1x04 Hero

8.9/10. I love the theme for this episode. I love the fact that Jimmy is genuinely distraught at the idea that he went the extra mile, proved that he is better and more committed than his well-heeled competition when it comes to these big fish clients, and they still won't hire him because he's "the kind of lawyer guilty people hire." And so he uses his hush money to both imitate and antagonize the kind of lawyers that respectable people hire, who are inadvertently and intentionally making his life harder. He both resents and envies their respectability, and so when the Kettlemans pay him off, he uses it as the rock upon which he will build his church.

But then he realizes that aping someone else's respectability isn't enough. Instead, he has to inject more of himself and what he does best into the routine in order to beat the big boys at their game. So he stages a rescue, makes the paper, and now has a name in the public consciousness to go along with his new, more respectable look. Everything in the episode is an effort to level the playing field, but with a fractured method for doing so that fits in with the rest of the fast talking conman ways Jimmy has mastered. He tries to go straight, in an almost cartoonish reaction to Hamlin, but eventually melds Hamlin's veneer with his own tactics to carve out something for himself (and win the minor admiration of his semi-perfunctory love interest)

And yet, he knows his brother won't approve. The scene where his brother, ever the voice of disapprobation, shifts from pride, to a frenetic and incredibly well-shot sequences that conveys his panic and sense of unwellness in venturing into the outside world, to the resignation and disappointment when he realizes what Slippin' Jimmy has pulled off, was an incredible way to end the episode.

And if the thematic stuff didn't do it for you, it was also a hilarious episode! Just the very image of Jimmy's billboard (and Hamlin's bewilderment at it) was great. The exchange about "Hamlindago" was a hoot. Jimmy's nigh-three stooges routine with the local college camera guys had a great comedic rhythm to it, and even little details like Chuck finding a rock to put his five dollar bill under in the midst of his disorientation was a stealthily hilarious character detail. One of the most easily forgotten parts of what made Breaking Bad great is how it wasn't afraid to be stupidly, or dryly comic even in the midst of its intense, dramatic stakes, and "Hero" seemed to embrace that element of its predecessor.