Better Call Saul (AMC) TV Show • Page 70

Man different strokes and all that, but I feel like a lot of my friends that I’ve talk to think that this show and breaking bad are boring and that’s insane to me. Like I can’t imagine watching the last two episodes of last season and thinking that this is a boring show lol.

 

Anyway that was definitely Mike at the end right?

 

Like, I still don't understand. Why leave anything other than some cash in there if you're trying to protect Nacho?

 

My take on the address thing was that Mike was taking a gamble. He wants to help Nacho but Gus won’t let him. So he gave away Nacho’s hiding place to put pressure on Gus and make Gus let him go get Nacho. It doesn’t make sense for Gus to give Nacho up to the Salamancas, that would only increase his risk of getting exposed if they tortured the information out of him. Mike probably figured they’d find Nacho eventually anyway and decided to have faith that Nacho would get away at least once. Now Gus seems like he’s going to let Mike go to Mexico.

 

Mike knows Nacho is smart, he said as much. Thinks he will be able to handle himself. Mike has been a pretty big advocate for Nacho’s father not being involved, so I would imagine it’s a protective measure on that front. That’s how I read it anyway

 

That makes sense!

 

Really couldn't get into these first two episodes much. A lot of stuff unnecessarily stretched out, and given it was almost two hours long, not all that much actually happened. Outside the specifics of Nacho's predicament (and Lalo), the cartel stuff just wasn't interesting to me, and I thought the 'dramatic' attempt to bring Nacho in fell flat (why did the guy Nacho shot get rid of the motel owner he was using as hostage cover? Nacho had two guns pointing at him).

Finding it hard to care about the stitching up of Howard too. I presume it will pay off at some point but I'm fairly bewildered watching that stuff at the moment (and I don't quite buy Kim's attitude towards it either).

The bit where Tyrus pointed his gun at Mike because he refused to involve Nacho's father was a really clumsy piece of writing belonging to a lesser show. No reason to do it, no tension either.

 

Pretty sure, yeah.

Kim is going wild and it terrifies me.

 

it's gonna be hard to top the second half of s5 but this show has always had an insane ability to outstrip itself every time. lotta great stuff here, the motel shootout especially had me white knuckles (crazy how Gilligan has just evolved into one of the best action directors on TV)

was it just something on my end though or did Mike's voice sound super weird when it's heard through the phone in Nacho's scenes? sounded like someone impersonating Banks lol

 

It wasn't Mike, it was Tyrus.

 

fantastic first 2 episodes and I love the 2 seemingly unrelated plots (Saul and Kim) and the Lalo/Nacho/Gus plot that I am sure will collide in unexpected and fantastic ways. This show finally needs to get its Emmy's. It's going to be a long ride till August and if these first 2 episodes are the quality we're going to get, I'm pumped.

 

No, it wasn't Mike. I'm pretty sure it was Howard

 

I think the whole plot was as simple as Gus doesn't want to kill Nacho in any way that could be traced back to him so he was keeping him in a location that he'd then give up so someone else would kill Nacho and there'd be no way Gus could be thought of as having a part of it. I think Mike leaving the address was exactly what Gus wanted, and Mike just hoped that Nacho would survive. The only thing he did that he probably wasn't supposed to have done was remove the Dad's ID. That's why they armed Nacho and told him to shoot the minute anyone tried to come in so that he'd die in a shoot out. However, the cousins fucked that up by wanting him alive (and I think Gus assumed they'd want nothing but death and vengeance).

 

Sorry, I should have put all these in 1 but last post since I've overcome this thread. I find this is a bizarre take if you got this far in the show.

1. That's kind of the trademark of breaking bad and this show. They have a lot of drawn out scenes for a variety of reasons, whether it be for tension or just to flex some artistic chops. That's just what the show does. It's a slow burn and I think you could take 80% of the episodes and apply this complaint to it if that's something that bothers you.
2. Yes, it will pay off I'm sure, but I don't get how you haven't bought Kim's attitude. I'm taking it as sort of father/daughter relationship with Howard, and that she knows Jimmy wasn't perfect, but for someone like Howard to basically tell her to cut ties with him was too much and now she's rebelling. I think it's always been shown too that she has as much fun as Jimmy pulling those stunts, but always had professional commitments telling her not to. Now she's on her own, fighting for the little guys against the rich, and has just had enough. I think her arc is really good, and her actions have certainly been earned.
3. I don't understand this one either. Why is it of a lesser show? We obviously know nothing is going to happen with it being a prequel show, but Tyrus is just a brute enforcer who does whatever Gus says, and Mike doesn't back down so it's putting GUs in the middle and getting him to reveal where his allegiance lies.

 

Gus knows that Eladio and the Salamancas want Nacho alive because they need to find out who told him to help kill Lalo. Telling them where Nacho is would be against Gus's interests because, if Nacho were captured, he wouldn't be able to withstand their torture forever.

 

I think the only part you're missing is that when he made the plan. Lalo was 'dead' and that because of that, it'd be a vengeance mission and that's why they armed Nacho and basically holed him up so he'd shoot first and then got shot in return. I'm not saying it makes 100% sense with the risk of backfiring, but that's how I took it. The only thing that's changed now, is Mike convinced Gus that since Lalo is alive and MIA, that he'd be going to find Nacho himself and would NOT have any reason to kill him as he needs the proof. Prior to that, the assumption was everyone would be in a blind rage over Lalo's death, they had no reason to assume he wasn't working on his own, and would just go kill him for revenge and it'd be all tied up neatly. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, and we'll get a little more info, but without thinking too deep, Gus's plan seemed like a trap to kill Nacho without it looking suspicious like 'oh shit, someone else got here before we did, who else wanted him dead besides us, and why?'

