Better Call Saul Recap: When You Can’t Run Any Further
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The post Better Call Saul Recap: When You Can’t Run Any Further appeared first on Consequence.
[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Better Call Saul Season 6 Episode 3, “Rock and Hard Place.” For our recap of Episode 2, click here]
Case Summary
While other things happen in the third episode of Better Call Saul, “Rock and Hard Place” should be forever remembered as The Nacho Episode, for very good reason. Nacho isn’t the first series regular to perish over the course of the show’s run — that honor belongs to Chuck McGill (Michael McKean).
But Michael Mando delivers a simply staggering performance in his theoretical swan song, facing a fate which might have seemed inevitable from the beginning, but is still heartbreaking to watch. Writer/director Gordon Smith delivers Nacho to his end with an episode so deliberately paced that the dread builds more and more with each detail, each quiet moment.
The actual events, as they occur, are pretty simple: Nacho successfully escapes from the Salamancas, but knows his freedom is temporary and his father is in real peril. So he connects with Gus and makes the deal — if he confesses to Bolsa that he was the only person in the cartel involved in the attack on Lalo (a surefire commitment to his own death), Mike will personally guarantee his father’s safety.
The ultimate outcome is basically that, though Nacho doesn’t go gently into that good night. Instead, when Gus brings him out to the middle of the desert to meet Bolsa and the Salamancas, Nacho does make his confession, but then uses a broken shard of a drinking glass to free himself from the zip-ties and then stab Bolsa in the leg, getting his gun. But instead of using the gun on Bolsa and making yet another escape, Nacho uses the gun on himself. Sometimes, impossible situations make for Hollywood endings. And sometimes, you run out of escapes.
Achievements in Cinematography
When it comes to the cinematography, there are two sequences in this episode worth discussing. The first is just a quick shot that perhaps another show might not have even thought to include, but the fact that Better Call Saul included it is why it’s one of television’s best shows: a close-up on the shattered glass rattling around in the bed of Nacho’s stolen pick-up truck. Not only does it enhance the chaos and panic felt by Nacho as he makes his getaway from the motel, but
But really, let’s talk about that cold open, one of the series’ most daring to date simply because of how the episode withholds its meaning until the final moments. That shot of rain falling on the terrain, droplets clinking against Nacho’s discarded piece of glass, could take place hours after Nacho’s last stand, or weeks. Or months. Or years. It doesn’t really matter, how much time has passed. What matters is how in the end, we don’t necessarily leave behind all that much. In the harsh desert of time, all of us are barely a blip.
Better Call Saul (AMC)
On The Journey From Jimmy to Saul
In their limited appearances in this episode, Jimmy and Kim continue to move their schemes against Howard Hamlin forward, this time using Huell (HUELL!) to run a valet scam to get Howard’s car key and key fob. (Not an easy thing to do, as high-end Jaguars, even in 2004, have reasonably good security.)
When Kim and Jimmy work out their plans initially, it’s all… well, calling it good clean fun isn’t exactly accurate, because for one thing, the scene in which they talk out the idea of using Howard’s real car (versus a fake) for whatever they’re planning is dangerously close to pornographic. Yes, watching two people put on clothes together isn’t typically considered to be all that erotic, but that’s before we got to see Rhea Seehorn and Bob Odenkirk do it. Even if the scene hadn’t ended with Kim mussing up his tie and planting a big wet one on her husband, there’d be no doubt as to what happened in between then and their arrival at court.
At the courthouse, though, Kim gets a sharp taste of reality when she runs into ADA Suzanne Ericsen (who previously was the ADA on Huell’s case in Season 4), who takes the opportunity to nudge Kim about Jimmy’s client “DeGuzman” — a.k.a. Lalo. Ericsen tells Kim that Lalo’s dead, and that Jimmy could potentially help the government fight against the cartel by flipping on his client, due to a technicality that could be exploited in Jimmy’s attorney-client privilege.
When Kim sees Jimmy next, she’s grimly smoking inside her condo, laying out the facts for him: Lalo’s dead, but that doesn’t make his choice any easier: “Do you want to be a friend of the cartel, or do you want to be a rat?” We know what choice Jimmy makes — or should we say Saul here? As always with this show, while the destination has always been a certainty, it’s the journey which keeps us hooked.
Remembering What Hasn’t Happened Yet (The “Breaking Bad” Tie-In)
Since his introduction early in the run of Better Call Saul, the question of what eventually happens to Nacho always a huge question mark, with many people spending a lot of time trying to figure out the meaning of this line from the Breaking Bad Season 2 episode in which he gets name-dropped by one Saul Goodman:
“Talk to me, guys! Come on. Just tell me what you want! Jesus! No no no! It wasn’t me! It was Ignacio! He’s the one! ¡Siempre! ¡Soy amigo! ¡Siempre soy amigo del cartel!”
The implication of the line, it’s been theorized, is that Saul mentioned Ignatio because he’s still alive at the time of this episode of Breaking Bad (funnily enough, it’s the episode which originally introduced Saul, entitled “Better Call Saul”). But what we now understand is that it doesn’t matter if Ignatio is actually alive for Saul to say what he says in Breaking Bad. What matters is that Saul thinks he might be alive, at least in a panicked moment where he’s just frantically trying to cast the blame on someone else.
And that does mean that we can’t assume anything now about what the future holds — at least for the character of Lalo, who is also mentioned by Saul in that same Breaking Bad scene. Despite Tony Dalton’s absence from this episode, and the constant mentions of Lalo’s presumed death, Lalo is still very much alive and thirsty for vengeance. What form it takes, though, and the resulting consequences, should leave us all very very nervous.
Better Call Saul (AMC)
Best Quote
“Goodbye, Dad.”
— Nacho
It was tempting to use a line from Nacho’s final defiant rant towards the Salamancas here — “psycho pieces of shit” might be harsh, but it might also be too accurate. But attention must be paid to Nacho’s last conversation with his father, the person he loves most in the world, despite the fact that in some ways, his father said goodbye to him a long time ago.
It’s brilliant acting work by both Mando and Juan Carlos Cantu, because of how much restraint both actors bring to the scene; rather than descend into histrionics, both men approach these final moments with deeply felt resignation.
In Conclusion, Your Honor
The very least you can say about “Rock and Hard Place” is that Michael Mando now has a pretty solid lock on a 2022 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor. (Why Guest Actor? Well, if this is his last episode of the season — or even just his last episode of the first half of the season — then he’ll have appeared in less than 50 percent of the seven episodes which will be eligible for Emmys consideration this year, meaning he’ll be eligible in the Guest Actor category.)
But while its choices may fall under new scrutiny once the season’s over, this episode is a staggering achievement, giving one character the showcase he deserves before the fate he can’t outrun arrives. Nacho may be gone. But it’s a safe bet that his blood won’t be the last shed before things are done.
Better Call Saul airs Mondays at 9:00 p.m. on AMC.
Better Call Saul Recap: When You Can’t Run Any Further
Liz Shannon Miller
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