12. In the flash-forward at the beginning of the episode, Cinnabon manager Gene was taken to the hospital after collapsing at work. As he left the hospital, what item in the taxi cab drew his attention?
From Quiz "Better Call Saul": 4.1 "Smoke"
Answer:
Air freshener
The episode began with a flash-forward to Jimmy's future life as Gene Takavic, a Cinnabon manager in Omaha, Nebraska. Last season, we saw Gene collapse at work after getting a little too close to his previous life as a lawyer when he offered free legal advice to a suspect apprehended at the mall: "Don't say anything... Get a lawyer". Now we saw the paramedics taking him to a hospital, and after a battery of tests, he was released - no heart attack, just a false alarm. But he had a couple of nerve-racking experiences in the hospital. When he looked out the door of his hospital room, he saw a police officer at the nurses' station, and then as he was leaving the hospital, the clerk stopped him because she was having trouble processing his driver's license, but it turned out to be an operator-error. He finally made it to a cab and asked the driver to take him to the mall. He was beginning to finally relax when he spotted an Albuquerque Isotopes air freshener hanging from the cab's rear-view mirror. The Isotopes are a minor league baseball team in New Mexico, and later in the episode, we saw Mike watching an Isotopes game on TV. But back to Gene - after he spotted the air freshener, he caught the driver's eyes in the rear view mirror and believed that the driver was staring at him. Every time he looked at the mirror, he saw the driver's eyes on him. Gene decided to get out of the cab in a random neighborhood, but as he walked away, he noticed the cab didn't move. Now it's possible that the cab driver was from Albuquerque and knew Saul from his many ads, or maybe he was an old client of Saul's. Or maybe he was just a serial killer looking for his next victim. Or maybe it meant nothing at all. But as a reviewer in "Rolling Stone" magazine pointed out, the cabbie was played by "busy character actor" Don Harvey, an unusual choice for a meaningless part.