Season 5, Episode 5: ‘Dedicado a Max’
There’s a pleasing symmetry to “Dedicado a Max,” an episode that could be more accurately titled “A Tale of Two Coots.” The bifurcated plot revolves around a pair of ornery old men. Both are natural-born fighters who don’t like to be told what to do. One is in a house that people want him evicted from, that he refuses to leave. The other is in a house that people want to stay in that he would like to flee.
The latter is Mike, who doesn’t seem particularly grateful for the lifesaving measures taken by Gus Fring, who has created a makeshift hospital somewhere in Mexico, complete with high-tech medical equipment, a surgeon and a housekeeper. Mike’s first thought is to escape this idyll. His second is to call Gus and bark: “This is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife. How did I get here?”
OK, those are not direct quotes, but they capture the gist. Fring turns up at the end of the episode to explain that he has saved Mike’s life because he needs some muscle and smarts in the coming war with the Salamancas. The scene, the finest of the episode, plumbs a theme dear to the show’s creators, which also loomed large in “Breaking Bad.” Can acts of kindness make up for acts of evil? Is there a karmic ledger that allows this kind of moral accounting, where pluses and minuses are tallied and zeroed out?
“The anonymous benefactor,” says Mike, all but sneering. “Well that must make you feel pretty good. And is that supposed to balance the scales, make up for everything else you do?”
“It makes up for nothing,” Fring replies. “I am what I am.”
This might be a variation of a line by Iago, the ur-villain of “Othello,” who promises to hide his true self when he says “I am not what I am.” Fring is not what he appears to be, either. Or at least there is much more to him than he lets on. This dialogue unfolds next to a memorial to Max Arciniega, the love of his life and the man to whom this health clinic is dedicated. (Hence the episode’s name.) So we get an added layer of pathos, not visible to Mike. We are watching a man remember and mourn as he tries to convey an aura of invulnerability.
The other coot in this episode is Everett Acker, a.k.a. Mr. Hell No. As his lawyer, Jimmy has an approach to jurisprudence that could be defined as “strict obstructionist,” and he finds ever more inventive ways to prevent Mesa Verde’s bulldozers from bulldozing.
This enrages Kevin Wachtell (Rex Linn), Mesa Verde’s chief executive, who is eager to start building his call center and fumes at every delay. Instead of bouncing Kim off the case because her boyfriend is suing the bank, Wachtell keeps Kim in situ, arguing that he wants the best to manage this brawl. This gets awkward fast and eventually Kim’s boss, Rich Schweikart, suggests it’s time for her to hand off Mesa Verde to colleagues.
Schweikart has seen through Kim’s ruse — she’s helping Jimmy undermine Mesa Verde — which might explain her reaction. She expresses the kind of rage one feels after getting caught. This leads to the episode’s most implausible moment. She follows Schweikart out of her office, down the hall and confronts him in full view of other employees.
I can understand why Kim would go all-in at this moment. I just don’t grasp why she did it in such a public space, instead of conferring in Schweikert’s office, per his urging. This is out of character, given Kim’s impeccable instincts about professional appearances. So the scene comes across as gratuitously dramatic, at least by the standards of realism set by this show.
Let’s hope that Kim is a step ahead of all of us and that this was a ploy.
While we’re on ploys, one of the episode’s highlights is the arrival of “Mr. X,” a.k.a. Sobchak (played by the “Walking Dead” veteran Steven Ogg), who was last seen in Season 1, getting disarmed and throat-punched by Mike as he auditioned for a bodyguard gig. He’s far better as a private detective, it turns out. He has been hired by Jimmy, through the “underground Craigslist,” to scrape up raw material that could be used to blackmail Wachtell. Sobchak has broken into Wachtell’s home and photographed the place.
What did he find? Apparently nada. The blackmail approach seems doomed. Then, after Sobchak has been ushered out of the back of the nail salon where this debriefing occurs, Kim looks at some interior shots of Wachtell’s home and smiles. She’s spotted something incriminating.
So here’s the question: What is it? The two images that improve her mood both include renderings of Mesa Verde’s corporate logo, a horse-rising cowboy. One is a vintage black and white, beside family photographs. Cut to Kim, at her office computer, comparing the outline of that photograph to the corporate logo. Then to a Mesa Verde ad, which apparently refers to the year of the bank’s founding, 1958.
Those are our clues, people, and this is classic “Better Call Saul.” The show has a way of turning us all into Watsons to some character’s Sherlock. If you have a notion of what made Kim smile, please share.
Odds and Ends:
Broadly speaking, “Better Call Saul” is divided into two strands: a legal plot (about Kim’s and Jimmy’s travails as lawyers and people) and a narco plot (about Gus’s and Lalo’s efforts to dominate the local drug market). The last two episodes have leaned heavily into the legal plot, so much so that Lalo has been absent from both, and Hank and Gomez did not appear in this one.
As a fan of the narco plot, I hope that Mike’s journey from depression and surgery to health and (eventual) vigor will mean it gets at least equal time on the show, perhaps more.
Come back, Lalo. We miss you.
We have finally learned what turns Jimmy on, sexually. Role play. He gets a bit hot and bothered when Kim does a fine impression of Wachtell beside his golf course, reacting angrily to news that ground can’t yet be broken on that call center. Most role play revolves around archetypes that include such classics as the naughty nurse. Not Jimmy’s taste. He’s partial to grumpy, middle-aged bank executives.
“Kevin,” he says to Kim, when she’s finished with her Kevin impression. “Would you care to take a shower with me?”
Different strokes.
In the episode’s last line, Fring says he has chosen Mike as his “button man” because Mike understands a crucial concept: revenge. It’s a stellar ending, and it strongly suggests that Gus has studied Mike’s history enough to know his darkest secret: what Mike did in Philadelphia to avenge his son’s murder.
Some parting questions. What is up with Howard and his efforts to recruit Jimmy to his firm? It has to be more than a way to keep Patrick Fabian busy, doesn’t it? But what exactly does Howard want?
Please share your guesses, about this and other mysteries described above, in the comments section.
Meantime, I have to make a call.
Source: Television - nytimes.com
