Better Call Saul 6 Episode 5 Review: Continue To Fear The Return Of Lalo Salamanca, As Jimmy And Howard Face-Off | Black and Blue
Stars: Bob Odenkirk, Jonathan Banks, Rhea Seehorn, Patrick Fabian, Michael Mando, Tony Dalton, Giancarlo Esposito
Director: Michael Morris, Vince Gilligan
Streaming Platform: AMC and Netflix
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
We are approaching the end of this first half-season of Better Call Saul 6 on Netflix, always awaiting the return of Walt and Jesse in Better Call Saul, while our characters, still unaware even of the existence of Heisenberg and Pinkman, await another return; that of Lalo Salamanca, who survived the attempt by Gus Fring and decided to take revenge on the chicken man and those he believes involved in the affair, perhaps even with Kim and Saul. The latter had learned of Lalo’s fate thanks to Mike and from the last episode, she had started to watch her back, as we wrote in the Better Call Saul 6 Episode 4 review.
Better Call Saul 6 Episode 5 Summary and Review
The tension is constant on both sides; on the one hand, Gus’s paranoia increases exponentially, to the point of resulting in reactions bordering on obsessive-compulsive. Kim is also still disturbed by the knowledge that Lalo escaped death and this is reflected in her fear that he keeps her awake and locks her front door. But Hector Salamanca’s nephew had said he had found a way to take revenge and we know that this will have to do with the Los Pollos Hermanos owner’s plan to build his methamphetamine synthesis laboratory that we saw in place last season. with its consequences.
Meanwhile, in the previous episode, we had witnessed the definitive attempt to discredit Howard, putting him in a bad light in the eyes of Cliff Main who, after a meeting related to the lawsuit filed at the retirement home, confesses to Kim’s former boss that he saw him unload a prostitute from your car. Howard, however, immediately understands the origin of all the misunderstandings relating to his conduct and uses the reputation of Saul Goodman among criminals to organize a meeting and face him openly.
The general picture of this sixth season is being composed from episode to episode, like so many oil stains that converge towards each other, waiting for the spark that will definitively unleash Lalo’s revenge. Melissa Bernstein manages to play with the stylistic features of the series, directing an episode that addresses the obsession of the protagonists by playing with the wide-angle and with timelapse. At the same time, she continues Jimmy’s definitive consecration in Saul; after closing the fourth episode with the presentation of the definitive location of the iconic Goodman office, we now find ourselves grappling with the slew of customers to be managed by Francesca, who officially embarks on the adventure that will take her to the main show of Gilligan.
The characters thus remain the beating heart of this show that manages even in the most staid moments to bring out the emotions of its protagonists and to ensure that the latter dictate the spirit of the narration, thanks to the great performances of the performers. Howard manages to carve out a delightful parenthesis that stages the final fight (?) Between him and Jimmy also at a diegetic level, playing with context and form to bring the lawyer’s anger to the ring.
A few words for the other two characters of the episode. The first, Lalo, appears in the last few minutes which further charges the episode with tension. He joined Werner’s wife in Germany to track the money she transferred to her husband to escape. His purpose is to understand what Gus was building in that place that he had discovered before all the Mexican parentheses. He finds a gift made by his collaborators to Werner, who at the beginning of the episode seems to want to remind the viewer that the moment of arrival of Walter and Jesse to cook the meth is coming. Too bad that, first the plan of seduction towards Margarethe, then her sudden return home, interrupt her investigations, confirming however the remarkable lucidity of Lalo in the investigations and her revenge plan.
Even Mike, who appears for a very short time in this episode, gives us a different point of view, which already emerged in the last episode. It is evident how, of the whole group of characters, it is the one who, despite being tired of that life, still manages to “help” others in their path. It should be remembered that he stays drinking with Nacho before beating him for the meeting with Salamanca. He always talks to Kim to warn her. And it’s always him standing next to Gus trying to get him over his paranoia. None of these will probably listen to him, but the fact remains that each of the characters seems to “owe them something”: a shred of human understanding that they don’t dare to afford. Perhaps the most human character of all in the descent into the dark.
Better Call Saul 6 Episode 5 Review: The Last Words
“Black and Blue” is proof of how Better Call Saul can fully manage even the most passing moments; those in which the threat of Lalo still weighs like a boulder on the lives of Gus and Kim, while Saul must definitively contend with Howard after various attempts to discredit him. To top it all off, as always, a very high level, varied staging, which is not afraid to experiment with the points of view and the variety of shots.
