Better Call Saul: Ep. 205 Rebecca
This season of Better Call Saul has been like the delicate peeling of an onion. As each week passes and another layer has been shed, more is revealed about the complex and flawed characters on the show. This week’s episode titled Rebecca, continued the series’ excellent character development and introduced the audience to a significant person from Chuck McGill’s past. While there were some intriguing developments and revelations in the episode including Kim’s frank discussion with Chuck regarding her stint in purgatory at the firm, Chuck recalling an incident from the past involving Jimmy and their father and Mike’s encounter with a former Breaking Bad character, it’s the scene before the title credits that resonated above all the rest.
Rebecca is Chuck’s wife and the flashback to start the episode features Chuck at the top of his game. He’s confident, well loved by a talented and beautiful woman and the opening scene causes one to wonder what happened to cause him to plummet to the depths he currently occupies. The cracks in his armor are apparent though.
During an introductory dinner with Jimmy, Rebecca becomes charmed by the younger McGill as the conversation shifts from his first few days in the mail room at Hamlin, Hamlin and McGill to a series of lawyer jokes. Jimmy’s jokes ease the sting of feeling inferior to Chuck’s status as a lawyer. When Rebecca joins in, Jimmy’s won her over and puts Chuck on the defensive. Even though he’s superior to Jimmy economically and professionally, he lacks his charisma.
For Jimmy the situation is the polar opposite. He can only feel like he’s on Chuck’s level when he’s playfully tearing him down with lawyer jokes. The end of this brilliant scene is quite poignant. Rebecca and Chuck are in bed and as their marital discourse veers toward the mundane, Chuck tries a lawyer joke to try and impress Rebecca. When the joke falls flat, it’s not because it wasn’t funny, but because it wasn’t Jimmy delivering it. The disappointment on Chuck’s face is evident and the silence in the room is deafening.
You can have it all and yet have nothing at all. Despite all of the success Chuck enjoys, he still feels inferior in some way to Jimmy – and it’s the same thing in Jimmy’s case. In a perfect world Jimmy and Chuck would be one fantastically well-rounded person, not two flawed ones. The world however, isn’t isn’t perfect and neither are the McGill brothers. It’s that search for perfection – the quest to mask flaws, real or imagined, that sometimes sets one up for failure. As the layers of the onion continue to be pulled back on Better Call Saul, there will likely be a tear or two shed before all is said and done.
