67-Course Meal

With a movie, reality cooking show, and several documentaries, the story of Julia Child has been told and told and told and told and told. But has it really been told?

 

I just think we need more. There was that Julie and Julia movie a few years ago. Then this year we’ve had the Food Network’s Julia Child Challenge, a Julia TV show with an actress playing the fictional chef, and at least one documentary. Come on—I think we can do better than that. We’re missing a lot and here are some suggestions to explore this woman from every conceivable angle from now until the end of time:

 

·      A Hulu show, Julia and Julie, that dramatizes the behind-the-scenes drama of Julie and Julia, with actors playing Meryl Streep and Amy Adams.

·      A musical version of the above.

·      Another Food Network show that uses famous chefs to recreate, line by line and move by move, every episode of The French Chef as exactly as possible.

·      A Broadway show, La Dame Qui Cuisinait, showcasing the ennui of Julia Child during a down period of her life, performed entirely in French.

·      Reviving Behind the Music on VH1 but every episode is about Julia Child.

·      A podcast where each episode is just a famous actor reading a different recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

·      Reenacting each episode of Baking With Julia using stop-motion animation.

·      A documentary on the filming of the Dinner at Julia’s series.

·      An reality show, What’s Julia Doing?, where interpretive dancers recreate famous recipes and the panelists have to guess which ones.

·      A documentary on the making of each of the above.

 

I just think we need more, is all.

 

Better Call Saul S6 E7: Plan and Execution

As Howard was reading Jimmy and Kim the riot act, I was thinking, “Where is Howard in Breaking Bad? He’s one of the few major characters whose fate is unknown in that show.” After his big blowup, I didn’t think it would be plausible to enter the Breaking Bad timeline and show Jimmy with no relationship with Howard; their fates were just too intertwined by Jimmy and Kim’s betrayal scheme. There would have to be some kind of acknowledgment of what happened in Better Call Saul.

 

Then I got my answer: Howard doesn’t survive until Breaking Bad because Lalo Salamanca blows his brains all over the Wexler/McGill kitchen floor. It’s chillingly casual—Lalo doesn’t even know who Howard is but shoots him because he couldn’t be allowed to live to witness Lalo speaking to his lawyers.

 

My God, the way they shot that—with the flickering candle and Lalo entering the frame out of focus and Jimmy’s dawning horror—was just breathtaking. It was the best kind of shock when you know the character is doomed (like Nina in The Americans) and their death is still hair-raising. There was plenty of foreshadowing in this episode, with Howard speaking wistfully before the portrait of his dead former partner, Chuck—another person whose life, if not directly ruined by Jimmy, was certainly not helped by Jimmy.

 

Like Nacho, before he goes, Howard unloads on Jim and Kimmy. He calls them “sociopaths,” “soulless,” that they “have a piece missing.” Maybe the harshest words were for Kim: “One of the smartest and most promising human beings I’ve ever known and this is the life you choose.” And what could Kim really say to that? Howard’s dead right, and that’s the tragedy of her character.

 

“What do you tell yourselves?” he asks the lawyers who screwed him. “What justification makes it okay? Howard’s such an asshole that he deserves it? So, what is it? I sided with Chuck too often? I took you away from your office, put you in doc review? Howard’s daddy helped him get to the top, but you both had to struggle. Howie has so much, but we have so little. Let’s take him down a peg or two. What allows you to do this to me?”

 

Before it ended in blood, it was all fun and games for Jimmy and Kim setting up Howard. In the Breaking Bad tradition, the actual caper of reshooting the fake bribery of the judge was fun and exhilarating. (I think it would have been even funnier if they didn’t explain why the woman was dressed in a Dark Crystal costume and just let the viewers infer it.)

 

Their scheme was kind of brilliant, allowing their obvious ruse with Wendy to fall apart. Howard then let his guard down and let himself fall for the transparently fake bribery photos. His rant in the Sandpiper mediation about the photos being switched reminded me of Seinfeld when George Costanza insisted he saw a woman on a horse in Central Park and everybody thought he was crazy. But he was right! Ruthie Cohen really was riding a horse! Howard is also right about switching the photos but after everyone sees his dilated pupils and sweaty face, his reputation is now destroyed, and he can’t get it back from the grave.

 

There will be a half-season’s worth of fallout from Howard’s death. Even though Lalo used a silencer, the neighbors must have heard Jimmy and Kim screaming. (It was very effective seeing them flip out this hard, considering these are people who would be capable of compartmentalizing a nuclear blast.) How do they explain this murder and who cleans up the body? Would those people trailing Kim contact Mike and have him arrange it? Funny how Howard’s murder is indirectly the fault of Mike and Gus—if Lalo hadn’t heard the bugged line at the nursing home, he wouldn’t have fed Hector fake information that he was at the laundry and wouldn’t have been clear to go to Jimmy and Kim’s in the first place.

 

There will also be huge emotional fallout in the McGill–Wexler marriage. Will Kim tell the truth that she knew Lalo was alive? If Jimmy had known, he might not have left the door open for Lalo to just walk in.

