Season two of ‘Better Call Saul’ premieres Monday, February 15 10/9c on AMC.
The first season of AMC’s Better Call Saul finds Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) at something of a crossroads. Working to distance himself from his street-hustling past, better known as his ‘Slipping Jimmy’ days, he’s now a man with a law degree who’s trying to do the right thing — at least until he eventually becomes the sleazy, street-hustling lawyer we all know and love from Breaking Bad. Clues to this transition are sprinkled throughout the show’s debut season, and with the second season right around the corner, here’s a look at those moments when Jimmy tried to do the right thing, but circumstances always seemed to get in the way.
Walking away from the skater twins, before running a scam with them.
As a former hustler himself, Jimmy’s quick to realize when someone’s trying to pull a fast one on him — such is the case when a skater kid jumps in front of Jimmy’s car. As the kid lays on the concrete, and his brother screams about his broken leg, Jimmy calls out their ruse with one firm kick, boasting the fact that he’s lawyer in a “you picked the wrong guy to mess with” sort of way.
Although he’s struggling to get his law firm up and running, it’s suggested by his brother, Chuck (Michael McKean), that Jimmy stop using his surname on his advertising to avoid creating confusion with another, more prestigious law firm, Hamlin Hamlin McGill. Frustrated, Jimmy tracks the skater twins down and offers to make them some real money with their scam, only on the condition that he becomes their partner.
Of course, this all goes about as wrong as it possibly can, given the first person they try this on happens to be the grandmother of Tuco Salemanca (Raymond Cruz). To Jimmy’s credit, however, he does redeem himself after he talks his own way out of a death sentence, then convincing Tuco to not kill the brothers, but instead coercing him to simply break their legs.
Talking the Kettlemans out of their tent, but taking their bribe.
Showing some real initiative, Jimmy spends hours roaming through New Mexico wilderness beyond the Kettleman’s backyard fence hoping to track them down in order to free his client, Nacho, who’s in custody after being blamed for their disappearance. Once he finds them having a campout in their family tent, he pleads with them to return to their home and start to make things right. This proves more difficult than planned, as Betsy Kettleman (Julie Ann Emery) is utterly convinced of her husband’s innocence.
This becomes even trickier when the Kettlemans realize that setting things right would include returning the $1.6 million they’d taken. After a literal tug-of-war over this stolen loot, the Kettlemans offer to buy Jimmy off to the tune of $30,000. While he seemed genuinely conflicted in the moment, it’s later revealed that he took the money, calling it a payment for his legal services, because euphemisms help make morally gray areas go down so much easier.
Finding the root of Chuck’s disease.
After Jimmy hides the Albuquerque paper from his brother, fearing his criticism over his elaborate publicity stunt involving a fake billboard and a fake rescue attempt, Chuck wraps himself in his tinfoil blanket and makes a mad dash outside to steal his neighbor’s copy. Despite leaving $5 behind, Chuck’s neighbor calls the cops, who see his stripped breaker box and healthy supply of camping fuel and take him to be a dangerous tweaker, instead of a simple electricity-fearing shut-in.
Later, at the hospital, while Dr. Cruz (Clea Duvall) covertly turns on an electric device, Chuck explains his hypersensitivity to electric fields. Jimmy sees this as a dirty trick, whereas she presents it as an effective demonstration that the problems Chuck claims to have are all in his head, and urges him to consider getting him the professional help he needs. Of course, Jimmy refuses, and even though he seems to consider this option, it’s his reverence toward his older brother that prevents him from doing what he knows is probably the best thing for him.
Refunding his ‘retainer.’
The Kettlemans continue to outright deny the reality that they’ve done wrong by stealing a seven-figure sum of money. So, with the help of Mike (Jonathan Banks), he works out a scheme that not only relieves Jimmy of his $30,000 bribe, but manages to get all the money back into the right hands. It’s a perfect example of just how far Jimmy is willing to go to do the right thing, which includes breaking and entering, reminding us that on the road to becoming Saul Goodman, “Slipping Jimmy” was always right there in the rearview mirror.
Taking on, then abandoning, the Sandpiper case.
Thoroughly taken with the idea of practicing elder law, and with his custom-made Matlock attire, his Jell-O cup advertising, and his warm and colorful demeanor hosting BINGO night at the Sandpiper retirement home, it really seems to agree with him. It’s his inviting nature, and his flexible payment plans, that first alerts Jimmy to some shady goings-on in the retirement home’s finance department. It’s then that he, along with Chuck’s help, starts to build a case from literal scraps of paper fed through a shredder, piecing together a pattern of overcharging tenants to the point where it starts to resemble fraud.
The case looks to gain some serious traction. Chuck agrees to work with Jimmy before abruptly demanding a settlement of $20 million to make things right. With the case poised to grow beyond their ability to handle it, Jimmy hands it off to the law firm of Hamlin Hamlin & McGill, who in turn pass it on to the even more prestigious firm of Davis & Mane. It’s Jimmy’s personal relationship with the Sandpiper residents, and their frequent phone calls asking his whereabouts, that prompts Davis & Mane to offer him a job.
While he’s excited at first, psyching himself up for the interview like he does before a trial, he only gets as far as the parking lot. It’s there that the recent loss of his friend prompts him to suddenly reevaluate his decision to always do the right thing, before blowing off the interview and driving off into the sunset with a new mission. It turns out, the biggest element preventing Jimmy from doing the right thing was… himself.
