I’ll be that guy; the great blasphemer. This episode was as good as any episode of Breaking Bad and I feel like Bob Odenkirk has made a strong case for himself as a Best Actor contender at next year’s Emmys. I have so much to say about it and I don’t even know where to begin, so, I guess I’ll start at the beginning. That Karaoke scene was the perfect distillation of Jimmy and Chuck’s relationship. It’s interesting because so many people have been talking about “what could have been” and how it’s somehow representative of a time when Jimmy and Chuck’s relationship was different, but it wasn’t. That Karaoke stage may as well have been the rest of their life. It’s Jimmy’s night, he’s finally a lawyer, he’s up there being terrible, but he’s having fun with it and, as with everything, Chuck handles that the same as he does everything, he wrestles away control and makes himself the center of attention. I’m the better singer, I’m the better lawyer, I’m the better brother. All these little microaggressions that speak to who he was.
But the thing that stands out to me is that he wasn’t actually the better brother, and I think that scene beautifully exemplifies that. Even though it’s his night, Jimmy was content to relegate himself to the background and watch Chuck take center stage because, truthfully, I think that he was content just knowing that his brother would actually share the stage with him. It was a fantastic song choice, as well, and it set the course for the entire episode and I think that’s what makes the breakdown in the car so heartbreaking. He’s lost his faith in people. He sees himself in Kristina and he sees Chuck in every lawyer in that room. He goes to his reinstatement hearing and, for once in his life, he is, authentically, Jimmy McGill, and they call him “insincere.”
I think the profound irony in all of it, and the most bitter pill to swallow, is the fact that he had taken for granted the one individual who was always in his corner and his loss of faith in others had resulted in her loss of faith in him. That “‘s all good, man” was one of the single greatest transformations in film and television history because it wasn’t just Batman putting on his mask or Darth Vader breaking free of his restraints, it was a moment of realization that came at someone else’s expense. That’s what’s so amazing about it. That this moment they’ve built up for four years; the title of the show, and, really, the climax of this particular arc in this man’s journey, isn’t even about the main character. Somehow, they took Jimmy McGill’s big moment, the one we were all waiting for, and did something with it where the only person we could think about was Kim. That’s goddamn brilliant.
And Mike’s journey, thematically, was the perfect capper to the episode because it really acted as a mirror to what was happening with Jimmy. We all make our choices and they often hurt the ones who care for us most. I loved the subplot with Werner and the Germans and I loved that they used Werner to imbue Mike with some semblance of vulnerability. Life and loss has made him a hard man, and it’s rare that you see someone manage to chip away at that. His friendship with Werner and his relationship with Gus was one of those things where, it was like watching a train wreck, you knew what was coming; you could see the devastation before it even happened, and yet, there was nothing anyone could do.
I think what was so great about that final moment was that, in a weird way, Werner was being the merciful one. He knew that he had ****ed up, he knew that Mike had done everything in his power to protect him and to try and prevent this from happening, and he continues to do so, helping Werner ensure that his wife is safe. I think, in his own way, though, he knew that Mike’s being the one to do it was his final act of friendship. And it was a beautiful and, simultaneously horrifying moment, because you are cast in Mike’s shoes. You don’t want Werner to die, but you know there’s no other way this plays out, and the fact that Werner managed to take everything in stride and sort of be at peace with it when he took his final walk; it was almost like a preemptive act of forgiveness and an acknowledgement that this wasn’t Mike’s decision to make.
All things considered, this show continues to surprise me and it boggles my mind that it’s a spin-off, because, frankly speaking, no spin-off has any right to be this good.
