‘Better Call Saul’ Season 4, Episode 9: For Whom the Bell Tings

I think the fallout of Werner's escape/ departure is going to be that the construction isn't completed, in this go-round. IIRC from BB, its quite some time before Fring's lab is operational; at first he buys product from Walt in bulk.

Forgot to mention this on the Hector scene. Did anyone else notice the dialogue on the tv show running in the background? It was very funny. Lots of lewd insinuation around boat terminology. I use closed captioning when I watch because I have lost some hearing, and the voices from the tv were transcribed. Nice, subtle bit of throwaway humor.

I think it's funny that we, the elitist NY Times readers, can't imagine that Jimmy was sincere when he said that his greatest influence was the online University of Samoa. Why not? If Jimmy had gone to Yale, like Kav, and said that Yale was his greatest influence, the panel would have thought it wondrously sincere.

Was it just me or did Jimmy’s hair and suit before the hearing look very Saul Goodman? The shot was just him and seemed a deliberate ‘foreshadowing’?

Good write up, i disagree with this comment though. "After dropping in on Don Hector, whose instructions apparently boil down to “murder everyone,” Don Hector was incapable of giving any instructions -- this psycho Lalo, humorously, is obviously just torturing Nacho with these comments. "Everyone" clearly meant Nacho as well. Just like last week's line "You're Gonna Die" when preparing food in the kitchen.

I take issue with a man opining on a woman’s supposed “maternal instincts.” We aren’t just walking wombs, ya know. The breast milk was there, as a prop and plot detail, for several reasons. Unlike formula, it sours (Jimmy runs in to ask Kim to smell it). It also has a comedic gross-out factor for the viewers. It is not written as a way to tweak the (likely) monopausal clerk’s remaining hormones. A “mom sisterhood” was already blooming by the time the milk showed up. All you have to do, in a story (and in life), is bring in an incompetent, insensitive man possibly endangering a baby, and suddenly you have a Female Team of Two, no matter how different they may be. You misidentified the real tweak! It’s Jimmy. It’s men. I could do without Hector. I turned off the sound when he was on screen, breathing in his vile way. I hated his character even before he was in the wheelchair. But I get it that the BB fans like seeing him become the annoying bell ringer. I was sure Werner freaked out because he realized he’d been sabotaged, after seeing something by the bore holes. I expected him to blow up any minute. What a great sequence! I don’t think a real Bar reinstatement committee has as much leeway as this tv version does. “Sincerity” is an vague thing to peg a rejection on. Jimmy obviously gets reinstated, but what I’ve never been clear on is how he can be a lawyer with an entirely new name (as opposed to a surname change due to marriage-status change). How does that work?

Waiting for the BCS merch to buy my "Go Land Crabs" hoodie.

There is a twisted perfection to the committee's stated pretense for denying Jimmy his reinstatement. In penalizing him for what they call insincerity, they have in fact rejected him for perhaps the one true gesture of sincerity he mustered- refusing to pay false tribute to his unlamented albatross of a pompous ghost brother. A group of establishmentarian lawyers conflating what would have been self-serving nonsense (false tribute to Chuck) with truthfulness and honesty. Seriously. It is too perfect.

Jimmy should not get his law license back because he is too unbalanced and incapable of reasoned thinking. He is so overly emotional that he does put me in mind of Kavanaugh. Kim should walk away because she can see now that Jimmy is more receptive to failing than succeeding. She was astounded that he didn't have the common sense to talk about Chuck at the hearing. She said it best. Jimmy is always down. He never takes the right approach to things and instead invokes his very skewed principles. Walk away, Kim. I love the show and have had little sympathy for Jimmy from the start. He thinks he has high principles but he just ends up driving that ugly Uncle Buck car around and living at the back of a nail shop. Who's going to have any respect for such a person who doesn't respect himself? When he had a nice car briefly, he got enraged that his coffee cup wouldn't fit in the slot and started slamming everything. Jimmy seems to crave failure. He had that great job at that other law firm and had to do everything he could to lose it. He put on that brilliant sales pitch and was going to get hired on the spot and got all mad at them for buying his sales pitch. Jimmy is a loser. Walk away, Kim. Find some other outlet for enjoying pranks.

