I hate to admit it, as I'm one of the fans who is consistently amazed by how good the writing is on Vince gilligan shows, but this season feels off. There were early signs that I thought were forgivable, Gus's plan at the beginning of the season was stupid, Saul and Kim were doing blatantly obvious schemes in public where they could easily be recognized, etc. But I assumed those were intentional choices. But this episode is just...really making me wonder if anything was thought through or if this season was just rushed due to COVID.
Gus is paranoid about Lalo. We get it. We don't need five scenes demonstrating that. We also don't need gus hiding his weapon in the meth lab. We know that there's inevitably going to be a showdown with lalo there at the end of the season, because they've been so unsubtly foreshadowing it. It's really bad when I feel like the average fan can probably guess most of what's going to happen 5 episodes in.
The boxing ring scene, where Howard challenged Saul to a boxing match to settle their differences, is just bizarre. Doesn't seem like something the character would do but I guess it was supposed to be funny. The show is clearly trying to set up something horrible for the mid season finale, possibly something going wrong in Jim and kimmys plan that results in something significant, possibly the death of Howard. Usually the writing isn't this on the nose.
Lalo being in Germany was a popular fan theory, and I'm sorry, but it was just really dumb both in theory in execution. A man wanted internationally for murder can just fly to Germany on a whim? I get they treat Mexico as a lawless state and that may be true to a degree, but can someone please explain how the hell he tracks down Werner's wife based on knowing nothing more than his name? It doesn't seem like Werner Ziegler would be an uncommon name and he doesn't know anything else about him other than the fact that he was German. This is never explained, and I don't think it ever will be. I think it's obvious the writers just had to get from point A to B. It's obvious, just disappointing, and I really hope I'm wrong.
Gus is paranoid about Lalo. We get it. We don't need five scenes demonstrating that. We also don't need gus hiding his weapon in the meth lab. We know that there's inevitably going to be a showdown with lalo there at the end of the season, because they've been so unsubtly foreshadowing it. It's really bad when I feel like the average fan can probably guess most of what's going to happen 5 episodes in.
The boxing ring scene, where Howard challenged Saul to a boxing match to settle their differences, is just bizarre. Doesn't seem like something the character would do but I guess it was supposed to be funny. The show is clearly trying to set up something horrible for the mid season finale, possibly something going wrong in Jim and kimmys plan that results in something significant, possibly the death of Howard. Usually the writing isn't this on the nose.
Lalo being in Germany was a popular fan theory, and I'm sorry, but it was just really dumb both in theory in execution. A man wanted internationally for murder can just fly to Germany on a whim? I get they treat Mexico as a lawless state and that may be true to a degree, but can someone please explain how the hell he tracks down Werner's wife based on knowing nothing more than his name? It doesn't seem like Werner Ziegler would be an uncommon name and he doesn't know anything else about him other than the fact that he was German. This is never explained, and I don't think it ever will be. I think it's obvious the writers just had to get from point A to B. It's obvious, just disappointing, and I really hope I'm wrong.