I don't get the impression that Howard is coasting on Chuck's reputation. I get the impression that he is trying to maintain his father's legacy by propping up HHM and he concealed Chuck's condition to that end. There's a feeling that Howard's father is a missing piece to his character.

Am I the only one who gets the impression that Team Gilligan is setting up Chuck as the face and Jimmy as the heel for the second half of the season?

It is. I didn't know the two kinds of insurance were different.

The fact that Odenkirk slightly went into Hannibal Lecter territory delivering that monologue.

Then Mike explaining that Nacho could get past the security system just by unplugging the phone line.

Mike strikes me as being more sophisticated than that. Jonathan Banks said that his ideal ending for Mike was to retire to Spain and shack up with a Spanish woman. That image is closer to Anita than some hooker.

They do keep bringing up the lantern.

It's established that she's from the somewhere along the Nebraska border.

It seems that way, with him seemingly wanting to confront his delusion by contacting Dr. Cruz, then him saying in the trailer, "What have I done?" (Though BCS trailers have been deceptive in the past.) On TV Tropes, that character trajectory for Chuck is called a "Heel-Face Door Slam."

Neither has Raymond Cruz.

I thought it was fine. Mike finding and losing someone like Anita would be a plausible impetus for his soul to become more deadened and he decides to work for Gus full time.

I'm calling it: Jimmy tries to put Chuck in the gutter by letting the house burn with the raised insurance premiums, but somehow the scheme causes Kim to get hurt (or maybe inadvertently die) instead.

Me too. Though knowing Gilligan and his crew, it probably won't play out the way we expect it.

Two weeks. Sucks, I agree.

How about a Yugo time machine? I could go for that.

Because he doesn't want to raise too many suspicions too soon of where he got that money.

The Gus/Lydia scene is not that jarring given we've already effectively been given origin stories for Victor, Tyrus, Francesca, and Huell this season.

Probably because the mom has her own income and needs it for the present. Mike was leaving something behind for Kaylee's future.

Why not Emilio?

I believe I heard Vince say on one of the podcasts that BB is set in the late 00's, but that the timeline was intentionally vague after that.