-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Better Call Saul S3 |OT| Gus Who's Back - Mondays 10/9c on AMC
- Thread starter TheOddOne
- Start date
whitemex88
Member
No. Jimmy paid the dude to fall. He did it for publicity
Great episode.
Interesting to watch the video extra and hear Bob Odenkirk saying he thinks Jimmy needs to hurt Chuck and doesn't feel bad about it. As the courtroom scene played out, it seemed to me that Jimmy was backed into a corner and had to resort to this to keep his law license. You know Jimmy cares about his brother. When he rests his case, the look on his face is that of a regretful victory.
Interesting to watch the video extra and hear Bob Odenkirk saying he thinks Jimmy needs to hurt Chuck and doesn't feel bad about it. As the courtroom scene played out, it seemed to me that Jimmy was backed into a corner and had to resort to this to keep his law license. You know Jimmy cares about his brother. When he rests his case, the look on his face is that of a regretful victory.
I have the same vibe with the exit sign at the end. My guess is that Jimmy will have Chuck admitted somewhere by the season finale.
SuperStiltzkin
Member
Holy shit he lost 130 pounds. Good for him.
JoshuaJSlone
Member
Considering we've gone from like 2009 Odenkirk playing 2008 Saul to 2014 Odenkirk playing 90s Jimmy in flashbacks, I think we have to give a loooot of leeway to apparent ages.
FWIW, though, McKean is 15 years older than Odenkirk.
I think I wrote elsewhere in the thread on the flashback scene to his mother. For that bit, it's true that it wasn't about the law, but it was still an example of how Chuck thought the world should work one way, but it worked another, in Jimmy's favor. It was more of a sensibility thing, that since he's the one whose perceptively more upset and more willing to stay at his mothers last moments (in contrast to Jimmy's seemingly less upset response and how he just seems to be focused on getting food), having his mothers last thoughts be about him felt like an injustice to him. This one in particular isn't rational since his mother wasn't even lucid so her final words being Jimmy could mean literally anything....but it's hard to blame a grieving person for irrationality. Though with Rebecca, he just hoped that she, being his wife and a classy kind of person herself, would be the one person who was on the same page as him regarding Jimmy.
Still, I can agree that was two example of Chuck's resentment for Jimmy outside the law. What I don't agree on is that two examples of Chuck resenting Jimmy outside the law somehow disproves the entire argument. I've always argued that his resentment is the cause of many things that all of which circle around one principle: Jimmy gets what he doesn't deserve. Chuck's utter focus on righting that perceived wrong is what brands him a Knight Templar archetype (which doesn't mean he doesn't have room to be anything else) for me. But yeah, he would be two dimensional if he didn't also have a life outside of that, but he clearly does, so...I'm not saying you can't think that it's more about personal resentment for him over just the law. My only point is that two examples of outside-the-law resentment doesn't invalidate the interpretation.
What I'm interested in is trying to determine what caused the change here. Because now he's saying that he shouldn't have ever hired Jimmy even for the mail room and he should never have helped him out with the Chicago sunroof. Mesa Verde motivated Chuck into taking direct action against Jimmy, but what lead to his believe that his brother is this hopelessly lost?
Chuck is going to lose his mind now, I don't see a way for him to come back from this. He totally lost it when he thought he got one number wrong and now he was shown his whole illness is just in his head. He can't Chuck himself out of that.
And it all happened in front of his ex. Dude is done.
And it all happened in front of his ex. Dude is done.
Count me in the BCS > BrBa camp, at least after 2.5 seasons of each. That's from someone who considers the middle of season 3 to be Breaking Bad's best (from the RV episode to Fly) and as good as anything I've seen on television. Hell, One Minute is still my favorite episode and those last few minutes are possibly my favorite television scene of all time.
But there's something about BCS's lower key slow burn that's just a little more satisfying. While the last couple seasons of Breaking Bad are still top-tier, it felt like Walt's characterization bordered on over-the-top cartoon villainy at times. So far in BCS the drama and conflict between Jimmy and Chuck is just so fascinating, complex, and heartbreaking. In contrast, Walt was ultimately at odds with himself and everyone else was an accessory or roadblock to his goals.
