Hey guys, Pete here. This will be my Better Call Saul season 5 episode 1
recap and review. I've been a huge fan of Better Call Saul and the Breaking Bad
universe that it exists in and have been excited for the final two seasons and
I'm gonna finally make videos about them. episode 1 which is titled Magic Man
delivered a really strong table setting opening to the season and I can't wait
to see where things go. Spoiler warning if you haven't seen the
season 5 premiere yet this video isn't for you. hit the subscribe button and
click the bell for notifications since I will be doing Better Call Saul videos
weekly during the season, but then go watch the episode before you come back
here to watch this video. alright episode 1 was written by showrunner
Peter Gould and directed by Bronwyn Hughes who helmed the Breaking Bad
episode where Walter blew up Tuco's office way back when. we have begun every
season with a Gene teaser and season 5 delivers the longest one we've ever had
it picks up right after gene got out of the cab following his trip to the
hospital. he was spooked by the driver who had an Albuquerque Isotopes air
freshener hanging from his rearview mirror and also seemed to be checking
him out. he goes home to plan his next move and we learned that he's in
possession of a lot of diamonds. we don't know when or how he came to have them
but he keeps them in the same band-aid tin that he kept his rare coins that he
lifted from his father's store in. this explains why he had the shoe box hidden
inside the wall that we saw him removed= during the season 4 episode 5 "quite a
ride" flash-forward to the Breaking Bad timeline. the diamonds represent Gene's
last resort if things go sideways in Omaha and it'll be interesting to see
how he comes across them in the current timeline. he plays it safe for a while
staying away from work and listening to a police scanner. calling in to ask the
other employees if there's been anyone around the store looking for him.
eventually he goes back to work only to be approached by Jeff the driver when
he's on his lunch break, but it certainly isn't clear what Jeff wants besides
having him admit that he is Saul Goodman. before he had to leave Albuquerque we
know that his face was everywhere saul goodman's face was everywhere through
his ads and TV commercials and that made him sort of a celebrity and we can only
imagine that his face would have been plastered on the news after
Walter White's death. Jeff doesn't do anything in the moment that is a direct
threat though but being identified is enough to send Gene into panic mode.
he calls Ed the disappearer again this time asking for an adapter for a Hoover
max extract pressure Pro model 60 instead of a filter. it's fantastic to
see Robert Forster one last time and Ed seems to know who he is and lets him
know right away that it'll be difficult and the price would be double this time.
it's been out there that Forster would be reprising his role one last time in
this episode having shot the scene while they were filming El Camino and the most
likely theory was that gene would contact him for an extraction. the twist
turns out to be that in the end Gene calls it off saying, "I'm going to fix it
myself." in the moment it was a big surprise with
not much to indicate why he changed his mind or what fixing it himself might
mean. there's a lot to unpack here so I'll visit the black-and-white dreary
world of Gene Takavic after we get through the rest of the recap. the cartel
side of the story is largely disconnected from Jimmy's transformation
into Saul at the moment since we know how Gus and Mike's tales conclude for my
money Nacho's journey has been the most interesting thread to think about. we
don't really get a lot of actual Nacho stuff here though. at the beginning of
season 5 he finds himself under Gus's control while continuing to operate in
the Salamanca family business. one of the best new additions in season four was
the arrival of Eduardo aka Lalo Salamanca from Mexico and why I love
this character is because he's a little more dynamic than the other Salamancas
and he adds some unpredictability into Nacho's seemingly tragic arc. he pushes
things along with a menacing edge under the capable and even personable facade.
