A review of tonight's Better Call Saul coming up just as soon as you point me to your best copier…
“I need to find a way to do this that's right for me.” -Kim
During last night's Walking Dead finale, AMC ran ads for a lot of its current and upcoming shows, including a pair of Better Call Saul ads. One featured critical praise for Bob Odenkirk in particular. The other was heavy on Mike, the Salamancas, and overall Breaking Bad flavor. I can imagine the latter being more appealing to fans of a zombie action show, but Saul remains two shows in one at the moment, and the Jimmy/Kim/Chuck one was predominantly on display in “Fifi,” even if the episode opened with an eye-popping sequence that goes up there with some of the more impressive shots the parent show ever gave us, and one that was very intentionally evocative of the opening of Orson Welles' Touch of Evil, which offers one of the more famous one-take sequences in movie history:
According to “Fifi” writer Thomas Schnauz, he and the rest of the creative team had Touch of Evil in mind as they set up their own border crossing, and the percussion is extremely reminiscent of the Touch of Evil score. But the idea to actually film it in one take – covering so much ground and moving around so many tight spaces – was all from director Larysa Kondracki. It did a neat job of not only paying homage to Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh making a similar crossing (with an explosion, to boot), but also establishing how thoroughly the border police seemed to do their job in searching the ice cream truck, even though they fail to find the contraband that's being brought to Hector Salamanca. In that way, it felt like a magician rolling up his sleeves or sliding a hula hoop across the levitating woman as a way to prove there's no trickery going on, even though we in the audience understand that there's much more going on than we can see from where we're looking.
In that way, the opening works not just as a way for Kondracki and Saul to show off, but a reminder of the show's meticulous nature and incremental pacing. Those were hallmarks of Breaking Bad, too, but that show tended to use them to build up to moments of extreme violence – sometimes physical, sometimes emotional, sometimes both. Saul isn't a show without physical violence – recently, we watched Tuco beat the snot out of Mike, and Mike in turn beat up a couple of Hector's goons – but its deepest wounds are on the emotional side of things. And a lot of “Fifi” was about incrementally pushing forward the story of Kim and Jimmy coming to work together (sort of) so we can eventually feel devastated when things go badly between them.
And they will go very badly. If there was any doubt of that before, the events of “Fifi” should probably put those to rest.
This is primarily a story of the two McGill brothers, though Kim gets a few moments to impress, first when she convinces Kevin from Mesa Verde to jump ship from HHM, then when Rhea Seehorn flashes that enormous smile (heartbreaking in retrospect) as Kim reveals that she won the meeting. But it's now active war between Jimmy and Chuck, even as Jimmy continues to nurse Chuck through his latest bout of psychosomatic pain. We know that Chuck has sandbagged Jimmy in the past, but this is the first time we've seen him actively do it in an attempt to hurt Jimmy(*), and in turn the first time we've seen our hero go full Slippin' Jimmy on his older brother.
(*) Note that Howard never corrects Chuck's assumption that Kim and Jimmy are going to be part of the same practice, just share an office and expenses. It might have turned out to be a distinction without a difference as far as Chuck was concerned, but I also wonder if Howard might have said the bare minimum he needed to get Chuck's full support (if not his physical participation) in the campaign to keep Mesa Verde.
What Jimmy does in transposing two digits of the address on every relevant document page is very clever, as it's the kind of thing that will look like an innocent mistake a low-level HHM staffer made that didn't get caught until it was too late – the sort of mistake that a single-client shop like Kim's might be less likely to make. But it's not something Kim asked, or would have wanted, Jimmy to do, and if he actually succeeds in getting her the business back, it's going to be tainted for her. That huge smile on her face in the dental office is there because she did this, on her own, the way she wanted to, which was playing it clean. She didn't even engage in the resignation letter shenanigans Jimmy suggested, which are in an ethical grey area but in no way illegal, and she still won out. Whenever Kim finds out about this – and you know she will at some point, even if it takes as long for her as it did for Jesse to find out about Jane – she'll be able to take no pleasure in having Mesa Verde as a client, and may well feel compelled to refuse their business. She wants to do it her way, and now Jimmy has put her in an unwitting position where she's doing things his way.
If that winds up being the big secret that hangs over a long stretch of the series, it would be yet another way that Saul differentiates itself from Breaking Bad – in tone if not in method. A few hours fooling around with an X-Acto knife, a glue stick, and some high-grade paper isn't a sin on the level of what Walt did with Jane, but we already know that this show's tragedy is going to be a smaller one than that show's. Becoming Cinnabon Gene is a lousy fate, but it's not as bad as what happened to Walt, Hank, Skyler, or, for that matter, Mike Ehrmantraut. But over the course of 18 episodes so far, Better Call Saul has demonstrated that it can still hit pretty hard emotionally despite the drastically reduced stakes, and also be a lot of fun in the process. That may not be enough for people who were much more excited about the second commercial than the first, but I'm damn pleased.
