Do you have all that?
Jimmy’s imitation of Howard and gonzo performance art with the prostitute Wendy was compelling enough for Cliff to confront Howard after the meeting about his alleged drug problem. It takes Howard about 30 seconds to gather what’s going on. “I have a problem, just not the problem you think. I have a Jimmy McGill problem,” he yells at Cliff, before calling his assistant and telling her, “Cancel my week.”
So now Jimmy and Kim have a crazy drug lord and a hyperactive law partner coming after them.
Next, we have a fun little fan-service scene where Saul Goodman’s faithful secretary, Francesca Liddy, shows up for her first day of work on the toilet and almost walks. Jimmy basically has to bribe her, and then she demands co-determination in the decor. Sweet.
And the story just keeps coming. Who is this sweet woman having lunch with Kim? Yes, it’s of course Viola Goto, Kim’s lawyer from Mesa Verde. The apparent purpose of the meeting is for Kim to apologize to Viola for leaving her in the lurch at Schweikart & Cokely, but in reality she is fishing for information – more specifically the identity of the judge handling the Sandpiper case. Which Viola obligingly coughs up just before she embarrassed Kim by telling her what inspiration her decision to go completely pro-bono was. Oh good!
Now here comes one of those semi-ingenious, semi-absurd scenes that you can imagine a writer’s room deciding to move on with, because hey, it’s last season, and why the hell not? Howard lures Jimmy [checks notes, confirms this wasn’t a hallucination from drinking coffee laced with bullet lead] an empty boxing ring and invites him to get all his aggression out once and for all, if possible. Yes, it really happened.
Jimmy almost walks away, but then decides to build his own personal Rocky Balboa fantasy after all. For a moment, it looks like Jimmy will gain the upper hand over Howard, but then Howard flattens him. Afterwards, Howard hugs himself with a kind of private eye (I’m sure this person has some significance in Breaking Bad Cinematic Universe, but honestly, I’m so tired of google, guys) and instruct him to follow Jimmy for a week and record all his movements and interactions. So I guess the pragmatic purpose of staging this fight between bulging lawyers was to lure Jimmy and put a tail on him.
Kim tears another butt on the balcony as Jimmy slips home. Back in the apartment, he is desperately experimenting with eye makeup solutions to hide his shiner, but Kim is, as usual, “all good, man” about it. She fills in Jimmy on the information she has collected from Viola, and takes a picture of the new Sandpiper judge. From Jimmy’s reaction (“Love ‘stache – it’s much less face to worry about”) we can deduce that they are planning to emulate the guy. And from Kim’s reaction, as Jimmy kicks himself into letting Howard suck him into his game (“You had your reasons … because you know what’s coming next”), we have to at least wonder, about her and Jimmy wished to be taken in pulling the stunt with Wendy and NAMAST3 Jag. As Howard said to Jimmy before the clash between the crepuscular advisers: “You did not even try to hide your tracks!”