Not to mention, season 2 of Breaking Bad has what I consider one of the show's two bigger missteps (
) with the other being in season 5 (
). Better Call Saul doesn't have any missteps thus far. It's just been incredibly consistent.
But there's something about BCS's lower key slow burn that's just a little more satisfying. While the last couple seasons of Breaking Bad are still top-tier, it felt like Walt's characterization bordered on over-the-top cartoon villainy at times. So far in BCS the drama and conflict between Jimmy and Chuck is just so fascinating, complex, and heartbreaking. In contrast, Walt was ultimately at odds with himself and everyone else was an accessory or roadblock to his goals.
Not to mention, season 2 of Breaking Bad has what I consider one of the show's two bigger missteps (
plane crash - too heavy handed even for BrBa
Ted's neck injury... don't care if the slippery rug was telegraphed
PantherLotus
Professional Schmuck
To me, Chuck's very real passion for Law is a subconscious guise for why he treats Jimmy the way he does when it's very clearly about a lifetime of resentment about how their parents treated them differently. This is all well-trod ground both in psychology and in story-telling.
That doesn't make Chuck's observations of Jimmy's law breaking wrong, nor does his resentment expunge Jimmy's misdeeds. But acting like Chuck simply wants to protect the Law because Jimmy is immoral (in his Chuck's eyes) is a hopelessly simple explanation when we have all of the above laid out for us.
The unfortunate thing for me in this discussion over the last few pages is that this is being painted as an if/then, black/white, therefore/thus conclusion about fully dimensional characters. You're supposed to be conflicted. You are at once supposed to sympathize with Chuck for doing things The Right Way while Jimmy gets easy accolades while also loathing Chuck for how he looks down on Jimmy. You are SUPPOSED to side-eye Jimmy's methods and think he's a bit of a scumbag while understanding his motivations come from an empathizable place.
We had this conversation last week and y'all -- not just Vleek -- do the show injustice by painting with too broad of strokes. You are supposed to have cognitive dissonance about these characters. It's the hallmark of great writing and a credit to the show. A show which deserves a better conversation than what I'm seeing here.
That doesn't make Chuck's observations of Jimmy's law breaking wrong, nor does his resentment expunge Jimmy's misdeeds. But acting like Chuck simply wants to protect the Law because Jimmy is immoral (in his Chuck's eyes) is a hopelessly simple explanation when we have all of the above laid out for us.
The unfortunate thing for me in this discussion over the last few pages is that this is being painted as an if/then, black/white, therefore/thus conclusion about fully dimensional characters. You're supposed to be conflicted. You are at once supposed to sympathize with Chuck for doing things The Right Way while Jimmy gets easy accolades while also loathing Chuck for how he looks down on Jimmy. You are SUPPOSED to side-eye Jimmy's methods and think he's a bit of a scumbag while understanding his motivations come from an empathizable place.
We had this conversation last week and y'all -- not just Vleek -- do the show injustice by painting with too broad of strokes. You are supposed to have cognitive dissonance about these characters. It's the hallmark of great writing and a credit to the show. A show which deserves a better conversation than what I'm seeing here.
IggyChooChoo
Member
Veelk, I generally agree with you, but the central conflict here is one brother (rightly or wrongly) being jealous of another one. One brother feeling the other is getting things he doesn't deserve, things the first brother feels he does deserve. Maternal and spousal love that he feels, in a fair world, he would get. A unconditional acceptance he knows people won't give him.
This is not a knightly principle. This is Cain and Abel, or the prodigal son. There are much better archetypes to refer to in this vein than the Knights Templar (is that even a widely-used critical term?). I think the reason Chuck loves the law so much is that it offers him comfort from this central unfairness in his life -- we don't know that he loves the law for itself. Now that the law is being taken from him by Jimmy, who knows what he'll do? Maybe it will be some desperate attempt to out-Jimmy Jimmy that goes spectacularly wrong, like Grimey and Homer.
