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[comedian]

man why did they have to go down that route. Chuck was getting better and then suddenly he is insane, wrecking his (lovely) house and committing suicide? that is so cheap and totally not worthy of Chuck. I loved all scenes with him and now this shit.

What are you talking about "suddenly". Chuck realises that he has lost everything and is now alone. This causes a relapse in his mental condition. Chuck believes in those last moments that he will never get better, and again that he last everything and everyone.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

One thing I really liked about Chuck's demise, is that it made complete and total sense.

He's lost everything in his life that matters-- his wife (sometime in the past), his brother (at the end of S1), his reputation in the middle of this season, his camaraderie with Howard (which lasted a bit longer), and finally his job. When he cancelled his appointment, I knew things were bad because as I understand it, mentally ill people start missing appointments when they run into a wall.

It was all so gracefully, logically put together. And his inability to accept Jimmy's attempt to connect is what ultimately kills him. If he could have seen Jimmy's outreach as genuine, he would have had somewhere to turn when he started getting sick again.

Damn, man, what a tragedy.

 

[Dominican Power]

Goddamn, what a finale.

 

[RecRoulette]

Rewatching the episode and seeing Chuck's last interactions with Howard and Jimmy are fucking brutal knowing how it ends.

 

[BenjaminBirdie]

Fucking masterpiece.

 

[Dubbedinenglish]

Someone on Reddit noticed that the numbers never changed on the meter.

http://imgur.com/a/MfB4c

So, it's possible that he was imagining it all.

FUCKERY


I knew it. Damn it.

 

[Dominican Power]

Walter White is a legendary tier TV show lead character, like up there in the annals of time with Tony Soprano. I don't think Jimmy is there yet. I think that and BB's moments of heart pounding tension and excitement are what edge it out over BCS for me, but BCS is one of the best purely human dramas of all time.

The background characters are better than Walter White's character. Without them the show isn't the same.

 

[TheGameshark]

From Reddit:

lmao

 

[TCRS]

To me, Howard is the brother Chuck always wanted. A respectable law man, who Chuck groomed and worked alongside for almost 20 years to build HHM. As a big brother figure, Chuck helped Howard become who he is, professionally.

Despite Chuck's recent selfishness, Howard stayed extremely loyal and acted as a good brother to Chuck. In tonight's finale, for Howard to buy Chuck out of the firm, it must have been extremely painful for Chuck. A huge blow to his heart, not just his mind.

Chuck left his biological family and roots in the Midwest and created HMM. HMM became a new family that appreciated and loved Chuck for who he was. Chuck hoped HMM would be a place that a guy like Jimmy couldn't win over and become the 'favorite', despite Jimmy's destructive + selfish nature.

When Jimmy moved to the Southwest and injected himself into Chuck's new life, that's the catalyst that started Chuck's downfall.

Edit: One more thing to add. Chuck casting aside Jimmy is exactly what Chuck himself is experiencing with HMM. Through Jimmy, Chuck is spreading his pain. We all have moments of lashing out after having feelings crushed. I would love for Chuck to survive this fire, and speak with Jimmy after some retrospection, but that's not the story of Better Call Saul.

Good observation. Makes the scene with Howard and that bit (which I didn't even notice):

even more heartbreaking..

If that was indeed it with Chuck they have lost my favourite character. I'll continue watching obviously but man.. Chuck was what was different about BCS compared to BB, a different great character! not just a recycled one made great. And now he is (most probably) gone..

At least we still got Kim.

e: regarding the meter: sometimes they are scaled so the number don't always turn with each kWh but I'm guessing in this case it was intentional.

 

[CarlisleDavid1979]

Nice foreshadowing Hectors fate at the start of the episode. With the bell in the foreground.

 

[Cornballer]

Re-posting a few things from last night:

- Sepinwall's review
- Onion A|V Club review
- Indiewire review

- Deadline: ‘Better Call Saul’s Michael McKean & EP On Tonight’s Fiery Finale, What’s Next & ‘Spinal Tap’ Lawsuit

DEADLINE: Talking about steps off cliffs, the opening of the finale saw Howard buy Chuck out of the firm for millions out of his own pocket. The move ended what was really the anchor in Michael’s character’s life and certainly his main motivation in many ways. Why did you guys decide to use that as the trigger point for, what seems to be, a fatal finale?

