Created by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould
6.06 “Axe and Grind”
Written by Ariel Levine
Directed by Giancarlo Esposito
Starring Bob Odenkirk, Rhea Seehorn, Michael Mando and Jonathan Banks
New episodes airing Mondays on AMC

by Alex Rudolph, Staff Writer

The slow moments in a Vince Gilligan & Co. production are almost as exciting as the fast ones. There are two big action moments in this past week's episode of Better Call Saul and both are almost purely included to tease some potential shit that'll rain down on various characters' heads next time, when we hit the mid-season finale and the show goes on break until July.

In the first action scene Lalo Salamanca, still in Germany, cuts a man's foot off with an axe. Lalo doesn't know the man he maims, but he's the next breadcrumb on the trail to Gus Fring's underground meth lab bunker, so information has to be extracted and, sadly, that foot has to go.

At some point, maybe next week, Lalo's going to get back into New Mexico still on every DEA watchlist, still with every little security camera in Gus's world pointed at him, and none of that is going to matter. The show has spent so much time showing us how careful Gus is now that he fears Lalo and, separately, it's shown us for seasons how little normal barriers impede that same guy.

In the second action scene, Jimmy realizes his current scheme to push Howard into settling the Sandpiper case isn't going to work. He's been staging photos with a random actor (played by Odenkirk's old Mr. Show compatriot, John Ennis) to make it seem like Sandpiper's case mediator is compromised. In the big scene, which comes at the end of the episode, Jimmy sees the actual case mediator in the wild (while Jimmy's waiting to buy a bottle of Zafiro, which is a nice fakeout) and learns the man has a cast on his arm, invalidating all of the fake photos taken with an actor, sans-cast. Jimmy calls Kim, telling her the scheme has to be delayed, Kim insists that it plays as if it was planned, and makes a sharp U-turn into the mid-season finale. Credits roll.

I'll quickly say here that John Ennis was often one of the funniest people on Mr. Show and I was bummed that he was only in this episode for a minute or two. I hope we see him again.)

Both of those big scenes are only here to set next week up. Another, quieter moment: Jimmy and Kim get a look at the vet's little black book. The most connected man in the area says he's thinking of retiring and shows off the place where he jots down everybody's information. It's almost entirely in code, but there's a business card from the vacuum repair store where Robert Forster's character works. Robert Forster is, sadly, dead, though he showed up in a past Saul season. His character was one of Kim's possible escape hatches - a way she'd get out of Saul alive and well - but his real-world death had seemed to negate that option. It looks like it's back on the table. Maybe Forster's character had business partners. The vacuum repair has re-entered the picture.

A moment about as quiet as that: in a flashback, teen Kim is busted for stealing jewelry at a mall. Her mother wants to call the police but the manager just wants confirmation nothing similar will happen again. He keeps insisting the family doesn't have to pay for the $34 necklace Kim broke while shoving merchandise into her purse, but Kim's mom loudly insists on restitution. It's all an act, just a show at being a person with strong ethics. The scene is subtly set in Nebraska, where Jimmy's been exiled, after enlisting Robert Forster's character's relocation methods. Did Jimmy intentionally get placed in Nebraska in an attempt to find Kim?

A moment quieter than anything else in the episode: we see Howard's partner for the first time. Before work one morning, he designs a perfect cappuccino peace sign and then watches as she carelessly pours the drink into a different mug. He brags about catching some fishy activity in the Jimmy case and she barely listens. I don't think she looks at him. Jimmy's is a more important relationship in Howard's life right now than his wife's is. Howard is just as desperate for approval as any character on this show has been. I don't think he'll get it, but maybe he'll get lucky next week - maybe he won't get murdered.