5x06 Wexler v. Goodman

[9.3/10] People in Better Call Saul are always making plans. It’s one the things that makes this show and its predecessor so engrossing. In between the committed character work and gorgeous desert styling, there’s intertwining schemes that merge together or crash into one another until our heroes and villains are left to pick up the pieces.

“Wexler v. Goodman” gives us this sort of clash of the uber-prepared titans in spades. As the title promises, it gives us Kim’s plan being superseded, against her will, by Saul’s plan. It gives us Lalo’s surprisingly solid plot to sic the DEA on Gus Fring jostled by Lalo suddenly having to deal with Mike’s equal and opposite machinations to get him in trouble with the law over his actions in last season’s finale. And at the same time, it gives us a glimpse into how the personalities of those involved play into things.

Kim’s plan reflects who she is. After coming so close to playing dirty with Kevin and Mesa Verde to secure a win for Mr. Acker, she pulls back and wants to fix everything, even if it means self-sacrifice. After Rich called her out for last week’s skullduggery, she’s had second thoughts. Now, she wants to reach a settlement with Mr. Acker whatever his number is, and pay for any surplus above what Mesa Verde’s willing to cover out of her own pocket. To boot, she apologizes to Rich (for the yelling, not for the scheming), and figures out a way to make that right too.

It’s the classic Kim Wexler play. Come close to complete and total amoral gamesmanship to win, only to have her conscience or fear of getting caught flare up and use those same planning skills to restore the status quo. As the cold open shows, in the end, Kim does the safe thing, the right thing, even if it puts extra strain and burden on her.

She’s just partnered with the wrong guy. Jimmy enjoys the hunt as much as the prize. Sure, he likes to win, something that Kim calls him out for in their closing blow-up. But often it has less to do with his instrumental goal and more the joy he derives from using his gift for grift to come out on top.

That’s the point of his plan to use a pair of sex workers to embarrass Howard Hamlin in public (in front of Clifford Main, no less). Sure, part of Jimmy’s routine is exacting revenge on Howard because it’s not otherwise possible to inflict it on Chuck. But part of it is just a reminder that Saul can’t let a good idea go to waste, even if that idea would hurt people, even if it would mean tricking someone he loves. The scheming itself is too much fun, the rush of victory too great, and the hubris that tells him there’s no scrape Saul Goodman can’t con his way out of (or into), is too inescapable.

So is the well-plotted wrath of Mike Ehrmantraut. Apart from the moral complexities of Kim’s scheme running aground on Jimmy’s, part of the fun and excitement of Better Call Saul is simply the chance to see people do what they do best. Most of Mike’s portion of “Wexler v. Goodman” sees him simply tightening the noose around Lalo, through his knowledges of what strings to pull to bring law enforcement into his adversary’s business.
The one exception to that is his brief conversation with Nacho, who’s framed in a beautiful shot in the lead-up to his meeting with Gus. That sequence establishes a few plot basics. Mike was persuaded by Gus’s speech last week and is in Fring’s employ once more. Nacho answers to Mike now in this double agent game. And Lalo is stepping up his plans to chip away at Gus’s work and business until Don Eladio and company decide he’s not worth the trouble, necessitating Mike’s counterattack.

But it also features the one non-scheme-related moment in that part of the episode. Nacho challenges Mike on the man he’s working for. Mike challenges him back on Mike’s warning about the muck Nacho was stepping into. And yet, despite his characteristically gruff demeanor about the whole thing, he expresses sympathy for Nacho in his grumbly Mike way with just a look and three words: “then we’ll talk.” We know Mike’s fate. We don’t yet know Nacho. But if there’s anyone with the resourcefulness to get Nacho out of the life he was warned off from, it’s the man who gave him that warning.

We see that loud and clear as Mike springs his trap on Lalo. It’s a queasy thrill to see him posing as a private investigator representing the family of the clerk Lalo killed, coaxing a witness into feeding the police another salient detail. It’s fun to see him dress down a low-level rookie at the precinct to get him to unwittingly deliver the report that connects the dots of Lalo’s hit and run for the investigating officers. It’s a joy to see him use a jury-rigged police radio to sic the cops on Lalo once the proper charges and evidence have been properly baited for the investigators. The whole thing is a symphony of scheming.

