Recap / Better Call Saul S4 E10: "Winner"

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Season 4, Episode 10:

Winner

Written by Peter Gould and Thomas Schnauz

Directed by Adam Bernstein

Air date: October 8th, 2018

"I'll do everything in my power to be worthy of the name McGill."

"You made a mistake, and... they are never forgetting it. As far as they're concerned, your mistake is just- it's who you are, and it's all you are."

— Jimmy McGill

Jimmy turns the page on his reputation; Lalo tracks a loose end in Gus' operation; Mike is forced to make a difficult decision.

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Tropes:

• Anachronic Order: The Jimmy storyline scenes are spaced out over a period of several days. But they're interspersed with the storyline of Mike and co. chasing down the escaped Werner while Lalo also pokes around into Gus' operation, a storyline that takes place over the span of a few hours on a single day.
• Anger Born of Worry: Werner has to get quite angry with his wife on the phone so that she gets back on the plane to Germany where she will be safe – had she stayed, she would likely have been killed too.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: A complicated example, as it comes in a flashback, and many dark things happened between Chuck and Jimmy since then. But despite all of Chuck's misgivings about (and sabotage of) Jimmy's legal career, he was right there advocating for him when Jimmy was sworn in, and he was there to take Jimmy home and tuck him in after Jimmy drank too much at his victory party. Perhaps it rings hollow after what Chuck did to Jimmy, but it's a reminder that their relationship was very complex.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: Werner tries to convince his wife on the telephone to fly back to Germany so that she will be safe from Gus, making up a story that he had to leave New Mexico for work. After she refuses, Werner shouts at her that he does not want to see her and orders her to fly back, which she then does.
• Broken Pedestal: It's subtle, but it's apparent that this has happened for Kim when Jimmy starts gloating about duping the "suckers" on the review board into reinstating him. The kicker being him revealing that he no longer intends to practice law under "McGill".
• Broken Tears: After his candidate for the scholarship is turned down by everyone in the committee, and he tries his best to reinvigorate her morale, Jimmy is finally seen in his car in a dark parking garage. And after the car fails to start like so many times before, he finally snaps and breaks down weeping. While there are a lot of possibilities for why he's crying, Chuck's death is no doubt a major factor, and it shows just how much Jimmy has been burying his pain the entire season.
• Brutal Honesty: Jimmy tells Christy Esposito that no matter how hard she works or how much she tries to make up for the mistakes she's made, people are always going to hold them against her (in this case, her past as a shoplifter helping to keep her out of the final running for an HHM law scholarship). He then says that if she wants to succeed, she has to do whatever it takes, cutting corners and not playing by the rules when necessary, as the law community will always be looking down on her anyways.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Ernesto appears again, though in a flashback from when he was still employed at HHM.
  • Howard reappears after being absent since "Piñata", which took place before the Time Skip.
  • Chuck also reappears in flashback.
  • Gale Boetticher also returns following his earlier appearance this season.
  • Two of the senior partners from Davis & Main who were last seen when Cliff Main was putting Jimmy on notice for running his unauthorized commercial, are seen in attendance at the dedication to the Charles McGill Reading Room.
• Call-Back: The room where Jimmy gives his case to the appeal board happens to be the same room his bar hearing took place.
• Call-Forward:
  • Werner's murder by Mike tragically mirrors Mike's own murder by Walt years later. Both men are shot by a regretful coworker, both accept their fate and choose to spend their final moments quietly looking at nature. The only difference is that Mike is remorseful even before he has to kill Werner, whereas Heisenberg is too short-sighted and temperamental to realize what he's done until it's too late.
  • Mike cautions Gus that if he eliminates Werner and his crew, he will have spent ten months and millions of dollars on a giant "hole in the ground" — the exact words Walt uses when trying to convince Gus to spare his life after Gale's murder.
  • Werner's call to his wife is very much like Walt's call to Jesse in the Season 3 finale, but Werner's genuinely sincere in protecting her, rather than Walt's ordering Jesse to kill Gale.
  • Gale is eager to start a "rudimentary cook" only to be told "not until it's finished" by Gus due to the latter's perfectionism regarding the product. By the time the lab is ready, Gale will barely get to work in it at all before he's killed off for real.
  • Like in Breaking Bad, the fourth season ends with the main character shocking their significant other by revealing who they truly are. Kim's shock at realizing Jimmy was bullshitting through the whole reinstatement process is akin to Skyler's shock when Walt says "I won" after killing Gus.
