stand.
Even after setting up Stacy and Kaylee in a brand new house — the same one you’ll eventually see in Breaking Bad — Mike is just stewing over his willingness to bend to the will of the Salamanca clan and he can’t let it go.
So Mike ends up in a stakeout on top of a hill overlooking the restaurant used as a front for the Salamanca family business. Mike hasn’t quite decided what he’s going to do to avenge his pride, but somebody from that family is going to pay and this grudge wont die until they do.
Wexler, McGill, Attorneys At Law
While Jimmy is stuffing his cocobolo desk into the back of the nail salon and driving around now in his multi-colored Hyundai, Kim is going through her big interview with Schweikart and Cokley. Everything seems to go well — we even learn some background on Kim including her no name hometown on the border of Nebraska and Kansas as well as her mission to avoid a life spent working at the Hinky Dinky married to the owner of the local gas station, which then brought her to New Mexico.
The partners are all very impressed with her but Kim is still struggling to pull the trigger on the new job. On the exit from her interview, Kim even mistakenly calls her potential new boss by the wrong name but it’s not out of some guilt from leaving her old position at HHM but she realizes in that moment that she’s not moving up.
She’s moving sideways.
Before she has a chance to make a final decision, Jimmy comes to Kim and makes her an offer he hopes she can’t refuse.
Instead of a lateral move from one law firm to another, Jimmy asks Kim to bet big on each other — in other words open a practice together as Wexler-McGill, Attorneys-at-Law. Of course, Kim’s biggest concern isn’t jumping off the ledge without a security net below her. She’s scared that when she jumps, Jimmy is going to hand her a cinderblock thanks to his highly questionable practice and less than ethical approach to law.
But Jimmy isn’t going into this venture as anything other than himself because despite the furnished apartment and single color car he’s been driving, he can’t pretend to be a sheep any longer because the wolf is just dying to get loose.
“I’ve been trying to be the person someone else wants me to be for I don’t know how long. First it was Chuck, then it was you — and that’s not your fault, it was my choice. But if we’re going to do this, I’ve got to go into it as me. So yeah, colorful, I guess.”
~ Jimmy
Jimmy’s best attempt to close Kim on the idea falls flat and while he doesn’t let on that it bothers him, he’s clearly crushed. A day later, Kim comes to Jimmy with an idea of her own — Kim Wexler, Attorney at Law and Jimmy McGill, Attorney at Law — they share a work space, rent, utilities, but keep their practices separate. That way they are working together without actually working together.
Jimmy is stunned by this development because all the wanted some something they could call their own while building an empire together. Instead, Kim is saying that she’s willing to share a building with him, but doesn’t exactly trust Jimmy enough to put his name on the same letterhead.
Kim closes by asking Jimmy to ‘just say yes’ but he stares at the mocked up business card he made for them that’s been torn in half and there’s no better way to describe the exact way he’s feeling at this very moment.
Better Call Saul returns to AMC next Monday night at 10pm ET for a brand new episode with only three more episodes to go this season.
