We see what happened prior to the end of the previous episode. The twins Cal and Lars are following the little old hispanic lady into her house, where her grandson, Tuco Salamanca, is cooking dinner. His grandmother is quite upset and confused about the two strange men following her and demanding money from her. At first Tuco tries to hear the twins out, as they explain the supposed hit-and-run accident, but when one of them insults his grandmother, he becomes visibly upset. He asks his grandmother to go upstairs as he promises her to take care of the problem. As soon as she is out of earshot, Tuco takes her cane and uses it to knock both of them unconscious.
As Tuco is cleaning up the bloodstains his beating of the twins left on the carpet, Jimmy shows up at the door, and Tuco drags him into his house at gunpoint. Jimmy explains that he is an attorney the twins called on to represent them. Jimmy admits the twins were involved in a hit-and-run scam, but accidentally ended up targeting the wrong car, but he leaves out the part that he orchestrated the scam in the first place. By playing to Tuco's ego, calling him a "reasonable" and "just" man, Jimmy is able to get Tuco to agree to let all three of them leave his house with their lives intact. Tuco leads Jimmy to the garage, where the twins are tied up. After Jimmy frees them, Lars reveals that the scam was Jimmy's idea, which infuriates Tuco. Jimmy is tied up and gagged and Tuco takes him and the twins to a remote desert site for interrogation, along with his minions Gonzo, No-Doze and Nacho.
Jimmy tries laying out a full confession, explaining that his whole scam with the twins was meant as an attempt at getting back at Craig and Betsy Kettleman for not hiring him as their lawyer. Tuco, however, doesn't believe Jimmy is a lawyer and is about to cut one of his fingers off with wire cutters, so Jimmy claims he's an FBI agent. Jimmy is able to flatter Tuco with the idea that he is important enough for the FBI to take notice of him, but Nacho is more skeptical of his story, and eventually manages to poke so many holes in it, that Jimmy has no choice but to confirm that he is actually a lawyer. Nacho tells Tuco that killing a lawyer would come back to haunt them. Tuco orders him released and prepares to kill the twins, but Jimmy talks Tuco into only breaking one leg on each as revenge for involving Tuco's grandmother in the scam and as a warning to keep quiet. After shaking hands with Tuco to seal the deal, Lars and Cal are held down by Tuco's henchmen, and a visibly nauseated Jimmy winces as cracking noises, muffled crying and Tuco's mocking are heard from off-screen.
Afterwards, Jimmy drives Lars and Cal to the hospital and drops them off, insisting (over their protests) that he managed to talk their punishment down from a death sentence to six months probation.
Jimmy goes to a restaurant with a date, where he ends up getting very drunk in an attempt to cope with the day's stressful events, however, hearing the sound of breaking breadsticks resurfaces his trauma. The drunk Jimmy excuses himself and goes to throw up in the bathroom. Unsettled, Jimmy carelessly wanders into Chuck's home with his keys and phone and falls asleep, forcing Chuck to toss them in the yard. When Jimmy wakes up, he sees that Chuck found the Lars and Cal hospital bill in his pocket, which has taken the bulk of what little money Jimmy had left. He reassures Chuck that he's not going back to being Slippin' Jimmy before getting back to work to restore his depleted funds.
Jimmy plugs away at his public defender work for weeks in order to recover economically from the medical bill, becoming discouraged at his constant losses, but eventually gets a confidence boost when he finally manages to win an acquittal. Jimmy unfolds the couch in his office to take a nap when Mrs. Nguyen tells him he has a client. He swiftly gets his office together and lets his client in — Nacho. Nacho reveals to Jimmy a scheme to steal the money the Kettlemans embezzled, and offers Jimmy a 10% finder's fee. Jimmy declines to participate, telling Nacho he's a lawyer, not a criminal. Amused, Nacho leaves his phone number with Jimmy and tells him to call when he decides he's "in the game".
Tropes:
- Ambiguously Evil: Tuco's abuelita suggests that he clean up the "salsa" on the floor with club soda. You don't use club soda to clean up salsa but you do use it to clean up blood, which implies that the old lady is more aware of her grandson's criminal activities than he thinks.
- There is also her driving off during the hit-and-run. Whether she did it due to avoid legal action or if she was in a daze is unknown.
- Berserk Button:
- Do not try to scam or mess with Tuco's abuelita in any way. And definitely don't call her "biznatch".
- Subverted later, when No-Doze back-talks Tuco. Those who remember just how Ax-Crazy Tuco was in Breaking Bad will likely be expecting something horrible to happen to No-Doze. Instead, Tuco just gives him a Death Glare and tells him to shut up.
- Blatant Lies: Tuco passes off the bloodstain on the carpet as a salsa spill, which his grandmother buys despite not seeing any salsa nearby and Tuco being cagey about where the twins are and refusing to let her help clean the stain.
- Call-Forward:
- Tuco does not like people "helping" him.
- Like in his intro episode, Jimmy is kidnapped and taken to the desert.
- Jimmy gifts a stuffed bunny to a Legal Aid clerk in order to get some files he can make some money off of. Lawyers, Saul Goodman among others, giving gifts to support staff in order to get perks for themselves will resonate more times in this series and in Breaking Bad.
- Cane Fu: After convincing his abuelita to go away to her room, Tuco picks up her cane and beats Lars and Cal upside the head with it.
