ahmerali

La familia es toda. If the Cousins even caught a whiff of Nacho or Gus being involved, nothing would hold them back. Your last statement is 100 percent correct. Clearly by BB they have no idea of Gus's involvement, which means that either Nacho takes the fall for this, or Nacho manages to get back to Gus who promptly sends him and his father to the Disappearer.

I'm quite sure they dismantled it after making the call. That's neither here nor there though. Nacho's absence during the assassin attack is more than enough evidence of his involvement - unless he leaves a dead body behind, he was in on it.

Makeshift cell tower. Listen carefully to Gus's conversation with Mike. Gus has set a plan in motion, and he will not let it go bad because of a 'technical problem'. Technical problems are designed to be resolved with technology. 🙂

The thing I see here is that Kim, unlike Jimmy, isn't thinking about taking 'half-measures' and messing with Howard the way Jimmy did - she is MESSING with Howard, and trying to benefit herself in the process. What did Jimmy's pranks gain him, other than a bit of self-satisfaction? Nothing. Kim seems the bigger picture. I think by the time BB rolls around, Saul will have a learned a lot from her. Nacho had a car, he brought Lalo down to Mexico in it. I figure after heading out the back door, he went to car and bolted. He obviously figured that these guys would get the job done and if I were him I wouldn't want to be anywhere near the cartel or the Cousins. Back to the USA, posthaste. Lalo will be on the warpath for him and Gus, no doubt, but as I said earlier I think he will do it solo.

Well...turn that around. Chuck put a real damper on Jimmy's livelihood. No respect for the amount of work and effort he put in, he's a chimp with a machine gun. Howard's lack of appreciation for Kim's efforts in landing Mesa Verde is sort of the same thing. No respect for the amount of work or effort. She's still not 'worthy'. I'm not saying any of these things, including Kim's vision of bringing Howard down, are 'right', I don't think anyone is. I think what everyone is feeling is that Kim finally seems to see that you make your own justice in this world. "You don't decide what's right, I decide what's right."

I think maybe a better way of looking at Kim' new 'vision' is this - I just want to do the right thing and help people, that's why I became a lawyer. They told me that doing things the legal way was the right way. But all of these better-off people like Kevin, Howard, and Chuck use the law to their own benefit - just because it's legal to get this guy off the property doesn't make it 'right'. You know who's right? Jimmy. All these people who look down on you and just use your skills to get what they want, you have to use whatever weapons you have at your disposal - including the law - to do right by people, not to mention getting what you want and you deserve.

Mike and Fring were discussing this during their conversation - Fring referred to the lack of service near Lalo's home as a 'technical problem'. Clearly the would-be assassins created a makeshift cell tower so the call could go through/

See my note. The Cousins have seen Saul and know who he is. He knows how unpredictable and loco Lalo, Tuco, and the entire family can be. Even if Lalo were dead and Jimmy knows that, there's always that chance that someone is going to come looking for him.

All true, except that the actual words were used during Kim and Jimmy's pillow talk about she planned to do to Howard. She says that his misconduct would have to be "something...unforgivable"

I like your analysis and think it's spot on, but I do agree with the abruptness and lack of detail making it difficult to comprehend and follow. It is a bit like the tail end of Game of Thrones - why is she doing this all of a sudden? It doesn't make sense at first glance, at least in BCS they have the opportunity to fill in some of the holes for the not-so-hardcore viewers. I think the bottom line is that Kim's attitude turn is so crucial, so vital to the story, that you can't just gloss it over and say, "Ok, she's like this now," as the GoT producers did. I am confident that the BCS folks won't let it just linger.

Hmm....that would bring all the plots together, wouldn't it? Lalo returns to ABQ, and seeks out Kim because he can she that she's quite obviously the sharpest knife in the drawer amongst all of these people. He tells her to find Nacho and set up a 'meeting', because he knows that she can get Jimmy to do that. Through a whole set of machinations involving the entire cast - Fring, Gus, everyone - the 'meeting' happens, but ends up with Nacho offing Lalo, and then Kim also realizes that she needs the Disappearer....

I am not so convinced that it's important one way or the other whether Jimmy thinks or knows that Lalo is alive or dead. He is obviously aware that Lalo and the Salamanca family have a long reach. He has seen the Cousins. He's clearly suffering from PTSD after this event, and even though he probably gets past it at some point by the time we reach BB, being in the desert again, and having guns pointed at him again by guys with masks would certainly bring all those neurotransmitters and memories flooding back. Best guess: Nacho is involved with 'offing' Lalo, as mentioned above. He enlists Jimmy's help to either hide him for a bit, get him (and dad) to the Disappearer, or both. During that time, Nacho talks about why he has to do this - the Cousins and the rest of the Salamanca family, not to mention Eladio's contingent who have all seen his face now, will have no mercy if they find him, not to mention it's the only way to get away from Fring. Jimmy gets the message very clearly - that he's also in the game, and the Cousins have seen him and know who he is. So that's his first thought in the desert with Walt and Jesse - "Oh crap they finally found me. It wasn't me, it was Ignacio...." At least that would make sense.

Oh, found one more thing: the Kansas City Royals nightshirt....Kansas City is in...Missouri. "Gene" put Missouri license plates on his car at the beginning of this season when he thought he had to disappear. I am thinking that's not just a coincidence.

