Desert Rain

Last night's Better Call Saul brilliantly twisted the tragedy knife. We're all eager to see the finale next week which goes to show what masochists we are, I guess. Is there any way out for Saul?

We finally learned what happened to Kim (Rhea Seehorn) and about what she was up to during the events of Breaking Bad. It turns out her life was even more depressing than Saul's. She's become an ordinary office worker, writing copy for a sprinkler company's web site.

The big decisions in her life involve choosing between Miracle Whip and mayonnaise and between vanilla or strawberry ice cream. She seems desperately repressed and almost seems to have a panic attack when Gene/Saul (Bob Odenkirk) calls her. As I suspected, she rebukes him on a moral level and it leads to her going all the way back to Albuquerque and confessing her crimes.

Rhea Seehorn has a tremendous scene when she breaks out crying on a bus. It hits hard because of her performance and because it's easy to see exactly what she's feeling and why, facing the inexcapable reality of who and what she and Saul are, based on the evidence of what they've done. But they're both more complicated than the worst of their actions, of course, and even their actions were more complicated than the results make them appear.

Imagine if Howard hadn't been killed. In his confrontation with Kim and Saul, all three acknowledged that he would very likely "bounce back" from the prank they pulled on him. And the goal of the prank was to resolve the Sandpiper case early so it would be within the lifetimes of the elderly residence of the retirement home. Kim and Saul did enjoy the con but there was more too it than just assassinating Howard's character. It was horribly bad luck that Lalo stepped in and Kim and Saul's machinations took on monstrous new connotations.

Last night's episode was directed and written by Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan. I liked how the background score started to sound like the Breaking Bad theme when Saul came close to physically assaulting an innocent man at home. But when he was really tested, later in the episode, with Carol Burnett in a role that has gotten a lot jucier, he pulls back. He's really not a killer.

Better Call Saul has been an incredible show with well written complicated characters and I couldn't imagine a more fitting final season. Series co-creator Peter Gould writes and directs next week, an episode called "Saul Gone". Now that's ominous. But I'm looking forward to it.