Better Call Saul

[Solid Snek]

Third, penultimate, what was Jimmy thinking he'd do by preaching the shit he did in front of Kim? Kim knew damn well better that poison mixes, there's no need to "own up" in front of your "better half".

Vagina.





If you want a longer, gayer explanation:


The episode was about regret, and Kim was Jimmy's regret.

If you recall from the beginning of the season- the Citizen Kane montage, where the tequila stopper from their first couple-con serves as Kane's sled - Kim is Jimmy's Rosebud. She is the thing Jimmy misses; the thing that matters; the thing for which he would gladly give all his wealth, if only he could go back in time and reclaim it. Jimmy has several other regrets, too (chief amongst them Chuck), but Kim is the only thing left in his life that he loves, and the only thing which he can still do something about.

So he did something about it.

Kim left because she was a criminal at heart, and she knew she was a criminal, and she knew that if she stayed with Jimmy they would go out like Bonnie and Clyde. In the words of Chuck, "Jimmy can't help himself", but Kim can, so she left. She didn't want to keep having fun at other people's expenses, she didn't want to live with the guilt, and she hoped, at some point, that Saul would turn himself in, just like Kim did. Saul knew that, and acted accordingly.


There's also an element of showmanship in Saul's confession - Saul is not the kind of guy to settle for going small; if he's going to fuck himself over, he's going to go BIG. Which is exactly what he did.


But Saul reverting to Jimmy and torpedoing his sweetheart deal at the very last minute, all because that's what Kim would want him to do, is totally in keeping with his character and his desires at that moment. Jimmy might die behind bars, but he alone, of all the characters in BB/BCS, had a chance to use his "time machine" and reclaim Rosebud. So he took it - and consequences be damned.

 

[UmQasaan]

>”what happened with your brother, that wasn’t a crime”
>”it was”

 

[Punchoboe]

But Saul reverting to Jimmy and torpedoing his sweetheart deal at the very last minute, all because that's what Kim would want him to do, is totally in keeping with his character and his desires at that moment. Jimmy might die behind bars, but he alone, of all the characters in BB/BCS, had a chance to use his "time machine" and reclaim Rosebud. So he took it - and consequences be damned.

Jimmy wouldn't want to be in a normal prison population where someone with cartel ties could find him. He wasn't going to get Kim back, and torpedoing his deal removed any slim hope.

 

[JimiHendrix]

honestly though i don't see "yeah it showed walter and mike regretted their actions, so they're good guys now!" as a thing.

yeah, it showed walter and mike regretted their choices, and we know the choices they continued to make after that. walter admits he regrets getting pushed out of grey matter, then continues to go on a rampage with a machine gun and gets himself killed over his ego when he learns blue sky is still being made.

mike says he regrets becoming corrupt, then immediately goes on to work for gus and later walter.

i didn't see those scenes as redemption for them, just saw it as depressing that even if they've realized they took the wrong path, it's still the path they're on and it's too late for them to turn back now.

 

[AnOminous]

What makes you think Walt was always good? That flashback showed that both Jimmy and Walt didn't have the balls and admit where they fucked up. Walt's words also hit Jimmy: was he really always the same?

That showed what Walt thought about himself. He also thought Eliot and Gretchen somehow manipulated him out of his company, when it was entirely his own fault. The man was delusional. They were just delusional in different ways.

I was also glad they actually gave Carol Burnett a reason for being there and had her be the final instrument of Saul's destruction.

It was also an excellent partial redemption arc. Best episode since Fun & Games, maybe the best episode of the series.

I was actually half-worried Saul was going to be the ultimate snake and really rat Kim out for revenge, although I really thought it was a gambit to fuck himself over in her favor, which it turned out to be.

It also looked like as bad as it is, he'll do fine in even that shitty prison probably for life.

honestly though i don't see "yeah it showed walter and mike regretted their actions, so they're good guys now!" as a thing.

yeah, it showed walter and mike regretted their choices, and we know the choices they continued to make after that.

It showed Mike at least knew the moment he lost his soul. Walt was just a complete sociopath, much like Jimmy. They both had people they cared about, but neither really knew how bad they actually were. Jimmy's regret wasn't that he was a scummy ripoff artist filing frivolous lawsuits to gyp people out of their money but that he busted his knee doing it. Walt's regret was he walked away from being a billionaire, but he didn't even realize his reason for doing it was his ego and that he took offense at an imaginary slight his business partners didn't even know they'd committed.