Some other thoughts:
* This was a great showcase episode for Michael McKean, as Chuck demonstrates that Jimmy isn't the only salesman in the family. The difference between the brothers is that Chuck is running a hustle that he wants his client to be aware of – the routine works because everyone in that conference room understands what Chuck is really saying, and in the most effective context – but there's still a lot of showmanship there from the guy who so often seems envious of Jimmy's gift of gab. Also, I liked the superhero-ish touch of Chuck throwing off the space blanket like it was a cape right before he went into the meeting.
* Always fun to watch Mike figure out how to MacGyver up a solution to a problem, in this case enlisting Kaylee's help to build a spike strip out of a garden hose, while convincing her and Stacey that he's making a soaker for his rhododendrons. Clearly, he has a car to stop – or perhaps an ice cream truck – but the full details of his plan have yet to reveal themselves.
* Ordinarily, the show wouldn't bother using as recognizable an actor as Brendan Fehr to play the Air Force officer giving Jimmy, Fudge, and the film students a tour of the B-29 Super Fortress (which they use as the backdrop to film an ad for Jimmy's practice), given that he's only in the one scene and it would be much cheaper to use a local actor than to fly one in. But the actor the show hired got violently ill on the day of the shoot. Fortunately, NBC's The Night Shift (aka the show with the greatest key art in TV history) also films in Albuqerque, which made Fehr not only a local actor for the show's purposes, but someone available to come in at the very last minute (after several wide shots were filmed with the other actor) and get the job done without further hassle. According to Schnauz, the switch happened so late in the process that the ill actor filmed some of the wide shots that made it into the final cut of the episode, and “(Fehr) saved our butts. I thought we were sunk. It would have been impossible to get the plane back.”
* I also am happy that the film students appeared in an episode with that opening shot. They'd appreciate the hell out of it, and probably have many questions about what kind of equipment was necessary to achieve both the early crane effect and then move so quickly and smoothly around the tight spaces of that border garage.
* The song playing while Jimmy is at the copy shop is “Why Don't You Do It” by Little Barrie, who also provides the Saul theme music.
What did everybody else think?
Alan Sepinwall may be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com
Excellent episode. Great opening shot that I can’t wait to see again, in addition to the scene by the plane. Absolutely hilarious!
So we finally got the story of the other Hamlin in HHM. Howard’s dad. I’m disappointed. I was rather hoping that the reason was that Howard was so vain he listed himself twice in the corporate name.
Lmao, I just recently binged and got up to speed on Better Call Saul, and was wondering the same thing. I actually had another tab open looking up the law firm on the Breaking Bad wiki when he mentioned his father. I was like “Ohhhh”
I wonder if his father passed, or if he’s gonna make an appearance down the line. Don’t know how much weight it would carry (they’d have to do some building up), but it’d be interesting enough. Especially within the aforementioned smaller scale of this show.
This provides further insight into the dynamics of HHM. I assume Howard’s father has passed away. Chuck has become his surrogate father figure, so he is devoted to him. There is also a bit of sadness in Howard. I think he envies Kim because she is going to do it her way. He succumbed to family pressure and went to work for his father doing it his way.
That’s not so big of a surprise. In Mad Men, the firm is called Sterling-Cooper, despite the fact that Bert Cooper is much older than Roger Sterling. Turns out it was actually Sterling’s father that founded the firm w/ Cooper, and passed it to his son when he retired (or died). That’s the first thing that came to mind when we see that Howard Hamlin is much younger than Chuck McGill, yet his name comes first.
Love this show. Not saying it’s better than Breaking Bad, but I love it more.
Something about the style, the stakes, and the performances… It isn’t life and death, there aren’t bombs going off or gunfights… But I love it so much.
Completely agree, Smacky (but I think I like it a little more than BB)…
I also prefer it to breaking bad.
The show is the same quality production, writing, and style as BB, but the subject isn’t as heavy and Jimmy is much more likable than Walt. Jimmy is sketchy and flashy, but he is not a maniac with an ego like Walt. It’s an easy watch and you don’t feel bad enjoying the characters.
Not that I would wish the dreaded 22-episode order of a network show on a show like BCS, but this episode evoked what used to be great about TV shows in the past…..there were just a lot of scenes that were fun to watch and the feeling I had while watching this episode was one that I’d like to have every time I watch TV. I wish more shows could strike a balance between big plot-movers and mind-blowers, and just fun episodes like this.
Just a hunch, but I think there was a cut in the tracking shot. There was a part when a border control agent walked (in silhouette) across the screen where an editor can hide a cut.
Wasn’t there also a cut between the border crossing and the 10 mile stop where Rodrigo picked up the gun?
So glad we got a 5 second shot of that bug walking across the pavement.
Hey, that bug was marching to the beat! Very cool…
Gould and Gilligan say on the BCS Insider’s Podcast that there is one cut, so the whole sequence is actually two shots. They wouldn’t say where the cut is, but I agree that it is probably when the security guard walks in the front of the camera.
If that’s the case, they can easily chalk it up as an homage to Hitchcock’s Rope.