What great insights from everyone's posts; thank you for all. During the reinstatement hearing, it never occurred to me that Jimmy would reference Chuck. Since Jimmy's huge humiliation by Chuck last season, I think Jimmy has been trying to disassociate himself from Chuck altogether at every turn: Starting this season with his response to Howard after the funeral and "his cross to bear" for Chuck's death. Jimmy is moving on and to get by as he knows how. Fascinating comment above comparing Kim to Chuck in Jimmy's life. Can't wait to see how this plays out. Re: Werner--I kept wondering why didn't they just send for his wife for a conjugal visit in Arizona. I don't think it ends well for Werner. What's in store for Nacho?

“Go land crabs!” The funniest/stupidest thing to say at a bar hearing!

Let’s not forget: Hector’s bell will (indirectly) kill Gus one day. So the meeting between Lalo and Gus is very ironic in that light.

I thought season 5 would be the last, but now I feel like there are two seasons left... Am I the only one who is hoping for a sequel about Jimmy/Saul/Gene and his new life in Omaha?

I thought when asked about why the law, that Jimmy was going to steal the answer Chuck had once used as to his love for the law as being everything. I knew his not mentioning chuck was a mistake that wouldn't go unnoticed. I agree with others that the tease- 'everyone in cell phone land knows me as Saul Goodman..' will be the work around for Jimmy to get new law license as Saul.

Anyone who’s a BCS fan has given some thought as to why Kim is attracted to Jimmy. Now we know. Kim gets a rush from the danger and satisfaction of the swindle. In a sense she’s a binge addict who is now about to go from occasional swindler to con game regular. She gets bored with nice Jimmy McGill, but now it’s clear that it’s Slippin’ Jimmy who turns her on. Jimmy has always misunderstood, thinking that because Kim is out of his league the relationship is doomed. He’s thought that she wants him to be on the straight and narrow. Big surprise to him (but maybe not so much to viewers) when she comes out and says, “I want to do more of that.” It all makes sense now. Will Jimmy be OK with this Kim? He admires her for many reasons, but will that survive her breaking bad? This is a great show. When the preview came on and said next week will be the season finale, my wife and I both said, “Oh, no!” at the same time, and pretty loudly.

It seems to me that while James McGill may have been barred from practice, no such ruling exists against Saul Goodman; hence, the transformation. As for the four-year time lapse between BCS and B.B., Saul's practice was going gangbusters when he hooked up with Jesse and Walt. Clearly he had been a practicing "criminal lawyer" for a couple of years at least. (By the way, who thinks that Jesse got word of Saul through acquaintances of his, aka the Piñata Posse?)

We are finally on the way to Jimmy's conversion. That simple throwaway line about the cell phone buyers knowing him as Saul Goodman. I can't wait to see how he completes the transition.

Did the bar panel make the right call when it rejected Jimmy’s reinstatement application? Of course not. The "bar" for most attorneys isn't really all that high. As noted below, he's almost as qualified to be on SCOTUS in 2018 as is the current nominee. And Jimmy has way more charm and personality. And he's much nicer to women.

Next season (spoiler alert): Jimmy gets nominated to the Supreme Court. (Sorry for the bucket of cold water).

Wasn't Jimmy's license suspended for one year? I mean, wasn't that the judgment of the committee? They didn't lift his license, they suspended it for a specific period of time. Why would he need to apply to have it reinstated? If his license was suspended for one year conditioned on completion of his community service and other obligations, it would still be automatically reinstated as soon as he satisfied those requirements. That whole conceit didn't work for me.

Best line of the night, Kim to Jimmy: "We'll find a way to make you look sincere!"

Speaking as a member of the bar, the hearing was a farce. Yes, Jimmv should have mentioned his brother. But the questions were stupid, showing the capriciousness of state bar panels. Can't wait to see the transition to Saul after the appeal goes badly.

My sense is that Werner fled for fear of being rubbed out if one more slip-up occurred or perhaps he thinks they'll all be killed anyway at the completion of the project. Mike would have likely taken all of their passports so perhaps he planned to hide out in the US and have his wife meet him? But that doesn't make much sense either unless she could fly in undetected. Werner would be crazy to return to the meth lab job. He surely wouldn't think Mike would let him off the hook. How Werner escaped undetected is also worthy of more inquiry. Jimmy believes he was being sincere to the panel, but as another commenter noted, maybe in his state of mind it comes out as such but no interrogator would take it as sincere. Great moment when Jimmy says something to the effect that he'd be remiss if he didn't credit....pause...and you think the panel will finally get to hear him thank Chuck, but he instead thanks his alma mater. The pause makes you think Jimmy knows what they want to hear but is not going to go there. Amazing job as usual by Mark Margolis as Hector.

