5:00a.m. 6:00 7:00 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00 6:00 7:00p.m. 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00a.m. 6:00 7:00 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00 6:00 7:00p.m. 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 Samuel R. Delany Jonathan Bailey Piet Oudolf […] More
5:00a.m. 6:00 7:00 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00 6:00 7:00p.m. 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00a.m. 6:00 7:00 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00 6:00 7:00p.m. 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 Samuel R. Delany Jonathan Bailey Piet Oudolf […] More
5:00a.m. 6:00 7:00 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00 6:00 7:00p.m. 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00a.m. 6:00 7:00 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00 6:00 7:00p.m. 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 Samuel R. Delany Jonathan Bailey Piet Oudolf […] More
5:00a.m. 6:00 7:00 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00 6:00 7:00p.m. 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00a.m. 6:00 7:00 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00 6:00 7:00p.m. 8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 Samuel R. Delany Jonathan Bailey Piet Oudolf […] More
At the Molières, France’s equivalent of the Tony Awards, commercial and publicly funded productions seem to inhabit different worlds.PARIS — Four hundred years after his birth, the playwright Molière is being feted in France this year, and the theater awards that bear his name couldn’t pass up the chance to participate. The Molières, France’s equivalent of the Tony Awards, have jokingly renamed their yearly bash — set for May 30 — the 400th ceremony.Yet in truth, the Molières are a spring chicken compared with similar theater awards around the world. They were founded only in 1987, four decades after the Tonys; their initiator was the producer Georges Cravenne, who had already created the Césars, the French film awards, in 1976.And their history has been anything but smooth. The Molières were designed to bridge the gap between two opposing production models: publicly funded stagings on the one hand and private ventures on the other. The distinction has long structured French theater and shaped its aesthetics. “Public theater,” which is largely funded by the culture ministry and local authorities, prides itself on presenting more experimental, cerebral fare than privately owned venues.Ahead of the 2012 ceremony, however, representatives of over two dozen commercial venues walked out of the Molières, arguing that the ceremony favored the publicly funded sector and didn’t sufficiently account for their popularity with audiences. It returned only in 2014, under new leadership.This year’s nominations suggest the balance remains precarious. There are separate prizes for public and privately funded productions in several of the top categories, including best production and the acting awards, with different criteria. To be eligible, private-sector shows must have been performed at least 60 times between January 2020 and March 2022, whereas half that number of performances is enough for public-sector nominees. The winners are then voted on by members of the Molières’ Academy, whose names aren’t public.The outcome of this process can be puzzling. It rarely reflects critical consensus, perhaps because many well-reviewed productions don’t even qualify for consideration, and it favors star-led shows. The acting categories, especially, are dominated by acting veterans and celebrities like the singer Vanessa Paradis, who this year earned a best private-sector actress nomination for her stage debut, in “Maman” by Samuel Benchetrit.The Molières also appear utterly unconcerned about their lack of diversity. As early as 2016, the French collective “Decolonizing the Arts” pointed out that there wasn’t a single person of color among the acting nominees. Two years later, the Black author and director Gerty Dambury publicly called for a “non-racist Molières ceremony.” The message has fallen on deaf ears: This year, the acting and directing categories are almost uniformly white again, with the exception of one performer of Algerian descent, Kamel Isker.Jordi Le Bolloc’h as Jack Mancini and Anne-Sophie Picard as Élisa in “The Race of Giants” at the Théâtre des Béliers Parisiens.Alejandro GuerreroIf you are in the market for a white-savior narrative, on the other hand, the Molières have some options. One of the top shows in the private-sector categories this year is “Lawrence of Arabia,” playing at the Théâtre du Gymnase Marie-Bell through May 22. Like the 1962 film of the same name, it was inspired by the life of the British archaeologist and colonial administrator T.E. Lawrence, who played a role