Better Call Saul S1E8: “RICO”

Say what you will about Jimmy McGill. Best lawyer, not so good lawyer, doesn’t play it by the books, go ahead and say it. The one thing that you cannot take away from Jimmy is that he may just have the best work ethic around. Things may not always fall his way but he will not mail it in and call it a day.

More often than not in this first season of Better Call Saul, Jimmy is an incredibly tough worker and is a stubborn and persistent person. Elder law is tough work, but Jimmy keeps at it and actually cares for his clients while others would be discouraged and not show half the effort if they knew they were only getting one hundred and forty bucks per will. It’s his work ethic and his care for his clients that leads him down a potentially career defining case.

While completing a will for one of his clients, something strikes Jimmy as rather odd. His client is short on the hunded and forty bucks and while other lawyers may have only paid attention to the fact that they are short, and probably leave, Jimmy isn’t that guy. He goes ahead and completes the paper work for the will anyway and because he cares about his clients he asks what she means by allowance, when she says that her retirement home, Sandpiper Crossing gives her an allowance. Jimmy seems to have hit the jackpot here as this leads him to the discovery that the residents in their elder years here at Sandpiper Crossing are being taken advantage of. The folks in charge of Sandpiper are slightly overcharging their residents for things such as toilet paper, tissues and basically everything else. For Jimmy this may be the start of something game changing.

The employees at Sandpiper notice that Jimmy has caught on to their little game so the next time he stops by to warn his clients, he is denied entrance into the residence home. He knows he’s right because he can see that they’re shredding documents. He then smartly writes a letter of demand saying they stop immediately, as they are destroying evidence of fraud.

Jimmy then has to go after hours to look for the shreddings and this scene more than anything shows Jimmy’s commitment to the job. Knowing that Sandpiper likely threw the shredded documents in the trash is no deal breaker for Jimmy. He starts dumpster diving in a completely gross scene that shows even when getting new bags of opened trash thrown into him when he’s already in a dumpster full of used adult diapers, you cannot stop Jimmy when he’s determined to do something. After the trash leads to no documents, he takes a look at the recycling container that he probably wishes greatly he checked there first. There he finds his documents.

I wish I could say that’s the end of the hard work but its only just begun. Bags and bags of shredded paper need to be put back together and Jimmy spends all night at Chuck’s house trying to do just that but only gets a small percentage of the way there. In a display of brotherly love, or trying to get his lawyer fix, Chuck gives Jimmy a pillow to sleep on and tries to make sense of the documents himself. Chuck seems like a natural at this and by the time Jimmy wakes up, some incriminating documents are put back together. They fax them over to Sandpiper’s lawyers and they agree to meet at Chuck’s house.

The meeting has a lot of legal jargon to it but there are some simpler to understand things we can take away from it. Chuck is a big shot to the legal game as the Sandpiper lawyer immediately recognizes him and they have no gripe having to leave all their electronics in the car. Chuck recognized that they buy supplies from out of state qualifying this to be a RICO case and a class action lawsuit. In layman’s terms, this puts Chuck on grounds to ask for twenty million in settlement fees. Team Sandpiper refuses and it looks like this has the makings of a long and expensive case. Jimmy and Chuck agree to be partners on the case so it is great to see them working together. It is a large case though, I wonder how Jimmy might react if it becomes too big and they have to get HHM involved in it.

Other Thoughts:

Chuck is making improvements in regards to his hyper sensitivity to electromagnetism. Maybe when he has something to do that he loves, such as doing cases, it overpowers his condition. The episode ended on Jimmy passing out from exhaustion, leaving some important papers in the car. Chuck, already in the working zone, gets up, takes Jimmy’s keys, opens the car and takes the papers, all in the middle of the day! Can you believe it? Neither can either brother as the episode ends with the two of them staring at each other in disbelief out on the front yard.

Just in case anyone has yet to notice this, Mike is a family man. Back at his mundane job as garage toll attendant he gets a call from Stacey asking him if he can babysit his granddaughter. Mike doesn’t hesitate at all to say absolutely and getting off of work is no concern at all, he even lets someone through without the proper validation! I wish Jimmy was there to see that. He’s also looking into extra work solely because of Stacey mentioning she needs some extra money for her and Kaylee, what a guy. And he gets his granddaughter Kaylee a dog, give this guy the grandparent of the year award.

Jimmy had a job working in the HHM mail room and found time to get a law degree on the side, studying on nights and weekends. Just goes to show this kid always had the work effort.

Is there a more Jimmy school to get a law degree from than the University of American Samoa? Quote of the day: “Go land crabs!”

The work ethic and tenacity of Jimmy nets him a potentially career defining case and presents an intriguing setup for a late final arc for season one.

Grade A-