 

[Norbert the Tiger]

Only Jack and Nazis are responsible for Hank's death. Hank charges into the desert with no backup against Walt, a guy who had people in prison killed easily. Walt tells the Nazis to spare Hank and that he can work things out. He even throws all of his money away for Hank. Hank also could have surrendered and bullshitted his way out of it by saying that as a DEA agent he helped Walter with meth many times and is on the take.

Hank was just a terrible DEA agent and idiot. He was written to be a stupid moron who literally eats dinner with a cartel head for an entire year and then almost immediately dies when he finally makes the WW connection. The other agents who worked with Fring are just as dumb.

Hank is in three shootouts alone in BB. Against Tuco, the Twins, and the Nazis. He also sees a DEA informant get beheaded and his head blown up to kill responding DEA agents. Yet goes into the desert alone against Heisenberg a known cartel killer. Guy was suicidal. Him not calling for backup once on the show was cringe inducing.

Excellent post, including parts I snippped out. I would only add Jesse bears a lot of responsibility for everything that happens in Oxymanidas and after. All he had to do was get in the vacuum cleaner guy's car, but he was too big of a sniveling twat...

I would suggest Jesse bears far more moral responsibility for Hank and Gomie's death than Saul Goodman ..

 

[Punchoboe]

The last part of the show had four places to go:
1.) Have Gene deal with his Jeff problem.
2.) Give Carol Burnett her cameo.
3.) Have Kim confess about Howard.
4.) Have Gene get caught, confess, renounce Saul and go to prison.

They could have done all of this in a better way than they did. Instead, we get Gene robbing the cancer guy, Gene about to kill people, Kim living in Florida, robbing the department store, and TWO courtroom dramas.

It was not as bad as the Breaking Bad Trailer Trash Nazi storyline but worse than several episodes with Germans building the lab.

 

[Ita Mori]

This was shite. Guy has a code and mantra he lives by for 99.9999% of his screentime and the last minute he becomes a different person.
No explanation for his retardation from the last few episodes or this one.

I used to think "Felina" was ok enough as an epilogue and that "Ozymandias" shat all over it in comparison, but good God, this makes "Felina" look like "Made In America".

Best thing I liked was Marie's orders getting ignored again in reference to her spiel in "Face-Off". That was nice.

 

[Solid Snek]

Walt's problem for most of his life was that he had been a pushover. His regret was that he found his balls too late, and in a destructive manner. Now that he's looking at everything he's done, what he regrets is letting himself get pushed out of his company, he would have fought for it and he would have led it to success the way he would have been able to. That's the goal of his flashback. That his meth shit was really just about him finding his balls and he wishes he realized he had it in himself and he could have done it the proper way.

Same thing with Mike saying he wishes he could go back and just walk down the straight and narrow, knowing what he now knows, and that this is the life he would have best enjoyed.


This is basically Vince Gilligan giving everyone a makeover at the end, and pretty much everyone had a happy ending.

We now know that at the end, Walt realized that what he had done as wrong, and wished he could go back in his past and undo it all, he wasn't the maniac we thought he was all along. Turns out Mike was also a good guy! And so was Jimmy! And so was Kim! And so was Skylar, she got all that money! And so was Jesse, who's not in Alaska!

All is well that ends well! Isn't it swell!

Yeah, Walt was a pushover, but his main problem was that he was a narcissist and control freak who could never stand to be around people "equal" to him. That's why he fucked off from his Big Brain billionaire company to teach highschool kids, and why he was always shooting Jesse down whenever it looked like Jesse was rising to the occasion and coming into his own. It's also - importantly - why Walt "broke bad" in the first place: if you recall, Walt started flirting with the idea of checking out meth labs specifically because he resented Hank's macho, alpha male, DEA swagger. Walt's ridealong and his early meetings with Pinkman didn't happen out of the blue; they happened because Hank bruised Walt's ego, and Walt decided he wasn't going to be a pushover anymore.

I don't think Mike cared about the straight and narrow, but he DID care about his son, and he clearly blamed himself for what happened in Philly. I do believe Mike would have cited taking his first bribe as his biggest regret - not because he cared about being a clean cop himself, but because he was wondering if, maybe, then his son wouldn't have died (or at least, his son wouldn't have died DIRTY, which if you'll recall is the dark secret that really broke Mike).

