"Better Call Saul": 3.1 "Mabel" Quiz

Answer: The arrest of a shoplifter

Gene didn't just witness the arrest, he contributed to it by pointing out to the officer that the shoplifter was hiding in a photo booth. Gene looked very contrite after doing so, and as the kid was being taken away, Gene yelled out to him: "Say nothing, you understand? Get a lawyer!" Calling attention to himself was probably the last thing Gene wanted to do, but Saul Goodman took charge.

When he returned to work after his lunch break, Gene promptly fainted while spreading icing on cinnamon rolls.

Answer: A book

The book was called "The Adventures of Mabel", and it belonged to their "Grammy Davenport", who according to Chuck, was a teacher who had read it to her class the same year that the Titanic went down. Jimmy said that he remembered his mother reading it to him, but Chuck quickly corrected him: It was Chuck who read it to Jimmy. "The Adventures of Mabel" is a real book by Harry Thurston Peck; it was first published in 1896 under a pseudonym but reissued in 1912 under the author's real name. "Better Call Saul" co-creator Vince Gilligan stated that his mother had read the book to him when he was a child, so he included the book in the episode as a personal Easter Egg to her.

Answer: The Karate Kid

Chuck told Jimmy to "use a little finesse" and gently roll the tape off, left then right. "I get it, wax on, wax off", Jimmy said, adding,"Mr. Miyagi, 'Karate Kid'" when Chuck looked at him blankly. "Seriously?" Jimmy asked when Chuck walked away. Not sure if Chuck was just ignoring Jimmy or if he wasn't familiar with the film, probably the latter based on Jimmy's reaction. Movie references are a staple of "Better Call Saul", and besides "The Karate Kid", "Top Gun" also had a mention in the "Mabel" episode.

Answer: A junkyard

Mike's cursory search of the vehicle didn't uncover a bug, but he knew there had to be one so he drove the car to a junkyard and proceeded to disassemble it. Finally, a junkyard employee told him the shop was getting ready to close, so Mike threw in the towel and asked the man to call him a cab. When the employee asked him what he wanted to do with his car, Mike told him to keep it.

Answer: Inside the gas cap

Mike had initially taken the gas cap out and looked around for a bug, but he hadn't dissembled it. But while he was in the junkyard office, waiting for his cab, he noticed the gas caps for sale on a rack; perhaps he realized how easy it would be to switch out the cap, so he decided to check it. Success! When he arrived home, he checked the cap on his other car, and it too had a bug in the gas cap.

Answer: An Air Force captain

Jimmy had wanted to film a veteran standing in front of a WWII bomber so he convinced Captain Bauer (Brendan Fehr) to allow Major Fudge Talbot on the Air Force Base to see the plane, but as Captain Bauer discovered, Talbot wasn't a WWII veteran (or even a real person). Jimmy argued that no damage had been done and that the Air Force might see "an uptick" in their recruiting numbers thanks to his commercial: "Look what 'Top Gun' did for you". Bauer ordered Jimmy to take down the ad, but Jimmy refused: "Make me". Jimmy pointed out that the captain had gave them access to the base so it wouldn't look good for him if he went to his commander about the issue. Jimmy ended with the offer that "I won't fly jet planes and you stay out of court. Sound good?" Perhaps foreshadowing Jimmy's future, Bauer replied that "the wheel is gonna turn.

It always does."

Answer: The vet

"Three-thirty in the morning? Seriously?" was the vet's greeting when he arrived at the meeting in an abandoned parking lot. We might not have recognized him as the vet at first since we'd only seen him in the clinic before, but it became clear who he was when he asked Mike, "Hey how's the pup? Doing OK?" and "She's not being left alone all day, is she?" He charged Mike $1000 for his after-hours fee and told him he'd get him the product in a few days.

Answer: Kim was able to get the rehearing moved up nearly three weeks.

Paige was impressed with the documents: "I can't believe you did all of this in three days". But she was most impressed that Kim had been able to get the rehearing moved up. At the original hearing with Chuck and Howard, they were told that the soonest they could get a rehearing would be six weeks away, and it was particularly frustrating to Kevin, Paige's boss, that they would have to wait that long to get their branch opened. Kim had secured three possible dates for them to choose from that were almost three weeks earlier. "Kevin will be popping champagne!" was Paige's comment.

Answer: He heard Jimmy's voice on the tape.

Ernie had purchased the batteries and even had wrapped them in aluminum foil to protect Chuck, but Chuck needed them right away. Chuck took them and tried to replace the old batteries in the tape player, but he then asked Ernie for help. When Ernie inserted the new batteries, the tape started playing, and he heard Jimmy's voice and probably enough of the conversation to realize that Jimmy was confessing to the forgery. Chuck quickly asked Ernie to shut off the tape and then lectured Ernie about confidentiality, making it seem like it was an accident, but the smirk on Chuck's face at the end of the scene indicated otherwise.

After all, Jimmy's confession implicated Ernie since Ernie had claimed that he was the one to call Jimmy on the night that Chuck collapsed in the printing store, and Chuck knew that wasn't the case. So this must be what Chuck meant when he told Howard that there were other things he could do with the tape.

Answer: Transistor radio

Mike had purchased the same model tracking device that had been used in his gas cap. His plan was to drain the power from the original device so that whoever was using it would pick it up, but instead of picking up their device, they would pick up the one that Mike purchased, and then Mike could track them. Sneaky devil. So to drain their device, he hooked its battery up to his transistor radio and left the radio on.

After the battery drained, he sat by his front window, munching pistachios, and waited for someone to pick up the device.

When someone finally did, he got in his car and followed them.