Better Call Saul Season 1 Episode 5 Review: “Alpine Shepard Boy”

I wish I could just copy and paste my last review of Better Call Saul because it would be perfect for this episode. So much of what I brought up last week is relevant as I write this. Once again, Jimmy is caught between a rock and a hard place ethically, and he chooses the ethical path. I think my favorite scene of the entire series (I know, I know; how could I pick out a favorite scene with so many episodes to choose from?) was when Jimmy and Howard get into it at the hospital. Jimmy could easily have Chuck committed (and with good reason) and cash him out, but he decides not to. He literally turns down millions of dollars, easy as pie, in front of him.

Let’s think about this for a minute: he could’ve had a fortune and turned it down. But he didn’t turn it down because it was unethical, because his brother clearly needs help and would probably fare better if he spent time in a psychiatric hospital. I don’t want to keep bringing this up, but it’s an important (and inevitable) distinction: Walter White would’ve committed his own son for that much money. Walter used his sickness as a means to get to the money; Jimmy used the money as a means to get to being a lawyer. He could’ve cashed out the Kettleman’s, he could’ve cashed out Chuck. But he wants to be a lawyer.

That’s what makes Jimmy so freaking compelling! How did he go from this flawed, caring man to one only about dollar signs? How do you take a man so awash in humanity that he’s drowning in it and turn him into his worst impulses? Jimmy hits all the marks of a tragic hero, and yet instead of dying as a hero he just stops being one. He stops trying to be a good person and just goes after the money. There’s nothing else left in him by the time we get to Breaking Bad; no Chuck, no Howard, no Kim, no Jimmy McGill. Doesn’t that give you chills? We get to see, really see, the Hero’s Journey subverted. We’ve seen the end and the middle of Saul Goodman; now we get to see his beginning too, and I couldn’t be more excited.

I’m higher on this show than I was, and that’s really saying something. Better Call Saul gets better every week, in so many different ways. This episode was so weirdly moving for me, and I’m not even sure why. It’s so strange and so achingly sad to see what could’ve been. I keep coming back to Kim, and it just kills me. She’s not even a footnote in Saul Goodman’s life, and Saul is still in Albuquerque! If she’s still alive, she must be cringing at the awfulness of his commercials, and if she’s not—

Too much for now; too far. We’ve got probably another five seasons of Golden Age Television to sort through before we get to that sort of place. I’m so happy this show exists.

Stray Thoughts

– Howard Hamlin is a funny character. He’s portrayed as this super-douche (which he is), but he also gets Jimmy better than anyone else besides Chuck. He sees right through the billboard stunt.

– Next week is the Mike-centric episode we’ve been promised. The last ten minutes of the episode were devoted to it, and it did not whet my appetite for it at all.

– We’re at the midpoint of the season; five episodes down, five episodes to go. These first five episodes are about as complete a first season as you’ll find, I think.

[Photo via AMC]