A chilling midseason finale proves that, in so many ways, revenge comes at a steep price.
If there’s a dominant streak in this first half of the “Better Call Saul” farewell season, it’s the idea of surveillance. Aside from the fact that we’re all (in our own weird way) complicit in spying on the most vulnerable moments of these characters’ lives, they’re already doing a pretty good job of doing it to each other: guys stationed in squad cars tucked just out of view, massive battle stations’ worth of security cameras trained on every inch of the Fortress of Fringitude, and — as we see in this midseason finale — Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton) peeping through a pair of binoculars at the massive laundry operation he’s convinced is the disguise we know it to be.
They’re all waiting for a moment of weakness, one tiny slip-up to give them just enough of an advantage to pounce. One of the masterful strokes of “Plan and Execution” is that it’s not built on mistakes. If anything, the episode’s tragic downfalls and shocking ends come as a direct result of justified confidence. Everyone in this somber swirl of misfortune is convinced that they can see the full picture. Arguably, the only one who really does is the man in complete control in the final seconds, flashing a sliver of his trademark nefarious grin while standing over a body he just took the life from.
Even while adopting his Pennywise-like storm drain perch, across the street from Gus’ (Giancarlo Esposito) top-secret construction project, Lalo is a man who is staking out his foes on his own terms. He may be forced to take naps in a truck stop parking lot, but he’s the one setting the timer. He may have to leave and enter his hideout from opposite sides of a manhole cover, but he’s the one holding the hook. It’s only when he realizes that a phone bug is keeping him from talking to Tio (Mark Margolis) that he decides to change the gameboard to his liking.
It’s the first hint of the danger to come that, even with all the preamble and the second-guessing leading to Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) and Kim’s (Rhea Seehorn) “D-Day,” it’s Lalo that gets the cold open treatment. It’s easy to forget when that attention shifts, even as their collision seems inevitable, that he’s still lurking around the edges of Albuquerque. Kim manages to block it out of her mind for long enough to focus on finishing her chosen task at hand: turning the Sandpiper mediation on its head.
To that end, the similarity in the photos that Jimmy and Howard had at their disposal last week turned out not to be a coincidence after all. After Jimmy’s double-agent private investigator (Lennie Loftin) delivers the photos laced with last week’s contributions from Dr. Caldera, the final pieces are in place. Although the extensive process to reshoot those “incriminating” photos brings one more lighthearted chance to meet up with the UNM team (the fake foreground foliage on the boom mic is a really nice touch), there’s just as much time spent with Howard, unaware that he’s preparing the scene for his own demise.
Watching a composed and full-of-purpose Howard consult Irene (Jean Effron) and reassure her of the realities of the case, it’s almost impossible not to see how much overlap his technique has with Jimmy’s. Again, this is a man that recognizes the power of performance and of getting people to buy in, however that happens. Howard’s only flaw in going toe-to-toe with Jimmy is underestimating just how much and for how long that resentment had been brewing.
Because, as soon as the hammer blows start coming — the sweating, the picture swap, the heartbreaking reaction from Casimiro (John Posey) himself — Howard is someone with enough wits to see exactly what’s happening to him in real time. In some ways, it makes his end at once more tragic and more dignified. Whether or not his reputational dive-bomb was warranted or not, “Better Call Saul” gave him the clarity of seeing who was responsible for pulling the whole row from the bottom of his life’s Jenga tower.