The Guy For This
Lalo: ...You'll make time.
Nacho and Blingy bring Jimmy to Lalo's garage. Lalo is impressed how Jimmy convinced Tuco to only punish the skaters who insulted his abuela and not kill them. He continues that he wants Jimmy to hand over instructions to Krazy-8 in the Metropolitan Detention Center under the protection of the attorney-client privilege. Jimmy tries to escape the imposed job by talking about his "increased" rates, but Lalo hands him over the demanded fee in cash on the spot.
At the bar where he and Werner commiserated, Mike knocks back drink after drink. The bartender, concerned, offers to call Mike a cab so he isn't driving home drunk. As Mike surrenders his keys, he notices a photograph of the Sydney Opera House on the wall behind the counter and asks for the picture to be taken down, remembering what Werner said about his father working on the project.
As Mike walks home, he passes by some gangbangers who are hanging out in the front yard of one of the houses. The thugs get the idea to try to mug Mike. One of them decides to attack him, but Mike swiftly throws him to the ground and breaks the man's arm, scaring the others into backing off.
Jimmy returns home to Kim, waiting for him on their balcony. They knock back drinks as they talk about their days. Kim is ecstatic, as tomorrow, her schedule is completely packed with her pro-bono casework, and no Mesa Verde work.
Nacho receives an unexpected visit from his father, who has received an offer from a friend of his to buy his upholstery shop. He suspects Nacho of secretly being behind the offer. Despite Nacho's efforts to shield his father from Gus' crosshairs, Manuel refuses to hide from danger, unlike Nacho who shows signs of wanting to free himself from Gus and possibly change his identity.
Kim's day in court does not go over well. A judge rules against her in her current case, despite her well-constructed arguments, although she reassures the defendant and her family that they stand a good chance of winning at trial. She's interrupted by her assistant, who tells her that Richard Schweikart urgently wants to talk to her. Schweikart is not too happy that Kim is blowing off her Mesa Verde work to focus on her criminal cases, and demands she abandon the rest of her meetings and travel to Tucumcari to help Mesa Verde in a land dispute.
Jimmy goes to the Metropolitan Detention Center, where a shackled Krazy-8 is brought before him. Krazy-8 is perplexed as he never hired Jimmy, though his demeanor changes when Jimmy reveals that Lalo hired him. He insists he hasn't said anything incriminating to the police about where the drugs come from. Jimmy asks if he's good at memorizing information and shows him a sheet of paper with a written script.
Jimmy waits across the street from the county lockup, drinking coffee as he waits for someone to show up. As he's finishing his coffee, an unmarked Crown Vic pulls up in front of the jail. DEA agents Hank Schrader and Steve Gomez step out of the car and enter the jail building. Both identify themselves with their badges at the reception by jumping the queue.
After tucking their belongings into a locker, they sit down with Krazy-8 in the interview room, surprised at his willingness to cooperate with the investigation after three days in jail. Krazy-8 seems to follow Lalo's script by explaining more about dealing procedures and where drug related money can be found. Jimmy suddenly and loudly enters the interrogation room - most likely also part of the script - and pretends to have a disagreement with his client about the fact that he is sharing information with the police.
Hank and Gomez mistrust the overblown acting and attempt to leave the room. Jimmy holds them back by stressing that the information of his client will lead to results. Hank concedes, on the condition that the information has to lead to further arrests. Jimmy demands protection for his client as a CI (confidential informant). Agreeing on that, Krazy-8 continues by sharing the exact locations of Gus' dead drops.
Kim meets Paige Novick in Tucumcari, on a vacant lot on the outskirts of town where Mesa Verde plans to build a call center. There is a problem, though: the land was formerly leased to several homeowners, Everett Acker, refuses to sell and is very unpleasant towards any of the bank representatives who try to talk to him. Achieving a conversation with Mr. Acker at the wooden fence of his property, Kim tries to empathize with his point of view but also pragmatically outlines the situation: he signed a contract that the bank could buy him out at any time for fair market value plus $5000 (a decent sum in 1974). Although she informs him that Mesa Verde has raised the amount to $18,000, Mr. Acker sarcastically refuses the new offer, believing Kim's arrival is a tactical move of Mesa Verde to deal with him and insists that no one will ever get him to leave his house. When Mr. Acker insults Kim's morals, she reacts rougher by reminding him to stick to the law and the rules like his neighbors have done, and that if he refuses to leave, the sheriff will have to come and evict him by force. Even though Paige values her appearance as leading the conflict to an end, Kim doesn't seem to be pleased with the situation.
