History Headscratchers / BetterCallSaul

* Jimmy is going to get $100,000 to pick up Lalo's bail money, but he has to drive far into the desert into an unknown situation to get it. Instead of using that money to rent or just buy any car that will do the job, he uses his unreliable beater that barely starts. He assures Kim that nobody would suspect him in his old rustbucket Suzuki Esteem, and that if there were any danger he would split. Just get a modest newer car that runs properly and you have the benefit of being unsuspecting AND you can actually drive home. I know Jimmy has a psychological attachment to the car as being a trademark of "Slippin Jimmy" but you'd think someone as unsentimental and carefree as Jimmy would just get a new car.
** Jimmy is nowhere near as unsentimental as he acts, as noted when he takes the time to grab the "World's 2nd Greatest Lawyer" cup out of the Esteem before its ignoble death. When he got a new car in season two he specifically resented it for not having a wide enough holder for that cup. While he'll joke about the Esteem's dingy and unassuming appearance, he's never actually acknowledged at any point that the car often fails to work, and will turn the engine over as many times as he needs to to fire it up, often seeming outright dismayed when it refuses to cooperate. So no, he's no so calloused that he's open to ditching it. That said...Mike still has his old piece of shit, and is often shown using burner cars for jobs to avoid identification. Jimmy could've just done that, and left the Esteem at home.

After learning Lalo's plan from Nacho, Nacho convinces Gus to leave the money in the dead drops because otherwise Lalo will know someone talked. But Gus and everybody else would know Crazy Eight had been busted and since he had the knowledge of the drops, wouldn't Gus change the drops automatically? To me, to the Feds, it would seem suspicious that the drops were left as is.
** Crazy Eight doesn't know about the dead drops. Lalo asks Jimmy to tell him the dead drops as leverage so only way Gus change stash so conveniently is because he knows Lalo is pulling strings.

** Nacho made a deal with Gus, where Nacho would implicate another gang in the hit on Lalo, and in return Gus would leave his father alone (and Mike would enforce Gus's part of the deal if need be). If Nacho goes back on his part of the deal and sells out Gus, then Gus is likely to go back on his part to go after Nacho's father. Whether Mike would still be willing to protect Papa Varga in this situation is unknown, I would assume he would, but it's somewhat unlikely that one man would be able to do much to protect a civilian from someone like Gus, especially with Gus knowing Mike so well. Either way, Nacho is willing to die to protect his father, so doing something like backstabbing Gus with his final words (when he's already given himself up) would put what he's fighting to protect at risk for no real gain to himself.
** In addition, Ignacio simply hates the Salamancas way more than he hates Gus, and he wants Gus to carry on trying to destroy the Cartel, so it's in his interests to help Gus mend his relations with them.

*** In Fun and Games, Mike does visit Manuel and give him some peace of mind. Manuel just quickly tells him off.

*** Clifford did confront him, but he wasn't willing to listen, and believes Howard's attempts to say otherwise are just more evidence of his covering up a drug problem. Cliff's difficulty with his own son's drug problems have led him to believe the pattern of behaviour rather than any of Howard's attempts at defence.
** "I was seeing my shrink at the time" isn't really the best defense against claims you maniacally threw a hooker out of your car, and Howard may not have wanted to even admit to seeing a shrink. Actually attempting to prove it would have gotten ridiculous fast. "When exactly did you see the car?"

** His lead is a Werner Ziegler ''who died that month''. There are these things called "obituaries". Lalo is smart and resourceful. And this is 2004. The Google search engine ''already'' exists, and phone books ''still'' do. It's not that hard to find someone who doesn't own a Hoover Max Extract Pressure Pro 60.

* Howard more-or-less correctly surmised that Jimmy & Kim gave his secretary a new phone number for the PI he had following Jimmy, allowing them to plant their own double-agent instead, similar to how they covertly replaced Chuck's locksmith with Mike back in "Sabrosito." But how would they have gotten the name of the original PI firm in the first place? They would have needed the name of it to successfully convince his secretary that they were legit, and I can't imagine most [=PIs=] are eager to give out information about who their clients are to just anyone. The only plausible explanation is that they have yet another mole within HHM, but this is never touched on.

[[folder:How exactly could have Howard exposed Jimmy and Kim hadn't Lalo happened?]]

** He's saying that he's going to devote himself to exposing who they ''are'', not what they've ''done''. Maybe he can eventually prove his innocence regarding how they set him up or maybe he can't, who can say. But what he's saying is that he will devote himself to making sure everyone eventually knows what spiteful, untrustworthy, manipulative and borderline-sociopathically cruel assholes they can be.

** Howard had likely gotten wind of the Lalo affair like everyone else at the courthouse, but since he wasn't intimately involved with criminal cases, he likely didn't think about it too deeply and just wrote it off as Jimmy pulling his usual cons. It's also unlikely that he had seen a picture of Lalo like the ADA and the detective had.
** Also, he was drunk, and it was dark in the room
*** In addition to being drunk and in a dark room, he was also focusing his energy on chewing out Kim and Jimmy.
** Also, it's possible that he ''is'' at least somewhat aware of Lalo, he just didn't immediately make the connection. Remember, his literal last words are him somewhat nervously realising that he's found himself in a more dangerous situation than he initially thought it was...

