Better Call Saul

[TheHarbinger]

Relating to that, Chuck being a petty fuck has a large part of the blame for the events that happen later with his antagonism towards his little brother. It's all a self fulfilling prophecy.

And also his wife and Howard. Howard is clearly disgusted by Chuck when he writes out the three payments to buy his contract out and rid the firm of him. Chuck even knows that it puts Howard likely millions in debt and endangers the entire firm. And his wife getting the phone slapped out of her hand and being berated like a child was another example where Chuck simply could not deal with people like a normal person. Or even hilarious stuff like him stealing the newspaper and getting tasered by the cops for being an idiot. Chuck just couldn't be normal.

Chuck also never actually helps Jimmy and is always lying to him about his intentions. He deliberately keeps him down out of hate. Wanting him to be a mail room slave instead of working towards being a lawyer. And seeing Jimmy score the huge class action lawsuit and scheming to pull it from him rather than allowing him to take it to a law firm that could build the case with Jimmy is a perfect example of this.

Kim recommended Jimmy

Did you even watch the show? Howard recommended Jimmy. Not Kim. He tells Davis and Main that Jimmy was known as "Charlie Hustle" and pushes hard for Jimmy to get the job. They interview Howard over Jimmy getting the job. Howard tells them about Jimmy's behavior and says to Chuck "I didn't pull any punches describing it". Kim was not a factor. She just wanted to give Jimmy the good news because she was dating him.

 

[AnOminous]

Kim recommended Jimmy despite knowing he was an unreliably volatile loose cannon purely because she was fucking him, and because she did that, Jimmy ended up causing reputational damage to the firm she recommended him at.

Nothing about her punishment was unjust.

She ultimately turned out to be as bad as Jimmy, and a lot of the life ruination against Howard that ended up with him getting murdered by Lalo was entirely her idea. On a day that was critical to her moving forward on one of her pro bono projects that the angel on her right shoulder told her to do, she listened to the devil on her left shoulder and decided tormenting Howard was more important.

Did you even watch the show? Howard recommended Jimmy. Not Kim. He tells Davis and Main that Jimmy was known as "Charlie Hustle" and pushes hard for Jimmy to get the job.

I think he did this because he thought Jimmy had been unfairly treated by his brother, which he was. Look how Jimmy repaid him, though. Chuck may have sabotaged Jimmy for petty, spiteful reasons, but he was ultimately right.

 

[TheHarbinger]

She ultimately turned out to be as bad as Jimmy.

The scene right before she crashes her car from falling asleep at the wheel is Jimmy offering her a shot of tequila. Had she taken that shot she likely loses her law career right there. As lawyers are required to report arrests like that to their regional association. She would have been arrested for DWI most likely and unable to have a meaningful career. As the alcohol in her system would have been written as the cause of her accident.

Even a wake-up call like nearly dying in an accident wasn't enough to convince Kim that being around Jimmy was dangerous.

I think he did this because he thought Jimmy had been unfairly treated by his brother, which he was. Look how Jimmy repaid him, though. Chuck may have sabotaged Jimmy for petty, spiteful reasons, but he was ultimately right.

Chuck was definitely right that Jimmy getting a law degree was bad for society. Unlike Walt whose degree in chemistry was mostly used for good until final years where he is spiraling out of control from knowing he has a year of life left from cancer. Jimmy is literally actively seeking crime and cartel work and scamming people despite not being desperate or pressed into criminality. By the time you get to into the Breaking Bad timeline, 'Saul' is literally hunting down the blue meth creators, and telling them kill people to keep their business alive. I just wish that BCS had actually shown that decline from Jimmy to Saul instead of wasting time with Mike building the lab or Gene being a doughnut shop manager.

 

[AnOminous]

or Gene being a doughnut shop manager.

This in particular reminded me of one of the silliest arcs in BB itself, with the airplane crash indirectly caused by Walt letting Jane die. You had a huge leadup to nearly nothing actually happening (other than well over a hundred people dying offscreen). The several episodes of Gene were nearly pointless and contributed nothing. They were a huge letdown after the cliffhanger from Lalo shooting Howard.

At least with the plane crash we got a great performance from John DeLancie and the most hilariously uninspirational inspirational speech from Walt, and a scene where Walt gets maced by a cop for actually mouthing off and demanding clemency for his blatant speeding because his house had debris hit it from a plane crash THAT HE FUCKING CAUSED.

 

[CAPTAIN HAPPY]

And then Jimmy doesn't get stopped and does indeed burn down the world.

When Chuck is right, he's g*dam right.

Are all Better Call Saul fans retarded?

Probably.

