Better Call Saul: Hit and Run

May 2, 2022 7:39 PM - Season 6, Episode 4

Despite assurances from the cartel, Gus takes extreme measures to protect himself against looming threats. Kim and Jimmy enlist the help of a local pro to put on a show for Clifford Main. Howard seeks outside counsel.
posted by Rhaomi (36 comments total)

The payoff of the opening scene was fantastic. I didn’t recognize Gus’ house in the daytime.
posted by Ranucci at 10:17 PM on May 2, 2022 [4 favorites]

Rhea Seehorn directed this episode and I must say, she did a stellar job.

In the whole series debate of “when does Jimmy become Saul?”… I have to say this is the episode where it happens. It’s not just that he’s going by Saul Goodman in his legal practice, or that he’s now suddenly got clients beating down the door of the mail spa. It’s that now everyone he knew in the court system has lost every shred of any respect they had for him. He is now free to operate without having to abide by the norms of the criminal defense world. Meanwhile, Kim might as well be dressed in an outfit that’s half white and half red, because she’s at the same time playing both her angel side (her pro bono work) and her devil side (anything related to Jimmy or her zeal to crush Howard.)
posted by azpenguin at 11:14 PM on May 2, 2022 [15 favorites]

I had a theory that Saul would buy out the nail salon, even though it didn't completely match his strip mall office in Breaking Bad ... looks like I was wrong, but the place he was looking to rent at the end of the episode doesn't totally match it either. Month to month is right, I guess...
posted by destructive cactus at 11:59 PM on May 2, 2022

This felt like the most uneventful episode of the season so far, especially after last week’s, but that was part of its strength. I was at first surprised we didn’t check in with Lalo, but then I realized not knowing where he is or what he’s up to let us experience the the same dread that first Gus and later Kim felt. Gus with his ridiculously over-the-top home security measures (that are undoubtedly still insufficient), and Kim now feeling paranoid and continually looking over her shoulder, were both effective in spinning the feeling that something terrible is definitely coming, we just don’t know what or when.

The same applies to Saul—between his curdled reception at the courthouse seeming like a worse and more permanent consequence than even being disbarred was, and his new infamy with the scumbags of Albuquerque being both a blessing (in billable hours) and a curse (in that Saul’s no longer fit for polite society). For Jimmy, the persona of “Saul” was a put-on and a gag, but that joke isn’t funny anymore.

The whole operation of framing Howard for sex worker solicitation and abuse in front of Clifford was excellent and delightful. Laughed out loud when I saw Saul in his Howard costume, complete with inhuman amounts of bronzer and frozen smile.

Rhea Seehorn’s direction was a lot of fun. I imagine her being so excited to play with all the tools in the reading Bad/BCS toybox—like, her saying to her DP, “Ooh, in this part where Gus gets his mail, can we have a POV from inside the mailbox?” and the DP pulling a tiny camera out of an inside jacket pocket and saying “I thought you’d never ask!”

Loved the shot when Saul is finding out why everyone hates him from his colleague in the staircase, and though the two men are facing one another on the landing we can only see one at a time—first the colleague from a higher vantage point up the stairs, then Saul from a lower point downstairs. Excellent and economical way to illustrate the division between them and their relative moral standings.
posted by ejs at 12:34 AM on May 3, 2022 [9 favorites]

I loved that episode. I love this show. It knows exactly when to hold information back and when to supply it. Watching it, I made a mental note to check who the director was, as everything was so well realised.
posted by chill at 4:50 AM on May 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

There were a couple of other great, BB-style shots this episode. One of them was the GoPro attached to the car door, where the opening and closing of the door ends up framing two different shots. The other being the direct-overhead pan of the tables at lunchtime crammed full of people and Jimmy Saul sitting all alone eating his sandwich.
posted by absalom at 5:51 AM on May 3, 2022 [3 favorites]

This felt like the most uneventful episode of the season so far, especially after last week’s, but that was part of its strength

Agreed. I think it was a brilliant episode that did a lot of small character things really well. The disconnect between Kim's excitement about Cliff helping her out and Jimmy's excitement about ... being Saul ... is stark. Kim might be realizing she's in too deep after her conversation with Mike, and I don't think trying to extract herself from that situation is going to go well for her, particularly if she doesn't tell Jimmy about it.