Jimmy waits together with Nacho at an outlying location. Lalo arrives amused with a car he apparently has just tuned. Jimmy informs Lalo that the plan worked out like intended including Krazy-8 turning into a snitch. Knowing that his actions at jail turned against another drug cartel, he unsuccessfully tries to avoid taking further jobs as Lalo's lawyer. When Jimmy asks Nacho in what he has gotten himself into, Nacho warns him that he doesn't want to know and there's no way back for him.
Kim drives back from Tucumcari while being updated on her pro bono cases via phone. She decides to turn around and arrives at Mr. Acker's house later that night. She talks to him again, explaining that she doesn't know how he feels since she has never owned a house herself. So she opens up about her childhood, explaining how she was always moving from one place to another because her mother struggled with rent. Unimpressed by her story, Acker accuses her of making up the story only to reach her goal and closes the door abruptly.
Nacho meets with Gus and Tyrus at the powerplant dead drop, and informs them about Krazy-8 turning snitch. He withholds the names of the interrogating agents, as that's privileged information only Jimmy knows. Tyrus takes out his phone and prepares to call to shut down the dead drop sites, but Gus and Nacho stop him from going through with the call, Nacho reasoning that Lalo will know someone talked if the DEA doesn't find the money at the dead drops.
When Kim returns home she joins Jimmy on their balcony. Frustrated by her day she starts to throw glass bottles on the courtyard. Jimmy copies her by doing the same.
Tropes:
- Actually Pretty Funny: Played with. Upon getting the joke of Saul's Punny Name, Hank (and Gomez) have a good chuckle...before proceeding to mock it.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: Implied. Given Lalo's propensity for violence, it's doubtful Saul would've left the garage alive if he had turned down the cartel's offer.
- Artistic License – History: Nacho is shown watching a soccer game between Belarus and Mexico at his house alongside his female company. Said game aired in 2014, long after the events of this show and Breaking Bad.
- As You Know: During the initial confrontation between Everett Acker and Kim, Acker says that his house and land are his by virtue of adverse possession (often referred to as 'Squatter's Rights', a legal principle where someone who does not officially own a piece of land or property can become the legal owner by owning it in practice for a long period of time). Kim immediately counters that Acker attempted to argue that in court already and lost, which Acker obviously is well aware of, so the dialogue mostly serves to make it clear to the audience that Mesa Verde is acting legally in taking Acker's property, and that the courtroom part of the dispute has already been settled.
- Bait-and-Switch: Twice:
- The set-up in the previous episode, which implied that Nacho was going behind Lalo's back to get Krazy-8 out of jail instead of whatever Lalo had planned... not exactly. Nacho is acting on Lalo's orders to have Saul get info to Krazy-8, Lalo having learned Saul's name from Tuco.
- Kim goes back to the stubborn homeowner, and initially doesn't get a response either at the gate or knocking on the door after letting herself into the plot. The seconds tick by and it's played as though Kim is about to find his body, as he either committed suicide or suffered a heart attack after she chewed him out earlier on. Then the TV turns off and he comes to the door.
- Blunt "Yes": Saul clearly doesn't want to work with Lalo and Nacho, and tells them that his fee would be nearly $8,000 for the day's work. Lalo just says "Okay" and pulls a wad of cash out of his pocket, paying him on the spot.
- Both Sides Have a Point: On the one hand, Mesa Verde is well within their rights to demand that Mr. Acker honor his agreement when he signed the lease thirty years prior, and even sweeten the offer to account for inflation. However, Kim takes no joy in carrying it out, as it does ultimately amount to a corporation pushing around and steamrolling a private citizen, upending their life with little regard for the effect it has on them. Kevin is even presented with the idea of building his call center in an alternate location, but rejects it at least partially because he doesn't want to 'lose a fight'.
- Bribe Backfire: Saul attempts to offer a ridiculously high price for his services to prevent himself from getting involved with Lalo's cartel business. Unfortunately, Lalo has more than enough cash to cover that cost, and so simply pays Saul in full.
- The Bus Came Back: Hank and Gomez make their big return, setting up Krazy-8 becoming an informant with the DEA and the beginning of Saul's very turbulent relationship with the pair.
- Call-Back:
- Jimmy assumed Nacho took him to meet his associates due to the incident regarding the Kettlemans, recalling how Nacho promised there would be consequences.
- Lalo learned about Jimmy thanks to the encounter he had with Tuco, and remarks upon the two guys that called their abuelita a "biznatch".
- Like with Mrs. Strauss, Jimmy informs a potential client about his pricing and ends up getting payment upfront, right out of their pockets. The main difference here is that he's purposefully making his rates too high for Lalo to pay off, while back then he was worried that Mrs. Strauss wouldn't want to pay him in full.