A guy who alienated everyone and killed himself and had a fake electricity allergy...."did everything right"?

He didn't alienated everyone, he just went nuts. He literally believed in the electric monsters.

Look out everyone, Mr. Contrarian is here, move over. By the end of the show everyone recognizes that Chuck was insane and needed to be locked up or have a guardian around him at all times.

No they didn't lol
What the fuck are you talking about? They already thought he was insane by "

You probably take this show more seriously than the writers and producers did. By the last season they didn't even care anymore.

Why are you getting mad, breh? It's just a fucking TV show.

He was already suffering from it while he was still married. He hated the way Jimmy could make his wife laugh.

He hated Jimmy for having the same effect on the parents. He was definitely paranoid because of Jimmy. And that's why he was right. He knew exactly what Jim was, what he'd do, and Chuck died trying to stop it.

 

[Seventh Star]

I like the idea of Kim being dragged by Jimmy into being a horrible person. Making her set the events in motion for Howard's death (I still can't believe he didn't kill himself simply because Vince wanted to subvert spectations, faggot) is one of the stupidest things they could've done for her character. They were going for the "now that she's got a taste of being mean, she'll do one thing that is too far" trope but it just doesn't work, and it shouldn't have been something so big anyways. If she had said something really harsh to Howard that pushed him over the edge it would've worked a lot better, just one tiny thing that causes his death by something other than dumb luck.

Bob Odenkirk was also directed like shit after the desert arc. For the first few episodes it makes sense since he was still shell-shocked, but the show doesn't use him at all when that's over. In this thread, when things from the last two seasons of the show are brought up, Jimmy/Saul (except Gene) is never mentioned. That's because he does absolutely nothing except advance the plot, and acts more like Kim's weird little NPC simpbot rather than a person. I don't know what the fuck Vince was thinking, or if Odenkirk was already feeling under the weather before having his heart attack and couldn't be assed to emote. So instead you are left with watching Bob Odenkirk just... do things. None of the charisma of Saul or the loveability of Jimmy.

It extends to the Gene section as well, that's neither Saul nor Jimmy, he's a completely new character almost, and he fucking sucks. He's not menacing, or smart, or badass, or interesting. Saul was never a fucking burglar in his own origin story. The diamonds go unused. What should have happened is there's just one final episode where Gene chases down the taxi driver, finds his info, and fucking shoots him, that's it. He can get arrested and have the autistic scene where he meets Kim in prison, but no need to bring back the widow obsessed with purple and stealing shoes.

The several episodes of Gene were nearly pointless and contributed nothing.

Vince's obsession with sequels and prequels has driven him to some extremely retarded decisions. They keep bringing old characters back because no one is truly gone too. I don't know why he Filonis himself like a sped.

 

[TheHarbinger]

I like the idea of Kim being dragged by Jimmy into being a horrible person. Making her set the events in motion for Howard's death (I still can't believe he didn't kill himself simply because Vince wanted to subvert spectations, faggot) is one of the stupidest things they could've done for her character.

Better Call Saul was all about subverting expectations. Complete with the ridiculous ending of Jimmy imprisoning himself in a maximum security hellhole like some kind of atonement for his sins. And the prisoners cheering his name like reddit come to life. It was like they wanted to beat every 'finale bingo card' by throwing in ridiculous scenes like the bus chanting that no one could have predicted.

The reason that they didn't have Kim do anything bad was to make the character more sympathetic for the audience. And for Emmy voters. She lost anyways.

It extends to the Gene section as well, that's neither Saul nor Jimmy, he's a completely new character almost, and he fucking sucks. He's not menacing, or smart, or badass, or interesting. Saul was never a fucking burglar in his own origin story.

Saul was also not retarded. Him organizing a theft from the mall and breaking into homes was beyond idiotic. He should have just moved to another city or town with the diamonds at that point. Just move as Gene to another area and live alone. Not take a job at a public facing counter in a crowded shopping mall where thousands of people see you every single day and there are cameras every ten feet. Gene taking such a public job where he interacts with hundreds of people every day was some of the worst writing in the entire series.

The diamonds go unused.

They are used to subvert expectations. He drops them in the dumpster like a moron. Instead of putting them in a secure case he basically carries them in a jack-in-the-box that explodes diamonds. He is like a comedy relief character in the end. The bumbling moron hiding in dumpsters where the scripts for this show should have gone instead.

Bob Odenkirk was also directed like shit after the desert arc.

Probably every scene where he's improperly used is a post heart attack scene. Can't really blame them for that.

 

[Seventh Star]

Probably every scene where he's improperly used is a post heart attack scene. Can't really blame them for that.

