#You failed the vibe check meme series

It was luck of the draw that he got “Bagman,” as episodes are sometimes assigned to writers and directors before anyone knows what will be in them.

#You failed the vibe check meme series

Vince Gilligan has stepped back from this series the last few years to make El Caminoand work on other projects, but he still helps develop each season’s story arcs, and he still directs one episode per season. It’s just being told at a staggering level of execution. It is this story and only this story being told. Once Jimmy and Mike’s odyssey begins, we only leave the desert to see Kim asking Lalo for help finding her husband. There are no subplots, no check-ins with Mesa Verde or Nacho’s dad or how Lyle feels about his workplace exploding. The only characters of note are Jimmy, Mike, Kim, and Lalo, with both the bandits and the Cousins (who bring Jimmy the cash and then leave) functioning as plot devices. Jimmy goes to pick up the money, he gets attacked by bandits, Mike saves him, and then the two have to find a way to make it back to civilization without being killed by the guy who got away. (Nor, as they’ve admitted, could Gilligan and Gould.)Įvent-wise, “Bagman” is a pretty simple episode. Which is not something I could have imagined when this show started. Saul can get hemmed in by the demands of being a prequel, particularly on the drug side of things (which has of late become the majority of the show), but its individual moments can feel even deeper and more artfully crafted.

It’s also the latest and clearest piece of evidence in an argument I’ve been building in my head for a while: Breaking Bad tells the more fundamentally interesting (or, at least, more exciting) story, but Gould, Gilligan, and company are at this moment better at telling stories in this world after so much time doing it. (*) Though now I’m wondering what the Saul equivalent of “Fly” would be. It’s not as instantly quotable as “4 Days Out” - though the sight of Jimmy drinking his own urine will surely inspire fan jokes and memes for years to come - but it is a more emotionally potent experience. While it’s thrilling and scary and at times darkly hilarious to watch Jimmy and Mike attempt to get out of the desert alive with all of Lalo’s cash intact, the episode’s power ultimately comes from where it exists in the story of Jimmy’s transformation into Saul Goodman, from the already precarious state of his marriage to Kim, and from our knowledge of what the space blanket truly means. “Bagman” wouldn’t work nearly as cleanly for someone who had never watched Better Call Saul. For Walter White, it’s his knowledge of science for Jimmy McGill, it’s his facility with a con and his utter belief that he can scam anybody. But in each case, our antihero saves the day by playing to his mental strengths. The context is very different, as is the degree of danger, since Jimmy and Mike are not only battling the elements, but trying to evade the one bandit who survived Mike’s sniper fire. If last week’s “JMM” gave us the Better Call Saul equivalent of Walter White’s “I am the one who knocks!” speech, then “Bagman” is a spiritual prequel to one of the most beloved Breaking Bad episodes of all, Season Two’s “4 Days Out.” Once again, we have the show’s two male leads in a fight for survival in the desert after unexpected circumstances knock their vehicle out of commission, getting on each other’s nerves along the way. A review of this week’s Better Call Saul, “Bagman,” coming up just as soon as my strip steak is marinating in a secret blend of herbs and spices I call Old El Paso…