Except, as we see in the first season, once Jimmy finds his niche in elder law, he has no problem sticking to the straight and narrow. He was perfectly content to just talk to old people for a few hours, using his natural charm to be their friend and someone they could count on, despite having an easy opportunity to scam them as pointed out by his buddy in Chicago.
You need to watch the show again. Jimmy literally does everything he can to break the law or push things to get himself fired. His entire handling of the Sandpiper lawsuit is done with him cutting corners. He gets fired from Davis and Main because he's blending fruits and making scenes and pushing them to fire him on purpose because he can't handle normal work. His entire ordeal with the Kettlemans has him hiring someone to break into their home. He only stops working with them to gain favor with Kim, without her he's taking their dirty money.
Had Chuck just gotten over himself and helped guide Jimmy through Sandpiper without trying to steal it from him, they probably would have fixed their issues and been real brothers. But, as you pointed out, he couldn't let the old resentments go.
With Chuck out of the way Jimmy becomes a full time cartel lawyer. Without Jimmy, Chuck would have worked with Mesa Verde Bank without losing his mind and getting fired from his own lawfirm.
Come on guys ... "He defecated through a sunroof!"
Jimmy had his problems long before Chuck created the "self-fulfilling prophecy" that was Saul Goodman ... Such as letting his own father get scammed and calling him a "sucker" for it and eventually stealing from him himself. It leads the audience to believe that Chuck witnessed Jimmy doing a lot of bad things while they were growing up, and yet Jimmy was more well-liked than Chuck because of his charisma ... The last thing their mom said before she died was asking for Jimmy, even though it was Chuck who was there with her at the end. Even Chuck's own (ex)wife found Jimmy to be more charming, despite doing everything "right" and "by the book" his whole life and despite Jimmy having a history of legal troubles.
I get it: Chuck did some shitty things to Jimmy in the show, but based on the flashbacks that were shown, it looked like Chuck's law firm was the only part of his life where he felt respected or wanted ... So naturally he saw Jimmy wanting to become a lawyer as him shitting even that up for him (which he successfully did eventually lol).
I'm not on Team Chuck ... But we all know that Jimmy never had his hands clean, either. Chuck is the more pitiable character, in my opinion. His last scene in the show, to me, is one of the darkest moments in the entire Breaking Bad "saga." Watching a man losing his battle against mental illness is just sobering.
At the end of the day, Chuck was a brilliantly written character. There were so many moments where you hated him, and yet there were just as many moments where you felt sorry for him.
Unfortunately the last season went to shit the instant after Howard's shocking death. It would have been better if Mike had decided he wasn't going to sweep this one up and the consequences came immediately and hard for both Jimmy and Kim, with a dark, total downer ending an episode or two later.
My issue is that Howard and Nacho both carried the prequel elements pretty hard. Nacho had a fine enough death, but I would have liked him to get out alive and characters like Jimmy and Mike to take the wrong lesson from it. That you can walk away from the life rather than you’ll limp away with your life destroyed.
My issue is ultimately Kim basically gets away with everything with Jimmy taking one for the team. Howard’s death, HHM going under, and Howard’s wife are ultimately background elements. It’s a subversion of the usual elements in breaking bad and better call Saul where shit like that is major. Kim in the last 2 seasons is honestly the worst part of the show.
Jimmy had his problems long before Chuck created the "self-fulfilling prophecy" that was Saul Goodman ... Such as letting his own father get scammed and calling him a "sucker" for it and eventually stealing from him himself.
I get it: Chuck did some shitty things to Jimmy in the show, but based on the flashbacks that were shown, it looked like Chuck's law firm was the only part of his life where he felt respected or wanted ... So naturally he saw Jimmy wanting to become a lawyer as him shitting even that up for him (which he successfully did eventually lol).
At no point do I take anything Chuck says as gospel. He’s an unreliable narrator with an inflated opinion of himself. You need to look at Chuck’s interactions with Howard to see how sabotaging Chuck is.
The theft issue with Jimmy as a kid is something where Chuck places blame on Jimmy for something their father did. Chuck Sr ultimately failed as a father, but Jimmy wasn’t forever poisoned. The issue was that anytime Jimmy was pulling himself onto the high road, Chuck was there to kick him down. Chuck was like someone hounding a recovering alcoholic telling everyone he’s an alcoholic and ruining away impression Jimmy could make.
Chuck isn’t mentally ill. He literally is just seething. His suicide is him realizing he’s played himself and put himself into check. He ultimately takes Jimmy’s plan of playing chicken with HHM and Howard doesn’t blink. He can’t practice law because rather than taking the L, he keeps going.