Loved the tracking shot, which IIRC is how Welles intended that to go before the studio made him make changes.
Brendan Fehr’s first big TV role was on Roswell. Another NM connection.
The tracking shot remained in the studio version as well, uncut. The only difference was that the studio put the opening credits over it.
Loved Jimmy’s ‘di di mau’ at the copy place. Why he was evoking The Deer Hunter (which is where I first heard it) is a mystery.
Might have been from the nail salon. Jimmy always greets the ladies in Vietnamese..”chao ca cao ladies!”
They can bring in all the BB alumni they want (and I like it when they do) but it’s the gorgeous opening shots like this one that show this may very well wind up its equal.
Great episode. Was those 2 kids, Skinny Pete and Badger, younger versions?
Those are the UNM film students that first appeared when Jimmy saved the billboard worker season 1, and then came back for the Davis and Main commercial Jimmy shot. Gotta love the wheelchair and electric stair case chair follies
Dolly’s
Stop the fixation
I always love a good tracking shot, because after a couple minutes in, you realize:
“holy shit…this is all one shot.”
Did you notice the sayings on each of the popsicle sticks that were put into the ground?
It translates to “From our family to yours”.
And given what we see of that truck later on in the episode, that phrase has another meaning.
I liked the little “cemetery” of popsicle sticks–showing how many times Rodrigo had made that trip before.
It’s impressive, and I love this show, but I don’t really get the added value of the one-shot opening. It just seems so self-indulgent. “Let’s make this whole thing one shot just because we’re the best and because we can get away with doing something no other TV show would do.” But it doesn’t advance the story at all, and we the viewer got the point that this truck was sneaking drugs past border patrol within the first 10 seconds of this prolonged scene.
I know I’m supposed to be impressed that the production pulled that shot off, and I am, but I also found myself checking my phone during it. Maybe just because Breaking Bad and BCS have spoiled us so far into just accepting that incredible television feats like this one should be expected as the norm.
The fact that it was done as one shot actually does tie it to some of the scenes we used to see on “Breaking Bad”, especially from the point-of-view of the cartel.
For instance, did you notice the saying on the truck?
It matches the saying on the popsicle sticks, and that alone is not significant until you see the same truck and driver pull up to the now-familiar Mexican grocery where Mike has been watching from nearby.
“De Nuestra Familia a la Tuya”–From Our Family to Yours.
This scene isn’t that different from where Season 3 of “Breaking Bad” began, in some nameless Mexican village where two guys–twins–drive up in their Mercedes, get out of the car and join the line of pilgrims crawling toward the shrine.
The scene in itself is insignificant until we learn that the twins are there to make an offering and put up a drawing of “Heisenberg”–the next time we see that drawing is in Hank’s files in the second half of Season 5 after Hank has his epiphany on the Whites’ toilet.
The rest of the scene with the twins getting across the border just added to the story of these folks, and also gave us the context we needed in “Better Call Saul” when they appeared just outside the hotel to send Mike Ehrmantraut a message that “we know where your family is and we can come back to hurt them, too”, where in “Breaking Bad”, the twins went specifically after Walter White and then Hank Schrader, not their families.
And when it comes to Mike Ehrmantraut and his preparations against the Salamanca family, the above theme is at work.
And that is the theme that packs an emotional punch, here.
As for the one shot take, the best one by far has to be from “Madrigal” (BB–S0502), where Peter Schueler comes out of his meeting with his chemists and their new dipping sauces after Frau Trammel tells him that the Police are here again with more questions about his ties to Gustavo Fringman and Los Pollos Hermanos and we see Herr Schueler walk out into the main hallway and as he passes under the Madrigal sign, everything seems to slow down for him, even when the crew is removing the Los Pollos Hermanos sign and then goes up stairs, looks through the windows to his office and the police are waiting for him.
And here, we are watching Schueler’s world fall apart at that very moment, which becomes very apparent to us in the next scene in the washroom as Schueler takes the portable defibrillator with him and ends his own life.
So what are we expecting to see at the end of this season?
I disagree with Mshatzer that it is indulgent. On the contrary, I find these kind of shots to reward patient looking, slowing the brain down a bit to take in the details. I think TV ought to do this more often rather than rely on shock effects, violence, and sex to draw you in. I think that we are bored by it is a sign that we’re doing something wrong, not the director. So put the phone down and enjoy, I say.
I disagree with Mshatzer that it is indulgent. On the contrary, I find these kind of shots to reward patient looking, slowing the brain down a bit to take in the details. I think TV ought to do this more often rather than rely on shock effects, violence, and sex to draw you in. I think that we are bored by it is a sign that we’re doing something wrong, not the director. So put the phone down and enjoy, I say.
Double posting is for amateurs [sheepish]
@californicated1 – The scene with the cousins crawling towards the shrine with the Heisenberg image is iconic and incredibly haunting. I agree that there’s a ton happening in that scene and it set the tone for that entire season of Breaking Bad. This border patrol scene wasn’t in the same realm as that one in importance, and certainly not in creepiness. Besides the fact that both scenes involve the US-Mexico border, I don’t think they’re really worth comparing.