in the Arab Revolt throughout the Ottoman Empire during World War I. (The film isn’t mentioned in the show’s credits, despite obvious parallels.)Eric Bouvron and Benjamin Penamaria have crafted a zippy, low-tech stage biography, whose central highlight is live music, with two musicians and a singer onstage throughout. The artistic team clearly came to this story with good intentions. The Sykes-Picot Agreement, a secret 1916 treaty that outlined how the Ottoman lands would be divided between France and the United Kingdom, is explained and denounced. As in the film, Lawrence is made aware of the plan late, and disagrees with it.Yet this “Lawrence of Arabia” doesn’t engage with the problems involved in representing Arab history and culture through the eyes of a British colonial-era hero. While the show includes some dialogue in Arabic, the frequent use of “Allahu akbar” as a war cry plays into Muslim caricatures, and a faux-“Oriental” dance is a low point.As the central character, Lawrence is depicted as a master strategist, without whom Arab leaders wouldn’t have accomplished much. Lawrence’s close Arab friend, Daoum, speaks in cringeworthy pidgin French that highlights his lack of education and manners, and follows Lawrence like an over-excited puppy.It is difficult to understand why anyone would want to reaffirm these dated perspectives today, but “Lawrence of Arabia” is in many ways typical of the production style favored in France’s private sector. Its storytelling is relentlessly upbeat and fast-paced, with regular visual jokes and puns; the characters are brightly captured, yet often one-dimensional.The main goal, clearly, is entertainment, and two of the other nominees for best private-sector production are made of the same cloth: “The Race of Giants,” written and directed by Mélody Mourey, and Léna Bréban’s production of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.”At the Théâtre des Béliers Parisiens, “The Race of Giants” (through May 29) dives into the 20th-century space race, efficiently weaving together history and fiction. Mourey invents a brilliant yet troubled astronaut, Jack Mancini, who makes it to NASA in the 1960s — only to be betrayed by a secret Soviet agent. The production makes inventive use of video and very few props, which allows for fast transitions and jumps back and forth in time.Jordi Le Bolloc’h makes for an energetic loose cannon as Mancini, but as in “Lawrence of Arabia,” the female characters — ditsy wives and flirty, drunken bar visitors, mainly — take a back seat to the lives of men, with the exception of Jack’s headstrong wife, Élisa.Barbara Schultz, left, as Rosalind and Ariane Mourier as Celia in “As You Like It” at the Théâtre de la Pépinière.François FontyFor feel-good comedy, “As You Like It,” at the Théâtre de la Pépinière through April 30, remains the best ticket in town. Bréban, who staged the first post-lockdown show in France — at a retirement home — in 2020, has been going from strength to strength recently. This winter, she briskly led members of the Comédie-Française in an adaptation of Hector Malot’s 1878 novel, “Sans Famille.”“As You Like It” is rarely performed in France, in part because its brand of pastoral fantasy isn’t easy to transpose, but the translator Pierre-Alain Leleu has provided this production with a brilliantly witty French rendition. Bréban, for her part, has a gift for instilling an exhilarating sense of collective rhythm in her actors. There isn’t a dull moment in her Forest of Arden; the relationship between the cousins Rosalind (Barbara Schulz) and Celia (Ariane Mourier) is especially loving and zany.“As You Like It” is nominated in several private-sector categories, but Bréban’s career shows that the distinction between private and publicly funded theater isn’t as clear-cut as it was in the past. Her ability to go from the Comédie-Française, a prestigious public institution, to the smaller Théâtre de la Pépinière with the same level of success suggests that the audiences for each are not so different. The Molières may not have found a happy medium yet, but some of its nominees are leading the way.Lawrence d’Arabie. Directed by Éric Bouvron. Théâtre du Gymnase Marie-Bell, through May 22.La Course Des Géants. Directed by Mélody Mourey. Théâtre des Béliers Parisiens, through May 29.Comme Il Vous Plaira. Directed by Léna Bréban. Théâtre de la Pépinière, through April 30. More
