YMMV / Better Call Saul S 5 E 4 Namaste

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Why was Mike baiting the gangsters that accosted him the night before to approach him again? Was he looking for some form of catharsis by thinking he could beat them all up? Looking for an outlet to vent his frustration with Werner's death and his alienation from his family? Or was he perhaps hoping to be beaten to death?
  • Jimmy's motivation for chucking bowling balls through Howard Hamlin's gate to wreck his car after the lunch they had. Was he personally offended that Howard would make an offer to hire him at HHM after all the crap he went through with the firm and the blocks they made to keep him out? Does he still resent Howard in general, having never come to respect him even after it turned out to be mostly Chuck putting barriers against him, and is annoyed that no matter what tensions arise Howard keeps trying to be his friend? Or perhaps it's Chuck he still feels unresolved bitterness towards and is now projecting all that onto Howard? Or does he just resent Howard for managing to remain successful and wealthy in the midst of Chuck's death, while Jimmy has had to keep scraping by and reinventing himself only to still not be anywhere near the same place Howard is? Perhaps it's a combination of all of it.
  • For that matter, what was Howard's motivation to offering Jimmy a job at HHM? While Howard spins it in a way that makes him look like the good guy who wants to make amends for his past mistreatment of Jimmy, it would obviously be a massive PR boost to his firm if a lawyer named "McGill" worked at HHM. His attempt to put all the blame for their feud on Chuck does come off as quite insincere considering Howard went far beyond just treating Jimmy poorly and actively conspired with Chuck to disbar Jimmy. Also, while Howard is correct that Jimmy is a very skilled lawyer, he also knows that he is very difficult to control.
• Fridge Brilliance: The picture Jimmy gives to Mr. Acker has more than one meaning.
  • Jimmy uses it as a metaphor – he's the man and Mesa Verde is the horse. Simple enough, he's going to fuck them up.
  • But the man in the picture is committing a crime, while the horse hasn't done anything wrong. Just like the man is abusing the horse, Jimmy is willing to abuse the law to get what he wants. Both men are willing to cross both legal and moral boundaries to reach their goals.
• Moral Event Horizon: Downplayed, but Kevin and Paige end up crossing one once they reject Kim's offer of building their call center on an alternate lot to allow Acker to remain in his home, purely because Kevin doesn't want to "lose a fight". Even if they were legally within their rights to do it, they lost pretty much any ethical high ground they had at that moment.

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