Better Call Saul season 3 finale review: Hector’s pain; Chuck’s big move

Tonight on the Better Call Saul season 3 finale, there were some tough conversations. To go along with that, the same goes for pain.

Want an update on Kim and Jimmy? Here it is. The good news is that Kim is alive, and that she was released from the hospital rather quickly. Jimmy, in his best attempt to be a good person (and possibly out of guilt over being upset the last time that he saw her), took care of her, fed her, and made sure that she knew that she was what mattered more to him. He decided to sublet out the office for the time being.

Kim’s behavior following the accident was absolutely different, given the fact that she was pushing back most of her work and trying to relax — she went to Blockbuster, which is as much of a Walking Dead crossover as anything that we’ve ever seen on AMC, and rented a ton of movies as she tries to recover.

Here’s the real surprise: Howard paying off Chuck just for the sake of making him want to go away! Basically, he is so willing to do whatever he can to just get rid of the guy that he’s willing to pay millions out of his own pocket in order to send him off into the sunset. He did get a round of applause by the end of this, but it was probably the most patronizing round of applause that you’ve ever seen in human history.

Jimmy eventually visiting Chuck in order to try to reconnect in the midst of Kim’s accident, and what he found there was that his brother was doing “better.” Granted, him being around electricity didn’t make him any more pleasant. He ignored most of Jimmy’s hopes at making amends, and then shot him a dagger in the form of telling him that he never really cared about him “all that much.”

The cold reality here was that Chuck hadn’t gotten that much better; instead, he was just covering it up better and wallowing more in his own heartbreak. It was almost as though Chuck needed Jimmy to fell like he’d lost in order for him to sink back to his previous condition without power. He was so desperate to find the last remaining source of it that he was willing to more or less tear up his home for answer. That included in the end smashing the electric box, a moment anchored by the fantastic Michael McKean suddenly becoming all the more fantastic.

Jimmy revisits Irene

If you remember this past episode, he was trying to pull all of the strings in order to ensure that the settlement came through. However, in the end he ended up making Irene miserable by taking most of her friends away from her. He tried to make it right, but most of his friends just wouldn’t listen to him.

Nacho’s story

Nacho’s story was a rather sad one, given that a big part of it revolved around him introducing his father to Hector Salamanca, otherwise known as the man who was going to treat him like garbage and get him involved in a super-shady business. He didn’t want any part of working with Hector, and Nacho did his best to try and convince him that this was the way to go … for now.

After witnessing this exchange, Nacho went through, gun in hand, with the next phase of his plan: Try to neutralize Hector and the rest of his crew when they wouldn’t expect it. Hector and Gus Fring found themselves at the center of a meaning, one that ended in a way we didn’t see coming but shouldn’t: Hector’s stroke. It came in the midst of this confrontation, and he took some of his pills … the ones that Nacho messed with.

The aftermath

Jimmy and Kim sat down at the end of the episode for a conversation, one where the two of them got a little bit more real with each other and, in between debating movies, Jimmy started to figure out what he needed to do to resolve the Irene situation. It’s too bad that his own anger and forgetting to turn off his headset ended up costing him everything with them. Jimmy McGill, master of elder law with the Sandpiper settlement, was dead … but that was the intention.

Basically, this was what Jimmy needed to do in order to resolve it. This would enable the ladies to turn the settlement around, and he was okay with them hating him.

Back at the office, Kim and Jimmy packed away their goods, and he was ready and willing to throw his entire Rolodex in the garbage. This was the end of Jimmy McGill the lawyer. Maybe Saul Goodman is next.

Unfortunately, here is your saddest coda: Chuck, alone and without everything, seemingly opted to take his own life courtesy of busting a lantern. He started a fire, and it seems as though he is gone. Rest in peace? It’s hard to imagine him surviving this.

Final Verdict

Sensational. This was one of the best episodes of the entire series for a reason. There were big moves forward, and also moments that many Breaking Bad was waiting to see. Excellent, devastating, and everything in between. Grade: A.

(Photo: AMC.)