Breaking Down ‘Saul’, Season 5, Episode 9: “Bad Choice Road”

“When will this be over for me?”

Remember a season ago, when a split-screen montage set to “Somethin’ Stupid” depicted Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) and Kim (Rhea Seehorn) drifting farther and farther apart, living incredibly different lives? Times sure were simpler then. Last night’s Better Call Saul begins with another split-screen montage (set to a delicate arrangement of “Somethin’ Stupid” surely designed to yank violently at our heartstrings) that once again sees our star-crossed couple live their increasingly separate lives. When Kim finally gets a call from the desert-stranded (and still alive!) Jimmy, her expression is the first of about a million in this episode that warrant giving Seehorn every acting award known to man. But we’ll return to this.

After a less-than-glamorous wait at a rest stop with Mike (Jonathan Banks) and some story-coaching (it was car trouble, y’all), Jimmy finally posts Lalo’s $7 million bail. Lalo tells Jimmy that he’ll be south of the border long before anyone figures out who he really is, but he has plans to keep working with Jimmy. His unenthusiastic reaction to this is nothing compared to when he learns that Lalo has met Kim, a revelation that totally chills him. When he arrives home and Kim sets him up with an oatmeal bath, he tells her the same story he told Lalo; his car broke down and he walked through the desert by himself for 36 hours. He also tells her that he’s less than thrilled she went to see Lalo, because he doesn’t want her in the game. If finding his yellow coffee tumbler with a bullet hole in it wasn’t suspicious enough for Kim, Jimmy’s reactions to the things like a seemingly innocuous sounds of an orange juicer set off quite a few red flags – but she doesn’t push him to tell her the truth, even when he’s given the opportunity to and lies again. He’s just too terrified by Lalo’s little comments about Kim, and perhaps too shaken up by his own experience. After going back to work long before he’s ready and losing what should be an easy case, he asks Mike when this will all be over for him – when this trauma will not run his life. Jimmy’s not thrilled by Mike’s answer, or the idea that he’s not going to get off this road anytime soon thanks to the choices he’s made. But whoever said Mike was a good therapist anyway?

(A note: Odenkirk’s delivery of “I can’t believe there’s like, over a billion people on this planet, and the only person I have to talk about this to is you,” is somehow simultaneously tragic and hilarious, a perfectly twisted cap to his devastating performance in the car with Mike).

 

Mike fills Gus (Giancarlo Esposito) in on all the details of their ambush and Gus quickly figures out that it was planned by Juan Bolsa, who is less than thrilled about Lalo returning to Mexico (and obviously has no idea that getting Lalo out of the states is all Gus’s plan). Once Lalo is out, their actions must be “unimpeachable”, says Gus. No more fucking around. Mike does his best to nudge Gus in the direction of cutting Nacho loose, but it’s no use. Gus sees no reason to give up an asset, and no reason to stop using fear as a motivator, despite Mike’s objections. Nacho is stuck in the game whether he likes it or not, and his last Lalo-related duty, entails bringing him to visit Hector (which, despite Lalo’s positive words, is definitely the last time they’ll see each other) and then to the border for his trip back to Mexico. Just when Nacho thinks things are wrapping up, however, Lalo decides he has one bit of unresolved business left to attend to – checking out Saul’s “broken down” car. With a dramatic jump into the ditch where the Suzuki Esteem has been laid to rest, Lalo finds the bullet holes and it’s back to Albuquerque.

If you wondered why “Bad Choice Road” has an extended runtime, the final sequence will clear up any questions about it. What begins as a pretty average argument between Jimmy and Kim about her decision to quit Schweikart & Cokely quickly becomes a life-or-death scenario with one knock at the door. (Here, Lalo is the one who… knocks. You get it). Mike, having frantically called Jimmy several times before he finally picks up, tells him to keep him on the line so he can hear what’s going on (he keeps an eye on Lalo through his sniper scope as things get heated). I know I can’t be the only one who audibly shrieked at Lalo’s chillingly friendly greeting (“Heeeey, guys!”) as the door swung open, and what follows is enough to make you forget to breathe. Lalo tells Jimmy to rehash his desert story over and over again, and refuses to let Kim leave despite Jimmy’s protests. Perhaps we should have known this was all over the minute Lalo put a finger up to Kim and shushed her when she tried to speak up, but she lets him have his fun for another few moments before dressing him down like no man has been dressed down before.

“What kind of an operation are you running, anyway?” The signature Kim Wexler lambasting that Lalo receives here is so good it’s hard to put into words. She’s got an explanation for every hole in Jimmy’s story (both literal and figurative). Those bullet holes in the car? Vandals, you idiot. And why’d you need to send Saul Goodman down to get your money anyway? What does that say about who else you can trust? “Get your shit together… and stop torturing the one man who went through hell to save your ass.” In the blink of an eye, Kim evolves from someone Jimmy desperately wanted to keep outside of this world to a player who could dress down the likes of tougher than Lalo Salamanca.

Who’s in the game now, Jimmy?

The writing is predictably strong – those moments of tension are enough to call your chiropractor about – throughout “Bad Choice Road”, but it’s the acting that puts this installment over the edge; there’s Odenkirk, as usual, who has given a career-best streak of performances these last few episodes; Seehorn, who stuns with her work every week but somehow managed to take things to an entirely new level here, and Tony Dalton’s Lalo, a charmingly deranged villain capable of eliciting a desire to hug him and hide from him all in the same breath. If this is indeed the last time we see Lalo, I have to admit I’ll miss him dearly. He’s truly a different breed of baddie, a smiling devil capable of getting under even Gustavo Fring’s skin.

“Bad Choice Road” set up a lot of pieces that will seemingly be paid off on Breaking Bad later. Victor and Tyrus pick up Mike and Jimmy from the border, implying that Jimmy may – at some point or another – meet Gus, which would have massive implications about his hiring on Breaking Bad. We also take a trip back to Casa Tranquila this week, where Lalo mentions Tuco will be out in 11 months, which means he either lays low for a while before we ever meet him on Breaking Bad, or he lands himself back behind bars. Speaking of Lalo, now headed back in Mexico – the first time we ever meet Saul Goodman on Breaking Bad, he assumes the masked Walt and Jesse were sent by Lalo. Might he be worried that Lalo never quite bought his car trouble story and has come back to settle the score? All this (and more!) will hopefully be explained in the season and change we have left of Better Call Saul, but in the meantime, let’s take a quick look at what else connects the two series this week.

What do we have?

Before Kim leaves her office at Schweikart & Cokely for the last time, she retrieves something from her desk drawer.

Seem familiar? 

We’ve seen Zafiro Añejo a few times on Better Call Saul now, and Kim’s attachment to it perhaps tells us just how unwilling she still is to leave her “Slippin’ Kimmy” life behind. The first we encounter this fancy tequila, however, is in Breaking Bad Season 4, Episode 10, “Salud“, when Gustavo uses the prized drink to poison Don Eladio and the rest of the cartel.

We’ve only got one installment of Season 5 left, folks. Until then…

Jade Budowski is a freelance writer with a knack for ruining punchlines and harboring dad-aged celebrity crushes. She is also a member of the Television Critics Association. Follow her on Twitter: @jadebudowski.

Watch Better Call Saul Season 5 Episode 9 on AMC