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Better Call Saul


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16 minutes ago, The Comedian said:

Great observation Technico, I noticed the parallels between Chuck and Walt as well. Basically, Chuck is Walt if he stays with Grey Matter. Even with the legitimate wealth, success, and prestige, he's still a miserable, narcissistic prick with a martyr complex. 

Good point.  I never really thought about it but yeah, even if Walt's career had "worked out," it probably wouldn't have.  I really like the fact that the show never really came out and told us what happened with Grey Matter.  All we need to know is something happened between Walt, Elliott and Gretchen and the situation was so untenable, Walt took a buyout.  But it's enough to tell you all you need to know about him.  He was on the ground floor in a  great situation and something happened that he considered such a personal affront that, even in the face of success, he couldn't just work it out and keep on.  In a world where we all eat some amount of shit daily, it's hard to have sympathy for him.  The fact that he ostensibly never got another job in that field says something, too.

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1 hour ago, Technico Support said:

Good point.  I never really thought about it but yeah, even if Walt's career had "worked out," it probably wouldn't have.  I really like the fact that the show never really came out and told us what happened with Grey Matter.  All we need to know is something happened between Walt, Elliott and Gretchen and the situation was so untenable, Walt took a buyout.  But it's enough to tell you all you need to know about him.  He was on the ground floor in a  great situation and something happened that he considered such a personal affront that, even in the face of success, he couldn't just work it out and keep on.  In a world where we all eat some amount of shit daily, it's hard to have sympathy for him.  The fact that he ostensibly never got another job in that field says something, too.

That's the gigantic tragedy of Breaking Bad and Walter White. Skyler gets pregnant, he takes a job as a teacher, and continues on with the safe play for the stability of his family. He's never able to recognize that his family would have supported him no matter what and so it's really to satisfy a self-fulfilling prophecy for Walt. He takes the job at the car wash because he needs to satisfy his own need to take care of his family, to prove something to them.

Somewhere along the way he got stuck like so many people do and he was unhappy with his role in the universe. He started losing the love of his wife. He sees his son begin to admire Hank more. He starts to lose everything and to make matters worse he has cancer.

Once again, all Walt needs to do is be honest with his family, be honest with his own feelings, and just ask for help and he never does. He gets into the meth game for this perceived notion that he's doing this for his family, but he winds up destroying his family and relationships in the process.

Like Tyler Durden said, it's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything. Walt is so trapped and consumed by all of his lies that he's never free to be honest with himself or his family. Once he's lost it all, including his life, he's free to do whatever he wanted, namely being honest with Skyler telling her that he did it all for himself because it made him feel good. Making all of that money for his family was more for Walt than it was for his family. Finally telling Jesse what he wanted when he couldn't before. And it all came far too late. All he had to do was be honest with himself.

All Chuck had to do was be honest with himself. Accept that he has a problem, accept that divorce is hard and seek therapy, accept that it's ok for his brother to lead a different life and yet pursue the same career as him, and just be honest that he's hated Jimmy as much as he loved him, and was incredibly jealous of Jimmy. And that will be Chuck's undoing.

So I guess my question is...will Jimmy/Saul suffer the same fate? Jimmy was so unlike every other obsessed and pride driven individual in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, but is he able to stay honest with himself more than those around him? Is he obsessed about gaining his brother's love and respect? Or do those obsessions not bubble up to the surface until he's in Omaha, yelling at the shoplifter to get a lawyer?

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So this episode threw a bunch of stuff at us; Nacho having both a motive and means to take out Hector, Chuck apparently admitting his illness is psychosomatic, Lydia and the superlab, and the nascence of Saul Goodman. It was cool to see Nacho get the spotlight, I'm assuming he reaches out to Gus by season's end. I'm not sure where they're going with Chuck, I still kind of assume that the fact that the season finale is titled "Lantern" means he's gonna burn his house down...

