BETTER CALL SAUL SCRAWL: EPISODE 109 PIMENTO

E9 Grade: A–

Michael McKean is sort of a Working Icon. He never fell off the map, and always continued to find jobs after his airhead Lenny from LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY made him a star. And the moody rhythm guitarist David St. Hubbins from SPINAL TAP killed the stereotype of merely being Squiggy’s tall friend. But in BETTER CALL SAUL, his character… Jimmy McGill’s older, more responsible and legitimate lawyer brother Chuck… is a little too unique for his own good. Suffering a self-imposed allergy to electricity is downright vapid. He should have shaken that by now because it’s getting just too distracting to make him a worthy character... Like at the end of this one where he more than proves his worth as a dramatic actor...

MM's 2nd icon

Not that Chuck's problems hinder Mike and his… let’s call it a skit as most of the show's scenarios play out with a beginning, middle and end. Herein Mike and two other hired bodyguards display their individual worth, and it’s obvious to any BREAKING BAD fan who will come out on top. Leading to the birth of the unbreakable Mike we all know, love and equally fear – and thus bringing Michael Mando's drug cartel thug back into the mix, fulfilling his opening credit status he’s been mostly absent from throughout the first season, which is nearly at an end.

Overall, PIMENTO, describing a particular cheese Mike has in his lunch bag, is not a bridge episode, which is leading to next week’s finale... The main purpose, along with Mike progressing into thug/bodyguard status, occurs during the pivotal “Et Tu Brute” moment between Jimmy and Chuck, thus establishing our hero's existence mirroring his brother’s embroidered logo on a jacket decades earlier… LONE WOLF.