'Better Call Saul' Recap: 'Quite a Ride'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

Often times, in film and television, when loss and grief are introduced into a particular storyline, the audience is eventually treated to quite the happy ending. Sure, the character is going to go through complete and utter hell as they deal with the hole in their heart. But in the end, there comes a moment where the sun is shining down upon them and they are now ready to move on in life, with a newfound strength in their heart thanks to their ugly experiences and the reason we consistently see a harrowing story involving those two elements end on a high note is because so many people behind the scenes firmly believe that audiences don’t want to see stories where good people succumb to their pain and slowly slip into the darkness that surrounds them when their lives are turned upside down.
 
Which is why I think season four of Better Call Saul is captivating its audience like never before, because it’s clearly going to buck that trend through and through by not only giving us an up close and unsettling look at how loss and grief can tear people apart, but by also giving us quite the unhappy ending so to speak. Because eventually, Jimmy McGill is going to leave the life we’ve seen him build, behind, and instead embrace a sleazy and shady lifestyle with his alter-ego Saul Goodman at the helm. But, in order to get there, certain decisions have to be made on Jimmy’s part, the kind that see him reject any help and further embrace the darkness within his soul and last night’s episode of the series, ‘Quite a Ride’, served as the genesis of that particular journey since Jimmy finally faced some consequences for his destructive behavior and made a subtle yet powerful choice to seal his fate along the way.
 
If anything, I’m a little surprised that consequences didn’t come into play sooner for Jimmy, since his push to reclaim the wonder that comes with playing the role of Slippin’ Jimmy has already brought him close to disaster, since Ira was almost caught red handed during the heist at Neff Copiers. But while luck was on his side that night, eventually it runs out and despite all the perfect and careful scheming that went into his plan to make some serious money selling burner phones on the street to anyone and everyone, it all fell to pieces when a trio of young punks straight up beat the hell out of Jimmy in order to get their hands on the money he made and for a brief moment there, that beatdown allowed for Jimmy to finally recognize that his behavior was becoming self-destructive and that maybe it was high time to seek out some help and call that shrink before something worse happened to him. 

---

Which, in any other fictional universe, that epiphany would serve as the beginning of the character’s long and winding journey toward salvation. But here, well, it was nothing more than a speedbump on the road to Saul Goodman since Jimmy made quite the powerful decision after an unexpected encounter with Howard. Because Jimmy was able to see Howard like never before, as a man grieving and embracing his pain in order to overcome it, and the thought of confronting his pain and potentially his past was more than Jimmy could bear and he made the scary decision to shred and flush the psychiatrist’s number, committing him to a personal quest to heal that will likely yield no positive results and the closing moments of his story in this episode were chilling to say the least as he hammered home that in nine months, he would be a lawyer again, the biggest and baddest that New Mexico would ever know…
 
Which in many ways, his statement served as a beautiful and haunting juxtaposition in regard to how this particular story began. Because the teaser for this tale, took us into the future, to Saul Goodman’s last day in the office wherein Jimmy/Saul scrambled to get any and all ties to Walter White removed from his life and well, this moment is what truly served as the reminder as to where this tragic tale is headed and let’s be honest, it was quite the treat as well. Because this is officially, the first time we’ve seen Saul Goodman on the series and it was quite cool to see the Breaking Bad universe fill in the blanks so to speak since we know now what happened right before Jimmy met up with the man who whisked him away to start his new life as Gene in Omaha and this sequence really was awesome any way you slice it.
 
However, while Jimmy’s journey in this tale was powerful in its own right, he’s not the only one seeing consequences for his actions since Kim is also starting to endure her own downward spiral since her desire to do something good with the law by taking on tough cases as a public defender is bringing about friction with Mesa Verde and it’s interesting to see her newfound desire to help people take priority over a corporation and really when all is said and done, there’s a real ominous cloud that continues to hang over this episode a day later. Because Jimmy’s decision really does have some incredible weight to it, and it seems as though we are barreling toward the creation of his alter ego and I am quite curious to see what other decisions Jimmy is going to make in the weeks to come to help Saul Goodman, come to life. Until next time.

---