Jimmy takes the lead, laying down a solid case for widespread fraud against Sandpiper. In fact, Chuck seems to be pretty sketchy altogether during the meeting: he goes totally blank while Jimmy is proving that his University of American Samoa degree is worth the paper it’s printed on. Schweikart – a lawyer very much from the Howard Hamlin school of snappy legal dressers – knows Chuck from the law circuit they even worked a case together, although Chuck seems to have a fairly sketchy memory of it. “I figured you’d be arguing in front of the Supreme Court someday” It’s enough to get Chuck back in the game – he agrees to help Jimmy prepare a class action suit. This means that Sandpiper’s activities have crossed state lines, and so they’re liable under the US’s “Rico” racketeering laws, designed to prosecute organised crime, which means it’s a much more serious charge. It’s Chuck who finds the “smoking gun” – an invoice for syringes purchased in Nebraska. So when Jimmy confers with Chuck about the Sandpiper ripoff he thinks he’s uncovered, Chuck is more than happy to help – even stepping in to help stick all the shredded documents from the dumpster back together once Jimmy is too tired to continue. As Chuck puts it, it’s basically Tom Sawyer’s fence-painting trick – but he doesn’t seem to mind. As Jimmy predicted, “storing” his boxes of paperwork at Chuck’s house had exactly the effect he hoped for – Chuck couldn’t resist having a look, and has been writing up Jimmy’s wills for him.
We’ve seen Jimmy team up with Mike, and this week we get to see the McGill brothers in action. It’s not enough for anyone to notice straight away, especially when they hide everything in tiny codes on the monthly statements, but more than enough to be making a sizeable illicit profit once you add it all up.
The staff are overcharging the residents for everyday items – “14 bucks for Kleenex” and so on. While patiently building up his elder-law practice, one $140 will at a time, Jimmy smells a rat in the Sandpiper Crossing retirement home (and not just because he finds himself neck-deep in trash at one point). If there’s one thing Jimmy can spot when he sees it, it’s a long con. No wonder present-day Jimmy hates him so much.
Along with the camera shooting from the perspective of the mail trolley in the opening shot, it’s a great use of the full vocabulary of TV that the team established on Breaking Bad: we don’t need to hear what Hamlin says here, because we already know what he’s saying. “Let’s reassess in six months,” Hamlin offers, with all the sincerity of a man who has zero interest in finding a place for Jimmy at the big boys’ table. But will the HHM partners welcome his new-found status with open arms? Kim and the others close the door behind them, leaving us with the sound of the photocopiers buzzing away, as Howard takes Jimmy’s dreams of self-improvement and crushes them alongside his celebration cake. Kim’s smacker on the lips confirms it: he’s passed the bar exam.
And he was kind of good at it – a nice meet’n’greet for everyone on his route, a positive attitude, and the diligence to spend his free time working on a long-distance law degree.
Back in the day – that is, the post-Slipping Jimmy, pre-lawyer Jimmy days – the younger McGill was working in the HHM mailroom. With more smart use of Jimmy’s “I’m a bit younger” hairpiece, we’re shown the roots of the rivalry with smarm-master Howard Hamlin. Spoiler warning: this recap discusses the eighth episode of Better Call Saul on AMC/Netflix.