The penultimate episode of season 3 of “Better Call Saul” preview shows both McGill brothers surging with mojo, while the people around them seem to be losing faith.
Jimmy McGill was at the end of his rope a few episodes back. But now that he’s hustled his way back into some money, and has a sense of power and control over his destiny, Jimmy seems to be in a much better place mentally.
The same can be said for Chuck, who hit rock bottom earlier in the season as well, when he was Don Quixote’d in front of everyone when Jimmy exposed his condition as a mental illness, not a physical ailment. Instead of curling into a ball, however, Chuck has taken on the task of forcing his brain to get better. He’s seeing a therapist, and he’s found ways to trick his brain into not feeling the pain of electricity. And this ability to go out into the world and get back to some degree of his previous life has filled Chuck’s tank with gas for the first time in a while.
But Chuck is about to hit a wall of insurance premiums and litigation, which was put up intentionally by Jimmy, who is also about to hit a wall assembled by his brother. Jimmy can’t get by pulling quick hustles and selling TV spots, while also maintaining his clients for when his 1 year ban from practicing law is up. Knowing what we know of Saul Goodman in “Breaking Bad”, it’s obvious that Jimmy will never be able to get back to his previous life with Kim, and his elder law practice.
The McGill brothers have officially succeeded in destroying their relationship, and shattering each other’s worlds. We know what the end of the road holds for Jimmy (Cinnabon, Saul, drugs, and depression) but now we know how he got started on such a dark path. What we don’t know is where this insurance premium situation will leave Chuck.
The rest of the preview drops some interesting hints to what is going on with the rest of the cast. We see Jimmy holding a bottle of the expensive tequila that Gus took to his former bosses in Mexico when he assassinated them. And speaking of Gus, there is a brief flash of a bit of a showdown between Hector and Gus, although we don’t know why the two are meeting. Perhaps Hector found the spiked pills and is blaming Gus?
Whatever the situation is with the pills, it has Nacho on edge. The only glimpse of him we see in the preview is of him with his head in his hands at his kitchen table. Nacho has quite a burden to bear, knowing that if he’s caught or if he fails, the consequences will echo out beyond him and into his family.
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And finally, Gus is trying desperately to launder some money. I thought he had already worked out an arrangement with Gus for his personal money, so this must be someone else’s deal, probably Gus’. This could be the setting up of the giant industrial laundromat from “Breaking Bad” that Gus kept Walt in.
With only 2 episodes left, we’re getting to that point in Vince Gilligan’s world where the crescendo gets loud and the payoffs come through. In the “Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul” universe, there hasn’t been a misstep yet, and I don’t see that changing in tonight’s episode.