Pinata
Rich: Well, we have some banking work. I wouldn't say we have a division.
Kim: Would you like one?
While Jimmy daydreams about reconstituting Wexler-McGill, Kim sets out to secure her own future; Mike puts a plan into motion for Gus.
Back during Jimmy's time in mailroom at HHM, him and Kim (then a law student and intern) watch Chuck be applauded by the entire office for winning a big case. Kim breathlessly asks Chuck about the details of the case, clearly full of admiration for him. After Kim continues on their way, Jimmy sneaks into the firm's library.
In the present, Kim is working late at night on Mesa Verde, but is unable to put her public defender cases out of her head. As she goes to bed, she notices that Jimmy is still doodling ideas for their law partnership. The next morning, Jimmy tells Kim he's decided not to go to the therapist she suggested. Kim reluctantly drops the issue. Later, Kim meets with Richard Schweikart, and convinces him to hire her, giving her more resources to handle Mesa Verde.
Gus shows Mike the quarters he's set up for the incoming German workers, and takes his advice as to what entertainment the workers will require, and the security measures that will be necessary. They are interrupted by Victor, who informs Gus of an "infection".
Bored and doodling at his day job, Jimmy receives a call from his a nephew of his first real client Geraldine. She has died, and he is looking for advice on how to handle her will. Jimmy is visibly affected by the news, remembering specific details about Geraldine's will, and refers her nephew to HHM. When he gets home, he watches the commercial he made with her for Davis & Main. Kim interrupts his trip down memory lane by inviting him to lunch, and informing him that she's been hired by Schweikart (though she leaves out that she was the one who approached him). Jimmy pitches Wexler-McGill to her yet again, and Kim turns him down one more time, saying she's content with their current situation. Jimmy is crushed and steps away from the table to compose himself, but is ultimately supportive.
Mike visits Stacey, and apologizes for creating a scene at the last grief counseling meeting. He asks is he can pick Kaylee up from school tomorrow, and Stacey agrees.
Jimmy visits Howard at work to collect his portion of Chuck's inheritance. Howard is clearly stressed and beat down, and admits that HHM's reputation has taken a severe blow, the firm is downsizing, and he has no real long-term plan to get back on his feet. Jimmy decides to try the tough love tack, admonishes Howard for "wallowing", and gives him a pep talk, which does seem to fire up Howard a bit.
Howard: Fuck you, Jimmy!
Jimmy: There you go. Use that.
That night, Gus visits the still unconscious Hector at the hospital. Hector is the one with the infection Victor mentioned. Gus tells Hector about how, back in his childhood, a coati once stole fruit from a tree Gus had grown himself. After injuring it with a trap, he found the coati's hiding spot, waited for hours for it to come out, and then ultimately decided not to give it the mercy of a quick death.
The arriving workers explore their quarters, before Mike comes in for their first meeting. One of Werner's men, Kai, is openly disrespectful to Mike, though he defers to Werner when he reprimands him. Werner assures Mike that his men are all "good boys", and that they'll be able to focus once the work starts. Mike leaves to supervise security, telling his men to keep an eye on Kai.
Jimmy meets with the 3 teens who mugged him during his last effort to sell his burner phones. He offers them a cut of the profits if they agree to let him sell. The teens try to mug him again, chasing Jimmy into a dead-end alleyway, before two masked thugs come in behind them and restrain them. The teens are hung upside down among a bunch of piñatas, as one of the thugs takes a bat to the few of the piñatas. Jimmy threatens to order the thugs to beat them, scaring the teens into promising to leave him alone. Despite this, Jimmy seems unable to calm down the thugs, who continue to advance towards the teens, finally taking a swing... that stops right before bashing the lead teen's head in. Their point made, the thugs walk away and take off their masks, revealing themselves to be Huell and Man Mountain.
Tropes:
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: The three teenagers go from thinking they had Jimmy cornered, to sniveling wrecks desperately begging for their lives when they're held captive and threatened with baseball bats in the pinata shop. They agree to Jimmy's terms that he is not to be messed with, without question.
- Always a Bigger Fish: Deliberately invoked by Jimmy when he leads the three hoodlums into a trap, thinking they corned him while two armed thugs approach them from behind.Rocco: [laughing] You're like the stupidest person I've ever met. [hears Dramatic Gun Cock and looks back]
- Ambiguous Situation: Gus's monologue to Hector is not specifically either proven or disproven. As far as he knows, Hector is unconscious, so there's no real reason for him to lie, but there's no coatis in Chile like he's seeming to claim, meaning he's either lying or he's not from Chile as Breaking Bad implies.
- Asshole Victim: The muggers from the last episode try the same stunt here, and get threatened with baseball bats by Huell and Man Mountain for their trouble.
