Monthly Archives: April 2017

The season opener did not have an opening credits sequence so I was curious to see what it was going to be. Last year was a very happy go lucky tune called ‘Let The Mystery Be’ by Iris DeMent. Episode 2 began with another very happy tune. I couldn’t place it at first but it reminded me of an 80s sitcom theme song. I was right. It was the opening theme song to a sitcom called ‘Perfect Strangers’ which ran on ABC from 1986-1993. The main title was called ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Me Now’ written and performed by David Pomeranz. Will this song play at the open of every Leftover’s episode left? Who knows? But it was certainly fitting for this particular episode.

Perfect Strangers was mentioned in season one when it was revealed that the four lead stars of the show had all departed. In season two, we found out that Mark Linn-Baker had not actually departed. He felt embarrassed and had skipped the country and was hiding in Mexico. Mark Linn-Baker shows up in this episode as ‘Mark Linn-Baker’ and he reaches out to Nora with a very interesting proposition.

NORA DURST

This was a Nora-centric episode. Carrie Coons gives an Emmy worthy performance in this episode as we follow her on a very painful journey. She seems very happy and satisfied with her life in Miracle and with Kevin. She’s back at her old job investigating people’s claims that their loved ones ‘departed’.

She starts out investigating what happened to the ‘Tower Man’. He’s disappeared and his wife (played by Grace Butler) claims that he departed right before her eyes. Of course, Nora doesn’t buy it and when she confronts her brother, Matt, he confesses that the man had a heart attack and fell off his tower. He helped the wife bury her husband.

In episode one we saw that Nora had a cast on her left arm but it wasn’t explained. She goes to have it removed and we see she has a tattoo on her forearm. The doctor also confronts her about how she may have broken her arm. One of the staff says he say her slam her car door on it.
“Why in God’s name would I do that?” Nora responds indignantly but there’s a look in her eyes that betrays the truth.

“Your children, Erin and Jeremy. Would you like to see them again?”

Mark Linn-Baker

Then she gets a call from Mark Linn Baker. He claims to know how she can see her kids again and tells her to meet him in a hotel in St. Louis if she wants to know how. She goes even though she distrusts the idea. When they meet he tells her that a group of scientists have found a way to recreate the radiation that was detected at the sites of departure. They’ve made a device that, with a blast of this radiation, can send you ‘through’ to where you loved ones went when they departed. Nora is skeptical.

“They’re not sending people to some magical place. They are incinerating them.” Nora tells Baker.

Baker insists that smart people have signed up to try it even knowing they may just be ‘incinerated’. Nora calls Baker suicidal and that he should seek help.

“Four series regulars. Three go, one stays. Do you know what the odds of that are?”
“One in a hundred twenty-eight thousand.” Nora immediately responds.
“What happened was arbitrary. It was purposeless. It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t do anything to deserve this. So no, Nora, I don’t want to kill myself. I want to take some fuckin’ control.” Baker tells her.

Nora knows exactly how he feels. She was also the one in four that was left behind. Baker gives her a phone and says she will receive a call that will tell her where the device will be as this is all being done without the support of the medical community. The device is now mobile.

She sits in her hotel room, smoking and looking at the video testimonials of 119 people that have done through with this ‘experience’. Of course, she’s curious; anyone would be, about a chance to possibly be reunited with her children.

Her children on her mind, she heads to Kentucky and parks near a children’s playground. We finally see what happened to Lily. She’s back with her real mom, Christina, who now also has a newborn. When Nora approaches Lily she finds that Lily doesn’t recognize her and it’s heartbreaking.

She ends up visiting Erika (Regina King) now separated from John but still in touch with the family. Nora admits that she did break her own arm so she could cover up the tattoo she got. It’s the logo for the Wu Tang Clan which she got to cover the names of her children.

“I think I’m going crazy. How are you not going crazy?” Nora asks Erika.

“Evie died and I got to bury her.” Erika says. Nora does not have that sense of finality with her children.

Plus she bought a trampoline.

We see the ladies jumping up and down on the trampoline to the Wu Tang Clan’s “Protect Ya Neck (The Jump Off)” and enjoying a brief moment of joy and abandon.

Driving back into Miracle she gets pulled over by Tommy. Tommy of course has received a call from Christine about Nora’s little visit.

“I wish you had never left Lily for me” Nora tells Tommy.
“I didn’t leave Lily for you, Nora. I left her for my dad. I didn’t even know you existed.” Tom tells her.

Nora gets a photo blown up at the store and takes it to the tower where Tower Man’s wife has created an alter for her husband. She places the photo over the painting showing Tower Man ‘departing’. It’s an autopsy photo of Tower Man. Damn. That’s harsh.

“You are a heartless bitch!” Tower Man’s wife screams at her.

Nora comes home to find Kevin with the plastic bag wrapped around his head.

