Better Call Saul

[Norbert the Tiger]

Howard would have never been in their apartment at the wrong time and moment if Kim didn't go with her bullshit "I wanna have fun" plan.

This is obvious, but does not matter. Why? Because Lalo teleporting into their apartment to murder Howard just as he showed up was not foreseeable.

It is very similar to how Walt could never have foreseen that Jane's father was an air traffic controller and he would be so torn up that Wayfarer XYZ would have gone down.

Put it another way--if I play a cruel catfish joke on a friend, pose as some hot blond on tinder or whatever, and sucker him to go downtown to a specific Starbucks, and that friend gets murdered by a homeless drug addict lunatic, am I morally responsible for what that crazed luantic on the streets did? I don't think so. Why, because there is no foreeseeability and because while there is but for causation, the causation is too attenuated. The rea cause for Howard getting murdered is Lalo. The real cause of the friend being a but of the joke is the homeless lunatic. .

For years, people believed he was a drug addict that killed himself because of her.

No, because of Lalo, and to a lesser extent because Mike fucked up.

Even if somehow managed to bounce back, his reputation would be ruined and everyone will think he is a cocaine sniffer that beats up prostitutes. Cheryl has every right to drain every cent she makes until the end of her life.

No. Not even close. He is a name partner, not some junior associate who is going to get shit-canned and black balled so that he can never work in the legal profession. Not even close.

 

[MirrorNoir]

Jimmy has the backstory for him to be the way that he is. He had his brother dicking him around all of his life; and let's not pretend that Chuck is a saint.

Remember the last flashback? Jimmy says matter-of-factly 'You're my brother! You'd do the same for me' and you can tell Chuck is thinking 'Yeaaaaah, about that...'

Chuck could have tried to nurture Jimmy, to actually help him and encourage him but everything we saw as far as their relationship goes, it was a reflection of Walt & Skylar's relationship. One partner dominating and domineering the other until they snap and go the other way around.

Now, the blame doesn't go to Chuck entirely, but we're talking about a cunt who spent all of his life going 'REEEEEE JIMMY USED TO TAKE SOME CASH FROM THE CASH REGISTER WHEN HE WAS 9 YEARS OLD AND DADDY NEVER PUNISHED HIM'. Ok, nigga, we got it, he fucked around all of his life, but he tried to become a lawyer, it's clear he looks up to you, stop trying to minimize him and try to guide him in the right direction.

It's clear all Jimmy ever wanted was a pat on the head and to be told he was a good boy, and he kept misbehaving because he wanted attention.

Kim, on the other hand? She was miss nice goody two-shoes who was attracted to Jimmy, and decided that instead of trying to keep him down the right path, she'd get more enjoyment from their relationship if they were fucking around. and fucking others over.

And when things went too bad for her, she left him holding the bags, blamed him when she was the main driver and he was just going along because he loved her and he would do anything for her, and then after crushing his heart just moved to Florida so she didn't have to face any consequences and try to forget about everything that happened.

It's implied if not outright stated that Chuck was handcuffed in how he could deal with Jimmy because his mother adored Jimmy and treated him as her favorite (to the point that her final words was asking where Jimmy was when Chuck was alone in the room with their dying mother). Not to mention his illness/mental health issues relating to his illness.

Ironically, it would have probably have been in Chuck's best interest to have quadrupled down on Jimmy's utterly earnest desire to take care of his sick brother by guiding him into becoming his personal assistant/investigator; granted, Jimmy's an amoral con man and all but a lot of major private law firms keep people like Jimmy on retainer to do investigation work because they can think outside the box and see things lawyers or normal investigators might miss. Granted, Chuck's lawful neutral personality would probably recoil at the thought of harnessing his brother's criminal inclinations for good. But it would have kept Jimmy firmly under his thumb without having to worry about Jimmy eventually finding out he was keeping him from getting a job at his firm and scapegoating his fellow partner his own actions.

 

[WinchesterWhiskey]

It's really nice to see a comment thread where people are examining the relationships between characters and describing their own interpretations of scenes. It brings me back to watching Breaking Bad with my friend and his overworked Filipino mom who worked like 70 hours a week and stopped because she actually loved the Breaking Bad universe. We used to have the same conversations watching Breaking Bad.