GOULD: Well, I don’t know that it was the trigger point. I think there’s room for debate because just to look at it closely, when Jimmy comes to visit Chuck later in the episode, Chuck is fully dressed, he is listening to music, He has the energy and the wherewithal to pull himself together and say some pretty terrible things to Jimmy.

This problem that Michael talks about doesn’t really manifest itself until after he’s had the thing with Jimmy. So you can wonder what is the cause of his breakdown, but it’s absolutely true that this is a guy who, one step at a time, has lost everything that he really cared about and everyone he cared about. It’s so ironic to me because in so many ways he’s won every encounter he’s had. I love the moment when Howard says to Chuck, you won, because in some ways Chuck got what he asks for, and I think there’s something very sad about the idea that you can win every battle and still lose the war.

McKEAN: I think that’s absolutely right. I also think that his last interaction with Howard was really one of those things. It’s like we’re not only planning to legally have you off our backs, but I’m going into my own pocket to do so. That made it a personal thing. This isn’t about a law firm any more. This is about this kid that I tutored for the bar. This is about my law partner who is also, in essence, a surrogate son, and he’s the one who’s pulling the plug on me. And he’s doing so too, at his own loss, that means you don’t like me, you really don’t like me, to paraphrase Sally Field.

GOULD: Certainly, in the case of this show, the performances so frequently exceed anything that I could’ve imagined when we were writing this show.

To go back for a second to that first time I saw Michael and Bob together in a scene in the show, you know, and Michael brought, you know, this imposing aspect to Chuck, a pride to Chuck that really rocked me on my heels because I hadn’t thought of the character quite that way. When we got back to the writers’ room after shooting that first episode, one of the first things that we said was, well, we know what Chuck is to Jimmy, but what is Jimmy to Chuck? And that really is what lead us down the path that we took, frankly in the whole show to date, is once we realized that maybe Chuck wasn’t too happy about Jimmy being a lawyer in the first place, once we started understanding Chuck’s pride, a lot of things that have happened subsequently really grew out of those insights or decisions, and so many of those grew out of the moments that we saw between Bob and Michael.

- NY Times: Michael McKean on Chuck’s Inflammatory Act

Are we sure Chuck is definitely a goner?

I am. I know they want to bring me in for some flashbacks this coming season, but that’s kind of beside the point. One of the things that made Jimmy Saul Goodman is the burden of, if not guilt, then that nagging feeling of having being somehow involved [in Chuck’s demise]. So that’s what he has to deal with, and it’s one of the things that made him wind up in a Cinnabon in Omaha.

 

[Pillville]

Someone on Reddit noticed that the numbers never changed on the meter.

http://imgur.com/a/MfB4c

So, it's possible that he was imagining it all.

I suspected that while watching.
I was waiting for someone to come and tell him that it wasn't moving. He'd realize he's crazy finally.... (but the show went a much darker route)

 

[Cornballer]

- NY Mag review
- Matt Zoller Seitz on the finale for NY Mag

 

[Cornballer]

- EW: Better Call Saul finale: Creator breaks down Chuck's fate

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Let’s start at the tragic end. When did you decide you were going to kill Chuck? Or rather, that Chuck was going to kill Chuck?

PETER GOULD: It happened during the season. We had a choice, and Chuck had a choice. After the midpoint of the season — that great episode “Chicanery” that Gordon Smith wrote — there was this powerhouse confrontation between Jimmy and Chuck, and Jimmy won. Chuck was humiliated and there were a lot of choices that we could have made at that point. One choice would have been to have Chuck redouble his efforts to get his brother, to try another round of tricks. That didn’t feel right, and it’s interesting — the moments that I find most satisfying in the writers’ room are the moments where the characters surprise us, and our first reaction, of course, was what I just said: “Okay, now how is Chuck going to bounce back and be even worse?”

And the more we talked about it, the more we thought about what a brilliant man Chuck is, and what he would actually take out of this experience. We came to the conclusion that maybe this could be in some ways good news for him. Maybe there’s a chance for growth, even? [Laughs.] So while Jimmy is kind of wallowing in his anger — the winner in the conflict is the angry one — Jimmy is pissed that he has to go to community service, he’s struggling to make ends meets and keep the office with Kim — Chuck actually takes what we always used to call his hero’s journey. He goes out of his safe house and goes out into the world and makes the call to Dr. Cruz [Clea DuVall]. And of course, Chuck previously has been vociferous in denying that there’s anything wrong with him other than sheerly a physical ailment. Chuck has been dead set on avoiding any confrontation with the medical establishment. Of course, the whole end of season 2 turned on that. But now Chuck is actually reaching out to this person who he’s never trusted and never liked, and he does some of the work. And you see it in subsequent episodes that he’s under this doctor’s care, he’s starting to make real progress to the point that in episode 8, you see him go out to the grocery store and get his own damn soymilk, which for some of us is not a big deal, but for Chuck, it’s the equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest barefoot and without oxygen.

