brake alert: Don’t read if you haven’t watched the sixth episode of Season 6 of “Better Call Saul” titled “Ax and Grind.”
Giancarlo Esposito did not appear in the final episode of “Better Call Saul,” but that’s because he was busy behind the camera directing this crucial episode, the penultimate entry in the first half of Season 6.
“Ax and Grind” covered a lot of ground, with its setting in Albuquerque, Germany, the long highway to Santa Fe and even flashbacks to Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) childhood. The episode began and ended with Kim, whose heart is broken by a “moment of doom,” according to Esposito. In the final moments, Kim heads to Santa Fe for an interview for a big job with a law firm, but Saul (Bob Odenkirk) calls her crazy and warns her that a “D-Day” scam on Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian) hit a snag. Rather than delay their plots any longer, Kim pulls a turn halfway, forgoes her career opportunity and heads back to Albuquerque to finish the job.
Elsewhere, Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton) continues his terrible reign in Germany and finds Casper (Stefan Kapić), one of the workers who built the Gus meth superlab. He’s looking for dirt on the prowl, but for a while he’s hacked with an ax to the side. However, Lalo gains the upper hand by slashing Casper’s face with a concealed razor blade and piercing one of his legs.
The episode also introduces one of the most important characters in the “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul” universe, but rarely seen: the vacuum repairman. Dr. Caldera, the unstable vet who resurrected Saul and Mike (Jonathan Banks) throughout the series, reveals that he keeps an encrypted diary of illegal contacts. Inside the book is a card for Ed Galbraith (Robert Forster), who specializes in repairing vacuums and making people disappear when they’re in trouble.
Esposito, who has directed three features of his own in addition to starring as Gus in “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul,” talks with diverse About his directorial debut on the AMC series, finding a German barn in Albuquerque and why he thinks Kim is an intrinsically good person.
How did you end up directing this particular episode?
When I was working on Breaking Bad, I had made my second Vince Gilligan movie. Years later when we were getting ready to do 401 on Breaking Bad, that infamous “Box Cutter” episode, I asked him if he’d looked at it and said, “No, I haven’t had a chance.” I said, “Well, I’ve been a busy bee.” I did not ask again. That was about 10 years ago, but I noticed and kept watching what was happening. The summer before we started filming, I got a phone call from Vince and thought something had happened to one of the cast members, “Oh, what happened, is Jonathan Banks off?” Vince, Melissa Bernstein, and Peter Gould were, “We want to invite you to direct an episode in Season 6.” They didn’t know which one, and she just screamed. Good things come to those who wait. From their conversations, they thought 606 would be the best thing to do with my character.
What elements of the ring match your personality?
My episode has some severe violence. I haven’t done a lot of violent movies. My films are more intellectual, more about social consciousness. I think they wanted to give me a chance to shoot a very difficult scene that happened in Germany with Lalo Salamanca and Casper. I think that might have been part of it. It was also a very complicated episode in its planning of what Kim and Jimmy were going to do, and how they were going to enact this entire chart on Howard. However, she has had moments with Howard’s story, which is so beautiful, it can have some softness and desire for Howard and his wife to get back together, which doesn’t really happen. I guess everyone knew I went through a marriage, and it turns out on the other end that I’m very close to my ex and have kids, but we’re not together. Perhaps they looked at the sensitive side of me to channel some of that. Nobody knows I have that side, so don’t tell anyone.
Where did you film the Lalo scene in Germany? The show is usually in Albuquerque, how did you give this area a new look?
Our wonderful decorating artist found an old barn in the valley in Albuquerque. I went to the studio where they had an old set of something else. They said we could design the interior here and the exterior there. We ended up going out into the barn, which was owned by a 90-year-old woman in the valley. He had a beautiful sense of what could be inside a German barn. It was a horse barn, and we wanted it to be a barn that looked like it had Casper machines – he’s an engineer. There was already hay. The interior design was perfect.
Finished out on the other side of Sandia, New Mexico, it really does look like Germany. But we didn’t have enough green; It wasn’t the season. I said, “Can we get someone to come here every day with a water truck and water? Every day for the next two weeks before we have to shoot, we just soak the ground.” We brought green people there and planted some extra trees. It worked smoothly due to the creativity of many great artists.
Kim pulling the turn at the end is a perfect symbol of her choice of the Sandpiper scam over her career. Is this the turning point for Kim?
It’s a heartbreaking moment for me in this episode, and I wanted it to reflect a very important decision in Kim’s life and her life with Jimmy. She has that opportunity that she’s wanted all her career; You will walk into that room and check it out. To make her make this decision, is it for love or is it to provoke villains? Whatever it is, this turn is a perfect analogy to it. It is a turning point in her life.
She’s going to Santa Fe, and she has to go back to Albuquerque. We had this only route, and we wanted it to look like it was closer to its destination than it is to the departure area. That was tough for the mountains to use. We found the right path, and it was perfect because it was two lanes on each side with a gap, where we could really do the job. We had a happy accident where we went too far on our cone path. There were clouds forming in the passenger window as we see Kim from the driver’s side the exact moment she got off the phone and made that decision. We might have had it all in one or two shots, maybe one and a half times. It was enough to create a moment of doom in herself.
Not much flashback is used on the show, but it’s always very intentional. What does this opening with Kim and her mother say about her future?
We all have moments to remember with our parents. We remember how it affected us in a negative or positive way. This moment for me is a reflection of Kim’s whole life and who she has actually become. In essence, I think Kim is a good person and probably has deeper legal skills than Jimmy. Yet it falls into the afterlife. For how long, we do not know.
In this scene, you see some links through the ring if you watch closely. Earrings are important because Kim has worn basically the same earrings throughout her life. You see them again at the vet’s office; If you notice, these are the same earrings. They meant something to her. She needed to slap her in the hand, “No, we don’t.” But it all worked out. Perhaps she was satisfied that she had been reprimanded by her mother for doing something wrong, and needed this parenting guidance, then is surprised when her mother comes out and says, “Look what I got for you.” It was all a hoax. This is heartbreaking. I think it breaks it down in a way related to the decision you make at the end of the episode.
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