“I always tear it off. I only do it to……I don’t want to die.” Kevin stammers.

Of course, Nora understands. She did something similar in season one, hiring people to shoot her while she wore a bullet proof vest. I think this also relates to Mark Linn-Baker’s line about taking control. These people feel lost and need someway to be in control, to anchor themselves.

“Let’s have a baby. I want to have a baby with you” Kevin says to her very sweetly. But Nora burst out with hysterical laughter. Poor Kevin! It’s all he can do to keep from crying. It does seem ridiculous. She’s just walked in on him, seemingly trying to kill himself and she’s contemplating being ‘incinerated’ in the hope of seeing her children again.

The cell phone rings. It’s the call that Baker said she would get. The machine will be in Melbourne Australia. She needs to bring $20K in cash and be there by Tuesday. She readily agrees and tells Kevin she has to go to Australia. He asks to come along. She agrees.

“And he looked at them and raised his hand, but they did not wave in response, so he touched the stone to his chest and jumped into the water.”
The Book Of Kevin

Cut to a kangaroo getting hit by a police car. We must be in Australia now! The cop puts the animals out of its misery with a gunshot. The cop’s name is Kevin. He drives home to be met by four women on horseback. Could they be The Four Horseman (Horsewomen) of The Apocalypse?

They say they know who he is and want him to come with them. When he refuses one of the women shoots him with a tranquilizer. When he comes to he’s been strapped to a wooden plank.

“It’s alright. You’re amongst friends. We know who you are.”

They lower him into a pond where he drowns.

“What it it’s not him?” one of them asks.

They bring him up and try to speak to him. “You need to wake up now. We know who you are.”

Then a man on crutches comes out of the house.

“Hey! What are you ladies up to?” It’s Kevin’s father.

Holy crap! These women seem to have, somehow, gotten their hands on Matt’s new gospel. Is that possible. The quote seems biblical but sounds like when Kevin tried to drown himself last season and sees the three girls. Could this be happening at a different time? In the future?

SIDE of LEFTOVERS

All through the episode technology seems to be failing Nora. The GPS won’t work, the parking garage won’t take her ticket – she ends up getting out of the car and pushing the gate open. Is this foreshadowing of how the ‘radiation blasting device’ will function?

“Nora Cursed” rhymes with Durst. My God! How do you live with so much pain?

Mark Linn-Baker was excellent! Sure he was playing himself but not really. He was playing a version of himself if he existed in this alternate universe. He was very good. The scene in the hotel with Carrie Coons was creepy.

Each episode brings Jimmy closer to becoming Saul and Mike closer to meeting Gus Fring and beginning that fateful partnership that will lead to his demise and that “trip to Belize”.

We also get to see Jimmy and Mike in a scene together which has been rare up to this point. I’m hoping this will change going forward. They’re like Laurel and Hardy. Jonathan Banks hardly says a word but he doesn’t have to. His expressions say so much. Bob Odenkirk must have a great memory because he’s given a load of lines every week and he delivers them flawlessly. They make a good comic team!

“Who has your back? I do!” Jimmy tells Mike.
Mike winces and churns out “I’ll keep that in mind.”

THE COLD OPEN

The first scene shows Chuck wandering around his house drinking tea and feeling very relaxed. Then you see a guy playing solitaire in the kitchen. Chuck is not startled, he knows he’s there. Who is he? Security? Chuck keeps looking out the window as if he’s expecting someone but not in a scared way. Something’s afoot.

MIKE

Mike is still following the signal on his fancy new transmitter. The photography in these scenes is amazing, just gorgeous. Mike tracks his prey to a fast food joint. Can you guess the name? Of course you can! The bag man that was picking up bags of ‘something’ all night walks into Los Pollos Hermanos with the bag and seemingly makes the delivery. Mike buys a new car and calls Jimmy. He asks Jimmy to go into the place and order breakfast in order to determine what the bag man does with the delivery.

Jimmy is game and watches the bag man closely without even realizing the man sweeping up and cleaning tables all around him is ‘The Man’, Gus Fring himself. The bag man sits down, eats his breakfast with the bag at his feet. He finishes up, grabs the bag, walks out and drives away. No hand over took place. Jimmy even checks the garbage can to see if the bag man dropped something in there.

“Can I help you?” a voice rings out. We know that voice.

Jimmy drops his watch in the trash to make an excuse and Gus puts on his rubber gloves and digs in the trash can to retrieve his watch. Jimmy thanks him and goes outside to report to Mike. That Gus Fring is a helpful guy.

Mike sets up surveillance outside Los Pollos Hermanos. In one scene we see Gus sweeping up outside. He looks up and gives that dead eyed look. He knows he’s being watched.

Soon enough, a bug SUV screeches into the parking lot of the fast food place. It quickly goes back in motion and Mike notices that the transmitter is now on the SUV and so he follows. But the signal goes dead and he finds the gas cap with the transmitter in the middle of the road with a cell phone.

