There are things both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul bring to television that elevate it beyond the traditional television series, and one of them is it’s cinematography. A lot of the story is being told by the images and the angles chosen to accentuate the narrative, and both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul have some inspired, and breathtaking visuals. The beginning of “Something Beautiful” is a nearly wordless six-minute sequence directed by Daniel Sackheim, showing how Gus’s men stage a scene to tell a story of their own.

In order to both cover Nacho’s involvement, and to steer the spotlight away from himself, Gus orders Victor and Tyrus to make Arturo’s death appear like a hit from a rival gang. We see all the work that goes into the preparation, the set dressing, the sprinkling of broken glass and bullet casings, the placement of bullet holes in Arturo’s car, the wound to an already dead man, and the insinuation of a passenger in the car with him are all carefully planned and executed wordlessly until the very end. How many shows can pull off this kind of thing and keep their audience in rapt attention? Not many.

In order to make the scene look authentic, Nacho takes a bullet in the shoulder, but the physical pain doesn’t match the emotional pain of his facial expressions as he watches what Gus’s men do to his former friend Arturo. His escape from under Salamanca’s thumb has just left him under Gus’s much larger one. The plan is for him to call The Cousins, but what happens next shows just how precarious his role with Gus, and his life is moving forward. Victor shoots Nacho in the stomach to make it look real, but it really shows how little regard anyone has for Nacho’s life now that Gus has an opportunity to reshape the narrative.

The Cousins find Nacho nearly dead, and take him to the veterinarian and fixer Dr. Caldera for off the books emergency surgery. It seems touch and go as to whether Nacho will survive or not, and even Dr. Caldera isn’t sure he’s fully taken care of the problem. He whispers in Nacho’s ear that he never wants to see him again. As viewers we’re hoping Nacho finds a way to escape all of this, but now that he’s stuck directly between The Cousins and Gus it doesn’t seem like there’s going to be a clean escape. He’s like a double agent working both sides, but the question is does he get caught and end up dead, or does he get far away? He’s not in Breaking Bad, but then again neither is Kim, so it’s hard to say what the future holds for him, but odds are clearly against him at this point.

In Breaking Bad, Gus has some really bad blood with Don Eladio, so much so that he poisons Don Eladio and his entire crew. This bad blood is from before Better Call Saul, and the Salamanca situation has allowed him to shape the narrative enough so Juan Bolsa believes their drug smuggling/shipping routes are compromised and urges Gus to seek a local manufacturer of drugs. Becoming the producer of his own supply is something Gus has clearly been working on behind the cartel’s back for a long time. This point is thoroughly driven home when he goes to visit Gale Boetticher at the college he’s studying at (thanks to a scholarship Gus has set up for him).

Gale is a huge connection to Breaking Bad, and one I didn’t expect to see so soon. Gus is there to have Gale test the purity of some of the drug samples he’s brought over, and the results are not good. They’re actually terrible, which is why Gale offers to cook much better versions right there at the college lab. Gus refuses and tells Gale he has much brighter things in his future. How will Gale go from promising chemistry student, to convincing Gus to let him cook meth and set up the super lab Walt and Jesse use in Breaking Bad? Anyone who’s watched Breaking Bad knows how Gale’s story ends, but seeing how he goes from the Gale we see here singing a song about the periodic elements, to cooking meth, will be fascinating.

The juxtaposition between the serious crimes Gus and his crew are up to, with the silly Hummel heist Jimmy attempts to rope Mike into is brilliant. After being rebuffed by Mike, Jimmy turns to Dr. Caldera to connect him with someone willing to do the job. The man who accepts is another face from Breaking Bad. You may recognize Ira as the future owner of Vamonos Pests, who Jimmy, Mike, Walter, and Jesse use as a front to cook meth in stranger’s houses on Breaking Bad. The stakes are so much lower for Jimmy’s criminal plan, but the tension is just as high as any cartel action, which speaks volumes about the deft writing of this episode by Gordon Smith (who also wrote the spectacular episode “Chicanery”).

What seems like a smooth and easy burglary, turns into something entirely different after a poorly planned gift of a vacuum cleaner by one of the Neff Copier owners to his wife leaves him sleeping on his office couch, with Ira trapped under his desk. Jimmy needs to intervene to help Ira escape, and makes a comical distraction. Both men run away giddily laughing. This scene is so reminiscent of Jimmy’s time in Cicero running scams with his best friend Marco, that it feels like Jimmy’s found a new partner to backslide into these bad habits with. With Chuck out of the picture, and his law license suspended, it’s hard to imagine Jimmy trying to better himself in anyway. Clearly he and Kim’s relationship isn’t enough to keep him on the straight and narrow, because he’s now living a double life that he keeps secret from her.

Kim on the other hand is back to working with Mesa Verde, and has a new assistant Viola (Keiko Agena from Gilmore Girls) to help her with the heavy workload. Things seem to be going well, until Kevin Wachtell shows Kim a room full of models of the rapid expansion of new banks he has in the works. Wandering around them all, Kim seems lost, overwhelmed, and possibly frightened or concerned about the aggressiveness of the expansion Kevin has planned. Something changes for Kim in this moment, and it’s carried with her when she finally gives Jimmy the letter Chuck wrote. Jimmy nonchalantly eats cereal while reading it aloud, showing just how little impact the gravity of both the letter and Chuck’s death seem to have on him.

The letter itself was clearly written well before Chuck and Jimmy’s relationship took a really dark turn, since it praises Jimmy’s work ethic and potential to turn his life around, which is something he’s now abandoned. Kim is emotionally moved by the letter, and is unable to hide her tears, possibly realizing this isn’t the Jimmy she fell for anymore, or the life she planned on having. To Jimmy it’s just a hell of a good letter, but for Kim, who retreats to the bedroom and places the door between her and Jimmy, this might be the end of the relationship. We know Kim doesn’t appear in Breaking Bad, but perhaps this is because she walked away from Jimmy, and moved out of state to work on Mesa Verde’s rapid expansion legal needs?

*I decided that since I started reviewing Better Call Saul from the very beginning over at The Tracking Board, I’ll continue reviewing the series here since they no longer publish television reviews.