My point is that if you’re going to pull off a major television production feat like using only a single shot on an entire five-minute scene, the scene should be an important one – like the Madrigal scene you reference or the famous scene from True Detective episode 104. This opening scene didn’t seem important enough to me to make it a “oner”.
@MSHATZER Oh but the truck going thru border patrol is extremely important. Its the first introduction of drugs into this the Jimmy/Saul universe. Its the first introduction of the empire Mike will become part of. That scene IS everything that becomes Breaking Bad with respects to Saul and Mike.
That scene will always be worthy of the special attention it got.
While at the same time, these opening shots of both shows have always be used as an experimental 3 minutes. Black and white, abstract montages, repeated imagery. So when it comes to pre-credits… anything goes.
Eh, these big one-take shots are cool in a way, but I don’t go crazy over them. If you found out that some new song was recorded using a crazy technique, or using Kurt Cobain’s original guitar, it doesn’t actually make the song any better, kna’mean? With the cool 80’s style music playing as we followed the cop car into the garage, it was a fun scene to watch, but at some point you could tell that the main thrust was to brag about how long the shot was, and not what we were actually seeing.
It was a moment of pure entertainment. The fact that they accomplished a feat like this in such an insignificant moment of the show speaks to their talent.
Goddamn do I hate the “self-indulgent/pretentious” non-criticism. Just fucking savor it you autists.
The opening sequence was brilliant. The use of percussion was amazing and absolutely made the scene. I could watch that multiple times. And probably will.
Small note: Welles’ “Touch of Evil” opening was scored by the brilliant Henry Mancini, who knew how to use percussion and void spaces in compositions as he also did for “The Pink Panther” theme.
There’s a moment almost every episode where I just stop at think to myself what a pleasure it is to watch a show like this. You can see the effort that is out in to each scene. The directing, the writing, acting, editing and cinematography are all top notch. It’s just such a stark difference from the show AMC dedicates to its Sunday nights.
The montage before the opening credits reminded me of several scenes from “Breaking Bad”, especially the ones with the magic containers full of the “secret sauce” in Los Pollos Hermanos trucks that we saw much of in seasons three and four, with a combination of how Marco and Leonel got over the border into the US when Tio requested them back in Season Three, and it was a nice touch setting up that little shrine where the driver got his firearm.
Don Hector is up to his old tricks in Albuquerque and has grown a tail in the guise of Mike Ehrmantraut, who is watching the activities at the grocery store and following Don Hector with Arturo over to the garage.
Mike is definitely cooking up something with that hose and the nails, but does Stacey buy the reason for putting holes in the hose when one could easily buy a drip hose that would also water the Rhododendrons in the back or is she aware that this may be something that the “less she knows, the better”?
As for Kim’s situation, she is making that “great leap into the unknown” when she quits HHM, but without Mesa Verde as a client, her situation gets a little dicey, but when she tells Jimmy that Mesa Verde is not going to leave HHM, Jimmy doesn’t seem happy, either.
Chuck McGill and Howard Hamlin are the ones making the slimeball moves to thwart Kim and Jimmy, and it looks like they may be the ones who will look foolish when they discover what was done with the documents that Jimmy doctored, but as we have seen with the real mortgage loan crisis, many of those problems weren’t discovered until somebody had to foreclose on the mortgage and it was found out that there were a lot of errors on the documents the lender put forward in the foreclosure proceedings, especially in court, but I don’t think we can blame all the “Jimmy McGills” in the world to make that happen.
And there’s Jimmy’s next commercial shoot, where he is using somebody to get him access to where a B-29 called “Fifi” is staying for now and for some reason, I pictured those bombers a lot bigger than what was shown in the episode–my grandfather had a couple of those air filters that they used and turned them into table bases for his front porch–maybe it’s the camera angles and the panoramic lenses they used to get the entire plane in the scene.
It was a good episode, over all, but the few bones I had to pick was at the airfield where the B-29 was located–these days, the plane would have been parked at an air museum or a civilian airfield usually there for an air show.
There would not have been an Air Force Captain out there with his garrison cap and shoulder boards, except perhaps to serve as a PR or Recruiting Detail–most likely the people tending that aircraft would be civilians these days, especially volunteers who probably worked on these back in the 1940s and -50s when they served, before the B-36 and B-52 took over as the USAF’s strategic bomber of choice…on a personal family note, my grandfather was usually in the tower at the airfield watching over the rest of the ATC’s directing that traffic during those days.
And “Fudge” is right, the B-29 was in the Pacific Theatre, not the European in World War II.
The other little flaw was in the other military uniforms of the other military personnel that wanted their picture taken–by now we are into 2003-04 and these military personnel would not have been wearing the “Salad Suits” of the 1980s and -90s, but would have been wearing the battle dress uniforms of “Operation Iraqi Freedom” and “Operation Enduring Freedom” with their computer-generated camouflage patterns.
