By Rashmi Goel
Two years have passed since a new episode of Better Call Saul aired, but the characters haven't aged a day. As the premiere of Season 6 approaches, let us take a moment to remember exactly what was happening to this gang of drug kingpins and ethically compromised attorneys as the credits rolled on Season 5. We'll look at each point in turn.
In The Final Scene Of The Show, Where Was Lalo Salamanca Headed?
On the road to revenge. The world's most incompetent home invasion/assassination has just been averted thanks to Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton), who outmanoeuvred a handful of heavily armed men using little more than a frying pan of boiling oil, borrowed weapons, and his own underground escape tunnel. Clearly, he knows who has sent them - fried chicken entrepreneur and rival meth wholesaler Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito). Lalo has always been a few steps ahead of Gus since this new Salamanca first appeared in Season 4. When the mustachioed villano proved he could make plenty of mischief from behind bars, Gus engineered Lalo's arrest and imprisoning, a crime Lalo actually committed. Then, shortly thereafter, he got Lalo sprung. With the loss of his beloved cook, and apparently everyone on his staff, Lalo now intends to exact maximum revenge. Clearly, Fring will not be killed in this episode because he appears in Breaking Bad, the sequel. However, he is able to cause chaos and damage. At least, he can prevent the opening of the meth superlab, which is unquestionably the most important cause in Gus' eyes and to his bottom line.Nacho Varga Is He Doomed?
During the mayhem, Nacho (Michael Mando) let the Mexican assassins into Lalo's fortress, then split. The fact that Lalo survived the carnage will make it evident to him that Nacho had a role in it. Yet here is something else to consider. Following the death of Lalo, Nacho and Don Eladio (Steven Bauer) had a long conversation about Nacho's plan for managing the business in New Mexico now that Salamanca is no longer around. Was that pointless? Nacho is unlikely to operate in Albuquerque. Regardless of what happens, Nacho will likely retain his title as the Most Tormented Character in the series. Physically and psychologically, no one has suffered more abuse.How Bad Is Kim Wexler Breaking?
Last season, Kim (Rhea Seehorn) was attempting to persuade Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) to implicate Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian) in some kind of career-ending act of fraud or malfeasance. Kim is adamant that Howard deserves the worst that she and Jimmy can conjure, but the details of the plot remain unclear. It is clear that money is the driving force here. Due to Howard's participation in the scandal, she and Jimmy will receive about $2 million from a long-running class-action lawsuit against a retirement home. However, it is more than that. In Kim's opinion, Jimmy - who is himself not a fan - loathes the individual in a manner that even he finds excessive. Hatred is a complex subject worth its own essay. Kim has a history of being patronized and degraded by Howard. Back when she was an up-and-coming associate at Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill, he once forced her to work in a poorly lit room with her first-year associates, effectively punishing her for Jimmy's sins. In spite of this, Kim and Howard had good years together, and he wrote off her student loan debt when she left. Additionally, they have another side to their ledger. Imaginatively speaking, Kim punched Howard in the gut when she and Jimmy stole a blue-chip client from HHM in an underhanded way. Thus, they are troubled, and it reminds me of the truism that you can only hate someone you once liked. One of the most intellectually rich characters on this show is Kim. It's hard to imagine a more altruistic career move for an attorney than opening a law firm to help the poor, as she mentions in her exit scene from Season 5. Furthermore, she conspired to harm a man so that, as she put it, he would be taken down to a smaller size.Where Does Jimmy Go From Here?
There is hope for therapy. Jimmy had just experienced the roughest 48 hours of his life. He botched an attempt to transport seven million dollars in cartel money from Mexico to Albuquerque as bail for his client, Lalo. Rather than a simple handoff, Jimmy came within milliseconds of an execution-style death, then watched his would-be killer be fatally shot as Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) mounted his most impressive sniper performance to date. It wasn't hard at all. Mike and Jimmy then trekked through the desert overnight, dragging heavy sacks of $100 bills and just barely escaping death from dehydration. Lalo then concluded that Jimmy's explanation of his bagman troubles - that he simply had car trouble and then walked all night - was not credible. When he looked at Jimmy's car during his bail-skipping drive to the Mexican border, he discovered bullet holes. The only thing that saved Lalo when he confronted Jimmy at Kim's apartment was Kim's ability to improvise lies.
Whither Gus And Mike?
Fring, who is usually even-tempered, will likely become irate over the Lalo scandal. Likewise, there will be countermeasures to thwart whatever revenge Lalo intends to exact, especially if it entails delaying the already delayed super lab further. In this battle, Mike, his favourite in-house heavy, will provide the muscle and close combat skills needed. Mike and Gus have gone through some difficult times in the past. It was not a pleasant experience for Mike to be forced to perform a few orders he resented, including shooting the super-lab engineer Werner Ziegler (Rainer Bock) who tried to briefly reunite with his wife. Possibly this explain why Mike came close to career suicide with an act of disobedience. During the confrontation with Jimmy and Kim, he used a rifle scope to aim for Lalo through a window. In the event that he had shot the guy, Gus would have been unable to achieve his goals and would have been forced to flee for his life.
