Jimmy McGill is back on the path of becoming a conniving lawyer, and subsequently a Bun Slinger, in the season four premiere, titled ‘Smoke’. There was lots that I liked, and also a few things I didn’t.
Gene (Jimmy’s post-Saul persona) is being scraped off the floor at his job at Cinnabon after fainting. No heart attack, just over-exhaustion from keeping his guard up all the time. Maybe he should’ve chosen a different profession if he’s so scared of being recognized, me thinks. You know, somewhere a bit more quiet and private. Like a cubicle, instead of being a very public figure in the Omaha mall.
He’s brought to the hospital, where he’s going through all sorts of tests, but in the end nothing’s wrong with Omaha’s favorite bald bun guy. However, on his taxi ride home, he notices an air refresher dangling from the cab mirror, saying ‘Albuquerque’. That doesn’t really bring back fond memories, I imagine. But wait a second… This means the cabdriver’s from there, doesn’t it?
All Jimmy gets is an angry stare. Does the driver recognize him? I’d say chances are that he does. Jimmy gets out almost immediately, and starts walking through the snow, not knowing where he is, and whether the cabbie is coming after him or not.
Or not, it turns out. But his cover might be blown.
Gene can’t take the chance that he’s been made, so I expect he’s going to move someplace else in the coming episodes. (Or in the season five premiere, since the black and white stuff has been kept to an absolute minimum so far in the series.)
Back to Albuquerque, about ten years earlier: Chuck has chucked his last chuck. And burnt down his house with him. Jimmy’s devastated, as would be expected. Bob Odenkirk didn’t have to learn many lines, that’s for sure; Jimmy’s never been more quiet in his life.
Because of the wrap-up of Chuck’s suicide, the episode’s pretty somber. There are scenes that are not really that necessary, in my opinion, like Howard calling Jimmy about the obituary, for example. Yeah, we know Howard cares a lot about achievements, but we knew that already. This scene feels like exposition of a character we’ve known for some time now. It doesn’t show anything about Howard, or Jimmy, that we didn’t already know.
The lighter touches come from Mike Ehrmantraut, who’s being paid by Gus and Lydia for doing absolutely nothing. Easy as it seems, this is not Mike’s style. Even though he basically gets his own money back through this arrangement, Mike’s not one for sitting in his chair all day, watching daytime television.
And so he goes to work. As a ‘security consultant’ at Madrigal. It’s very funny to see him walk through the office and warehouse without anyone asking any questions. Actually, he’s the one doing the asking – and bossing people around.
After a day’s work, he has a talk with the manager, giving him a list of things that need improving. The manager doesn’t know anything about a ‘security consultant’, so he’d better make a call with Lydia. I bet he never needed to do that before.
We get a little Salamanca action, too, but not much. Gus has been tracking Nacho. One of his henchmen follows Nacho to a bridge, where he drops the evidence of him screwing around with Hector Salamanca’s pills. This is a little too convenient. Did Gus have someone track Nacho before everything went down? I don’t think so, because he didn’t really have reason to, did he?
So, Gus put a tracking device on Nacho’s car, after looking at Nacho, looking at the ambulance driving away. Gus had this curious look on his face. He had his doubts about Nacho, but tracking him immediately, and witnessing him throwing away the evidence off of a bridge… That’s a bit too convenient, even for Gus.
Back to Jimmy. Howard comes to see him, tells him he thinks that he’s responsible for Chuck’s death, because he pushed him out of HHM. Jimmy sort of agrees, by saying that’s Howard’s cross to bear. He gets up from the couch, and cheerfully makes a pot of coffee.
What’s going on here? Did Jimmy feel guilty at first, but he’s suddenly very much okay when Howard takes the guilt from him, in a way? Is that it? But why so cheerful all of a sudden?
If this scene is meant to show Jimmy turning into Saul – sort of in a Bruce Banner/Hulk kind of way -, then… I don’t know. But maybe that’s just me. I always considered ‘Saul’ an act. A character that Jimmy plays. But I suppose what the writers are going for here is: Saul is not an act. Jimmy did create Saul at first, but his creation is slowly turning into a multiple personality disorder. That means Jimmy’s no longer in control of his character. That means you either get Jimmy, or Saul, and no one knows – not even Jimmy – which one of them will show up, at any given time.
If this is indeed the direction the writers are going in, then I’m okay with Jimmy getting up and being weirdly cheerful. Heartbreaking as it is to watch.
The Black Ox 