Bannon

I will say that the extension of this universe, created by Gilligan and Gould, I'd like to see, is Manuel Varga, Albuquerque's Seneca, running his small business, imparting his own brand of stoicism on the souls that surround him that desperately need him, whether they know it or not.

Manuel Varga, unlike Mike with his pretensions, is a man with a selfless moral code. His son ought to have respected that, as difficult as it may have been. Ignacio eventually came to understand what his father knows in his bones; that there are fates worse than dying. I understand what Kim did. She's decided to be a terrible person, because doing so serves her interests, even as she seeks cheap grace (as opposed to Ignacio's deliberate monumental sacrifice) by giving up her occupation and relationship with Jimmy. She's not remotely close to atoning for the suffering she's visited upon innocent people.

We don't know (yet) what the ensuing years hold for Kim, before Gene enters the baked cinnamon goods industry. Maybe she tries to balance out the damage she's done, in pursuit of "fun", but her performance to Cheryl was as gross and contemptible as anything possible, short of visiting actual violence on an innocent person. We know Cheryl's not perfect, because nobody is, but we have not seen a single thing which indicates that she is deserving of the hideously vile manipulation that Kim targeted upon her. If Kim actually wanted to be a decent human being, deserving of forgiveness? She would have taken the path long advocated by Manuel Varga, for Ignacio. Absent that, she's just another shitbag, rationalizing why she can't do what is ethically demanded of her. At least Nacho stepped up, and willingly paid a monumental cost, for his hideous behavior, in order to protect an innocent person. If Kim just leaves to go live a middle class life somewhere, even if doing some good, she'll not have made amends for the damage she's done, topped off by possibly years, maybe decades, of undeserving horrible emotional pain and suffering that Cheryl may experience.

Several great scenes in the episode, but I think my favorite was the meeting of Mr. Vargas with Mike. Nice to see one normal, ethical, person dismiss, with contempt, all the bullshit rationalizations. Really interested to see where this goes now.

The FBI assists in cases involving multiple states with great regularity, even if there are no Federal offenses in play.

He's been living in the casita next to the main house. Yes, it is physically possible that the hairbrush in the bathroom he's been using doesn't contain hair follicles from the previous 90 days, but it's exceedingly unlikely. That's before we get to the reality that his hair will be in his car, as well.

I dunno, every HR department needs to have people skilled at, um, er...rightsizing the work force...

I do wonder how the cousins are kept on the leash, once it becomes apparent Lalo is gone. Now that I think about it, do they even know he survived the death sqaud sent to Lalo's compound?

We have not seen Tuco released from prison yet. Lalo's gone, so the Salamanca clan is rudderless until Tuco is out. Of course, Tuco's a drug-addled meathead, so being rudderless may not be the worst thing...

I just assumed confirmed, but maybe that's speculation, too. It would be a logical role for Carol Burnett, at this point in the story, of course.

You don't get the behavior that Saul and Kim were trying to suggest with Howard via intermittant use. Cocaine will show up in follicles about 3 months after the fact. If sombody's follicles in a hair brush don't show any drugs, it's extremely unlikely they were using in the weeks and days leading up to their disappearance. Frankly, any follicles in the Jag dusted with coke would likely be tested too, for somebody like Howard. It's just not very likely the drug abuser story would hold up. Successfully staging suicides of affluent, prominent, people is hard. Blood tests arent like testing hair follicles, and nobody was claiming that Len Bias was engaged in a pattern of erratic behavior due to drug use.

Good point.

You don't need warrants if people cooperate, like Howard's wife turning over his hairbrush, which would reveal he wasn't using drugs. Even without that, just the public knowledge of the antipathy between Howard, and Jimmy/Kim would likely be enough to get a phone dump of Kim and Jimmy's phones. Cliff's going to be interviewed, and he has seen many odd things. Somebody like Howard simply has too many people, with influence and resources, who are motivated to get more information about what happened, to just let things lie. This isn't like Badger or Skinny Pete with a presumed suicide and no body.

I do think we're going to see, in the remaining episodes, Saul sign off on somebody's murder very flippantly, like we see in BB, and then the transformation will be complete. The Jimmy who was horrified by the prospect of Tuco killing the meathead skateboard scammers is long gone, but the Saul who casually suggests that somebody be killed/sent to Belize, to solve a problem, hasn't quite arrived. Seeing Howard murdered in front of him was a substantial final step, I think.