he starts out asking about Werner and Mike as Nacho and Krazy-8 are handling
their collections and winds up finding out that there are complaints coming in
about the quality of their product. this leads to a trip to a street-level
dealing spot where Lalo quickly discovers that some of the drugs are of
a lesser quality and that's not something he can let stand. he gets a
meeting with Gus and Juan Bolsa to discuss the situation and we learned the
whole thing is a maneuver by Gus to cover up what Lalo learned about Werner
at the end of season 4. the cover story is that the German was building a
chicken chilling facility for the legit side of the business while building that
he found out about the drug business and stole two kilos of the cartel's meth
leaving Gus with no choice but to replace it with product he bought locally. Bolsa
seems more interested with getting back to making money and he's willing to
accept the apology and remorse from Mr. Fring but Lalo is not convinced. he asks
about the construction job, which Gus anticipated he would, he takes him to a
new facility where he has mic in the remaining Germans put on a show to try
to convince Lalo that this is what Werner was working on. Lalo wants to talk
to Mike which guts allows to happen but on the way out Lalo makes it clear that
he knows it's a setup by mentioning the south wall that Werner mentioned on the
phone. remember there was more to the conversation between Lalo and Werner
that Mike didn't hear and it didn't come off like Werner was on the run for his
life after getting caught stealing from his boss. there's also a side
conversation here between Lalo and Bolsa where he lays out the reasons again that
he doesn't trust Gus which if they weren't already obvious we also get some
confirmation that the Salamanca's believed that Max was Gus's boyfriend
even if the show has never stated that explicitly that's a theory that's been
out there and it certainly seems to be hinted at but they never really come out
and say it but this means that the Salamanca's will always suspect that Gus
is looking for revenge but Bolsa makes it clear that Don Eladio values Gus's
ability to make money he values it enough they keep him around even if he
doesn't trust him completely Lalo also mentions Santiago when they're talking
and it means that we might learn more about Gus's origins in Chile. Mike
Ehrmantraut is in the place where you'd expect him to be after killing Werner he
was as close to a friend as anyone has been to Mike in this story and on some
level Mike seems to be blaming himself for letting things get to the point that
he had to kill him. we see this come out as he's sending the Germans home he ends
up punching Kai in the face which is something that he's probably wanted to
do several times over in their interactions together you could say that
Kai had this coming he does it after Kai says that it had to be done you know
Werner had to be killed he says he was a good man but he was soft then there's
this nice comparison here in that Casper another one of the German workers
tells him that Werner was worth fifty of you and two that Mike doesn't say
anything in his lack of a response he shows us that he believes Casper's right
Mike's part of the episode ends in a meeting with Gus after the Germans are
confirmed to be out of the country the super lab project will have to be shut
down while Lalo is in the States and Mike feels like this means his work with
Gus should be done at least for right now Gus tells them he's gonna continue
to pay him and he think of it as a retainer while Mike teeters on losing
his shit in the face of hearing that Werners wife has been compensated
there's a real tension between the two men and only Gus's power keeps Mike in
line ultimately he walks away saying he doesn't want the money but we know
that's not how the story ends it'll be interesting to see how their
relationship develops to get to where it is where we see them in Breaking Bad and
I'm guessing that Lalo and nacho and their stories will play a big part in
that process Jimmy and Kim's story picks up right where we left it at the end of
season 4 as well after being reinstated as a lawyer he's
filling out the paperwork to practice under the name Saul Goodman
the surprising thing here is that his reasoning for doing this kind of makes
sense he's built up a pretty big clientele selling burner phones the
people who buy the burner phones buy them because they're criminals in
general and they know the guy who sells them as Saul Goodman criminals are
useful to him because they need lawyers and how would they know to call him if
he's named Jimmy McGill but it only makes sense if we completely ignore what
we know about Jimmy from season four where he spent most of his time unable
to process what happened with Chuck we know that he's deeply damaged and to
this point he's only looked at that in his using it to his advantage to fool
the members of the bar into thinking he was remorseful Kim hasn't been able to
find her footing after being duped by Jimmy's speech herself and now he's off
to the races to get his new practice up and running he gives her a chance he
asked is there an angle that he's missing and she opts to just let him go
ahead with this plan later she tries to reason with him because she wants to
believe that there is a better Jimmy inside there underneath that can return
and that ultimately he'd be selling himself short to practice under the new
name and just going after these characters who he knows they're guilty
his former customers for the burner phone
he shuts this argument down by saying that Jimmy McGill would always be
associated with being Chuck McGill's loser brother the name Jimmy McGill is
burnt by becoming Saul Goodman he gets a fresh start and besides he likes it this
whole scene with Kim and Jimmy is so expertly crafted from the dialog to the
performances and when he tells her that this is why this works I go too far and
you pull me back it just hangs in the room over them we can't help but root
for these two even though we gotta believe that things won't work out in
the end we can understand how Jimmy thinks this is his best possible plan
and we can see how that makes it hard for Kim to get through to him and talk
sense into him from there we get our montage since the Magic Man montage we
see Saul he's set up in a tent to offload his remaining disposable phones
he uses them as a way to advertise his services he has them set up with his
number on the speed dial and we watch him explain how he might be able to help
