Better Call Saul challenges its viewers to make the distinction between what is and isn't
Season 6, Episode 10: "Nippy"
It’s just one of those episodes, you know? Sometimes there’s an episode of a show that you love so damn much that you want to jump right on it and hammer out a couple thousand words saying the same thing over and over again, but then there are episodes, like, I don’t know, Atlanta’s “The Big Payback”. Episodes that you know are going to split the fandom and leave them arguing about what’s what and who’s who, and whether or not the episode should have existed at all. So you sit on it. You watch the arguments scroll by, good and bad, for and against, and you soak up all the bullshit like a sponge and try to keep all the good stuff in when you squeeze it all out. I’d argue it’s one of the more fun ways to look at television, to really be both a part of the discourse and an omnipotent, all-seeing eye, but episodes like this are few and far between in shows as good as Atlanta and Better Call Saul.
“Nippy” is one such episode. I don’t know where I was expecting the story to go after the bridge burner of “Fun and Games”, but I wasn’t expecting a full Gene Takavic episode—at least, not this early. The generally accepted theory around the final half-season’s episode structure is that the Better Call Saul timeline would end around episode ten, followed by two episodes of Breaking Bad and a Gene-centric series finale, in which he would commit suicide or get caught or turn himself in or team up with Walter Jr. for Breaking Bad 2 or something. But that doesn’t happen in “Nippy”, nor does anything happen beyond a clothing store robbery. But that’s the trick—why would this episode be about anything in the first place? Gene Takavic lives in a colorless world where only his past is what gives him any sort of light, and all of his days are relatively the same, as demonstrated by the swanky montage about halfway through this episode. He gets up, he goes to Cinnabon, he finishes working at Cinnabon, he goes home. Easy. Easy and boring.
But keep in mind season four and five’s resident Gene scenes in “Smoke” and “Magic Man”, in which he gets a suspicious glance from a cab driver and is later approached by the same guy, clearly in the know about Gene’s past life. When you rewatch that scene, actor Don Harvey portrays the guy with menace—either genuine, or created by Gene’s mind—but now Harvey has been replaced by Pat Healy, and he plays Jeff, as we find out he’s named, with a much different attitude. Jeff is no longer a guy who goes to the mall sometimes and also drives a cab or something—Jeff has a mother, and a background, and a motivation. His friend still doesn’t have a name, though. Jeff is played as more of a buffoon—a bit of a whiner, too—but that’s not because the writers didn’t understand the character. It’s because that’s who he is, not the man who scared the ever-loving shit out of Gene before. There’s more to him than that.
At its core, “Nippy” is about what is and isn’t. Because yes, Jeff isn’t that guy we met in season five, even if he’s no more well-intentioned here. He’s really just a bumbling dope that lives with his mom. And even his mother, Marion, isn’t the sardonic, snippy woman we meet in the opener—she’s actually quite nice, and, judging by how delighted she is to see someone that’s not her son or his delinquent friend at the end of the episode, maybe she’s a little lonely. Security guard Nick gives Gene the cold shoulder at first when he begins Cinnabon scheme, only remembering him as the “get a lawyer!” guy from the beginning of season three, but soon the two are roughhousing in the back office for the hell of it. And then there’s the most obvious example. He’s no quiet Cinnabon worker—he’s Saul Fucking Goodman, and there’s nothing Saul Goodman can’t talk himself into. (“Out of” is more of a challenge, but hey, he’s proved he can do that too.) “Have you ever driven anyone famous?” Gene subtly sneers at Jeff when the man comes home to find Gene making himself comfortable. I don’t know, Gene. Has he?
But has Saul Goodman ever really existed? This is no Saul Goodman scheme, this is a James Morgan McGill classic, recalling the early capers of season one and two—seasons that dedicated readers of mine would know I vastly prefer to four through six. In short, “Nippy” was an absolute dream for me, like writer Alison Tatlock heard my quiet longing and threw me a bone. Like the mere threat of violence that has worked so often throughout this series—think the Cousins on the roof—Saul Goodman is just an idea. He was always Jimmy taken to a logical extreme, not his own person. “Nippy” is not Gene becoming Saul again—it’s him becoming Jimmy, who is Saul. So there’s something that “is not” as opposed to “is,” right? If you need another “is not,” look no further than the episode’s namesake, the pomeranian(?) that Gene “loses” and is putting up posters for when he “bumps into” Marion. There is no Nippy, of course—it’s just a ploy for Gene to get into Marion’s, and therefore Jeff’s, home, but like Saul Goodman, Nippy is an idea. Not tangible, but a powerful enough thought—a lost dog in freezing climates, the episode’s other namesake, can invoke pity in even the coldest of hearts—to have a lasting effect. But make no mistake—Saul Goodman is dead. Want any more proof? Check the new title sequence, where the tape stops working halfway through and displays the feared blue screen of death, with “BETTER CALL SAUL” in the center. There’s nothing else to watch. It’s over.
