‘Better Call Saul’ season 2, episode 9 review: Jimmy strikes back; what happened to Chuck?

On Monday night’s new episode of “Better Call Saul,” Jimmy McGill saw the fruits of his labor pay off, but not without some ramifications as a result. Remember when he fudged Chuck’s court papers? Well, he was able to get Mesa Verde to bail on him and go with Kim Wexler instead, but here’s the problem: This is Chuck we’re talking about. He may be flawed and heavily-reliant on a space blanket to survive, but at the same time he is still rather amazing at his job.

So while Kim may have the client, she’s well aware that it could be temporary. You see, Chuck’s not the sort to let this go, and that suspicion was correct as Jimmy realized later that he was being investigated. He therefore had to go in and bribe the owner of copy shop, telling him that it was a “family” problem. He took the bribe, and then had to pay him more to ensure that the security footage was deleted of him ever being there.

At least for now, Jimmy seems to have a victory, but who knows how long that is going to last? The problem is that this was not that big of a victory at all, since it led in the closing seconds to Chuck having an episode in the store. Is he going to be okay? We’re not sure as of yet.

In the midst of this fairly devastating end for both Jimmy and Chuck (he has to wrestle with the guilt of what happened), it was hard to even process Mike’s latest act of awesome … though maybe this is where he learned not to take any half-measures. He’s left a trail, and the confrontation with Nacho suggests that Hector will be back for more … even though he was done with him.

In between the Jimmy / Chuck scenes and the excellent conversation with Kim, was this the best episode of season 2? We’re starting to feel that. Grade: A-.

(Photo: AMC.)