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Better Call Saul, the TV series

JirinPanthosa said:
I empathize with Chuck more than you guys do. He's a man who worked hard and followed the rules to get where he is. He grew up watching Jimmy steal from his parents, lie, cheat, take shortcuts, and not only avoid any consequences, but try to get the same rewards he worked hard for.

Chuck just shouldn't have made it personal and been honest with Jimmy from the start..
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Kirby said:
How does Chuck help people? He harbors a grudge against Jimmy, who worked hard to get his law degree, and then shuts him out at HHM.
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This pandora's box of problems--they opened together.
Chuck needs to be less uptight--and Jimmy had a fat check just waiting for him if he could sit still for about five minutes.

This is like the movie Demolition Man--in miniature.
They needed a middle sister to keep them straight.
 
I would also disagree with the statement that Jimmy worked hard to get his law degree. He took the shortest, easiest path to a law degree then instantly expected a cushy job.
 
JirinPanthosa said:
I would also disagree with the statement that Jimmy worked hard to get his law degree. He took the shortest, easiest path to a law degree then instantly expected a cushy job.
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I would hardly call what he did the shortest, easiest path to a law degree. He was working full time and still managed to get through those classes and pass the bar. Sure, the law classes he took were likely pretty bad, but that just makes his passing the bar all the more impressive. He had a fraction of the time and support one would get at a full-time top law school program and still managed to pass.
 
Jimmy took soft correspondence courses and passed the bar (Barely) just by cramming, not really absorbing the deep understanding of the law he needs to really help his clients. Jimmy is a charlatan. Granted even the easiest way to pass the bar is really hard, but he learned the test, he did not learn how to skillfully practice law. He doesn't really practice law, he just applies his finely honed grifter skillset to game the law.

We see the name Saul Goodman show up for the first time. I like Kim's reaction.

I like how they're showing us another side of the character who only originally existed so Walter could feel bad about having to murder him.

Good that Chuck has finally admitted to himself that his condition is psychological.
 
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"Give it to him."

The second time Gus said that, I nearly jumped out of my skin.

I didn't expect to see Lydia. I had completely forgotten that's how we first met her. It's getting to the point of "Who hasn't appeared from Breaking Bad besides the core cast?"

Looks like Nacho is going to be cause of Hector's stroke. He swiped the fallen pill and I bet he'll spike it in order to protect his father.

Strange Tamara Tunie guest starred but didn't have any lines. I except we'll see her character again.

And Saul Goodman has finally arrived to his own show. Sorry, Kim, it won't be just a name for long.
 
Man this show is so great. It's funny though, I watched BB's first episode with Saul again, and in it he casually suggests a prison shanking. Jimmy still isn't Saul yet.
 
Love how they ramped this show up in season 3, now adding story lines from Gus in addition to Jimmy and Mike.
 
The more I watch Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul the more subtle nods I notice.

The tequila that Fring poisoned was the same that Jimmy and Kim tricked Ken into paying for.

Just googled it. It's a fictitious brand, which was going to be a real brand but the endorsement fell through because the company had second thoughts about showing people drop dead after drinking their product. Also saw some criticism on a tequila board that it was clearly not an anejo because anejo is not clear.
 
I was all set to call this episode "Jimmy and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day"...until the final scene. Jimmy channeled all of his anger and frustration to screw over Chuck one last time. I wasn't sure if his breakdown was genuine or not until he mentioned his brother. Then it became very obvious what he was doing. There was certainly some truth to his crocodile tears but make no mistake: He was conning the agent from the get go.

Good to see Tamara Tunie getting more to do than last week's episode. I loved her interactions with Mike and I hope she's a continuous fixture.

Kim is about to hit her breaking point, too...
 
Kim is freaking exhausted and is starting to see Jimmy in a different light with all his spite. Starting to see their grifting as less fun and more mean.
 
JirinPanthosa said:
Jimmy took soft correspondence courses and passed the bar (Barely) just by cramming, not really absorbing the deep understanding of the law he needs to really help his clients. Jimmy is a charlatan. Granted even the easiest way to pass the bar is really hard, but he learned the test, he did not learn how to skillfully practice law. He doesn't really practice law, he just applies his finely honed grifter skillset to game the law.
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I disagree with you here in two ways:

First of all everyone in the show (including Kim, Howard, and apparently the bar review board, but just not Chuck) seem to think that Jimmy did do a lot of work in getting his law degree, not just by "taking the easy" way. Yeah, there may be harder ways to do it, but the lawyers in the show are impressed, so I can't agree with criticizing Jimmy here.

Second, I am struggling to remember a point in the show where Jimmy doesn't do what is best for his clients. He may not be the letter-of-the-law/genius-in-the-law lawyer that his brother is, but they have clearly showed that Jimmy cares for his clients, works hard for them, and does well for them. And you can't tell me that arguing and constructing a case - constructing a narrative - is not a part of the law in the US; our system is totally an adversarial system where each side posits a story and it is up to judges/juries/boards to decide the right of it. Telling a better story than your opponent is not gaming our system, it is our system (though it probably isn't justice as it should be in an ideal world).