My issue is ultimately Kim basically gets away with everything with Jimmy taking one for the team. Howard’s death, HHM going under, and Howard’s wife are ultimately background elements. It’s a subversion of the usual elements in breaking bad and better call Saul where shit like that is major.
You need to watch Breaking Bad again. Jesse gets away in the end with only the emotional baggage of watching his girlfriends die. Skylar gets million of dollars and is cleared of all wrongdoing. Walt goes out on a killing spree high, leaves his family millions, and gets revenge traumatizing his old college buddies one last time for fun and taking millions from them. Hank, Gomze, Marie, and then all of the meth victims are the ones who have it bad. Not the main cast.
Better Call Saul is no different. Kim gets away with everything. Saul gets an audience pleasing ending. Complete with cringe level scenes such as prisoners chanting his name on the bus. And people like Chuck and Howard are almost entirely forgotten.
Nacho had a fine enough death, but I would have liked him to get out alive and characters like Jimmy and Mike to take the wrong lesson from it. That you can walk away from the life rather than you’ll limp away with your life destroyed.
Mike's prequel was about him being addicted to working for Gus and sinking into darkness. Why does a former cop with a family work for a violent drug cartel in Breaking Bad? We found out why in Better Call Saul. Mike sees his own drug associates get killed, his meth lab builders killed or threatened, his own son killed by corrupt cops. He just wants to provide money for his family like Walt.
He's literally the same exact character as Walt. A bald old angry mess of a person leaving millions of drug money for his family. With no escape from the life. Only Mike is killed and loses his money in the end which makes Walt realize he needs to leave Grey Matter money to his family and not obvious cartel money like Mike did. Mike can't walk away from Gus without killing him. Walt doesn't make that same mistake.
Jesse was enslaved for a while and ultimately was Walt’s bitch. Jesse did try to make amends for his actions by going to Hank.
Skyler’s life is ruined even with the Grey Matter money. She has a shit relationship with her son and her sister.
Walt’s blaze of glory is undercut by his confession to Skyler. He could’ve called it quits under Gus. He destroyed his family for something he could’ve gotten by asking for help in season 1.
Saul is dead by the end. Jimmy decided to face the music.
No, he was severely mentally ill. How is hallucinating imaginary electrical infetterences with your mind to the point you fall down and nearly kill yourself not mentally ill?
Actually that's one of the few redeeming features of Walt's end. He finally actually told the truth. I think Gilligan tried to repeat this kind of thing in the end of BCS but it just came across as cucked.
Because Walt admitted the truth to the only person he cared about right before he machine-gunned the only threat left to her with one of his wacky contraptions.
Skyler really needed to hear that and I thought it was a surprising act of kindness from someone who had seemed at that point to be an absolutely worthless bastard.
No, he was severely mentally ill. How is hallucinating imaginary electrical infetterences with your mind to the point you fall down and nearly kill yourself not mentally ill?
Actually that's one of the few redeeming features of Walt's end. He finally actually told the truth. I think Gilligan tried to repeat this kind of thing in the end of BCS but it just came across as cucked.
Because Walt admitted the truth to the only person he cared about right before he machine-gunned the only threat left to her with one of his wacky contraptions.
Skyler really needed to hear that and I thought it was a surprising act of kindness from someone who had seemed at that point to be an absolutely worthless bastard.
He wasn’t hallucinating shit, he was having panic attacks and stress attacks due to the constant thought of Jimmy cucking him (mentally, spiritually, socially, platonically, and on some levels physically).
It literally is an anxiety disorder at most.
Walt confessing to Skyler is one of the best moments. You can argue it’s unrealistic, but it’s a fucking story. It’s supposed to be satisfying. Walt finally admitting to himself and someone else his initial reason got consumed by his ego is ultimately a good resolution for his story.
I didn’t care for the neo-Nazi’s as antagonists, Walt already worked for the cartel. Prison shanking is kid stuff compared to cartel shit. But it’s something I can look past.
Better Call Saul’s ending kinda sucks because it felt like Bob’s heart attack forced them to hastily write an ending. It’s also hard to write an ending for a show that is both than epilogue and prequel. I think Howard and HHM should’ve weighed more on Jimmy, but it kinda was just window dressing.
He has conversion disorder. So the panic attacks are brought on by stress. But his attempts at explaining them away as 'electricity sensitivity' are definitely part of mental illness and explain his hallucinations of electrical currents radiating from the power lines or his power meter and attacking him. The scene where he steals the newspaper has a few first person shots of him looking at the power lines and imagining them firing dangerous electrical energy at him.