What does the desert have to do with it any more? There's absolutely no secret that Fring wants Lalo dead with a capital D, even before Lalo went to jail. Even if Lalo somehow learns or deduces that Fring engineered whatever happened in the desert, what would that change? Its clear that Lalo is going right after him now. This is a blood feud now, no quarter given, because clearly Fring put a hit on him. And Nacho is target 1B because clearly he is involved at some level. A key piece of information that I hang my hat on here goes back yet again to Breaking Bad. When the Cousins appear in Season 3 of that series, they at least give Fring the respect that he is in charge of his own territory. I commented during that series that if they had had even the slightest inkling that Fring was behind Hector's paralysis, nothing and no one would have stopped them from taking Fring out - la familia es toda, after all. At first I thought that Lalo might seek remedy with Eladio; or that he might get the Cousins involved. But clearly neither happens as per what we see in Breaking Bad. If Eladio knew, he would punish both sides, or more likely not punish Fring who is still capable of delivering dollars - no benefit to Lalo. If the Cousins knew, they would not act towards Fring the way they did in BB. No, Lalo is going on a solo mission to take Gus out. He will not succeed of course; but it will be entertaining. And then, when Lalo is dead, Fring will take his chain or some other trinket, and taunt Hector with it. I can already see it.

Guaranteed he knows. Nacho isn't dead, and Nacho didn't try to help him. That leaves one other alternative....

Well, after giving it a bit more thought, I have figured out a couple of things that we are supposed to take away from this episode. 1. Clearly the producers feel that there is mileage to be had in keeping Lalo, Nacho, and Howard, in the picture. At least now, with Kim's plan, there's a reason for Howard to stick around. I figured, like most of us probably did, that Lalo would go down in a blaze of glory in this one, but since that didn't happen I think his arc with Nacho will play out, amazingly enough, north of the border. Bold prediction: Nacho earns his (and his dad's) freedom from Fring [say that three times fast] by offing Lalo with no traces leading to Gus. Probably a concerted effort with Mike. 2. Another bold prediction: I don't see Lalo bothering Jimmy and Kim any more. He's got two targets - Nacho and Gus - and I can't see him taking his eye off of that for even a second. 3. Kim's delving into all of this felony pro bono work will open up the door to a whole rogue's gallery of little fun easter egg characters and happenings that we see throughout Breaking Bad, such as Danny, without whom a moneylaundering operation cannot work; Jimmy In-and-Out; and the proper establishment of Ice Station Zebra Associates. 4. Kim's further delving into the Albuquerque criminal underbelly will also have her be the one who will end up having to contact the Disappearer - not Saul. Saul will end up learning all of this stuff from her, not the other way around. Still trying to piece together what will give Saul his groove back, but I'm seeing these as important steps in the story.

I have no fricking idea what I just watched, or what I was supposed to take away from it. And that's a first for either Breaking Bad, or Better Call Saul.

Much better said than my post, thank you.

No disrespect, but did you even watch the "Bagman" episode? Jimmy at least one, if not two, extra days to come back with the money. I can't imagine a universe where Lalo wouldn't want to know why that was the case.

I think Gus is just being pragmatic. He still needs Nacho as a double agent, at least until Lalo is neutralized. Ideally, he would like to keep him around to manage Tuco as well. If anyone is really rooting for Nacho, then what you should hope for is that some circumstance happens with the cartel down in Mexico where Don Eladio is somehow either so impressed with Nacho or that maybe Eladio gets so disgusted with him that he says he never wants to hear his name again, and either way Fring cuts him loose.

I really don't think Lalo cared about that, to him if someone wants 7 million, well fine, I'll just get it from our fat stacks that we have sitting in Mexico. He just wants his freedom to go back. If the feds seize it, big fat hairy deal. They'll make it back in a month. Yup. This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private. You can't not accept cash.

I think this can be boiled down to two very simple things. 1. Kim's upbringing, with a mother who seems to project all her faults on others, has given her a lifetime of practice dealing with unstable, angry people. She has become an expert at "you should have done x" and turning it back into "Look, don't blame me for your screwup. Can't you see that the real problem is y? Deal with that first before you take it on me." It explains the soft spot she has for Jimmy, in a weird, almost perverse kind of way. I think she sort of admires the way Jimmy at least tries to dig himself out of his own messes, but laments the fact that he is addicted to making said messes. It also explains how she has been able to perform such excellent disarming takedowns of Chuck, Howard, Lalo, and even Jimmy at times. 2. Whatever Lalo thinks of Kim, she has tuned him into one important fact: whatever happened to Saul in the desert, there's important information that is missing from the picture, and Saul doesn't have it. Lalo has connected the dots in his head - Saul's car was clearly shot at, as part of an ambush. Saul doesn't have the wherewithal to escape said ambush by himself. So he had help. Lalo is thinking: Who helped him? Who would have known that he might have needed help? What would be that person (or people's) motive? And how in the world did they pull it off? And mostly importantly, who dimed the money transfer in the first place? That why Lalo realizes that trying to get answers out of Jimmy, even if they were forthcoming, isn't even ten percent as important as finding out the answers to these questions.

Bolsa probably has his own angle in order to keep his place in Eladio's organization. I'm sure a big component of that is to keep the various factions in check and at each other's throats - stir the pot, slap them down, etc. in various forms, stages, and levels.

Bolsa believes that this 'helps' Gus's operation , which is profitable to the cartel. On the surface, he's right, but doesn't see the whole picture. It was back in Season 2 (I think) where she chastised Chuck for making Jimmy what he is...Jimmy was just looking for his approval, and Chuck always had the holier-than-thou attitude that Jimmy wasn't good enough.

My bigger worry was that the aquarium would maybe reflect the light from Jimmy's cell phone, deliberately left running so Mike could hear what was going on. That would have negated any rhetoric from Kim, for sure.