‘Better Call Saul’ Review: “Bagman’ is an All-Time Great Episode

‘Better Call Saul’ Review: “Bagman’ is an All-Time Great Episode

07 Apr 2020 (PT)

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BETTER CALL SAUL REVIEW

As good as – hell, maybe better – than any of the best of the best Breaking Bad episodes, the latest Better Call Saul is an all-timer. This is up there with “Ozymandias”, or “Crawlspace.” Or “Fly” yes, “Fly” is one of the best Breaking Bad episodes, don’t @ me. “Bagman” seems to be a culmination of what this season is all about: destroying every last trace of Jimmy Mcgill and replacing him entirely with Saul Goodman. Like Jesus, or Moses, our hero wanders into the desert, and comes back changed.

Jimmy and Mike

It would be wrong to call “Bagman” a “bottle episode”, because it does go to multiple locations – hough they all kind of look the same: like the desert. But unlike most other episodes of Better Call Saul, “Bagman” doesn’t cut around to the many characters. Instead, it stays almost entirely with Jimmy and Mike as they stagger through the desert, like exiles from a remake of Lawrence of Arabia.

That may not sound very engaging, or entertaining. But “Bagman” is directed by Vince Gilligan, and it features what might just be the best directing ever seen on both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul combined. Gilligan doesn’t resort to a lot of tricks – well, there is one involving clouds that move at fast speed while everything below moves along normally. Instead, he finds ways to make Jimmy and Mike’s trek cinematic – and also quite physical. We can feel the pain and dehydration Jimmy is experiencing just by looking at his burnt, peeling face.

Before we get there, though, Jimmy almost gets away clean. Almost. Lalo has tasked him with going to the border to pick up his bail money – $7 million. Jimmy is hesitant to do this – it’s potentially very dangerous. And surprisingly, Lalo actually gives him a way out. Or at least pretends to – I have a feeling Lalo is just play-acting here, knowing that deep down, Jimmy can’t resist his true nature.

And he’s right. Because before he walks out the door, Jimmy throws out a number: $100,000. He’ll do the job for 100K. And Lalo accepts those terms. It’s a potential windfall for Jimmy. But he’s remaining true to his word with Kim, and therefore tells her what he’s going to do. Kim is understandably alarmed, and, for what I think is the first time ever, she flat-out asks him to not do something. Kim has expressed distaste and displeasure with Jimmy’s actions before, but she’s never acted like this. With pain and despair and worry in her voice, she practically begs him not to do it.

But he does. Because he can’t help himself.

Picking up the money actually goes off without a hitch. Jimmy grabs it from those silent, imposing Salamanca cousins. But everything that follows is a disaster. Jimmy is ambushed by gun-toting heavies – it’s not entirely clear who they are, or who they’re working for. But they want the money, and they come very close to killing Jimmy. But he’s saved at the last minute by Mike, who has been tracking Jimmy via his old gas cap tracking device trick. The shootout leaves all but one of the bandits dead, and Mike and Jimmy without adequate transportation. So now they have to stagger through the desert, lugging heavy bags of money, and hope the surviving robber doesn’t come looking for them.

Of course, he does. But Jimmy and Mike have to deal primarily with the elements, which proves to be almost too much for Jimmy. But not Mike, and he explains why: he’s doing what he does because he has people that depend on him. He loves his surviving family, and so he does dangerous things to make enough money to keep them safe. And that’s all he cares about. It’s a rousing speech, and Jonathan Banks kills it – the same way he knocked the now-classic “I broke my boy!” speech out of the park in season 1.

Mike’s arc this season has been about accepting who he is now – a criminal. And the experience in the desert seems to have the same transformative effect on Jimmy, because he intentionally baits the surviving thief so that Mike can gun him down. And just like that, Jimmy McGill might be finally dead. The time of Saul Goodman is at hand.

Sidebar

Kim doesn’t have a whole lot to do this week, but her two big scenes are great. First she pleads with Jimmy, then she actually goes to see Lalo in prison to ask for help. It’s a risky move, but it proves how much she cares about Jimmy, even after everything that’s happened. Mike, upon learning that Jimmy tells Kim about his shady dealings: “She’s in the game now.” Uh-oh. Mike causing the lone robber’s truck to flip over, and then finding that the crash destroyed a huge jug of water that both he and Jimmy really could’ve used, is a great touch. Mike also gets to have the ultimate dad joke this week – after a shootout, he surveys the damage to Jimmy’s car, and says: “The ernator’s shot. Literally.” Speaking of which, R.I.P. Jimmy’s Suzuki Esteem. You will be missed. When a fire isn’t possible to protect against the cold desert night, Mike whips out two emergency thermal blankets – which look just like the “space blanket” Chuck used to wear. In Breaking Bad, Saul was operating under the incorrect assumption that Mike was working directly for him – it was only later that he learned about Gus. I’m guessing this time in the desert is going to serve as a bonding experience between Jimmy and Mike, and form that bond/partnership.