But in the end, I liked this episode and would love to see the commercial that comes from it.
There’s only two episodes left until next season, and it appears that Mike Ehrmantraut is preparing for World War III with the Salamancas while Jimmy and Kim are heading to their uncertain futures.
If you’re only gripes are minuscule details like that, then I think the BCS team is doing their job and then some.
Geez buddy, you’re hammering on those miniscule details but you apparently assume everything at the border crossing was 100% real? It’s a great TV series, just enjoy it.
tl:dr
That comment was as long as the review.
If you’re going to write your own review, do it on your own blog.
Aw you guys let him be, I liked the enrichment and anecdotes and he did acknowledge all his complaints are nitpicks. He used 10 words when he could use 5 but at least he didn’t plug his blog at the end. Let him ramble
A huge, long, hearty chuckle to all the people who complained about this show earlier in the season.
I couldn’t agree more. Same thing happened during Season 1.
I disagree that there are “drastically reduced stakes” as compared to Breaking Bad. Or, at the very least, I think the writers here are really trying to build those stakes as high as possible. It’s quite clear in the second season they have wanted us to fall in love with Kim Wexler. She is painted as a flawless heroine – much moreso than in the first season. The trajectory of building this woman up does raise the stakes if Jimmy was ultimately some cause of her demise. If she were to die in the show for some Jimmy-related reason, and Cinnabon-Gene is Dexter-style self-imposed prison, then I do think the stakes are at least comparable to those in Breaking Bad. Perhaps Cinnabon-Gene is the product of Saul’s first encounter with the man who can make a fugitive disappear.
Something may be shady in Kim’s past. Let’s not forget her nervous answers about where she’s from and her vague replies about Nebraska KS border.
I Love Kim, but flawless? Remember, though not as smooth an operator as Jimmy, she did pull a nice con with the master.
Agree that this was a great showcase episode for Chuck/McKean, who was brilliant in that boardroom scene, but I loved Rhee Seahorn in it too. I had such a big smile watching her celebrate her win in the Mesa Verde meeting. I root so hard for Kim and she’s really turned into the most likeable female character in the BB/BCS world. (Actually, maybe the most likeable character overall, male or female.)
Kim will eventually learn what Jimmy did to sabotage Mesa Verde. She won’t be able to prove it was him, but she’ll still know. And even though Kim’s falling out with Jimmy is clearly coming soon, and was certainly accelerated last night, I still hope she escapes for the better. We know that Kim is out of Jimmy’s life by the time Breaking Bad begins, but I’m going to hold out hope that she goes on to be a very successful lawyer at Wexler And Partners in Kansas City or somewhere else far away from Jimmy’s negative influences.
I really enjoyed the episode but if this is really Jimmy’s downfall, it’s pretty weak. He’s extraordinarily bright. He is arrogant but, when it comes to the important things, he’s self-aware. I find it hard to believe that the character wouldn’t realize that even the best forgery artists get caught, and that Chuck would obviously hire the best experts known to man to expose Jimmy. Of course Jimmy would know that… so I’m hoping there’s more to the plan than what he’s done. It’s a little disrespectful of the writers to believe that an audience would ever buy that Jimmy would be so foolish.
Aren’t Jimmy’s fingerprints all over those documents?
What I said above.
Why would Chuck assume a forgery as opposed to the more-probable low-level employee f-up?
fingerprints on paper? They wouldn’t or couldn’t get that kind of evidence. This is over 10 year ago and they wouldn’t have the capabilities. Plus, this isn’t CSI where the detectives figure stuff out in five minutes. AND there are likely dozens of prints on those papers.
@D, 1) they can get FP’s from paper 2) Fingerprinting has been around for ages, used in 1902 in NYC to convict a murderer. 3) Don’t understand your reference to CSI and 4) Only Jimmy’s prints would be on the “new” documents. All that being said the severity of the crime usually determines the use of fingerprinting. Would Chuck want to pursue it???
[www.quora.com]
He didn’t just change the date on one doc, he did it on every one related to that “address”. No one is going to assume it was manipulated or doctored illegally, they are going to normally assume someone simple transposed an address and made a low-level mistake. Fingerprints etc, are you high?
No, are you rude? Chuck in his manic state may assume that Slippin’ Jimmy was up to his old tricks. And who said anything about “one” document?
Couldn’t believe Howard is assuming the money Kim owes for her Law School education. Maybe he should have done that earlier. I am the most avid “anything Gilligan” fan. I am so hooked.
What I like about the show is that the “bad guys” at the law firm are real people. Yes, Chuck and Howard can be real aholes at times but then they do something that shows they are real people.
When Chuck “saves the day” for HHM with his meeting, he does not do so by disparaging Kim or noting her connection to the unreliable Jimmy. He does so by rightfully and cleverly pointing out the advantage of going with HHM over Kim Wexler.
And yes, Howard was petty and reactionary when he banished Kim to doc review because he was embarrassed, but by the end of that stretch he was giving off a strong “embarrassed by his own actions” vibe. His “exit interview” with Kim more than underscored that point.
