Better Call Saul Review: Something Stupid (Season 4 Episode 7)
Better Call Saul is really picking up steam on its journey to reach Breaking Bad territory. At the pace they’d been going previously, it seemed like they were never going to get there. It’s been an enjoyable ride to this point, so I can’t imagine that people were upset.
Still, Better Call Saul Season 4 Episode 7, “Something Stupid,” decided to expedite that timeline significantly. After a masterfully crafted but all the same devastating montage of Jimmy and Kim, we are now just one month away from Jimmy’s law license returning to him, and the birth of criminal attorney Saul Goodman.
This montage created one of the best visual, no-dialogue moments on TV so far this year.
Montages are an interesting device. They are often used to show the passage of time or to quickly develop something that could take multiple episodes (or even seasons). Better Call Saul created a striking montage of two people who are in the same geographic space but drifting apart.
Perhaps one of the most telling visual moments of the entire episode are the few times that one character reaches across the black bar in the middle of the screen to pour a glass of wine or touch the other with their leg. They are in the same room but divided on their paths.
One of the series’ biggest questions has always been: What will drive a wedge between Jimmy and Kim? That answer has never been clearer than after “Something Stupid.” In fact, as the montage suggests, a line may already be drawn.
On this episode, lines are literally and figuratively drawn between Jimmy and Kim’s career paths. Kim is doing well at Schweikart and Cokely and Jimmy is jealous, missing both the law and his previous partner. Conversely, Jimmy (for all intents and purposes) has blatantly become Saul in all areas except the legal profession.
The episode ends ambiguously enough that we may not have seen the last of Jimmy and Kim’s scheming, but even if we haven’t, it’s likely that the montage and the aftermath foretell a tragic end to the Wexler/McGill pipe dream.
Though the focus is (almost always) on Jimmy’s journey to Saul, “Something Stupid” incorporates several other interesting elements. Primarily that with the time jump, which reveals that Gus Fring has been facilitating the rehabilitation of Hector.
Giancarlo Esposito is a master of subtlety, so when you’re looking, you find the slightest hint of a smile as he realizes that Hector’s brain is intact. So Hector makes it back to where Breaking Bad fans know him, because Gus wants to torture him.
I guess most of us know how that turns out. Classic case of pride before the fall.
We now have two distinct sides of Better Call Saul. There’s Jimmy’s descent into sleazy lawyer (beloved by many) Saul Goodman, and there’s the Fring intrusion on the Salamanca drug trade. Both are fascinating, compelling journeys and both have tragic endings. The Jimmy-Mike connection also forms a Venn Diagram for the two stories to occasionally intersect or overlap.
A few stray thoughts:
- No Nacho and no Howard again. If this were any other show, I’d be frustrated, but Better Call Saul is too good for me to care.
- My mind keeps drifting to the Hector/Gus situation, and thinking how sadistic it is that Hector could completely rehabilitate, but Gus chooses to imprison him in his own body.
- For all the credit given to the montage at the beginning, the music throughout the episode also deserves a shoutout.
- Didn’t talk about Mike a lot, but I have one thing to say: Kai is sooooo dead.
- I keep wondering how these two vastly different stories are going to merge outside of Breaking Bad (or even if they will), but I have to imagine at some point that Nacho, Gus, Hector, or Mike is going to need a lawyer…and they Better Call Saul!
What did you think of this episode of Better Call Saul? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Better Call Saul airs Monday at 9/8c on AMC.
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Nick Hogan
Nick Hogan is an experienced podcaster and writer (particularly on media topics), who loves discussion and analysis of TV and is always looking for new shows to watch. He is also a parent who loves buffalo wings, blowing raspberries, and his beloved Cincinnati Reds.