He only got a heart attack after Lalo got shot. I'm under the impression the desert episodes were more taxing than they seemed. Still, I blame it on Vince forgetting what the show was about so he could flex to get awards and internet asspats.

 

[Slav Power]

This forum loves to hate and dissect things all day, but can we appreciate for a second the camera work and visual story telling in BB and BCS? Outside of any plot holes, IMO that has been stellar all across the board.

Stuff like Kim's car crash, where it nicely shows how it feels when you fall asleep behind the wheel and crash:

Or how the moment Lalo confronts Gus, suddenly the camera is shaky, and it's shot at a higher framerate to give it motion blur to highlight Gus' fear at this moment?

Or this shot that was directed by Rhea Seehorn, the actress of Kim Wexler. Mounting the camera on the car's door. Simple, subtle, effective.

There is too much of a focus on issues with the story, and not enough credit given to countless of shots in both series that are wonderfully done. To me, stuff like this is half of the reason BB/BCS was such a success. It's not just the story that counts on TV, it's also the camerawork, like in any other motion picture. And the people that worked on BB/BCS did an amazing job.

Or, you know, we can never acknowledge anything positive about BB/BCS and keep shitting on Vince and Peter all day long, because enjoying things is overrated apparently.

 

[AnOminous]

Or, you know, we can never acknowledge anything positive about BB/BCS and keep shitting on Vince and Peter all day long, because enjoying things is overrated apparently.

The more I watch something, the more I nitpick it, but that doesn't mean I don't think BB was one of the best, if not the best TV shows ever, with very few contenders, like maybe The Wire or The Sopranos or even an old favorite of mine, Six Feet Under, or older favorites ST:TOS and TNG.

Deadwood is definitely up there but unfortunately marred by the idiotic decision not to finish it.

"Ozymandias" may be the single best episode of television ever. (And if Rian Johnson doesn't go to Hell for what he did to Star Wars, that will be one of the mitigating factors.)

 

[Chilson]

Or, you know, we can never acknowledge anything positive about BB/BCS and keep shitting on Vince and Peter all day long, because enjoying things is overrated apparently.

Because its obvious. No shit the directing and camera work are overall fucking amazing. Its so amazing that its really easy to point out that its good with very little discussion. Hence why no one really talks about it.

The reason it gets so negative is because when everyone discusses what didn't work so well there is a lot of interesting discourse that happens.
Most people here (myself included) also clearly really enjoyed and overall like BB and BCS (prior to the final season) and are dissecting the stuff that led to that shit ass finale out of a disappointed love.

Mind you, even with the final season BCS is still one of the best TV shows out there by a LOOOOONG shot. But when something is so good, it stumbling at the finish line is even more painful.

 

[Absurdist Laughter]

This forum loves to hate and dissect things all day, but can we appreciate for a second the camera work and visual story telling in BB and BCS? Outside of any plot holes, IMO that has been stellar all across the board.
...
Or, you know, we can never acknowledge anything positive about BB/BCS and keep shitting on Vince and Peter all day long, because enjoying things is overrated apparently.

I think everyone in this thread is in agreement that the show is great; I don't know where that was brought up to the contrary. However, after watching BB a solid 6 times with BCS about the same, you notice the lows in the writing. It's much easier to see when you don't have to wait a year or so between seasons. Thanks for the clips!

 

[Arthur Morgan]

His electrical signals allergies came from his breakdown of his marriage. Their separation and divorce despite being hugely critical components of Chuck's story are never explained to the audience. His 'allergies' actually helped him bond with Jimmy and Howard. As they were the only people he trusted initially to visit his home and see him in his total mentally defeated state. When his wife visited him after his breakdown he actually has Jimmy there with him for moral support and to help rationalize the power being off to the house because he trusts Jimmy to entertain his mental illness and pretend along with him.

I'm pretty sure it was Jimmy becoming a lawyer because he was fine before that, though it could be both. For example, in season one when he does the billboard stunt, Jimmy hides the paper about it and Chuck has a breakdown when he sees it. Later, after they get home from the hospital and Jimmy confirms it was just a publicity stunt, Chuck feels better. Plus when Jimmy announces he passed the bar exam, and when he's sworn in as a lawyer, Chuck is fine and working as normal. A few more flashback so we could actually see Chuck's breakdown would have been beneficial, plus the ex could have been interesting (I don't think we even know when they divorced or why).

Of course it could be both. Maybe they explain it better on a commentary track.

 

[TheHarbinger]

I'm pretty sure it was Jimmy becoming a lawyer because he was fine before that, though it could be both.

