Something this show does better than most others is they introduce these minor story beats in a way that seems purposeful in the moment due to its own thematic relevance, but an episode or two later the same beat takes on an even bigger, more meaningful purpose. Its an obvious technique that happens all the time in shows/movies, but for some reason BCS handles it so subtly that it seems like magic.

A specific example is when Howard, in his final convo in Jimmy and Kim's kitchen before he dies, mentions his marriage problems. In the moment, this served the purpose of ratcheting up Jimmy's guilt. You see him have a visceral reaction and look at Kim as if insinuating "Shit, if I had known that, then maybe I wouldn't have....".

But in the most recent episode, we see Kim gaslight Howard's wife flawlessly, only able to twist the knife with her insulting "You would have known better than anybody else" comments because she was fully aware of the marital issues between Howard and Cheryl and that they were staying in separate houses. The importance of that piece of information is so vital to the story in the moment, you almost have to wonder if the writers thought of this later section first, and reverse engineered it back to ensure Howard drops that tidbit in the earlier conversation.

Again, this is nothing new. TV shows always do this. Everybody knows what Chekov's gun is. But most of the time, when a lesser show tries to "sneak in" the important beat that will only reveal its true weight later on, it seems glaringly obvious and forced. You find yourself thinking "well, that will surely come into play eventually". This show suspends your disbelief and doesn't let you see the magic trick.

Another example is in the beginning of this season when Gus drops the glass and meticulously cleans up the broken shards and throws them out. In the moment, it seemed like this was highlighting Gus' anxiety and showing how rattled he is, which is super uncharacteristic of him. But next episode, we learn the shard's true purpose was to help Nacho cut his zip ties and aid in his final plan.

On a macro level, I am in awe over how they did this on grander scale with Jimmy's early dealings with the elderly. That one decision by the writers allowed the entire plot to spiral and escalate so organically, while characterizing Jimmy at the same time. Not only did his warm demeanor with the elderly make us quickly empathize with him and separate him from his sleazy final form that we were still attached to from BB, but it also nurtures Jimmy's "showy", old-time Hollywood delivery which we can sense as a precursor to the boisterous Saul persona. It isn't just doing one thing, its doing so much storytelling work on so many levels. This foray into elder law leads us to the Sandpiper case, which in turn acts as an engine for so much of the show's narrative (Jimmy/Chuck dynamic, Jimmy's relationship to the law and questions of ethics, his betrayal of Irene and guilty conscious tracking moral evolution, etc.). Sandpiper leads us to the 20% common fund "macguffin" that acts as a catalyst for Kim's downfall and Howard's demise. And all of that intricate cause-and-effect sprouted out of the writer's simple decision to have Jimmy practice elder law as his first stepping stone.

I think of it like making a snowman. You start with a small snowball and keep rolling it around the ground. The more you keep rolling without picking up the ball, the more compact and cohesive and bigger the ball gets, smoothing out eventually and becoming this gigantic behemoth. Sometimes, there are patches of snow that are spotty and not ideal, so you can choose to keep rolling through it until you get to the better patches, or you can try to keep picking up the ball and only dropping it on the "good spots", constantly shuffling around in an attempt to skip past the grassy areas. Lesser writers would think "OK, we've done the elder law shtick, lets move on to the cartel stuff" and try to bypass the natural flow of the story. But these writers don't try to pick up the snowball while it is moving, they roll it straight into whatever terrain is in front of them, with the confidence that if they stay focused, the snowball will keep growing and coalescing organically, with all the prior history adding up and creating greater meaning as time goes on. Its the same reason why people say that this show takes awhile to get going. The writers refused to pick up the snowball and move it once it started going. They just kept doing their thing, whether it meant spending time in a cell phone store, or prepping a German construction crew's housing facility, or giving screen time to a nerd with a Hummer, and now everyone realizes the show is much better for it.

But I'll stop rambling now. This is all basically a long-winded way of saying that the writing on this show is unparalleled.