One of the frustrating things about Lalo’s introduction is that his “leap through the ceiling, kill a civilian, and crash a car” felt weirdly sloppy for this show’s antagonists to get away with. One of the pleasant surprises of this season is Lalo’s thoughtfulness, his attention to Gus’s moves and his sharp plan to put pressure on Fring’s operations. And one of the more satisfying developments on that front is to see Mike bind those two together, bringing Lalo to task for his earlier sloppiness to help short-circuit the Salamanca boss du jour’s bigger, smarter scheme.

Oddly enough, that’s essentially what Jimmy does to Kim in their half of the episode. Kim has a plan. Jimmy thinks he has a better one. So he doesn't care that Kim is waving the white flag, that she doesn't want to unleash their secret weapon on Kevin, or that she doesn't want to put herself at risk with her job or her most important client. More accurately, he cares, but only enough to think he can overcome all these impediments to deliver the outcome he wants and, thinks is what’s best for Kim.

The most revealing and fun part of the episode comes when he lays out his idea for a series of ads to his usual camera crew. The mini-J.J. Abrams shoots him down, telling him it can’t be done in the way that Jimmy wants in the time that he wants it. But Saul Goodman won’t be deterred, even if he has to come up with his own spray-painted green screen, micro-manage every step of the production, and corral a host of community theater actors into a nail salon. No matter what other people say, when Jimmy is in his element, he wants to do things his way, and damn the consequences.

So when it comes time to agree to the settlement that Kim and Jimmy pre-arranged, Jimmy calls an audible, entirely unbeknownst to Kim. Instead of the $45,000 he and Kim agreed on as a settlement figure, Saul shocks the room with a demand for four million dollars. He kicks Kevin Wachtell in the teeth with a disc full of ads that slander Kevin’s father (played by Bob Odenkirk’s former Mr. Show compatriot Jay Johnston!). And he goes nuclear in the exact way that Kim didn’t want before and doesn't want in the moment -- trying to leverage the discovery that the Mesa Verde logo infringes on the copyright to a famous photo taken by an indigenous photographer.

The ploy infuriates Kim. It spurs incredulity and outbursts in the room. But it gets Kevin to deal. He agrees to move the call center, pay Mr. Acker and the photographer, and even make public apologies to each. What’s more, it (theoretically) helps protect Kim, because her reactions of resistance and frustration and anger in the face of Saul’s ploy are genuine, giving her the perfect emotional alibi for Rich’s suspicion that she and Jimmy are in cahoots.

In theory, everybody wins. Kim gets her way and a piece of her soul back with Mr. Acker getting to stay in his house and take the money. An indigenous photographer will receive proper credit and compensation for having her art co-opted by a commercial cowboy. Kim is above suspicion from Rich or anyone else. Kevin is out some cash and a little dignity, but he still gets his call center and an end to this insanity.

But Kim knows Jimmy well enough to know that he didn’t do it for any of that. He did it because he likes to win. He did because he knows he’s good at grifting and likes to ply his trade, his art, wherever he can. And she knows that he doesn't care if he has Kim’s consent to do it. All of these plans and schemes and plots on Better Call Saul are an absolute joyride for the audience, but when Jimmy involves people he cares about in them, people get hurt, and Kim’s seen that close enough second hand to be ready to be done with it.

We see in the flashback to her refusal to get into the car with her drunken mom that Kim knows how to recognize trouble, to recognize someone who knows how to sidestep blame, paper over misdeeds, and try to talk a person they care about into making a bad decision. That flashback suggests that part of Kim’s affections for Jimmy may come from seeing some of her mom in him. But it also tells us that she knows well enough not to get into a car with someone who could make a crazy swerve halfway down the road.

Or does she? The crazy cliffhanger that “Wexler v. Goodman” leaves us with is Kim’s suggestion that she and Jimmy should either break up or...get married. It’s a strange suggestion, one that nevertheless comports with Saul’s statement in Breaking Bad that he’s twice divorced. There’s the sense of Kim as a moth to the flame, occasionally flying just far away from Jimmy to break orbit, or come just close enough to being burned to flutter away, only to keep coming back to his heat.

It’s the opposite of a plan. It’s an impulse, a reaction, a reflex that could bind her to someone, however temporarily, who thinks he can come up with a roadmap out of any jam he gets himself, or her into. Hopefully this one won’t leave Kim, once again, walking home alone and carrying all that weight by herself.