Better Call Saul season 2 episode 2 review: Sex, pies and videotape
Jimmy plays with fire as the Breaking Bad spin-off continues its second run
After his wobble last week it seems like Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) is back on the legal straight-n-narrow in this subtle episode, which sees him settling into his job at posh legal firm Davis and Main, planning a life with friend-turned-lover Kim (Rhea Seehorn) and managing to stand up to his duplicitous brother Chuck (Michael McKean) in a board room.
It’s a happier time for Jimmy, and that lightness only seems to continue when he steps into the comedy B-plot of Mike (Jonathan Banks) and his idiotic client Daniel (Mark Proksch), who has been robbed by the man he’s selling drugs to but decides to call the police anyway in an effort to recover some precious baseball cards.
On a side note, I’m willing to bet that NEVER has the phrase “baseball cards” been repeated so often in such an irritating manner in the history of TV. Jesus.
Anyway, Jimmy soon flies in to Daniel’s rescue, telling the incredulous cops that the hidey-hole they found (that had contained Daniel’s drugs) was actually where he stashed erotic films he made of himself sitting in pies while crying. There follows a hilarious exchange between Jimmy and the police as they gradually tease the ridiculous story out of him, with Jimmy inventing the practice of “squat cobbler” seemingly on the spot. And yes, he did invent it – at time of writing, I couldn’t find any reference to this sort of erotica, and my internet search history has paid the price for it.
Enter the key scene of tonight’s episode where Jimmy tells Kim the whole story, the couple laughing over Jimmy’s gift of the gab while sharing one of the leftover pies. That is, until Jimmy casually mentions that he shot a squat cobbler video with Daniel to back up his story, an insignificant detail that you probably glossed over while enjoying the B-plot. But Kim does notice it.
Jimmy’s wide-boy lies and scams are one thing, but by making that video he’s falsified evidence, potentially jeopardising his new job at Davis and Main and his entire career. This is a big deal, but Jimmy doesn’t seem to care – why shouldn’t he break the rules when there are no consequences? He just doesn’t know that those consequences are waiting for him in a black-and-white Cinnabon a few years down the line.
The upshot is, Kim tells Jimmy that he can’t talk to her about these sort of things again, putting a wall between them just as they were starting to tear them down…
Better Call Saul is released on Netflix on Tuesdays
Authors
Huw Fullerton is a Commissioning Editor for Radio Times magazine, covering Entertainment, Comedy and Specialist Drama.
