Another small touch I appreciated. After Fring finished his speech, saying "I have a feeling you will wake up", the camera zoomed in on Hector's right hand. In the end all Hector needed.
^I thought that was a great tease, actually. As the camera held on that shot I was willing his hand to react.
This show is my drug. The flash forward was so well done that I thought it had been just taken right out of an episode of Breaking Bad. Kim just added a nail to Jimmy's coffin. It's kind heartless in a way since she knew he had his heart set on them working together and it almost seemed like that pushed her to find something else that would involve not working with Jimmy.
She kinda did that though because the plan was to pick things up a year later and continue working together.
I still think Jimmy might corrupt Kim. Only now I wonder if it could be done in a passive aggressive way because he is angry with her by going and working for the big firm. Of course this show is great in that it keeps you guessing each week and it uses it's prequel setting to good use because the old show has created plenty of foreshadowing. We all know everyone's fate is to end in misery with the one wildcard being Kim and the guy whose name I sometimes can't recall. Head of the Law Firm who is feeling guilt over Chuck's death. Jason
Nacho has one out, vacuum cleaner guy. And the fact we already saw a scene of Jimmy calling him supports that possibility. For all we know, in the Breaking Bad timeline, Nacho is a grocery store clerk in Kansas named Miguel Hernandez.
^Well I guess his other option may be becoming an informant and entering witsec, though that would leave his family incredibly vulnerable, but the same might happen if he uses vacuum cleaner guy, plus currently Nacho doesn't appear to have the sort of cash Vac guy would require. I really would like to see Nacho, Kim and Howard survive though (and still hope that somewhere in the flashforward the show will end with Kim turning up at the pastry shop, I'm such an old romantic.)
My feeling about the markers is that Kim may be thinking about a diminished capacity plea. How she's going to react to Jimmy after he had to be openly criminal to her, hard to predict, but not looking good.
^Indeed. She's compelled to help him out of this pickle even though it goes against her better judgement. Are we on the verge of the last straw, I wonder? Fantastic episode. Loved the montage at the beginning. Other highlights: -- The business cards (!) -- Gus rewinding the tape and seeing that HEC-tor is still there underneath the shell. He doesn't want to torment a blank slate - he needs his mind and essence intact. Interesting twist that Gus also appears responsible for purposely stymying Hector's physical recovery for his own purposes. The great thing about the slow burn nature of this series is that it makes something like the nine month fast forward all the more satisfying.
Yes, it was fantastic and the use of the split-screen was very effective showing them drifting apart and seemingly a foretelling of their eventual split (break-up).
In a small, subtle way, this episode is quietly devastating in the way we're seeing the professional and personal union between Jimmy and Kim fall apart. For that alone, this episode is excellent. I believe this it the first time we've seen Gus' home. That seems awfully significant and I wonder if we'll see more of his home life before the end. One word away from those magical words! I thought the same thing. If Gus hadn't let his anger and thirst for revenge get in the way, Hector would quietly faded away, and as I noted before, that would ultimately cost his own life. I normally don't like split-screen gimmicks but in this case it works well because it directly emphasizes the slow split between Jimmy and Kim. She might be sliding back a little but only to get herself out of the pickle he brought into her. After this case, I imagine things between the two of them won't ever be the same again. The only way they remain a couple is if she breaks bad, too, and I just don't see that happening, especially with where she is now professionally.
I see Gus’ home as a callback to his tactic in Breaking Bad he uses with Walt and Jesse to disarm them with the cooking and folksy tales and let them know he trusts them.
Great episode! Jimmy is really diving head first into his Saul Goodman persona. I'm still betting by the end of the season Jimmy's going to get a certain Caddy that's parked in Chuck's (virtually untouched) garage. My only complaint is this show goes by too quick!
Thoughts: Nacho's a dead man walking. I think he'll make it to next season but Lalo will force him into running by the end of this season for sure. Kim will break up with Saul (I'm not calling him "Jimmy" anymore) by the end of the season. Probably a big fat "No shit!" I think Mike will end up killing all the German workers on orders from Gus. All the connections Saul has made selling phones will be his future clients. That's why he's selling to criminals. Huel will be his first case. Kim won't be able to get him out of jail time but Saul will. I have no idea about Howard. Maybe HHM shuts down and he ends up working for Schweikart & Cokely, but in a lower position than he was at HHM. Adding to his depression. I also bet Saul gets the check from the settlement of the case of the senior citizens being overcharged. That check is what will also fund his new office space and car.
I agree with some of those points but think it's not impossible but not likely that Gus will order the killing of the German workers. If he did that, his connections that got him the workers would know that anyone he hires isn't coming back and he'd burn those bridges. Also, Gus is someone who kills for two reasons, revenge and necessity. He paid the families of ten associates in prison rather than kill them, and when Walt got the laundry workers to clean the lab, he didn't kill them, he had them deported. Gus does not kill arbitrarily as a preventative measure when he can ensure safety in other ways. (And no, he did not kill Victor for flying too close to the sun as Walter thought, he killed Victor because he saw that witness sketch of him in the police station.)