Cheat Work Thursday

MUST READ: ALL THREE The Whistler (2016) A once disbarred, ex-con lawyer named Ramsey Mix contacts the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct (BJC) with the information of the most corrupt judge in US history. Lacy Stoltz, an investigator with the Board, and her partner, Hugo Hatch, are assigned to the case. The judge in question has been aiding the local mafia skimming money from the Indian casinos and covering for the mafia’s various crimes, including murders. She is revealed to be Claudia McDover, and Mix supplies the information on behalf of a mole who wants to file a claim under the Florida Whistleblower Statute and collect possibly millions from it. This is a story of two mice trying to corner several huge cats. For five minutes, it spooked me to drive alone at night. Also, after Gray Mountain, this pattern of pulling the rug from under the feet in the middle of the plotlines feels familiar to me. Is this new? I don’t remember this in Grisham's older books. What did he d...

MUST READ: GRAY MOUNTAIN It has been a while since I last read Grisham. I’m catching up, because loyalty. (As usual, this may contain spoilers.) The Racketeer (2012) It’s a story about a Black attorney Malcolm Bannister from a small town in Virginia who was set up and convicted for racketeering. He's sentenced to 10 years and pretty much loses everything in his life: career, marriage, contact with his young son, and people who care – except for his aging father, who visits him once a month in prison. Halfway doing time, a federal judge and his mistress are brutally murdered. Malcolm makes a deal with the FBI, giving them the name of the murderer in exchange for his release and a witness protection programme. He demands for a face-changing surgery under the programme, then disappears. Halfway reading it, you can already sense where the story is going – of the long plot he’s planned with his best friend and girlfriend – which you’ll read with an urgent need to warn him ...

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash Cancer is rare in my family -- even in my extended one. But my mother was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive uterine cancer last year. It was an early stage, so she had a hysterectomy, followed by radiotherapy. Then we found out it had spread to other organs early this year, just a few months post-radiotherapy. So my mother's currently undergoing chemo -- the fourth out of six was last Thursday. I think the night she had her first chemo while hospitalized for ascites was one of the scariest moments I've ever experienced in my life. Since her first diagnosis, we've learned a lot of things about cancer for the first time -- there are types and grades, whether they are aggressive or not; there are specific caregiving needs after chemo, which are all news to me; and there are traumas, exhaustion and a whole lot of emotional roller coaster as well. I'm embarrassed for making this about me. I'm sorry. I'm not the patient in ...

Photo by Finn on Unsplash I still stupidly think I’m going to maintain this blog. It was supposed to be an escape. But I learn that you can’t even comb your hair if you are lazy, let alone escape . Escaping cannot be a small amount of work. So here I am, still, dragging my feet in a circle of no motivation or inspiration. I understand that this whole paragraph may disrupt the flow of good energy to some of you, and to that I say, stop reading stupid Instagram quotes. But I feel like I need the blog now more than ever. I feel like I could use some sharing, venting, laughing, spilling, judging and screaming. Maybe those sad events in the past few years will seem less sad if I write them down. (And this is kind of against my self-respect policy because why am I dedicating my time and energy to this but) maybe those bitchy colleagues from a gazillion years ago do deserve to be ratted out. Maybe reminding myself of the few good choices or changes that I’ve made in my life, or th...

You’ll look at the lab differently now The second part of the final season opens with a stunning shot of the sunset at the beach. Music’s playing from Howard’s abandoned Jaguar, the door’s open, his wallet and wedding ring are on the dashboard, and his shoes are floating in the water: It’s the stage for his suicide. Back up a few days to the night at the apartment. Lalo sends Kim to kill Gus and ties Jimmy before leaving for the laundry. Mike stops Kim and goes to free Jimmy. Against Mike’s instruction to stay at his home, sensing something is off, Gus also heads to the laundry. He realizes the place has been breached, but before he can react, Lalo kills all of his men. Gun to his head, Gus is forced to reveal the lab to Lalo, who continues to record it all for Eladio. Gus manages to distract Lalo at one point. He kicks a power line, grabs the gun that he’s hidden on an excavator days earlier and empties the chamber on Lalo who, never changing, dies laughing. Mike, the ever-m...