That just all felt very natural, but we then realized that it’s one thing to make the choice to get help, but the bigger, more difficult problem in life is to carry through with change. And there’s really nothing more difficult than changing yourself. We’ve all tried it, it’s not easy to do, and under stress, as things continue in the season, Chuck reverts. Instead of taking it step by step as Dr. Cruz suggests, instead of really starting to understand himself in a deep way, he turns to the outside world and he starts blaming the outside world for what’s happening on his insides. Of course, the ultimate version of that is, after he has what might be the terrible final confrontation between the brothers, when Chuck says those terrible things to Jimmy, then he’s got an itch that he just can’t scratch. That’s when it all falls apart. And for me, one of the most heartbreaking moments in the finale is when he actually does call Dr. Cruz and there’s a moment where he could actually say, “I’m in crisis. I need help right now,” which is, by the way, what I would encourage anyone who’s in that position to do, but his pride won’t let him. Somehow, his pride keeps him from asking for help when he really needs it the most. And the results of that are, to my eye, tragic.

- EW: Better Call Saul finale: Michael McKean explains Chuck's shocker

Fans will be dissecting this episode and that final scene. What do you think drove Chuck to do it? How much of it do you attribute to his unceremonious removal from HHM — Howard was willing to pay him out personally just to have him gone — versus something in that final conversation with Jimmy, versus a weary realization that the struggle to defeat this illness is too overwhelming, even though he was making progress?

I think that the events outside of his physical discomfort — sometimes it feels like the whole world is ganging up on you, and if you’re a person who has not done a lot of introspection, if you’re a person who has never really felt like he was in the wrong about anything, then it can really seem like the world is giving you the middle finger, and this is maybe one thing to do about it. But I don’t think it is the world’s most conscious suicide, frankly.

I rarely had to ask for anything in the entire three seasons because things are so clear. I’ve had to ask very, very few questions, and I didn’t question this terribly much. Well, the only thing I really wanted them to do was to have the pill bottles in the picture occasionally, because in the last meeting I have with Dr. Cruz [Clea DuVall] — the last meeting on camera anyway — she talks about the medication, and we never saw it. So I said, “Look, if you want to see me in the bed feeling the discomfort, let’s see the pill bottles.” And in the last moments, I wanted to see an empty pill bottle there.

I think that this is a man who had everything until two years ago or three years ago, and has seen it slip away, and he couldn’t really understand what was going on or why it was happening to him — why it was happening to the guy who follows all the rules. That was always one of his great conflicts with Jimmy is that Jimmy, who just sneered at the rules, seemed to be thriving — or at least he seemed to have a lot of people who thought he was great. I had people who would put it on paper that I was great because Chuck was a very good lawyer, but it’s not the same as having people really love you and trust you, and be patient with you, and believe in you. I don’t think that Chuck has ever demanded all that much patience from anyone. I thought that he carried out his duties as a lawyer with some real dispatch.

If you go back to Jimmy’s relationship with the parents, and Chuck’s relationship with the parents, you get to the core of a lot of it. A lot of it is spoken, very much more is not spoken. I always felt it. I always understood it. Bob and I talked about it a lot, And I thought it was a real relationship that we created. It was a real, interesting and understandable, adversarial relationship. So when one domino began to fall, all bets were off then, if I can mix a metaphor beyond recognition. [Laughs.] But the conflicts with HHM — there is something about [Howard saying], “Not only are we paying you off to get out of our hair, I’m going into my own pocket to do it.” There is something about the personal side of that. My business life, my law life, that is choking into nothing, and it’s being done intentionally, and it’s being done with sacrifice. So it’s not just people are saying goodbye to me; they’re going out of their way to say goodbye to me.

