Better Call Saul season 4 episode 6 'Piñata' review & recap: The meth super lab wasn't built in a day

(AMC/Netflix)

“I just love Emma Thompson. She’s so pragmatic!”

A walk-on actor delivered the funniest line in this week’s Better Call Saul, the British actress being the last person you would expect to be name-checked in this show. Jimmy’s colleague’s assessment of her talents was apt, though, as this is a show filled with pragmatists.

Let’s dive straight into the key elements...

The cold open

We opened “Piñata” with a flashback to Jimmy’s early days pushing the mail cart at HHM. Distracted with the organising of an office Oscars sweepstake (hence that worker’s Emma Thompson pick) he was restless there from day one it seems, not even being au fait with his brother Chuck’s big court case win that was the talk of the floor.

Chuck – younger and healthier but still snide and conceited – patronised his brother over his ignorance of the basic facts about the case, while Kim – also at the start of her HHM career – tried to show off her knowledge and enthusiasm.

The take-away: Jimmy and Kim were two very different lawyers right from the start, one with a genuine passion for law and the other only ever seeing it as a means to an end.

(AMC/Netflix (AMC/Netflix)

How does one keep up morale amongst a community of German engineers working on a 10-month super lab project?

BCS, like Breaking Bad before it, is fascinated by the practical considerations of running a drug empire. Walt and Jesse’s quibbles over whether to cook with methylamine or pseudoephedrine seemed a pretty granular level of detail in the original show, but it had nothing on its prequel, which is currently getting into the weeds on the excavation of a super lab beneath an industrial cleaners.

Mike, or “Michael” as he was hilariously called by the lead architect (the brusque fixer couldn’t be less of a Michael), was impressed with the prefab homes Gus had arranged for the team of engineers, but figured the men needed some entertainment too if they were to complete the major project without burning out. Cue the addition of a foosball table, working bar, basketball court, gym, TV screen and La-Z-Boy recliners to their hangar. The only things missing are a salt lick and a hamster wheel.

The take-away(s): One, trust Gus to not consider workers’ happiness, and two, wow, isn’t establishing a drug empire a big undertaking and not a business that’s easy to scale. It’s like Gus and Mike were playing Sim City in that hangar.

Why Hector Salamanca ended up in a wheelchair

Gus visited Hector in hospital, launching into a long anecdote about the time a coati ate the fruit of a lucuma tree he nurtured during his childhood in Chile. On confronting the raccoon (the absurdity of this story is becoming apparent now I’m recounting it), it attacked him, but instead of mercifully killing it, he kept it captive. “It lived for quite some time,” Gus recalled with a demonic smile.

The take-away: This parable was pretty on the nose, but for the avoidance of doubt: Gus’s punishment for Hector is that he live out his days in suffering, watching Gus’s rival operation prosper from a wheelchair. Also, Gus is an absolute piece of work, but we already knew that.

The Wexler-McGill dream is over

Last week we saw Jimmy and Kim start down different paths, and in “Piñata” there was even less peeping in the rear-view mirror. Kim finally gave up feigning interest in Mesa Verde, taking a job at corporate law firm Schweikart & Cokely that will enable her to pay the bills while still finding time for the pro bono work she genuinely seems to find satisfaction in. Announced by Kim over lunch, this put paid to Jimmy’s plans for the couple to re-open their joint firm, and led to him almost having a panic attack when he abruptly excused himself to go to the bathroom but took a wrong turn and ended up in the restaurant kitchen (we’ve all been there).

Jimmy closed the episode and gave it its title, squaring up to the youths that mugged him last week, deceiving them, and trussing them up in a garage filled with piñatas. With fan favourite Huell Babineaux swinging at the decorations with a bat, wondering whether the next target would be filled with candy or something a little more squishy, it was a very chilling intimidation strategy.

Take-away: No more Mr. Nice (or at least Reasonably Upstanding) Guy.

Conclusions: It took four seasons but BCS is really starting to flesh out some untold Breaking Bad stories now. This new focus on the super lab is particularly fun, serving to show how long and arduous it was to set up these elements of the Los Pollos Hermanos business that Walt would later so swiftly and impulsively raze to the ground.

Better Call Saul continues Sunday nights on AMC in the US and Monday mornings in the UK and other territories through Netflix.