Better Call Saul Season 6, Episode 5, "Black and Blue"

Better Call Saul, like Breaking Bad before it, is often committed to showing the incremental steps between larger events. We see how people go about their business, their working methods and habits, both professional and personal, and how they handle the minute consequences of their actions. It makes sense for these shows to do so, given that at their core they are about how their characters undergo gradual change as they wind down increasingly dark paths. However, sometimes this commitment to showing the incremental steps can lead to relatively slow episodes that exist mainly to move the characters into position for presumably more eventful and captivating episodes later on. Indeed, Better Call Saul usually has lull in the plot around episode four or five each season. Such has been the case in the previous two seasons, for instance, and season six is no different, as “Black and Blue” is largely concerned with laying track for subsequent episodes.

Nevertheless, there is still room for graceful storytelling even in a relatively uneventful episode. “Black and Blue,” for instance, offers a couple of parallels between various characters, most obviously Gus and Kim each being rattled by Lalo’s survival. Kim can’t sleep, and wedges a chair under the front door’s knob as makeshift security measure, while Gus compulsively checks his ankle holster and zones out while taking a customer’s order at Pollos. Indeed, “Black and Blue” is probably as unnerved as we’ve ever seen Gus on either Better Call Saul or Breaking Bad: at one point Mike returns to Gus’s backup house to find Gus scrubbing the grout in the shower with a toothbrush, unable to sit still or “relax,” as Mike encourages him to do, with Lalo still in the wind.

Of course, a part of Gus’s restlessness probably stems from his impatience to resume work on the super lab, which he shut down until he could eliminate Lalo as a threat. We learned last season that Gus is under some pressure from Peter Schuler and Madrigal to get the lab up and running, which “Black and Blue” alludes to by having Gus and Mike return to the lab for the first time since season four. Here, Gus realizes that whatever Lalo is up to, it likely involves the super lab, and seems to set some sort of a trap for him when he places a gun on the treads of the lab’s backhoe. 

While Gus is rattled in this episode, we're long past the point where the series has had anything new or illuminating to say about his character, thus the interest here derives from the game of cat and mouse between Gus and Lalo, and the inferences we can make about what these two assume about each other. Gus assumes that Lalo has figured out the reason Gus placed a hit on him (Lalo was getting too close to discovering the super lab), and that Lalo has likely continued to pursue his investigation into Gus’s business in order to really hit Gus where it hurts when he finally enacts his revenge. And indeed, when we finally catch up with Lalo at the end of “Black and Blue,” this is exactly what Lalo is up to. 

Evidently the epiphany Lalo had that end of “Wine and Roses” was thinking of a reason for why Gus would go to such great lengths to kill him, and he concludes it must have had something to do with his near-discovery of the project Ziegler was working on back in “Winner,” thus in “Black and Blue” he pursues the one lead he has about Gus’s plans: Ziegler’s widow Margarethe. He’s tracked her down in Germany and flirts with her to learn more about Ziegler and his work. She doesn’t know much, but she reveals enough details that Lalo’s subsequent search of her house leads him to understand the relevance of the plaque we saw being manufactured in the prologue, which is inscribed, "With love... your boys" ("boys" being how Ziegler always referred to his crew). 

Like a lot of other scenes on the cartel side of this series, “Black and Blue” enlivens Lalo’s search with a splash of suspense: we wonder if Lalo will end up harming Margarethe, especially when he readies a silenced gun after Margrethe unexpectedly returns home while he is still searching her house for a lead. However, rather than illuminating anything about Lalo’s character, ultimately Lalo’s scenes in this episode merely illustrate another step on the path he’s taking toward his eventual confrontation with Gus (he’ll likely trace the manufacturer back to the person who commissioned the plaque – I strongly suspect Kai – who he will then squeeze for information about the super lab). Lalo's scenes are similar to Gus's in that aren't terribly illuminating about him as a character. After all, we already know Lalo is charming and intelligent, and that he has no compunction about killing innocent people when they become problems. So, while I enjoy the game of cat and mouse between Lalo and Gus, and while this suspense sequence is mildly diverting, I am also eager for the show to finally get to the fireworks factory.

Jimmy and Kim’s con is also largely at a standstill this week, although it provides more engaging material than the cartel business. The major development here is that Howard finally gets wind of Jimmy and Kim’s machinations after Cliff confronts Howard about his supposed cocaine addiction. What finally sends Cliff over the edge (so to speak) seems to be Howard impatiently bouncing his knee while Erin speaks at a meeting with the Sandpiper residents (who themselves are impatient with how long the case is taking to settle), and then his interrupting Erin when he can no longer contain his urge to step in. Cliff mistakes Howard’s eagerness for a coke-fueled manic episode, when really (and somewhat hilariously) it’s just Howard being himself. 

Howard, of course, is incredulous over Cliff’s accusations, and upon reviewing Cliff’s evidence, immediately deduces that Jimmy is somehow behind everything. Here, then, we have another parallel between characters in “Black and Blue”: both Howard and Gus have deduced the vague outline of their rivals’ plans and start to take steps against them. In Howard’s case, this means confronting Jimmy in a somewhat amusing, if immature, manner: goading him into an impromptu boxing session at a local gym.

Howard seems to have four goals in challenging Jimmy to a boxing match: the first is to let Jimmy know Howard is onto him; the second is to try to let Jimmy exorcise whatever demons are prompting him to prank Howard; the third is to try to convince Jimmy to stop it, and the fourth is to punch Jimmy in the face without getting charged with assault. Jimmy, for his part, participates not because he actually has any deep-seated animosity toward Howard, but because, as Kim will later suggest, Jimmy feels bad for whatever Howard will suffer as Kim and Jimmy proceed with the next step of their con. He pities Howard for what they are about to do to him – “something unforgiveable” – and wants to give him a small victory before he ruins Howard’s life.

