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As
fans of Vince Gilligan’s hit AMC show eagerly awaited to see if the
spin-off series could carry its hefty torch, the start of the second
episode titled 'Mijo' could have left them feeling in a time warp.
The
end of the premiere episode on Sunday teased the appearance of one of
Breaking Bad’s most terrifying gangsters - the psychopathic Mexican drug
kingpin Tuco Salamanca.
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Familiar territory: Bob Odenkirk as
the title character in Better Call Saul found himself gagged and tied up
in the desert on Monday's second episode of the Breaking Bad spin-off
And
Tuco soon took fans to even more familiar territory, with lawyer Saul -
at this stage just using his real name Jimmy McGill - and two
skateboarders facing imminent death in the desert.
The
skaters were roped by the struggling attorney into a scam that severely
backfired and were seen tied up with their mouths taped up as they lay
in the desert.
After
quick-talking his way into saving his own life - and little finger -
Jimmy then persuaded Tuco and his cohorts not to kill the skateboarders,
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Psychopathic criminal: Tuco Salamanca took Jimmy and two skateboarders out to desert for punishment
He
then started an hilarious negotiation as to what they should do to
them, with Tuco starting by wanting to skin them and then
considering‘Colombian neck ties’instead.
‘I
cut their throats and pull their lying tongues through the slits!’, he
shouted as Jimmy argued for a more lenient punishment.
Tuco finally agreed to just break their legs and let them go free.
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Hard bargaining: Jimmy talked his way out of trouble with Tuco and his cohorts in the desert
As
the drama ended, Jimmy was seen wheeling the two injured skaters into
hospital, with one sobbing: ‘You are the worst lawyer ever!’
‘I just talked you down from a death sentence to six months probation,’ he told him.
‘I’m the best lawyer ever.’
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Legs broken: Tuco broke one leg of each skateboarder after they tried to scam his grandmother
Jimmy
had tried to get the skateboarders to crash into a car owned by Betsy
Kettleman, who along with her husband supposedly stole $1.5million, as
he hoped to trick them into agreeing to hire him for their hefty legal
needs.
Instead
they crashed into Tuco’s grandmother’s almost identical looking car -
and made matters worse once at her house by calling her a ‘crazy old
biznatch’ in front of the gangster.
As
his grandmother addressed him with the term of endearment 'mijo', Tuco
promised that she wasn't in trouble and he would resolve this issue with
the skaters for her.
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Mistaken identity: Tuco's grandmother was mistakenly targeted by the skateboarders
Telling
his ‘abuelita’ to go upstairs and listen to her favorite TV soap opera
‘real loud’, he turned on the skateboarders and used his grandmother’s
walker to brutally knock them down.
He further smacked them in the head as he angrily repeated 'biznatch.'
After
getting caught clearing up their blood - telling his grandmother it was
salsa - Tuco then confronted Jimmy with a gun when he knocked on the
door in the middle of the drama.
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Carpet stain: After striking the skaters Tuco told his grandmother a blood stain was just salsa
As
Jimmy quickly tried to talk his way out of trouble, Tuco led him into
the garage after telling him: ‘Wow. You got a mouth on you.’
Tuco
initially seemed ready to let them all go - until one of the skaters
blurted out ‘it was all his idea!’ as Jimmy took the tape off his mouth.
‘Are
you punking me? Are you punking my abuelita?’ Tuco asked angrily as he
once again pulled a gun on Jimmy, cutting to scenes of them tied up in
the desert.
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Tell the truth: Tuco interrogated Jimmy who tried to lie about his identity
‘I
smell lies. I smell pork,’ Tuco told Jimmy with wire cutters at his
fingers. ‘We know you’re with the pork - local? Federal? DEA?’
After insisting he was just a lawyer, Jimmy in desperation lied that he was ‘Special Agent Jeffrey Steel, FBI’.
‘I’m undercover OK. You got me - releasing me would be a smart move.’