** Let's be totally fair to Lalo here; he's standing with both a gun and a video recorder on Gus inside the secret lab Gus has been building with ample proof that Gus has been plotting to betray the cartel, with none of Gus's men there to intervene. Gus is totally unarmed and in Lalo's power, and (while Lalo doesn't know this) the only gun in the vicinity that Gus has access to is at least ten feet or so away from the two, and Gus getting it requires him to knock out the lights and run over to it in the dark before Lalo can plug him. By any reasonable metric Lalo clearly has the upper hand in the situation, so if Gus wants to dig his own grave further, why not give him a minute and let him? It's overconfidence, but it's far from unjustified given the circumstances. Frankly, the fact that Gus ''was'' able to nevertheless get the drop on Lalo was a minor miracle given the position he was in.
*** Lalo knew that Gus's men were rushing in. He said they had 30 minutes before the cavalry arrives, which is significant, but it's not like he could be sure, and if they appear before he gets out, he's trapped. You'd think that in such situation he'd opted for a more expedite approach, something in the area of "Either confess right now and get a bullet to the head, or I will turn you into a block of swiss cheese, starting with kneecaps up."

** Unfortunately, Jimmy's most recent experience before this regarding Lalo was Mike telling him Lalo was dead for sure, and then Lalo turning up alive and well and murdering Howard directly in front of him. Not only is that traumatic, it's also going to make Jimmy feel serious doubts when Mike tells him the same thing, but with less direct wording, only a few days later. Jimmy's also never going to see a body or get any more details or confirmation on this. In other words, Jimmy is both terrified of Lalo and has reason for just that sliver of doubt that Lalo is really dead this time, when he sure wasn't dead last time. So when Jimmy/Saul ends up in a terrifying situation in the future, where would his thoughts go first?
** I think the writer (Gordon Smith) confirmed that the traumatic experience broke Jimmy's brain a little, and there's always going to be a part of him that's trapped in the memory of being tied up and helpless and waiting for Lalo to come kill him and Kim. So fair enough that when he's kidnapped and facing a shallow grave in the desert (already a traumatic place for him), he thinks his time is up.
** Jimmy being intelligent and knowing Mike for a while is exactly why he can't trust Lalo to be dead. Mike keeps him in the dark all the time and when he calls it's to assist with stupid defense. The audience knows Lalo is dead because they saw Gus shoot him Jimmy only has the words of someone that made him come up with squat cobbler and drink his own urine.

*** Anyone can face a lawsuit for any reason, the question is more what would be theoretically effective enough to worry Saul and Oakley (I've clarified the wording)...with regard to "character assassination" it'd be pretty hard for an Estate to quantify damages if a defamation action could even begin.

** I got the impression that Cheryl's goal isn't so much to get money (she seems to be living in the same mansion her husband lived in, got the sandpiper money, and probably had a lucrative career of her own) so much as to vindicate her husband's reputation. So by shopping around all the prestigious law firms around town and telling them her story, she's probably hoping word gets out and enters the common consciousness that Howard was framed rather than Howard was a crack addict. Since lawyers in the show are shown to be gossipy, the story that the now infamous Saul Goodman and his wife launched an extended campaign against poor Howard as part of some revenge scheme (maybe playing up the Chuck factor too since Chuck's also apparently famous) has a decent chance of making rounds.

** That's exactly what's incongrous about it - it's open. Not only would any water, especially rainwater, have long evapourated, but lack of a hatch invites wind-blown dust, rubbish etc. If it was put there for the sake of travellers, you'd think it would've been covered, probably buried underground or at least placed in some shack.

* When watching BB, it was my impression that Hector (and, by extension, the Twins) didn't really care about Gus one way or another. Yes, we learn about the bad blood between them, but clearly, the Salamancas [[ButForMeItWasTuesday didn't think much of it]], so it seemed plausible that their relations were a bit tense but civil, as much as it's possible among criminals. However, BCS ends with Hector adamantly convinced that Gus had murdered Lalo. In their final scenes together he's visibly seething with hatred, cannot stand the sight of Gus and is "vocaly" plying for his blood. It is already pretty hard to buy that they would refuse to take their revenge, regardless of Don Eladio's objections, but it strains all belief that either of the Salamancas would sit at one table with him or believe a single word coming out of his mouth, or that Gus, knowing what the Twins are like, would be reckless enough to meet them one-on-one in the middle of the desert like he did, plans or no plans. I guess Don Eladio could've told them something like: "If ANYTHING happens to Fring while you're there, I'm holding you personally responsible", but would that really fly?

** Saul wasn't directly involved with Hank's death, but he ''was'' intimately involved with her brother-in-law's meth production/distribution cartel, the unravelling of which ''did'' directly lead to Hank's death. Saul is probably the closest Marie will ever get to someone facing justice for what happened to Hank, so it's hardly surprising that she would either take an interest in what happens to him or that someone in her husband's old organisation would keep her in the loop if high-ranking members of Walter White's organisation were located and arrested.

In the finale, Kim said something to the effect that bar membership is permanent so her voluntarily stepping down didn't matter and that she still could be a lawyer in New Mexico. But wouldn't her elaborate hoax/fraud against Howard (which she explicitly came clean on) be enough to disbar her? And it seems likely upon doing that that her actions around that time would be closely scrutinized and it would be discovered that she checked in at the jail as an attorney for one "Jorge de Guzman"... Lalo Salamanca. It's hard to believe the bar wouldn't want to talk to her about that.

*** Lalo knew that Gus's men were rushing in. He said they had about 15 minutes before the cavalry arrives, but it's not like he could be sure, and if they appear before he gets out, he's trapped. You'd think that in such situation he'd opted for a more expedite approach, something in the area of "Either confess right now and get a bullet to the head, or I will turn you into a block of swiss cheese, starting with kneecaps up."