Source: Slashfilm.com

BETTER CALL SAUL REVIEW

‘Better Call Saul’ Truth And Lies: Nothing Good Happens In The Desert

Better Call Saul is a show with range. Some characters like Jimmy/Saul lie constantly, others like Mike tell the truth to a fault. With that in mind, our coverage this season will be structured as a collection of true and false statements about each episode. Welcome to Better Call Saul Truth And Lies.

TRUTH — Nothing good happens in the desert

When did you realize things were going to go bad for Jimmy?

Actually, wait. I should be more specific about this. A reasonable argument could be made that things have been going bad in one way or another, in the singular as well as cumulative fashion, from the day we met him. Probably before, too. His whole life has been murky shortcuts and questionable decisions lined up one after the other. No, we need to really laser in here. We need to focus. Let's try it again: When did you realize things were going to go bad for Jimmy in his quest to pick up Lalo's $7 million in bail?

Was it when the Jeep pulled out behind him? That was really the last moment where you could have thought it might be okay, in the seconds before the ambush. But you're smart. You probably caught on before that.

Maybe it was when he wasted the water to clean off his shoes. That was pretty brutal foreshadowing. I saw him do that and I was like, “Welp, he's definitely running out of water now.” I didn't leap all the way to “and he'll have to gulp his own urine,” but that's why Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould make this show and I just make jokes about all of it.

Was it even earlier than that, maybe when he kept insisting to Kim that everything would be okay? Or when he almost walked out on the whole thing before doubling back to do it for a $100k fee that Lalo agreed to very quickly? Those were pretty solid tipoffs. It was all in front of us for so much of the episode.

But I'll tell you when I realized it, and I say this not to toot my own horn as much as to make an important point: I knew as soon as Lalo said the drop would happen in the desert. Nothing good happens in the desert. Ever. Especially on Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad, but also in general. If someone says to you “Hey, let's meet way out in the desert,” you should say no, because one or both of you is going to die or face a harrowing near-death experience. Same goes for the woods. Nothing good ever happens in the woods, either. Or the ocean. “Hey, let's you and me get on a boat and head out to sea for the day.” Nope. No, sir. I've seen movies and television shows. I know how this ends. You are going to shoot me and fling me overboard, on purpose or by accident. Absolutely not. Zero chance. Same applies to cornfields and any building with gargoyles on it. Not gonna catch me sleeping.

The point here is that you should stay inside. In your house. Even when there's not a pandemic. Just to be...

‘Tiger King’ Review: The Dangerous Game Netflix Is Playing With Joe Exotic’s Red State Carnage

SPOILER ALERT: If you are among the few who haven’t actually watched Netflix’s Tiger King docuseries, this review contains a lot of details about what goes down in the sad big cat saga.

With Netflix poised in the coming days to cash in and crank the base up a notch with more Tiger King, it's time to come out and say it: I hate the Red State porn that is the crash and burn of Joe Exotic

The initial seven episodes of this septic and shallow patchwork of trademark infringement, sex, guns, labor exploitation, song, drugs, mullets, betrayal, animal activism, revenge, and a lot of big cats may be much binged over these weeks of coronavirus lockdown, but that doesn't mean it's actually worth watching.

Now, I get it, I sound like I'm just a dour critic who hates anything that isn't prestige premium cable or aspirational. C'mon man, you want to say, Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness is just so unbelievable, I can't look away.

I respectfully disagree, and in fact, propose Tiger King isn't just bad, but dangerous in a divided America persistently looking to reduce the other side to caricature.

In a presently ailing nation where TV is more voluminous and vital than ever, the truth is the March 20 launched Tiger King is a clawed white trash misery index. Gawking at some clearly fragile and damaged people like would-be reality TV star Exotic and their below the Mason-Dixon line antics, the series subsequently provides a cultural circus for those smug bicoastals under stay at home orders and screaming to rise up in moral superiority.

Essentially, the tale of big cat collector, self-styled Oklahoma zoo proprietor and 2016 Presidential candidate Exotic AKA Joseph Maldonado-Passage and his ultimately unsuccessful attempt to have rival Carole Baskin knocked off by a hitman hired for $3,000, Tiger King is in that context more a zero-sum game, literally and figuratively, than hitting the zeitgeist.

Obviously, Netflix are pretty damn good at gauging and dragging the public mood over the years, as the likes of the then phenomenon of 2015's Making A Murderer or 2018’s Wild Wild Country prove. Yet, for all the attention it has drawn, this unfocused murder for hire exploration of sorts emerges as a bastard child of Cops, a million Dateline segments from the 1990s and Fox’s short-lived Murder in Small Town X reality show from 2001.

Not exactly the prestige product that the home of Roma, The Irishman and American Factory likes to brag about at award shows. Then again, with the knowledge that the Romans sold out the Colosseum every night feeding Christians to the lions, the bottom line based House of Hastings surely loves the subscription sign up that the currently incarcerated Maldonado-Passage and the accompanying motley gaggle of...