Better Call Saul

[Internet War Criminal]

and people were mad that he got it

I think that's only afterwards, I remember people thinking it was awesome and that he went out in a blaze of glory, the moralizing about how Walt was a bad man came after and retroactively from what I remember

Now this should be an easy one. Chuck hates Jimmy, whether he admits it or not, because despite the fact he put every ounce of being into behaving perfectly and being the perfect son and making them proud of him, they loved the fucked-up one Jimmy more.

Which is ironic, because Jimmy only has love for Chuck, and all he wants is for him to show him some love. To the point where he's completely blind to just how much contempt Chuck has for him, and how if the situations were reversed Chuck would have sent him to an asylum ASAP and would have thrown away the key.

 

[Absurdist Laughter]

God this is tiresome.

You must be a masochist. If it is tiresome don't fucking respond LOL.

It was not foreseeable [sic] that Lalo would show up.

Irrelevant. He would not have showed up if the pair of them didn't meet Lalo in the first place. That seems to be theme of this entire season, regrets and the actions taken that has led to that feeling of regret. Side note, the symbolism of Water could be a potential reference to Zen or maybe the words Alan Watts said about Willing To Die:

"...to the degree that you go with a stream. You see, you are are still, you are flowing with it. But to the degree you resist the stream, then you notice that the current is rushing past you and fighting you. So swim with it, go with it, and you’re there. You’re at rest. And this is of course particularly true when it comes to those moments when life really seems to be going to take us away, and the stream of change is going to swallow us completely. "

It is true that "but for" Kim and Jimmy's scam, Howard would not have been there. Where do we draw the line?
If Chuck had not pressured Howard to freeze Jimmy out of HHM, or if Chuck had not appointed Howard as trustee so that Howard handed the "fuck you from beyond the grave" letter to Kim, Kim and Jimmy would not have motive to run the scam. Therefore, BUT FOR Chuck's actions.. Howard would still be alive.
Or its the attorneys involved in the Sandpiper Case because they would not settle, drawing the case out. But for them doing that, Kim and Jimmy would have no reason to run the same.
Oh, I know, it's Nacho's fault. Because if Nacho had not told Lalo about Jimmy McGill, he would never have met Lalo and became a friend of the cartel, and then Lalo would never have teleported into their apartment and killed Howard.
That's why causation has to be both foreseeable and proximate.

You're a logical thinker, unfortunately, logic does not apply the variability of human emotion, thought, and personality. Life is not a court room. Do you think law exists to the person who pulls the trigger, steals from an old lady, no. When we are born, we make choices, all of the choices you've mentioned has led us to where we are now with the show. Tragic "heroes" never start out being tragic, what would be the point of it? If Jimmy never encountered that man in the store, never stole from the cash register, life would be very different and the show would probably be boring as fuck. I don't care what character's at fault and for what reason, I just want to see relatively human characters make real human decisions and then see the repercussions it may have. Hell, if Jimmy's mother swallowed the load that created Jimmy, nothing would have happened. That's the point.

 

[Internet War Criminal]

So I started a rewatch of Breaking Bad and... I have to say I forgot just how nice and decent are for most of the first four/five episodes. Walt is really to let himself die quickly because he doesn't want his family to be left in debts, it's true there's shit like having an ego so big he can't take the grey matter money, etc... but he doesn't come off at all like the monster he eventually becomes. He really struggles and tries to find any reason not to kill Krazy-8, and when he's about to let him go and realizes that it's a trap, he's genuinely heartbroken, etc....

And the fulminated mercury scene still kicks some fucking ass, as does his cathartic breakdown in the car afterwards.

Fuck it's such a comfy show, and yeah, I still dig Walter.

 

[IceCreamForCrow]

I think the only reason why that happened was to head off any speculation about what Jimmy would do once out of prison. Now that he’s going to rot, it was a lazy way to tie up a loose end.

What would happen is what we saw happen. Jimmy was free living a normal life as Gene the Cinnabon man. Until like always he decides to risk it all running scams. He's always gonna have the urge to run scams and cons. He seriously can't help himself.

He might have stayed clean for like a few months after he got out but eventually he'd just turn back into Slippin Jimmy.

 

[Norbert the Tiger]

Irrelevant. He would not have showed up if the pair of them didn't meet Lalo in the first place.

So what? Jimmy thought he was dead, I already explained why Kim had no reason to anticipate Lalo showing up. Mike said it is highly unlikely, and that he has guys watching yhem

You and everyone else condemning her (including Kim herself) are judging with the advantage of hindsight.

 

[Absurdist Laughter]

Much like Walt's ending, it's better than he deserved, and people were mad that he got it, even though it was dying on a filthy basement floor in a meth lab. As happy endings go, I've seen happier.