This is not a knightly principle. This is Cain and Abel, or the prodigal son. There are much better archetypes to refer to in this vein than the Knights Templar (is that even a widely-used critical term?). I think the reason Chuck loves the law so much is that it offers him comfort from this central unfairness in his life -- we don't know that he loves the law for itself. Now that the law is being taken from him by Jimmy, who knows what he'll do? Maybe it will be some desperate attempt to out-Jimmy Jimmy that goes spectacularly wrong, like Grimey and Homer.
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
Chuck needs authority over Jimmy. He's a narcissist.
Again, I don't understand where people get the impression that I don't also think that Chuck's feelings are out of personal resentment in addition to the law stuff. When I say that Chuck is a knight templar, that doesn't mean I think he's only that.
I'll even agree with you that his relationship with Jimmy resembles more Cain and Abel.
But what makes him a knight templar for me is that his dedication to the law is something that exists beyond Jimmy. He dedicated his life to studying the law and we've seen him be an expert in it's practices to an extent that no other character has shown. He's somehow able to recite obscure case numbers off the top of his head. Chuck lives and breathes this stuff, and has won the respect of his peers to an incredible degree all around new mexico for it, despite being a jerk.
That's the key for me, that he was obsessed about being a lawyer, in a more healthy and positive way before this whole Jimmy thing + his mental illness thing happened. And when I say "good", I don't just mean effective, but he seems to have been highly sensitive to the moral aspects of the law. He's fully based his life philosophy around it. It doesn't mean he can't have elements of other things, like Cain and Abel as you suggested, which I agree is also very applicable to him. But what do you call someone dedicates themselves to carrying out justice in the modern world to such a degree if not a knight templar?
Phenomenal episode; listening to the tape was so uncomfortable because you want to "side with" Jimmy but in the end what he did was fucked up. Then you have Chuck's smug ass up on the stand, wanting to feel like he's getting his comeuppance but it's also hard not to sympathize with him due to his mental illness.
Brilliant writing, great acting... just an amazing show.
From the preview it seems like Chuck isn't going to give up on trying to fuck with Jimmy; super excited to see where that goes.
Brilliant writing, great acting... just an amazing show.
From the preview it seems like Chuck isn't going to give up on trying to fuck with Jimmy; super excited to see where that goes.
Ignatz Mouse
Banned
If you take his motivation being at least half resentment, then there's no question at all and it's not really a change.
If Jimmy had stayed in the mail room as Chuck imagined he would, all would be fine. Jimmy would be kept in his place. But he didn't, and therefore it was a mistake to have given him a hand in the first place. It's not a change in underlying motive, but rather 20/20 hindsight.
Chuck has always wanted to keep Jimmy down, and he's frustrated that it hasn't worked. And for the same reasons, too-- Chuck wants to protect Jimmy from a legal outcome (the sunroof, the B&E) and as a result Jimmy evades pretty much any consequence. If he'd let him be prosecuted for the B&E there wouldn't be a problem here. But Chuck's conscience won't allow that, because he knows it was shitty to trick Jimmy into it in the first place.
Chuck's remarkable consistent.
Just watched One Minute again the other day. It still holds up incredibly well, and the tension is unreal. Even knowing what happens, the way the scene is shot still had my heart pounding.
TimeEffect
Member
I aso am really enjoying the drama of BCS. there is something about it that feels so raw and real. Just two brothers, total opposites who still love each other, but totally headed down their own destructive paths.
It's just fascinating how complex they are and the supporting characters are all so interesting too.
The Mike parts and the Gus part are a really nice contrast, and I hope they ultimately tie in to Jimmy, but it feels like they are their own things.