Jesse was always a good guy, and Kim was always bad but, again, that was sort of the point of the season; Kim knew she was a devious con-artist at heart, so once casual murder entered into the equation, she got out before it got any worse.

Skylar was a bitch, though. It's too bad Vince let her walk with a pat on the back.

 

[JimiHendrix]

It showed Mike at least knew the moment he lost his soul. Walt was just a complete sociopath, much like Jimmy. They both had people they cared about, but neither really knew how bad they actually were. Jimmy's regret wasn't that he was a scummy ripoff artist filing frivolous lawsuits to gyp people out of their money but that he busted his knee doing it. Walt's regret was he walked away from being a billionaire, but he didn't even realize his reason for doing it was his ego and that he took offense at an imaginary slight his business partners didn't even know they'd committed.

not exactly related but i wanted to add onto what I said, I also feel one of the points of the Time Travel discussions was Saul saw two bad men who knew they had fucked up but continued to go down a bad path because they felt they couldn't stop.

Saul could've continued being a bad man and thrown Kim under the bus and gotten his seven years, instead, he decided to do what Mike and Walter couldn't, he decided to stop. it wasn't just about "saving" kim or whatever, it was about actually choosing to try and be a good person instead of continuing down the path of a monster like the two people he knew before had done.

 

[TheHarbinger]

This was shite. Guy has a code and matra he lives by for 99.9999% of his screentime and the last minute he becomes a different person.
No explanation for his retardation from the last few episodes or this one.

This storyline can work in like a mafia film where the guy goes into witness protection like Goodfellas. But it has to be organic. Henry Hill in Goodfellas sees his income destroyed, he and his wife are paranoid about being whacked at any moment, and they have no more protection from police nor the mafia. And with Paulie turning his back on Henry he has to either survive on his own, looking over his shoulder every day, or turn into a rat. So he contacts the FBI and makes a deal with the government to save himself. He changes his entire life in a second because the alternative is death.

And that was based on a real story. Not even some goofy artistic license that BCS was going for. The problem with Gene/Jimmy in the last four episodes is that he acts like his IQ is in the single digits. He is so comically inept and dimwitted that he carries himself as if severely brain damaged. The last four episodes are so out of character they really are indefensible. The writing was just horrendous and really tarnishes this show. I cannot believe that if someone watches BB, El Camino, then BCS that they will be satisfied with Jimmy blowing his life up for a few Rolex watches and Kim's sympathy.

 

[Ita Mori]

When Kim was leaving and he had his back turned to the prisoners I kept hoping a mexican would walk by and shank him a dozen times, proving that what he said about the cartels still being around was still ironically true.

I actually considered that for a second, thinking Vince has thrown all subtlety and nuance out the window by now so why not parody the Menace II Society ending and have Jimmy give a monologue about how even in repent, you can't run away from your actions.
Sky's the limit when you don't give a fuck...

 

[Solid Snek]

And that was based on a real story. Not even some goofy artistic license that BCS was going for. The problem with Gene/Jimmy in the last four episodes is that he acts like his IQ is in the single digits. He is so comically inept and dimwitted that he carries himself as if severely brain damaged. The last four episodes are so out of character they really are indefensible. The writing was just horrendous and really tarnishes this show. I cannot believe that if someone watches BB, El Camino, then BCS that they will be satisfied with Jimmy blowing his life up for a few Rolex watches and Kim's sympathy.

He's being inept because he's having a mental breakdown.

Remember, the last thing Saul does before he starts acting "out of character" is call Kim (the only thing left in his life which really matters to him)

But when he called Kim, she told him to fuck off and turn himself in. And that broke him.

The last three episodes or so were just Saul, now Gene, coming to realize what a shithole his life had become, and frankly not caring anymore, because- who was he? Recall his "look at me" speech from the Armani Suits Heist; he's a nobody with no-one, working at a Cinnabon in the middle of nowhere. He has no children, no family, no legacy. No one will miss him when he's gone. This realization built to a suicide-by-cop thing; Saul gave zero fucks, and this anger and emptiness kept building and buidling until he met Omaha Walter White at the bar there, at which point he gave up on any semblance of caution and guile.

Saul was acting out of character, sure, for good reason; because all the things that really mattered to him had turned to ash, and now, on some level, he was hoping to get caught.

 

[Ita Mori]

The problem with Gene/Jimmy in the last four episodes is that he acts like his IQ is in the single digits. He is so comically inept and dimwitted that he carries himself as if severely brain damaged.