But I wanted the pills there to show that maybe it was one of those situations where he was saying, “Look, one pill used to do this, I’m not even due to take another one for another four hours, but I’m going to double up in an hour.” And it’s that way the pills that make you flatline, it takes your anxiety away and also adds something to a certain kind of personality. I don’t pretend to know what people who abuse drugs and wind up dead go through. There are thousands and thousands of different reasons those things happen, but I wanted to construct something in Chuck that made sense, and that last little blip of energy that is somewhere in that house — that was the itch that he couldn’t scratch. I think in his last moments he was thinking, “Okay, well if this is the way it’s going to go, this is the way it’s going to go. I’m fine with this.”

Not to put too fine of a point on it; it’s a TV show. I’m not a suicidal person. I’ve been depressed. I’ve had terrible things happen in my life but I’ve never had a terminal illness, which I would think would be one of the things that would make suicide a logical step. But to at least have a sketch of what Chuck is going through, and to really examine that — I wanted to make it as real as possible and I wanted to make it as believable as possible. Also, I’ve played some awful characters, but I’ve never had no sympathy for those characters. I’ve always understood them on some level. I don’t have to accept their values. Their values don’t have to be my values. I just have to understand them. Last year [in the play Father Comes Home From the Wars], I played a terrible, terrible, racist Civil War colonel — just one of the most despicable people on the face of the Earth who said terrible, terrible things, but with the director Jo Bonney, I was able to find a handle that I could hold. Again, no approval there, but you have to find the sympathy for the person you’re playing, no matter how despicable his acts are.

 

[Cornballer]

- Variety: ‘Better Call Saul’ Showrunner on Season 3’s Last Scene

“Lantern” emphasizes how closely connected Chuck and Jimmy’s respective frailties are.

Boy. Jimmy does something which is difficult — it’s probably the most difficult thing he could possibly do in a lot of ways, which is to go back to Chuck and try to have an honest discussion with him after all the water that’s gone under the bridge. And Jimmy doesn’t know what’s happened at HHM. If he did maybe that would change things, maybe it wouldn’t.

Chuck, for his part, he is hurt. I mean, you can see what a horrible experience that was, for him to get kicked out of the firm that he started. Of course, I also really enjoy the fact that Patrick Fabian’s character Howard says, “You won.” And the truth is he did win — he got exactly what he asked for… which is not what he wanted. What he asked for wasn’t what he wanted. And he is there licking his wounds by himself — he’s dressed, he’s listening to music, the lights are on in the house. And then Jimmy comes in and they have this conversation. Then Chuck has a moment — Jimmy offers a moment where they could start to, maybe, start to mend fences.

But Chuck is so hurt he wants Jimmy to feel hurt, too. So he says the most hurtful things possible. He just goes through them, one at a time. And some of them, I think, Chuck believes, and are arguably accurate about how Jimmy hurts people. But then there are some things that we know are not true. The, “You never mattered all that much to me.” Of course it’s incredibly hurtful, but also a transparent lie.

But Jimmy can’t see that.

Jimmy doesn’t see it in that moment, that’s for sure. We don’t hear what Jimmy thinks of that. But I can see on Bob’s face — and I love the way Bob plays that scene — he is just destroyed in that moment, which is of course what Chuck wanted.

Then after that, after that terrible scene between the two them, that’s when Chuck’s backsliding begins. Another moment that I find truly heartbreaking is the one where Chuck is starting to be seized by this idea that there’s electricity in his house that he can’t control, and he calls his doctor. And of course he could at that moment say, I’m in crisis. I need help. And that’s really what I wish he had done. I wish he had done that. But somehow he had still too much pride to admit what was going on with him. So he just changes his appointment. That’s a terrible decision that he makes.

The dynamic between the brothers — and the audience’s shifting sympathies between the two — has been especially pronounced this season.

We knew from the beginning — and, of course there’s another side to the show that we’re talking about which is the Mike Ehrmentraut (Jonathan Banks)/Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) side of the show, which has a lot of rhythmic similarities. There are lines between the two, and there are touch points between those storylines. But we knew from the beginning that so much of this season was going to be preoccupied with the battle between Chuck and Jimmy.

We try to take as much as we can from life instead of movies, and one of the things that I’ve learned in life — and its been very hard to learn and I don’t always remember it — is that the one thing you don’t want, when you’re battling someone you love, is to win. Winning can be fatal to relationships, and I’m fascinated by the idea of the win that’s also a loss. I think that’s one of the things that we kept exploring this season, hopefully in different ways between Chuck and Jimmy. And that ironically sometimes — for instance when Chuck loses so badly in the courtroom — in a weird way that is a loss for Jimmy and a win for Chuck.