The aftermath of Chihuahua Nacho hides in a motel as instructed by Tyrus. He’s to wait for a pickup in a few days. There are money, gun, clothes, food and bed – and there’s someone secretly surveilling him from a small building across the room that he’s aware of, but not sure who and why. Meanwhile, Lalo goes to a house in the village belonging to a man whom he’s helped pay for dental treatment recently. The wife treats Lalo's wound and serves him coffee. Then Lalo kills the couple, burns the man’s body and plants it as his own back in his compound. As far as the world’s concerned, dental records checked out and all, Lalo Salamanca is dead. “The mercenaries are dead. And yet their mission was a success.” – Gus Fring Bolsa tells Gus that Lalo’s dead, killed by hired gunmen, which could be the Colombians – or traitors close to home. “We know this much. Ignacio Varga is a rat. Don Eladio has put a price on his head. Every man we have is searching for him,” Bolsa says. G...

Gene Takavic of Cinnabon, Omaha, Nebraska The flash-forward of Gene has always been a combination of wariness and mundane routine until now, when a cab driver named Jeff recognizes him from his old TV ad. Gene calls for a new Vacuum but changes his mind, telling the seller he’s fixing the problem himself. Lalo and Gus Lalo’s obsessed about untangling the Werner Ziegler mystery. He asks Nacho if he’s noticed anything off in their operation. Nacho says they may have received complaints about their products not being on par lately, but complaining is what buyers do, so that’s not really strange. Lalo checks the products at one of the dealers’ places – Mouse and Arlo’s – and true enough, some of the drugs turn out not to be the cartel's. He goes to Gus and Bolsa with this. Gus “confesses” that he had to outsource some of the drugs after running into some trouble recently: an engineer who did a construction work for his legit business stealing the products. The engineer’s n...

The aftermath of the stroke and the fire We’re all frogs in the boiling water. At some point we should’ve stopped rooting for these characters, but we never did. Following Hector’s stroke, Bolsa orders Nacho and Arturo to look after the Salamancas' business. Gus has Victor tracking and following Nacho, and Victor sees Nacho throwing the meds over the bridge. Bolsa also instructs Gus to run a dummy distribution to catch the perpetrator of the recent incidents and outsource a new supplier, which they know Eladio doesn't approve. Unbeknownst to the cartel, Gus has already been making a move, getting Gale Boetticher to test new products for him. Mike quits his parking attendant job, but he’s restless at home and doesn’t want to be just on Madrigal’s books. He physically goes to the company’s warehouse and advises on its security weaknesses. Howard tells Jimmy that he doesn’t think Chuck’s death was an accident, and he blames himself for it – having pushed Chuck into ret...

The beginning of an end The recording is probably not going to hold in court, and Mesa Verde’s never coming back to HHM, but Chuck has another plan for it. And Ernie is the first piece of the puzzle, walking right into the trap: accidentally playing the tape when Chuck asks him to replace the battery. As the Air Force captain from the "Fifi" episode warns Jimmy, Jimmy may think that he doesn’t have to play straight with anybody, but the wheel is going to turn. The beginning of Mike and Gus Fring The people who put the “Don’t” note also put a tracker on Mike’s car. He replaces the tracker with a new one to reverse-track them. This brings us to Los Pollos Hermanos and the first meeting between Mike and Gus in the middle of a secluded road. Gus tells Mike that it’s not in his interest for Hector to die – at this time – although he won’t stand in the way if Mike wants to disrupt Hector’s supply line again. He later tells Mike, “A bullet to the head is far too humane”...

Jimmy drinks the cucumber water and quits law Every time Jimmy tries to grab a cup of Mrs Nguyen’s “Customers only!” cucumber drink, he’ll get yelled at by the landlady and stop himself. Back from declining the offer from Davis & Main, he rebels fearlessly and drinks the water straight from the dispenser. This new Jimmy is quitting law altogether and now lazing in a hotel pool too. Kim looks for him and tries to understand this new life crisis of his. Jimmy says he's done getting Chuck’s approval, and he could use his talent elsewhere, not only for law. To prove that, he tricks a loud stockbroker at the bar to pay for their expensive drinks, introducing himself as Viktor. Kim, reluctantly at first, plays along as Viktor’s sibling Giselle, both apparently have just received a huge inheritance. Thrilled with the experience, Kim kisses Jimmy and they spend the night together. Pryce drives a Hummer and Mike leaves Pryce is too clueless to crime, so he buys a flashy H...