 

Eladio and the Salamancas still think Lalo is dead. Gus, Mike, and Tyrus are the only one who knows different at the moment. The cartel was never going to kill Nacho first, they need to know who ordered him to help kill Lalo because they know he couldn't have acted alone. Bolsa told Gus that directly. Also, Mike just wants Nacho to get out of there alive, he likes/cares about Nacho and doesn't want him to get captured, tortured, and killed. He's not 100% looking out for Gus's best interests right now.

 

Sort of agreed. I think the phone number was Gus's plan and Mike just hoped Nacho would survive till he had a better idea. Now that he knows Lalo is looking for him, he has a reason to convince Gus to let him go rescue Nacho personally. I still don't see a better explanation (even if it has some holes), for what Gus's plan was. Simply put, it was to trap Nacho to die in a shootout so it was a very non suspicious death vs it looking like someone was cleaning up loose ends. His back up plan probably was always to capture his dad as leverage for Nacho to stay quiet.

This is not a show where the writing has ever lacked so I'm sure conversations/events will fill this in in the next few weeks.

I'm just happy it's back and I can quote and respond to people because I seriously love this universe and am sad to see it start it's run for what will likely be the end for a while if not a final end (no more spin offs or movies that I know of in the works).

 

I just don't see why Gus would care about Nacho's death looking "suspicious" when the cartel knows there was no possible way Nacho was working alone. They'd just assume whoever killed Nacho first was the person he was working for and that would be that. Honestly it would make Gus' life a lot easier if he just killed Nacho, because then Nacho wouldn't be able to tell anyone that Gus tried to kill Lalo. Gus doesn't want to kill Nacho, if he did then he would just do that instead of going to the trouble of hiding him in a motel for days while he sets up an extraction. He could've had someone hiding in the motel lobby to kill Nacho as soon as he got there.

 

love this

 

@Anthony_

I'll spoiler tag this in case it's more than you want to know but an interview with Peter Gould about the first 2 episodes revealed the following:
Nacho realizes he's being watched and set up, but instead of revealing what's happening, he only tells Tyrus that he has a bad feeling about this…

Nacho's no idiot. And he knows very well that Gus Fring doesn't have his best interest at heart. And the Gus Fring organization is the one that shot him in the side in order to make a setup look a little bit better. So the fact that he's got this sort of safe haven in Mexico — at first Nacho's kind of happy not to be on the run. The wheels are turning and somehow he's being set up, and in episode 2, you see exactly how he's being set up. They want him waiting in motel where the Cousins are going to show up, and Nacho catches on just moments before. If he had caught on just 45 minutes later, the Cousins would've grabbed him and he'd be tortured and dead. That's why they give Nacho the gun, because the real setup is hoping that he's going to be trapped in a firefight with the Cousins, and one way or another Nacho will be killed in the action.

 

My complaint wasn't the style, it was the execution. You can have slow burn that works, makes sense and is enjoyable to watch, and you can have slow burn that is not well paced, where not enough happens and leans more style over substance. To me, for a two hour long double episode, there was little real tension, a lot of flat moments, not much story progress, and a couple of story aspects that I just don't think are interesting.

Sabotage someone's entire livelihood though? Low level scams and hints at a reckless side, straight to actively carrying out stunts to destroy Howard's life just because he implied she should leave Jimmy...I don't find that convincing. For a show that builds methodically, they could justify that a lot more coherently than they have done, I think.

The stunt at the golf course was very lucky anyway - too many pieces had to come together at the right time for them to have any confidence it would work. I wouldn't quite describe that as a plot cheat but again, it's not really earned in the way that this show does at its best. The two of them working out how to approach Davis and Main with the right case was much better.

Tyrus pulled out his gun very quickly. That's not brute enforcer, that's just reckless. And the music built it up to be a potentially perilous moment, which it really wasn't. I found it very clunky.

 

As I said in another post, just happy to be discussing this show again.

I disagree with the lucky comment about the golf course scam (though I agree in a way that yes, a lot had to go right), but I think it's all done that way to show that it's Jimmy's true nature is to sell snake oil basically, and that he's so good at embarrassing himself, and hamming it up on the fly to get what he wants. Yes, a lot has to go right, but in a way, it all went wrong and still went right as Jimmy just came up with things on the fly like the whole anti-Semitism rant and quickly getting nude to hide out, it was just improv from someone who despite not wanting to admit it, is wholly too good at deception and putting on a persona.

Fair enough on your other arguments. I disagree but you expanded enough to where I see your point despite feeling otherwise.

 

I absolutely love the show, but both episodes last night felt a bit more convoluted than needed, or at least need more context for it to make sense.

 

I respect Peter Gould a lot but based on everything else that happens in the episodes this makes no sense lol. Like I said, Gus knows they want him alive to interrogate him. Nacho even tries to get in a firefight with them and they shoot their own man to prevent it from happening. Also there’s no reason for Gus to try and trick Nacho into getting killed because Gus doesn’t need to hide the fact that someone else would want Nacho dead. It’s not a great plan on Gus’s part.