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Better Call Saul


Niners Fan in CT

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That was jaw-dropper. The whole episode was, to me, honestly, especially because I didn't watch the last one.

Spoiler

But I have to bring this up. Jimmy and Kim finally had sex on camera while tastefully being blurred and it being brief because we have never, eeeever seen a supposedly married couple supposedly in love doing the duty on screen. Especially this couple. It feels... unique? I dunno how to explain it. And meanwhile we have James Bond/Jack the Ripper running around doing crazy shit. Good lord.

 

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Got caught up with the previous season and this first half of the final season in the past week. The show coming back a day after my 33rd birthday is a great present, thank you AMC!

It's still wild that the fates of all these important people in the BCS/BB universe - dead, enslaved or in hiding - all happens because of a high school chemistry teacher with cancer. It does make me wonder about the fate of Lalo and Kim, since nobody ever really gets out alive, or for the better, when involved with any of these people like Saul, Gus and eventually Walter & Jesse.

I wonder if Lalo gets killed by Gus/Mike, and Saul just doesn't know about it, like he doesn't know about what happened to Nacho (right? I didn't miss something where he finds that out I don't think). My prediction about Kim is that she doesn't get killed, or leave Saul, but they showed Ed's card in the vet's book as foreshadowing. We're meant to think it's just an easter egg because it's eventually going to be useful for Saul, Walt, Jesse, etc. but the first time he actually uses it is to get Kim out of Albuquerque when shit really hits the fan.

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Hah. I've seen so many reactions like the one above or like mine where all you can really muster is a "holy shit" or "WTF." It's the next day and I'm still stunned. When Howard enters and the candle flickers I thought it was Lalo then. Then when it flickers a second time, shit turned into a horror movie and those final five minutes were some of the most intense and gripping in the history of BB and BCS. 

At this point I think it's a pretty easy call to say BCS has surpassed BB. Maybe not in terms of popularity, but definitely in terms of quality. It's going to suck when this is all done because I'm just going to want more from that whole universe, but it's better to go out on a high instead of milking something to the point where it's like the Walking Dead and it's nothing but diminishing returns or worse.

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9 hours ago, Casey said:

I wonder if Lalo gets killed by Gus/Mike, and Saul just doesn't know about it, like he doesn't know about what happened to Nacho (right? I didn't miss something where he finds that out I don't think). 

If they keep it consistent with BB, Saul either won't know Lalo's dead or potentially goes on believing that no assurance Lalo is dead will ever be reliable and worries he could reappear at any time.

There's the possibility Lalo's alive, but I can't imagine him being in play and dormant through the events of Breaking Bad. I'm expecting Lalo to die at the hands of Gus via the gun planted in the superlab. But who even know in this paranoid chess match. 

Edited by John from Cincinnati
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God damn, what a show. 

It's crazy how they play with tropes and expectations (here and on BB).  What I mean is, they're pulling off this clever plan and years and years of TV and movies have taught us to think "YEAH, that is badass!  I'm rooting for them!"  But there's this nagging feeling in the back of your head where you realize they're ruining the life of a decent guy.  Howard confronting them with "why?"  and throwing their petty motivations in their faces was a reckoning.  And what came after drove the gravity of what they did home.  This was not two downtrodden people pulling off a slick heist to stick it to the man.  This was two very petty criminals ruining a man's life to a tragic end.

The whole thing is very Breaking Bad-esque where you think you're supposed to root for this person because they're the main character, the audience's POV, and ostensibly the protagonist.  And then they slowly turn into awful people whose motivations are less than pure.  Saul and Kim are exactly like Walter White in that all had the opportunity to move on in life and get back on the right path, but petty moral failings caused them to keep on breaking bad.

On a side note: what was that brief black and white part at the end?  A short bit of the Gene story?

Edited by Technico Support
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I look at their scheme as something different entirely. People forget that Howard is/was an asshole. He was someone who got to where he's at faster than others because of his daddy. Kim is a brilliant mind that Howard would never consider as a partner and he stuck her in the dregs of HHM. Jimmy was someone Howard never took seriously despite the fact that Jimmy also has a brilliant mind for law. And there's a whole lot more, but honestly, fuck Howard. It's almost like feeling bad for Ted Beneke. Why would you? Sure, aside from fixing books, Ted was an innocent guy and didn't deserve to get fucked up, but it doesn't change the fact that Ted was also a piece of shit. Kim and Jimmy set out to knock Howard down a peg or two, embarrass him, AND get the money that Jimmy rightfully earned. Had Howard once, just once, taken Jimmy or Kim seriously and treated them as equals then none of this happens. Instead Howard always looked at Jimmy as scum at worst and at best someone who wasn't Charles and Howard also looked at Kim as someone not on his level.

Jimmy and Kim were also assured that Lalo wanted nothing to do with them and they wouldn't see him again.

Business wise, what Howard got comes close to stepping over the line and I'll even say it steps on that line. His end though? Wrong place at the wrong time. 

So I will buy that the it's on Jimmy and Kim that this is the price you pay when you're in business with someone like Lalo. At the same time, it's not like Jimmy, more than Kim, had any sort of alternative and could do anything about Lalo. Putting myself in Jimmy's shoes and taking myself back to when Jimmy had a choice to not defend Lalo, I don't know if I would be brave enough to not do it because saying no to Lalo is probably just as bad as saying yes to him.

