 |
| Greg Lewis/AMC/Sony Pictures Television |
The focus is on a flashback scene with Kim as a child, her and Jimmy's D-Day plan and the anxiety from other characters such as Mike and Howard.
Better Call Saul Season 6 Episode 6
So the 6th episode of Better Call Saul's final season, opens with yet another flash to a different time, and this one is our second with young Kim Wexler. The cold open gives us a flashback to a young Kim and her mother. Last season, we got one with a teenage Kim who was waiting outside her school in Nebraska and her mother turned up hours late in a drunken state with it resulting in Kim not getting in the car.
We learnt that she would rather make a long walk home than do what her mother says, and it really gave us a glimpse into why Kim might be the way she is today. Well in this new cold open, we get a little bit more information on what Kim is embarking down bad choice road, and how it stems from an early age. Young Kim is in a department store officer where the manager has caught her trying to steal a necklace and a pair of earrings and it's here that her mother comes in, looking identical to Rhea Seehorn, acting disappointed in her daughter and saying she won't let it happen again.
Young Kim just takes in the fake anger and affirms that she won't do it again. But as soon as they come outside it's not long before Kim's mother starts laughing and reveals that she stole the necklace and gives it to her. She says to her that she didn't know she had in her and this is a perfect scene to show that Kim is the kind of character that we didn't expect to turn out the way she has.
But in a way, using her past frames has shown why she perhaps has become this way and alligned herself even more with Jimmy. As the daughter of a single mother, one that seemed to be fuelling the person she's become, and someone who has been moved from one home to another, it makes sense why she would be doing the things she is now and trying to support the little guy like Jimmy.
Now we clearly know why as Jimmy McGill’s wife she proposed to him after being on the back end of one of his scams against her own client. And it's clear that come the current point in this season, that Kim has not moved away from the commitment to taking down Howard and puting an end to the Sandpiper lawsuit.
She clearly is up to the task and with an engrained history of getting away with things, praised by her own mother, it seems there is no turning back. It seems to us that Kim’s childhood is what has made her empathetic to the people she sides with and it reveals why she might be attracted to Jimmy and his cons. It’s a standout moment and it will turn out to be a crucial one for however Kim ends up in the show and the message that they ultimately convey with her character.
Howard's Private Life and Reaction to Jimmy's Con
After the opening credits, back in Albuquerque during the present Better Call Saul timeline and for the first time we're inside Howard Hamlin's home, where the lawyer is trying to decide what to wear. All his clothes are perfectly organised and after he decides which blue shirt to wear, he takes on the long process of making the perfect latte, and finishing in it off with a symbol of peace using lots of milk.
It's at this point where we actually see Howard's wife, who clearly isn't sleeping with him at the house, and Howard says that the latte is for her. We get a sense of their shaky relationship with his wife thanking him for the Latte in the smallest of ways and then pouring the latte into her travel mug without a word towards the peace sign he spent long to make.
It again shows us that at heart Howard is someone who really spends his time trying to meticulously perfect and be the best he can be, even after problems, yet it seems he's always on the back end. During their brief conversation in this scene, Howard also speaks about Jimmy and tells his wife that she may hear or see something connected to his cons. He reaffirms that he's handling it and back at his office, the private detective he hired goes over Jimmy's recent activities and we discover that he made a visit to a bank and withdrew $20,000 in cash. So Howard knows that Jimmy is up to something and like us, we don't quite know all the details.
But again it's two scenes that really re-frame the idea of not wanting bad things to happen to Howard, but they do seem inevitable.
Lalo Salamanca is On The Hunt and Mike's Paranoia
These involve a few brief moments with that of Lalo Salamanca and Mike Ehrmantraut. Lalo is of course still out there in search of information about Gus Fring's hit operation, and comes across the person he's been after.
Kai, The German worker who previously called Werner Ziegler weak is seen chopping wood in a forest, when Lalo appears, chases him down and after getting an axe to the chest, he finds a way to gain the upper hand in the fight and asks the engineer to tell him everything he needs to know. We get nothing else with Lalo but it's clear to us that this man is going to tell him what he needs to know about Gus and that very soon he'll be on his way to confront the chicken man alongside Mike and his team.
And this leads us to possibly the most impactful moment of the episode, which involves us learning about how Gus and Mike’s anciety surrounding Lalo impact their relationships. In particular, we focus on Mike’s relationship with his own family, as the hitman must watch his granddaughter play with her new telescope from a distance, without her knowing he's just across the road just to ensure that the operation won't come back to bite his own family. Mike seems worried when he tells her that he’ll be calling the next day, and the framing of this scene is extremely telling towards what happens to Mike's family in breaking bad.