The cell phone rings and Mike answers, “Yeah?” He’s been made.

JIMMY

Jimmy and Kim interview for a much needed receptionist. Jimmy wants to hire the first person who comes in to interview, Francesca. She’s a sweet lady who quit her job at the DMV because of too much red tape. She just wants a job where she can help people. She’s a girl after Jimmy’s heart. He gets Kim to agree and she starts right away because Jimmy has a commercial airing that day and he expects a lot of business. Sure enough, the calls start coming in and Jimmy stands there coaching Francesca to be more folksy, mention ‘Cracker Barrel’ and always refer to him as ‘Jimmy’. She picks it right up!

Ernesto shows up to Jimmy and Kim’s office but will not come in because he doesn’t want Jimmy to see him. He calls Kim and has her come out to meet him in his car. He hesitantly tells her that he heard Jimmy’s confession on Chuck’s tape recorder. This must have been Chuck’s plan all along.

Kim comes back into the office and grabs Jimmy.
“Give me a dollar”
“I only have a twenty”
“That’ll work. Now I’m your lawyer, anything you say to me will be confidential.”

Now we know where Jimmy got this. He did the same thing with Walter White and Jesse in the Breaking Bad, Season 2 episode entitled, of course, Better Call Saul’.

Kim tells Jimmy who is devastated that Chuck would do that to him. They can’t figure out why or how Chuck would use the tape. Jimmy is disappointed at first but then something snaps and he races out of the office in a rage.

THE TRAP

We find out what Chuck had planned. Of course he meant for Ernesto to hear the tape and he counted on him to tell Jimmy. He then hired security, paid for by H, H & M to be at his house full time waiting for Jimmy to break in and take the tape. I assume he would have Jimmy arrested. Then what? Have him disbarred? Or just humiliated? What a heartless person Chuck has revealed himself to be.

Howard Hamlin shows up to tell Chuck that his plan didn’t work and that the security was costing a fortune. But just as Chuck assured Howard that he knew his brother and that Jimmy would come in the middle of the night and sneak in for the tape, Jimmy arrives pounding on the door.

Jimmy breaks down the door! He’s yelling at Chuck who looks sincerely stunned. Jimmy pries open the desk drawer and gets the tape. He shoves it in Chuck’s frightened face.

“For this you destroyed our family? Are you happy now? For what? For nothing!” Jimmy screams as he destroys the tape. Just then Howard and the security man come out from hiding.

“Howard, you were a witness to what happened here? Chuck asks. Howard confirms as does the security man.

This is a crushing moment for Jimmy and for the audience. Jimmy had only love for his brother, always. He always took care of him, looked after him, physically and emotionally. He only confessed what he had done to help Chuck. This could and probably does, break him. It’s really sad, actually.

SIDE SAUL

“You look a little crooked” Francesca tells Jimmy. Boy is she going to find out just how much!

I didn’t pick it up at first but Francesca will also be Saul Goodman’s put upon secretary in Breaking Bad. She sure becomes a different woman by that time. Kinda sad.

It’s Victor! Gus Fring’s favorite henchman! Favorite but expendable. Victor met his fate at Gus’s hand in the 4th season opener ‘Box Cutter’.

Jimmy rolls the tape off his wall just as Chuck taught him in the last episode, “Mabel.” He looks up to his brother Chuck so much. I now blame Chuck for Jimmy ‘breaking bad’.

Wow. There is a lot to unpack in this season premiere. It really reminded me very much of a great LOST episode. There are many questions posed and that end scene was the OMG moment you want to start the season. We have started on, what looks like, an amazing journey. Let’s get started!

THE COLD OPEN

The year is 1844. A church group believes their leader when he tells them that The Rapture will happen on a specific date, January 21, 1844. A man, his wife and son give away all of their belongings and on the predicted night dress in white gowns and climb on their roof and wait to be taken. The next morning they come down disappointed. Their group leader gives them a new date but again nothing happens. Some members of the group stop believing and fall away but a few like the man’s wife stays faithful. The husband and son lose faith. The woman, this time alone, dresses in her white gown and climbs on the roof.

She sees only a few others on roofs around her. A great thunder storm comes and it starts raining. Surely, this is the time. But the next morning, she climbs down from the roof. Jesus did not return. She enters her church, still dressed in her white cloak and lays down with the other remaining true believers, all dressed in white. Have they committed suicide? Are they just now their own isolated community? This is how cults are born

The song playing during this scene is perfect! “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” by The Good News Circle

THE GUILTY REMNANTS

The Guilty Remnants took over the town of Miracle at the end of Season two and took up residence in the visitor’s center. We see Evie (Jasmine Savoy Brown) waking up, we assume this is the next day. She sees Megan (Liv Tyler) and writes down a question. “It’s alright. You can talk” Megan tells her but Evie keeps writing. The question is “What are we doing here?” Great question. Megan tells her about Siegfried and Roy and how they took wild tigers and made them do amazing things on stage. “It’s just a matter of time before one of those fuckers bites your face off,” Megan tells Evie. Evie runs out of the building and sees people rushing to leave the area. She looks up and sees a jet approaching. It drops something. You see the missile reflected in Evie’s glasses.