It's a completely different person despite Jimmy finding rejuvenation in it. There's no way someone like that avoids consequences for as long as Saul did.
And what's the point of showing him bathing in his old ways and true self if he shits it all away at the last minute for no justifiable reason? Fuck you; Kim's approval is not a justifiable reason.
Walter seeking Skyler's forgiveness is eons better in comparison because we see Walt admit what everyone saw for some time now; that despite entering this with the noblest of intentions he stayed in it because it gave him everything he felt the Grey Matter incident robbed from him; respect, admiration, power, money.
Why is Jimmy having this change of heart now? Specially when last week he had a different change of heart when he went from "The fun's over" to "The ride never ends; I am who am and my name is my name!"?

That's two strikes Vince, please never revisit this IP.

 

[Norbert the Tiger]

This storyline can work in like a mafia film where the guy goes into witness protection like Goodfellas. But it has to be organic. Henry Hill in Goodfellas sees his income destroyed, he and his wife are paranoid about being whacked at any moment, and they have no more protection from police nor the mafia. And with Paulie turning his back on Henry he has to either survive on his own, looking over his shoulder every day, or turn into a rat. So he contacts the FBI and makes a deal with the government to save himself. He changes his entire life in a second because the alternative is death.

And that was based on a real story. Not even some goofy artistic license that BCS was going for. The problem with Gene/Jimmy in the last four episodes is that he acts like his IQ is in the single digits. He is so comically inept and dimwitted that he carries himself as if severely brain damaged. The last four episodes are so out of character they really are indefensible. The writing was just horrendous and really tarnishes this show. I cannot believe that if someone watches BB, El Camino, then BCS that they will be satisfied with Jimmy blowing his life up for a few Rolex watches and Kim's sympathy.

I stated this before. What Jimmy and "Jeffy" did end of episode 11 and episode 12 was so stupid, and so out of character.... And was not even needed. You could delete the bumbling keystone cop escapade of breaking into the cancer ridden fellow's house and Gene was still primed to get got by Marion.

The bit about 87 years makes no sense. It is just self flagellation to indulgr Gilligan's Catholic Guilt bit.

Also, in response to the other fellow, nothing Jimmy did would save Him from the civil lawsuit. And given how she abandoned him, why would he want to.

I submit Kim caused more damage by leaving Jimmy. Would he have gone full Saul? Would he have helped Walter White. Her bit that they hurt other people together but are on apart is bullshit. They needed each other...


I understand that having a ranking Mexican cartel member murder someone is traumatix, but all this schmaltzy business about redemption seems hollow to me.

 

[Username Cannot Be Blank]

I think what happened with the finale is that people's expectations were just too high. Maybe the cast teasing this ending had a bit to do with that, but I imagine there would have been loads of hype either way.

Of course I don't regret watching it because of this ending. The cinematography is still excellent going back to the first episode, and I never felt like I didn't care about the characters or the story. However, and maybe this is just me, but in hindsight Vince's endings for his characters were kind of predictable. The ruthless drug kingpin who didn't care who got hurt along the way (until it affected him and he realized there was no way out) dies by his own hubris alone and penniless; the poor guy who was roped along with his schemes but got almost all of the abuse that came with them escapes traumatized but ultimately free from that life. To me, it kind of makes sense that Jimmy/Saul/Gene's ending follows the same pattern.

 

[MirrorNoir]

Walter only regrets that he didn't run Elliott Schwartz out of the Grey Matter startup, so he could have billions and Gretchen, the woman he actually loved

Granted, at that point of the story Walt is beyond salvation (note that in the episode the flashback takes place in, he tries to bully Saul into continuing his crusade to punish "those who wronged him" IE the Nazis by demanding Saul hand over the names of hired killers Walt intended to pay to murder the Nazis so he could get his stolen money back) and Saul finally DID stand up to him and basically telling Walt he was getting the fuck out of town while he still could.

But at the same time, it would have been a missed chance to use that new scene so we could watch Saul FINALLY tells Walt what a shithead he's been, how his ego fucked up TWO major criminal syndicates (Gus's and Walt's) and ruined countless lives and MAYBE even have Saul have a moment of clarity where he realizes how crime and fast money from crime destroys your very soul and how even though Walt destroyed Saul's life, he's HAPPY that he's going to be going to a place where he'll NEVER EVER have to see him or deal with his impotence fueled rage ever again. Maybe even reveal, off-panel, that Saul looked into the Grey Matters split and talked to Gretchen off-panel and confirmed what was revealed in S2; that Walt went full on paranoid the second he was brought to meet Gretchen's rich parents and dumped Gretchen because he feared he wasn't good enough for her and has spent EVERY day of his life since then, Walt has been basically spinning an alternate reality in his head over the breakup and his departure from Grey Matter to cope over the fact that he fucked up his relationship with Gretchen, ragequit like a retard the second Gretchen rebounded with Elliot, and spun a lie that he was "forced out in a coup" to cope with his retardation.

