Summary: Jimmy is spared from disbarment but is suspended for a year from practicing law. Kim wants to lower their expenses by finding a new location but Jimmy doesn't want to do that. He tries to find a way to make money and decides to create commercials for other clients since he still has several airings left for his "Gimme Jimmy" commercial which won't be used. Jimmy creates a commercial for himself, using the name Saul Goodman. Chuck talks to Howard and he decides to move on and leave Jimmy behind. However he then goes into the city and calls Dr. Cruz. Nacho is now doing the work Tuco usually did for Hector involving Krazy 8 and Gus. Hector wants to use Nacho's father's business as a front.
The Good: This was a very solid episode overall to follow up the show's masterpiece which was "Chicanery". There were a ton of different stories in this episode which I will examine. I'll break my usual format and actually tackle the Nacho storyline first. First of all, it was good to see Nacho getting some focus after all this time. He has never felt like a real main character like everyone else due to limited appearances, but this episode allowed us to see more into his head and how he is as a person which is excellent. And on top of that, this episode gives him a problem to solve which will surely help us understand him better as a character. To get into more detail, I really enjoyed that opening scene. It gave us a good look as to how Nacho differs from somebody intense like Tuco. Just based off of Krazy 8's mannerisms, we can tell that Nacho is often much friendlier and isn't as effective as an intense drug dealer. Hector's supervision also demonstrates this and it was pleasing to see Michael Mando display Nacho's conflict through some great subtle facial changes. Having Nacho as a main character is pointless if we don't like him, but by showing us that Nacho is a decent human being it helps us understand him more. And on top of this, it allows us to understand why he ay consider betraying Hector since he wants to take his father's business. I'll discuss more on this in The Unknown, but the ending of the storyline in this episode was very good set up and leaves me wanting to see much more. Now onto the main storylines of the episode. I like that there was plenty of time given to follow up on the court proceedings in showing that there was more that happened after Chuck left the witness stand, which helps the court realize that Jimmy would be good for the community. I also liked the editing done in the scenes that spliced Kim's speech in the courtroom with Chuck suffering at home after what happened. The immediate follow up with Rebecca was nice too. I enjoyed seeing Jimmy and Kim celebrating briefly over their victory, but more than that I was extremely happy with Jimmy coldly dismissing Rebecca and not wanting to help Chuck. While it seems cruel, what Chuck did to him was much worse since he manipulated Jimmy's emotions. It felt very real to see Jimmy still holding it against Chuck and refusing to go help him, having learned from the last time he went to help Chuck. This was a perfect conclusion for the Jimmy/Chuck plot in this episode as both characters seemingly moved on to different things. Chuck's scenes after that were very good. I enjoyed seeing Howard show his friendly and loyal side for once, refusing to leave Chuck just like Jimmy did back in "Klick". While we have been trained by the show to dislike Chuck ever since "Pimento", but this does show us that Howard isn't as bad as Chuck and is simply just a friend trying to help Chuck out through this whole case with Jimmy. It seems like Chuck is actually trying to develop an affinity to electricity now which is nice to see. I'm interested to see if he can actually recover now. Lastly, the walk through the city was a magnificent sequence. This show has been brilliant at bringing Chuck's illness to life and this scene was another example of that. Jimmy's storyline for the rest of the episode was great too. I like that he is trying to keep everything he and Kim worked so hard to attain from the end of season 2 until now, refusing to lose the office and Francesca. It fits what we have seen from Jimmy in the past that he doesn't want to give up things he has worked hard to earn which may affect Kim, just like he did with the Davis and Main job. I enjoyed his immediate follow up to this too. The several calls to the older clients were hilarious and it was nice to see Jimmy's patience getting tested after having to speak with so many different elderly people about the same thing. I also do like how it reminded him about the commercials which would then become a major plot line for the episode. I feel like everything was done organically, with every action from Jimmy leading to the next problem he has to take care of. The actual commercial shooting was fantastic too. I loved seeing Jimmy offer to shoot commercials for clients, but ultimately estrange them in his desperation. It was good comedy and led to Jimmy facing a very credible conflict which he then managed to somewhat subvert when he made his own commercial. The actual shooting of his own commercial was awesome and there was loads of humour as he prepared to do it. It was great to see the film students once more as they consistently produce some of the show's best comedy. The commercial itself was amazing too. It was hilariously choppy and I love how Jimmy dressed up with various articles of clothing which belonged to the film students. It was a really well put together commercial that injected Jimmy's character into it perfectly. And on top of that it brought in Saul Goodman into the story in a very good way, making for a very satisfying moment at the end when he reveals his name. There were a couple other small things I enjoyed. Jimmy's goldfish was some nice continuity as we see that Jimmy bought a tank and is properly feeding her. And of course, I loved seeing the Lydia cameo and it was nice to see the location of the superlab from Breaking Bad being introduced. The Bad: Mike's story feels a little aimless at the moment. I understand that the show wants Mike to settle down after enacting his vengeance, which will likely lead to him eventually going to Gus. The problem is that we know this is going to happen, so there is little drama to be had. Jimmy's story has a similar problem, but it always overcomes it because there is much more depth to Jimmy as a character and it's compelling to watch other characters like Chuck and Kim in that storyline. Stacey and Kaylee aren't interesting enough to carry Mike's story here and it just feels really bland at the moment. We love Mike for being a smart badass who can pull off some crazy stunts. Without playing to Mike's strengths, his storyline gets boring quickly. Gus and Hector's operation confuses me and that's a problem. The scene between Nacho, Arturo, Victor and Tyrus (!) was hurt by this. We don't know what Gus and Hector's deal is about transport so I didn't know what the significance of Nacho grabbing another package was. It also didn't help that I didn't know for sure that Hector had ordered Nacho to do that, which took away from the drama as well. The Unknown: Why did Chuck call Dr. Cruz? Is it to help him get past his illness? Or does he still have Jimmy in mind and is planning something? Will Nacho give in to Hector and let him use his dad's business? Or will he step up and face against Hector? It's safe to assume that Nacho does get in legal trouble at some point which will bring him back to Jimmy, but we don't know why yet. This adds some drama to his storyline since we don't know what his fate is and when it happens. Could this conflict lead to that? Hector also had a very key moment where he had a stress attack of some kind and took pills to calm him down. Could this problem he has potentially lead to his stroke which puts him in the wheelchair? And also, will Nacho cause this to happen? He has hidden a pill under his show so could he potentially be thinking of using it to end Hector? Best Moment: I'll go with Jimmy and Rebecca's scene from early in the episode. It was the most powerful moment in the episode. Character of the Episode: Nacho. Conclusion: This was a solid episode that set up a lot of storylines for the second half of this season. There were a few flaws, but the good stuff was good enough to make the episode enjoyable. Score: 66
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
March 2024
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