Perhaps, the Feds marked this as a terrorist action and decided to take them out? Megan seemed resigned to it. Did she know that this would be the outcome of their actions? Was this the end of The Guilty Remnants?

MIRACLE – THREE YEARS LATER

Three years later – Kevin Garvey is now the sheriff of the town and his son Tom is one of his deputies. People are pouring into Miracle because the 7 year anniversary of The Departure is only 14 days away and the town still holds a fascination for people. Cars stream in near the gigantic hole in the ground where the visitor’s center used to be.

Kevin is now the police chief and his son, Tommy, is now one of his deputies. Tommy has found out they are planning a surprise birthday party for him that night. They seem happy. Kevin has taken to riding a white horse around town instead of a car (‘behold a pale horse…’). Nice touch. He finds a flyer in the stirrup announcing ‘Are You Ready?’ and that in 14 days something is going to happen. He knows who must be behind that.

Kevin heads over to the church which is overflowing. A voice is heard over the loud speaker so that the people who couldn’t get in can hear the preacher. Of course, it’s Matt Jamison (Christopher Eccleston). Matt keeps hitting on the number 7 and how many times it plays a significant number in the Bible.

“What will happen on October 14th? 14 days from now – nothing, probably, but if it does you have come to the right place.”

After the service, Kevin goes into the office and sees Michael quickly shut his laptop. “You watching porn?” Kevin kids. Soon Matt comes in and Kevin asks him to tone down the end of the world talk. Matt agrees to and Kevin leaves.

“Do you think he knows?” Michael asks Matt. Knows what?

Back at the station house, Kevin prepares his cops that they are all on mandatory overtime as they expect the time leading up to the 7th anniversary to be hectic. Nora Durst (Carrie Coons) is back doing her old job, investigating people’s insurance claims that their loved ones were taken in The Departure. Nora and Kevin look very happy.

HUNTING BUDDIES

Dean is back. He used to go hunting for dogs with Kevin back in the first season. He returns with important info for Kevin. He believes that people in the government are being taken over by canines and that they will end the world in 4 days. Kevin calls bullshit. Dean is disappointed. Dean pulls out a dog whistle and blows. Was he testing to see if it affected Kevin? Maybe Kevin had turned? Kevin tells him that he wants to talk to him more about it the next day and heads over to see someone who might be able to help in this situation.

John is now doing palm readings just as someone had been doing last season. Kevin walks in on John with a client (Jason Douglas, Tobin from The Walking Dead). He goes upstairs and we find Lori sitting in front of a set of computer screens.  She’s talking to John and telling him what to say. It’s a scam! Kevin asks Lori to speak with Dean and she agrees.  John comes upstairs and kisses Lori! What? They’re together? What’s going on?

ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY

Everyone throws a surprise birthday party for Tommy. The whole dysfunctional family is there acting not dysfunctional at all!  They seem like a normal family. Even Jill shows up. She doesn’t live there anymore – Off to college we assume. Later on the porch, Tommy, Kevin, Matt, John and Michael reminisce about what they were doing when they were 25. Kevin tells the story of how he met Lori in a car crash. They crashed into each other. Luck? Fate? Happenstance? Matt doesn’t think so. He knows with Kevin there is more to it than that.

NEW DAY. NEW CULT. NEW TROUBLES

The next morning after having what seemed to be a very amorous night with Nora, Kevin wakes up, wraps a plastic bag around his head and seals it around his neck with duck tape. What? He breathes in and out deeply. Is he trying to commit suicide? I don’t think he is.  I think he’s conducting a test. He’s died twice before. Maybe he can’t die anymore.  Sure enough it cuts to him walking out of the house in full police outfit when he gets a call from Tommy that there’s a problem at the river.

Matt and Michael are baptizing people in the river and a group of protesters show up. They dump big industrial barrels of waste/poison in the river. They’re protesting the killing of the Guilty Remnants three years earlier with the drone strike.  Kevin decides to jump in the water. He swims over to the barrels.  He drinks the water.  “It’s not poison! It’s a hoax!”  How did he know?  Did he know?  Or is it that he just knows that he can’t die?

Michael wades into the river to Kevin and performs a baptism on him. Kevin goes along with it but then whispers in Michael’s ear, “That doesn’t count.”

Tommy is driving Kevin back to town when shots are fired and shatter their windshield. It’s Dean! He’s firing away at the car.  Kevin’s gun isn’t loaded or jams and Dean has him in his sights.  “You changed, you son of a bitch!”