- Call-Forward:
- When meeting up with Domingo at prison, Jimmy inquires about his memorization skills before pushing his notepad in front of him, containing a script of what Lalo (and Jimmy) wants Krazy-8 to say to the DEA. This foreshadows Skyler's scriptwriting in Breaking Bad, when she and Walt have to lie about their lives in front of Hank and Marie.
- Saul makes his entrance in the middle of the authorities' interrogation of his client. This is how he "rescues" Badger in Breaking Bad and how he saves his clients with lawyer-client confidentiality. This time is a bit different, with him coming in to ensure that Krazy-8 actually talks and says the right things.
- As part of the contingency for getting Domingo out of jail, Saul pitches that Domingo can become a protected confidante with Hank's division. By the time of Breaking Bad, Krazy-8 is specifically named by Hank as an informant for the DEA.
- Much like in his debut episode, Saul is convinced by a pair in the drug trade to give an associate in custody the best legal defense he can provide, making sure said associate cooperates by saying the right things to Hank and Steve. And like Walter, Lalo is surprised at hearing that the DEA have gotten involved, though takes it much better.
- Continuity Nod: Mike drinks at the same bar where Werner pointed out the picture of the Sydney Opera House, and told Mike about how his father was one of the engineers on it. Mike, still reeling over Werner's death, demands the bartender take the picture down.
- Didn't See That Coming:
- Jimmy and Lalo both experience this. Lalo wants Jimmy to get Krazy-8 to disrupt Gus' operation by having him give Gus' dead drop locations to the police. When negotiating with Hank and Gomez, Saul didn't expect Hank to demand that the dead drop locations must lead to arrests or the deal is off. When Saul tells Lalo what he has done, Lalo wasn't expecting the DEA to also get involved. But despite being caught off-guard, both of them are able to handle it well.
- Jimmy experiences this earlier when trying to get out of doing business with Lalo. He mentions that, for his services, he would need to be paid $7,925 as "the going rate". So, naturally, Jimmy is a little miffed when Lalo pulls out a wad of cash on the spot, and rounds up to $8,000 as a bonus.
- Dirty Business: Mesa Verde has to evict an old man who refuses to vacate land that they have purchased for their new call center. There is no dastardly conspiracy to steal the man's land and the bank is legally in the right. However, Kim still feels like crap for having to force an old man to leave the home he lived in for 30+ years.
- Dramatic Irony: Saul says of Krazy-8, "He's my client, I'd like to keep him alive." Not only does Krazy-8 only have four more years to live, but his killer will go on to become Saul's biggest client ever.
- Back in season one, Jimmy explictly notes to the injured twins that he talked them down from a brutally cruel death sentence to a "six months probation", boasting "im the best lawyer ever" while still shocked and traumatized from the violence. Ironically, the one person on earth who is even worse than Tuco, has reached the exact same conclusion, through the same train of thought and even makes a very similar remark, while using it as an argument to hire Jimmy even against his will.
- Saul is also ironically somewhat indirectly responsible for the creation of his client's killer. If Saul hadn't proposed and brokered the deal with the DEA, Krazy-8 would never have become a CI. Without the intel he provided years later, Hank's fateful bust of Emilio Koyama's meth lab would never have happened. Without that raid, Jesse Pinkman and Walter White's paths would never have crossed again (and thus Krazy-8 would not have ended up being killed by Walter in Jesse's basement).
- Hidden Depths: Lalo is clearly a bit of a gear nut, since he's shown working on the engine to one of his cars when Nacho brings Jimmy to him and later brags about how well his car's been tuned after their plan has been pulled off.
- Honor Before Reason: Nacho gives a large sum of money to a family friend and tells him to use it to make an offer for his father's upholstery shop. Nacho hopes his father will take the offer (more than the shop is worth) and retire, moving away from Albuquerque and thus getting out of harm's way, as Nacho's actions have put him in the crosshairs of Gus and The Cartel. Nacho's dad figures this out, and seems to infer that he's in danger remaining in Albuquerque, but refuses the offer, steadfastly believing that he has done nothing wrong and should have nothing to run from. He tells Nacho to turn himself into the police, even though it would likely end with Nacho in prison for the rest of Manuel's life at the minimum, if he wants to protect him. Of course, Nacho knows that going to the police won't accomplish anything, which leads to the decisions he makes in the next season.