• Chekhov's Gun: The letter Chuck left to Jimmy in his will comes back after a whole year in the show's timeline. He intends to use it in his appeal hearing, and though he ends up not reading from it, it's still a very powerful prop in his routine.
• Chekhov's Skill: Mike started the series as a parking lot attendant. This ends up coming in very handy for him here, where's he able to know exactly how to jam up an automated ticket booth at a lot in order to throw Lalo off his tail.
• Continuity Nod: Outside the donated library, Jimmy brings up offscreen character Judge Papadoumian, who he'll reference again when dealing with the DEA tailing Mike.
  • Jimmy glances at the (still dented) trash bin from "Uno" as he exits out of the HHM parking garage.
• The Corrupter: We don't know what effect Jimmy's encouragement has on the shoplifter candidate, as she's a One-Shot Character. But a knowing look from her hints that she may internalize his advice to aim for the top without being constrained by the rules. But Jimmy certainly tried his hardest to impart his own Start of Darkness to her as well.
• Crocodile Tears: The biggest example yet: Jimmy gives this big emotional speech to the review board about what Chuck meant to him and what he tried to do for Chuck by being a lawyer. He even admits that he can't bring himself to "tug on [their] heartstrings" by trying to use Chuck's letter for his cause, as it would be too personal. And then, right after it turns out this speech worked, we learn that Jimmy did not mean a single word of what he said.
• Cruel to Be Kind: Werner makes a point of being a Jerkass over the phone to his wife in order to force her on the plane back to Germany and keep her safe from Gus Fring's men.
• Cutting the Knot: Lalo tries to con information out of the Travel Wire guy, but isn't nearly as good at it as Mike is, so he just pulls a gun on the guy. (And apparently kills the guy anyway once he gets what he needs.)
• Cynicism Catalyst: Realizing that he will never succeed as a lawyer on the legal community's terms is what triggers Jimmy's breakdown in the car and, according to Bob Odenkirk, effectively destroys Jimmy and replaces him with Saul.
• Didn't See That Coming: Kim's expression screams this when 1) Jimmy reveals his speech about Chuck was phony, and 2) when Jimmy reveals he will be practicing law under a different name.
• Didn't Think This Through: Regardless of his mounting anxiety and wholesome motivation, Werner knew exactly what he was getting into, what was at stake and what was at risk, and his terrible judgement results in unsurprising consequences in this episode.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: Kim is happily celebrating Jimmy getting the Bar Association's approval and claims that he's definitely getting reinstated. Jimmy shares her enthusiasm but says that he knows because he gleefully points out how he conned them very well. Kim is shocked since she was sure that he was being sincere with the speech.
• Dramatic Irony: Played for Drama, as the Bar Association last hears that Jimmy will work to be worthy of the name McGill, and shortly after plans to ditch the name as Saul Goodman.
• Dreadful Musician: Jimmy's attempt at singing "The Winner Takes It All" by ABBA in the opening flashback is horrifically tone deaf, especially when compared to Chuck. Either Jimmy got better at singing later on, or he was intentionally being bad to convince his brother to sing along with him.
• Everyone Has Standards: As much as Kim may thoroughly enjoying scamming and conning people in their line of work, she's positively mortified when she realizes that Jimmy was conning her as well as everyone else in the room.
• Face Death with Dignity: Once it sinks in that there's no way Gustavo is going to let him live, Werner does not attempt to beg for his life or run. Instead, he calmly goes for a stroll while gazing up at the sky so he can see the stars before Mike shoots him.
• Fiery Cover Up: According to the episode's script, Lalo burnt down the Travel Wire office to cover his tracks. Presumably, this event can be seen in the deleted scenes of this season on Blu-Ray. Due to this scene's absence in the actual episode, it is confirmed later in the episode "Wexler v. Goodman" instead.
• Heroic BSoD: For the first time in the series, Jimmy genuinely breaks down sobbing when his car won't start, as he faces the grim truth that the deck is permanently stacked against Jimmy McGill and there's no way he can ever succeed honestly. (Bob Odenkirk cites this moment as the death of Jimmy and the birth of Saul.)
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Jimmy in the flashback attempts to sing "The Winner Takes It All", but his melody is all over the place. Since we've seen Jimmy competently carry a tune in previous episodes (notably "Bali Hai" on Kim's answering machine), it's possible he's invoking this In-Universe to coax Chuck into singing in his place.