It's never explained. It was a lazy way of making the characters deep. "Give them a mental disorder". Like Marie being a kleptomaniac. Or Walt's son being retarded. Sometimes the writers just never offered a reason why characters acted a certain way (like Jimmy taking life in a supermax prison). You see this in lots of shows where characters have weird hobbies, weird clothing and hairstyles, or drive weird cars to make them standout to the audience. There was a character Johnny Drama on Entourage that would order complicated obnoxious drinks so that people would remember him.

We saw why Hank had major PTSD and issues at his job. He sees a decapitated head and people getting blown apart. Then almost gets shot to death by cartel assassins. It makes sense why his character thinks he is being shot at when his beer bottles begin popping. Walt is an egomaniac because of his failed business venture with Gray Matter. This bothers him so badly that he risks his life and getting captured to mess with the Schwarz family one last time. Chuck's electricity fears are never dived into directly.

For example, in season one when he does the billboard stunt, Jimmy hides the paper about it and Chuck has a breakdown when he sees it.

That was written to prove the condition was fake. They even drive the point home for the audience that Chuck is faking by having his nurse show Jimmy that she secretly kept power on to the room unbeknownst to Chuck. The point was to show that Chuck's hatred of Jimmy's success was more important to him than keeping his facade of electromagnetic hypersensitivity going. And that Chuck would stop faking his illness to sabotage Jimmy's career. Chuck was so obsessed with crushing Jimmy that he forgot to fake his disease. If the disease was tied to Jimmy he'd probably never forget to fake it.

The illness likely stemmed from his divorce. Hence the scene of him slapping the phone out of his wife's hand. Or his suicide upon her seeing him humiliated and embarrassed in court. He didn't care that Howard and Jimmy saw him living like a nut in his home. But kept his illness secret from his ex-wife even when she visited him after their divorce.

Plus when Jimmy announces he passed the bar exam, and when he's sworn in as a lawyer, Chuck is fine and working as normal. A few more flashback so we could actually see Chuck's breakdown would have been beneficial, plus the ex could have been interesting (I don't think we even know when they divorced or why).

Yes. Because Chuck's electromagnetic insanity was linked to his wife Rebecca leaving him. Though we never get to see it as the show is focusing so heavily on Mike or Gus or cartel stories. The decline of Jimmy to Saul and Chuck's decline into being a recluse were far superior storylines than building Gus's lab, Mike's granddaughter, or anything with the cartel (even including Nacho and Lalo).

 

[Chilson]

I'm pretty sure it was Jimmy becoming a lawyer because he was fine before that, though it could be both. For example, in season one when he does the billboard stunt, Jimmy hides the paper about it and Chuck has a breakdown when he sees it. Later, after they get home from the hospital and Jimmy confirms it was just a publicity stunt, Chuck feels better. Plus when Jimmy announces he passed the bar exam, and when he's sworn in as a lawyer, Chuck is fine and working as normal. A few more flashback so we could actually see Chuck's breakdown would have been beneficial, plus the ex could have been interesting (I don't think we even know when they divorced or why).

You seem to not really remembering the show correctly or you just didn't mentally dive deep enough to figure this stuff out. Its very heavily implied that Chuck was breaking down due to his wife having a far better relationship with his brother than he would have liked. Which all stems from his mother and father favoring their fuck up son Jimmy over their overachiever Chuck. Hell, their mother on her deathbed asks for Jimmy and not Chuck which seriously screws him up and now he sees his wife getting literally and metaphorically wined and dined by the social wunderkin Jimmy while he can't even crack a joke she will laugh at. A sad replay of his childhood that he is desperate to not repeat, especially if it means losing the women he loves.

Its very clear how Chuck's mental illness developed as a result of his fuck up brother being so effortlessly more likable and, if he applys himself, more competent than Chuck. Something Chuck knows and hates deep down within his psyche.

Now why his mind chose "electric hyper sensitivity" as the coping mechanism, well...he isn't exactly a social butterfly. He clearly doesn't seem to enjoy social interaction that much (something Jimmy excels at) and also wants to keep Jimmy in his place. "Electric hyper sensitivity" allows him to isolate himself from everyone else and keep Jimmy as a almost live in butler to keep an eye on him. The consequence of course is that he loses everything in his life worth living for including the very first crack that develops his illness, his marriage. This only pushes him further in to the mental illness in a vicious cycle that ultimately leads him to sabotage his brother Jimmy at all costs, including his job and reputation (such is the case of ALL coping mechanisms). What's worse is that he does clearly love Jimmy and regrets most of the things he does to him, which again plays into the vicious cycle.

He is not INTENTIONALLY faking though, as consciously he is no more aware than anyone else with a severe mental illness.

