Note: This review contains SPOILERS for Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad.
Episode 3.9 of Better Call Saul, titled “Fall,” ended with Kim’s fate in question after a car wreck. I suspected she would be okay because she got out of the car herself, but there was always a chance of internal injuries, and we also didn’t know what caused the crash. Our questions were answered quickly, as the flashback opening scene of Jimmy and Chuck as kids was probably the quickest of the series. It seemed rather insignificant, but that moment of Chuck reading to his little brother was a powerful one after that shocking ending, which we will get to after everything else.
It was promptly revealed that Kim fortunately just had a broken arm and some scrapes and bruises that didn’t require her to stay overnight at the hospital. The car crash in the previous episode was caused by her drifting three lanes of traffic, which Kim said she doesn’t even remember. We assume that Jimmy and Kim will end at some point—and probably not on good terms—because she isn’t seen or heard about in Breaking Bad, but how much of Saul’s personal life do we see in BB?
If she easily survived crashing into a rock on the highway, it will probably take a lot more than that for Kim to go away, especially since she now has her priorities straight and is taking time away from an impossible workload to recover. Still, while going to Blockbuster and watching movies seems harmless enough, Better Call Saul has been impossible to predict. Heck, Chuck nearly broke his neck last season by arguing with the guy at the 24-hour copy shop. There will probably be something next season that happens between Kim and Jimmy that completes the transformation into Saul Goodman.
Jimmy is already getting close to full-fledged Saul without actually adopting the persona. I said to myself last week that what he did to Irene was the worst thing he has done in either BCS or BB, and Bob Odenkirk (Jimmy/Saul) himself said the same thing last night on Talking Saul. He ended up doing the right thing in a genius (and hilarious for the viewer) move to get all the girls back on Irene’s side, but he told Kim he flat out didn’t want to do it. While Jimmy has a good heart, he has bad intentions that are in his own self-interests, too.
We didn’t see Mike in the season finale, which was a bit of a surprise. I would say that Season 3 was the least amount of action we saw from Mr. Ehrmantraut, as the biggest thing to happen with him was the relationship with Gus Fring being established. There is probably a good chance that Mike will do some of his best work under Gus in Season 4.
Speaking of Gus, the meeting that Nacho was lucky to find himself at ended with Hector Salamanca suffering a heart attack thanks to the pill switch earlier in the season. Fring wasn’t going to let Hector die there, though, and gives him CPR to stay alive until the ambulance arrives. Michael Mando, the actor who plays Nacho, said after the episode on Talking Saul that his character now knows what is driving Gus. Ironically, keeping Hector alive for revenge against him ends up blowing up in his face, quite literally, in Breaking Bad.
Gus, too, seems to know what is driving Nacho. The owner of Los Pollos Hermanos noticed something about the pills, and it could lead to some sort of alliance between he and Nacho. Unless Nacho wants to be like his father and get out of the business altogether (which is unlikely), things probably won’t end well for him.
As far as the McGill storyline goes, the third season of BCS basically worked in two halves, both showing an ascension by Chuck before a couple huge moments. Jimmy’s older brother beat him at his own game when his elaborate plan came to fruition at the end of Episode 2, “Witness.”
After that, Chuck slowly gained more confidence against his “condition,” but Jimmy bested him with the help of Huell in “Chicanery”, which led to perhaps the best scene so far in the entire series.
That was the low-point for Chuck, but he seemed to prevail after that by showing Howard and everyone else that he was “normal” again. He wasn’t, though. Chuck criticized Jimmy in the season finale for putting on a show of remorse, but the elder McGill was putting on a show of his own by acting like he was fine, when he turned out to be far from that.
Unlike “Fall,” there were no cliffhangers in last night’s episode; unless he is a Targaryen, Chuck is dead. It was a tragic (and brilliant) way to end the season, and fans will have to wait until next year to see how Jimmy, Howard, and others will handle his death.
In part, Chuck’s demise can be blamed on both his brother and former partner. Similar to last week’s episode of Fargo, Jimmy is like Emmit in that he was chipping away at Chuck for years and then he—or in this case, the lantern—finally fell. Howard, on the other hand, basically took the meaning out of Chuck’s life by forcing him out of the firm, which ironically came at his own personal expense in the form of a three-million-dollar check.
That said, Jimmy and Howard weren’t the ones who tore Chuck’s house apart and decided to end it all by setting it ablaze. For all the things he did, you have to feel at least a little bad for Chuck, though. Even after what turned out to be his final conversation with Jimmy, he still had love for him as evidenced by the baseball bat from the opening scene of the episode (in the tent) being still in his possession, which he used to smash the power meter in a fit of rage.
Chuck simply couldn’t live with himself and his mental illness anymore. The disturbing final scene reminded me of The Shining with the empty look in his eyes as he chipped (or kicked) away at the table so that the lantern would fall. Even after Howard told him “You won,” Chuck was lost.
It has from the start, but last night’s season finale undoubtedly proves that Better Call Saul stands on its own and brings the same kind of drama that Breaking Bad did. That is an extraordinary task considering that the viewers already know the fate of Jimmy and Mike—the two main characters—because they are both alive and whole in BB. Hopefully we don’t have too long of a wait for Season 4, which is sure to be just as great as the first three seasons.
hm they put full scenes on youtube? but good episode and surprising end