Yes, the Bar panel made the right call. While I found Jimmy's response to that impromptu question very sincere, it also showed how he has not even dealt with or acknowledges the incidents with Chuck that landed him suspended. It's true to character though, just like his coldness to Howard about Chuck's suicide.

Jimmy's confrontation with Kim on the deck of that parking lot was a perfect sublimation of all the hurts Jimmy holds inside because of Chuck, and his own role in messing up his life. In that moment, Kim might as well have been Chuck standing in front of him. Some examples: - Chuck once said to Jimmy, "You're not a lawyer. You're Slippin' Jimmy!" Jimmy says to Kim, "There! That look on your face! All you see is Slippin' Jimmy!" - Jimmy once said to his brother, "Come on, Chuck! Roll around in the dirt with me!" and "It's all fine as long as we keep Jimmy in the mail room, right?" Last night, Jimmy said to Kim something like, "I'm good enough to live with, but not to hang out with your colleagues in your glass tower," and, "It's all fine until you want to roll around in the dirt with me." On another level, Jimmy knows he's a screw-up, just like Chuck said he was and always would be, and just like Kim had often told him in somewhat less brutal ways, like all those times she got stuck in doc review at HHM because of Jimmy. When she said to him last night, "Jimmy, you're always down," that was the final confirmation for Jimmy that Kim and Chuck were the same, at least in that one awful moment. The gut-punch landed just as squarely as it did when Chuck said it. And the worst part is that Jimmy knows it's true.

Jimmy was NOT prepped properly by his girlfriend and counselor, Kim Wexler. As Kim should know, preparation, in the Courtroom, or a deposition, or in any adversarial hearing, is the key to success. Kim surely anticipated that the panel would ask Jimmy a question regarding Chuck, and she should have rehearsed an answer to this likely inquiry. Also, Jimmy was just a little too cute x2 with his reponse: "Go Landcrabs"

Since Chuck's death, Jimmy has been trying to free himself from Chuck: from the sense of inadequacy and inferiority that Chuck continually communicated to him; from a sense of dependency and subservience that he felt toward Chuck; from a sense of always wanting to win Chuck's approval and a belief the value of his life depended upon Chuck's approval. He's been doing everything he could to forget Chuck, to push responsibility for Chuck's fate off onto another (Howard), to stand on his own totally freed of a life dominated and overshadowed by Chuck's influence. The very LAST thing Jimmy would want to do is feel that his law license was restored because of Chuck. He wanted to earn that himself. So, of course, the very LAST thing he would do is credit Chuck at the reinstatement hearing. He wanted to be out from under his shadow and free at last! Go Land Crabs!

The show never fails to subvert expectations. Kai and Mike shared a beer.

A few thoughts from another great episode: - Lalo looks like a latin Clark Gable. My girlfriend thinks he is muy caliente. I find him grating, but maybe I'm just jealous. Nacho has had very little to do this season, and even less now that Lalo is around. - This season has been a strong portrait of Jimmy/Saul as a person struggling with depression. He has no friends, no hobbies, never seems to have fun, etc. He pours all of his hopes and neuroses into his relationship with Kim to an unhealthy extent. As someone is a similar boat, the outcome of the bar reinstatement hearing was just too real. People who are depressed can still muster the charm and energy to deal with other people (saving no charm for themselves), and indeed Jimmy does sound like a salesman (don't all lawyers?). But oftentimes when you're depressed, you can be telling the absolute, sincere truth but it sounds alien to hear it coming out of your mouth, like you don't even believe yourself, and therefore it may come off as insincere to others. Maybe this was the writers' intention; maybe not. But it was definitely resonant. - Werner's escape plan doesn't make sense to me. If he shorted out the cameras by pointing his laser directly into them, then he would have to be standing directly in front of them (as Mike demonstrated at the end). If that's the case, how did the surveillance guys not see him doing this, especially on the exterior camera?