Just as Dean brings up the rifle to kill Kevin Tommy shoots him in the head.

A NEW TESTAMENT

The episode has many surprises:

John is now with Lori. How did this come about?  They seem very happy, too! What happened to Erika (Regina King)? There’s no mention of her but I have to believe her absence will be explained.

Jill is away at college?  Will she be around for the rest of the season or will her appearance in the season opener be it for her?

Jill asks Kevin how Nora is doing and if she ever talks about Lily, their adopted black daughter from the madman faith healer, Holy Wayne.  What happened? Did Erika take off and take Lily with her?

Matt is back where he feels the strongest; at the pulpit, making flyers and causing trouble. He uses his wife, Mary (Janel Maloney) and child as proof that the town of Miracle is a special place but Mary is not feeling it. She tells Nora and Kevin that she’s headed back to New York with her son and leaving Matt. She also tells Kevin that Matt has been working on rewriting the New Testament, specifically adding a new gospel about Kevin.

“He’s writing a book about you. He thinks the New Testament’s getting old. I’ve only read some of it, but you figure fairly prominently, Kevin.” Mary tells him.

Kevin goes to the church to confront Matt. Matt plays dumb but Michael sees that Kevin knows and tells Matt to show him. John comes in, bringing the guys some dinner and Kevin asks him if he knew about Matt what Matt was writing to which, John responds with a knowing, “Oh”.

“I shot you in the chest, point blank, and you got up and walked back into town. Didn’t even go to the hospital until the next day.” John says.

“You tried to drown yourself, and an earthquake saved your life.” Matt adds.

“You drank poison, I buried you and you went to the other place. You came back.” Michael chimes in.

“I can’t die.” Kevin admits.

“Of course you can. But just not here.” Matt believes Miracle is the town of many miracles. ‘Here. You can’t die here, in Miracle.”

“I’m not fucking Jesus.” Kevin tells him.
I’m not saying you are, but the beard looks good on you.” Matt responds.

Kevin demands Matt give him the book. Matt does it but tells him there is only one copy and he is trusting that he won’t destroy it.  Kevin walks outside and is preparing to toss it in a fire but he can’t bring himself to do it. He looks up at the sky and sees a skywriter spelling out “13 Days To Go”

THE TWIST

The scene seamlessly shifts to a different sky and a growing number of doves flying. They land in a clearing where an old woman gathers them and places them in cages. She places the cages on her bike and rides through a lovely countryside. We’re in Australia now. She delivers them to a church where a nun asks her “Sarah, does the name Kevin mean anything to you?”

The woman now turns so we can see her face. It’s Nora durst! Old!

“No”, she responds tersely.

If this isn’t just like the ending of a great LOST episode I don’t know what is!

The episode was perfect. It updated us as to what happened to everyone, almost while still leaving plenty of room for revelations. It also laid out the plot for the season. In two weeks, on the 7^th anniversary of The Sudden Departure something will happen, perhaps apocalyptic. Kevin may be the key to preventing it.

Whatever happens, the world is still in existence and Nora is still alive but Kevin’s name does not bring her comfort.

I loved this episode. It moved at a break neck pace and ddin;t stop to let people catch their breath or even utter the many questions the episode elicited. It looks like the action will be shifting to Australia in the coming episodes.

SIDE OF LEFTOVERS

I liked the two bros who inflated a balloon in the likeness of Gary Busey thinking that he will be returning on the 7th anniversary of The Departure and they wanted to show him where to land.

The opening scene is based on an actual group called The Millerites, a fundamentalist Christian sect that had pinpointed the exact date of Jesus’ return — Jan. 21, 1844. Check out the link for more info on them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerism

Better Call Saul has exceeded my expectations in its first two seasons. I think it has even surprised its own creators, Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould who first envisioned a 30 minute comedy but realized there was much more to explore with the character of Saul Goodman. Saul was the comic relief in Breaking Bad which has a highly tense drama. He didn’t have much back story or any scenes that didn’t directly relate to the two main characters and drug dealers. In the penultimate episode of Breaking Bad, Saul and Walt are on the run and on their way to new lives under a new name. Saul tells Walt “If I’m lucky, I’ll be managing a Cinnabon in Omaha, Nebraska!”

The first episode of Better Call Saul revealed that Saul ended up exactly where he imagined, His name is now ‘Gene’ and he manages a Cinnabon in a huge mall. But this isn’t the first time he had assumed a new identity. We soon discover that before he was Saul Goodman he was Jimmy McGill. Jimmy is an amiable, well meaning person who has spent most of his life being a low end con man but has become a lawyer to try and better himself but mostly to gain the respect of his older brother, Chuck who is a very successful lawyer.