• Horrible Judge of Character: The Bar Association comes off as bunch of people without even most basic social skills. In their initial hearing to reinstate Jimmy's license, they brush him off - and even wrongfully accuse him of lack of sincerity - because he told them the truth, instead of what they wanted to hear. And then, when Jimmy delivers a hackneyed passionate speech, using a blatant prop and all but begging them on behalf of his late brother, they gleefully give him his license back. Keep in mind that those people are all lawyers and should know better than that when watching the most obvious Ordered Apology possible.
  • Werner believed Gus and Mike will tolerate him running off to see his wife for a weekend, as long as the work can continue. He ends up blabbing about Gus's secret project and gets killed for it.
• Irony: The state bar's extending Jimmy's suspension for a further year in the previous episode for being "insincere" in his reinstatement interview, in light of what happens here. Whereas in his initial interview, he actually was being relatively sincere and just didn't tell the bar what they wanted to hear, here he gives an impassioned speech that's really one gigantic lie, and this time gets his law license back, proving once and for all in Jimmy's mind that results matter more than truth — which is the complete opposite to the lesson he was meant to learn when his suspension was extended.
• Kick the Morality Pet:
  • Werner pretends to do this so that his wife gets angry on him and returns to Germany to save her.
  • Jimmy unknowingly did this to Kim when he said "That one asshole was crying, he had actual tears!" unaware that Kim herself was crying after hearing his speech.
• Killed Offscreen: The fate of Fred, the Travel Wire clerk, after Lalo breaks into his booth through the ceiling. Lalo drops out of the ceiling, has a gun pointed at him, and a cut later, he's lying face-down on the floor, and Lalo's face has specks of blood on it. In the first episode of the following season, Juan Bolsa chews out Lalo for being so indiscreet, even if he wasn't actually caught.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Jimmy stands at Chuck's grave, he mutters "watermelon, pickle." This is standard lines for background extras to say in Hollywood, as it's easy to loop over and sounds like crowd noises from a distance. Right after he meets some fellow lawyers also there to mourn Chuck, he goes over to the car where Kim gives him donuts and coffee; she's providing craft services (people who provide food for actors during breaks).
• Leitmotif: The Winner Takes It All by ABBA. The title of the episode is "Winner", Chuck and Jimmy sing it at the beginning of the episode in a flashback and Lalo sings a few bits of a Spanish version to himself later. The lyrics are very fitting for the episode too, they're about winning no matter what, ignoring the past, not caring about morals and ethics, and gloating when you win (although the song is about a romantic relationship) — which fits Jimmy's story perfectly.
• Lethally Stupid: Werner knows that he's working for very dangerous people who went to great lengths and expense to keep the project extremely secret. And he's already on strike 1 after drunkedly blabbing about the project to some randos in a bar. And yet he somehow deludes himself into thinking that he will be forgiven for his latest stunt and it will have no effect on the people around him. He is in fact putting everyone around him in grave danger. Gus would not hesitate to kill all of Werner's construction crew if they became a liability. Mike's own job is in danger because he was the one who vouched for Werner and failed to spot that Werner was going to run. Werner finally realizes the gravity of the situation when Mike tells him to call his wife and tell her to go back to Germany before she becomes involved and shares Werner's fate.
• Loose Lips: Werner shows a distinct lack of caution in divulging details of the construction work for the superlab to someone whom he's never met over the phone (Lalo) just of the basis on the man on the other end of the line identifying himself as an employee of Gus Fring. It becomes an instance where the loose lips comes very close to sinking the ship. Lalo becomes aware that Gus is building a meth superlab under the cartel's nose. He also comes very close to cornering and ending Gus in the superlab itself.
• MacGyvering: Mike puts distance between him and Lalo with just a stick of gum (he feeds it into the ticket machine in the parking lot so that it stops working and the car that's between his and Lalo's is stalled).
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Subverted. Mike shoots Werner in the back of the head but officially the death will be recorded as an accident and his widow will get a large insurance payout. Presumably there will be no real autopsy performed.
• Never My Fault: Jimmy goes on a rant about how the elites will always keep people like him and Christy down because they made a mistake and they would never be allowed in their world; however, it falls apart when you remember some actions were his own fault:
  • Davis and Main gave him a chance to work at their firm and gave him what he wanted, such as an expensive desk, but because they reprimanded him for broadcasting an unauthorized advertisement, Jimmy felt his creative thinking was being too hampered by them and threw a disruptive fit to purposely get himself fired. He was even asked how he was wronged when he was given more chances than most people even deserved.