- Hourglass Plot: In the beginning of the episode, when Jimmy gets home from the first meeting with Lalo, Kim is on the balcony, looking down on Saul (meaning Kim is on the high road while Jimmy is "going down"). Jimmy hands Kim a new beer bottle, takes her empty one and places it on the ledge. The beer bottle is clearly representative of innocence, and Kim saves the bottle by taking it off the ledge. At the end of the episode, when Kim comes back home from trying to negotiate with Mr. Acker (with the camerawork repeating itself as she pulls into her space), they are both basically saying "forget innocence". Saul is now on the balcony (high road) and Kim is down below...
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Subverted. After Kim's extremely bad day, she does start to drink and then decides that throwing bottles of beer off the veranda would be more satisfying.
- If Only You Knew: Acker dismisses Kim's story about her childhood, scoffing that she'd say anything to get her way. Kim can't exactly deny she would do such a thing.
- Inflation and Exchange Rates: The original lease agreement on Mr. Acker's property was that Mesa Verde could buy up the land for their own use at any time for market value plus $5,000, with Mr. Acker having no option to decline. When Mr. Acker refuses to honor the agreement, Mesa Verde increases the offer to $18,000 over market value, almost certainly an acknowledgement of the effects of inflation ($5,000 in 1974 comes out to about $18,700 in 2003). It doesn't really change Mr. Acker's position at all, however, as he's quite attached to the house and doesn't want to move out for any amount that Mesa Verde would consider paying.
- Internal Reveal: Nacho's father, Manuel, realizes Nacho wants him to leave town. While he doesn't know the details, Manuel knows this means they are in danger, but he still refuses to run.
- Mugging the Monster: A gang decide that a drunk old man would be a perfect target to rob. Unfortunately for them, Mike, even in his current very drunk and self-loathing state, easily breaks the arm of the man who tries to assault him, with the rest being too shocked and scared to react, all while he goads them to try and attack him.Mike: [twisting thug's arm with a loud "crack", while looking at other gangbangers] So?
- Noisy Nature: The ants eating the ice cream that Jimmy dumped on the pavement in the previous episode make quiet, screeching sounds.
- Oh, Crap!: When Saul tells Krazy-8 he was sent to be his lawyer by Lalo, Krazy-8 panics and tells him he hasn't said a single word to the police, but Saul calms him down and tells him what he has to do.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: With Nacho and Gus incredibly on edge with Lalo's next move, Tyrus almost outright defies his boss's next orders and displays incredible skepticism when he relents.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Lalo plans on having Domingo rat out the locations of dead drops to authorities, instead of the usual conduct of never speaking a word to the DEA. Saul tweaks it so that Domingo ends up protected as a confidential informant. The DEA will get what they want, but only because it's hurting Gus and his business, and is happening the way certain parties want it to.
- Punny Name: Hank instantly gets the joke of Saul's name. It also makes him the only character in the entire franchise to immediately realize the pun off the bat.
- Railroad Plot: Mesa Verde's plans to build a bank branch in Tucumcari are deterred by Mr. Acker, the only person left on the land who refused to sell his home. The judge has ruled against his right to claim the land as his, given that he signed a lease for the home back in the 1970s that stipulated the property owners could buy him out at any time. Despite all of Kim's attempts to meet, negotiate, and even sympathize with him, he refuses to budge.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
- Mr. Acker sees right through Kim, despite meeting her for the first time in his life, and chews her out on doing charities and trying to drown her own conscience, while her main job is to be "the big gun" for a bank that rolls over people in pursuit of profits.
- Kim, after getting an earful from the above mentioned homeowner, at first steps away, but then walks right up to him and counters that he's being a real pain in the ass, demanding something he has no legal right to. And for that, the bank is lowering the $18,000 buyout offer to $10,000, and he can take that or be forcibly evicted by the sheriff's department and get nothing.
- Revisiting the Roots: A Meta example for Dean Norris reprising the role of Hank Schrader. Due to the prequel setting, this is a pre-Breaking Bad Hank before all the PTSD and Heisenberg took its toll on the character. So, Norris is given the chance to revisit and resurrect the original, more Big Fun version of Hank the audience hadn't seen since early Breaking Bad.
- Resolved Noodle Incident: Hank and Saul's first scene together on Breaking Bad indicated they'd dealt with one another before (and neither party liked the other much). We finally get to see that first meeting here.
- Sadistic Choice: Lalo unknowingly puts Gus in this position when he has Krazy-8 reveal his dead drop locations to the DEA. Gus will lose a lot of money if the DEA gets a hold of it, but if he shuts down the dead drops, then Lalo will know someone talked in his organization. Gus chose the former.
