By Ethan Ames

Season Six, Episode Ten: "Nippy"

Warning: Contains spoilers for Better Call Saul

What happens when a conman gets made? At long last, “Nippy” takes us back into the post-Breaking Bad timeline, for an unprecedented, full-length episode with Gene in Omaha.

I should note that the show-runners have found a way to effectively utilize the re-casting of Jeff the cab driver, putting Pat Healy to good use as a nebbishy, wannabe-criminal. While plenty of brilliant moments abound throughout this latter-day entry in the Saul canon, it nevertheless falls somewhat flat and it left me wanting more in the way of emotional gravity. 

Healy’s Jeff comes home to his mother’s house, where he also lives, to find that Jimmy has already duped his mother, Marion — played to hard-headed perfection by Carol Burnett — with a story about his lost dog, Nippy, and a surreptitiously snipped wire on her electric scooter.

Later, when they’re alone, Jimmy relays to Jeff what he’s intuited: Jeff wants in “the game,” the oft-referenced euphemism for the criminal underworld, which is why he hasn’t turned Jimmy in to the authorities or extorted him. And, wouldn’t you know it, that’s exactly what Jeff was hoping for. You can practically see Jeff slavering as Jimmy waxes on about, cars, women and money. Jimmy has him in the palm of his hand, a bit too easily.

Jimmy proposes a scheme for Jeff and his friend to rob a mall department store of expensive merchandise, all in the time it takes for an unassuming security guard (Parks and Recreation’s Jim O’Heir, ever the friendly sucker) to eat a Cinnabon while turned away from the camera monitors.

The scam itself and the lead-up to it are a delight, particularly the mnemonic devices that Jimmy devises for Jeff to remember which clothing to pilfer ("“Five: Patagonias to survive!...Six: swanky sweatsuits in the mix!...Twelve: luxury pumps to un-shelve!...Twenty: Uggs look funny!”). The heist contains moments of significant tension and the kind of emotional layering that Saul has succeeded at throughout its run. Jimmy’s stalling of the security guard by crying part-crocodile tears about his loneliness, after Jeff slips and temporarily knocks himself out, is a call-back to another ploy he used to discredit Chuck in season three. Aside from this moment of improvisation, the plan goes off without a hitch, and the two ne’er-do-wells are quickly reduced to being his subordinates.

Here’s where my issues with this episode began to take root: Jeff posed a serious dilemma for Jimmy in the season five opener, “Magic Man,” when he confronted him about his real identity. Not only did Don Harvey bring a level of menacing gravitas to the role, but critically, the character’s motives were murky. From the outset of “Nippy,” Jimmy has somehow already deduced Jeff’s motives, which gives him the upper hand in the entire situation. Thus, both the stakes of Jimmy being identified and the threat posed by Jeff’s character are significantly diminished. Jimmy can apparently wriggle his way out of this tight spot with one last bit of chicanery. It feels like a contrivance, and an anti-climactic one at that.

Rather than us seeing a dynamic play out between two worthy adversaries, Jeff becomes yet another rube that Jimmy manipulates and dispenses with, a la Betsy and Craig Kettleman.

Of course, there remains a chance that this ostensibly successful sting may bear repercussions that haven’t come to pass yet. Jimmy momentarily seems to forget his fictional dog when Marion asks him about Nippy's whereabouts, so it remains to be seen whether or not Marion will have registered this slip-up. If so, we may not have seen the end of this storyline. Still, Jimmy strong-arms Jeff and friend into silence with the notion of “mutally-assured destruction.” We’ll see if this tactic works, or if any wrinkles in the arrangement appear in the coming final three. But, do we want to see Jimmy done in by an assortment of characters that have been marginal to the core story? I’m not sure that I do.

After the devastation of “Point and Shoot” and “Fun and Games,” perhaps the show-runners figured this episode would be a change of pace, hearkening back to the (relatively) harmless scams of yesteryear’s Saul. But with only three episodes left, I’m now less interested in the situational outcome of the Jeff/Marion storyline than I am about the nature of Jimmy’s reckoning. What does Jimmy deserve? Will he ever truly acknowledge the pain he's buried beneath his multiple artifices? And, of course, will Kim reappear in his life in any capacity?

We know that Walter and Jesse will be making appearances, but I couldn’t begin to guess how. I'll choose to believe that their presences will, indeed, be more than mere fan service. But with Kim having abandoned ship, and Lalo, Howard and Nacho dead, I'm wondering what resolution means for the show at this juncture.

Odds and Ends

• The plucky score of this episode felt a bit off-point. Rather than the sparing use of Dave Porter’s churning, elemental pieces, the clarinets and woodwinds stood out as being particularly out of place and even a bit clunky.
• I enjoyed Jimmy’s reference to Walter White, in spite of myself. Fan service aside, this show has succeeded at distinguishing itself from its parent series. So, go ahead, Saul, you've earned it.