This business with Howard is interesting because of how it plays with our range of knowledge. Initially, it seems like it could be bad for our con artists for Howard to have so easily figure out that they’re running a con. After all, back in “Carrot and Stick” Kim was adamant that the Kettlemans not approach Howard with what they knew. However, what Howard suspects doesn’t really matter, since the target of this part of the con is Cliff, not Howard, and the con has worked on Cliff, who refuses to believe Howard’s protests of innocence. In fact, Jimmy and Kim likely planned for Howard to eventually become suspicious of them, since Jimmy is more concerned about the black eye Howard gives him than he is about Howard’s knowledge of their schemes. 

However, we also know more (or seem to know more) than Jimmy and Kim: Howard has hired a private investigator to follow Jimmy, which could potentially gum up their subsequent plans. We’ve already seen from “Carrot and Stick” that Jimmy can’t necessarily spot a tail, and it’s unclear if he’s aware of the lengths Howard has gone to here. This manipulation of how much we know relative to the characters is very adept. As we’ve seen, a good con accounts for all sorts of contingencies, but a good presentation of a con (to viewers) will withhold certain information to keep us in suspense. How much do the con artists know? Do we really know more than them? Are they in peril? Or have they had the upper hand all along? This is the bread and butter of heist movies, but here a similar scenario is playing out on a serialized television show, where the stakes can be higher because we’ve become so invested in the characters.

Another reason Howard’s confrontation with Jimmy is interesting is because Jimmy’s moment of pity for Howard contrasts so sharply with Jimmy’s public-facing behavior in the rest of “Black and Blue.” This is the most Saul-like Jimmy has been in quite some time: he’s lazy and callous, and not nearly as charming as he thinks he is. His new client base seems to have restored his confidence after the events of last season, and his ruined reputation at the courthouse has seemed to put an end to his caring what other people think of him. 

We see as much in the scene set in his still-nascent office, where another piece of Saul’s Breaking Bad life falls into place when he hires Francesca as his administrator. It’s a great scene, not only since it nicely establishes the basis for Francesca’s cynical view of Jimmy, but also because it demonstrates how Saul-like Jimmy has become in his professional life. He seems to have lured Francesca there under false pretenses (she presumes that she’ll be working for both Kim and Jimmy), and he doesn’t seem to think about how off-putting his barren, dirty office space is, having neglected even to remove the toilet. He also gives her a half-hearted pitch on his vision for his new business (“What Colonel Sanders is to chicken Saul Goodman is to the law”), and makes it clear that he doesn’t value her as much as he claims to when he initially offers to double the salary of whichever of her previous two jobs paid less. This is callous Saul behavior through and through, which I suppose makes sense, since he is in his office after all, which is ground-zero for all things Saul, at least physically. The asshole is likely here to stay, at least in this realm of his life. It still remains to be seen when, how, and to what degree Saul will infiltrate his personal life as well. 

Other thoughts:

- A fast food business is good cover for Gus’s drug empire, since it gives him another outlet for his compulsive fastidiousness. For Gus, running Pollos is essentially the same thing as scrubbing grout.

- Now that Jimmy is about to start renovations on his office, I suspect we’ll soon discover what he puts in the box that we saw him digging out of the wall in the prologue to “Quite a Ride,” i.e., the episode where we were treated to a flash forward to Saul’s mad scramble to destroy evidence before leaving his life to become Gene. Another interesting thing about that prologue: Upon retrieving the bag of money and being relieved it’s still there, he sarcastically exclaims, “Three cheers for morality!” Might this money be part of the sandpiper settlement? 

- Howard’s closing remarks to the Sandpiper claimants: “I want to live in a world where people can trust each other.” Cut to Cliff, who is quietly mistrusting him.  

- Jimmy gives Kim the perfect opportunity for her to break the news to him that Lalo is still alive when he tries to comfort her over her insomnia by telling her that he’s glad Lalo is dead, but Kim lets the moment pass. She’s likely trying to protect him, but her withholding this information could come back to bite them. We know Jimmy will learn of it one way or another. Fingers crossed that he does so in more dramatic fashion (like, say, his being confronted by Lalo himself).

- Another parallel: Kim fishes for information about the mediator in the Sandpiper case when she meets Viola for lunch, much like how Lalo fishes for information from Margarethe. It’s probably not a coincidence that Kim is paralleled with Better Call Saul’s two most ruthless cartel characters in the same episode. 

- It’s still not clear what the next step is in Jimmy and Kim’s plan for Howard (they know more than us here), but it seems like it will somehow involve the Sandpiper settlement mediator, a retired judge with an impressive mustache.  

- The Francesca scene is also funny for how bewildered she is by all of the changes Jimmy has undergone. He’s married to Kim? He practices under the name Saul Goodman? It’s like Francesca is a Better Call Saul viewer who skipped seasons four and five.

- Kim continues to beat Jimmy at his own game. Jimmy tries to use makeup to conceal his black eye, but Kim thinks of a way to use it as a marketing gimmick: “I’m Saul Goodman. I’ll fight for you.”

- Kim’s anxiety about Lalo leads me to consider yet another possibility for her fate: she flees in terror. This seems very unlikely, however, since it would be very out of character for her, and very unsatisfying for viewers, unless something drastic changes between now and then. Although I suppose Jimmy has to learn of Robert Forster’s fixer somehow.

- Gus counts the paces from the foot of the stairs to the planted gun. Does he plan to turn the lights off on Lalo? If so, then how would he be able to aim the gun?