 

I don’t think Kim will die at the end of Better Call Saul. The best character endings are sometimes those where the person doesn’t die but ends up in some sort of purgatory of her own making. I think Kim will just end up in one of these, after ruining her own promising career for, as Howard said, the life of petty vengeance she chose.

 

At least we only have to wait six weeks for the resolution to that brutal murder. 

Better Call Saul S6 E6: Axe and Grind

Oh, Kim Wexler—you were so close to breaking good. Instead, you decided the con job against your former boss “happens today,” and you made that U-turn back to Albuquerque to continue the scam.

 

Maybe this is always who Kim was. The flashback shows us she learned at a young age how to scam people. After Kim shoplifts jewelry, her mom puts on a big show about her daughter paying for it, only to steal the item anyway—she invokes righteousness, like her daughter eventually will, and then does something underhanded. “I didn’t know you had it in you,” says her impressed mother, in what could be an overall theme for Kim’s character. The car radio playing Duran Duran’s “The Reflex” is maybe a sly wink to the idea that running a scam is a reflex for the Wexler daughter.

 

“Relax,” her mom says. “You got away with it.” These lessons carry a big impression with kids that they remember for a long time. (The actress playing Kim’s mom really did her homework. Her voice and mannerisms were so like the adult Kim that we had to check closely to make sure it wasn’t Rhea Seehorn playing her mother.)

 

Kim could have done some real good, with some significant financial assets backing her, in the law firm for less fortunate clients, but it’s hard to imagine she can just back out the meeting without losing the whole deal. Cliff is kind enough to offer her the meeting, and sees the truth that Kim really does want to help people. She could have just delayed D-Day by one day, but her antipathy toward Howard is just too strong. Helping poor clients can wait; it’s the con job that can’t.

 

I don’t know—are we supposed to hate Howard? I don’t. He’s coded like a fat cat, with his slick suit and detached attitude, and he was condescending toward Kim, but I don’t think he’s terrible. I felt bad for him, meticulously making his estranged wife a cappuccino, only to have her dump it into a travel mug without a thought and spill some of it on the counter (very nice attention to detail in this scene).  

 

The plan against Howard proceeds. The Post-It notes are back. Where Kim once memorably used them to work her way up the ladder at the law firm, she now uses those colored slips of paper for nefarious purposes, planning revenge that apparently involves a video with the always fun film students, and Slippin’ Jimmy slipping Howard a drug that makes his pupils dilated.

 

There were a few nods to the future of Breaking Bad this week. I felt bad for Francesca—Saul’s office actually does look pretty nice the way she decorated it. You can almost see her spirit being grinded down until the office is a tacky mess, with cigarette-damaged furniture and the Constitution-themed kitsch of Saul’s inner office.

 

And the vet is apparently the key to a lot of the illegal shenanigans in Albuquerque. He’s the one with the connections to the fixers and shady characters, including the infamous vacuum cleaner repairman who will disappear Saul. Will Kim need to call Best Quality Vacuum soon and ask to repair a specific model of vacuum?

 

I don’t know what will happen to Kim. Maybe next week, the last before the mid-season break, I’ll offer up some guesses.

Better Call Saul S6 E5: Black and Blue

During the run of Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul, one thing I’ve really come to appreciate is the shows’ cold opens, introducing some mysterious object or event that only reveals its meaning as we go through the episode. I also appreciate both shows’ attention to craft and the painstaking efforts the characters take to make something useful or beautiful.

 

All of that came together in this week’s cold open. We see a lovingly rendered depiction of the intricacies of everything that goes into sealing a slide rule in Lucite and engraving that with “With Love, the Boys” in German as a memento. This, of course, belonged to Werner Ziegler, the superlab engineer whom Mike had to kill after he contacted his family against the rules.

 

There’s a lot of poignancy in that slide rule—it’s a monument to Werner’s real accomplishments in life and it took a lot to make that memento, but his life was ultimately fragile and now even the memento of that life is gone, stolen by Lalo in an attempt to prove that Gus is working against the cartel. Luckily, Werner’s widow, Margarethe, escapes with her life after unexpectedly coming home while Lalo is searching her home. (Also, I know Margarethe is still grieving, but can you imagine the sheer willpower it would take someone not to sleep with Lalo? Damn.)

 

Anyway, most of this episode seemed to be table-setting for the end. Cliff confronts Howard (maybe after his jittery leg and animated speech to the Sandpiper people further convinced him he was on drugs) and Howard immediately figures out he has a “Jimmy McGill” problem. They settle this in the boxing ring, but of course none of this is over.

 

Jimmy and Kim must have wanted to get caught, which was why their scheme seemed so ridiculous and inelegant. The lunch with Kim now seems like an obvious setup (though Howard apparently has yet to realize Kim is the ringleader on this one). Plus, Howard’s therapist could easily confirm his alibi that he was in a session during the one-act play with Wendy on the street. There must be another level to all of this.