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Nacho is going to get involved with Jimmy again.... and Jimmy is somehow going to play a role in Hector's stroke. I know that sounds weird, but reddit convinced me.... watch the first few seconds of this BB scene.

 

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2 hours ago, The Comedian said:

 I still kind of assume that the fact that the season finale is titled "Lantern" means he's gonna burn his house down...

I'm choosing to believe you're wrong, because if you're right...you're kind of a jerk.  

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WE'RE GONNA HAVE TO KARLOFF THIS THING~!

Nacho is on the road to Saul-living. Gus is fucking Dracula. Chuck is still the biggest piece of shit ever and Kim... oh lord. I so wish she was out of this whole pile. At least they were drinking Shiner Bock...

I loved the whole thing and they crushed it, it's just so sad knowing how it'll end up. This is a continuing tragedy where you wish you could just grab people and say "NO" and you can't.

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16 hours ago, Jrag said:

Nacho is going to get involved with Jimmy again.... and Jimmy is somehow going to play a role in Hector's stroke. I know that sounds weird, but reddit convinced me.... watch the first few seconds of this BB scene.

 

Quoting myself because damn this is still blowing my mind. The writing on this show takes the idea of a prequel to a new level. Major plot points are being born out of damn throwaway lines from seven years ago..

What I'm referencing for the lazy who wont click. Saul (pleading for his life thinking Walt and Jesee are cartel): "It wasn't me, it was Ignacio. He's the one!"

Also. Hank has a throwaway line from a similar point in the series about Tuco stabbing a Mexican national in 2003. Which, I'm pretty sure that was referenced last night which puts the BCS timeline in 2003. Five years before BB season 1.

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More fanservice: Krazy 8 showing up again.  I like how he's always wearing his Tampico Furniture uniform in these shots.   

Also, quoting Howard:

Quote

“Think of the injustices that would have gone unanswered” if Clarence Darrow had put his energy into supervising “ne’er-do-well relatives” 

I really like how a key characteristic of both Chuck and Howard is their ability the lay it on thick with the self-important comparisons.  No, Chuck, your psychosomatic fear of electricity is not on the same level as HIV, you're nothing like the Unabomber's brother.  And Chuck is no Clarence Darrow.  Damn.

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Nobody has mentioned this week's episode as it was more table setting for the season's final three but still some great stuff.

Jimmy spiraling downward: no money, no car, only 30 minutes' credit on 4 hours' community service, giving commercials away for free, just awful

Kim being unable to live with what they did to Chuck and seemingly growing wary of Jimmy

The return of nerdy pharmacy guy

Mike and Nacho's meeting of the minds

Mike is probably going to try to find out what happened to that woman's husband.  No idea what that will mean in the grand scheme of things but I'm looking forward to finding out.

The slow realization that Jimmy is pulling a spiteful con the raise Chuck's malpractice insurance rates because, fuck it, why not?

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2 hours ago, Technico Support said:

Nobody has mentioned this week's episode as it was more table setting for the season's final three but still some great stuff.

Jimmy spiraling downward: no money, no car, only 30 minutes' credit on 4 hours' community service, giving commercials away for free, just awful

Kim being unable to live with what they did to Chuck and seemingly growing wary of Jimmy

The return of nerdy pharmacy guy

Mike and Nacho's meeting of the minds

Mike is probably going to try to find out what happened to that woman's husband.  No idea what that will mean in the grand scheme of things but I'm looking forward to finding out.

The slow realization that Jimmy is pulling a spiteful con the raise Chuck's malpractice insurance rates because, fuck it, why not?

The return of Slipping Jimmy is going to detonate his relationship with Kim. What can Jimmy get into while he can't practice law that will beneficial to Kim's career?

It's already become readily apparent that while he can pull minor ruses, he can't hustle everyone.  

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20 minutes ago, Ultimo Necro said:

Would love if the full Saul Goodman name change comes from something as simple as a way to get around paying the higher malpractice insurance rates!

I really thought it was coming because of that one reason...could he change his name to Saul and pass the bar while Jimmy is on probation?

