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This article contains SPOILERS for this week’s episode of Better Call Saul.
Better Call Saul was always going to be a pretty depressing prequel; like at least in the Star Wars prequels, Anakin Skywalker got to become Darth Vader, with that nifty suit and a badass James Earl Jones-set vocoder – but with this show, we had to watch Jimmy McGill’s slow descent from amiable grifter to tacky supporting character (and eventually, traumatised Cinnabon manager).
Perhaps the most heartbreaking moment on the show so far – which has involved characters literally burning to death and getting randomly shot in the head – came in this week’s episode, “Fun and Games,” when Kim leaves Jimmy, realizing that, despite the fact that they still love each other, their relationship is “poison.”
Kim’s choice of words here seemingly isn’t incidental; the show has been subtly foreshadowing this moment using the memento of Kim’s first con, the totem representing their problematic coupling that she’s hung onto for years; the bottle stopper from the expensive (and fictional) Zafiro Añejo tequila, which Kim pointedly left behind with Jimmy/Saul, as we saw in the season premiere’s flashforward. And Jimmy seemingly kept it until he became a fugitive.
But this isn’t the first time we’ve seen that particular tequila brand in this fictional universe: it showed up in the fourth season of Breaking Bad. And as a fan pointed out on Twitter, the connection between its initial appearance and its subsequent thematic importance on Better Call Saul now seems very clear, because that same tequila was literally used to poison Don Eladio and the rest of his cartel goons.
The connection between Jimmy and Kim’s harmless scams and a toxic brew that has the power to hurt people, was laid out from the very start. It also, then, perhaps isn’t a coincidence that this week’s episode also finds Gus Fring making a trip to Don Eladio’s estate, barely masking his rage for the guy that, we all know, he will eventually take down years later thanks to that pricey bottle of fake hooch.
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- Better Call Saul
- Breaking Bad