- As You Know: In the flashback, Kim explains to Jimmy the details of Isaacson v. Vakarian Holdings, Inc., a case the mail room has been helping Chuck with for months. This is used to demonstrate how little attention Jimmy gave to HHM's work while he was in the mail room, instead absorbed in his side hustles such as the Oscar betting pool.
- Badass Boast: "You get one warning — and that was it."
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Gus tells a comatose Hector about the time when he was a child and noticed that a coati was taking fruits from a tree that he and his brothers owned. Gus caught the coati with a trap and kept it for a long time while torturing it as a punishment.
- Batman Gambit: Jimmy knew that the three youths would try to rob him again, and would chase him if he ran. So, he runs and seems to get cornered with no way out, other than a fence he tries unsuccessfully to climb. For bonus points, one of the youths calls him 'the stupidest man we ever met'. And then Jimmy's hired help arrives, one of them cocks a gun, and the youths realize who is stupid. Next thing, they're hanging upside down with gaffer tape over their mouths.
- Batter Up!: Jimmy threatens the three youths this way, warning them that he'll make human piñatas out of them if they try to mess with him again.
- Blatant Lies: When Jimmy, unable to legally help with Mrs. Strauss's will, instead refers the nephew to Hamlin Hamlin McGill. Reading the name out, he notices the "McGill" name and Jimmy says it's just a coincidence.
- Bookends: The episode starts with a flashback of Jimmy's days in the HHM mailroom, passing through all the different fully-staffed cubicles. Near the end of the episode, Jimmy returns to HHM to speak with Howard and passed through all the same cubicles... which are now empty, signaling that the firm has fallen on hard times.
- Call-Back:
- Jimmy goes back and watches the "nest egg" commercial he filmed with Mrs. Strauss after being informed of her passing. He also asks whether Clarence got the Alpine Shepherd Boy.
- The restaurant Jimmy and Kim meet at is the same one where they scammed the promiscuous engineer; Jimmy even references this by playfully calling Kim "Giselle". It is also the same restaurant where Rick Schweikart originally offered Kim a job at his firm.
- Schweikart thanks Kim for referring Billy Gatwood to Schweikart & Cokely.
- Call-Forward:
- Jimmy takes a VHS of his "nest egg" commercial from a shoebox and watches it with a sad expression, like he later does his "Better Call Saul" commercials while tearing up. Also, it's the same shoebox, which was also shown in a Flash Forward in the previous episode.
- Kim's justification for taking on pro-bono defender cases by saying "I like it, I'm good at it" is reminiscent of Walt's final admission to Skyler of why he built his meth empire.
- Jimmy's comments that Howard is a shitty lawyer but a terrific salesman foreshadows Jimmy's own public image as Saul Goodman.
- Werner insists that his hotheaded, unprofessional younger assistant Kai is a "good boy" and will do the work when it counts, which is reminiscent of Walter White's insistence on retaining Jesse as his assistant in Breaking Bad despite the objections of both Mike and Gus.
- Mike advises Gus to make the security cameras subtle enough to let the workers know they're being watched without rubbing it in their face, a gesture of kindness he won't give Walt.
- The Cameo:
- Michael McKean makes a reappearance as Chuck McGill in the opening flashback.
- Huell and Man Mountain are the muscle hired by Jimmy to intimidate Rocco, Zane and Jed.
- Chekhov's Gun: Jimmy, discussing piñata in a secluded location 'with no prying eyes' on the phone with someone who seems to care how Jimmy is taking care of his fish? It would appear that he's putting some more work the way of the veterinarian fixer, which the youths who robbed him previously find out about to their cost.
- The Dreaded: Jimmy feels he needs to establish himself as this, so he arranges for the youths who previously robbed him to be captured, then his hired help starts playing piñata with baseball bats. He even pretends he's lost control of the hired help, but they stop just before taking the head off one of the youths. He then leaves them hanging, literally, with the message to not harass him and spread to word round not to harass him.
- Foreshadowing: At his nail salon office, Jimmy is seen on the phone with Dr. Caldera, looking for a private place with "no prying eyes". Piñatas are mentioned. The end of the episode reveals he was setting up the piñata shop as a trap for the three teens who mugged him and presumably was also using that call to hire Huell and Man Mountain as muscle.
- Heroic BSoD: Jimmy goes off to have a private one after Kim informs him that she's received an offer to partner with Schweikart & Cokely, which would put a huge damper on Jimmy's hopes of reconstituting Wexler-McGill.