But if you can get past that deeply depressing thought, “Nippy” is also loads of fun. What I loved so much about the first three seasons of Better Call Saul is how small-scale the schemes tended to be, and yet, because we were never privy to any information until it happened, it always felt like the grandest of heists. But considering this robbery may be the difference between Gene going to prison or not, it kind of is, isn’t it? Regardless, it’s something to Gene, whose life has become not unlike Walter White’s limbo in the penultimate episode of Breaking Bad, and he gets into the swing of things as soon as he knows what he needs to do. Before he begins the first phase, he hovers outside of the security office in a camera’s blind spot and toys with Marco’s ring—the surest sign that we’re seeing Jimmy, not Saul. We don’t need a Saul Goodman for this job. We need a Slippin’ Jimmy.
It is, of course, absolutely delightful to see a Jimmy plan get formulated. First, he needs to get in good with security, so he brings them the best form of bribe he can offer. (“Do I detect Cinnabons?” asks Frank the night guard before he even sees Gene.) As Frank rambles about a football game Gene hasn’t seen while digging into a Cinnabon, (“You can’t win when Martinez plays like that.” “What’s up with him?”) Gene splits his focus between his new friend and the cameras—and subtly turns off his stopwatch when Frank turns around. A little over three minutes. But Jimmy McGill was many things, and sloppy was not one of them—in a beautifully stylized montage with splitscreen galore, he visits the office many times, establishing an average time of how long it would take Frank to finish a Cinnabon and look behind him. At the same time, he cases a department store, taking note of its stock and capturing its dimensions, only to recreate it in the middle of a snowy field for Jeff to do practice runs through in accordance to Gene’s mnemonic devices. (“One, Armani suits and run! Two, Air Jordan shoes for you!”) It takes time, sure, but like the Cinnabons we see rising in the oven in a time lapse shot, it gets there eventually, and finally, it’s time.
And it goes okay at first! Jeff hides in a crate while Gene blusters his way through a phone call with the department store’s manager, and it gets left right outside the store with no issue. Gene sits down with Frank as Jeff bursts out of the box and starts grabbing, muttering Gene’s rhymes to himself as he does, and it all seems to be going well. (A detail I like: you can see Jeff get sweatier each time we cut back to him.) But the thing about Jimmy’s schemes? They don’t always go off easy. As Jeff makes to exit the store just under his three minute window, he slips on the freshly polished floor (we actually see the manager notice a scuff on that exact spot beforehand, so it’s likely to be freshly buffered—a fantastic display of attention to detail) and momentarily blacks out, perfectly centered in shot the camera is getting. Frank’s very nearly done with the Cinnabon he’s digging into. Gene has only seconds before he glances behind him, then glances again when he realizes that there most definitely wasn’t a man there three minutes ago.
So just for a moment—like he did with the insurance representative—he lets Saul Goodman out.
“I got no one,” he blubbers suddenly, and Frank doesn’t turn around. Like Nippy, this is another idea of both Jimmy McGill and Saul Goodman, the idea of a life mixed with truth and lies. He’s being deceitful, but he’s also telling the truth, and it’s very worth noting that he stops for a moment when Chuck comes up, and when he speaks again, he’s changed his tone. Gone is the jovial Nebraskan football-lover twang of Gene Takavic, and here is the vulnerability and weakness of Jimmy McGill. As Jeff slowly gets back up and hobbles to the crate to dump his payload, Jimmy rambles about how “I’d be a ghost. Less than a ghost. I’d be a shadow,” if he died that night. “What’s the point?” he starts to ask, holding on the “tuh” that ends the word as he watches Jeff hurry into the bathrooms, exhaling with relief without finishing his sentence. He was there for a moment, and then he wasn’t—just another thing that isn’t, and never will be.
And so it ends. He warns Jeff and his buddy that the three of them are all implicated in a federal crime, and as such, he will not hesitate to take them down with if he ever gets found out. On the way out, he crosses paths with Marion, who asks after Nippy—who, according to Gene, is back safe at home, having been found by another family. “So after all that, a happy ending,” for both Saul’s security and the dog’s health. Everything is where it needs to be. Except it almost isn’t—back in the department store, Gene comes across the most Saul Goodman shirt to ever Saul Goodman, a color that, although we cannot see it, is undoubtedly bright and snazzy. He picks it up, holds it against his chest to see if it would fit—but puts it back.
“Nippy” is about starting to say goodbye. If I had to guess where Better Call Saul is going from here, I’d say we spend the rest of the series with Gene and some Breaking Bad flashbacks thrown in—although honestly, hell if I know. Along with things that are and aren’t, we get a mention of Walter White for the first time in the series in this episode—brought up in passing while Gene is trying to motivate Jeff to do the job right—and it’s fitting, because the line between Walter and Heisenberg both was and wasn’t. I would almost be comfortable with this being the series finale—I mean, I know I’m dying to see what the next three weeks have in store—because it just feels right, you know? When I see Gene hanging up that shirt, I feel like he’s saying something, and Better Call Saul is, too. He’s saying what I was thinking: “Goodbye, old friend. Thank you for everything. I’ll miss you.”
Rating: 10/10 (A+)
No notes this time. I’ve said everything I wanted to say.