“Time for all you doobie-lovin’ potheads to get up to your usual smoky high jinks: folding laundry and hoping half a gummy will help you fall asleep,” Stephen Colbert joked.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Total Smoke ShowLate Night celebrated 4/20 on Wednesday, or what Stephen Colbert referred to as “the unofficial holiday for marijuana.”“Time for all you doobie-lovin’ potheads to get up to your usual smoky high jinks: folding laundry and hoping half a gummy will help you fall asleep,” Colbert joked in his monologue.“This year is a big one for 4/20, because new polling shows 37 percent of Americans say they use weed, while the remaining 63 percent say they were just holding it for a friend.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“According to a new poll from CBS News, a vast majority of Americans want the federal government to legalize cannabis for recreational purchases. Sixty-six percent are in favor, 34 percent no. Sixty-six percent of Americans don’t agree on anything. We can barely get 66 percent of Americans to agree that horse medicine is for horses.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“If you smoke, obviously, you want it to be legal. But even among those who say they never use marijuana, a majority favor legalization. Well, that makes sense. Marijuana is tame compared to other controlled substances — its most dangerous side effect is making hacky sack seem like a sport.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Oddly enough, tomorrow, the sale of recreational weed will begin in New Jersey, one day after 4/20. I mean, really? That’s like Chipotle offering free guac on Seis de Mayo, you know what I’m saying?” — JIMMY FALLON“That is exciting news, but it means New Yorkers will have to do the unthinkable: Drive to New Jersey on purpose.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Just be careful, people from New Jersey, because if you smoke too much weed, you might accidentally ‘fuhgeddaboud’ a bunch of important stuff you need to do.” — JAMES CORDEN“The move is overwhelmingly supported by state residents, who can now look forward to Jersey-specific strains like Jon ‘Bong’ Jovi, Bruce ‘Springstrain,’ ‘Joint’ Stewart and, of course, ‘Stoney’ Soprano’s ‘Ganjagool’.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Are You Still Watching? Edition)“Netflix just announced that for the first time in over a decade, they lost subscribers, and now their stock is crashing. Yeah, not only did their stock plummet, but it turns out that all the cash they had in the bank was just cake.” — JIMMY FALLON“Today, their stock price dropped over 35 percent after they announced they had lost 200,000 subscribers. That’s a lot. Explains why they’ve changed their pop-up message from ‘Are you still watching?’ to ‘Come back, please! I can change! Do you want DVDs again?’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Damn, Netflix is in trouble, which is so surprising because me and the 43 people I share my account with, we’re still watching it all the time.” — TREVOR NOAH“Now, now, there are many reasons why Netflix subscriptions are down, all right? Password sharing, inflation, Regé-Jean Page leaving ‘Bridgerton.’ Yeah, I’m sorry, you want us to pay 15 bucks a month without that [expletive]? I don’t think so.” — TREVOR NOAH“Right now Netflix is so desperate for money, they’re now Googling ‘Is there a real-life “Squid Game”’?” — JIMMY FALLON“Netflix is blaming their losses on fierce competition, inflation and Russia. When he heard that, President Biden was like, ‘Hey, get your own excuses.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Yep, Netflix is losing money — you can tell it’s having an effect on all of their shows. For instance, ‘Emily in Paris’ is now ‘Emily in Pittsburgh.’ It’s still good. Also, ‘The Crown’ is now ‘The Hat.’”— JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingRonny Chieng, “The Daily Show” correspondent, gave the public the task of convincing him of Earth Day’s worth in this week’s “Prove Me Wrong.”What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightChloë Sevigny, star of “The Girl From Plainville” and “Russian Doll,” will sit down with Seth Meyers on Thursday’s “Late Night.”Also, Check This OutNicolas Cage as “Nick Cage” in “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.” He said, “I feel closer to my muse and my instrument now than I ever have.”Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesNicolas Cage plays a meme-ified version of himself in “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.” More