  • He was able to establish a steady niche in 'Elder Law' which may not earn him a ton of money, but it still gave him loyal clients. He lost them all due to his greed after concocting a scheme to get Irene to settle on an agreement which backfired on him.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Last episode, Kim made a point of telling Jimmy that him not acknowledging Chuck was the real reason why he didn't get reinstated. Jimmy took that to heart...
• Not So Above It All: Chuck attempts to leave the bar hearing celebration early due to having meetings the next day, but Jimmy convinces him to stay. Eventually, he can't help but join in on Jimmy's karaoke performance of "The Winner Takes It All", and is clearly having more fun than we've ever seen him before or since.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Gus' reaction when Mike tells him over the phone that Lalo had managed to call Werner and got some details on the lab out of him.
  • Werner when Mike tells him that Gus's men are watching for his wife at the airport, causing Werner to panic and finally realize the trouble he's gotten himself and his wife into.
  • Kim when Jimmy tells her he faked through the hearing.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Jimmy believed Christy Esposito deserves another chance at a scholarship especially when the first thing someone else mentioned is her criminal history and not her essay.
  • Mike helps ensure Werner's wife leaves the country so Gus won't have her killed right along with her husband.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Jimmy donates $23,000 so that HHM has a reading room dedicated to Charles McGill. The donor for the room is officially designated as anonymous. But Jimmy has the film crew spread rumors that Jimmy made the donation. It has elements of Batman Gambit in that he's banking on Gossip Evolution bringing the rumor to at least one member of the panel who will decided whether he's readmitted to practice law. Kim also prevents him from enjoying any of the food he paid for at the celebration, in order to keep up the appearance of being grief-stricken over Chuck's death.
• Race Against Time: Mike does his utmost to track down and retrieve Werner with the hope that killing him won't become a necessity. He loses that race when Lalo kills Fred at the Travel Wire, and then tricks Werner over the phone into revealing details about the superlab construction project.
• Speak Ill of the Dead: Downplayed: Jimmy only used Chuck's legacy and his involvement in his life to get himself reinstated. And when it becomes clear that he is, he decides to fill out a DBA as to not practice law under the name "McGill". While he did mention more practical reasons — the fact that most of his burner phone clients knew him as "Saul Goodman" — why he might do this a few episodes previously, it's also clear that he's not too bothered about honoring Chuck's name.
• Shout-Out:
  • Jimmy compares his hot streak in the interview to being Neo. "God, I could see the Matrix!"
  • Mike's murder of Werner recreates the death of Lennie at the hands of George in Of Mice and Men. In that story, Lennie was facing death by Curly's gang for murdering Curly's wife by accident, so George shot Lennie to spare him the crueler fate that would've awaited Lennie if Curly's gang caught him first. Mike takes Werner's fate into his own hands after realizing that Gus has dispatched hitmen who've been sent to kill both Werner and his wife in more brutal ways, if Mike doesn't kill Werner cleanly first.
• Spiritual Antithesis: Werner's last-ditch attempt to negotiate Mike out of killing him strongly resembles Walt's efforts in "Full Measure" to negotiate Mike and Victor out of killing him at the lab, right down to even asking for a chance to speak to Gus. In Walt's case, Mike had no reservations about eliminating Walt, whose constant efforts to save Jesse's ass despite Mike's explicit warning to the contrary at the White residence had made him too much of a liability. With Werner, Mike tries in vain to convince Gus to consider an alternative option first, as Werner is a well-intentioned hard worker who underestimated Gus Fring's villainous nature because of his fairness and financial generosity over the course of the project, compared to Walt, who was fully conscious of Fring's lethal capabilities from very early on and was far superior to Werner in terms of critical thinking. While Werner and Walt both appear to be pleading to speak to Gus on borrowed time, only Werner's request was genuine, as Walt's begging was merely a ploy designed to get in touch with Jesse by phone and tell him to kill Gale.
• Spotting the Thread: Mike does not yet know who's exactly been tailing him and who called up Werner, only identifying him as "an interested party" during his phone call with Gus. But Gus knows in an instant that it's Lalo performing Sinister Surveillance on his operations.
• Stalker Shot: Lalo is on a hilltop overlooking Gus' chicken farm to watches the activities going on through binoculars and jots down detailed notes. When he notices Gus and his men getting into cars to hunt down Werner after he escaped, Lalo decides to follow them to sees what's going on. Mike goes to a money transfer office to find clues on Werner's whereabout, and once he figures out where he might be, the camera switches to a Binocular Shot where Lalo is watching Mike through his car. Lalo was originally following Gus, but he changed his target to Mike to see what task Gus has him doing.