So happy to see it confirmed So happy to see it confirmed that Howard's staged suicide isn't going to be handwaved away. I did'n't think.these writers were going to be that lazy.

It would take years to have Howard simply legally declared dead, and without a body, you're right, there'd never be an official specific cause of death.

Howard was the senior partner in one of a state's largest law firms. Absent a body, it's simply not going to be taken at face value that he drove several states away to drown himself in the ocean. His disappearance causes huge problems for his wife, his employees, fellow partners, his life insurer (Howard most certainly has a substantial life insurance policy), all the beneficiaries of his life insurance policy, etc., etc.,. Questions would be asked, and resources would be employed to get answers.

Kind of disagree here. The more eyes there on this, the more likely it would be (this wouldn't be a case of the FBI bigfooting q local investigation, it would be a case of a city police dept. getting access to FBI resources) that somebody thinks to confirm what drugs Howard was abusing, if any, and asks Howard's wife for access to his hair brush. Shortly thereafter, it's learned that Howard wasn't abusing drugs. The thread get pulled, and more things unravel.

There are some potentially great scenes that could have been written in the remaining episodes, involving Howard's wife, Cliff, maybe even Chuck's ex-wife, back in town for a service of rememberance for Howard. In fact, I'd love to see a scene withHoward's wife, and Chuck's ex, two accomplished women who must know each other. Toss Saul and Kim into the scene, and there would be hazardous eye-daggering going on.

Proving that Howard's been murdered would be extremely difficult, especially absent a forensic examination of the place of the murder (we can now say Kim likely owns a condo, and is not renting; swapoing out refrigerators in a rental would be a giveaway), before the place gets new flooring. There's was just two much blood for a mere cleaning. However, the Howard as a drug addict story simply would not hold up. Getting a hair sample from Howard's home would quickly show that he wasn't a habitual drug user. Having Saul and Kim's antiHoward campaign at least somewhat exposed really is a good source of conflict between Saul and Kim, and within themselves. I really do hope the writers use it

Saying you have knowledge of another person's murder is potentially incriminating. Organized criminals avoid speaking in that way.

Character wise, one of the best things in this episode was the indication that Mike's eventual, somewhat irrationally monumental loathing of Walter White is a displacement of self-hatred. He's disgusted that a normal, law-abiding, productive person like Howard gets buried under a slab of concrete next to scum like Lalo, and he's disgusted with himself for the role he played in that outcome. When normal civilian Walter White comes along, and decides to become a violent destroyer of lives, all the while putting on the airs of a person with morals, it has to trigger Mike, and his own self loathing, which he directs at Walter. To the point that he's mad that Walt won't just lay down, and let himself be killed by Gus.

Yeah, I didn't care for the ease with which Lalo shot to death, with a pistol, what, five or six, professionally trained violent men who were on duty. A little too reminicent of Aryan Brotherhood types being able to stage simulteaneous prison assassinations across several states. Still some of the best t.v. drama I've seen, but every storytelling effort has its ups and downs. Kim really does know too much. Gus wouldn't allow her to be arrested, that's for sure. We can safely assume this story doesn't end with her in jail or disbarred, and her not appearing in BB strongly indicates that she's either dead, or takes a course in vacuum repair.

Yeah, the idea that Saul and Kim's lives wouldn't be examined under a microscope is just too much handwaving for me. That's just not how the world works. Howard's disappearance closely resembles the real life disappearance/apparent suicide of a prominent attorney.... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Gricar ....who was eventually declared dead after 7 years. These are not open and shut cases. Howard's wife may not have wanted to be married to him any longer, but him disappearing without a body is going to upend her life . She's not a stupid woman. Cliff saw the phony evidence of drug use, but he's not stupid, either. Prominent people supposedly driving across several states to drown themselves in the ocean is by itself weird enough to spur a vigorous attempt to recreate their final days and weeks. There's no need to handwave away the real life implications of a disappearance like Howard's; the close examination of Saul and Kim's life by law enforcement adds to the conflict, both internal and external, and can help drive the story to it's outcome, even in 5 remaining episodes. I know many here disagree, but I hope the writers don't do that.

No, I don't.