This week, we’re sitting in the dark, just like Mike, waiting to find out exactly where this mysterious tracking device might lead. If you didn’t know from previous press reports or some of the delightful viral marketing that AMC’s been putting out, Gus Fring is coming to “ Better Call Saul”… but not quite yet. Sure, in his earlier iterations, Jimmy/Saul never showed much interest in baseball, but as Nebraska resident Gene, rooting for the Royals makes geographic sense (thanks to IndieWire Sports Experts Steve Greene and Ben Travers for weighing in on the matter). The brush with the law, and the brief resurrection of Gene’s past lives, are probably what trigger his collapse a little bit later at work, but there’s not a lot we learn about his ultimate fate here.Ī random geographic note: Gene’s Kansas City Royals lunchbag isn’t unsurprising for a man trying to lay low in Omaha. A typical day at the Cinnabon gets a flash of drama when Gene helps the cops arrest a shoplifter. Let’s deal here with the flash-forward, bringing us back to the black-and-white future waiting for Jimmy– wait, sorry, Gene. We’re instead at Five Days Salvage Yard, owned by a man played by Forrie Smith and credited as Junkyard Owner. Remembering What Hasn’t Happened Yet (The “Breaking Bad” Tie-In)įor the record, Mike’s auto salvage yard of choice is not Old Joe’s Junkyard, owned by Old Joe (Larry Hankin) from “Breaking Bad” Seasons 3 and 5. The sort of patience that might lead you to underestimate him - at your peril. It’s the way it communicates one of Mike’s most fundamental character traits: patience. It’s not just the way music, editing and cinematography work together to create a truly striking sequence, one that blends the rough terrain of the junkyard with the elegant setting of the New Mexico sun. It makes sense to start calling out each week one particular moment or sequence that reminded us exactly why we like to say things like, “This is the best-crafted show on television.” This episode’s time lapse montage, in which Mike deconstructs his car at the auto salvage yard, is a perfect example of this.
However, he dominates the action, with the cat-and-mouse game established last season continuing at the end of the episode, as he stalks his prey through the rain-soaked streets of Albuquerque. Mike maybe says 30 words total in the entire episode, and that’s only thanks to two characteristically terse scenes between other people. The rest of his storyline in “Mabel” focuses on him utilizing some military grade tracking equipment - as well as his well-established cunning - to take that tracking device and use it to find out who planted it, essentially flipping the script on his pursuer. Mike’s strategy for “why” begins with “how,” as he disassembles his car into scraps in search of a tracking device… which he eventually finds hidden in his gas cap, proving that he’s being watched by… somebody.
For his first five minutes on screen (nearly exactly to the second - we checked), Mike is on a paranoid rampage following the discovery of the note on his car - with just the single word “Don’t” scribbled on it - sending him on a quest to figure out exactly who is tracking him, and how. First things first: Never forget that Jonathan Banks can own the screen without uttering a word. If Jimmy’s storyline seems a bit light this week, that’s because Mike’s got a lot going on. When Jimmy tells her he’s got plans for their office’s new paint job, her instinctual reaction is one we’ve come to expect: “Should I be worried?” And that she’s required to assist him with his elder law practice, whenever he slacks off, doesn’t help either. Things are still uneasy between Kim and Jimmy, following her anger over Jimmy’s decision to “help” her get the Mesa Verde account with last season’s sabotage.
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