“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised I have to tell you this. But it’s probably a bad idea that you willingly talk to the police, being a criminal and all. ”

Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) doesn’t disappoint as season two inches forward. Last week, he explained his perspective clearly enough, explaining to Kim (Rhea Seehorn) that the reason he liked being a lawyer was because he likes to sell people, persuade them into believing him. He also put it bluntly, after pulling a con on a loathsome businessman at a hotel bar, that “I don’t have to be a lawyer to do that.”

But he still takes the job offer in Santa Fe, eventually. We’re left with the impression that he’s more curious than passionate about the position, but it’ll serve his interests for the time being. Company car, salary, and his own office – including an almost too ‘on-the-nose’ painting of a man slipping on ice.

This week, we see one of our first concrete glimpses into the Saul Goodman we known from “Breaking Bad.” Jimmy spins an intricately detailed fiction and sells it to the police to disrupt an investigation into his client’s extra-curricular drug dealing. How does he do it? Easy as pie – or cobbler. He invents a tale that plays into the jaded worldview police detectives: people are stupid and sick and anything, no matter how ridiculous or depraved, is possible.

Jimmy reserves the right to break all the rules, and his lies have migrated from hotel bar and into his profession. This is the first crack in the facade, and temptation is no doubt going to continue chiseling away at his already-flimsy sense of morality.

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