 

Why doesn’t Kim tell Jimmy that Lalo is still alive? Does she want him not to get distracted from the Sandpiper scheme, or does she withhold the information because she believes, as Mike said, she’s made of “sterner stuff” and that Jimmy couldn’t handle it? Kim is indeed solid, but still wakes up paranoid in the middle of the night, bracing a chair against the doorknob in case Lalo comes back.

 

Jimmy also has his new practice to worry about, with Albuquerque’s finest lining up outside his office for legal representation. Francesca makes her first appearance as Jimmy’s secretary. She may not seem it on the surface, but when she got double pay out of Jimmy, it was an amusing reminder that this woman is a total hustler, just like her boss.

 

Gus is paranoid, too. That scene at Los Pollos Hermanos was a concise little character study and a representation of where he is right now—he’s meticulous enough to straighten the row of employee visors on their pegs, but he’s paranoid enough about Lalo’s return that he gets distracted during taking the customer’s order and the sound of the crashing trays. He plants a weapon in the superlab, in case it all comes down to needing that.

 

 

What They All Sound Like at This Point

My mom’s nickname is Annie Oakley and she’s the best shot in the family so she’s going to shoot communist China right in the fentanyl and they’ll never be able to poison America’s crime-ridden streets with fentanyl again and I don’t appreciate Biden so I’m going to fire Fauci and I’m not perfect but I’m the salt of the earth and do you remember that time we danced all night with Michelle Obama to the RINO Records greatest hits and then we asked your parents whether they remember when they thought you were a boy and are you running in Hollywood or Pennsylvania and I used this weapon while hunting and this one in Afghanistan and by God we support the Second Amendment in this house because it guarantees all the other ones but notice we never say the word “gun” because it didn’t test well and you’d think that would give us pause as to why but it never does and I might not actually be a social conservative and may not be totally pro-life and that guy ran a hedge fund so liberal and I fought the communist socialist mandates and he once voted in Turkey and I supported the unconstitutional mail-in ballot laws while still making it home every Friday for shabbat dinner and I hired illegal immigrants so brave and I support red flag laws and I’m also cutting the gas tax (and the services they fund) in half and let’s fight the idiot socialists and their idiot ideas and he once said China’s success is a positive thing and once he said something nice about Hillary Clinton and then tried to get Trump’s endorsement but failed and let’s go and let’s take back our country take it back take it back take it back back back.

Better Call Saul S6 E4: Hit and Run

Nothing is what it seems this week on Better Call Saul. No, that’s not Howard in his Namast3 Jaguar with Wendy, Albuquerque’s favorite hooker. That’s Jimmy in a hilarious spray tan and wig. He steals the car, picks up Wendy from the Crossroads Motel and kicks her out of the car in a very public way. This is, of course, in full view of Cliff, who gets another piece of false information to believe Howard is on drugs and visiting prostitutes.

 

No, the people in the blue car are not following Kim to intimidate her on behalf of Lalo. They’re protecting her from Lalo, as confirmed by Mike. She’s understandably rattled by the news, but as Mike says, she’s “made of sterner stuff” than Jimmy, who she doesn’t tell about Lalo. Kim is indeed tough but that doesn’t stop her from looking over her shoulder after she gets the news. You can offer somebody protection from the drug cartel and tell them to go about their lives, but good luck.

 

No, the agents in the house across the street from Gus are not the authorities spying on the Chicken Man. They’re agents of Gus himself, scanning his house for signs of Lalo. That was a great fake-out, with the couple on bikes in the beginning, who later show up after Gus walks through the secret tunnel that connects their houses. Very nice job directing by Rhea Seehorn.

 

For Kim and Jimmy, some new possibilities open up that could lead them in different legal directions. Kim asks Cliff if she can lead a team of pro bono lawyers and Cliff agrees. I don’t know if she was serious about the proposal or if it was just an excuse to meet and get Cliff to witness Jimmy and Wendy’s one-act play, but it gets Kim closer to her real passion of defending less-fortunate clients. Even with all the Howard chicanery, she’s serious about this, faithfully meeting her clients every day at a diner. If she gets the funding from Cliff, does she still need to pursue the Sandpiper money?

 

Meanwhile, everybody hates Jimmy at the courthouse since he used subterfuge to free Lalo. He can’t use his stuffed animal to charm the court administrator and his valiant vending machine skills go unappreciated by a fellow lawyer. None of the Heathers will sit with him at lunch. But this notoriety opens up a new avenue when clients come out of the woodwork looking for a lawyer. These include Spooge, who memorably met his end under an ATM during Breaking Bad.

 

This influx of clients gets Jimmy kicked out of the nail salon, but this opens yet a new opportunity as he spots the future strip-mall site where he will put up a fake Statue of Liberty and begin being a criminal lawyer in earnest. Kim has reservations, and does need to tell him about Lalo, but what the hell—Taco Cabeza is right around the corner, so it can all wait another day.