He has conversion disorder. So the panic attacks are brought on by stress. But his attempts at explaining them away as 'electricity sensitivity' are definitely part of mental illness and explain his hallucinations of electrical currents radiating from the power lines or his power meter and attacking him. The scene where he steals the newspaper has a few first person shots of him looking at the power lines and imagining them firing dangerous electrical energy at him.
WALL OF TEXT INCOMING
I feel like we would have gotten a far better final season had it not been for the pandemic. There wouldn't have been a long delay and it would have been written in person, not through zoom meetings and no hecking safetee measures. Season 6 just felt off to me, like there was a dip in quality compared to the rest of the show. It had some decent ideas on paper but with very poor execution, some parts were dragged on for too long and then some parts were incredibly rushed.
The way they ended the main timeline was so lazy and predictable, kims breakup monologue is such cringe exposition dumping, I thought "show don't tell" was one of the shows main strengths, "together we're poison!! I love you too but so what??" that's something I would have written as a joke, seriously? Corny! The sudden childhood flashback near the end that hastily tries to justify the origin of kim's motivations is dumb too, just cheap. They had an interesting setup in the beginning, with Kim pushing Jimmy to do the scam despite him not wanting to, and being given several chances to stop and proceeding regardless. Her hiding the fact that Lalo is alive from Jimmy was an interesting setup that kind of went nowhere. There was huge potential for the eventual clash between Jimmy and Kim and it was wasted with a single rushed monologue IMO.
The show just seems to ignore Kim's responsibility for a lot of her actions and doesn't really hold her accountable, shifting almost all the blame to Jimmy despite Kim being the mastermind and driving force behind the whole thing. Kim's story about her client that got screwed over by his friend, (the one Jimmy gives his old brown suit to) the scene at the Kettleman's scam shop where Kim surprises Jimmy by being ruthless, Jimmy's initial disdain towards the Howard scam... All things that get brought up, seem to be hinting at something, and then they never go anywhere...
This isn't a complaint about the show, I just wanted to mention it. The scene where they're having sex on the office couch like pigs while they listen in to Howard's meeting is so repulsive and despicable, it made me hate them even more than I already did since the season started and I find it baffling that a lot people were still rooting for them at that point
The pacing goes to shit after episode 7, the fallout of howard's death and the breakup is so rushed. The transformation to Saul could have been done more slowly and progessively rather than a sudden cut, maybe during Fun and Games we could have seen Jimmy transforming into Saul and coping about his involvement in Howards death in a similiar way to how he coped after indirectly killing chuck at the start of S4, maybe shifting the blame to Kim?
(that one scene where he says "well Howard, I guess that's your cross to bear", shifting the blame over to him and playing with his fish like nothing happened, refusing to accept the fact he killed his brother)
I think it would have made way more sense for Saul to be the one to shamelessly confront Howard's widow at the funeral while Kim cracks under the pressure of her guilt. Maybe we could have seen Kim feeling creeped out/disconnected from Jimmy/Saul as he nonchalantly goes about his day making jokes like nothing happened. She would feel incredibly ashamed, guilty and even disgusted at the fact that they got away scot free without consequences for their actions, unable to continue with the hypocrisy of her job acting like a saviour and good person with her pro-bono practice after what she did, and on top of all that, everyone around her admires her and looks up to her while deep down she knows she's a horrible person. On the other hand, Saul would be openly and shamelessly celebrating the fact that they got away and would focus on getting the sandpiper money as quickly as possible. Most of the episode was wasted with Gus and Mike shit (that fucking wine scene...), all that was really needed was the scene at Eladio's pool and that's it.
(A minor nitpick I wanna throw away is that it would have been cool to see Jimmy set up the inflatable statue of liberty with the kettlemans in ep. 9 instead of that random saul goodman sign that he gets rid of anyway during the perfect day montage, as well as some context as to why he remodelled his entire office after the breakup, couldn't it have been like the Breaking Bad one from the beginning?)
As for Lalo's death, I can't really complain that much since I don't know how I could write it better (same goes for Nacho's death), but Gus giving his final monologue in spanish is so fucking retarded... If the man can't speak spanish then don't make him, he's a great actor just let him say it in english!!! It would have been perfectly fine! I'm a native spanish speaker and I couldn't understand his spanish without subtitles, it's that bad and so easily avoidable! Nacho's death monologue also feels really corny.
Now for the ending, I feel like it's good enough on paper, but the execution was so sloppy and lame... The part where he gets up in the courtroom to say "The name's McGill, I'm James McGill" like James Bond is Marvel levels of corny low-hanging fruit writing, it's the type of shit fans write in youtube comment sections as a fucking joke, same with the prisoners chanting on the bus. All of the dialogue and even Bob's acting just feels so lame and basic given the standards the show set in previous seasons. It's not even necessary since he also does the name switch thing when he's recognized by the inmate in the prison bus, which is a way better and more natural way of showing the change, he dropped the Saul persona and identifies as Jimmy, but he's also trying to avoid confrontation with the inmate so it makes sense for him to say it in that context.
