Better Call Saul: “Rebecca” Review

“You don’t save me. I save me.”

Let’s start at the end, shall we?

Better Call Saul has had a lot of fun littering in familiar faces from the Breaking Bad Tuco Salamanca storyline, but none has been as exciting as the arrival of Tio himself, Hector Salamanca (Mark Margolis). Here we see him as the imposing cartel member we heard about in Breaking Bad, before he was left confined to a wheelchair and without motor functions.

Jonathan Banks on Better Call Saul

It was assumed that his handicap was a result of a stroke or degenerative disease, but could there be more to that backstory than we thought — like, say, a run-in with a certain Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks)? Or is this just adding more history to these criminals who we came to know in Vince Gilligan’s other series? Regardless, it was a treat to see Tio again, especially as it sets up there being more to the Tuco story than him just being imprisoned.

Switching back to the beginning of the episode, it’s interesting that this episode was called “Rebecca” after a character only featured before the opening credits sequence. Rebecca is Chuck’s (ex? deceased?) wife, a violinist with quality taste who also found something to like in Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk). We never find out what happened in their relationship that they are no longer together, but in terms of the timeline they’re at least together around the time Jimmy moved to Albuquerque and before Chuck succumbed to his electromagnetic hypersensitivity.

Chuck is resentful of his brother even this far in the past, and it’s clear that drives all of his decisions. That moment with Rebecca is one small moment encapsulating his relationship with his younger brother: he always expects the worst of Jimmy, and he can’t handle it when everyone else doesn’t view him the same way. In his mind, Jimmy is always going to disappoint him or someone else, and he will always wait for that to happen.

Rhea Seehorn and Michael McKean on Better Call Saul

Though Chuck can be a frustrating character, Michael McKean’s incredible performance is all in the details, like the way his face falls after Rebecca fails to laugh at his joke in bed after finding Jimmy’s hilarious at dinner. Or in the calculated way he suggests to Kim (Rhea Seehorn) that he’ll put in a good word to Howard after he dragged Jimmy through the mud. There’s a sense that his version of the story of his father isn’t the full truth, even if he does cut to the core of Jimmy’s problem: he can’t help himself, even if he has a good heart.

That’s no great secret about Jimmy, but is shown again in his storyline with his babysitter, Erin. He can’t deal with things straight, which makes him lose ground with her and also frustrates Kim to no end. When he tries to convince Kim to sue HHM, she shuts him down: “I should have known better.” She challenges him to prove for a week — or even a day — that he can follow the rules, and it’s easy to see this as the future line in the sand that keeps them apart. As always, it’s frustrating to see Jimmy fumble when we just want him to get a win.

Rhea Seehorn and Patrick Fabian on Better Call Saul

At least Kim had a solid victory in sticking to her guns and trying to regain her standing in HHM the right way. “You don’t save me. I save me,” she told Jimmy, and she does her best to follow through on that. She gets a great new client for the company, and even though it didn’t get her her position back, at least she’s doing things the right way and by the rules. The scene is framed beautifully when Kim gets that call from Mesa Verde; she is almost standing under the “Out” sign, so close to getting out of this position in one way or another, but still managing to hold on by a thread.