Written by Jim
February 24, 2020

Things are going well for Saul Goodman. His plan to convert his privacy-phone clients into clients of his law practice is going gangbusters. He’s wheeling and dealing in the halls of the courthouse, churning through clients at a record pace and raking in the dough as a result. So much dough, in fact, that he can see a rosy future for himself and Kim in an ABQ-chic McMansion in one of the fancy neighborhoods.

And you should already see the “but” coming.

This episode, and really the entire series at large, is about building and exploiting trust, and there’s no doubt that Slippin’ Jimmy is a master at it. He builds and exploits trust as naturally as most people take a breath. But where it matters most, he’s got a trust problem.

He’s able to con Suzanne Ericsen, the ADA, into giving him an early meeting in a darkened elevator. But she’s an easy mark. She doesn’t know Saul Goodman well enough to realize that she’s being manipulated. Kim, on the other hand has known Jimmy for years and they’ve become extremely close. She’s seen him at his best and worst. But lately, the more she sees the further she withdraws.

Realizing they’re on thin ice, Jimmy tries in this episode to lean on what little trust is left in their relationship to draw Kim a little further into his trap, offering up a vision of their future together in a gleaming, white house. Not today, of course. No, that would be too jarring and she’d certainly decline the offer. She might even put an end to their rocky relationship once and for all, based on her ice cold temperature in their first scene together. But if he can plant the seed and let her fool herself into thinking it could work, it just might.

Kim really seems to love Jimmy at his best and she constantly hopes that he’ll become a better person with just a little more help from her. But every time she advises Jimmy to zig, he zags. Last episode she asked if Jimmy had considered how his new business model might reflect on him and now we see the results of that business model. Whether you believe Jimmy’s intentions or not, the show is telling us that he’s manufacturing crime and profiting off the consequences, which is exactly what Kim was talking about. If that fact comes out, it could be the end for Kim and Jimmy.

The manipulation doesn’t end with Jimmy though. Gus has directly tasked Nacho with earning and exploiting the trust of Lalo, leading to Nacho taking big risks. He’s leaping from rooftops at an active crime scene, pockets filled with drugs. Nacho probably hopes it will mean Krazy-8 has to do a little less time, but it serves the dual purpose of earning Lalo’s trust. You couldn’t pick a better way to impress a man who pulls himself into a drop ceiling without a ladder to get the information he needs. We’ll know soon enough if Lalo is more of a Suzanne Ericsen of a Kim Wexler when it comes to Nacho’s manipulation but my guess is the writers are going to squeeze Nacho a lot harder before letting the pressure off.

Mike too has trust issues this episode. He has spent this entire series earning back the trust of his daughter so that he can be in her and Kaylee’s lives. But he’s also spent the entire series trying to suppress his profound sadness over his son’s death. In this episode those two things collide, causing him to completely destroy whatever trust his family had in him. And it’s not the first time either. I believe the football term is: “Three strikes and you’re out.”