It would give new meaning for why it took watching Gretchen on TV opining that she still looked back fondly on Walt before his incelitis kicked in and fucked up their relationship leave his exile and make things right. And why his only demand from them was to launder the money to his kids so they would be financially secure. And give the finale a bit more gravity as the grand finale of the Breaking Bad Universe, by having it end with a denouncement of Walter White by someone who we spent the last six seasons/seven years IIRC with, who lost everything in part BECAUSE of Hurricane Walter.

 

[aske]

thought he was going to get away.

do like that they ended the series with a shot similar to how they started it.

gonna miss this

 

[MirrorNoir]

I wonder how much of this ending is directly because Vince Gilligan is not happy that shitlords, nerds, mra types and rahrahrah latched on Mike, Walter and Saul, so he decided to retroactively turn them into good guys in order to spite the fans he's not happy having...

If that's the case, he completely did the opposite.

Probably because as much as he might despise "those types", they made him a huge fucking hit showrunner and kept him in business and gave him two critically and commercially successful shows and a blank check to do whatever the fuck he wants creatively with his work. So he threw them a few bones, a happy ending to the characters for the viewers that his champagne liberal friends wish death upon both privately and publicly. Especially since Breaking Bad itself is the sort of show that his left wing colleages would never allow to be made today (both for showing the plight of the lower class and how drugs affect white people, but also exposing the horrors of the modern medical-industrial for profit complex which the left is in bed with and who's horrors the left routinely cover up).

And yes, it would be nice if we had Saul at least DENOUNCE Walt if only to bring Saul's story full circle of Walt being such a monster even SAUL can no longer hide his disgust and hatred for and for him to knock Walt down a couple of pegs with some truth bombs. And for Saul to say what a LOT of people have said about the show and the implication of the "Hurricane Walt" meme; that Walt fucked over the lives of a lot of criminals who were in a place, where EVERYTHING was running smoothly, where there was no real strife or gang conflict or scheming outside Gus's playing of the long game relating to his cartel masters until Walt came along and fucked everything up and killed everyone and ruined lives of criminals who just wanted to make a profit with minimum violence and not because Walt was having a midlife crisis and became the chimp with a machine gun that Chuck forever feared being unleashed upon society.

 

[Nuns with guns]

This was shite. Guy has a code and mantra he lives by for 99.9999% of his screentime and the last minute he becomes a different person.
No explanation for his retardation from the last few episodes or this one.

I used to think "Felina" was ok enough as an epilogue and that "Ozymandias" shat all over it in comparison, but good God, this makes "Felina" look like "Made In America".

Best thing I liked was Marie's orders getting ignored again in reference to her spiel in "Face-Off". That was nice.

I don't think it was a rock-solid code. He was hiding behind a goofy con man persona to bend rules his way; he did so too here. For Saul, Howard's murder was nothing but a way to get ice cream. When he heard Kim came clean not because of ice cream or brownie points but because it's the right thing to do, reality sink in.

I agree it was somewhat rushed, given the limited time and that just having him go over it again and again would be hard. Many TV series have a hard time squeezing everything they want to do on their last episodes (hell, even Mad Men), and BCS was no exception.

The trope of coming clean for a life of prison while feeling spiritually free is not new. It happens all the time on literature. Pick up L'etranger or Crime and Punishment and you'll read something very similar—the main character accepting their fate and being judged for their actions as a whole, not just the crimes they comited. Jimmy's confession of Chuck's insurance was basically that.

People saying he did it to simp on Kim are wrong. He knows he's not going to fuck her. He does seek her approval, as Jimmy sought the approval of everybody throughout the series, but he came clean for himself. There was nowhere else to go and he was just constantly ruining his life over and over again.

Some people here don't seem to be fans of the black and white episodes, but I liked them. They showed how Chuck was right, something Walt remarked tonight. Jimmy proved them all wrong by saying he will change, or at least try to.