By the way, how is this show doing compared to BB? You won't see gifs or memes of BCS for example, but people love quoting Breaking Bad
Cornballer
Member
The viewership numbers aren't near what Breaking Bad did for its final season, but they're very good for AMC. Between the ratings, the awards buzz, and critical consensus on the show, they're going to get to run BCS for as long as Gould & Gilligan want to on AMC. There aren't any concerns about it being canceled.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
I still think the two storylines collide in a manner that somehow gets Kim killed or in trouble, which is why she doesn't exist in the Breaking Bad time line. It brings Mike and Jimmy together so that they are working with each other, while it also makes Jimmy shed his old name and become Saul.
Whether or not Jimmy is directly responsible for something bad happening to Kim is something I'm not sure of, but they definitely keep foreshadowing it by having him drag her down to his level constantly.
GifGafIsTheBestGaf
Member
GoodByeBitch.gif
So long Chuck.
So long Chuck.
I think it's more likely that Kim leaves him rather than her dying. I don't think his secretary would stick around if she knew Jimmy got her killed and I don't think Jimmy would go on to make a new practice if he had gotten Kim killed.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
How does this sense of nobility justify what he did to Kim to drive her away from the law firm in the first place? Because she's friends with Jimmy?
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
If Kim dies, it won't be directly due to Jimmy.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
I mean, it's clear that she's probably the only moral compass left in his life and that after she's gone, he goes full douchebag/scambag lawyer who only cares about working the system for drug lords.
In my mind, being responsible for her death in some way would make the character turn more tragic, particularly given where he ends up, because so far Kim has put up with all of Jimmy's bullshit so far. It just feels like he's going to ruin her life in some way, and if it's not being responsible for her death, then it would be certainly something that makes him so disgusting to her that she never wants to see him again.
Yeah, I would expect it to be related to some scam Jimmy runs. Maybe he gets involved in this Gus cartel war with Mike and Kim is just an innocent victim.
I feel like Jimmy would blame himself if/when he gets involved in crime and Kim died because of that.
IggyChooChoo
Member
A prosecutor, or maybe a defense attorney. Not a corporate litigator. I think calling Chuck a knight templar is distracting from your argument and I'll leave it at that. I think both Chuck and Jimmy use the law to meet their own emotional needs (pride, mastery, desire for a fair world, enrichment, justice for the little guy, excitement) and that it is a means to those ends, not the end itself.
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
Oh, yeah, he'll blame himself, sure; I'm just saying that it'll be something huge that, for once, he didn't set up directly.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
They're both two sides of the same shitty coin. It's just that Jimmy is clearly more likeable. Hell, the reaction in this thread is exactly playing into how Chuck probably sees the world, which is genius writing in a way.
Think about all the things that Saul Goodman has done, culminating with having to go on the run and live a shitty life in 2015 or whenever the present day scenes are set. Chuck is right about Jimmy, but everyone here is still "Fuck Chuck".
It would be funny if it's as simple as mistaken identity. Someone says to kill the lawyer at their office, and they grab Kim instead of Jimmy because no one bothered to describe the lawyer.
Well, the easy answer is that his resentment of Jimmy is corrupting his ideals. I've said many times that a lot of what Chuck does, even if it's stuff he would do normally as a lawyer, his tainted by his resentment of Jimmy. Like, I fully believe that he'd do a lot to try and keep Mesa Verde as a client because they're so high end. However, when he heard that Jimmy is involved in it through howard, that gave him extra incentive to want to keep them.
I feel this is similar. Kim wasn't just being punished by Chuck, but also notably by Howard, who doesn't actually bare the kind of resentment against Jimmy that Chuck does. My opinion is that this is just because the legal world has an incredibly high value of reputation and appearances. This isn't just HHM, but Davis and Main as well, whose entire problem with Jimmy is that he endangered their reputation with his tape, despite it abiding by all the laws. As such, it seems to me that Kim's punishment, while perhaps encouraged by Chuck, was just something that legal firms can do to discipline their clients for what everyone seems to agree was discipline worthy.