The new Showtime series on Michelle Obama, Betty Ford and Eleanor Roosevelt makes the connection between substance and style.It is a coincidence, but a telling one, that the day after “The First Lady,” the series that is a revisionist take on presidential wives as seen through the intertwined stories of Michelle Obama, Betty Ford and Eleanor Roosevelt, premiered on Showtime, Dr. Jill Biden hosted the White House Easter egg roll. Or rather, the Easter “Eggucation” roll.There she stood, the current first lady and the only one out of more than 50 (official and acting) to keep her pre-administration day job, like a bouquet of hyacinths in a pink dress festooned with a veritable garden of florals, a coordinating purple coat and fuchsia gloves, flanked by her besuited husband and two life-size bunnies. She exuded warmth and family values, embodying the platonic ideal of a political spouse, while also promoting her signature cause (education).Dr. Jill Biden at the annual White House Easter egg roll at the White House this week.Doug Mills/The New York TimesIf ever there was a real-life illustration of the balancing act between role-playing and real issues that is part of performing one of the strangest non-job jobs that exists, this was it.After all, what is the first lady? Unelected, but part of the package; beholden to the West Wing, but in an office, if not an Office, of her own; emblematic, somehow, of American womanhood writ large. The human face of an administration.Which is to say, said Sean Wilentz, the George Henry Davis 1886 professor of American history at Princeton, she is supposed to be “the ideal wife as helpmeet: swearing (or affirming), to the best of her ability, to preserve (cook, care), protect (as in protecting time) and defend (no matter what) the president.”Exactly how strange that position is, forms the heart of “The First Lady,” a bit of historical didacticism dressed up as pop culture entertainment that makes the case for the presidential wife as the progressive social conscience of an administration, thus aiming to change the narrative from one largely focused on image-making (clothes! holiday events! state dinners!) to one focused on substance.Gillian Anderson as Eleanor Roosevelt.Boris Martin/ShowtimeYet what the series, which flips between moments in each first lady’s life that are connected thematically, rather than chronologically, may do best is illustrate just how intertwined the roles actually are — onscreen as in life. The first reaction of viewers (at least on social media) was not to the premise of the show, which gives its first ladies credit for, among other things, championing women’s rights and desegregation (Eleanor Roosevelt, as played by Gillian Anderson); changing the conversation around breast cancer, mammograms and addiction (Betty Ford, played by Michelle Pfeiffer); and fighting for gay marriage and exposing racism (Michelle Obama, by Viola Davis). Rather, it was to the facial tics, especially the lip pursing, of Ms. Davis as Mrs. Obama.By how they look, we think we know them. “The two things are intrinsically connected,” said Cathy Schulman, the showrunner and executive producer of “The First Lady.” When it comes to first ladies, how they present in the world becomes shorthand for who they are and what they do. It’s the bridge of “relatability” (in the words of the show’s Barack Obama) from the White House to every house. Onscreen as, perhaps, on the political stage.Viola Davis as Michelle Obama.Jackson Lee Davis/ShowtimeIt’s why, even as the characters themselves chafe against the strictures of their new position — as Laura Bush warns Mrs. Obama, people are going to judge everything she does, including what she wears; as Mrs. Obama rolls her eyes at attempts to make her a “Black Martha Stewart”; as Mrs. Ford announces her belief that you can be “ladylike” and yourself at the same time — Ms. Schulman and Signe Sejlund, the costume designer for the series, were focused on getting the clothes as accurate as possible.It was, Ms. Schulman said, “crucial.” Starting in late 2020, teams of researchers began collecting historical documentation and images from the periods represented, many of which had been preserved for posterity, the better to build wardrobes that could consist of about 75 changes for each woman. These included such major public sartorial statements as their wedding dresses, inauguration outfits and the gowns they wore for their official White House portraits.Jason Wu, who designed both of Mrs. Obama’s inaugural gowns, agreed to recreate the first one — the silver-white dress that seemed to proclaim a new dawn — for Ms. Davis. (In part because the original had been donated to the Smithsonian, and he wanted one for his archive.) Ms. Sejlund scoured the RealReal for a copy of the Milly dress Mrs. Obama wore in her portrait, and found it, albeit in the wrong size, so she acquired more fabric from the designer to reinvent it.Michelle Pfeiffer as Betty Ford.Murray Close/ShowtimeSome are clones of the originals, including Mrs. Ford’s shirtdresses, often paired with the silk scarves she favored, her many polka dots and her quilted bathrobes — especially the yellow robe she wore when she left the hospital after her mastectomy, when, Ms. Schulman said, “she knew the place would be crawling with journalists.” It was a canny choice that reflected her desire to be as transparent as possible about connecting her own situation to that of other women. (How many first ladies before her had been publicly photographed in their dressing gowns?)And some are conceptually the same, like