I think the discovery about Chuck and Howard’s humanity has been all that much better because they set us up in the first season portraying them as one-note characters for the entire season until the last few episodes.
Howard respects the hell out of Kim, and her law school tuition was a drop in the bucket to HHM.
Opening scene shot with a drone?
No way.
If they hid an edit it might have been used for the first portion of that shot, but not in the later half. Way too many close-ups and intricate choreography to trust that with a RC drone (liability alone would be sky-high, no pun intended).
Old film equipment – Camera Crane – (Probably a “Chapman”) where the Operator and Focus Puller sit on a balanced ‘arm’ that can raise, lower and swing as the crane is being driven. The Camera Operator and focus puller also jumped off the crane with the camera and continued filming around the truck driver. Check out the “Insider Podcast”!!
My initial reaction too: drone?
Another article on Forbes explained it. It’s multiple cranes, with the steadicam op artfully transferring himself from one to another.
I initial thought drone because there were sections where it would have been too difficult for one crane to maneuver….but I think there would have been significant challenges in getting a high enough quality image even with the best drone mountable cameras. Yeah, there are mini 4K cameras, but the you still need a quality lens that could be operated manually by skilled operators. No way you could use auto focus and auto exposure with the camera traveling in and outdoors like that.
Another article on Forbes explained it. It’s multiple cranes, with the steadicam op artfully transferring himself from one to another.
I initial thought drone because there were sections where it would have been too difficult for one crane to maneuver….but I think there would have been significant challenges in getting a high enough quality image even with the best drone mountable cameras. Yeah, there are mini 4K cameras, but the you still need a quality lens that could be operated manually by skilled operators. No way you could use auto focus and auto exposure with the camera traveling in and outdoors like that.
That opening shot was so good. I love watching every frame of this show.
Chuck’s so desperate to spite Jimmy that he’ll endanger his health (as far as he knows) and end up wrapped in aluminum foil on his couch for a full day. God damn.
Do viewers have sympathy for Chuck? He’s written very 3-dimensionally, but we also hate him for the way he f*s with Jimmy’s life… I don’t know how others feel, but I’m happy if he suffers; though I also believe it’s psychosomatic and he’s a huge drama queen.
This show is written in a way that pretty much everything is sympathetic in some way. Even Howard isn’t a complete cartoon asshole. Chuck has some legitimate complaints about Jimmy, and though his symptoms are all in his head, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel them. Still, he was portrayed as such a nice, supportive brother early on that learning that he’s actually a pretty big asshole makes it easy to hate him.
Wow, do I hate Chuck.
It’s easy to hate Chuck because or the excellent writing. I admired his ability to stand up for his firm – look, we love Kim Wexler, but any named partner would work hard to retain THEIR client. She got them while she worked for the firm, that’s how business works. And his point was dead on, a one-attorney shop cannot possibly service Mesa Verde like HHM and their deep bench.
Gotta agree with D – I work in the consulting field; you have to know that everyone is going to fight tooth and nail over the clients.
Even so, Chuck must be feeling guilty; he only seems to get really bad when he does something to Jimmy (this attack seemed to be one of his bigger ones).
Of course a law firm is going to fight to retain a client, but this isn’t something Chuck does, because he physically (even though it’s psychosomatic) can’t. Rest assured, he wouldn’t put himself through that kind of misery for just any client. That’s a special treat for Jimmy. I don’t think anyone would be mad at Howard if he went into that meeting alone and convinced them to stay.
I’m now beginning to put Breaking Bad in the shadows of my memory as I am so smitten by this show that I don’t DVR and watch it in real time, commercials and all, and then can’t watch anything else afterward.
I appreciate the hard work Better Call Saul exudes. Even the copier store scene was a pleasure to watch. The show seems laid out very carefully and some shots seem so routine that I can only imagine lots of sleepless nights were spent visually creating each scene.
How good was Rhea Seehorn tonight? Then Michael McKean came along and dazzled.
I have to catch up on The Americans and Horace and Pete, but what other show looks just as good as BCS?
People vs O.J. Best show so far this year. Amazing drama.
I am with Azian. I am thoroughly enjoying American Crime Story.
“People vs O.J. Best show so far this year. Amazing drama.”
I’m enjoying ACS, but I don’t think it’s in the same league as BCS, which has a style and pacing that is unlike anything else.
Leftovers. Rectify. You’re the Worst.
Allow me to venture over to the BB side of things for just a second. During this timeline, what do we think Hank and Gomey are doing?
I have been wondering whether Dean Norris will show up at some point on BCS.
I think it seems reasonable that Hank would be working his way up the ranks of the DEA around this time period. Was really hoping he’d show up for a sec in that opening sequence.
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Howard as a smart attorney absolutely intentionally avoided correcting Chuck. I fear that it won’t be Kim getting the account unfairly, but maybe that Jimmy will get busted for it and Kim tainted in some way by association.
We’ll see. Something awfully horrible will happen to Jimmy that makes him conclude he’s better off as a Saul than a Jimmy.
