Five True Statements is exactly what it sounds like, a discussion about the most recent episode of ‘Better Call Saul’ centered around five undisputable statements of fact. Mostly undisputable, at least. I would never lie to you on purpose. Especially not about ‘Better Call Saul.’
1. The montage in the cold open was the best montage and cold open on a show with a history of incredible montages and cold opens
It’s not fair, really. It’s almost showing off at this point. The cold opens on this show are always so good and deeply planned, often starting with a shot that means nothing and slowly reveals something very important. The montages are undefeated, from Jimmy’s Street Life and sock puppet ones to Kim’s Post-It Note mariachi “My Way” interlude. And then the show went and made its best montage yet and plopped it in its cold open and let it run for five full minutes of screen time. No dialogue at all for over 10 percent of the episode’s 41-minute runtime. None needed. It was so good it was practically a passive-aggressive shot at every other show on television. “Oh, you need an extended runtime to tell your story, even without inserting huge wordless stretches? That’s cool, I suppose.” Brutal.
The thing about the montage is that it was an equal mix of style and substance. Set to “Something Stupid” (not the famous Frank and Nancy Sinatra version, a new one commissioned specifically for this episode), it opened on a split-screen of Jimmy and Kim and showed them drifting apart over the remainder of Jimmy suspension. Kim’s side of the screen showed her having success at work, opening what looked like dozens of new bank branches while maintaining a heavy schedule of pro bono defense work, and finally getting her cast off. Jimmy’s side showed him getting deeper into his — apparently legal-ish but still very shady — burner phones hustle, eating sandwiches in a van with Huell and sliding into the life we know ends with him on the floor of a Midwest Cinnabon.
Occasionally, the two sides of the story would match up and you’d see one character reach over the black line separating the stories, whether it was Jimmy pouring wine or Kim leaning over for a brief snuggle. Those moments were even sadder than watching them drift apart because it turned the line into a metaphor. They were together but not. They’re divided, living separate lives, professionally and personally, even as they sit next to each other. It was deep, man. And heartbreaking. It was like the beginning of Up but with more tracksuits.
2. We have what appears to be the official genesis of Saul Goodman
How good was that montage? So good that I rambled on about it for multiple paragraphs and didn’t even mention this moment. We now appear to have the beginning of Saul Goodman. It makes sense, too. There were red herrings and crazy theories but no, it looks like he started using it to sell the burners — possibly to keep his real name clean until his suspension ended, possibly to hide it from Kim, possibly because Saul rhymes with call and Jimmy is always selling — and just kept using it afterward because that’s the name his criminal associates know him by. In hindsight, it is a little hilarious that the show revealed this fact — one the audience has been waiting on for seasons, plural — as a borderline throwaway piece of information during a montage about a relationship crumbling. “Oh, you wanna know when Jimmy becomes Saul? Fine. But you are going to have to pay for it with feelings.” Also brutal.
And after we learned this, after the montage, in a later scene in which Jimmy is selling his phones out of an unmarked van in an empty lot like the legitimate businessman he claims to be, we got to see Huell knock out a police officer with a bag of sandwiches. Solid episode.
3. Mike’s hatred of Kai gives me life like a character in a video game that just ate an apple as big as his head
The time jump in the opening served many purposes. It sped up the Jimmy-to-Saul transition, mostly, and showed us the deepening rift between Jimmy and Kim, but it also advanced the plot for the rest of the show. The superlab still isn’t done and won’t be for a while, but we do have progress. Things are looking familiar down there. Mike is picking up some German. And his hatred of Kai has reached “Can I just send the punk home even though he’s the best demolition guy on the crew and we clearly need him but I hate his stupid face and body so much?” levels.
The idea of R&R is being tossed about now, as a way to give the sequestered diggers a brief reprieve and lighten the mood. There is something like a 100 percent chance Kai does something dumb on this break and Mike smashes a giant beer stein over his head. I can’t wait. Those little glimpses of Kai being openly disdainful of Mike are clearly setting up a bad ending for him. Give it to me. Give me his comeuppance. Kai wouldn’t even have that keg or pinball machine if it wasn’t for Mike. Gus was happy to let them live in an empty hangar. This disrespect must be paid for in blood or shame. It’s the least the show can do, short of opening the next episode with a five-minute montage of these two driving each other insane, complete with Kai’s smirks and Mike’s eye rolls.
4. I could write a whole big thing about how Hector revealed his recovery through a flicked finger and pervy wandering eye and how Gus realized it and showed the lengths of his cruelty by halting the treatment at that moment, just when Hector became well enough to understand his condition but before any substantial improvement was made, but nothing I type would explain any of it better than a screenshot of Gus’s evil Grinch grin, so I’m just going to post that and move on.
5. Kim is on the verge of something stupid
What a nice set of bookends, opening the episode with a montage set to “Something Stupid” and closing it with Kim preparing to do just that. I don’t mean the short-term thing, necessarily. The thing where she blew a U-turn in the street and bought out all the highlighters in Albuquerque as part of some as-yet-undefined plan to free Huell and prevent Jimmy from doing something even more stupid. I trust Kim Wexler completely in these types of situations. I’m sure her plan will work and do so without dancing the line of illegality too blatantly. Kim is a good lawyer and an underrated schemer. She’s got this.
No, I mean something stupid just, like, in general, as it relates to helping Jimmy free his shady associate like 15 minutes after he revealed that he’s been running a secret van-based phone hustle for over half a year without telling her. You saw her face when he told her that. You saw all of her faces. She looked like a lady who was Done, capital D, even more than she did in the car after the party when Jimmy chugged scotch needled her boss about fancy expensive ski trips. She’d be justified in cutting bait at this point. She was justified a while ago. And she had the scissors out and everything. But then she spun that U-turn…
It’s funny. When this show started, all I cared about was seeing how Jimmy became Saul Goodman. Now they’ve more or less told us and all I care about is Kim wriggling free before he brings her down with him. Almost like Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan are good at making television. Almost.