I feel like they did a poor job of showing Saul changing his mind from the 7 years to the life sentence, they don't really give any hints or show anything, it just sort of happens, it's hard to tell if he had it planned before the courtroom session or made up his mind on the spot. Again, I like the ideas of the ending in theory, but the execution is so damn lame and lazy...
Jimmy giving Kim the fingerguns makes no fucking sense, Saul Goodman is gone, why would he give Kim the same sign she made when she suggested ruining Howard's life for fun when they're both supposed to feel guilty and ashamed of that? It's the symbol of what destroyed their relationship in the first place, isn't the whole point of the ending that Jimmy actually did change and took responsibility for his actions? Kim was originally supposed to return the fingerguns and they even filmed it, but scrapped it last second because they realized it wouldn't make sense, which gives me the feeling they had no fucking clue about what they were doing.
Overall I don't think season 6 is entirely bad, there's plenty of good highlights and parts I enjoyed, but it's the worst season in the show by a long shot. Given what we've got, I genuinely believe the show could have ended with season 5 and it would've been more satisfying.
The show just seems to ignore Kim's responsibility for a lot of her actions and doesn't really hold her accountable, shifting almost all the blame to Jimmy despite Kim being the mastermind and driving force behind the whole thing.
I wonder how much of this had to do with the fact Odenkirk had a heart attack during the shooting of the episode where Lalo shoots Howard.
He nearly died and Rhea Seehorn was one of the people who saved him.
This might have fucked up the end of the show because nobody wanted to portray her as a villain after that. It certainly seemed they went out of their way to whitewash Kim's behavior after that episode, and for no obvious plot reasons. In BB there was no problem portraying Skyler as an absolute cunt, even after her semi-redemption.
Actually, now that I think about it, Nacho should have died at the end of season 5 at Lalo's house. If Gus was planning to have him killed in the first place, why didn't he just order the hitmen to kill nacho as soon as he let them in? His entire arc during season 6 (which is just three episodes) is completely pointless, he might as well have died back at the compound, it wouldn't have made a difference
I just want a what if episode or short where they decide to go with laser tag and it’s the best possible ending with Saul becoming Governor, Walt creating a chain of laser tag arcades before during, Hank gets to be Walt Jr’s replacement dad, and Jesse and Mike go fishing with Alaska.
I think they just had no idea how to wrap up the show. Jimmy just riding out the rest of his life at Cinnabon was the most realistic but boring. I thought BCS was never anything more than fanservice so it was not a surprise that Gilligan picked the ending most likely to get updooted on Reddit, even if it didn’t actually make a lot of sense.
Im still to this day mixed on if Hank just finding the book while taking a shit was geniusly subversive or just a deux ex machina because the writers wrote themselves into a corner and made Walt get away with it far too well.
Then again, S5 is kind of filled with nonsensical moments where the characters just suddenly behave out of character, with Mike being one of the biggest victims. The mistakes he commits in S5 are just eye rolling, like him not knowing Gus's Laptop was encryptided (despite being his chief of security) or not entrusting Saul with the money towards his granddaughter and trusting some fat idiot that had no idea what to do to not get caught. Maybe he didnt like Saul by that point but Mike cant doubt the dude's effeciency.
And his final rant to Walt really feels like a case of "right for the wrong reasons" because while he is right that Ego was a big driving force of S5 Walt, S4 Walt was mostly acting out of self defense because Gus just couldnt the deaths of two nameless drug dealers go. If anything, Walt was pretty passive in S3 and only lashed out because Jesse was about to get himself killed. Ironically, if Mike did go along with Walt's suggestion of getting Jesse arrested for a couple of weeks, most of this nonsense could have been avoided. Im not saying that there wasnt ego involved in all of this but I dare say Walt was willing to cooperate with Gus's operation just fine until this whole idiot pile of bad decisions from most involved that is Tomas's death.
So Mike is right but heavily biased and the whole rant is technically a half measure, which has always been his undoing.
Its interesting that this is basically set in the same location as BB/BCS which was def. intentional as to make people think of both shows by association.
With that said, apparently the show will be science fiction which I know that isnt the first time Vince dabbled into that genre but he did establish a stronghold influence in the crime genre. So who knows. The lack of any premise doesnt inspire much confidence either.
Ah yes, Apple TV, Im sure the 25 people that have it will appreciate it.
