Hi guys! So season six of Better Call Saul is well and truly underway and we are hurtling towards the
series finale at an alarming rate. As terrifying as the thought of life without Better Call Saul
is, we can take conciliation in the fact that the episodes we’ve seen so far have been bonafide
straight fire, and, honestly, we’ve come to expect nothing less from the screenwriting duo of Vince
Gilligan and Peter Gould. If you’re anything like us,
you can talk at length about every episode of Better Call Saul that has ever aired.
In today’s video, however, we’re going to do our best to keep our fandom under control and
focus on one episode of the series exclusively. That episode is the second of the sixth season,
which aired under the name “Carrot and Stick”. Stick around for your definitive synopsis of the
episode, along with a breakdown of the Easter eggs you may have missed. Let’s get started.
RECAP Written by Thomas Schnauz and
Ariel Levine, Carrot and Stick further documents Jimmy McGill’s transformation into Saul Goodman.
Perhaps more notably, it also showcases Kim Wexler’s increasing involvement in Saul’s
schemes and scams. Throughout the episode, she seems to take a sort of perverse satisfaction
in the deployment of underhanded tactics. The first example of this comes early on in
“Carrot and Stick”, when Kim suggests Saul reach out to two former clients to aid them in their
plot to bring down Howard Hamlin. These two former clients are Betsy and Craig Kettleman, who we
last saw in the season 1 episode “Bingo”. Since the events of season 1, Betsy and Craig
have lost everything and have opened a tax services business, which operates out of a
modest trailer on the outskirts of town, a far cry from Craig’s days as country treasurer.
Saul’s reunion with the Kettleman’s gives us two of this episode’s best Easter eggs.
The first comes just after he pulls up to the trailer which their new business operates out of.
Before entering, he takes a moment to admire an inflatable Statue of Liberty.
Fans of Breaking Bad may recognize Lady Liberty from the exterior shots of Saul Goodman’s office,
which show a similar inflatable placed precariously on the roof of the establishment.
It’s unclear if this is the exact same inflatable as the one we see outside the Kettleman’s trailer
or if Saul just took some inspiration from them when decorating his office, but perhaps
we’ll get an answer in an upcoming episode. We get a second Easter egg just after this scene,
when Saul enters the Kettleman’s office. As he walks into the trailer, Betsy is just finishing
up some business with Joseph Prado. Prado’s name is never actually said by any of the characters,
but we can see it on the check that Betsy is printing for him. Again, fans of Breaking Bad
might get some deja-vu from this scene, as it was Prado who sold Walter White that 1964 Chevrolet
C-10 in the Breaking Bad episode “Ozymandias”. The truck itself can be seen parked outside the
Kettleman’s trailer just after Saul’s arrival. Unsurprisingly, Betsy is not too thrilled to have
Saul re-enter her life. Craig receives him a little bit more warmly, especially after Saul
informs him that they may have grounds to build a civil suit from the ashes of their infamous
embezzlement case. According to Saul, the pair did not receive competent legal representation back in
season one because their lawyer, Howard Hamlin, was under the influence of class A drugs at the
time. Now, obviously this is all a lie concocted by Saul and Kim in their efforts to sabotage
Howard, but the Kettleman’s fall for it and decide to enlist the services of Davis and Main,
just as Saul knew they would. Davis and Main ultimately decline Craig’s case, again
just as Saul knew they would. What’s important here is that Howard’s alleged cocaine use has
been implanted in the mind of Clifford Main and the seeds of distrust have been sewn.
While all this is happening in the world of Saul Goodman, things are going from bad to worse for
Nacho. Under Mike’s advice, Nacho is laying low in a motel while Lalo Salamanca’s men search for him.
What Nacho doesn’t realize, however, is that Mike left the address of the motel in a safe
in Nacho’s apartment, knowing full well that the safe would be cracked by Lalo’s team.
Later on in the episode, Nacho realizes that a man is watching him from a rundown building
across the road from his motel. He manages to sneak from his room to that rundown building
undetected and proceeds to interrogate the man who was watching him.
It turns out this guy is pretty inconsequential. He’s not actually with the cartel and is instead
just being paid by some unnamed individual to report on Nacho’s comings and goings.
When the man receives a phone call from this unnamed individual,
Nacho discovers that it is none other than Gustavo Fring, who has double-crossed him in an effort to
smooth things over with the Salamanca family. With his life now in danger from both sides,
Nacho attempts to flee the motel in a stolen pick-up truck. Before he can make it out of
the parking lot, however, he is confronted by the Salamanca twins. Putting the pedal to the metal,
Nacho charges towards the twins in the stolen truck while haphazardly firing his
gun. The Salamanca twins return fire with more precise, deliberate shots and Nacho collides
with a car that was blocking his exit from the parking lot and makes his getaway.
Another manhunt for Nacho begins, with both Lalo and Gus trying to track him down. In a meeting
with Gus, Mike reveals that the truck Nacho stole from the motel parking lot has been found,
although the man himself remains at large. In an attempt to lure him out of hiding,
Gus instructs Mike to bring him Nacho’s father.
Much to the chagrin of his boss, Mike refuses to follow this order and a brief argument ensues.
Before things can get really heated, Mike receives a phone call from Nacho, who asks to speak to Gus.
We don’t know exactly what Nacho’s conversation with Gus was about, or if it even happened at all,
but things will almost definitely become clearer in the next episode.
I guess fans of Nacho’s story arc will just have to wait and see how things play out.
Back in the land of the lawyers, Saul and Kim’s scheme continues to play out exactly as they hoped
it would. The Kettlemans are unable to find a lawyer to take their case and eventually come
to realize that they never had the grounds for a civil suit in the first place. Infuriated to
have been scammed by Saul yet again, they call him to their trailer and demand he succeed in
overturning Craig’s conviction. Now for all of his faults, Saul is, at heart, a student of the
law and knows there’s no way any court is going to exonerate Craig, no matter who’s representing him.
With this in mind, he offers Betsy and Craig money as a sort of apology gift, but the couple refuses
to accept anything less than a promise to prove Craig’s innocence. They even threaten to tell
Howard everything about Saul’s plan to ruin his career if he doesn’t agree to take their case.
Lucky for Saul, Kim is present for this entire conversation. Refusing to be intimidated by the
Kettlemans, she places a call to a friend who works for the IRS. Speaking loudly enough for
the Kettlemans to hear, she tells this friend that she knows of a tax services business
that is defrauding its clients by giving them less money than they are entitled to.
Before Kim can give her friend more specific details, Betsy forcibly ends the call and agrees
not to tell Howard anything. But at this late in the game, this promise isn’t enough for Kim,
who demands the Kettlemans also reimburse their clients for any money they stole from them.
Like the boss that she is, Kim exits the trailer, leaving the Kettlemans and Saul speechless.
Back in the car, Saul compares her to a wolf and they drive away, unaware that they are being
followed by a gray sedan. With this shot, we fade to black and the credits roll.
So there you have it, your comprehensive breakdown of one of the best Better Call Saul episodes ever.
Like most episodes of the show, this didn’t have a whole lot of Easter eggs for the fans to enjoy,
but the ones it did have were certainly thrilling, as was “Carrot and Stick” as a whole. But what did
you guys think of it? Do you think season six has been delivering so far? Let us know your
thoughts and predictions in the comments section and don’t forget to subscribe to our channel for
more in-depth breakdowns of Better Call Saul and other great shows. See you next time!