Kim encouraged Howard to vouch for Jimmy, and as a result of his actions, he didn't just make Davis and Main look bad with the commercial, but also HHM for putting in a good word for him. That's what Kim is being punished for, making the firm look bad through poor judgement. And you can think that's unfair, but since this is Howard whose willingly administering the discipline, it seems to me that it's atleast not about punishing Jimmy through Kim so much as that legal firms just take their reputation very, very seriously.
I'm not calling him a knight templar as a literal job description, anymore than you are saying he is the literal son of adam and eve by calling him Cain. I mean Knight Templar in terms of a character archtype. It's a trope name, not an occupation.
That's what I'm thinking will happen.
Kim loves him so much that she is able to forgive him when he bends the law or outright breaks it but it's not something that serious. I feel like Jimmy is going to get heavily involved with Mike and Gus' thing and Kim will find out. One thing is switching some numbers after his asshole brother fucked you over, another is helping with a criminal organization.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
See, you see it as simple corporate politics, and I see it as Chuck being petty about ruining the life of someone who might like Jimmy more than him.
Think about how he basically used that intern to leak the existence of tape to Jimmy and then fired him the moment he was done using him. You could say Chuck was perfectly well within his rights to fire him, but I think it's clear that he resents that this young kid likes Jimmy.
Hell, I think Chuck even hated the fact that the mail room employees liked Jimmy.
I could see Kim eventually getting disbarred after doing something to help Jimmy or even herself.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Yeah, he gets down some rabbit hole that she doesn't want to pull him out of.
I just think whatever happens has to be bad enough for him to change his name though, since he's essentially throwing away "Jimmy" by becoming Saul.
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
.... shit, that's exactly it.
minor effort
Banned
I feel like a bigger deal should have been made about Chuck keeping a lantern on top of a pile of old newspapers.
Psychosomatic electromagnetic hypersensitivity or not, Chuck, that's just plain unsafe.
Psychosomatic electromagnetic hypersensitivity or not, Chuck, that's just plain unsafe.
DeviantBoi
Member
Hector Salamanca is gonna have Jimmy handle his will after his stroke.
So how do you explain howard being pissed as fuck about it to the point where he refuses to even speak to Kim? Especially since all the scenes they have together doesn't indicate that Chuck holds any resentment toward him, he just sees her as another victim of Jimmy's guile. Hell, he still thinks Kim is ignorant in her relationship with Jimmy, when she's actually at this point an accomplice whose aiding Jimmy in his schemes.
But this is what I mean when I say people are running away with the resentment angle on Chuck, as if that alone is what drives his every waking action to everyone on every given topic that even tangentially involves Jimmy. I don't deny that Chuck probably was pissed at Ernie for being yet another one who covers for Jimmy to let him off the hook, but that he didn't fired him just for that, he fired him because he sabotaged him, and tried to do so a second time. The same way I'm sure Chuck was fine with Kim being punished for Jimmy, but that doesn't mean it also isn't corporate politics. I truly feel it just reduces what is otherwise a layered character into a cartoon villain who goes to unrealistic lengths with very small cause.
If I'm supposed to believe that Chuck is just this outrageously evil, why doesn't he just get a gun and go on a murder spree of Jimmy and everyone that ever liked him? I mean, why not, if Jimmy's suffering and the punishment of all his associates is all that Chuck wants in his life. If that's supposed to be his character, that he just has absolutely no cares for anything in the world but that, then he might as well just get a gun and go to town already.
SuperStiltzkin
Member
Chuck hates that anyone would like Jimmy and even go to the point of even siding with him. "Oh no! Not Jimmy! Not our precious Jimmy!" His mother called for Jimmy before she died. His ex wife laughs at Jimmy's jokes. Kim siding with Jimmy. Ernesto lying for and defending Jimmy.
I think what even pisses him off even more is that they side with Jimmy even when he knows Jimmy really did fudge the numbers and stage accidents and do all those tricks to get where he is.
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
*sigh*
Nobody is saying that. Stop being hyperbolic in an effort to seem morally superior over a forum thread about a TV show, please.