the wide belts that, along with the pearls, cardigans and sleeveless sheaths, became a signature of Mrs. Obama, but which were shrunk down to be in proportion with Ms. Davis’s smaller frame. Then there was the giant floral necklace Eleanor Roosevelt wore to her husband’s first inauguration, which, while very au fait in the early 1930s, “looked almost ridiculous when you see it with a modern eye,” Ms. Sejlund said.From left, Gillian Anderson as Eleanor Roosevelt and Lily Rabe as Lorena ‘Hick’ Hickock.Boris Martin/ShowtimeThe necklace was ultimately left in the closet, unlike the collection of jaunty hats that were a Roosevelt trademark and that played a starring role in Mrs. Roosevelt’s 1941 visit to Tuskegee Army Air Field, where she demonstrated her support for Black airmen with a flight that was so smooth, she announced to the world, she “never lost” her hat.All such accessories are on some level recognizable because they serve as wormholes to the events portrayed. We may not remember them exactly, but we’ve probably seen the picture. It exists in our shared memory book, just as the photo of Mrs. Biden in her stylized florals with the rabbits will. Acknowledging that likelihood doesn’t take away from her achievements or the connection she made between holiday décor and learning. It supports it.They are, after all, effectively costumes for real life characters playing a very specific role in a show everyone can watch. More
Gus and the cartel chase Nacho, Kim and Jimmy pursue Howard — and everyone is conning someone.This recap is for Episode 2 of the back-to-back season opener; click here for the recap of Episode 1.Season 6, Episode 2: ‘Carrot and Stick’For a guy known for his punctilious approach to both business and personal grooming, Gus Fring sure has made a mess.Much of this superb and stressful episode, “Carrot and Stick,” is a study in damage control, overseen by a man who seems uncharacteristically ruffled and uncertain about what to do. Gus has always been a study in composure, but in one scene he does something that seems almost unimaginable, at least for him. He accidentally breaks a drinking glass.It’s an ideal symbol for the mayhem he has loosed with his ill-considered and disastrously executed plan to murder Lalo Salamanca. In hindsight, he must realize the whole idea was a fiasco — and would have been a failure even if Lalo had been killed. Many of the terrible outcomes that have unspooled in the season’s first two episodes are precisely what would have happened if the assassins sent by Gus had succeeded.Now he has two problems. Lalo is alive, which Gus realizes the moment Don Hector extends a hand in reconciliation during the peace summit organized by Juan Bolsa (Javier Grajeda). Either Hector can’t keep a poker face — if he really wanted Lalo’s continued existence to remain a secret, he would have feigned rage and ignored Gus — or he wants his sworn enemy to know the truth.The second problem is Nacho. He’s the one guy accessible to the cartel who knows about Gus’s plot, and the race is on to find him in his bleak and desiccated Mexican hide-out, the Motel Ocotillo. (Suggested motto: “But … we do offer room service.) Gus has to grab or kill Nacho before the cartel reaches him. The cartel wants Nacho taken alive — well, the Salamancas certainly do — so that he can be tortured into a confession.The Return of ‘Better Call Saul’The “Breaking Bad” prequel returned April 18 for its final season.Season 6 Premiere: The new season began with back-to-back episodes. Read our recaps of “Wine and Roses” and “Carrot and Stick.”A Refresher: After the show’s two-year, Covid-induced hiatus, here’s where things left off.Serious Success: Bob Odenkirk was a comedian’s comedian — until “Better Call Saul” revealed him as a peerless portrayer of broken souls.Writing the Perfect Con: We asked the show’s writers to break down a pivotal scene in the transformation of Jimmy McGill into Saul Goodman.Cast Interviews: Rhea Seehorn and Tony Dalton told us how they created the complex Kim Wexler and the murderous Lalo Salamanca.As ever, Fring Inc. has a jump on the competition. In the opening scene, we see Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) show up at Nacho’s home and switch a personal safe for an identical one, minus any evidence that Nacho had ever worked for Gus, presumably. Mike ruefully adds a brown envelope to the switched-in safe, and it’s unclear, at least to Your Faithful Recapper, whether he knows that the documents include a bank statement with the phone number to Motel Ocotillo. When Don Bolsa later opens this envelope, Nacho appears to have only a few minutes left to live.In fact, he manages to exit the motel premises with a beating heart, following an escape scene that is expertly staged by show co-creator Vince Gilligan, who directed the episode and demonstrates some serious