"Walt isn't a prick, he's a victim of circumstance!"

"Jesse shouldn't have gotten away!"

Shit like that.

It's really nice and reminds me of those conversations before their family moved away.

 

[BetterFuckChuck]

i'd watch the spinoff Kim's OnlyFans where she becomes a Only Fans MILF who collabs with other hot Florida milfs. Her volunteering at the womans legal center is just a front to recruit desperate women to satisfy all fetishes

Its like that movie with the calender

 

[DogEatDogFood]

Put it another way--if I play a cruel catfish joke on a friend, pose as some hot blond on tinder or whatever, and sucker him to go downtown to a specific Starbucks, and that friend gets murdered by a homeless drug addict lunatic, am I morally responsible for what that crazed luantic on the streets did? I don't think so. Why, because there is no foreeseeability and because while there is but for causation, the causation is too attenuated. The rea cause for Howard getting murdered is Lalo. The real cause of the friend being a but of the joke is the homeless lunatic. .

Yeah, you would: you put him on that situation and you probably knew that the homeless lunatic could come at any time.

No, because of Lalo, and to a lesser extent because Mike fucked up.

Yeah, Mike fucked it up too, but he is now only jelly in a tank.

No. Not even close. He is a name partner, not some junior associate who is going to get shit-canned and blackballed so that he can never work in the legal profession. Not even close.

HMM was already falling apart without Chuck: would it have survived Howard having a drug-induced meltdown in public? I don't think so. The guy at best could retire with the Sandpiper money and his marriage would have fallen apart afterward.

 

[anti SJW]

One rumor floating around is that the reason Kim basically got away with EVERYTHING and didn't get fucked over by Saul in the end, is that Vince/AMC are contemplating a spin-off with the character to continue the Breaking Bad universe.

 

[Norbert the Tiger]

Yeah, you would: you put him on that situation and you probably knew that the homeless lunatic could come at any time.



Yeah, Mike fucked it up too, but he is now only jelly in a tank.


HMM was already falling apart without Chuck: would it have survived Howard having a drug-induced meltdown in public? I don't think so. The guy at best could retire with the Sandpiper and his marriage would have fallen apart afterward.

No sorry. Have you ever read the Palsgraf case. It talks about but for causation and proximate causation in tort liability. Its reasoning can be applied to foreseeabilityz and is something I thought of about Walt's supposed moral problem with Wayfarer XYZ going down .

Suffice it to say I will NEVER be convinced of Kim and Jimmy's culpability in Lalo murdering Howard. But for thar flukish totally unforseeable disaster, it would have been a jerkish but relatively harmless prank. Remebe, few were moral fagging about how morally reprobate it was until after the unthinkable happened. That is how you know people are moral fagging only with the advantage of hindsight.

 

[DogEatDogFood]

No sorry. Have you ever read the Palsgraf case. It talks about but for causation and proximate causation in tort liability. Its reasoning can be applied to foreseeabilityz and is something I thought of about Walt's supposed moral problem with Wayfarer XYZ going down .

Suffice it to say I will NEVER be convinced of Kim and Jimmy's culpability in Lalo murdering Howard. But for thar flukish totally unforseeable disaster, it would have been a jerkish but relatively harmless prank. Remebe, few were moral fagging about how morally reprobate it was until after the unthinkable happened. That is how you know people are moral fagging only with the advantage of hindsight.

Tbh I was already moral fagging before Lalo killed him. It was already morally reprehensible enough that they tried to fuck his already complicated life even more like it was a fun game when the worst that the guy has done is just being a bit of a dick.

Foreseeable or not, what is done is done: Howard was there because of them. You can't prosecute that, but ethically you are still at fault. Walt couldn't have foreseen the plane crash, was but he still at fault: he let Jane die.

 

[Norbert the Tiger]

Tbh I was already moral fagging before Lalo killed him. It was already morally reprehensible enough that they tried to fuck his already complicated life even more like it was a fun game when the worst that the guy has done is just being a bit of a dick.