- Jerkass: Kai of the German engineering crew brought in by Werner - he seems more interested in pulling a pint for himself before listening to what Mike has to say, and asks when the women will arrive at the place where the engineering crew are staying. Mike even warns the guards to keep an eye specifically on Kai when he talks to them.
- Kick the Dog: Gus tells a comatose Hector of an incident from his youth, when a lúcuma tree he had grown, whose fruit he had sold and savoured, was ransacked by a coati. He trapped the creature, and stalked it obsessively after it escaped. Rather than give it a Mercy Kill, he drew out its suffering.
- Misplaced Wildlife: Gus tells a story of his childhood involving a coati. There are no coatis in Chile. Then again, this might be a subtle hint on his Mysterious Past. Or he could have just made the whole thing up to scare Hector, since it was a pretty clear metaphor for what Gus plans on doing to him.
- Morality Chain: Jimmy had two – Chuck and Kim. Chuck's chain was severed even before he died, and just before Kim announces her intention to be a partner at Schweikart and Cokely her chain was still in place, as Jimmy is musing over areas of the law like insurance and bankruptcy (Freeze-Frame Bonus) on the list Kim looks over) once his law license gets reinstated. After he learns that Wexler-McGill isn't going to be, he returns to selling burner cellphones, not before teaching the teens who robbed and beat him a harsh and cruel lesson.
- Pet the Dog: Jimmy really wants to realize his Wexler-McGill dream, and is initially resistant when Kim tells him about the Schweikart & Cokely offer. But he realizes that it will be what's best for Kim and her happiness, so he gives her his blessing to go ahead with it. Somewhat Deconstructed though, as it loosens the restraints that Kim as a Morality Chain had on him. And that means going back to his cellphone scam and teaching a harsh lesson to the youths who robbed him.
- Precision F-Strike: When Jimmy accuses Howard of letting HHM fall out of negligence, and tries to motivate him by telling him he's a shitty lawyer, but a great salesman. To which Howard curtly responds, "Fuck you, Jimmy!"
- Shout-Out:
- To Mass Effect, of all things. The case in the cold intro is Isaacson vs Vakarian Holdings. Writer Gennifer Hutchison confirmed that the naming was intentional.
- The pinata shop scene also draws some inspiration from the Bear Jew scene in Inglorious Basterds. The audible dragging of a baseball bat on the ground, sometimes tapping that bat on something solid for emphasis, offering multiple chances to meet Aldo's demands, and Rachtman's men (after he dies) Ain't Too Proud to Beg.
- Stupid Evil: Downplayed: While the youths who mugged Jimmy are not "evil", they are unable to wrap their heads around Jimmy's offer and decide that they'd rather have a large short term payout over a long term income source.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: All the things that have happened to HHM over the last couple of seasons — including losing Mesa Verde after Chuck's apparent screw-up, followed by Chuck's meltdown in Jimmy's bar hearing, then Chuck being forced out of the company and suddenly committing suicide, and finally Howard being unable to focus due to his Heroic BSoD — have taken their toll on the firm, which is implied to have been forced to lay off a not-insignificant number of staff.
- Swapped Roles: We've seen earlier that part of Chuck's resentment of Jimmy is that Jimmy was able to charm Chuck's wife with his humor and personality, something Chuck could never compete with. However, in this episode's cold open, we see that the envy cut both ways; Jimmy's own love interest Kim was starstruck in admiration of Chuck's mental acumen and knowledge of the law, stuff that Jimmy (at the time) was completely clueless about.
- Sword Drag: Done with baseball bats by Jimmy's hired thugs to intimidate the three youths at the piñata shop.
- Take a Third Option: Kim takes up a partnership with Schweikart & Cokely. She keeps Mesa Verde as a client, which helps pay the bills. But building the banking division for the firm means that a lot of the work can be offloaded onto the firm's associates. And that frees her up for her prono bono Public Defender work, which she is becoming passionate about. She thereby avoids a one or the other dilemma, which made itself felt in the previous episode when she hung up on Paige to help out Denise, only to get reamed out by Paige afterwards.
- Title Drop: Jimmy on the phone in his beauty parlor back office, and also what almost happens to the heads of the captured youths who previously robbed Jimmy.
- Tough Love: While it's debatable how much Jimmy and Howard love (or even like) each other, Jimmy is not happy at seeing how HHM is falling apart – especially after referring Mrs. Strauss' relative to them. He says that while Howard is a shitty lawyer he's a good salesman, and should get selling. Howard focuses enough to deliver a Precision F-Strike and Jimmy says to use that anger.
- Wham Line: "You really should've taken the deal."
- You Talk Too Much!: One of the three kids that mugged Jimmy says this to him when he tries to persuade them into leaving him alone if he gives them $100 for each night that he's selling phones.
