{"id":249610,"date":"2022-05-28T14:26:49","date_gmt":"2022-05-28T18:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/25yearslatersite.com\/?p=249610"},"modified":"2023-01-29T21:45:41","modified_gmt":"2023-01-30T02:45:41","slug":"better-call-saul-s6e7-plan-and-execution-is-both-shocking-and-inevitable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tvobsessive.com\/2022\/05\/28\/better-call-saul-s6e7-plan-and-execution-is-both-shocking-and-inevitable\/","title":{"rendered":"Better Call Saul S6E7: \u201cPlan and Execution\u201d Is Both Shocking and Inevitable"},"content":{"rendered":"
The following article contains spoilers for <\/span><\/i>Better Call Saul <\/i><\/b>S6E7 (\u201cPlan and Execution\u201d), written and directed by Thomas Schnauz.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Well, we knew the midseason finale was going to pack a punch, but I don\u2019t think any of us expected <\/span>that ending<\/span><\/i>. And yet, once we got there and got over the shock of what happened, a part of it seemed almost inevitable. It made such horrible sense while also being surprising, which is something the <\/span>Better Call Saul<\/span><\/i> writers do so well. You leave \u201cPlan and Execution\u201d thinking both \u201cI can\u2019t believe that just happened\u201d and \u201cof course that\u2019s what happened,\u201d and holding these conflicting views just adds to the sense of unease and foreboding about what could possibly come next. With Season 6, the <\/span>Better Call Saul<\/span><\/i> team has shown us that the gloves are off. Anything not fixed by the <\/span>Breaking Bad<\/span><\/i> universe can happen, and that is absolutely terrifying.<\/span><\/p>\n This week\u2019s episode opens with Lalo back in Albuquerque, which sets the tone early that some sort of confrontation is imminent (even if it\u2019s not the one we think it will be). After his little chat with Casper (who I assume didn\u2019t make it out of their conversation alive), we find that Lalo has made his way back to ABQ. He\u2019s holed up in the sewers, only emerging late at night to shower at a truck stop and grab an hour of shut-eye in his car. We know that Lalo doesn\u2019t require much sleep to stay sharp\u2014he told Nacho as much in \u201cSomething Unforgivable\u201d (S5E10)<\/a>\u2014and he does his best thinking at night while everyone else is asleep. He returns to his hidey-hole after his nap, and we see that he\u2019s camped out under a sewer grate across the street from Gus\u2019s laundry operation. It would seem that Casper gave him the proof he\u2019s been searching for since the beginning of the season, and now Lalo is just observing and waiting for the right moment to strike.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n After the wrench thrown into the Hamlin plan at the end of last week\u2019s episode<\/a> and Kim\u2019s decision that the show must go on, Jimmy is running around frantically trying to gather the troops back up to take new photos that show Judge Casimiro with his broken arm. His first stop is Lenny, his Casimiro lookalike. Lenny is running lines for <\/span>Angels in America<\/span><\/i> as he works his job gathering carts in a grocery store parking lot, and because nothing the <\/span>Better Call Saul<\/span><\/i> writers do is an accident, it\u2019s worth examining the lines Thomas Schnauz has chosen to include here:<\/span><\/p>\n ROY COHN: I\u2019m not afraid of death. What can death bring that I haven\u2019t faced? I\u2019ve lived; life is the worst. Listen to me, I\u2019m a philosopher. Joe, you must do this. You must must must. Love, that\u2019s a trap. Responsibility, that\u2019s a trap, too. Like a father to a son, I tell you this: life is full of horror; nobody escapes, nobody. Save yourself. Whatever pulls on you, whatever needs from you, threatens you. Don\u2019t be afraid; people are so afraid; don\u2019t be afraid to live in the raw wind, naked, alone\u2026 Learn at least this: what you are capable of. Let nothing stand in your way. The lines included in \u201cPlan and Execution\u201d stop at \u201cLove, that\u2019s a trap,\u201d but the full quote is worth looking at because it contains a lot of themes that are relevant to Jimmy and Kim\u2019s current situation (and are prescient about what is to come). The concept of love being a trap is applicable to Jimmy and Kim\u2019s relationship in its current state, because their love for one another is one of the things propelling them into the terrible choices they are making. Sure, they do it because they like it, and they\u2019re good at it, and it makes them feel alive (sound familiar?<\/a>), but that\u2019s not the whole story: Jimmy is going along with it because he loves Kim and it makes her happy, and Kim is doing it (at least partially) because she loves Jimmy and running scams is the thing that brings him to life. After his traumatizing experience in the desert, Kim believed that Jimmy needed to feel alive again after experiencing what he believed was almost certain death. Their love is beautiful, but the way it manifests is also a trap that keeps them on the bad choice road no matter how many times other choices present themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n The last half of that quote is significant, too, because the idea that life is full of horror which no one can escape is salient to the experience of the characters in both <\/span>Better Call Saul<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Breaking Bad<\/span><\/i>. None of our main characters escape this universe without suffering (and some don\u2019t escape at all). The lesson that Roy is trying to impart here\u2014to save yourself, be unafraid to live alone and for yourself, and not let anything stand in your way once you realize what you\u2019re capable of\u2014just screams Saul Goodman. Once Jimmy goes full Saul in <\/span>Breaking Bad<\/span><\/i>, he is a man who is just out for himself and doing whatever it takes to save his own ass. By the end, once his transformation into Gene is complete, I think he\u2019s just about reached the point where he no longer fears death\u2014where he\u2019s experienced enough of life\u2019s horrors that death can\u2019t bring him anything he hasn\u2019t faced. It\u2019s all there in the fact that he made the decision not to get disappeared again in \u201cMagic Man\u201d (S5E1)<\/a> and to fix the problem himself after he discovers he\u2019s been made. He doesn\u2019t have another transformation in him, and if that means he has to finally face death instead of running, then that\u2019s what he\u2019s going to do. With no season-opening Gene scene in Season 6, the writers are obviously making us wait for the culmination of Gene\u2019s story, and I think that choice makes sense. In order for Gene\u2019s ending to have the full impact, we need to know every terrible thing that Jimmy has experienced.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPlan and Execution\u201d gives us a bit of levity as Jimmy collects his film crew students on campus. We find cameraman Joey Dixon in a classroom lecturing students on how they are not worthy of the good equipment (and no one takes the equipment more seriously than he does). Makeup Girl is pulled from rehearsals and dressed in full costume as Kira the Gelfling from <\/span>The Dark Crystal<\/span><\/i>. While it\u2019s all done for comedic effect\u2014as the scenes with the film students always are\u2014I find myself thinking more and more that it\u2019s pretty scummy of Jimmy to use these young kids the way that he does. The legality and plausible deniability of their part in things is up for debate, but Jimmy continually brings them into his scams, and being in close proximity to Jimmy\u2019s mess is not exactly a safe place to be.<\/span><\/p>\n
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\n<\/span>\u2013 Tony Kushner, <\/span>Angels in America\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n