TV Review: Better Call Saul 3×04 “Sabrosito”

This week’s episode of Better Call Saul “Sabrosito” covered a lot of ground from Hector and Gus’ backstory to Mike’s moral dilemma to Jimmy and Chuck’s legal woes coming to a head.

Starting with Hector and Gus, who dominated the first half of the episode with a flashback of Hector delivering his tribute to Don Eladio, only to be humiliated when Gus sends a larger tribute through Juan Bolsa. This brews some bad blood between the two cartel lords bringing us back to the present where Hector’s men have just been arrested because of Mike’s vendetta against Hector. With his main smuggling route closed, Hector confronts Gus at Los Pollos Hermanos.

Or at least he tries to, but Gus is at the local fire department polishing his image, so Hector freaks out Gus’ employees by stealing soda, smoking a cigar in the restaurant and intimidating the costumers away. By the time Gus arrives, his employees are rounded up with Hector’s men surrounding them in the middle of the restaurant. Gus tells them all to leave, they seem concerned (a little too concerned for people working in the fast food industry), but they leave happily with the promise of 24 hour overtime.

Meanwhile, Mike is doing some soul searching this episode. He refuses the money Gus sends him for destroying Hector’s trade route, but Mike refuses to take it. We also finally get to see Mike spend time with his granddaughter Kaylee, if only for a moment, before he’s dragged back into Saul’s world.

And I call it Saul’s world because that’s where we are heading at full speed.

The rest of the episode focuses on the upcoming PPD trial, but before that Jimmy hires Mike to act as a repair man and fix Chuck’s broken door while also snap some photographs. Poor Chuck is terrified when Mike pulls out the battery operated power drill and starts drilling away at the wall. It’s like something out of a slasher movie as Chuck creeps up the stairs to get away from the horrible noise. Meanwhile, Mike is snapping expert photos of the house.

There’s only one that catches Jimmy’s eye though, it’s a photo of an oil lantern sitting on top of a newspaper. While I have no idea what the significance of this is now, I have a feeling that this lantern is going to be important later on in the season (SPOILER: considering the final episode of the season is titled “Lantern”).

During the meeting before the hearing, things are tense. Chuck is worrying about odd specifics in Jimmy’s statement like how it’s not specified that he destroyed Chuck’s tape recorder (it’s only listed as property) or the exact amount of money Jimmy owes Chuck down to the dime. After Jimmy storms out, Kim confronts Howard and Chuck and the big twist is revealed: Jimmy destroyed the duplicate of the tape, and the real tape is going to be played at the hearing.

But this is a good thing somehow because the episode ends with Kim saying “Bingo” as if she has a plan to take Chuck down involving the tape.