One of the most difficult things to do in life is to truly change. We always talk about character change in fiction, and we are fascinated by that. And certainly people exhibit change. But intentional change is incredibly difficult. Unintentional change, maybe not quite so difficult. These are all the things we talk about a lot in the writer’s room.

And also, how incredibly important Chuck is to Jimmy. Unfortunately, Chuck has figured it out and he misuses some of the power he has over Jimmy as the seasons go on. Probably one of the greatest misuses of his power over Jimmy, his emotional power over Jimmy, is in that scene they have together where he says those terrible things. Those are all the worst things that you want to hear from your brother. They’re also the worst things that you’d ever want to hear from a parent; Chuck has dad energy as well. It was Father’s Day yesterday! He has dad energy, as well as brother energy. And it’s very powerful. It’s very powerful. It’s complicated. I’m hoping it’s not too complicated.

- Matt Zoller Seitz: Michael McKean and Peter Gould on Chuck’s Big Episode of Better Call Saul

Could we talk about the scene where the two brothers confront each other for the last time? Chuck says something that in retrospect sounds like a curse on Jimmy. He says, “You’re just going to keep hurting people, it’s what you do.” Then he continues, “What’s the point of all the sad faces and the gnashing of teeth? … I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but the truth is you never meant all that much to me.”

MM: “You never meant all that much to me,” which is clearly [not true]. Chuck has spent a great deal of his time concentrated on Jimmy, not in a positive way but in a very negative way. To say he didn’t mean anything to him is absurd. You have to take everything that Chuck said up until this point with a grain of a salt, and with a couple of grams of Xanax. We don’t know what his medication is. There is something that he is doing with Dr. Cruz. In the program Dr. Cruz has prescribed — this is my imagination, it’s not backed up anywhere — it seems that they talk about medication. He’s not railing [at Jimmy]; he’s not gnashing his teeth. He’s saying, “Enough is enough. This is how I feel about you. I’ve never cared about you, go away,” thinking that that’s the way to add onto this temporary peace that he sometimes finds within himself.

I don’t know; I’m getting way too far off-field here. These are all just things for me to play, it’s not something that’s necessarily written on the page, but I always felt that. I always felt that there’s something to the idea [that Chuck’s medication played into his hurtful statements to Jimmy]. What he really wanted in his life was a flat line, and that’s kind of what he’s expressing to Jimmy: “Don’t disturb my flat line.”

PG: That’s fascinating. That’s fascinating! The other dimension is that he just still hurts. He wants to hurt Jimmy; he wants Jimmy to feel bad, too. That’s just me; that’s just the underpinnings. And you know, not everything he says is wrong. Chuck’s argument to Jimmy essentially is that conscience is great, conscience is important, but, if it doesn’t change your actions, what’s the point of it?

Something we’ve discussed in the writers room is: What’s really the difference between a person who does bad things and feels bad about it, and someone who does bad things and doesn’t feel bad about it? There’s some total of people that are basically fine either way. Chuck is being very tough on Jimmy, and he’s not completely wrong!

There’s also something about that scene that reminds me of Walter White’s phone call to his wife in the Breaking Bad episode “Ozymandias.” In the sense that the phone call scene is doing two things at once. Walter is saying hateful things to his wife to make it seem as though she’s not in cahoots with him because law enforcement is listening in. But at the same time, the hateful things he’s saying to her are true expressions of his resentments.

In Chuck’s case, I think he wants to scare Jimmy away by being hateful to him, just in case something horrible happens to Chuck — cauterizing the relationship in a way — but the things that he’s saying to Jimmy are things that he’s really feeling on some level.

I think the only thing that’s false in his statements to Jimmy is “You never really meant all that much to me.” Michael talks about how it’s obvious that Jimmy meant something to Chuck in a negative sense, in that Chuck was obsessed with bringing Jimmy down. But Jimmy also meant something to Chuck in a positive sense, as indicated in that opening flashback where we see the two of them in a tent as kids, and Chuck is reading a bedtime story to Jimmy.

PG: That’s a fascinating way to look at it, when you bring up Walt.

We’re fascinated by people who mix lies and truth together. Sometimes the thing that makes a lie the most convincing is when there’s truth to it. Sometimes the person who’s speaking doesn’t really know the difference.

