Better Call Saul: Klick Review (SPOILERS)

I love Better Call Saul. I love Its nuance, I love Its shades of grey and I love the way that it captivates me. This isn’t Breaking Bad, there’s no meth cooks or shootouts, all the links to future are made with Mike’s story, instead, the drama comes from the Shakespearian relationship between two brothers and all the people that may get hurt around them.

The twists and the turns, the backstabbing and the double crossing, these aren’t just guys who fit into roles of good and evil, there are shades of grey and a complicated rivalry that has become bitter and twisted over the years.

It’s not quite clear who’s fault this is. In the last season finale, we were very much against Chuck and at the end of the last episode and the beginning of this, all the sympathy was for him.

The cold open was excellent as Jimmy and Chuck sit at their dying mother’s bedside. Jimmy goes to get sandwiches and in a moment that instantly makes Chuck human, he breaks down crying. A second later his mother calls out for Jimmy before promptly dying and when asked if she said anything before she died, he says no.

This sets up our episode, filling out the back story of Chucks resentment towards Jimmy and clueing us into how far he will go to bring Jimmy down. This is undoubtedly Chuck’s episode, he’s the Frank Grimes of Better Call Saul who will go to crazy lengths to bring down the person everyone seems to idolize and he goes through the ringer, all because of Jimmy, before he can get his own back.

Chuck strapped to a gurney, begging to the doctors that he has a condition, refusing an EKG because of it, is one of the most uncomfortable scenes I’ve seen on TV. You can’t help but feel for him, whether his condition is in his mind or not, it’s painful to watch him go through it.

Though it doesn’t stop him from becoming immediately unpleasant when Jimmy tries to help him. The interesting thing about this episode is how far Jimmy will go to help his brother, risking his entire deception by rushing to Chuck’s aid in the copier place and staying by Chuck’s side the entire time.

Perhaps Jimmy doesn’t know the depths of Chuck’s bitterness, having missed out on their mother ignoring Chuck and asking for Jimmy, or he’s just ignoring it out of love, but it’s gonna lead him towards failure.

The big revelation that Chuck has hidden a tape recorder to catch out Jimmy, pulling a con and pretending to be distraught about losing his mind was extremely low. He wraps foil around his living room and quits the law, all just to gain Jimmy’s sympathy so he could catch him out.

That final shot of the tape recording is filled with such foreboding, we know that Jimmy won’t get disbarred, so something terrible or life changing must happen to stop Chuck’s plan. We don’t what will happen to Chuck or Kim and this is a show that can only end in tragedy.

For a moment, I thought Chuck was going to end up in a coma after the cat scan but then he went back home and set up something far more interesting.

It’s been a fantastic season and the finale was a real cherry on the cake. The slow-burning drama has made this one of the most exciting shows on TV and Klick brings the Jimmy/Chuck rivalry to a crossroads. With Jimmy in a happy place, his advert happening to come out as Chuck went into his scan, the only place he has to go is down, and Chuck has the means and is very likely to use them.

Elsewhere in the episode Mike bought a sniper rifle and tried to kill Hector if it weren’t for Nacho standing in the exact wrong position. For Mike, he still has the moral complexity that means he doesn’t want to kill Nacho if he doesn’t have to. Then his car horn goes off and he finds a note on his windscreen that reads ‘Don’t’.

Fring? Gotta be Fring yeah?

Intriguing nonetheless. His story is going to take us to the coolest places.

I love the way this season has played out, focusing on Chuck and Kim far more than Jimmy and Mike, building up their characters so this isn’t any old prequel, it has it’s own story and doesn’t make it all about Breaking Bad.

Klick sets up interesting threads for the next season, asking more questions than it answers and teases real heartache and tragedy. I can’t wait.