Better Call Saul recap: 'Gloves Off'

Mike staggers into his apartment. Like Chuck, he lives alone, in seclusion, in darkness, but with considerably more modest means. And, unlike Chuck, he has the benefit of electricity. He throws down his keys, then an envelope; out of the envelope’s mouth spills money, decanted across the table. He goes to the fridge and cracks open a can of beer (think Frank Booth’s Heineken quote). He takes a pack of frozen vegetables out of the freezer and presses it against his face, covering half, a visual motif for the series. His face is battered and bruised, one white bandage clinging to his forehead. He drops a small, dice-sized pair of silver boxing gloves on the table.

I don’t want to dwell on a five-minute, dialogue-devoid opening scene for too long, but these first scenes tend to linger in my mind throughout the episode. Saul, like its progenitor, has some really sublime cold opens. They’re one of the defining components of the Breaking Bad formula, culled from The X-Files, on which Vince Gilligan cut his teeth, but more metaphorical in their Cheever-esque focus on banal items as existential emblems. Better Call Saul’s cold opens have mostly been mood-setters or plot-propellers, not the whiz-bang whoa! scenes from Breaking Bad’s latter seasons; remember “Cobbler” two weeks ago, with Chuck skulking in his chiaroscuro mausoleum, golden light covering him like so much dust on a relic, or last week, with Jimmy garbed in Boss Hogg white in front of a giant Texas flag that would make Rick Perry bellow in un-godly ecstasy.

This week’s opening, focusing on Mike, is teasing us with glimpses of the future without explanation. The writers have been taking their sweet, sweet time, slowly building a life for Jimmy McGill just so they can eventually tear it down, but Mike’s story has stagnated after the brilliance of “Pimento” last season. This opening insinuates that “Gloves Off” will finally mark a return to Mike’s George V. Higgins-esque moral conflict like a cold-cock to the jaw.

Jimmy’s in trouble, too, though his problem isn’t of the corporeal, ass-kicking variety; he’s getting chewed-out by the partners at D&M for running his Bergman-esque commercial last week. They want to know if he can be “part of a team,” which (we know) he can’t, not really, but he says he can. He lies. He says he detected enthusiasm when he told Cliff about the commercial, that time Cliff was half-listening, half-out the door. The commercial, Jimmy repeats, cost less than $1,400 and brought in hundreds of new Sandpiper residents. But these are lawyers, and they don’t care if Jimmy was right. The partners vote 2-1 to fire him, but Cliff believes in second chances and gives Jimmy one last shot — he can expect a great deal of scrutiny from now on, though.

Jimmy retreats to his office. Standing in front of the window, the halation of light licking the contours of his frame, he resembles the eponymous character from Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist. ( The Village Voice’s Michael Atkinson described Bertolucci’s film as “a bludgeoning indictment of fascistic follow-the-leader and an orgasm of coolness,” which essentially describes Better Call Saul’s second season so far.) He picks up the phone and calls Kim. It goes to voicemail, as the camera roves through the vacuous HHM hall over to her fidgeting cell phone next to a pair of wrist watches. Chuck’s in the building.

NEXT: “That’s a bell you don’t un-ring.”