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Yesterday I wrote about a con Jimmy McGill and ride-or-die friend Kim Wexler pull against a prosecutor in Better Call Saul ep. 4.08 to get her to reduce the charges against Jimmy's associate, Huell Babineaux. At Kim's suggestion Jimmy wrote a bunch of letters as a fake letter-writing campaign from ordinary citizens of Huell's hometown, attesting to what a wonderful person Huell is and promising the judge to come protest his unjust prosecution at trial. The judge tells the prosecutor to offer a plea bargain to keep the case away from trial. The prosecutor, suspecting the syrupy sweet letters of being phony, takes them back to her office and sets her team to investigate them.
This is where Jimmy is three steps ahead of them.
First, those letters from people in Coushatta, Louisiana are all mailed from Coushatta— a real town. Jimmy traveled there by bus to post the letters from the tiny town's post office.
Next, many of the letter included phone numbers for the people who supposedly wrote them. Those phone numbers....?
Remember Jimmy— actually he did this as Saul— the phone salesman from a few episodes ago? Yeah, those phone numbers are all real. They go to a bank of phones Jimmy purchased and set up in his office. And he's hired his 3 member film crew of UNM students, including "Drama Girl", his script-writing and makeup consultant, to answer the phones. They put on laughably thick Cajun accents and downhome mannerisms as they impersonate eah of the letter writers the ADA and her staff check up on. Jimmy himself lays it on thick as the pastor of the Free Will Baptist Church, while "Sound Guy" plays a recording of church organ music in the background.
Oh, and Free Will Baptist Church? You know the prosecutor and her team are going to Google that. They're not idiots. But again, Jimmy is ahead of them. And the showrunners hid an Easter egg.
The prosecutor's team pulls up the church's webpage. It's got a photo carousel of Huell Babineux being thanked by various members of the community— including firefighters thanking him for rescuing senior citizens from a burning building. The prosecutor, at this point, gives up. She contacts Kim to offer a plea bargain.
When I saw this come up on a laptop screen in the show, following the crazy accents on the phones, I was practically crying with laughter. Then after watching the episode I discovered something even better— an Easter egg.
That pic from the website? It's not a a screen-cap from the TV series; it's a screenshot I made by visiting https://www.freewill-baptistchurch.com. Yes, the Free Will Baptist Church of Coushatta, Louisiana is fake... but it has a real website we fans can visit!
The main page has the aforementioned photo carousel of Huell Babineaux (Lavell Crawford) and his many charitable acts. The "Testimonials" page has 3 audio recordings of the Better Call Saul cast pretending to be small town parishioners. If you call the number on the website, you hear a recording of Bob Odenkirk's hilarious rendition of a Cajun preacher. And the "Donate" button really works— though it redirects to a real, legit charity, the Food Bank of Louisiana.
This is where Jimmy is three steps ahead of them.
First, those letters from people in Coushatta, Louisiana are all mailed from Coushatta— a real town. Jimmy traveled there by bus to post the letters from the tiny town's post office.
Next, many of the letter included phone numbers for the people who supposedly wrote them. Those phone numbers....?
Remember Jimmy— actually he did this as Saul— the phone salesman from a few episodes ago? Yeah, those phone numbers are all real. They go to a bank of phones Jimmy purchased and set up in his office. And he's hired his 3 member film crew of UNM students, including "Drama Girl", his script-writing and makeup consultant, to answer the phones. They put on laughably thick Cajun accents and downhome mannerisms as they impersonate eah of the letter writers the ADA and her staff check up on. Jimmy himself lays it on thick as the pastor of the Free Will Baptist Church, while "Sound Guy" plays a recording of church organ music in the background.
Oh, and Free Will Baptist Church? You know the prosecutor and her team are going to Google that. They're not idiots. But again, Jimmy is ahead of them. And the showrunners hid an Easter egg.
The prosecutor's team pulls up the church's webpage. It's got a photo carousel of Huell Babineux being thanked by various members of the community— including firefighters thanking him for rescuing senior citizens from a burning building. The prosecutor, at this point, gives up. She contacts Kim to offer a plea bargain.
When I saw this come up on a laptop screen in the show, following the crazy accents on the phones, I was practically crying with laughter. Then after watching the episode I discovered something even better— an Easter egg.
That pic from the website? It's not a a screen-cap from the TV series; it's a screenshot I made by visiting https://www.freewill-baptistchurch.com. Yes, the Free Will Baptist Church of Coushatta, Louisiana is fake... but it has a real website we fans can visit!
The main page has the aforementioned photo carousel of Huell Babineaux (Lavell Crawford) and his many charitable acts. The "Testimonials" page has 3 audio recordings of the Better Call Saul cast pretending to be small town parishioners. If you call the number on the website, you hear a recording of Bob Odenkirk's hilarious rendition of a Cajun preacher. And the "Donate" button really works— though it redirects to a real, legit charity, the Food Bank of Louisiana.