- Shown Their Work: A small example, but Kim's offer of adjusting the bonus from $5,000 when the contract was originally made in 1974 to $18,000 in the present of 2002 actually is a genuine gesture of good faith as that's almost exactly how much $5,000 from 1974 would be worth in 2002.
- Simple Solution Won't Work: Lalo wants Jimmy to go to the detention center where Krazy-8 is being held and give him the locations of Gus's dead drops to reveal to the authorities under the protection of the attorney-client privilege. When Jimmy, not wanting to get involved with the Cartel business, points out that they could just sneak a burner phone to Krazy-8 and talk to him directly, Nacho points out it will be more convincing if he's there when Krazy-8 reveals the locations the authorities.
- Spotting the Thread:
- Hank and Gomez are not easy to fool. Saul's bombastic entrance and scene with Krazy-8, meant to make his testimony more believable, ends up driving them away when they sense that it's all an act. Saul only manages to keep them when he strikes up a deal to get arrests out of it.
- When Nacho convenes with Gus to break the news that Krazy-8 has talked, Tyrus prepares to have the dead drops shut down and the money withdrawn, but Nacho points out that if the DEA hits the drop sites and finds no money, Lalo will find out that Gus has an insider in his organization.
- Springtime for Hitler: Jimmy tries to make his rates as a lawyer too expensive for Lalo to afford. Lalo ends up rounding his number out and paying upfront.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Kim was happy about working with Schweikart & Cokely because it gave her time and flexibility to work on pro bono cases for people who really needed her help. It also means that her bosses will insist that she drop all other work when paying clients demand her attention.
- Tempting Fate: Kim tells Jimmy that she's looking forward to the next day, because she only has meetings with her pro bono clients and nothing scheduled with Mesa Verde. The next day, she gets an unfavorable ruling against her client in one of her cases. Then her bosses call her out of court and send her to evict an old man from his home to make way for the bank's new call center.
- Title Drop: Saul tries his best to talk himself out of doing work for the cartel, even offering alternate strategies for them. They're set on using their plan, which really needs a lawyer, and Lalo tells Jimmy:Lalo: You're the guy for this.
- Tranquil Fury: Gus is clearly not happy that he has to lose money to the DEA to ensure that Lalo doesn't find out that he knows what he's doing. After Nacho tells him what Lalo has done, Gus walks off to be alone for a moment to process this information, and then returns to Nacho to question him in an angered tone.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: Kim is trying to get a stubborn homeowner to vacate their land with a generous offer of far more than the homeowner's contract requires, and Nacho is trying to get his father out of town by arranging for his father's business to be bought for more than it's worth. Both get an angry refusal.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
- Nacho's exit strategy involves him and his father fleeing to Canada with new identities, something that definitely could have worked...but his father won't even consider it even knowing that he and his son are in mortal danger. Both out of a belief that he should not have to run as he has done nothing wrong, and a refusal to utilize the money that Nacho made working for The Cartel, Manuel instead insists that Nacho turn himself into the police. Eventually, this forces Nacho to improvise a plan where he willingly offers himself up to be killed, as he knows that even if he manages to escape himself, his father will be killed or utilized as leverage to force Nacho to come back.
- The Krazy-8 storyline reveals that Lalo and Saul are both indirectly responsible for one of the pivotal events of the entire franchise: Hank's fateful raid on Emilio Koyama's Meth Lab. Lalo is the one who brings Saul in to get Domingo out of jail. While Saul succeeds, he's the one who proposes and brokers Domingo's CI deal with Hank and Gomez (which Lalo approves of afterwards, as it serves his larger campaign against Gus). As a DEA informant, Krazy-8 will pass on valuable intel to Hank's division over the next few years and this will culminate with him snitching on his own cousin. The raid on Emilio's Lab will then put a fleeing Jesse Pinkman right into Walter White's path just as he's looking for a way into the Albuquerque drug trade...and the rest is history.
- Villain Cred:
- In Lalo's eyes, anyone who can talk Tuco out of killing two mouthy kids who insult his Abuelita is someone to have as a lawyer. Saul can't even price himself out of Lalo's range — he instantly pays what Saul asks. Nor can he walk away after that first job, as Nacho makes clear after Lalo leaves the meeting. Lalo also compliments Saul for adding to his plan regarding Krazy-8.
- Nacho gets a moment towards the end of the episode with Gus, as he's earned enough trust from Gus that Gus takes his input on how to deal with Krazy-8 turning informant over Tyrus's idea of withdrawing the money.
- Villain Respect: The reason why Saul is chosen by Lalo is because he was able to talk Tuco down from killing the two skateboarders. Anybody with a silver tongue like that has to be a good lawyer.
