Better Call Saul, Episode 5, “Alpine Shepard Boy”

The episode begins in aftermath of Chuck’s “great newspaper heist”. The five-dollar bill languishes under a rock as the neighbor looks out her window.  As the camera pans across the street, Jessie Pinkman’s house comes into view.  Was his aunt the neighbor who phoned the police?  The police pound on Chuck’s door, which he refuses to open using legal rhetoric and then he desperately tries to explain his medical condition.  The other officer has looked around the back and has seen the fuse box destroyed and a pile of camping lanterns. He determines that Chuck must be cooking meth! The police break down the door and Taser Chuck.

Jimmy heads to a gated ranch for an appointment.  The client’s house is full of taxidermy and the conversation becomes strange quickly.  He wants Jimmy to help him secede from the United States to form his own “Vatican City” to be known as Sandia.  Jimmy heartily agrees to take the case because the man doesn’t balk at four hundred fifty and hour rate.  The man agrees to pay him half a million up front and half when the case closes.  The man goes to his safe and smilingly presents Jimmy with a tray of cash.  Unfortunately, the money has the man’s picture on it because it’s the money of his new republic!

Onto the next client, who appears to be a normal middle age dad who needs help with a patent.  He has Jimmy sign a “non-disclosure agreement” before unveiling a toilet!  Jimmy sighs, “I may have seen one of these before.”  The man explains he’s a father of two boys and potty training was hard so he’s invented a “talking toilet.”  As “deposits” are made into it, it speaks out encouragements like, “Give it to me Chandler! Wow what a big boy you are!”  This sounds disturbingly sexual, but the man is offended when Jimmy mentions this might do well in Asian markets because they’re perverts.  Jimmy is kicked out of the man’s house.

The next client is an old woman, seen slowly descending a stair lift into a living room filled with figurines.  She offers Jimmy more tea as they make out a tedious will giving away each figurine including the episode title “Alpine Shepard Boy.”  Jimmy is sweet with her, especially when she says, “If I was forty years younger, I’d make you a pina-colada!”  He adjusts his fee accordingly.  He seems relieved when she pays him one hundred forty dollars in cash.

At the end of this eventful day, Jimmy is giving Kim a pedicure at the salon. (Her nails are blue, I’ve noticed that Jimmy is starting the series in blue and as he morphs into Saul we may see more of Saul’s trademark orange.) Kim urges him to not go corporate and maybe consider specializing in elder law.  Jimmy seems to like that idea.

Chuck eyes are seen  fearfully close up, which is reminiscent of “Requiem for a Dream.”  Jimmy comes in after leaving his phone and keys outside the hospital room. Security is called as Jimmy works to unscrew the fluorescent lights.  After a tense back and forth, Jimmy is alone with the doctor trying to explain his  brother’s “condition”.  He calls it “electromagnetic hypersensitivity” which causes his brother to have pain when he’s around electricity.  It’s clear he needs mental help but Jimmy would have to agree to admit him for a thirty-day stay.  The doctor acknowledges that Jimmy is doing the “heavy lifting” in caring for his brother.  Then Howard Hamlin arrives and Jimmy tells him that he’s taking his brother into psychiatric care and to “wave goodbye to this cash cow, he’s leaving the pasture”.  Jimmy wants to have custody over his brother so that the law group will stop taking advantage of his name when he is clearly no longer a partner there.  But it’s been a ruse and Jimmy takes Chuck home.

Jimmy theorizes that Chuck’s symptoms become worse when Jimmy makes mistakes.  The newspaper that Chuck “stole” had the story of Jimmy’s heroic deed of saving the billboard worker.  Jimmy notes that Chuck fears the return of “Slipping Jimmy” and his old criminal ways.  He assures Chuck that he’s now going to play by the rules and just needed the publicity to attract clients.

Alone in his room, Jimmy watches a “Matlock” rerun.  Instead of trying to duplicate the actor’s rhetorical style, Jimmy works on a sketch of the actor’s suit.  Jimmy arrives wearing it at the same nursing home where Gus was killed!  The residents enjoy orange Jell-O which has an special message at the bottom, “Need a will, call McGill!”  He works the room like a comedian.

Jimmy continues to try to engage Ermentrout in small talk.  He gives him his new card and says he now specializing in wills and elder law.  A gloomy Erhmentrout heads home after a long shift and breakfast alone at a diner.  He drives up to a home where a nursing home employee drives away in a Subaru.  They exchange tense looks.  Could it be Erhmentrout’s daughter?  An exhausted Erhmentrout watches television when he sees someone walk past his window.  Soon, there is a knock at the door.  The street is filled with law enforcement, the man at the door says, “You’re a long way from home.”

“You and me both.”  Replies a weary Erhmentrout.  Is he now going to call Jimmy?