- Comically Small Bribe: While trying to talk the opposing lawyer down to a lighter-than-usual sentence for his client, Jimmy ends his counter-offer with a fun-size bag of Fritos he just bought from a vending machine. The lawyer accepts.
- Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Downplayed: Given how Jimmy played a role in how things got to that pointnote , one of the skaters is understandably pissed over the fact that he and his brother got a leg broken each. As Jimmy helpfully reminds him, it was either that, or dying:Lars Lindholm: (as Jimmy is getting him into a wheelchair; in agony) You- you are- you are the worst lawyer- the worst lawyer ever!Jimmy: Hey, I just talked you down from a death sentence- (Lars screams as Jimmy moves his broken leg) to six months' probation. ...I'm the best lawyer ever.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Tuco was about to murder the skaters for insulting his grandmother and trying to scam them but Jimmy talks him out of it.
- Dramatic Gun Cock: Tuco cocks his gun and points it menacingly at Jimmy when the two skaters tell him that Jimmy was behind the scam.
- Dramatic Irony: Jimmy tries to tell Nacho he's a lawyer, not a criminal. Nacho doesn't believe him, but he has a long way to go in becoming a criminal lawyer like Jesse said.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Tuco in regards to his abuelita. When Lars and Cal insult her he really lets them have it.
- Hard-Work Montage: Jimmy goes through one, which also shows him rehearsing a new persona and struggling with Mike at the parking gate over time stamp stickers.
- Laser-Guided Karma: How Jimmy manages to talk down Tuco. He argues that people like the image of a criminal who's "tough but fair," but not one who's a complete psychopath, so instead of brutally murdering them, he should just give them a fitting punishment. Eventually, he lands on "they tried to claim that their legs were injured, so injure their legs for real."
- Literal-Minded: Jimmy trying to talk Tuco out of killing the skaters, mentioning that the punishment should fit the crime. He quotes the Code of Hammurabi, "An eye for an eye." Tuco responds with "Eye for an eye... you want me to blind 'em?"
- Mood Whiplash: Downplayed. Right after the gruesome scene of Tuco breaking the skaters' legs and Jimmy having to wheel them into the ER with them screaming in pain the whole way, it cuts to a scene of Jimmy having cocktails with an attractive woman while upbeat music plays. He seems to be having a good time until the sounds of a nearby patron breaking breadsticks in half remind him of the prior ordeal and he has to run to the bathroom to vomit.
- Mugging the Monster: The two skaters try to extort a stranger and they insult his grandmother, not knowing that said stranger is a powerful and violent drug lord.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The twins end up making their already perilous situation even worse when they reveal to Tuco that Jimmy was behind their scam that freaked out his Abuelita. Had they just gotten up and left without saying anything, they wouldn't have had one of their legs broken on each person.
- Oh, Crap!: After having a gun pointed at him in previous episode, Jimmy has another "Oh Crap" moment when seeing the fresh blood stain on the carpet.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Psychotic, aggressive Tuco and his right hand man, cold, calculating Nacho. Both men are intimidating in their own ways. They even have color themed shirts.
- Shout-Out: The montage of Jimmy's daily routine at the courthouse, including repeatedly saying, "It's showtime, folks!" into the mirror, is a reference to a scene
in All That Jazz.- Jimmy: It's from a movie!
- Sickening "Crunch!": The sound of the skaters' legs breaking. It's so harrowing for Jimmy that he can't even bear to hear the sound of breaking breadsticks afterwards without feeling intensely ill.
- Spotting the Thread: Nacho comes in to see that Jimmy's office is less than impressive. Between that and Jimmy trying to run a scam with the skaters, Nacho realizes that Jimmy is a down on his luck lawyer without the best ethics and therefore can be persuaded to participate in another scam.
- Too Dumb to Live: Granted, the skaters' drastically under-estimated just how much of a Berserk Button they were pushing by calling Tuco's abuelita a "biznatch", but it's implied that had they not done so, Tuco would actually have thrown some money their way just to make the problem go away. Instead, they end up provoking him into nearly killing them, with only Jimmy's intervention causing them to get away with "just" a broken leg each.
- Torture Is Ineffective: When having wire cutters applied to his hand, Jimmy tries to lie out of it by saying that he's from the FBI. Tuco believes it, but Nacho doesn't, knowing that he'll say anything in this circumstance. In fact, Jimmy initially tells the truth, but Tuco thinks he's just lying.
- Troll Bridge: Jimmy calls Mike this for being a stickler about parking stickers.Like a troll under the bridge! "You must have the stickers, or you won't pass!" Troll alert here, don't feed it.
- Unwanted Assistance: No-Doze gives this to Tuco, to the latter's chagrin.Jimmy: Or you could give them black eyes.
Tuco: Black eyes! [laughs] That ain't nothing!
No-Doze: That one there, homes? He already got a black eye, fool.
Tuco: [goes right up to No-Doze's face] Stop helping. - What You Are in the Dark:
- Nacho sees the potential for criminality in Jimmy, as though he knows where Jimmy's future is headed.
- Furthermore, Jimmy could have walked away and left the skaters to their fates. But he risks himself trying to get them out of dying at Tuco's hands. We know he will eventually fall and become Saul Goodman, but this establishes that he still has potential for good and that his fall will take some time yet.
