He may not have gotten notes on the Lab project, but he knows that Ziegler had a crew, a crew that must have worked with him before on earlier projects. He is looking for the names of the crew members in the notes from those projects. The slide rule gift may also provide some further information, i.e. who purchased it , etc.
Yeah, I do sometimes wonder how much more creative and all the directions they could have went as far as Jimmy to Saul. I mean there are plenty of interesting scenarios in which Saul could have became involved with criminal activity. Heck maybe Howard breaks bad or busts Jimmy and Kim on the Mesa Verde debacle. The Mesa Verde and Kim element could have been hashed out better. Kevin was a fairly classic ceo that could have became more of a storyline. Jimmy still could have went further in a less clownish way with Kim on possible Mesa Verde scams. I really didnt see the need for the cartel either. Maybe introduce it as a tiny subplot with Mike. But has Gus really added *that* much to the show? Yes, he is a bad ass. He is cool (or was). But there are several different directions that I think could have been more interesting. I mean Howard is kind of just a bit player now. Jimmy is rather gutted. Not sure how that is going to speed full head into full blown Saul in the next couple of episodes without it looking herky jerky.
No doubt he knew the general area where she lived, but not the address. He may have been to several local bars/restaurants to find her.
Spoiler So soon, huh? I wonder if it is really going to be part of the current story or if it is going to be part of the teaser that shows something that happens later.
It's possible he didn't even know it was her, until he loudly said the town he was from and she responded.
I completely understand your points from an artistic and narrative sense, but Better Call Saul is too much of a "business" tied to Breaking Bad -- That is, the writers know the cartel stuff sells the best to the ardent Breaking Bad fans who are only watching this series to see how it ties to Walt, Jesse, and all that... To me, the greatness of this show was the amazing storylines not tied directly to Breaking Bad (the whole Jimmy/Chuck line was so well written, acted and riveting to watch, IMHO), but I think the writers feel they can't disappoint the cult of Breaking Bad... I just hope we are not subjected to too much of Bryan Cranston's overblown "Shakespearean" side or Andrew Paul's stock look of confusion/panic/anger.
The cartel aspect is fine, the show creators walk a fine line between something that jibes up with BB and going full on art house cinematic perfection. I suppose it suffices to say they have done a fine job with this show and continue to do so, it ticks all the boxes as far as I can tell.
See, *that* would be something that would make for something very entertaining - Lalo getting all dolled up and then a montage of him trolling the bars of whatever German town that was, hitting on every middle-aged woman he could find until he got the right one.... But as funny as that would have been it also wouldn't make much sense because of how imprecise and unbelievable it is - if nothing at all was known about the woman except the town she lived in, going out to bars randomly talking to people isn't going to work. So, he clearly knew exactly who he was looking for and what she looked like. And if you can do that, then you can easily get the home address. BCS is taking place before smartphones but finding an address on the internet was still as simple as ever. And so if you knew she was out at a bar, then just go to the home address! This isn't one of those BCS/BB crazy logical writing flaws that creep up from time to time because if we just cut to him in an empty home it might be hard to establish whose it was, where it was, why he was there, etc. But, if we have established that he *can* break into her place when she's not there and that he knows who his target is, it doesn't really make any logical sense to set up the ruse at the bar, expose himself to her (even with an alias), etc.
Agree, but not about it being interesting. Esposito is a very good actor, always welcome to me, but it’s repetitious, like the Kim/Mesa Verde arc was. We get it, and touch on it fine, but to keep on with same sort of scenes, is not compelling or worth the time imo. Same with Chuck, I know many here loved him and those first three seasons but I got very tired of the “blanket “ scenes.
It was a good scene though, and one of only ones in that episode imo. Even if there has been things straining credibility with the character , always like to see him, he’s charismatic and fearsome at times. As for the post about killing off Gus, that’s easier said than done in a cartel or mafia situation, can cause wars, uprisings from loyal ones in his group.. Maybe because this is a slower placed show with not as much going on as its predecessor they keep going back to certain things unnecessarily.
It seems from some of the comments above that others are slowly coming to the realization I came to earlier: that BCS would have been a better show completely decoupled from BB. That way there'd be no borrowed interest with Gus or the cartel, all characters' futures would be unknown to the audience, which would make the possibilities wide open for main characters like Jim, Chuck, Kim, Howard, and make the show more compelling. We wouldn't know the characters' futures from the beginning. That is an insurmountable problem for a show. Was it worth ensnaring the BB faithful to saddle BCS with such a fundamental flaw? That's the question. Everything about the Germany development defies common sense, from the middle aged widow of someone like Werner frequenting bars to Lalo tracking her down to the need for verification of the lab construction. The whole thing is just silliness. It reminds me of Walt randomly showing up at a bar in Albequerque and sitting down next to Jane's father, and all the bizarre crap that followed. Sloppy, silly writing. In this case, it's so far afield from the plot of the show that it's poor even by filler standards. And now they're making opening vignettes based on it--showing the creation of a little Werner keepsake that is inconsequential. Why they need to take us to Germany and pretend so much is riding on this little thing makes the toothbrushing scenes with Jimmy and Kim look like a great use of screen time. I might not explain my points very well or become heavyhanded about my views, but I assure you they're rational and justifiable and don't ruin anything for anyone. If the writers are that good, they could have challenged themselves to craft better scripts with less filler and more plausible meat. David Chase's approach to Sopranos involved the writers tossing out their first drafts, often entirely, and challenging themselves to write something higher-level.