That's a fair point. Perhaps that is the intention? I might be giving WAY too much credit to the writers of the show, however, the hollowness of the ending to me felt like the reflection of the episode title and the catharsis of the narrative as a whole. Colorfully Charismatic Jimmy doomed to be dropped into a future with no color, all of his hustle, all of his extravagance got him what? Nothing. I'd say Walt had a happier ending than Jimmy, he got the money to his kids while Mike didn't (as far as I can recall), he got revenge on the Nazis. How did Walt start? A quiet, unassuming chemistry teacher...a diametric opposite to Jimmy McGill. But again, I might be reading too far into it.

 

[ln18]

So I started a rewatch of Breaking Bad and... I have to say I forgot just how nice and decent are for most of the first four/five episodes. Walt is really to let himself die quickly because he doesn't want his family to be left in debts, it's true there's shit like having an ego so big he can't take the grey matter money, etc... but he doesn't come off at all like the monster he eventually becomes. He really struggles and tries to find any reason not to kill Krazy-8, and when he's about to let him go and realizes that it's a trap, he's genuinely heartbroken, etc....

And the fulminated mercury scene still kicks some fucking ass, as does his cathartic breakdown in the car afterwards.

Fuck it's such a comfy show, and yeah, I still dig Walter.

I'm noticing a consistent thread of approaching lines and always crossing them (perhaps hesitantly). He wasn't a man who considered himself capable of, say, killing and threatening people until he found himself motivated to make that choice and where a healthy person would've stopped at these points he never can. Lacks the capacity. I guess he does stop short of killing kids he doesn't need to. He's 1 less evil. And Cranston makes him so fun.

It seems underdiscussed that, now that I'm aware who Jane's dad really is, we don't know that Jean Luc Picard wasn't on one of the planes.

 

[Absurdist Laughter]

So what? Jimmy thought he was dead, I already yexplained why Kim had no reason to anticipate Lalo showing up. Mike said it is highly unlikely, and that he has guys.

You and everyone else condemning her (including Kim herself) are judging with the advantage of hindsight.

That's the beauty of being a viewer of a television show...we get hindsight. It isn't reality.

 

[Internet War Criminal]

I'm noticing a consistent thread of approaching lines and always crossing them (perhaps hesitantly). He wasn't a man who considered himself capable of, say, killing and threatening people until he found himself motivated to make that choice and where a healthy person would've stopped at these points he never can. Lacks the capacity. I guess he does stop short of killing kids he doesn't need to. He's 1 less evil.

That's how people genuinely break bad. They start at good people, then they cross a line, feel guilty about it... but also kind of enjoy it because of how forbidden it is/how it felt/what it gave them. And then they get to another line which they think they can't cross... and then they do. And so on, and so forth, and if you don't have a strong moral center in your life, then it's very easy to just go down that road full speed. Heck, even with a strong moral backing, it's easy enough to chuck them at the side and just embrace it fully.

I'm sure someone like Bernie Madoff never started thinking that he would swindle all of those people, just found himself in a situation once where he "borrowed" money from a client, telling himself he'd pay it back... and then did it another time, and another etc... until it felt entirely permitted.

Before long, it becomes entirely natural to destroy a nation's economy or order an entire village to be droned out of existence.


And that's what ends up happening with Walter. I think he genuinely starts as a good person (with a big ego), but he just gradually gets worse and worse and worse because he keeps crossing those lines and he enjoys it, and it feeds into his ego and entitlement.

 

[Standardized Profile]

I found myself unsatisfied with the finale. Unimpressed. I think everyone else has articulated why.

Maybe he never gets fixed, maybe he'll get out for good behavior.

Federal inmates get 15% off for good behavior. He's serving at least 71 years. But maybe he got a year and a day incarceration, and eighty-five years supervised release....

(I know, it's five years unless the statute specifies otherwise.)

 

[ln18]

Rewatching BrBa, after finishing BCS. I'm getting a strong The Godfather/The Godfather Part II distinction. One more plot, one more tone. Could be because of course Kim/Saul in the BCS finale had me thinking about parallels to Pentangeli in The Godfather Part II. As someone heretical enough to sometimes watch the chronological Godfather I/II edit I could see myself watching a chronological BrBa/BCS edit (no Camino/Slippin though), Probably have to have a few years break.

And even if the scanning tech for the Blu-ray masters is a bit dated and color/dynamic range/compression not what we'd get if they did a proper remaster/UHD I love the look of BrBa for being shot on film.

 

[TheHarbinger]

And that's what ends up happening with Walter. I think he genuinely starts as a good person (with a big ego), but he just gradually gets worse and worse and worse because he keeps crossing those lines and he enjoys it, and it feeds into his ego and entitlement.

Part of it is also because Walt is competing against the worst of the worst. Child killers and traffickers. Gangs that use child labor. Nazis gangs that murder civilians. Walt is the lesser of two evils. But WAAAAY less. Compared to Gus, Mike, Jack, Todd. Walt is practically a saint. The show never really gave us the impact of Walt's meth and drug violence on the scale of his revenge killings and cartel hits. So Walt always seems far more moral than he really is.