A large part of the genius of Gilligan and Gould is that they trick us into the same kinds of wholly immoral compromises made by many of their characters. We like Jimmy, we hoped Walt would live, we were/are intrigued by Gus, we see Mike as some sort of crusty but benign curmudgeon. Truth is that these people (and others) are ethical monsters and remorseless criminals whose "redeeming characteristics" are mere guises for their evil deeds, and I love every minute of it.

The “what does the law mean to you” question seemed unnecessary at the asking. It was an opinion question. Same for the last question regarding influence. So who are the board to say if the answers were right or wrong.

As Jimmy's reinstatement hearing moved along, I was waiting to hear how he would finesse the explanation of paying tribute to Chuck as his inspiration to become a lawyer, addressing his disability, their eventual falling out and Chuck's public shaming at Jimmy's disbarment hearing. Instead, Jimmy answers like nothing happened, and, in the moment, I was left wondering why the vacuum. We got our answer moments later. Jimmy will no doubt wiggle out of this setback with another scam, but without realizing he is being hollowed out on his empathy-draining transformation into Saul. Kim will not fare well once Jimmy's empathy tank reads "E."

Yes, Jimmy is lovable, of course. But, alas, everything Chuck ever said about Jimmy is true. He may have said it in a mean-spirited way, but it was true. And everything Jimmy and Kim said about each other is true too. I'm beginning to seriously wonder...and worry...about Kim's moral compass too. She's not frivolous about right and wrong like Jimmy, but she only seems to acknowledge its existence as long as she's not bored. Hopefully, her boredom won't end up being her undoing.

Jimmy McGill's sincerity is at its best when it isn't, but I still love the guy. I think the members of this bar panel acted as arrogantly and self righteous towards Jimmy as Chuck always had. Their snobby and elite attitude is in vast contrast to Jimmy's down to earth, willing to defend and advocate for the poor Huells of the world. Those three knuckleheads were no less insincere towards Jimmy in their constant head nodding and smiling in agreement to Jimmy's answers as they postulated his insincerity. The difference is that we, the audience, have seen first hand many times just how good and effective Jimmy McGill is as an attorney. He may be unconventional, albeit, "(mostly) law abiding" but he is still a good and effective lawyer and learned the trade on his own, WITHOUT the help or knowledge of his big, bad brother Chuck. For that reason alone, in and of itself, he should be reinstated. Kim will help make that reinstatement happen for which Jimmy will be forever grateful yet forever resentful to her and about her. I think that will be the final straw that will break them apart permanently.

Jimmy is kind of a sociopath. He showed no awareness that his moral sense was being tested. He shows no awareness that he had been banned from practicing law for an ethical transgression. He acted sort of like he'd broken some rule in sports, like stepping out of bounds of double dribbling. Turnovers in basketball are not moral rules. the rule that Jimmy broke is moral (at its core). Jimmy treats the law like a con game. He doesn't treat it like a an ethical framework. Also, it's not about his own sense of fulfillment. It's a duty to society.

I think I "Better Call Saul" before I make a comment......

I wrongly believed Jimmy would be savvy enough to know he would be expected to talk about Chuck during his interview and a good enough con man to make his insincerity sound sincere. Besides, when has insincerity ever bothered him? I thought the long pause when asked what the law means to him was to give him time to recall what Chuck had said when voicing his opinion on this topic without the question ever being asked, and that he would parrot his brother's words. The way the scene was shot of Werner preparing for the demolition felt like foreshadowing to me. Watching it, I was certain he planned to disable some security cameras to make an escape. Poor Nacho, indeed! I find Lalo fascinating even as his character overshadows Nacho's, who is one of my favorites. Lalo may be the one who leads to Nacho's demise.

I totally expected an accidental explosion to finish Werner...during the scene I was thinking to myself that this is too obvious...glad it didn’t happen. But I’m supposed to believe Werner had a security camera damaging laser with him?...you know, just in case he needed one? Also wish Werner’s motives to leave camp were a little more threatening to Mike and Gus than “I miss my wife”.

The bar committee made the wrong call on Jimmy. They were being overly sanctimonious. Who are they to tell Jimmy who he should look up to, or what the law should mean to him?