I’m befuddled that Jimmy doesn’t seem to realize there are copies of those documents on hard drives and in file cabinets. And the only ones with the errors were in Chuck’s house? Or am I missing something?
It wouldn’t matter if the client sees the hard copies first because they’d probably assume the e-files were corrected after the fact. The damage would be done.
Can’t help feeling that the only way that miraculous opening shot could have been achieved is via a drone? Or is this not technologically possible?
I gotta say, I think I’m starting to tire of this show, and here’s why- we know how it ends. There’s no dramatic tension. Its set up so that at any moment, something can push Jimmy over the edge to become Saul, and now we’re going in circles. Chuck screws over Jimmy. Repeatedly. And didn’t Jimmy go pick out nice big offices last season that he hoped Kim would share with him? And here we are again.
The show works best as vignettes in the life of Mike and Jimmy, both of whom are interesting, but the dramatic tension seems to have left the building.
“I gotta say, I think I’m starting to tire of this show, and here’s why- we know how it ends.”
Not really. You forgot Gene working in hiding at the Cinnabon in Omaha, Nebraska – coincidentally, located not that far from Kim Wexler’s home town. That’s the time-frame in which the show is going to end – and virtually anything is possible then.
“We know how it ends” – that’s funny in light of the people who just posted about enjoying “The People vs OJ” and “The Americans” we know how those shows will end but the craftsmanship is fun to watch, and enjoy.
What happens to Nacho, Kim, Chuck, and Howard? We don’t know.
And yes, it’s fair to expect more story from Gene-in-Omaha, and we don’t know what’s going to happen with him.
Expressly stating that Kim’s hometown is near the Nebraska border leads me to believe that will come into play down the road. I agree with @Madmeme that its no coincidence that this would be relatively close to Omaha. If I was to predict it, the end of the Better Call Saul series may involve Kim running into Cinnabon Gene.
You are ignoring Ebert’s Rule: it’s not *what* it’s about, it’s *how* it’s about it. It doesn’t matter that you know the destination; it’s the journey that’s important.
“I gotta say, I think I’m starting to tire of this show, and here’s why- I have poor taste in storytelling priorities”
Corrected for accuracy, dude
I’m so torn.
As much as I loved seeing Jimmy go so out of his way to extract some revenge on Chuck, I know the only person in the long run that the move is going to end up screwing… is Kim.
:(
The final straw between Kim and Jimmy could be when HHM loses the Verde contract to Kim and realize that the documents were altered, and the last person to handle them was Kim as a “document checker” It would be consistent with Howard sending her back to doc review after winning the big contract. They could crush her at that point and she would know Jimmy did it.
That would be an interesting way to go, but she was in the basement reviewing documents for Sandpiper, not Mesa.
This was a terrific episode. The opening shot blew me away, both the one-take and the music accompanying it. I thought it was evocative of the very best of Breaking Bad.
I really appreciated the scene with Fifi too, as I’ve seen that plane at air shows and even toured the inside once. Nice to see it enjoy some fame on a popular TV show.
I think I enjoyed the scene with Fifi even more than the opening scene. From the old guy’s incoherent mumblings to his correcting Jimmy on where B-29’s flew, it was all comedy gold.
Something bad will happen to Kim. Its inevitable. She can’t exist in the Saul Goodman world. (Remember him?)
She might just flee back to the Kansas/Nebraska border town she’s from – coincidentally located not that far from the Cinnabon in Omaha, Nebraska where “Gene” works.
It’s certainly plausible that Kim does exist in Albuquerque in the Breaking Bad timeframe. In BB we know little about Saul’s personal life and backstory.
I do think it’s very doubtful that she’s still friends with Jimmy after he’s adopted his full Saul Goodman persona, but “something bad” could very well be a rift with Jimmy that also is the final straw in him deciding to commit to being a “criminal lawyer”.
I agree that Madmeme’s idea is also plausible.
One of the open-ended mysteries on this show is what exactly happens to Kim and Chuck.
Any other IRL lawyers find Chuck’s pitch to the Mesa guys a hilarious bit of word-salad?
I’m not an attorney, but I also found it fairly humorous. Have to think that Chuck implying, IRL, that a bank CEO and general counsel don’t have much knowledge of the Community Reinvestment Act would be a quick way to end that meeting poorly.
The show has had a fair amount of that in its depiction of attorneys. Howard and Kim each personally work on everything from criminal defense to plaintiffs’ work on class actions to banking industry regulatory matters. Davis & Main and HHM are both depicted as having large corporate client bases in addition to their plaintiffs’ work on Sandpiper-like large class actions.
I very much enjoy this show (and BB) despite those sorts of details, because I enjoy the drama and accept that Gilligan has created an interesting universe but isn’t overly concerned with those types of details. But it does require a suspension of disbelief at times. (The presentation of the Gus Fring-Madrigal Electromotive relationship was a contradictory mess, to cite a similar example from BB.)