I also wonder if Kim giving her card to the sex worker might turn out to have been a bad decision.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:19 AM on May 3, 2022 [4 favorites]

Great to see Wendy again!

Wasn't Spooge the guy that Jesse was trying to get his money from in BB? The guy who ended up getting crushed by the ATM? Didn't seem like the same person but the name rings a bell.
posted by bondcliff at 7:26 AM on May 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

yep, Spooge was the ATM guy
posted by bowmaniac at 9:16 AM on May 3, 2022 [4 favorites]

Wendy! (And, yes, I think that someone pointed out that Spooge is the ATM guy.)

And, even though there's not any major action this week, it's just a great ep all around; big ups to Seehorn. In the show's great tradition of throwing curveballs at us, I kept expecting the happy cycling couple in the intro to come across a body, or for Lalo to come out of the tomato-red house, but instead the show held the tension all the way to the reveal of the security people inside; then we find out Gus' little secret. (Which makes me wonder a couple of things: if there are any "surprises" in Gus' ostensible house in case Lalo or anyone else would try to pull a home invasion, and what happened to the joined houses after certain events in Breaking Bad. I could imagine secret suburban swingers making use of that tunnel.) Everyone's reaction to Saul when he's at the courthouse, and why (remember the clients that he had at the very beginning of this series? And what they were up for? People didn't hate Jimmy that much for them): great. Kim's conversation with Mike, especially when he tells her why he's talking to her instead of Jimmy/Saul: *chef's kiss*
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:20 AM on May 3, 2022

I appreciated on the day that Saul was born Jimmy was running around in sleezy-lawyer-clown-drag so he could frame a guy he hates.
posted by bleep at 10:48 AM on May 3, 2022 [3 favorites]

Something else I just remembered: did anyone else wonder if the guy riding shotgun in the car that was tailing Kim was the cab driver bugging Gus in Omaha?
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:36 PM on May 3, 2022

I loved the economy of the Kim & Mike convo and I'm sure Mike appreciated how quick she was on the uptake.
posted by whuppy at 3:09 PM on May 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

Also loved Kim finally recognizing Mike as the parking attendant. I’d totally forgotten about that, and I love how bizarre that realization must have been for Kim!
posted by ejs at 3:23 PM on May 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

but the place he was looking to rent at the end of the episode doesn't totally match it either.

I'm in the middle of a rewatch of Breaking Bad and it sure looks like the same place to me.
posted by Pendragon at 3:33 PM on May 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

Rhea Seehorn’s direction was a lot of fun. I imagine her being so excited to play with all the tools in the reading Bad/BCS toybox—like, her saying to her DP, “Ooh, in this part where Gus gets his mail, can we have a POV from inside the mailbox?” and the DP pulling a tiny camera out of an inside jacket pocket and saying “I thought you’d never ask!”

‘Better Call Saul’: Rhea Seehorn Discusses Her ‘Hit and Run’ Directing Debut

The actress steps behind the camera for the final season's fourth episode.
May 2, 2022 7:05pm

Angie Meyer was my first AD, and Paul Donachie was my director of photography, and I got to do the scout with them. This was the first year we did alternating DPs, so I got to go on my scout with my AD and my DP and talk about shots and meet up with them on the weekends and do drawings and all of that. So getting to realize moments like that or to have Matt Credle and Jordan Slovin, our camera ops, understand what I was thinking this should be, and then they’d show me a shot they thought contributed to that vision, or when a props person made something.

posted by mikelieman at 5:26 PM on May 3, 2022 [5 favorites]

Deft TV making
posted by Nelson at 8:59 PM on May 4, 2022

Great episode.
The only clumsy part for me was the Jimmy 'wicked' quote, so Kim could say 'Do you think we're wicked?' It was intriguing in the moment but did not hold up for me as a piece of writing.
posted by oldnumberseven at 1:04 AM on May 5, 2022

The only clumsy part for me was the Jimmy 'wicked' quote

In contrast, that felt very "Saul" to me, the sort of aphorisms that littered his meetings with Walt. (Or I'm just terribly misremembering Breaking Bad, which is due for a rewatch as soon as this season finishes up.)
posted by supercres at 10:40 AM on May 5, 2022 [2 favorites]

I also wonder if Kim giving her card to the sex worker might turn out to have been a bad decision.

