'Better Call Saul' Recap: It's All Very Aboveboard
Spoiler alert: The recap for the “RICO” episode of Better Call Saul contains storyline and character spoilers.
In which Jimmy McGill unearths the case of a lifetime… for better or worse.
Mailroom Jimmy
The opening moments offer an abundance of great Jimmy moments we’ve been waiting for, via flashback: We finally see him (wearing short sleeves and a tie, Sipowicz-style) in action as the HHM mailroom clerk! Of course, he knows everyone’s name as he delivers their packages, and he gets a very special delivery himself: a letter telling him he’s passed the bar exam. He and Kim share a somewhat nonplatonic congratulatory kiss, and he goes off to share the news with Chuck, revealing that he spent years secretly getting his law degree (via community college and the University of American Samoa) and passing the bar (in three tries).
Chuck’s surprised, and Jimmy has to ask if he’s proud of him. When his big bro says yes, it obviously means a lot to the future Saul Goodman, and he then asks Chuck if he would consider hiring him at HHM. “As what?” Chuck asks at first, then tells Jimmy he’ll have to discuss the issue with the other partners at the firm, meaning Howard.
Related: Missed Last Week’s ‘Better Call Saul’? Catch Up With Our Recap
Which means, we already know the answer is no, news Howard delivers to Jimmy while Kim and his mailroom pals are celebrating his achievements with a cake. We don’t hear exactly what Howard says, why Jimmy isn’t getting a shot to practice law at HHM, but as he leaves a closed-door meeting, Howard says, “Let’s reassess in six months. Thanks for understanding, Jimmy.”
Champion of the People Jimmy
Present day (in the regular Saul timeline), Jimmy’s at Sandpiper Crossing, an assisted-living facility where he’s going to prepare a will for new client Mrs. Landry. She offers him a Hydrox snack but doesn’t have enough cash to pony up his full $140 fee. She promises to pay when she gets her allowance, which opens a can of worms that will either make or break Jimmy. He asks why she’s on an allowance and finds out the secrets of Sandpiper’s business practices: Its residents give all their money to the company, which takes out “what they need,” then issues the residents allowances. “It’s all very aboveboard,” Mrs. Landry insists.
Except, as Jimmy soon figures out, Sandpiper is charging the residents exorbitant rates — $14 for a box of Kleenex, $22 for a bottle of aspirin — and putting the fees in print so tiny they can’t read it. He asks Chuck to confirm what mounting evidence from Mrs. Landry and her friends is suggesting to him: that he may have a multimillion dollar class-action fraud case on his hands. Chuck confirms it — after remarking that he missed the clues himself when he was preparing some of Jimmy’s wills for him — and Jimmy returns to Sandpiper to heed Chuck’s warning that he not go off “half-cocked.” Only “full cock,” Jimmy assures him.
Single-Ply Jimmy
The Sandpiper receptionist, who was suspicious of Jimmy during his last visit, refuses to let him in to see Mrs. Landry. After he spies another Sandpiper employee locked in a room shredding documents, the ever resourceful Jimmy fakes an IBS emergency and locks himself in the lobby bathroom, where he uses a piece of cardboard and a long string of toilet paper to draft a letter warning of pending litigation against Sandpiper for defrauding his clients and for spoliation, i.e., destroying evidence. He presents the documents and then is summarily tossed out on his Matlock-suited tuchus.
That night, he returns to sift through Sandpiper’s dumpster, looking for the shredded documents. I’ll leave it to your imagination to consider the things he finds himself covered in in the garbage of an assisted-living center. While neck deep in the goo, he gets a call from Rick Schweikart, the lawyer for Sandpiper, who suggests he use two-ply toilet paper next time and drop his pursuit of any fraud charges. Jimmy comes up empty-handed in the dumpster anyway but on the other side of a partition finds a recycling bin, a goo-free recycling bin, which contained the shredded documents all along. The indignities of being Jimmy…
Team Jimmy
Jimmy sets up Project Shredded Paper Reassembly in Chuck’s living room, and the two re-create a document Chuck labels Jimmy’s smoking gun. Jimmy calls Kim and asks her to use HHM database access to do some research for him, and Chuck suggests he and Jimmy partner on this huge case, which Jimmy tells Kim could be a $1 to $2 million dollar class-action suit. She worries there may some issue with Chuck’s working on a big case outside HHM, given his partner status, but Jimmy dismisses her concerns. That’s so going to be trouble later on…
With the smoking gun doc faxed to Sandpiper’s legal reps, Schweikart and his cohorts arrive at Chuck’s house for a meeting. At first, Chuck is quiet and nervous, and Jimmy does all the talking to turn down a smug Schweikart’s $100,000 settlement offer and point out why the smoking gun document is so hot: It’s an invoice for the Sandpiper purchase of syringes from a company in Nebraska (the state that once again saves Jimmy). That means interstate commerce fraud, which makes this a potential RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act)case, and Chuck finally speaks up to suggest $20 million, not Jimmy’s estimate of $1 to $2 million, would be an appropriate settlement. “Or we’ll see you in court,” he says, as Schweikart and company leave.
Later, an exhausted Jimmy returns from a day of new client signings — elderly mall walkers — and leaves some research Chuck needs in his car. Jimmy falls asleep and Chuck, deeply engrossed in the case, gets up, goes to his door, and walks right out to Jimmy’s Esteem, sans space blanket and, seemingly, any fear of being exposed to electromagnetism.
Jimmy walks out and sees Chuck behaving so, well, normally, and calls out his name. Only then does Chuck look up and remember… and drops a box of documents.
Legal Briefs:
* The mascot of the University of American Samoa: “Go Land Crabs,” Jimmy says of his alma mater.
* The cases Jimmy asked Kim to look up in Westlaw: Sedima v. Imrex, Slesinger v. Disney, and Holmes v. SIPC. All real cases.
* Mike’s daughter-in-law asks him to babysit Kaylee, and he’s more than happy to help. Stacey also asks Mike if she can spend the ill-gotten money her late husband had stashed. Mike urges her to do something good with it, and then she tells him, “Of course, that’s only a drop in the bucket,” which results in Mike returning to the vet who sewed him up in “Five-O” and asking him to hook him up with some jobs.
Let’s hear your feedback, Saul fans: Is it inevitable that the Sandpiper case is going to somehow backfire for Jimmy? Is there any way HHM won’t get involved, since Chuck is involved? Could Chuck be looking to repair his damaged reputation by taking the case to Howard himself? And what about Mike… is his daughter-in-law taking advantage of his guilt and love for Kaylee?
Better Call Saul airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on AMC.