Gilligan and Gould had intended to show how Jimmy became Saul by the end of the first season but discovered that they very much like Jimmy and the more they did the more they didn’t like Saul and didn’t look forward to seeing that transformation. So Better Call Saul has turned out to be quite tragic and sad. His relationship with his brother seems to be the linchpin to his transforming to the more cynical and outright crooked lawyer Saul Goodman. No matter how much he tries to do the right thing Jimmy can’t keep himself from bending the rules in order to do what he deems to be right.

COLD OPEN – THE PRESENT?

“Say nothing, you understand? Get a lawyer! Get a lawyer! Gene (Jimmy/Saul)

Each season of BCS has opened with a black and white cold open showing Jimmy/Saul living his new life as Gene, the manager of the Cinnabon. Gene is sitting on a bench in the mall having his lunch when a teenage boy comes running around the corner, something falls out of his jacket. He’s obviously being chased for shoplifting. The kid looks right at Gene and then hides in a photo booth. Two cops come around and ask Gene if he’s seen anything suspicious. Gene seems to pretend as if he doesn’t hear them but then slowly brings his hand up and reluctantly points to the photo booth. The cops grab the kid. The cops that Gene who looks sick to his stomach. As the cops drag the kid away, Gene stands up and shouts “Say nothing, you understand!”

Gene is having a harder time, it seems, suppressing his natural instincts. Where will this lead? Well, it leads to him going back to work, icing cinnabons and passing out cold, a glob of icing falling on his face.

CHUCK

Jimmy, you do realize you just confessed to a felony? Chuck

In the Season Three opener, titled ‘Mabel’ (also Vince Gilligan’s mom’s name), we pick up right where we left off at the end of Season Two, Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) has admitted to Chuck Michael McKeon) that he doctored the Mesa Verde documents so that they would dump Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill and hire his girlfriend, Kim instead. What Jimmy doesn’t know is that Chuck secretly recorded their conversation. While Jimmy helps Chuck take down all the aluminum from the walls, he spots a book on the shelf; “The Adventures of Mabel”, a book he remembers his mom reading him when he was a child.

“I read that to you”, Chuck corrects him. The resentment in Chuck’s voice speaks volumes. He has always resented that people liked Jimmy more than himself, especially their mother. He has spent his life keeping Jimmy down to make himself feel better.

“Jimmy, don’t think I’ll ever forget what happened here today. And you WILL pay.” Chuck tells Jimmy, very matter of factly, but it is most certainly a real threat.

Chuck has his partner, Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian) come over and listens to the tape and he is shocked but reminds Chuck that it can’t be used in court.

“Chuck, if that tape is useless in a court of law, and no help in the court of public opinion, what’s the point? Because I can’t think of a single use for it.” Howard tells him.

“I can.” Chucks says with a slight smile. He may have well been twirling his moustache, if he had one.

JIMMY

“For 10 minutes today Chuck didn’t hate me. I forgot what that felt like.” Jimmy

Jimmy gets a visit from the Air Force captain that let him on the base last season so he could shoot a commercial. Jimmy had hired an old guy named ‘Fudge’ to sit in a wheelchair and claim to be a veteran so they could get on the base and shoot knowing he wouldn’t get permission otherwise. Well Captain Bauer (Brendan Fehr) saw the commercial and comes to tell Jimmy to take it off the air. Jimmy slides into ‘Slippin’ Jimmy’ mode and tries to smooth it over with the captain but he was threatening to bring charges against him. Here is where Jimmy loses it; he changes his tone and threatens the captain, saying he would embarrass him for falling for Jimmy’s con job. Jimmy catches himself and calms down.

“The wheel is going to turn.” The captain tells him before leaving his office.

This could be the first ‘Saul Goodman’ sighting. This moment.

KIM

Jimmy and Kim (Rhea Seahorn) are sharing office space and because Jimmy had to run over to talk Chuck out of retiring, Kim had to take all of Jimmy’s senior clients in his absence. There’s real affection between these two. You want to see them grow as a couple and as partners but Kim knows that Jimmy slips over into unethical behavior. She tells him not to tell her anything about those instances but she won’t be able to ignore that side of him forever.

She meets with her friend, Paige, from Mesa Verde and she is impressed with the job she’s done in very short time. Paige lavishes her with praise and tells her ‘I knew you were the right person for the job’. But none of this sits well with Kim. She knows how she got this client and it eats away at her very ethical conscience.

MIKE

Mike Ehrmantraut’s (Jonathan Banks) storyline is running on a separate but parallel course as Jimmy’s. Mike was planning on assassinating Hector Salamanca but was stopped by someone unknown who left a note on his car simply stating ‘DON’T’.

Mike drives to the junkyard and starts tearing his car apart looking for a tracking device he thinks may have been planted by this anonymous person. It’s a great scene that reminded me of Gene Hackman tearing apart his apartment at the end of The Conversation (1974) in a paranoid search for a bugging device. But it seems the scene was more inspired by another Gene Hackman film, The French Connection (1972) where Hackman’s Popeye Doyle tears apart a car looking for drugs. Mike initially doesn’t find anything but then has an epiphany and finds the tracking device planted in the gas cap.