I thought so, along with both Jimmy and Kim being known to the sex worker as accomplices now.

There should only be one point of contact for your illegal schemes, and both Jimmy and Kim are smart enough to know that. It was the one thing in this episode that really felt off, and unfortunately that makes me think it's going to come up again as a plot point.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:54 AM on May 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

I also wonder if Kim giving her card to the sex worker might turn out to have been a bad decision.

That was my initial thought, but I think they are running out of show to:

• complete Howard's demise
• have Howard figure out what happened / discover this connection
• convince everyone it was a setup

Kim's pro-bono work is now well known, so it's a plausible reason for the sex worker to have the card. On the other hand, maybe Kim's fate in this show is to be caught in this elaborate scheme, lose her law license, and disappear from New Mexico before the events of Breaking Bad. On the third hand, hard to see how the scheme blows up and she faces consequences but Jimmy doesn't.
posted by mikepop at 12:26 PM on May 5, 2022

That interview with Seehorn is worth reading — she comes off as very smart and highly motivated to learn the craft of directing. Which she clearly has. Before she even expressed any interest to the producers in directing, she had long been visiting the sets to observe the behind-the-camera work.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 6:44 PM on May 5, 2022

Re: Kim giving Wendy the business card - recall in Breaking Bad, when Hank took Walt Jr to Crossroads Motel to scare him straight, and showed him Wendy, as a warning of what could happen to you when you got addicted to drugs. Hank cracked a joke at Wendy about giving the kid “a windy.” A few episodes later, Wendy is brought in by the DEA for questioning about a case (I think regarding Jesse’s whereabouts.) When she sees Hank, she starts going off on him, you’re the guy that tried to get me to go down on a teenager, and the entire interview was blown up by that.

Remembering how that situation went down… yeah, I think Wendy could make things really messy for Kim here.
posted by azpenguin at 6:37 AM on May 6, 2022

Great to see Seehorn direct this superb episode. I'm reminded of Gates McFadden saying she was blocked out of moving to Directing because of her gender. So many people have been blocked out for so many absurd reasons and in this absurd age we're living in this is great to see.

The writing is remarkable. From using a villain secret lair trope without the tropiness to the Kim/Mike dialogue, well all the dialogue of course. Giancarlo is one of the few actors where I remember all of his characters (that I've seen) as if they were from a different actor. He was visibly even more stiffer in his motion and expression than he usually is. The tension conveyed was incredible. Can see pretty much the same for all the performances.

Wonderful.
posted by juiceCake at 6:44 PM on May 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

I have a question... Who are Mr and Mrs Ryman? Are they just regular homeowners who have agreed to allow their house to be used as a security operations center? AND to have a huge underground tunnel built to it from across the street, and to completely forgo all personal privacy? Seems like a big ask! Also very funny, contrasted with their horror at the red-painted house and discussion about neighborhood association requirements ("Remember the quaking aspens... that whole mess?" ...lol).
posted by torticat at 11:25 AM on May 7, 2022

My assumption was that they're also paid security, who act like the owners/residents of the house and do neighbourhood surveillance by bicycle.
posted by borsboom at 7:06 PM on May 7, 2022 [5 favorites]

My assumption was that they're also paid security, who act like the owners/residents of the house and do neighbourhood surveillance by bicycle.

I mean, that would be funny, too--given their cheerful and super responsible helmeted bicycle riding with synchronized hand signals.

But they seem genuinely rooted in/invested in the neighborhood, like they have an actual history there (presumably no one is spying on their personal conversations while they are cycling, or discussing neighborhood association history, or putting together a puzzle and wondering about lost pieces). And they don't really seem to have anything to do with the surveillance, besides serving iced tea.

Maybe they are just bit characters thrown in for the comedy. I hope there is more to them, though, because I really love their chemistry and their apparently nonchalant acceptance of all this shit going on around them in their house. I would love to see more of them and get some explanation!
posted by torticat at 9:22 PM on May 7, 2022 [4 favorites]

My prediction, regarding the whole scam with Howard--I think it succeeds, and Kim gets off, but Jimmy/Saul takes the fall (in spite of the fact that Kim really instigated all of that) and sacrifices his relationship with Kim in the process. This could end with a parallel to Walt's horrific phone conversation with Skyler, the one that he correctly suspected would be recorded and hoped would help exonerate her. Since Jimmy was the one who set Kim on her current path, it would be fair for him to make the sacrifice (in terms of relationship, giving her up; and in terms of personal development, regressing to full-on slippin' jimmy).

