Nah. Jessup was speaking from rage, sure, but it's like Kaffee said—he wants to say these things. He wants his authority acknowledged as ultimate and given the opertunity he'll lay into anyone who challenges it.

I'm not sure it's about chances at that point. Jimmy used up all of those. I think it's about Chuck being able to notice, acknowledge, and respect change. (I've long theorized that this is why, of all the things he can get psychosematic about, his brain chose electricity—technological advancement keeps leaping ahead,…

Nice period piece touch: the vet recommending a large bowl. It's generally agreed upon these days that bowls are inhumane and a fish of any size need a tank.

It does, absolutely (though less so as it goes on), but coming out of it—would you expect the follow up to be as, if not more, funny than BB was at its best? I wouldn't have.

We know that now. When it was in the previews last week, we had no context.

Speaking of putting the team back together, was anyone else really worried "she's gonna hate you after this" from the previews would be about Francesca? I was really relieved when Rebecca showed up.

My bad.

The bar examiner doesn't know Jimmy was stealing from the till at age nine. It's very doubtful there's any evidence on the billboard. That's gonna sound crazy.

Ten years. Ten years of no criminal activity, ten years where he put himself through law school, ten years of a dead-end job in a mail room. Yes, Jimmy had a tendency to regress. But at a certain point Chuck needed to acknowledge that that wasn't happening anymore.

What's funny is that I don't think we've ever seen Mike show up there with an animal. Jimmy's one step ahead—assuming, of course, anyone who sees him there gives a shit.

It called to mind the repremand Jimmy got when he pulled the commercial stunt at Davis and Main—that you need to be concerned with all your clients, not just the one. Even if Chuck was right about justice needing to be served, all of HHM's clients now look bad for associating with them. All to fuck over one guy.…

I know how season-long arcs work. The complaint is simply that Mike's is dull as shit.

Yeah—ten years later, Chuck would have him over a barrel. In 2004? No fucking way you're getting clear text at that distance.

Sidebar aside, you've summed up my feelings on the show perfectly.

I watched one of the post-shows once and Banks was talking about how, if it was up to him, Mike would just plow through the cartels with a machine gun.

It does honestly feel at times like Howard's a pawn in all this. All the dude wants is to run his law firm with his best friend in piece and quiet, but nooo…

That's honestly the appeal of it for me. Breaking Bad was fine but there were times where the heaviness of it threatened to collapse my ability to care. I only watched Better Call Saul because I knew that a drama starring Bob Odenkirk would strike the sort of balance its parent show sorely needed.

God, if that happens I'll quit. Mike is a dull character, Jonathan Banks plays him as a robot, and we're so far into that world by the time Breaking Bad rolls around I just can't see the value of spending any more time there than we have to.

Better yet is the way she immediately cuts him off when he thinks he's pulled out an ace.

Chuck's rant at the end there perfectly sums up why I'll never buy that Jimmy is "just as bad" or whatever. Chuck's insistance that he "saved" Jimmy, that he "has to be stopped"—if Chuck had just given Jimmy a chance, if he'd loved and supported him instead of spending what Howard acknowledges was ten years breaking…