Better Call Saul season 4 episode 9 'Wiedersehen' review & recap: Werner's great escape

It’s been a lot of little humiliations that have caused Jimmy McGill to slowly abandon his morals in Better Call Saul. Was this week’s indignity the one that will make him fully commit to a life of crime?

Let’s break down season 4 episode 9 “Wiedersehen” sub-plot by sub-plot.

The Salamanca-Fring rivalry

With the luxury of at least four seasons of prequel, Breaking Bad creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould are leaving no stone un-mined for a backstory in Better Call Saul. This week’s origin story? The bell on Hector Salamanca’s wheelchair.

Lalo and a very reluctantly along-for-the-ride Nacho paid a visit to the old people’s home where Hector has been placed after being discharged from hospital, finding the Don still only able to communicate “yes” and “no” answers. The service bell, it turns out, was from a hotel Don and Lalo once burned to the ground, the souvenir being prized from a dead bellboy’s hand. I suppose we did need to hear Hector Salamanca’s first ever belligerent “ding” in this prequel series, but the backstory did feel a little bit like fan service.

The pair’s next stop was Los Pollos Hermanos, where Lalo thanked Gus Fring for “saving” Hector and hinted that Fring and the Salamancas should team up and take down the man who they create and distribute meth for, Don Eladio. Lalo seemed to be looking for an excuse to in fact sell Gus down the river to Eladio – well, that was my reading of the exchange – but Gus appeared wise to it. This scene gave rise to my two favourite Gus trademarks: his instantly vanishing smile and his cheery, customer-facing persona. “I trust everything was to your satisfaction, gentlemen?”

With Lalo (who was namechecked way back in Breaking Bad season 2) deciding to poke his nose in at Gus’s desert safehouse as he departed Los Pollos Hermanos, Fring probably ought to mount a pre-emptive measure against the snooping Salamanca in next week’s season finale, though he might be distracted...

The Germans’ superlab construction project

What’s going on with Werner? His near panic attack while fixing detonation charges on the “Wiedersehen”-emblazoned basement wall appeared to come with the realisation that this project could easily kill him, and therefore it was high time he saw his wife. Mike was having none of Werner’s request for holiday however, and his logic for denying it was sound: get the job done and you’ll have so much money you’ll never have to work again and be able to spend every single day with your loving wife.

Are we to believe, then, that Werner’s subsequent break-out from the engineers’ prefab village at the episode’s close was all down to an impatience to be reunited with his wife? Something’s up, and Gus Fring is not going to be best pleased that his secret superlab plans are now out in the open.

The idea that the noise of a truck going over a speed bump would be enough to mask a fairly large subterranean detonation was slightly irksome in this sub-plot, but props to the writers for the clever little CCTV dead pixels clue that led Mike to figure out Werner’s escape.

Kim and Jimmy go through the ringer yet again

After enjoying a little post-mail-fraud sex in episode 8, Kim and Jimmy were back scamming at the opening of this week’s instalment, conning a poor office clerk into switching some already filed Mesa Verde blueprints (my compliments to the costume department for McGill’s Jimmy Buffett t-shirt and wrap-around red shades on a cord). Debriefing in a diner, Jimmy confronted Kim about her kinky enjoyment of petty crime and she was evasive – a matter very much to be continued (likely in season 5).

Later, Jimmy attended his license review, breezing through the board’s questions. “It’s classic Scalia!” he enthused during a hilarious digression into Supreme Court law, but he ultimately proved overzealous, the board finding him “insincere” and denying his application to get his license back. They were right – Jimmy is wholly insincere, but Kim correctly identified the main issue: he failed to show any contrition over what happened with his brother.

In a dramatic rooftop argument, Jimmy didn’t find Kim appropriately sympathetic and accused her of “kicking me when I’m down”. “Jimmy, you are always down,” was Kim’s caustic response. This seemed to finally be the end of their relationship, but back at the flat Kim agreed to help Jimmy out of his latest predicament yet again. Between Jimmy and the juveniles she defends down at the courthouse, Kim doesn’t seem able to give up on underdogs, even when they appear to be lost causes. This altruistic personality trait has already broken her arm in Better Call Saul, and the injuries could be greater before the show reaches its conclusion.

Next week, the season 4 finale: “Winner” (trailer above).

Better Call Saul airs Sunday nights on AMC in the US, and reaches Netflix the morning after in other territories