'Better Call Saul' Recap: Truth and Consequences
Warning: The recap for the “Nailed" episode of Better Call Saul contains storyline and character spoilers.
In which we witness the events that may lead to Jimmy and Mike breaking bad, in one of the series’ best episodes yet.
The Spiky Garden Hose
The driver of the Regalo Helado ice cream truck, the one we met going through the weigh station in “Fifi,” is barreling down the desert highway, singing along to the infectious sounds of La Sonora Dinamita’s “Mi Cucu.” Which is probably why it’s only at the last second that he sees something snake across the road ahead of him. He sees it too late; Mike’s nail-spiked garden hose blows out the truck’s tires, sending the truck off the road and the driver into the glove box for his gun. He gets out and looks around, but a man in black, wearing a black ski mask, holds a gun to his head, hog ties him and duct tapes his eyes. The masked man, Mike, then gets out a saw and starts cutting into the truck’s tires. If anyone else was assuming drugs were being transported inside tubs of frozen treats, that’s not what Mike is going for. He slices into the last tire and hits a jackpot: cash is stuffed inside, and Mike takes it all, loads it into the junker car he hid behind a billboard, and leaves the driver there, alive and unharmed, while he drives off with $250,000.
In celebration of his windfall, Mike goes to a bar, where he peels off some of his $100 bills and buys a round of drinks for all his fellow customers. Later, he pours over a newspaper at the Loyola diner, where sweet waitress Fran remembers his regular breakfast order and invites him to come shovel her driveway when it snows. “Just say the word,” he tells her, and chuckles to himself about this surprisingly happy state he finds himself in, having amassed a pile of cash, gotten his revenge on Tio, successfully gotten his flirt on with Fran, and learning that maybe the Albuquerque area, which does get snow sometimes, might not be the worst place he could have landed after fleeing Philly.
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And then he gets a phone call. Nacho. He needs to talk to him. They meet at their usual spot, and Nacho wants to know: Is Mike the one who ripped off Tio’s truck? He assumes so, because anyone else who dared to steal a quarter of a million dollars from Hector Salamanca would have been smart enough to kill the driver, Nacho says. Mike admits he did, proudly, saying it was about the money, and about trying to steer the cops towards Tio. That angers Nacho, who points out that putting the cops on Tio means putting them on him, too. Nacho has also been ordered by Tio to interrogate the driver, who Mike says was not working with him on the robbery. Nacho hopes not, because if the driver can identify Mike in any way, it will lead to Nacho, too.
Mike assures him there’s no way the driver could have picked up on any identifying information, and asks Nacho how they avoided cops nosing into the incident and getting into the local paper. Nacho says they took care of it before cops got involved. A good Samaritan drove by and stopped to help the driver, who then called Tio and company to come pick up the truck.
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And the good Samaritan, what happened to him Mike wants to know. Hector shot him in the face, and they buried him in the desert, Nacho tells him. Mike gets into his car, looking devastated that an innocent man, and not Tio, is the biggest victim of his caper.
1216 Rosella or 1261 Rosella?
Chuck is getting ready for a rare professional outing: After getting Mesa Verde back to HHM, he’s personally going to rep the bank at their regulatory commission meeting to get the new Scottsdale branch approved. Howard is worried about his comfort, and offers to oversee the hearing himself, but Chuck tells him, “I find victory laps very comforting,” and off they go.
At he meeting locale, Chuck starts to have a reaction to the lights and the security scanner, but Howard encourages him, and the he’s recovered by the time the head of the New Mexico State Banking Board welcomes him back.
Mesa Verde head Kevin Wachtell begins to make a statement to the board when Chuck notices some commotion up front. The head of the board has been told by his team that the address in the official documentation Chuck filed is different from the address that appeared in Mesa Verde’s published notice of intent. Chuck’s documents say the new branch will be at 1216 Rosella, but the notice of intent says it’s at 1261 Rosella. Chuck insists his documents are correct, but when both Kevin and Paige from the bank say it’s 1216, he begins to get agitated. He finally has to ‘fess up that there has been a mistake, and, despite a testy exchange with both Kevin and Paige, asks the board head if they can have a few minutes to correct the documents and resume. It’s not that simple, he’s told. The board already did all their research on the 1216 address, and now they’ll have to repeat the process before meeting again. Bottom line: Despite Chuck’s attempts to then get a provisional pass so Mesa Verde can open immediately, the board says no, and Mesa Verde is going to have to wait another six weeks to try again. Kevin is furious.
