Better Call Saul 4, Ep. 3: Brilliantly Clever but We’re Ready for the Heat

Bob Odenkirk in "Better Call Saul"

Better Call Saul is fantastic but needs to gain some momentum.

The third episode, “Something Beautiful,” was great but we wish things would speed along a bit. The episode saw Jimmy executing his first con of the season, Nacho going to extremes to disguise his new allegiances and Kim Wexler looking like she’s on the verge of another breakdown. Also shout out to the series’ latest Breaking Bad cameo, Gale Boetticher, who made a brief appearance.

Jimmy’s con was essentially stealing an expensive Hummel figurine and exchanging it with a worthless replica. It’s pretty low key crime in comparison with his Breaking Bad antics, hardly the “easiest” $4000 Jimmie will ever earn. Jimmy pairs up with a new partner in crime who you might remember from Breaking Bad’s ‘Vamanos Pest’ company. The new guy takes the place of Jimmy’s first choice, Mike, who rejected him most likely because he currently already has more cash than he knows what to do with. When the new guy arrives at the office to steal the figurine, however, he realizes he is not alone.

Things heat up when we see Jimmy’s con artist hiding under a table while an employee who is sleeping at the office begs his wife to let him come home. Jimmy thinks on his feet and sets off the man’s car alarm so that his man on the ground can escape. The scene is tense but nowhere near as exhilarating as Breaking Bad’s average heist. We’re hoping that things will start to speed up a bit now that Jimmy has dipped his feet back into the crime pond.

More interesting to watch was Nacho and Gus’ men stage a shootout to hide the fact they murdered one of Salamanca’s men. They go to the extreme and quite obviously spiteful measures to ensure that it looks realistic and leave Nacho bleeding out in the sand. The fact that Nacho is one of the few characters that genuinely engage us that we don’t already know the fate of from Breaking Bad, keeps his storyline highly exciting.

Finally, the episode showed Kim looking like she’d seen a ghost when Mesa Verde proposes their new and ambitious business plan. Perhaps she feared their plan was too ambitious or perhaps she suspects criminality, which is starting to shadow every aspect of her previously moral life.

This interpretation could shed some light on her outburst at the end of the episode. The final scene shows Jimmy reading Chuck’s final letter (which is quite nice, so probably written by Kim) and munching on his cereal like he couldn’t care less what the letter says. Kim completely breaks down (more incredible acting from Rhea Seehorn) and the episode ends with us desperately wondering why. Perhaps she is upset about Chuck’s genuine letter or perhaps she has finally seen Jimmy for the man he really is. And perhaps her breakdown tells us that that man is now actually Saul…

The episode certainly gave us a lot to think about but we’re ready for things to heat up properly now.