BB and BCS too are sentimental about their "decent" characters. Mike and Hank and Nacho got their send-offs, but all with some level of dignity and self-determination. I expect Kim will fall more in the category of Jesse, who in BB was tragically separated from a lot of people he loved, but DID ultimately get out. I think a separation like that (between Jimmy and Kim) could lead to the cynicism of Saul in BB, without something more horrible happening to Kim.
posted by torticat at 9:58 PM on May 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

(my theory would leave open the possibility of a post-cinnabon reunion between Saul and Kim. Which is probably too much to ask for... but on the other hand, I think that BCS has a little more heart and less of a nihilist outlook than BB did? Not that I'm looking for a happily-ever-after. But some kind of rehabilitation, cf Jesse, might be possible. I do think we will get a payoff for Cinnabon, and it's surely going to be something more interesting than Saul's being apprehended.)
posted by torticat at 10:09 PM on May 7, 2022

hope there is more to them, though, because I really love their chemistry and their apparently nonchalant acceptance of all this shit going on around them in their house.

On the Insider podcast, they mention that the actors are married to each other in real life.
posted by borsboom at 6:48 AM on May 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

On the Insider podcast, they mention that the actors are married to each other in real life
Which means they’re a married couple pretending to be a married couple pretending to be a married couple.
posted by chill at 2:18 PM on May 8, 2022 [8 favorites]

I love this episode's ability to say so much with what is not stated: show don't tell. Take the scenes in Gus's house for example: we fleetingly see a Gus body double pass him in the tunnel to the neighbouring house - that must be the guy who gets to play Gus his house when he is elsewhere. Then we have the pastel dressed neighbours who are so well drilled in subterfuge that they continue to play it out for a time as they come inside and are surrounded by the numerous security staff: Gus does not have nosy neighbours: he owns them. We learn the car that happened to be following Gus on its way home has already had its plate and owner traced. We are being shown only the iceberg tip of an enormous operation which is every bit as well planned and hidden as the meth lab.

Likewise with the gnomic dialogue: lesser shows would use more words and crowd out the space for the actors to convey the implicit message:
Mike: "I'm trying to solve a problem"
Kim: "What problem?"
Mike: "Lalo Salamanca"
Kim: "Lalo Salamanca's dead!"
Mike: ....
Mike: ....
Kim: .....
Kim: "He... isn't"
posted by rongorongo at 11:16 PM on May 9, 2022 [3 favorites]

There were a couple of other great, BB-style shots this episode. One of them was the GoPro attached to the car door, where the opening and closing of the door ends up framing two different shots. The other being the direct-overhead pan of the tables at lunchtime crammed full of people and Jimmy Saul sitting all alone eating his sandwich.

Plus the shot from the sprinkler looking at Gus's place!
posted by lalochezia at 5:20 PM on May 22, 2022

Kim felt more like a Hitchcock blonde to me, in the ways of the woman who breaks bad and feels pursued by ... something, than any time yet in the series. Perhaps it's the way she was filmed and framed, and I don't know if that was Seehorn's intent, but in any event it came off well. It's nice that in this case the ostensible cause was Mike keeping a watchful eye, but I doubt things will stay that way over time.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 11:51 PM on May 27, 2022

For some reason seasons 3-5 really didn't hit for me, but I feel like it's found its footing again. I don't know why that's been my reaction, though; from critical reception it seems I'm definitely in the minority.

In any case, I'm glad to be enjoying this again, rather than just choosing to watch it rather than read spoilers.
posted by johnofjack at 1:21 PM on December 31, 2022

Something else I just remembered: did anyone else wonder if the guy riding shotgun in the car that was tailing Kim was the cab driver bugging Gus in Omaha?

Because I am watching this contemporaneously with Barry, for a brief vertiginous moment I thought NoHo Hank was somehow here.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:43 AM on May 4, 2023 [2 favorites]