Better Call Saul Review: Bagman (Season 5 Episode 8)
Being a bagman has its perks: great views, lots of sun, and lots of cash. For Jimmy, unfortunately, that turns to hell on Better Call Saul Season 5 Episode 8, “Bagman,” the best episode of the season that manages to pit Jimmy and Mike against the elements.
These sorts of episodes don’t come often, where everything on the periphery freezes so that all of the work done on the season comes together as a culmination of choices coming back to bite them. But there’s a level of brilliance as it hints back at its sister series and reminds of how much both shows are entwined.
Kim is absolutely right that Jimmy is trying to convince her just as much as himself as he tells her of his bagman duties. There’s this uncertainty to the way he explains it, along with the absurd directions to get out to the well, that shows how ludicrous the situation really is. But the promise of a massive payday, and the opportunity for more by pulling this off, is too great to turn away from.
But the result is exactly the reason why Kim is worried for him. The exact thing she warns him of comes to pass. The absolute shock of death and destruction around him should be enough to wake Jimmy out of this hellish existence and back into defending small-time criminals, but it won’t be. This will only make him smarter about how he takes on things like this, and to make others do this sort of dirty work.
The entire episode is that wake-up call he needs, but as we know from Breaking Bad, Saul Goodman does not take this wake-up call. If anything, he’s deeper by that point. Near-death experiences multiple times over, and a cactus thorn in your toe, are the kinds of things that become infinite learning experiences, especially when losing your prized car, mug, and almost your life.
Instead, Jimmy McGill runs into danger again, as he does at the end of the episode. Mike’s look of incredulity is hard to disagree with, that Jimmy can go from a sad sack covered in money on the ground feeling sorry for himself to becoming an aggressive form of bait. But it’s like the survival muscle in Jimmy’s brain finally snapped, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get to another day.
Maybe this is the final moment of Jimmy McGill.
The episode is filled to the brim with callbacks of Jimmy McGill’s life: the Davis and Main bottle (now donning urine), Mike taking the gas cap off Jimmy’s car as a reference to the big gas cap snafu some seasons back, the tarantula on the rock as a callback to the main title sequence, the World’s Best Lawyer mug seeing its last day, and the beloved Suzuki Esteem seeing its final ride.
It all feels like an end of an era, this shedding of the last prized possessions of Jimmy McGill, as though McGill goes into the desert and the only one to return will be Saul Goodman. The trauma that Jimmy’s witnessed will forever change him now, especially when he decides to make himself a target in the middle of the road.
That moment feels like that last bit of innocence leaving. He knows that person will die (or he will, if Mike misses). It could certainly be chalked up to desperation and frustration, but there feels like there’s something more to it, a moral grey area where Jimmy rather someone else die in order for his survival.
But perhaps the biggest callback of all is how the episode feels so much like Breaking Bad Season 2 Episode 9, “4 Days Out,” where Walt and Jesse are stuck out in the middle of nowhere and must rely on themselves, and their tempers and smarts, to survive. It’s one of the most memorable episodes of that entire run, and one of the best ways to develop them both.
“Bagman” feels like it’s packed with similar character development, where Jimmy is realizing how deep he’s gone into his descent, Mike is realizing just who this is all for, and Kim, despite trying to insert herself into the situation, realizes just how defenseless she is to helping Jimmy dig out of his hole.
One aspect of the episode that deserves particular attention is Mike. There are multiple moments where he could lose his temper, as he’s done just this season, when Jimmy is lagging behind, trying to dig impossible holes, or dragging the money and ripping a hole in the bag. But instead of chastising Jimmy, Mike lets him learn on his own, lets him fail on his own.
It’s partly as he says, because he can’t carry the money out by himself; but there is a unique form of respect Mike feels for Jimmy, where he knows these things won’t work but will not make the situation worse by forcing him to comply. Maybe it’s because he knows Jimmy’s personality type is the kind where positive reinforcement works far better than criticism, or maybe it’s simply that respect, as mentioned.
One thing is for sure: he’s the man you want at your side in the middle of the desert. His desert combat techniques and means of producing water and keeping warm show off even more of his expertise.
There’s also the thrilling conversation between Kim and Lalo in prison. Kim comes into the room on a mission, thinking she can push him into allowing her into the fold like she does any other client. But she comes out realizing this isn’t a world she belongs in, and that he rather let his money and Jimmy rot out there rather than involve a random civilian, married or not.
But it’s also this moment of clarity where Kim’s made herself a cartel target. Lalo knows now that Jimmy’s told her at least about him and the money, and this may be the leverage Lalo needs to make Jimmy do anything he wants. Or it could go one further, and be the thing that makes Jimmy a target himself.
Lalo is unpredictable, and he appears to enjoy Kim’s failed crusade, the way he smiles as she sits still at the end of the scene. He’s enjoying her pain and fear, almost like he’s feeding off of it.
No other production films desert like the Better Call Saul team, and with Vince Gilligan at the helm of this episode, it’s an absolutely riveting visual treat. If it’s not the frenetic gunfight and the tension moment to moment, it’s the vast landscape Jimmy and Mike find themselves crossing, the way the clouds pass overhead and create a land of shadow that they cross into that is both poetic and beautiful.
Better Call Saul Season 5 Episode 8, “Bagman,” takes the show down a familiar road but manages to make something entirely new and its own out of it. With definitive performances from both Bob Odenkirk and Jonathan Banks, the episode takes the hell of survival and turns it into a dark comedy of errors.
Neither of the two men will come out of that desert the same, but perhaps that’s for the best. Jimmy needs to see what sort of business he’s diving into, and Mike needs to remember how his family depends on him.
They’re not out of the woods yet, but there’s this sense of calm understanding that fills the final moments of the episode, like the lesson has been learned, and now all that’s left is to get back to civilization as the characters we know from Breaking Bad, and perhaps a little less than what’s come before on Better Call Saul.
What did you think of this episode of Better Call Saul? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Critic Rating:
User Rating:
Better Call Saul airs Mondays at 9/8c on AMC.
Follow us on Twitter and on 
Instagram!
Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!
Kevin Lever
Kevin Lever has been following television closely for most of his life, but in starting to cover it, he has grown a further appreciation. He strives to give the blockbusters their due, and give the lesser known shows a spotlight to find more fans.