Foreseeable or not, what is done is done: Howard was there because of them. You can't prosecute that, but ethically you are still at fault. Walt couldn't have foreseen it, but he still at fault: he let Jane die.

No. I will never buy what you are selling. Not ever.

 

[JimiHendrix]

still amuses me that people are arguing over character motivations and their own personal interpretations of events and some are saying the show is badly written.

like, god damn. i mostly watch CW/super hero bullshit and let me tell you, ain't no one having conversations like this about those shows.

 

[Commander X]

Over at Autoadmit, a forum where a lot of lawyers (or LOLyers as a lot of them put it) and legal students post, the common view seems to be that BCS's final season saw a sharp decline in quality and the consensus view is that not only that Jimmy sabotaging his own deal made no sense, but the the deal itself made no sense:

i thought it was good overall, if unrealistic. as others have pointed out, it's a bit out there that he'd give up a 7 year deal for a life sentence to help kim out (and i also don't see why that was necessary, but maybe i missed it). however, i do like that the show made pretty clear that his life in jail may be better than it was in bumfuck nebraska.

and for as realistic as BCS was when it came to legal practice, the stuff with the prosecutors was laughable. an AUSA, after making a "take it or leave it" 30 year deal, isn't going to tremble and back down when slippin jimmy comes up with some shitlaw tale. in reality, they'd have had mountains of evidence on him. that part of it was ridiculous.

Date: August 16th, 2022 9:40 AM
Author: shitlaw proxies

of course it isn't farfetched that he would come up with some s'all good, man horseshit story.
it is 100% unbelievable that the US govt would hear his "slippin jimmy" routine and go "oh FUCK, we didn't think of that. listen, forget the 900 year sentence, we better plea him out for 7 years." i mean, what the show just told us is that saul goodman just outsmarted a bunch of AUSAs from HYS and shit who try cases constantly. come on.

the feds don't bullshit around. if they gave him a "take it or leave it" deal of 30 years they would know they had the goods to put him away for life and no way they backed down. again, they'd have had an absolute mountain of incriminating evidence. yeah, he could claim he was scared for his life, but by that reasoning so could any criminal and they'd just get off left and right (criminals are masterminds when it comes to making up bullshit excuses, and they get incarcerated every day).

it was nevertheless entertaining, but i thought it was out of character for a show that was generally so spot on when it came to the world of lol practice.

 

[IceCreamForCrow]

still amuses me that people are arguing over character motivations and their own personal interpretations of events and some are saying the show is badly written.

like, god damn. i mostly watch CW/super hero bullshit and let me tell you, ain't no one having conversations like this about those shows.

Wait people actually watch CW crap? I figured it was just a bunch of Nielsen boxes in an empty warehouse somewhere. Do people really care about shit like Flash and Green Arrow?

 

[Something Awful]

Over at Autoadmit, a forum where a lot of lawyers (or LOLyers as a lot of the put it) and legal students post, the common view seems to be that BCS's final season saw a sharp decline in quality and the consensus view is that not only that Jimmy sabotaging his own deal made no sense, but the the deal itself made no sense:

It was silly that the feds would be stumped by the sudden realization that Saul can try to play the victim angle for the jury. However, Jimmy's intention in blowing the deal wasn't to save Kim.

To your mind, do you think what Saul does in the hearing will get Kim out of legal trouble with Cheryl?

[Peter Gould:] No, I don’t. I think that Kim is on her own journey, and I think he knows that. He does feel bad about what’s happening with Cheryl. But I don’t think Kim would like it if Jimmy pulled some maneuver that protected her from Cheryl. He doesn’t save her; she saves her. They’re done with saving each other by this time. What he sees is that she had the courage to face what she’s done. And she did something that I don’t think Jimmy/Gene ever thought she would do, which is not only to turn herself in, but actually to sit across from Cheryl Hamlin, who they both lied to disgustingly, and be 100 percent truthful.

 

[anti SJW]

 

[Chester Rigby]

If CWC goes to prison, I really hope the other inmates start chanting "I've got a fish, would you like to make a wish?" when they recognize him.