She is just across the road, yet out of reach and Mike continuously worries for their safety and stability with everything he's got into. It will be really interesting to see how they end Mike's arc in this show but right now, I think's he's the one character from Better Call Saul that I think they've done better here than in Breaking Bad.
They make you really connect to how he feels surrounding the protection of his family and frame why he makes the choices he does in Breaking Bad. Think about the Nacho situation and how maybe that affects him when he ultimately comes in contact with Jesse Pinkman. It's the little things and moments like the one in this episode that invest you even more so in the emotional qualities to his arc.
Jimmy And Kim's D-Day Plan
And this leads us back to the main chunk of episode 6 which surrounds Jimmy and Kim. They have begun the final step of their D-Day plan, and while the details are still mysterious, we're starting to see the greater hints of the things at play. Whether that be the photo shoot with an actor dressed to look like the Sandpiper judge Casamiro, or a late-night visit to Dr. Caldera involving Jimmy taking a mystery substance that won't show up on a blood test and makes his pupils a lot wider.
Caldera tells them that he's leaving and in his black book we see the hint of the vacuum cleaner repair shop. This will likely be a huge hint for what's to come and I wouldn't be surprised if we got a brief seen with Robert Forster down the line before he of course passed away. But it's easter egg and we won't really know if that comes into the frame until we see the later episodes.
But while Jimmy is shocked that Caldera is leaving due to all the money he's making, Caldera knows that this kind of lifestyle is one that is not a happy one, and that getting away with things affects the outcome. Kim seems to see this and it's over her arc in this episode that we get possibly the final straw in her decision to go back down that path.
Kim Wexler Ending
After watching a trial and following his concerns with Howard, Clifford Main offers Kim a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a presentation in Santa Fe to help her career during the same day that the final stage of Howard's con is due to take place.
Kim says that she doesn't have to be with him during the con and as they spend a final moment together toasting outside of HHM, it seems like everything is going to plan. But with just a small period of time to go before the plan kicks into motion, and Kim driving in the direction of Santa Fe and her good future, Jimmy is in the process of buying a bottle of Zafiro Anejo and things start to go wrong.
He sees the real waiting in line, and while he has the mustache that they perfectly recreated with their impersonator, he notices that he's also got a broken arm. Jimmy freaks out, calls Kim and tries to pull the plug on the con and this could have been the moment where Kim finds a way out of a plan that's way too risky. She could have kept driving, but instead, she makes a fast turn down a long road and heads straight back to Jimmy.
She says to him it happens today and heads back speeding down potentially bad choice road. So next week's midseason finale will likely answer many of the questions surrounding their final plan and we'll see exactly what Kim has just given up in this big opportunity she had. Maybe if her childhood was better she might have continued down the path to better things, but again, she turns around and heads straight back to Jimmy.
I think what this tells us is that this was really Kim's last opportunity a legitimate chance at getting her dream job, but by using this road to symbolise her coming straight back to the final steps of the con, it tells us that her downfall is inevitable. The aftermath of this whether it's successful or not will come back to haunt Kim's status as a lawyer, but we will soon truly see what her and Jimmy have planned in the takedown of Howard.
Episode 6 Final Thoughts
So general thoughts of episode 6. It's an episode that again continues this buildup to whatever D-day turns out to be, there could have been more plot development towards Jimmy and Kim's plan in terms of what they are actually doing, if next week does have the huge payoff, then it will be all worth it.
We still know so little about what that plan is, and it's hard to really invest in moments to do with their plan when we don't know how it fits into whatever the outcome is. Like with Jimmy discovering that the real Casimiro has a broken arm and the 20 grand that Howard mention earlier on in the episode.
The plot did feel like it was moving a lot slower, but again, because the character moments are continuously written so well, I think it will mean that the payoff will carry it over the line. We are so invested in the motives of each of the characters, and when the potential events take place next week, it will hopefully be really effective. Overall, we learnt that because of Francesca's help, Jimmy has the call-in information for a conference call with Sandpiper, that his filming crew are shooting a Casimiro impersonator and that Dr. Caldera has helped Jimmy dilate his pupils.
And while Kim Wexler got a perfect meeting with the Jackson Mercer Foundation, she still ends up taking bad choice road in the aim to take Howard down. And with all the further tension surrounding Gus, Mike and Lalo, next week's finale has to really deliver on a lot of setup plot points and increase the overall pacing that has been slower in the previous 2 episodes.
It's going to be worth it, and Vince Gilligan and Peter Could know how to write television that fully pays off. We will have to wait until next week, but hopefully, it will be an episode that delivers on it all and ups the ante.
What are your thoughts on all the events that went down and what do you think will happen in the mid-season finale next week?
Comments
Post a Comment