This
week I'm featuring TV episodes that have been nominated for 2021 WGA
awards, and in particular the things they do in their openings.
Here's 509:
Here's 407:
They're both split screen, one side following Jimmy, one side following Kim (although who is on which side is reversed). In 407 we're watching the two of them over eight months while Jimmy is setting up his disposable phone racket and Kim her legal practice. In 509 we're watching Jimmy on the left trying to survive with Mike in the desert, and Kim on the right at home worried about him.
In 407, the split screen becomes a way of telling the story of the two of them growing apart. As the sequence goes on, they're more and more turned away from each other, even in wonderful shots like the dining table where they're literally in the same space.
In 509, the montage seems to function similarly. The split screen in fact signals their now total separation both physically and psychically. She's smoking while he's in a nightmare desert. She's walking away from the screen as he's's walking toward it. They often face in different directions, and when they do face each other, she's drinking water and he's drinking...um, something else.
Both sequences actually end after the song. In 407, they're in bed, turned away from each other, and Jimmy can't sleep. In 509, Jimmy gets a cell signal. And with it the split screen ends. He calls Kim, who gasps and then starts weeping when she hears he's okay.
All of which hints at a big difference about 509--that this is going to be an episode about connection and union, not dissolution--which the episode will then demonstrate in the most insanely unexpected fashion: as well as being a call back, the montage is a set up piece for 509's end, in which Jimmy and Kim together face annihilation at the hands of Lalo. (As in the montage, Mike is present in the background here, too, with a sniper rifle aimed at Lalo from across the street.)
But where Jimmy nearly died when he and Kim were apart, Kim will not only save their lives, she'll give him a lot more credibility with Lalo.
When he finally leaves, she again gasps, as she did when she heard Jimmy's voice. But this time there are no tears.
In part montages are great because done well they're visually interesting. But the thing I notice here is the way in which they come with a built in sense of mystery. A song is its own kind of ticking clock; you know something important is going to happen by the time it ends, but what? Used in conjunction with a montage element like the split screen which tells you we're in a special sequence, the audience can't help but lean in, wondering what is going to happen.
Everything We've Already Done is Potentially Treasure for Later. One of my favorite parts about being a writer is discovering that something I wrote forty pages or three drafts ago has other uses or implications. The artistic unconscious is an insane and incredible gift like that. Basically everything we write is like Thanksgiving turkey. There may very well be some great leftovers.
Did the SAUL team know that they eventually wanted to call back to 407? Honestly, maybe. They're so good. But I suspect the real answer is no, rather as they came into 509 their crazy hive mind and/or amazing assistants brought 407 back to the surface.
Sometimes when you're on a show the last thing you want to do is go back and rewatch or read your work. But this montage (and a lot of SAUL) demonstrates why we should.
In the words of the greatest screenwriter that every lived:
NEXT WEEK: More WGA-nominated scripts, including OZARK'S "Fire Pink"! TED LASSO's pilot! AWKWAFINA IS NORA FROM QUEENS' "Grandma and Chill"!
Also, Lessons learned from WANDAVISION!