 

[JimiHendrix]

Wait people actually watch CW crap? I figured it was just a bunch of Nielsen boxes in an empty warehouse somewhere. Do people really care about shit like Flash and Green Arrow?

i don't care about it. but i like super hero shit and I like seeing the retard way they adapt shit from the comics. but sometimes it do get so garbage even I give up, quit flash and arrow awhile ago, still watch the ugly superman show though.

BCS and BB writing may not be perfect, but I don't think there's any arguing it's of a quality level 90% above literally anything else on TV?

 

[ln18]

I listened to this podcast on Capricorn One yesterday not knowing the guest was Jeff the 2nd himself. So if you want to hear Jeff 2 be catty about OJ you can. https://podbay.fm/p/70-movies-we-saw-in-the-70s/e/1595617778

 

[AnOminous]

Put it another way--if I play a cruel catfish joke on a friend, pose as some hot blond on tinder or whatever, and sucker him to go downtown to a specific Starbucks, and that friend gets murdered by a homeless drug addict lunatic, am I morally responsible for what that crazed luantic on the streets did? I don't think so. Why, because there is no foreeseeability and because while there is but for causation, the causation is too attenuated.

That's a nice legal argument about proximate cause but it's a shitty moral argument. If you intentionally do something evil and something more evil than you intended results, you're morally responsible. Proximate cause is a legal argument. It was entirely foreseeable that the shit they pulled on Howard would result in anything up to and including his suicide. He happened to die in a different way, and but for both their actions, it would never have happened. Jimmy in particular should have known that because his chicanery on his own brother in fact had exactly that result, and they were doing worse to Howard than Jimmy did to Chuck, with even less justification.

It wasn't even revenge at that point, just fun and games.

Over at Autoadmit, a forum where a lot of lawyers (or LOLyers as a lot of the put it) and legal students post, the common view seems to be that BCS's final season saw a sharp decline in quality and the consensus view is that not only that Jimmy sabotaging his own deal made no sense, but the the deal itself made no sense:

Frankly the shitposters on autoadmit make channers look high minded and decent.

 

[CWCissey]

I'd be lying if I said I didn't find Only Murders In The Building more compelling this week...

Still wasn't bad, just was nowhere near Breaking Bad levels. It was just a bit of a squeaky fart.

 

[Norbert the Tiger]

That's a nice legal argument about proximate cause but it's a shitty moral argument. If you intentionally do something evil and something more evil than you intended results, you're morally responsible. Proximate cause is a legal argument. It was entirely foreseeable that the shit they pulled on Howard would result in anything up to and including his suicide. He happened to die in a different way, and but for both their actions, it would never have happened. Jimmy in particular should have known that because his chicanery on his own brother in fact had exactly that result, and they were doing worse to Howard than Jimmy did to Chuck, with even less justification.

It wasn't even revenge at that point, just fun and games.

I disagree. One caveat, I happen to think Walt was right to let Jane die and people give her a pass because of the pussy pass. She was blackmailing a meth manufacturer and was an addict who was sucking Jesse in. But I digress.

Apply a Palsgraf analysis about foreesability and proximate causation to the idea that Walt is morally responsible for Wayfarer XYZ going down. He is not, because he had know way of knowing her father was an air traffic controller, and the chain of causation is simply too attenuated. Exactly people blaming Kim and Jimmy for Lalo murdering Howard.

Have you ever seen the movie Before the Devil Know's Your Dead? I recommend it. Phillip Seymour Hawke pressures his little brother to do an armed heist of their parent's own jewelry store. There was supposed to be the usual sales clerk there, but their mother was there. She stupidly pulls a gun on the goon they hire to help, and both die in the process.

Compare and contrast--that is morally reprehensible and they are morally and logically to blame for the death of their mother precisely because armed heists are known to go bad and get people killed. They assume the risk that someone could die in an armed heist, which is the rationale for felony murder.

Kim and Jimmy assumed no such risk, and could not see it coming. When Mike tells her it is a one in a thousand shot, and that he has guys wathcing them, she has no reason not to believe her. The writing also makes it clear going to the feds will not protect them, but get them killed (as evinced in Nacho trying to tell his dad that very thing).