Mocking his dead parents while in the same breath feeling empathy for them. Guy is completely oblivious. I really want to know what happened with "the family business". We've heard a lot of stuff by now. Jimmy ruined it. Chuck ruined it. Jimmy was stealing money. The parents kept giving Jimmy money. It's starting to sound like, while Jimmy believes that he holds some of the blame, it really just boils down to Chuck being angry that his parents dared help out someone that Chuck deemed unworthy of that level of financial help.
I highly doubt that Jimmy pulled a con on his parents. Or if he did, I highly doubt that it was as harmful as Chuck implies.
I would call any person who is singularly dedicated to bringing about the suffering of a person and all who associate with him evil. I don't know what your personal definition is, but if the only goal you have in your life is to cause misery, especially if it's not for any nobler reason than personal spite, then yeah, that's evil for me.
And I'm not going to go too deep into it, because I'm trying to tone down the antagonism, but please stop trying act as if I'm talking down to every person whose point I'm trying to debate. I'm not saying what I'm saying to firehawk to seem morally superior and I don't see what in my post makes you think that. I'm saying what I'm saying I happen to disagree, and it's pretty distracting and tiring to be accused of ulterior motives every other post.
IggyChooChoo
Member
Right, and I think most scenes this season have undermined the purity of Chuck's commitment to the law per se, which makes Knight Templar an unhelpful trope to understanding him. Chuck's not a character who fights for justice. He fights for love and respect from the people who he feels are withholding them from him. And part of that fight is punishing Jimmy.
What a masterful episode. I don't watch the previews for this since I catch it on Netflix so having an episode dedicated entirely to the hearing so early in the season was incredible. Thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed everything about the episode. McKean 100% deserves some type of award for that acting near the end, if Chuck were played any worse this show wouldn't have nearly as much intensity.
As for the speculation about Kim dying... I don't know. What I've loved about the show so far is that it's differentiated itself from the constant death-fest that Breaking Bad was, I wouldn't want to spoil that when there's so many other options to explain why she isn't there later on.
As for the speculation about Kim dying... I don't know. What I've loved about the show so far is that it's differentiated itself from the constant death-fest that Breaking Bad was, I wouldn't want to spoil that when there's so many other options to explain why she isn't there later on.
Knight Templars aren't necessarily about purity, but zealotry. It's pretty common for Knight Templars to get so blindly focused in their persuit of moral ideals that they end up violating them without realizing. I mean, here's the trope page if you want to read more about it, but the part that sticks out to me is: "they get blinded by themselves and their ideals, and this extreme becomes tyrannical sociopathy. It's not the Forces of Darkness' fault, but they are laughing their asses off and taking a great deal of satisfaction that they were right. " and "Knights Templar believe fully that they are on the side of righteousness and draw strength from that, and that their opponents are not." And particularly the part where the Knight Templar refuses to see any fault in their actions. All this sounds remarkably like Chuck to me.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
I mean... that's basically it.
I think there's a level of dramatic irony, since we know exactly what happens to Jimmy in the future. We like him in spite of the fact that we see him as a pathetic Cinnabon employee (at the start of every season, so you can't forget his fate), because his personality lets us forget his faults. He's a charming person who uses cons to get ahead in life, and the fact that people are attracted to him to the point where they are willing to bend the law for him is a testament to his charisma. Hell, even that Air Force guy essentially lets him off, even after confronting him about using his plane for a commercial.
It's how people seem to be able to forgive him and love him in spite of, or perhaps because of, his faults that Chuck resents. If Jimmy was a slimy doctor instead of a slimy lawyer, I'm sure Chuck would go out of his way to try to get Jimmy's medical license revoked. Not because he cares about the sanctity of the medical profession, but because he hates the fact that Jimmy might succeed despite his character flaws.
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
I'm not "trying to act" like anything, but if you understand how your posts come off as abrasive and are working on that, that is most appreciated and I apologize for going off on you.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
For me, the big reason I want her to be dead is so that the writers can't do something eyerolling like having Kim show up in the "present" and order a Cinnabon from Jimmy. lol