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Or he could just legally change his name to Saul Goodman and pretty much separate himself from Jimmy McGill forever.  I'm guessing once he returns from his mandatory hiatus, the Goodman gimmick takes a life of its own and Chuck's continual burial of him forces said change.

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I'm guessing, during the hiatus, he becomes an under the table lawyer/adviser for the various types working in legal grey areas in ABQ.  Not the real high-ups like Fring or Salamanca, but people like Mike, Nacho, etc.  I don't think it's an accident that this episode made a point of Jimmy being broke while showing that Mike and Nacho are flush with cash.  

I was really hoping Steven Ogg's "Sobchak" would be one of the backgorund randos doing community service.

 

 

 

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The gf and I are going back through Better Call Saul because she's never seen it. Finished up with the second episode of the series last night. It may be hard to think back that far, but in that episode Nacho presents Jimmy with an offer to take $1 million from that idiot family, with Jimmy getting $100k. Jimmy, despite being broke because he takes care of his brother and had to pay for the two dumb brothers broken legs, refuses to accept Nacho's offer because he doesn't operate on that side of the law anymore. He may dance along that line, but he doesn't necessarily cross over to it.

Flash forward to this season and increasingly, Jimmy is pushed to cross that line because unlike back then, he can't even function as a court appointed attorney. He has nowhere left to turn now and it's going to be interesting to see just how far he goes.

One other thing that sucks to think about...From the very first episode of the series, Hamlin suggests that Jimmy change the name of his business because people may associate Jimmy's business with HHM. Jimmy protests because, hey, it's his name and why shouldn't he be allowed to use his own name. Now you begin to see just why Jimmy may abandon his own name and it's because of his own brother. That's just sad.

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BTW, I didn't understand how Jimmy could be so broke back then. He lived the most modest of lifestyles. The rent for his "office" couldn't be that much, his car was a piece of shit, and he basically lived with his brother. Even if he was taking care of his brother, he should have some money to afford a new car or a better office. It's established that Jimmy made $700 per defense and it's made clear that he's at the court every day or nearly every day. If he's there every day and taking a case every day, that's $700 per day or $3500 per week. This is also years ago, so that's an insane amount of money. It's almost like they misrepresented just how much Jimmy makes. They portray him as someone who looks like he's pulling $70 per case, not $700.

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Maybe. That, or he really was paying the entire mortgage on Chuck's house, along with the groceries, water, sewage, and gas. That probably doesn't leave Jimmy with much left for himself. I wouldn't think that Jimmy had a ton of debt because he was a scam artist back in Illinois, presumably got most of his shit for free, and when he was walking the straight and narrow, they established that he paid his own way through law school. 

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1 hour ago, Craig H said:

That, or he really was paying the entire mortgage on Chuck's house,

I was about to say, "wasn't he getting checks from HHM in season 1?"  The I remembered that he would return the checks every time they came because there was some deal where the checks were predicated on the admission that Chuck would not be returning to the firm.  

So yeah, maybe Jimmy was paying Chuck's mortgage, etc then, and Chuck is drawing his HHM salary now.

Also, IANAL and maybe we'd need @Lawful Metal to weigh in, but maybe public defender cases could last more than a day?

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2 hours ago, Technico Support said:

Also, IANAL and maybe we'd need @Lawful Metal to weigh in, but maybe public defender cases could last more than a day?

It's going to be a really long answer, but I'll start with the old Racehorse Haynes quote: "If you want to be a millionaire as a criminal defense lawyer, start with 2 million."

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I'm finally caught up on this season. I'm surprised nobody mentioned Gus' reaction to Don Hector invading his turf. Hector terrorized the employees, frightened the customers, and threatened Gus if he chose not to work for him. Was Gus frightened? Nope. Dude, was taking jump shots with crumpled up food wrappers.

 

BCS makes me dislike Walter White even more now that we are exposed to the lengths Mike has gone to support his granddaughter and daughter in law.  

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