several people based on what crimes he thinks that they are most likely to be
involved in Huell is there as security and to back up his claims of being an
effective lawyer and it's classic Saul and it's fun but it's also kind of sad
because we know this process is the beginning of the end for Jimmy and that
the end probably involves something tragic happening to Kim
throughout this whole episode because Jimmy isn't really in touch with why
he's doing what he's doing we sort of tracked the whole situation through
Kim's point of view with Jimmy when the phones are gone we see he immediately
changes his mind about the 50% discount that we saw them talk about earlier he
told her he wouldn't do it never mind that he was actually missing the point
she was making about encouraging them to commit crimes but he had come to the
conclusion that was a bad idea and then quickly reversed course here when he
wanted to try to maximize his gains Kim is fascinating because she's a character
who is exclusive to better call Saul which means we don't know how her story
will end we also don't know much about her backstory or her history before she
got to HHM either we know she mostly has her shit together career-wise but there
is also a slippin Kimmy side too she can see this direction that Jimmy's
going is probably not gonna end well but she also likes this part of his
personality in some situations she's not a victim she's a willing participant in
the relationship and a willing participant in the
if there's a good enough reason to do it and that's usually to help someone as we
watch Kim try to wrap her head around Jimmy's decisions and trying to figure
out what she should do we see the contrast of where they're at play out at
the courthouse Bill Oakley the district attorney that we've seen throughout the
series and who's always had interesting interactions with Jimmy it's a good
character he finds himself in a situation where he's confronted by a
newscaster which is actually just the film students that saw hires to help him
with his ad business there's a set up where she is talking and of course Saul
is there to jump in at the right moment he's able to say I'm Saul Goodman and I
believe that every man woman and child deserves justice at a price they can
afford so we see that the whole tense situation was just sort of a warm-up
where he's going in front of his prior customers more or less this is his big
coming-out at the courthouse where he's going to set up this scenario that he
can use to his advantage to get his name out there and with that everything is
kind of set up for his fall he is officially Saul Goodman there's still
several years between now and the beginning of where he shows up and
Breaking Bad but for the most part other than Kim still being in the picture the
end is all but set up after the stunt we see Saul he runs into Kim
he's got the bright shirt on he's dressed like Saul but he still seems
like Jimmy until it comes up that Kim is trying to get one of her pro bono
clients to take a deal that is actually in their best interest the kid doesn't
want to do it he likes the idea of rolling the dice and going to trial
Jimmy jumps in and offers to help saying that he'll pretend to be the DA and that
they can easily trick this kid into taking the deal but we see Kim get upset
and she says with some anger I'm not scamming my client but the kid Bobby he
sees this and he wonders who it is and she sees the opening and she goes
ahead and scams him and she does it by herself it works but this was something
that she hadn't planned to do she was actually quite against it and this pro
bono stuff has been important to her this is how she balanced out the part of
her job that she didn't like by doing something that made her feel better
about herself Jimmy hasn't been involved with this and now that he has been we
see that like other parts of his life this is starting to go quickly downhill
as well and we have to think that crossing this line is something that
will haunt Kim in one way or another if it's just in her mind and feeling bad
about it or this could come out that she just straight-up lied to this kid
considering that Jimmy is going to be in the public spotlight with his
advertising we see her in the stairwell and this is where the episode ends and
it's not like she's in a situation where she has to make this grand decision or
she might break and turn to the dark side or something like that to me it
stands out as being kind of connected to that beginning when we see Gene and how
miserable his life look we know that Gene is not happy living the life that
he's living in Omaha even though he got away with it seeing Kim here struggling
with the situation that she's in it just makes you wonder how her story ends and
where she's going to be at and how she's going to feel in relation to what we see
with Jean and because this has been a long video already I'm not gonna
speculate too much we have a new episode coming out tomorrow so I'll be making
another video so I'm gonna wrap things up there there's a lot of other cool
details that I'd like to get to and things about how the future of the
season might go but I'll go ahead and add those to the episode recap tomorrow
after episode 2 comes out in conclusion it was a good table setting episode it's
the common way that they do it they finish up whatever they left hanging at
the end of the previous season and they set the stage for the new season to come
the nacho stuff is there Lalo is a good addition we don't see any Howard but I'm
sure we'll probably see him in episode 2 Kim seems to be the thing that steals
the show here and that's where my emotional investment is since we don't
know how she's going to end up we know how Jimmy's bad decisions are
gonna leave him so it's just a matter of watching how we get from point A to
point B but they've turned Kim into such a likable and complex and enjoyable
character that it's just rough thinking about the fact that she doesn't seem to
be around in the Breaking Bad timeline so let me know what you guys thought
about the episode let me know what you think about this season that's coming up
what kind of stuff do you want to see happen what are your favorite theories
let me know all about that in the car please subscribe to my channel if you're
not already as mentioned I will be making videos throughout this entire
season and through the final season when that arrives next year that's it for
today I'll see you tomorrow thanks for watching I'll talk to you soon