From my experience working in regulatory compliance (environmental, not banking), a good CEO will be the first to admit they know very little about all of the regulations that affect their industry, and that’s why it’s critical to have somebody on board to focus on that area. Thee rules themselves may be different (I could spout off names like the “Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule” or the “1981 Water Supply Management Act”), but the fact remains that at nearly every mid- to large-size business, regulatory compliance is a full time position, either in-house or with a consultant.
I swear Jimmy has been absent for more final scenes than present this season. Bold commitment to the ensemble.
Great episode, but I was sad as Jimmy was sabotaging the Mesa Verde files, because it was so wrong and because it meant that he and Kim could never be together. I guess he just can’t help himself.
It’s so wrong and so sad that he still hasn’t learned a damn thing in his relationship with her. He tells her to her face that “there will be other Mesa Verdes,” and he’s right, because she definitely has the talent to do this on her own. And yet there he is trying to save her again. He just doesn’t get that she was so happy in the dentist office scene because she won them as a client on her own. How has he not learned yet that winning them as a client through some sneaky trick will never be satisfying to her?
I think he knows that on some level; however, the opportunity to hit back at Chuck for what Jimmy (rightly or wrongly) see as a personal betrayal makes for a powerful temptation. He is obviously counting on not being discovered to keep Kim clear of consequences; alas, we know that TV drama (and usually real life) doesn’t work that way.
I thought “Fifi” was good, largely setting up the stage for future explosions (both real and emotional). What still puzzles me, though, is what the hell Mike thinks he’s doing. He has always been a man with a level head, no overweening ego or pride, practical and workmanlike, efficient. Why the hell is he going to war with the cartel? Over getting extorted by Hector and beaten by Tuco? That’s part of the game and he should know that. The fact that he is risking his life (and his family’s!) over something like this makes no sense to me.
Will Hector leave Mike alone now that their transaction re: the gun is complete? Perhaps Mike is desperate to protect his family by getting Hector out of the picture and in prison… tho, as someone commented here or elsewhere, that’s an awfully long garden hose full of nails to be used simply as a spike strip.
Chuck, No half measures? ;)
They threatened his grand daughter. Before it was
just business. Now it’s personal.
No, are you rude? Chuck in his manic state may assume that Slippin’ Jimmy was up to his old tricks. And who said anything about “one” document?
I’d love to know how they shot the opening, I wondered if it was expertly shot using a Drone Camera? I have no idea but it was awesome!
Check above reply from KELLEY DIXON. She would know…
Theodore “Fudge” Talbott is a tribute to Schnauz’s screenwriting friend Tim Talbott. I’m sure there’s a great inside joke about the “Fudge” nickname.
For me, the show is now overwhelmingly about the singular connection between Jimmy and Kim, and the punishing tragedy that seems inevitable before Jimmy becomes the broken guy we met in Breaking Bad. Maybe not for everyone, but for me the Jimmy and Kim romance has me invested more deeply than anything I’ve ever encountered on TV. There’s a chilling poise to the whole thing that seems to grow out of their shared assumption that, no matter what else happens, they will always have each other. Brilliantly executed, particularly the way they’ve made use of what we know from Breaking Bad, which contrary to my initial impression, is an utterly different show from this one, which never take X the easy/lazy path. This was the episode that connected me viscerally to Better Call Saul.
This continues to be the best show on TV.
Sorry but I don’t agree … Out of the 3 shows I regularly watch (BCS, The Americans, and OJ) this is the weakest one … It’s well made and still has a lot of good will left over but it’s got the slowest pace with what seems to be a minimal payoff … At this point I could care less about HHM or his brother … I like the Kim and Jimmy stuff but it’s not enough to keep me riveted … I don’t care about the pace too much (I liked Rectify and who didn’t love the Wire?) if a show is using it well but I feel like this show is dragging … To each their own though
Ugh, who gives a shit about that opening shot. That tracking shot is like the show itself in its second season: technically impressive, yet boring as shit.
strongly disagree, Adam.
Lmao get out of here Adam
Nice try to second guess the series. But you’re a hack and BCS is genius…
You are a sad hack.
This show should be an hour!
I love this show so much. I wasn’t thrilled with the last episode where he was trying to get fired, but this episode was great.
ACS will be better next season. BCS is better every week.
I’m confused. Why is Mike following Hector Salamanca around? Didn’t he settle with him two episodes ago?
Because whats to stop Salamanca from hurting Mike or his family now that he got him to admit to the gun? Mike is a liability now. So part revenge, part ‘right thing to do, and part backup plan.
I’m not sure if it’s been established whether Hector’s future paralysis is caused by illness or injury – but could whatever Mike has planned for him lead to Hector becoming wheelchair-bound?
I loved this episode, and am loving this season. I was shocked to listen to “The Watch” podcast (with the same guys who do the “Game of Thrones” aftershow on HBO) and hear that they both find this season dull (“it’s become a show about clerical work”). I was thinking as I watched that it was the polar opposite of boring, that other shows might be slightly “better” in some respects but none are as purely entertaining from start to finish.