Mike gets his hands on a radio-frequency beacon tracker and sets a trap. He replaces the tracking device in the gas cap with a new one. When the person comes by in the dead of night to remove the tracker he actually picks up Mike’s newly planted tracker. Now all Mike has to do is follow it to find out who stopped him from killing Hector Salamanca.

One guess who that might be? Gus Fring, perhaps?

SIDE SAUL

The photography in this episode was absolutely beautiful.  The shots were creative and moody, especially concerning Mike’s storyline.  It plays out like a film noir. Kudos to the director of photography, Marshall Adams

Ernesto, Chuck’s helper from HH&M brings Chuck some supplies including new batteries for his tape recorder.  While changing them he accidentally turns it on and hears part of Jimmy’s confession.  Chuck gets mad at him but could he have planned for that to happen?  And to what end?

As you know if you loved Breaking Bad, BCS has the same incredible attention to detail. Nothing is random. The book Jimmy finds on Chucks’s shelf, “The Adventures of Mabel,” was written by Harry Thurston Peck — an author whose life parallels Jimmy’s in some ways. Peck originally published the book under the pen name Rafford Pyke. Then, he used the literary journal The Bookman, which he edited, to publish a glowing review of “The Adventures of Mabel,” not disclaiming his rather obvious conflict of interest.

Mr. Peck/Mr. Pyke had a life filled with controversy and later on was caught in an adulterous scandal which cost him his job as a professor at Columbia.

Four years later, he shot himself. Both Jimmy McGill and Harry Thurston peck used fake identities and stepped over the ethic boundaries and ended up paying a price.

The song playing during the cold open was Sugar Town by Nancy Sinatra.  Enjoy!

The season finale opened with the shortest cold open ever and it was beautiful. We see Sasha listening to Donny Hathaway’s “Someday We’ll All Be Free” on an IPod, silently singing along and then her head goes limp and she dies. That’s it. It becomes obvious that she’s in a moving vehicle and headed to Alexandria for a showdown between Negan and Rick. During the course of the episode we return to the visual of her listening to that song and then thinking back to a conversation with Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) that took place just before they took off to escort Maggie to The Hilltop and that tragic night when they first meet Negan. It’s very moving and makes clear why Sasha takes Eugene’s poison pill and dies before they reach Alexandria.

NEGAN

Negan brings Sasha some breakfast! “Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life.”
He tells her that she’s going to help him get Rick and her people back in line and that he’s going to kill three randomly to make the point. Sasha starts crying which seems to move Negan. He agrees to kill only one. Sasha surprisingly agrees but Negan has no idea she means herself.

“You have me wrapped around your little finger” he says to her with real admiration.

Negan plans to take a convoy of Saviors to Alexandria and threaten to kill Sasha if they don’t surrender. They actually have a coffin to display Sasha in when they get there. Sasha says she will get in the coffin for the 2 hour journey so she can sleep on the way. Eugene hands her the IPod for the trip. Eugene is very thoughtful. He has no idea what she’s planning!

DWIGHT

We pick up where we left off last episode: Dwight’s on his knees and Rick holds his revolver to his head. Then Tara gets in his face, “You killed my girlfriend” and when Dwight replies with all sincerity, “I wasn’t aiming for her” this sets Daryl off. Daryl shoves Dwight against the wall and has his knife to his head. Tara is yelling for him to do it! But Daryl is convinced Dwight really wants to help them. He still doesn’t trust him though and as soon as this is all over he plans on killing him.

THE KINGDOM

King Ezekiel leads his knights to Alexandria accompanied by Shiva. Now that Carol has joined the fight she’s basically taking Richard’s spot and has put on the armor. Along the way they come across Morgan who’s wearing Benjamin’s armor. He’s still looking a little shaky but Ezekiel and Carol convince him to join them. Their blood lust is up!

THE HILLTOP

Jesus tells Maggie about the oncoming showdown between Alexandria and The Saviors. Maggie has to decide whether to join the battle or stay put. Rick wants her to stay put in case things go bad and they need a place to retreat to. Good luck keeping Maggie out of this one!

THE GARBAGE PAIL KIDS

Jadis and The Scavengers arrive at Alexandria in, you guessed it, garbage trucks! They pile out, heavily armed and ready to rock and roll. Some also came riding bikes!

“Yours?” Jadis asks Michonne pointing at Rick.
“We’re together” she hesitantly answers.
“I lay with him after, OK?”

Rick’s reaction was priceless! He just backed out of the line of fire and said nothing.

