This week’s episode of Better Call Saul was intense. The episode sees Jimmy return from the desert, barely clinging to life after having survived dehydration by drinking on his own urine. He takes the $7 million he managed to haul across the desert after sharp-shooting Mike Ehrmantraut killed a gang of rivals, turns it over to the city to pay his client Lalo’s bail, and returns back home to convalesce.
Lalo, however, catches wind that not everything was as he was told. In the desert, Lalo’s curiousity is piqued when he spots Jimmy’s abandoned car full of bullet holes. Lalo returns to Kim and Jimmy’s apartment to question Jimmy about his story, and this is where the episode goes from heart-thumping to heart attack. Lalo has a gun; Jimmy is delivering the same story over and over while Lalo tries to catch him in a lie; Mike, on the roof of a nearby building, has his rifle trained on Lalo in case he decides to pull his gun, but Kim is standing between Mike and Lalo.
The situation does not look good, and it feels all but certain that someone in this scenario is not going to make it out alive. But it’s not just because there are two guns and a tense stand-off in the sequence. It’s also because of a scene earlier in the episode that teases a potential death.
But let’s back up for a moment. Remember Ted Beneke? The man, who Skyler White was sleeping with in Breaking Bad, that tripped and hurt himself so badly that he had to be hospitalized?
Note that those oranges are a reference to Godfather, because oranges in The Godfather appear whenever death is in the air. This callback has been made numerous times in other TV shows and movies, including Mad Men and The Wire. That’s exactly how they are used in Breaking Bad, as well. Remember Carol, the woman who dropped oranges out of her grocery bag?
In other words, The Godfather and Breaking Bad have primed us for what to expect when we see oranges. And what did we see in this episode? Oranges basically being murdered. Early in the episode, Kim spends a few minutes making orange juice, which is not only triggering Jimmy’s PTSD, but the orange juice sprays all over Kim’s shirt.
I don’t mean to frighten anyone, but orange juice spraying like blood is not a good omen here.
That is either some very scary foreshadowing, or a remarkable piece of trolling by director Thomas Schnauz. Combine that with this particular shot of Kim staring through a bullet hole in Jimmy’s mug, and I would be very worried for someone in the season finale, although not necessarily Kim.
The oranges mean that death is in the air, but it doesn’t have to mean that Kim is going to die. We know that Jimmy and Mike will make it, but we don’t know what happens to Lalo or Nacho (or Nacho’s father). What we do know, however, is that as far as Jimmy knows, Lalo and Nacho are still alive during the events of Breaking Bad. He does not, however, even mention Kim during Breaking Bad, so we don’t even have a clue at the moment as to her ultimate fate.
Next week’s season finale is going to be insane.