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Undercover agent: Jimmy tried to convince the gang that he was an FBI agent
But Tuco’s colleague Nacho Varga didn't buy it, and Jimmy soon admitted he was lying.
‘I don’t know any of your names and I got a bad case of face blind,’ he told him.
‘You let us go and we’re going to forget this happened.’
Persuading
Tuco that the FBI would never hire the skateboarders, Nacho persuaded
him to at least let Jimmy go free as he was ‘giving respect’ to them.
‘Croaking a lawyer for no reason is bad business,’ he warned him. ‘If he goes missing someone is going to come looking for him.’
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Voice of reason: Nacho convnced Tuco not to kill the lawyer
As
Jimmy was cut free and allowed to go back to his car, he shocked them
by turning back and pleading for the skateboarders’ lives, too.
‘They
don’t deserve to die. I put them up to it. I don’t deserve to die but
they don’t either,’ he insisted, making up a sob story about them having
a desperately poor mother who doted on them.
‘You
say they don’t deserve her? Maybe so. But they’re all she’s got. You
turn them inside out I want you to think about what happens to her,’ he
begged Tuco.
‘Way I see it you’re tough but you’re fair. You’re all about justice,’ Jimmy implored.
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Proper punishment: Jimmy returned and talked Tuco down from skinning the skaters to just breaking a leg on each
It
lead to them negotiating the fitting punishment - ending with them
agreeing to Tuco breaking a leg on each of the skateboarders.
‘They
can’t skateboard for six months, and they are scared of you forever,’
Jimmy reasoned. ‘And you show everybody that you’re the man. That you’re
fair - that you’re just.’
Jimmy winced as Tuco stamped on their legs - shouting gleefully as they screamed in agony.
The
experience clearly haunted him, as he later threw up after the sound of
someone breaking breadsticks in a bar where he was happily chatting up a
woman reminded him of the legs being broken.
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Clean break: Jimmy puked after someone breaking breadsticks in a restaurant reminded him of the snapping legs
And
it also sent him into further financial ruin, as a bill his brother
found in his trouser pocket showed that he had paid for the
skateboarders’ costly emergency room treatment.
But
after hitting a low, things looked like they were picking up for Jimmy
as he was seen scrubbing up his image, getting better suits and lots of
work in the courts.
‘It’s show time!’ he made his trademark.
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Sick brother: The attorney went to his sick brother's home after taking the skaters to the hospital
Jimmy's biggest work woe continued to be the parking lot attendant that Breaking Bad fans know as hitman Mike Ehrmantraut.
But
the episode ended with him getting an unsettling visit from Nacho at
his tiny office in the back of a nail salon, where he had just folded
out his sofa bed to rest in a room so small he had to push aside his
desk and chairs to open it up.
After
insisting Tuco did not know he was there, Nacho then explained that he
wanted Jimmy to help him locate where Betsy and Craig Kettleman, the
couple he had been targeting in his car accident scam, kept their money.
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Parking lot nemesis: Jimmy was hounded by the parking lot attendant fans know as Mike Ehrmantraut
‘I’m
going to rip them off,’ he told him. ‘You point me at where they have
their cash, I’ll pay you,’ he promised, saying the finder’s fee would be
‘100 large’.
‘You already tried ripping them off, I’m going to finish what you started.’
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Office visit: Nacho later visited Jimmy at his office to propose a deal
After Jimmy insisted he was ‘a lawyer, not a criminal’, Nacho laughed.
And he reminded him: ‘I got between you and Tuco. You think you’d be here now if I kept my mouth shut?’
Despite Jimmy’s repeated insistence that he was not interested, Nacho wrote down his number on a box of matches.
‘For when you figure out you’re in the game,’ he told him.
‘I’m not in the game, I promise,’ Saul insisted - before intently looking at the number after Nacho had left.
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Not a criminal: Jimmy insisted to Nacho that he wasn't a criminal
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