• Start of Darkness:
  • Jimmy moves towards That Man Is Dead, sobbing in the car at it finally hitting him he'll never be accepted/his brother is gone, and faking accepted grief over Chuck to get his licence back, deciding to operate under the name "Saul Goodman".
  • Forced into a corner by Werner's recklessness, Mike puts aside his sympathy for the man and glumly accepts what has to be done, leaning ever closer into becoming the cold killer we all came to know him as as he shoots Werner in the back of the head.
• Swapped Roles: The starting flashback sees Chuck taking care of Jimmy's needs while putting him to bed, and promising breakfast in the morning.
• Talking to the Dead: It's an Invoked Trope in Jimmy and Kim's plan to show "sincerity" to the Bar association, as part of the plan involves letting members of the local legal community find Jimmy apparently talking to Chuck's headstone in grief. Of course, he's really just muttering nonsense until they get close enough for him to talk to them.
• Tempting Fate: Right before Jimmy's hearing, Kim tells him that no matter what happens, she's on his side. The trope is in play not because of the result of the hearing, since Jimmy gets reinstated, but rather due to Kim misreading Jimmy's intentions going in. She thought he was being serious about how Chuck influenced his life...
• Title Drop:
  • Appears in the lyrics of the song Jimmy and Chuck sing in the opening flashback ("The Winner Takes It All" by Abba). The song title is also said by Jimmy during his talk with Christy.
  • While Jimmy has used and spoken the words/name "Saul Goodman" before, the use of it at the end of the episode is clearly going to be the defining title drop for the series.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Werner, in the end. His escape attempt was only ever going to end one way, yet he somehow thought he would get off with a slap on the wrist.
  • Fred at the Travel Wire office is apparently not alarmed by the combination of Mike dropping his act as soon as it's not convenient, Lalo doing an even worse job of it, and Lalo going up into the ceiling. He just stares at the creaking ceiling instead of, say, calling the police about all this weirdness or making a run for it while Lalo is in the ceiling.
• Tuckerization: Christy Esposito possibly takes her last name from Gus' actor, Giancarlo Esposito.
• Undying Loyalty: Before his hearing, Kim takes Jimmy aside and tells him that no matter the outcome, she'll always be on his side. However, after realising that Jimmy didn't mean a word of what he said to sway the judges, she is clearly shaken by his callousness.
• Wham Episode: Because Werner had escaped, and he unknowingly leaked more information about the construction of the superlab (to Lalo of all people), Mike is forced to kill Werner in order to keep things under wraps. This means Gale winds up being brought on board ahead of schedule. Also, Jimmy and Kim's plan of proving his sincerity to the review board winds up getting him reinstated. This would be good, except it's revealed that Jimmy managed to trick both the board and Kim that he was being sincere about Chuck; his last act of the episode is acquiring a DBA so he can stop practicing law as "McGill", with it being heavily implied that Jimmy has now become "Saul Goodman".
• Wham Line:
  • After Jimmy gives his testimony, he and Kim celebrate in the halls, talking about how he's locked for being reinstated... and then Jimmy keeps talking:
    Jimmy: [ecstatic] They just have to, did you see those suckers?! That one asshole was crying, he had actual tears! invoked
    • And then, while Jimmy is gloating as Kim is shocked and confused, someone goes to get Jimmy so he can fill out some forms (since, as Jimmy already knew, it was decided to reinstate him), Jimmy makes a point to ask for one thing in particular:
      Jimmy: I'm gonna need one more form, a DBA, because I'm not going to be practicing law under the name "McGill", so...
    • And then you get the kicker, right as Jimmy is leaving, and Kim tries to understand what Jimmy is doing, what does Jimmy tell her?
      Jimmy: [to Kim; cheerful] S'all good, man!
  • In-Universe, Mike's line to Werner Ziegler:
    Mike: Werner, nothing you can say or do will make anyone trust you again.
• Worthy Opponent:
  • Lalo notes a silence at the end of his phone call with Werner. He then asks with a smile on his face, "Michael? Is that you?" He now definitely sees Mike as one.
  • Mike is filled with Tranquil Fury as he ends the call, but that in itself indicates he grudgingly sees Lalo as one.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Gus decides that Werner has become The Load once he realizes that Werner has leaked sensitive information about the superlab under construction to Lalo. Whatever talents Werner might have as a construction engineer, he can no longer be trusted to take orders or to not leak sensitive information again.

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"S'all good, man!"