Who you gonna call?
Full spoilers for Better Call Saul continue below.
"You and I both know you can do this job. But please, you just have to do it right."
This is the key issue at the heart of "Amarillo," the third episode of Better Call Saul: Season 2 that sees Kim (Rhea Seehorn) not taking lightly to Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) bending the rules to get a win. Jimmy is a person who cuts corners for his own success; he's not afraid to think outside the box to get things done, and when challenged to find a way to make something happen, he usually can. It's just not always the right way.
We see that happen twice in this episode: first, when he solicits people at a senior home on their bus to get their business at Davis & Main, and again when he discards Cliff's (Ed Begley, Jr.) approved ad for a more salacious commercial that he directed. Both times Jimmy's decision gets better feedback and more people for their case, but both times it ultimately backfires.
It's inevitable that Jimmy's choice to not run the video by Cliff was going to get him in trouble -- the question was simply "when?" That blow up came at the end of the episode when he got a call from his boss with an ominous order to have a meeting the following morning. Would this backlash been as severe if Chuck (Michael McKean) hadn't called Jimmy out on his practices in the conference room meeting? Maybe, but if there's one person who's not going to let Jimmy cut corners, it's his older brother.
The other bomb that's ticking is how Kim will handle Jimmy's repeated lying to her. She laid out why his behavior is so important to her: she vouched for him, and if that was a mistake then it reflects poorly on her in a big way. She's taking his laissez-faire attitude with the law personally, and she should be. I know I feel a sense of dread every time they have an interaction when she calls him out on his bad behavior, because we as the viewer knows how this story ends, and it's not with Jimmy doing his best to be a stand up lawyer.
As much as making the TV commercial was a bad idea, it did show how savvy Jimmy is at what he does, which also underlines the continued draw toward the dark side we're seeing play out this season. That commercial also was a great excuse to get Mrs. Strauss (Carol Herman) back into the mix and prove that no character is throwaway on this show.
Speaking of which, Mike's (Jonathan Banks) storyline was pretty tangential this week as he dealt with some fears his daughter-in-law Stacey (Kerry Condon) was having. The big build up was for the reveal of Nacho (Michael Mando) coming to Mike for help at the end of the episode, which was a great hook for next week's episode.
The Verdict
Better Call Saul is right for leaning into the sense of dread its existence creates, and it does a great job of using that to its advantage in "Amarillo." Jimmy's bad behavior might be the right call for getting the job done, but it's hard not to wish for a day where he gets on the straight and narrow and has a happily ever after with Kim and Davis & Main -- something we know will never happen.
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