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Stressed Chuck noticeably starts to react to the lights, and by the time he and Howard walk into his house, he’s in full rage mode, grabbing his space blanket and repeating, “This is not possible!” He’s sure he didn’t make a mistake, but when he looks at his Mesa Verde files, he sees they say 1261. Howard advises “we take our licks and we move on,” pointing out that an office full of assistants and paralegals, not to mention him, also didn’t catch the address discrepancy. “It was 1216, I promise you,” Chuck insists, as the look on his face says he’s just made a realization.
“This was no mistake.”
Wexler and McGill
Kim and Jimmy are at their new shared office complex, removing heavy dental chairs, tearing down old wallpaper, and painting the walls. Kim gets a pair of life-changing calls: First, Paige, who doesn’t give a lot of details, but offers her the Mesa Verde business once again. She tells Jimmy, and as they wonder what happened (well, she wonders… he knows), and she begins to tick off everything she needs to do to get ready for her big client, she gets another call. It’s Ernesto, who tells her Chuck wants to turn the Mesa Verde files over to her, right away, and would like her to come to his home to get them.
She agrees, and Jimmy offers to accompany her. To carry boxes or to gloat, she asks. “Some from column A, some from column B,” he says.
Defending His Life
At Chuck’s house, Jimmy tries to let himself and Kim in, but finds the locks have been changed. Ernesto opens the door for them, and once Kim and Jimmy are inside, Chuck dismisses Ernie. He’s wrapped in a space blanket, and tells Kim he had hoped to talk to her alone, but, as Jimmy’s there, too, it’s probably time to clear the air.
“He sabotaged me,” Chuck begins. “Yesterday was the worst professional humiliation of my life… a single transpositional error cost my client time and money, and permanently damaged my reputation. Then I realized, it wasn’t an error at all.
“In the dead of the night, he went through my Mesa Verde files…”
Chuck continues laying out what he thinks happened with the “transpositional error,” and he is exactly correct. That there were 13 documents in the files that included the address of the proposed new office, and each one was pulled out, the new (incorrect) address was cut-and-pasted in, and photocopies were made and placed into files, as Jimmy knew those would be the documents Chuck would use to file Mesa Verde’s paperwork to the Banking Board.
“This is sounding like a lot of work,” Jimmy says.
“No one ever accused you of being lazy,” Chuck tells him. “Every other sin in the book, but not that one.”
Chuck tells Kim she needs to hear all of this. And if she doubts Jimmy has the skills to pull this off, she should know he had a thriving fake ID business going back in high school. He adds Jimmy completed the whole scam by waiting until Chuck was at the hearing to sneak into his house and put the original documents — the ones with the 1261 address — back in the files. “No crime is complete without the cover up.” That is exactly what happened.
Chuck says he knows Kim wasn’t involved, that Jimmy did this in a “twisted romantic gesture” for her. Tellingly, Jimmy doesn’t categorically deny any of it. He makes statements to deflect attention from what Chuck’s accusing him of, saying, “We don’t have to listen to this,” and asking, “I did all this for some business?” but never saying he didn’t do what his brother has figured out he did. And Jimmy and Kim exchange a look that says she knows what Chuck is saying is true, and Jimmy knows that she knows.
Chuck pushes on, telling Kim that now that she’s aware of what Jimmy has done, she has to, as an officer of the court and the attorney of record for Mesa Verde, tell Kevin Wachtell exactly what happened. Kim points out that if what Chuck says is true, Jimmy could be charged with forgery, fraud, and falsifying documents. She wants to know what evidence the older McGill has.
“My evidence is knowing my brother for his entire life,” he tells her, but she tells him she believes there’s a simpler answer, that Chuck made a mistake, poring over 10-point type lit by a lantern.
“I did not make a mistake!” he yells, pleading with her to open her eyes, despite her affection for Jimmy.
“I know he’s not perfect. And he cuts corners. But you’re the one who made him this way,” Kim tells Chuck. “He idolizes you, he accepts you. He takes care of you. And all he ever wanted was your love and support, but all you’ve ever done is judge him. You never believed in him, you never wanted him to succeed. I feel sorry for him… and I feel sorry for you.”
Chuck looks crushed, and Jimmy carries the Mesa Verde file boxes to his car. Kim gets in, and punches him in the arm. Really hard. Several times.
“I”s Dotted, “T”s Crossed
That night, Jimmy brushes his teeth (he has apparently secured a regular spot in Kim’s toothbrush holder) and gets into bed, where Kim is working. He asks if she wants to talk about what happened. “Not now, not ever,” she says, but he tells her he thinks she was meant to land Mesa Verde, and now all is right with the world. He turns out the lamp on his side of the bed and prepares to slumber.
