Alex Casey recaps the second episode of Better Call Saul season two on Lightbox, featuring a piano, nacho cravings and an unspeakable act with an apple pie.
We’re back for another week as Jimmy’s moral pendulum continues to swing frustratingly between Good Guy Greg and Scumbag Steve. Old mate Chuck is back too, playing his piano with all the gusto that I can only imagine Prince had at his concert last week. And, just like Prince, Chuck has a strict no-phones policy. He’s still living in shadow via his mystery electro-magnetic condition, and the result is that he looks absolutely stunning, like bloody Sting or something.
Talking of shadows, how nice is this next scene ft Kim and Jim? All they want is patio furniture, horses and a smoker. The quarter-acre dream. She gives him a travel mug for his birthday, emblazoned with the tongue-in-cheek “World’s [second] best lawyer.” Hilarious! Are these two the greatest couple in the world? They’ll definitely be together forever, right? Nothing bad is ever going to happen to them, RIGHT?!
You can’t help but feel, even in these most tender and sweet of exchanges, that everything Jimmy is doing is a strained performance. He always seems slightly pained, like an understudy thrown into a role he was never meant to play. The brand new coffee cup doesn’t quite fit in his car cupholder, his suit is always a little too big, his floppy hair always a little too floppy. He simply doesn’t fit.
An unfortunately ever-present character in the Better Call Saul universe is Daniel blimmin’ Wormald, who continues to be the worst dweeb version of Walter White imaginable (outside of this guy). He’s genuinely concerned about his stolen baseball cards, even more so than the thousands of drug dollars stashed behind his skirting. “I’m a crime victim,” he pleads to Mike, “just because I occasionally sell pharmaceuticals…” This guy is the absolute worst – not to mention his blinking Pussy Wagon-style hummer that screams “DRUG DEALER” through a megaphone.
I might be disgusted by Daniel Wormald, but Mike Ehrmentraut is still keen to help him out. He’s in too far over his head already, with the police suspicious that he has a car worth approximately $90m chilling in the suburbs. Good Guy Mike tracks down the man by the name of Nacho. Delicious, delinquent Nacho. Mike can do no wrong, securing the rare baseball cards back in a matter of hours. Now all he has to do is throw the police off Wormald’s trail.
If only there was a morally flexible lawyer lurking around…
Jimmy pulls out what has to be the finest swindle in his arsenal: a fabricated story about Wormald filming himself sitting on pies for a living. I still don’t completely understand the intricacies of the Dutch Cobbler act, nor do I really want to. Wormald is off the hook, Jimmy is slipping back into shonky grounds and Kim is back being mad at him again. Looks like going straight for Jimmy might not be as easy as pie.
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