For every young child living in a drug den with a stolen ATM style scene we get a dozen cartel hits and shootouts and Walt blowing people up scenes. Shows like The Wire had all sorts of drug related deaths and overdoses and civilians dying from gang shootouts. Or Sopranos having the mafia just endlessly prey on civilians and even murder them. Breaking Bad and BCS basically shy away from showing major damage of drug trafficking and drug violence.

 

[TheHarbinger]

I wonder if he had a soft spot for Jesse because he saw himself in them; a push over. Maybe every time Walt gets extremely angry at Jesse he's actually yelling at himself and his past "regrets".

Walt knew Jesse as a kid. Jesse helped his aunt deal with cancer until her death. Jesse figures out that Walt wants to provide his family with money because he is dying of cancer. Instead of judging Walter he is positive and supportive. Even giving Walt advice about chemotherapy. Their first cook results in them fighting for their lives against Krazy 8 and Emilio and surviving together. They are bound by the trauma.

Walt tells Jesse he is the cook. Jesse is the drug dealer. Jesse's first two deals are disasters. Walt saves them both times. This gives Walt a superiority complex as someone deep into the drug game like Jesse is already outclassed by Walt. Now instead of Jesse walking Walt through the drug game they are both entering deeper into the drug game together. Like some sick cartel journey together. Jesse is loyal to Walt pretty much nonstop until he uses plot magic to realize Brock was poisoned on purpose.

I don't think Walt ever saw himself in Jesse. He just saw a young kid who looked up to him and immediately supported Walt's insane decision to cook meth to provide for his family. Jesse never really judges Walt until their relationship implodes. Jesse also gives Walt the most thrills he has ever had in his life. Breaking into warehouses. Blowing up buildings. Shootouts. Gang violence. Walt loved torching that dude's car or beating the guys who mocked his retard son at the clothing store. Jesse opened up the door for Walt to engage in some real violence which he seemed to love. Walt was a psychopath before he had cancer even. Guy was just waiting for an excuse to transform into a maniac.

 

[ln18]

Now to me maybe because he's a boss man in blue acting against the lead but Ted super comes across like a charmless failed beta deleted-Nuclear-Man-1 Howard Hamlin.

 

[George Floyd Sneed]

Now to me maybe because he's a boss man in blue acting against the lead but Ted super comes across like a charmless failed beta deleted-Nuclear-Man-1 Howard Hamlin.

Howard is a lot more competent than Ted. The similarities end at being the son of the founder of the business they work at but even Howard is one of the H’s of HHM. Ted was a retard that drove Beneke into the ground but Howard appeared to run HHM competently, even with one of the co-founders going insane and working from his foil-lined home. Ted reminds us of every retard who knows what the right thing to do is but will ru off the rails doing something retarded.

 

[Raiken]

Rewatched the finale, it's such bullshit that they thought Chuck having regrets about his life with jimmy right before he denied him basic brotherly love for most of the show.

 

[Mike Matei's Penis]

Imagine a Slippin Jimmy Season 2 now

 

[ln18]

Howard is a lot more competent than Ted. The similarities end at being the son of the founder of the business they work at but even Howard is one of the H’s of HHM. Ted was a retard that drove Beneke into the ground but Howard appeared to run HHM competently, even with one of the co-founders going insane and working from his foil-lined home. Ted reminds us of every retard who knows what the right thing to do is but will ru off the rails doing something retarded.

Yeah, Howard is better developed, better everything. But Ted kinda struck me a bit as a lousy rough draft of Howard which I hadn't anticipated. Maybe because they look a bit similar and serve some of the same narrative function as an obstacle for the lead. (Ted being a much less significant character to his show) (apologies to Patrick Fabian)

 

[Mr. K. Dilkington]

I'm probably playing devil's advocate here, but I quite enjoyed how it all wrapped up. It's a welcome quick snap return to the courtroom drama format of the show. I was honestly surprised to see them catch Gene not even 10 minutes in, with 58 minutes left on the clock.

I figured people would go apeshit and scream about how Jimmy ruining his 7 year deal in a snap decision upon hearing about Kim confessing and then appearing in court to see him would be nonsensical or just plain stupid; which it is. Jimmy is a nonsensical character who's purposely gotten himself involved in dumb schemes which would later backfire on him and require him to talk his way out of it, except that this time he makes the conscious decision to face the music and atone for what he's done just to save the few remaining shreds of dignity he has. It's meant to be seen as noble.

I will leave one critique of the episode though: apparently they filmed a take of Kim returning the finger gun gesture to Jimmy at the very end, but Peter Gould decided to cut it because he felt it would be seen as Kim "returning to scams" which i think is utterly retarded. It would have made the scene so much more satisfying to see the two of them send eachother off like that. I hope they put that in as an extra or deleted scene in the DVD atleast.

 

[ln18]

Sucks it's too late to cut out the entirety of AARP tween Jesse. A lot of smart people signed off on that.