“Your brother is one smart lawyer,” Kim says. Jimmy says he’s the smartest one he knows, no offense to present company.
“He’d make quite an adversary… the kind of adversary who’d find even the smallest crack in your defense,” she says. “Going against him, you’d really wanna make sure you’ve got all your ‘I’s dotted and your ‘T’s crossed… nothing for him to find.”
Jimmy gets her message. He jumps out of bed, grabs his car keys and drives to the copy shop, where he spots Ernesto inside, talking to Lance, the shop clerk. Once Ernie leaves, Jimmy goes in, and offers Lance a tidy sum of cash to say he doesn’t remember Jimmy being there. He adds another $200 so Lance will erase the security tape, and then hides across the street, because he knows Ernie will be back. And he is, with Chuck in the passenger seat. Chuck’s clutching a photo of Jimmy, and wants to hear for himself what Lance previously confirmed to Ernie, that Jimmy was there previously, late at night, cutting and pasting and making copies.
Except, Lance is changing his story, and Chuck is already uncomfortable being in the shop, under harsh fluorescent lights, surrounding by all sorts of electronic equipment. As Lance continues to say he doesn’t remember seeing Jimmy in the shop, Chuck becomes more agitated, and when Ernie says maybe he should get Chuck back home, Chuck tells him, “Do not speak to me as if I were a child. I’m fine.”
He’s not. He’s getting woozy, his eyes are fluttering, he’s wincing in pain, and leaning against the counter. Lance’s story change is making him angry, too, and when Ernie again tries to suggest he take a break, Chuck yells at him, “Ernie, shut up!”
“You think about the choice you’re making,” Chuck tells Lance. “I know he was here! I know what he did! Tell me what you told Ernesto!”
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Other customers in the shop ask for Lance’s assistance, and Chuck yells at them, saying Lance is in a conversation with him. Jimmy’s watching everything unfold through the windows from across the street, and when Lance walks towards the other customers and threatens to call the cops if Chuck doesn’t leave, Chuck follows him. But he’s in pain, even woozier, and the room begins to spin. He’s unsteady on his feet, and he trips, hitting his head, hard, on a counter. Jimmy, seeing it from across the street, stumbles backwards, and the sound of Chuck’s head slamming down before he bounces off the counter and slumps to the floor is both wince-inducing and may make you sick to your stomach.
He’s on the floor and motionless, and Ernie tries to tend to him while Lance unhelpfully brings a tissue over to him. Across the street, a panicked Jimmy is muttering to himself, “Call 911! Call 911!”
Legal Briefs:
* After hijacking the truck, Mike stakes out the ice cream shop and witnesses Tio being informed about the robbery. Tio is furious, and the reaction seems to leave him weakened, leaning on something inside the store, grabbing his arm, and taking a pill. Have we just gotten a hint at what eventually lands Tio in the wheelchair?
* The fact that the head of the New Mexico State Banking Board welcomes Chuck back suggests he knows something about his health woes. It’s one of the series trademark subtleties, reinforcing how stressful and humiliating that must be for a proud man like Chuck, whose identity is very much tied to his work and professional reputation.
* The W.H. Mauldin Elementary School is Jimmy’s latest filming locale for his commercial. He’s got his filmmaker buddies, and a new makeup artist, in tow, as he wants to get a shot of himself looking heroic in front of the waving American flag. A pair of school officials almost derail the plan, until he tells them he’s filming a documentary on Rupert Holmes, the “Piña Colada Song” crooner, who he says attended the school. Facts — like when his makeup person says she thought Holmes was English — don’t deter Jimmy; he starts singing “The Piña Colada Song” for the officials, and they’re wooed long enough for him to get his scene at the flagpole. Jimmy later tells Kim the commercial has been completed, and will debut during the next morning’s Diagnosis Murder airing; wonder if we’ll see it in next week’s season finale?
Let’s hear your feedback, Saul fans: Does Chuck survive that fall? If so, will he be physically or mentally incapacitated by it? How will Jimmy live with himself? And Kim… she not only indirectly signed off on Jimmy’s document scam, but she planted the idea that he needed to make sure there’s no evidence for Chuck to find — how will she react to the accident? What is Mike’s next move after finding out his plot led to the death of an innocent man? And Jimmy’s commercial… especially given what has just happened with Chuck, will the commercial be the end of Jimmy McGill, lawyer, and the official introduction of Saul Goodman?
The Better Call Saul Season 2 finale airs April 18 at 10 p.m. on AMC.