And then there's a whole other side to this that never gets discussed, which is, how about the DEA and the FBI do their fucking jobs so people like Lalo and Gus can't run wild?

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Such is Gus' obsession with Lalo's threat that Lalo must die in between BCS & BB .. and Jimmy doesn't witness it. I'll go out on a limb that Lalo defeats Gus but is killed by Mike, that would feel a rather fitting end and befit the closeness of Mike & Gus relationship in BB.

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Would it be at all viable that Hector allows someone to take out Lalo if Lalo fucks with Gus? I just don't know if that would happen with the sort of family blood Hector and Lalo have. However, if Lalo wasn't Hector's nephew, Hector wouldn't ding twice if someone asked if they shouldn't take Lalo out. 

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A couple thoughts:

An interesting contrast between Hank and Kim. Breaking Bad gave us a character who started out seeming like a puffed-up asshole, but by the final season came to be the moral center for the show. Better Call Saul introduced a character right away as the moral centerpiece, then gradually pulled back until by the final season you see that nothing's really there. I guess the closest thing to a moral center that BCS has is Nacho. That's why he gets the blue flower. We all know what blue stands for in this universe. Not perfection, but as close to it as possible. Blue is "as good as it gets." Nacho is as good as it gets in this show's world.

I'm definitely with the majority that Lalo can't survive this show. No way can Gus be that confident in BB if he hasn't seen Lalo's corpse. At first I considered that he was Gus's Gus, ie. he is to Gus what Gus will be to Walter. But the more I think about it, I think I agree with A_K that Mike will kill Lalo, thus cementing him as the Breaking Bad universe's ultimate badass.

I'm still hoping that the Gene stuff so far is pre-Walt's return from New Hampshire, with Omaha right on the path from there to Albuquerque...

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Another thought about this BCS run. It's weird to see Gus not be the same guy he was in BB. He's still finding his footing, he's not the kingpin yet, he's sloppy at times, unconfident at others, and he's more on edge.

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3 hours ago, The Comedian said:

I'm still hoping that the Gene stuff so far is pre-Walt's return from New Hampshire, with Omaha right on the path from there to Albuquerque...

This was a shower thought I had today. Have they ever established when the Gene stuff actually takes place? Everyone is assuming it's post-BB but I'm wondering if it actually takes place before BB, or concurrently with Walt's relocation.

BCS loves to turn tropes on their head but it's also gone to show that all the little details end up meaning something. I still think chekov's gun that Gus stashed in the lab comes into play. Gus knows Lalo is going to catch up with him and wants to lure him into a place where he thinks he has any possible advantage (he knows how to find the gun in the dark). Lalo being dead and encased in concrete under the lab would almost be fitting, although I am on board with Mike actually pulling the trigger.

 

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4 minutes ago, HumanChessgame said:

This was a shower thought I had today. Have they ever established when the Gene stuff actually takes place? Everyone is assuming it's post-BB but I'm wondering if it actually takes place before BB, or concurrently with Walt's relocation.

BCS loves to turn tropes on their head but it's also gone to show that all the little details end up meaning something. I still think chekov's gun that Gus stashed in the lab comes into play. Gus knows Lalo is going to catch up with him and wants to lure him into a place where he thinks he has any possible advantage (he knows how to find the gun in the dark). Lalo being dead and encased in concrete under the lab would almost be fitting, although I am on board with Mike actually pulling the trigger.

 

It's post-BB. Don't forget, last season when Jimmy has his panic attack, what brings that on are a couple kids in the mall recognizing "Gene" as Saul Goodman. Plus, Jimmy has a box of VHS tapes from when he was Saul.

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2 hours ago, Craig H said:

It's post-BB. Don't forget, last season when Jimmy has his panic attack, what brings that on are a couple kids in the mall recognizing "Gene" as Saul Goodman. Plus, Jimmy has a box of VHS tapes from when he was Saul.

Right, its definitely post-Saul's time on BB, but is it post-ending of BB?  Saul took off before Walt saved Jesse and all that with the gun in the trunk, right?

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They got vacuumed at roughly around the same time. I can't remember exactly how long Walt was in New Hampshire, but it was long enough that the family house had fallen into disrepair. It is entirely possible that Gene time happens while Walt is still alive.

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3 hours ago, Craig H said:

It's post-BB. Don't forget, last season when Jimmy has his panic attack, what brings that on are a couple kids in the mall recognizing "Gene" as Saul Goodman. Plus, Jimmy has a box of VHS tapes from when he was Saul.

You mean the taxi driver in his 50s and his buddy? LOL

 

21 minutes ago, southofheavy said:

They got vacuumed at roughly around the same time. I can't remember exactly how long Walt was in New Hampshire, but it was long enough that the family house had fallen into disrepair. It is entirely possible that Gene time happens while Walt is still alive.

If I remember correctly, believe it's about 6-8 months between the time Walt gets relocated and he returns to free Jesse. They mention it in passing on a TV news report in El Camino's opening sequence. Makes sense time wise. Jesse's hair had grown long. Skyler is in the middle of the legal battle.

I don't think they have established how long Saul has been Gene at any point in those flash forwards. He makes contact with Ed The Vacuum Repair man. But that could be after Jesse has already been relocated as well, making it post El Camino in the time line.

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