Better Call Saul Recap: Gene Just Can’t Let Go – Plus, Look Who Called Saul!

Now that Gene has a criminal bent Better call Saulhe wanted to try more of these this week – and yes, we got in touch with Saul Goodman again.

In fact, Monday’s episode begins with a kidnapped Saul Goodman begging for mercy in Walt and Jesse’s RV at the meth lab. We even hear him say, “It wasn’t me! It was Ignacio! He’s the one!” just before the opening credits roll. But then we cut back to the black and white, post-breaking Bad world, and chat with Saul’s receptionist, Francesca, who deals with a bunch of unsuspecting stoners in her new role as housing manager. As soon as she’s in her car, she thinks she’s being followed, but she manages to lose her with a sudden turn – and she passes a bank ad for attorney Bill Oakley, who is now a defense attorney. She drives to an abandoned gas station in the desert and waits by the pay phone… and then it rings.

It’s Gene who wants an update – but first, Francesca insists on collecting what she was promised: a cash-filled envelope hidden nearby. She tells Gene that she is still being followed, but not as often. “So the Maestro who bought the farm didn’t change anything?” he asks, and she replies that it’s actually worse. Walt’s wife, Skyler, “got their deal,” she says, so only Saul and Jesse Pinkman went, “and I heard they found his car down the border, so goodbye, dumbass.” Gene inquires about his various money laundering operations and overseas accounts, but they’ve all been confiscated by the Fed, so he only has the cash (or diamonds) he took with him to show off all his years as a “criminal attorney.”

Francesca wants to hang up, but Gene wants to keep talking. She tells him that Huell is back home in New Orleans (“Last I heard he ran”) and about Bill Oakley’s transition from prosecutor to defense attorney. Oh, and she got a call… from Kim. She “looked at me,” she recalls, adding, “Your name came up. Asked if you were alive.” Gene is stunned. “She asked for me.” After Francesca abruptly ended the call, Gene drove to another pay phone and called the operator to speak to Palm Coast Sprinklers in Titusville, Florida. to be connected. Once connected, he asks to speak to Kim Wexler: “I think she works there.” We can’t hear what he says next – the camera pans to the street where we only hear the sound of trucks driving by – , but it’s not going well. We see Gene talking animatedly, and then he slams the receiver against the phone, kicking a hole in the side of the phone booth.

Whatever happened there (did he actually speak to Kim?), it motivates Gene to resume his life of crime. When Jeff returns home, Gene is laughing with Marion again — he’s shown her how to search for “funny cat videos” on her new computer — and Gene pulls him aside for a new plan, saying they’ll need Jeff to do it Cemetery to drive shift, along with some barbiturates. Gene has told him they’re done, Jeff reminds him, but they toast shots at being “back in business.” We see the new scheme unfold when Gene befriends a drunk guy in a bar and loses a series of petty bets to the guy while he laughs about it. Gene is only pretending to drink, sucking his cocktails through a secret hose up his sleeve, but his new pal is really soaked and Gene helps him into a cab – one driven by Jeff.

Jeff drives the drunk home and offers him a bottle of water, which the guy happily downs. When he gets home, he staggers around, and Jeff helps him in, softly knocking on his front door as he leaves. Shortly after, Jeff’s friend returns to the drunk’s house, where he passes out thanks to what Jeff put in the water. He takes the guy’s wallet and removes all his IDs and credit cards, snapping photos of each one before going through his files and taking more photos of tax returns and bank statements, along with a helpful list of the drunk’s passwords. He then flees the scene, removing the tape from the front door as he leaves.

We cut back to Saul as he enters the RV, followed by Walter White and Jesse Pinkman – hi Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul! — and he quickly puts together that they’re cooking “the blue stuff” here together… and that Walt is the famous Heisenberg. Saul presses her for details, but Walter interrupts him and gets in the driver’s seat to back her up. However, the RV won’t start and Jesse whiles away the time by asking Saul, “So…who is Lalo?” Saul quickly says he’s nobody and changes the subject by asking Walter to start the RV already, and we see the shallow grave dug for him in the desert slowly evolving into Gene lying in bed – nice touch – as Gene receives a delivery: a rocking back massager. He, Jeff and his friend scam more and more rich drunks, with Gene dosing the water bottles with crushed barbiturates and Jeff selling all the stolen financial information to a shady guy for heaps of cash. Gene seems to have a tinge of guilt, though – or does he? – when his latest victim reveals he’s been diagnosed with cancer.

Back to Saul using the same swingback massager Gene just ordered when Mike visits him in his office. (He refuses to even speak to Saul while using this thing.) Mike fills him in on various clients he’s tracking, and Saul asks about Heisenberg. Mike reports that he is a high school chemistry teacher, Walter White, who works with a former student named Jesse Pinkman. Walter has cancer, he adds; He’s being treated, “but it doesn’t look good.” Mike warns Saul to stay away from him — “He’s a complete amateur” — and reveals that Gus Fring doesn’t even know about him because he’s such “little potatoes ” is. However, Saul is intrigued and insists that Walt’s product is the best in the business. Yes, Mike concedes… but so was Betamax.

Gene is relaxing at home when he gets a phone call that makes him run to Jeff in anger. (Marion looks up from her cat videos and sees him entering her garage.) Jeff’s boyfriend couldn’t cheat on this guy because he found out he had cancer; He takes the same pills his own father took. Gene is outraged, accusing him of “dodging” and arguing that the guy will be dead by the time he realizes he’s been ripped off. Jeff’s buddy thinks they made enough money to let this one go, but Gene cuts him off: “Not your call.” Jeff’s friend has already ripped the tape off this guy’s door, but that doesn’t stop Gene: He tells him that he was fired and orders a conflicting Jeff to drive him back to this guy to finish the job. Jeff worries that the guy might be awake by now, but Gene tells him not to worry and tells him to pick him up in 20 minutes. As we see Saul enter Walter White’s high school and walk past his Pontiac Aztek in the parking lot, Gene walks to the cancer patient’s door…breaking a glass pane to get inside.

Will Gene’s lust for deceit be his downfall? And what else will we learn about Saul’s early days with Walt and Jesse? Post your thoughts and theories in a comment below. (Only two episodes left!)