I think Lalo found her because he's good at detective work. Wasn't a matter of going bar to bar. And he threw out the name of the NM city to draw her in, already knowing who she was. He needed to talk to her informally to draw out some info. That's how he found out Werner's crew had given him trinkets and that he referred to them in that way that was displayed (in German) on the acrylic item. As to the bar scene in BB where Walt randomly sits near Jane's father, I just viewed that as one of those very weird coincidences that DO happen. So did Walt when he later saw him on TV. Plus it's a little explainable because it was a bar in an area of Albuquerque where they both possibly live and it makes sense they'd both want to go to a bar at that time, but still quite a coincidence.
He wanted to avoid hurting her and learn her pattern, meaning get to know her enough that she elaborates on whether she will be home the next day, when they say goodnight she says she has an early start, so now he knows that when she leaves for work, he can do his business. It seemed he would have maybe taken advantage of an option to come upstairs and stay the night, but he very astutely surmised that that was pushing his luck, so not wanting to cause a scene or a ruckus he comes back when she leaves for work.
Wrong on both counts (IMHO). BCS is a part of the BB world and better for it, I thoroughly enjoy the BCS that has gone on and if it had to be devoid of it's BB origins, it just seems like that trick would run out of gas eventually, it also doesn't seem plausible that a show like that would have run much past 2 sesaons, but it's all very speculative and moot. I also don't sense that participants in this thread are coming to the 'realization' that BCS would be better off decoupled from BB -it's a decent and whimsical fantasy to speculate what a show like that could be, but it just isn't.
Why on earth would they remove them? This makes zero sense to me. This why we need physical media and have to own things.
Indeed. Unless the BCS endgame really stinks, which I'm sure won't be the case, I'd buy a BB/BCS complete 4K set in a nice package. Heck, they could even throw in El Camino, although I did not enjoy that much. @BEAThoven and @mpayan have not said it the way I did, but they've said they could do without the cartel connection. Think it through, and that's the only thing tying it to BB, really. Without that, there's no need for Gus or Mike. The show could have been set in Chicago, New York, LA, anywhere, really. None of us can say for sure what would have been better--a Gilligan/Gould morality tale about James McGill that we're getting in BCS tied to Saul vs one that we'd get in a Gilligan/Gould show decoupled from BB. We'd have to see both written, filmed and aired, and that will never happen. But it seems obvious to me--purely on the basis that the outcomes of the characters wouldn't be hinted from the start--that the latter would be more compelling, more wide open for the writers and the audience, less borrowed interest or contrived dovetailing with the earlier show. I'm still hoping for Gilligan's masterpiece. I'm a fan and I don't think he's done it yet.
I think without Gus and Mike this show would not have the gravitas it has accumulated. I find most of the criticisms here not things I would agree with. I've really enjoyed the ride, season to season, and the differences that this show has with Breaking Bad, which I never enjoyed as much.
While I agree that they seem to be hitting the 'Stressed Gus' pedal too hard, I'm thinking this season is otherwise going along just fine. I have great faith in these writers.
One thing about this show is that I don't like looking at episodes as stand-alone units because it's about the various stories. So although I'll go along with the consensus and say that last week and this week seemed slow IMO that wouldn't bother me at all if I was binging and could very quickly follow why x and y happened. My issue with the Jimmy and kim revenge on Howard story isn't that its going slowly, but that I still don't totally get it. I hope by the end that there is something more to it and we don't get left with the feeling that the writers simply had nothing else to give in this regard, because that wouldn't be a great way to close out the show on two characters who often had really interesting things to do.
I certainly do NOT have great faith in the writers, because both the major plot elements of the last ep just struck me as "NO, that's a dumb thing to show happening." Howard and boxing? Shark-jumpingly absurd. And while I know the show LIVES on "making us watch elaborate schemes unfold the nature of which we have to guess" I cannot possibly imagine "thought dead man going to Europe to find evidence [I guess?] that Gus is up to something the cartel will not like" is a more sensible choice for Lalo in any realistic circumstance than just "Kill Gus and/or inform the rest of the cartel that he faked his death after Gus tried to have him killed." The shows great characters and interesting GENERAL scenarios and great acting and stylishness carry it, and I know arguments based on critiquing PLOT---this sort of "no that's a dumb thing to have happen"---are super subjective, but everything about that last ep made me groan.