Other thoughts:
This show continues to be amazing. Showing the "expenses" Jimmy and Kim pay for their win over Chuck was crushing. Jimmy keeps trying to make decisions that don't take him backward (e.g. losing the law office lease) but the results and follow-on decisions take him downwards. Not being open with Kim, unwilling to talk things through, and unwilling to share how much trouble and pain he is in only continues to make things worse. As he said to Chuck in the flashback with Chuck's ex-wife, the bigger the lie and the longer it is drawn out the harder it will be in the future.
 
He certainly took shortcuts at Davis & Main.

Jimmy did work hard but he did not work hard in the manner that would allow him to really give good legal advice. Being able to spin a good yarn is certainly a major part of the court system, but in a real serious case what Kim does is more important. The hard boring research of all the legal nuances and elements of the case. This is the part Jimmy tries to get around.

Jimmy acts in his opinion of the best interest of his clients, when the money is the same either way. He was more than willing though to take independent nation guy's money even knowing he had no chance to actually allow him to secede, until he found it wasn't real money. A real lawyer would have just been honest. "You will never successfully secede from the US." The real best interests of his clients is to have a lawyer like Kim and to take her advice.
 
An interesting theme arose in this episode: Debt. Kim no longer wants to be in debt with Howard over law school. Jimmy doesn't want to go into debt to Kim after her proposal for him to lay low and relax for while. Mike is now in debt to Gus in order to launder his money stash. Krazy 8 has cleared his debt to Hector after failing to pay up the previous week, while Carlos overcompensates in his payment perhaps because he heard about Krazy-8's troubles. While I might be stretching the theme a bit, but Chuck is trying to make up for lost time in his recovery.

Who was the buried body in the desert? Has my memory failed me again and it's something we already knew about?

Nacho successfully made the pill swap. It's only a matter of time before Hector has his predestined stroke...
 
Emh said:
Who was the buried body in the desert? Has my memory failed me again and it's something we already knew about?
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Remember back in S2 when Mike did the heist on Salamanca's truck shipment and left the driver tied up on the side of the road in the desert? A Good Samaritan came along and freed him, and as a reward was murdered by Salamanca. So, last week after the group therapy session, Anita told Mike how much it bothered her that she never got any closure from the death of her husband in the line of duty years ago because they never found the body. As a result of her story, Mike felt guilty about this other guy getting murdered as collateral damage from the heist Mike set up, and his loved ones (hence the shot of the wedding ring on the hand) not getting any closure either, so he asked Nacho for a favor about where the body was buried, and it turned out to be in pretty much the same spot where the heist went down and the Samaritan showed up near the billboard.

Apparently squaring up that unfinished business also inspired Mike to realize that he had too much money stashed away and no way to spend it on or give it to his granddaughter for her future, which is why, despite his misgivings, he is now going to go into a business arrangement with Gus Fring to launder the money in exchange for his services.

So, in a way, both those stories addressed the "Debt" theme you mentioned above. Mike felt a debt to the family of the dead Samaritan for getting him killed and not giving them closure, a debt to his daughter-in-law and granddaughter for indirectly causing the death of his son, and as a result of trying to pay off both of those, has now fatefully indebted himself in the employee of Gus Fring.
 
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Locutus of Bored said:
Remember back in S2 when Mike did the heist on Salamanca's truck shipment and left the driver tied up on the side of the road in the desert? A Good Samaritan came along and freed him, and as a reward was murdered by Salamanca. So, last week after the group therapy session, Anita told Mike how much it bothered her that she never got any closure from the death of her husband in the line of duty years ago because they never found the body. As a result of her story, Mike felt guilty about this other guy getting murdered as collateral damage from the heist Mike set up, and his loved ones (hence the shot of the wedding ring on the hand) not getting any closure either, so he asked Nacho for a favor about where the body was buried, and it turned out to be in pretty much the same spot where the heist went down and the Samaritan showed up near the billboard.

Apparently squaring up that unfinished business also inspired Mike to realize that he had too much money stashed away and no way to spend it on or give it to his granddaughter for her future, which is why, despite his misgivings, he is now going to go into a business arrangement with Gus Fring to launder the money in exchange for his services.

So, in a way, both those stories addressed the "Debt" theme you mentioned above. Mike felt a debt to the family of the dead Samaritan for getting him killed and not giving them closure, a debt to his daughter-in-law and granddaughter for indirectly causing the death of his son, and as a result of trying to pay off both of those, has now fatefully indebted himself in the employee of Gus Fring.
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Ahhh...yes, thank you for tying that all together for me. I hate my crappy memory. :scream:
 
Wolves and sheep indeed.

Jimmy learning how to combine the legal profession with his Slippin Jimmy skillset to get what he wants. The birth of Saul.
 
I find it weird that Howard, on now at least two occasions, just hangs around outside Chuck's house. This is kind of an important guy to be doing this, so I wonder who really has the power at HHM. Hell, I'd only hang around for about 5 seconds if my friend didn't answer the door, and I'm not important at all.
Howard is an odd duck (see what I did there?).
 
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