 

[TheHarbinger]

You seem to not really remembering the show correctly or you just didn't mentally dive deep enough to figure this stuff out. Its very heavily implied that Chuck was breaking down due to his wife having a far better relationship with his brother than he would have liked. Which all stems from his mother and father favoring their fuck up son Jimmy over their overachiever Chuck. Hell, their mother on her deathbed asks for Jimmy and not Chuck which seriously screws him up and now he sees his wife getting literally and metaphorically wined and dined by the social wunderkin Jimmy while he can't even crack a joke she will laugh at. A sad replay of his childhood that he is desperate to not repeat, especially if it means losing the women he loves.

It's not just Rebecca his ex-wife as well. Jimmy is probably more liked by everyone at HHM. Including people like Howard and Kim. Which Chuck doesn't understand and causes him further mental deterioration. Chuck could never understand why everyone at HHM didn't perceive Jimmy as a monster or "chimp with a machine gun" like they were supposed to.

 

[AnOminous]

A few more flashback so we could actually see Chuck's breakdown would have been beneficial, plus the ex could have been interesting (I don't think we even know when they divorced or why).

I would assume because he was a gigantic control freak asshole with serious mental issues.

Chuck could never understand why everyone at HHM didn't perceive Jimmy as a monster or "chimp with a machine gun" like they were supposed to.

He was hypersensitive about Jimmy being generally loved by everyone while he was viewed as a cold fish, a brilliant lawyer but not exactly the life of the party. This was because of the primal narc injury that their parents loved Jimmy best, too, even though in his own mind he was the model son and Jimmy a thieving fuckup who may have even bankrupted the family business by stealing from it. I get the impression he even blames him for the death of their father. It was absolutely inconceivable to him that Jimmy was the charming and likeable one, and he was furious nobody could "see through him" like he could.

 

[The Hardest R]

In my mind, BCS isn't canon to BB. I could never buy that the Saul we see in BCS is the same person we see in BB—the "God, you're killing me with that booty" problem. Saul Goodman was conceived as a comedic side character, and he should have been left at that. Actually, the original idea they had for BCS probably would have worked better: a comedic sitcom.

BCS was more or less fan service. Jimmy is not a strong or important enough character to base an entire series on but people wanted to know more background on Gus, Mike, the Salamancas, etc. I think if Gilligan and others sketched out the entire plot from the beginning, based on how these series ended, both BB and BCS would be very different shows.

Unfortunately Gilligan paid way too much attention to what people on Reddit think. Breaking Bad started off when serial dramas were fully in revival but before outrage culture set in. Then butthurt culture set in right around the third and fourth season of BB and suddenly he was getting grilled over why Skyler was such a wet blanket to Walt. He pretty much wokeproofed BCS.

Mind you, even with the final season BCS is still one of the best TV shows out there by a LOOOOONG shot. But when something is so good, it stumbling at the finish line is even more painful.

Given how much of a flop the last season of Game of Thrones was, maybe it’s tougher to end a show than we’d expect.

 

[TheHarbinger]

Unfortunately Gilligan paid way too much attention to what people on Reddit think.

The ending is literally Walt and Jesse revenge killing Nazis. The ultimate reddit fantasy. They even made a movie to have more of Jesse killing some of them. Fan service gave us two dumb endings for Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Unless were watching the show to root for the characters. Like those people doing reaction videos for social media in bars for Game of Thrones.

Breaking Bad started off when serial dramas were fully in revival but before outrage culture set in. Then butthurt culture set in right around the third and fourth season of BB and suddenly he was getting grilled over why Skyler was such a wet blanket to Walt. He pretty much wokeproofed BCS.

First episode of BB has Jesse referring Walt as a faggot for wanting to use protective clothing when they cook meth. AMC put an end to that quickly when the writers snuck in a "homos" to get by the first 'no saying faggot' rule. By the end of the show they have Gus as some tragic fag opera character and they even retconned him having kids and a family so they could write in a fag love story. BCS had that excruciatingly awful scene of him at the bar hitting on the fag bartender like it was the start of a 70s porno.

Given how much of a flop the last season of Game of Thrones was, maybe it’s tougher to end a show than we’d expect.

When your shows have no planned ending then you usually end up with a mess. But hardcore fans will excuse anything.

 

[AnOminous]

It's never explained. It was a lazy way of making the characters deep. "Give them a mental disorder". Like Marie being a kleptomaniac. Or Walt's son being retarded.

He wasn't retarded, you dumbass, he had cerebral palsy (like RJ his actor although his is milder than Walt Jr.'s). That isn't retardation.