action-movie chops. The sequence begins when Nacho realizes that a man across the courtyard has been hired by Gus’s underlings to keep an eye on him — time to flee. It ends with a shootout between Nacho and the terrifying Leonel and Marco Salamanca (Daniel and Luis Moncada), a.k.a. the Twins, who arrive in a silver SUV ready to kill whomever they have to in order to take Nacho alive.Now that he is roaming somewhere in Mexico, he might actually have some leverage with Gus, at least. At minimum, he knows that he could wreck Gus’s super lab dreams in under 10 seconds of candid chat with a cartel employee. This doesn’t mean that Gus and his minions will be eager to provide him with safe haven. But he knows that he poses a threat to Gus, and maybe there’s a way to set up a blackmail contraption that would keep a sword over Gus’s head. (For pointers, perhaps Nacho could watch the way Tom Cruise’s character keeps the mafia at bay at the end of 1993 film “The Firm.”)This complicated dynamic is no doubt why, at the end of this episode, in a scene set in an office at the Los Pollos Hermanos chicken farm, Gus appears ready to talk to Nacho when Mike hands him that mobile phone. For as long as Gus can’t kill Nacho, Nacho poses an all but existential threat to Gus.Before that call, Gus wants Nacho’s father brought to him, which he must envision as a kind of check mate that will force Nacho’s surrender. Mike, however, will not countenance that idea and says so, bluntly and firmly, in his first act of overt insubordination. This gets a gun pointed at his head by the ever stylish Tyrus Kitt (Ray Campbell), the only henchman in Gus’s crew you could imagine in line at a Manhattan nightclub.“Whatever happens next, it’s not going to go down the way you think it is,” Mike says.Precisely what that means is a mystery, at least to Your Faithful Recapper. He might be referring to the sniper set up outside of the office, with whom Mike is in radio contact. But that guy appears to be looking for signs that Lalo or his colleagues are readying an attack. It’s at least possible that the same sniper has been instructed by Mike to kill Gus and Tyrus in the event that Mike is killed. Or that Mike has an entirely different plan. Or that he’s bluffing.Speaking of bluffing, on to the Jimmy McGill and Kim Wexler frame-up show, where “Operation Ruin Howard Hamlin’s Life” is entering Phase 2. This involves revisiting the series’s answer to Bonnie and Clyde, namely Craig and Betsy Kettleman (Jeremy Shamos and Julie Ann Emery), who in the Season 1 timeline were represented by Howard in an unsuccessful attempt to defend Craig against charges that as a county treasurer he embezzled $1.6 million. Having served his sentence, Craig is a free man in highly diminished circumstances, running a bargain basement, and corrupt, tax prep company out of a roadside mobile home.Jimmy shows up with a proposition: Hire me, and I’ll get you exonerated by arguing that your lawyer was a coke head. This is a bluff. But Jimmy and Kim apparently intuit that the Kettlemans will double cross Jimmy, then head straight to the office of Clifford Main and attempt to enlist him as their attorney. They further know that Main, who saw that planted bag of fake cocaine tumble out of Howard’s locker, will toss the Kettlemans from the office, then wonder whether their story actually has some truth to it.What’s best about the latest iteration of Jimmy and Kim’s improbable little scheme is the opportunity it provides Kim to demonstrate an almost thuggish toughness. She threatens the Kettlemans with jail time, courtesy of an aborted call to an I.R.S. enforcement office, a power play of pure sang-froid. There’s a Robin Hood quality to her maneuverings — the Kettlemans were scamming their financially struggling clients — but one can envision the day when she flexes even harder against less worthy targets. Or when she’s mixing it up with the show’s true baddies.Odds and EndsWell, now we know where Jimmy got that inflatable Lady Liberty that sat atop his office in “Breaking Bad.”Why would Mike risk his life for Nacho, a man he has kept at a coolly professional distance since they met? One assumes it’s all about Mike’s relationship with his son, a Philadelphia cop who was shot by corrupt colleagues because he wouldn’t accept bribes. It’s a crime Mike feels implicated in because he was on the take when he was on the same force. (See “Five-O” in Season 1.) His defense of Nacho feels, perhaps, like a do over.Who was tailing Jimmy and Kim as they drove from the Kettlemans’ office? Your Faithful Recapper wanted to run the number on the license plates of the car, then remembered that the show is fictional. And that he doesn’t know how to “run the number” on anything. So, please, speculate in the comments section, along with any other thoughts about this stellar pair of episodes. More