SASHA’S FLASHBACK

It was great to see Abraham again. The scene is heartbreaking. She had a dream that he died and doesn’t want him to go with Rick to take Maggie to The Kingdom to see the doctor. But Abraham wasn’t having it. They seemed to be very much in sync and a good match. He knows what they share in common. He tells her that everything they do is for others and that Maggie is carrying the future – that little Rhee baby! She knows he’s right and they agree to both go. These were her last thoughts as she lay in that coffin dying. Very sweet.

ALEXANDRIA

Dwight does what he promised. He cuts down a bunch of tress to block the road to slow down The Saviors. Eugene convinces Negan to allow him to  try to convince Rick to give up without having to use Sasha. When Eugene stands on the bed of that truck and starts speaking to Rick with the bullhorn everyone is shocked. “Where’s Negan?” Rick asks Eugene. “I’m Negan!” Eugene answers. The look of disgust on Rosita’s face is perfect!

Rick signals to Rosita to blow the dynamite that was set up outside the fence knowing it would kill Eugene! Rosita presses the button, Rick ducks! But no explosion. Just then all the Scavengers turn their guns on Rick and his people! Double Cross! I did not see that coming! Holy crap! NO!

Negan then tells Rick that he wants ALL the guns brought to him and if they don’t comply then they’re going to hurt someone they know. Dwight and Simon unveil the coffin that Sasha is in. They stand it up.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan – The Walking Dead _ Season 7, Episode 16 – Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC

“Let me see her!” Rick demands. Negan pound son the coffin with Lucille, “Sasha!”. He opens the coffin and out comes Walker Sasha! She charges at Negan and they fall off the bed of the truck. Using this distraction, Carl starts shooting! Then Rosita and Daryl start blasting! It’s chaos! The battle is on! Rick, however, cannot join because Jadis is still holding a gun on him. Michonne, positioned on top of one of the buildings gets in a struggle with one of the lady Scavengers. Usually I would think Michonne would kick her ass but this lady Scavenger was giving her a fight.

Rick tries to make a new deal with Jadis but she wasn’t agreeable and shoots Rick in belly. The gunfire subsides and Jadis brings Rick over to where Negan has Carl on his knees. Rick joins him and this seems all too similar to the season opener. Not again! Negan tells Rick he’s going to kill Carl. “I’m going to try and do it in one hit because I like him. And then Lucille is going to take your hands” Negan says to Rick. But Rick can no longer be coerced. He’s come too far! He’s defiant. He echoes what he told Negan in the season opener only this time with much more confidence. “I told you already. I’m going to kill you. All of you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but NOTHING is going to change that” Then he leans in close to Negan and whispers in his ear, “You’re all already dead.” Negan is furious but then his anger turns to laughter.

He gets behind Carl and is about to bring Lucille down on his skull when Shiva comes out of nowhere and attacks the Savior standing behind Negan. Here comes King Ezekiel and his knights!

“Alexandria will not fall! Not on this day!”, the King pronounces.

The battle is joined by Maggie leading her Hilltop army!

“That widow woman is alive ! Guns a-blazing!” Negan shouts!

Morgan and Rick give each other nods of the head as they battled side by side!

Daryl found an awesome machine gun!

Jadis and her Scavengers fire off a flare and set off smoke bombs to make their escape.

Negan and his Saviors retreat! He gives Alexandria the finger and he drives out of town!

Rick and Carl find a badly beaten Michonne. Damn, she really had the crap beat out of her! But she’s alive.

Jesus and Maggie go looking and find Walker Sasha. Jesus takes her down and puts her out of her misery off camera as we watch poor Maggie’s reaction. She loses everyone!

Back at The Sanctuary Negan questions Eugene about how Sasha died. Eugene says she ran out of air but Negan is suspicious. He turns and addresses a huge army of Saviors and declares “We’re going to war!”

In Alexandria, Rick addresses the now joined communities with King Ezekiel at one side of him and Maggie on the other. Maggie is holding the watch Hershel gave to Glenn.

Daryl closes the gate and finds a little wooden soldier with writing on it saying “I didn’t know”. Most likely left by Dwight. Is he still with them?

SIDE BITES

Man! That was a thrilling season finale! Very satisfying! I did not see that twist! The Scavengers betrayal was shocking. We all knew Sasha was a goner we just weren’t sure how it was going to happen. The show handled her death with style and class and she went out fighting like the warrior she was even as a Walker.

Eugene! I know anyone can be redeemed but how could Rick ever accept him back into the fold after seeing him declare that he was Negan? I see a “redemption by death” scenario next season for Dr. Eugene.

Rosita got shot but she survived.

Where is Gregory?

Kudos to Carl for firing the first shot.

Shiva was awesome!

Great to see Carol back in warrior mode.

So now we have arrived at ALL OUT WAR! I expect all of next season to deal with the war and that means we’re going to get a lot of action and probably see a lot of beloved characters perish. This should be good and I am ready!

IN MEMORIUM

Until then, Fear The Walking Dead returns in June!