Another example I could think of is episode seven of this season, when Jimmy goes to the insurance executive and starts crying about his relationship with his brother, and then twists it around to his own advantage. It feels like so much of the emotion that Bob [Odenkirk] brings to that — that Jimmy brings to that — is real and true and accurate, yet he uses it as a means to an end.

 

[IggyChooChoo]

Along similar lines, even that junior Davis and Maon lawyer is willing to put on the fake performance at the retirement home, but she says things she actually believe about Jimmy, mixing truth with lies. That stuff about Chuck just wanting to flatline is interesting, because so much about what motivates Jimmy, in my opinion, is the rush he gets from outsmarting and conning people. More and more, I see Jimmy's story as ending with at least an attempt at redemption. Walt genuinely could feel no remorse for the bad he's done. The man whistled after putting a child in a barrel! I think we may see Jimmy trying to live a life without regret the way Chuck told him to, and failing. So ultimately Chuck may be wrong about Jimmy.

 

[Lord of Castamere]

Let's get some early morbid predictions for next season(assuming there is a next season). I'm afraid Kim might get addicted to painkillers. That scene with the pills was too specific for my liking. She'll feel guilty about Chuck, for sure, the question is how will she outlet that guilt.

 

[Pai Pai Master]

Let's get some early morbid predictions for next season(assuming there is a next season). I'm afraid Kim might get addicted to painkillers. That scene with the pills was too specific for my liking. She'll feel guilty about Chuck, for sure, the question is how will she outlet that guilt.

It's exactly where I saw that going.

 

[Cornballer]

- Rolling Stone: How 'Better Call Saul' Secretly Became One of TV's Best Dramas
- NY Times review
- Forbes: ‘Playing the Long Game: How Seeds Planted in Season 1 of “Better Call Saul” Decide the Season 3 Finale’
- Slashfilm on the finale
- The Atlantic: Better Call Saul Finally, Tragically, Ignites Change

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

I was thinking Painkiller Kim, too.



At least it wouldn't be Jimmy's fault.

 

[Human Trashcan]

I was thinking Painkiller Kim, too.



At least it wouldn't be Jimmy's fault.

not directly, but she did take that second case because of Jimmy's financial sitch

I think whatever happens with Kim and Jimmy will be a direct result of Jimmy's actions and probably Chuck's death. Chuck's speech to Jimmy sounded pretty prophetic to me.

 

[Laieon]

Chuck survives. One day he just happens to be in Omaha and decides Cinnabon sounds nice.

 

[Dominican Power]

Chuck really had a nice ass house.

 

[Shadowhelper]

What precipitated Kim to give up and go to Blockbuster? She is looking at some documents, her eyes go wide and she says " oh my god." Do they show what happened or did I just miss it?

 

[minor effort]

Chuck survives. One day he just happens to be in Omaha and decides Cinnabon sounds nice.

In a stunning turnaround, Chuck has a new career running the Omaha Public Power District. He has wrested control over that which once controlled him.

 

[Don Draper's Hat]

We all 100% certain that Chuck is dead?

I can quite easily see the next series opening with him being rushed into hospital. Or Jimmy being really upset for a good 5/10 minutes making us believe it's about Chuck but it turns out to be something completely different and then Chuck appears or some shit.

 

[-griffy-]

What precipitated Kim to give up and go to Blockbuster? She is looking at some documents, her eyes go wide and she says " oh my god." Do they show what happened or did I just miss it?

She got in the crash because she was over working herself to a crazy extent. Francesca came by and said they could still make the meetings, and she started pouring over her papers and figuring out how she could keep going, while sitting there with a broken arm and banged up. She simply realized she was about to start digging into work again and do the same thing when what she actually needed was a break.

 

[jond76]

Let's get some early morbid predictions for next season(assuming there is a next season). I'm afraid Kim might get addicted to painkillers. That scene with the pills was too specific for my liking. She'll feel guilty about Chuck, for sure, the question is how will she outlet that guilt.

I don't think that all of the BCS characters have to exit before BB takes place. Saul is not in BB so much that Kim couldn't still be around.

I really hope we see alternate sides of BB scenes from the Saul perspective.

Great show. Crazy finale.

 

[awesome_pants]

What precipitated Kim to give up and go to Blockbuster? She is looking at some documents, her eyes go wide and she says " oh my god." Do they show what happened or did I just miss it?

She was falling down the lawyer rabbit hole which eventually led to her not getting sleep and risking her life/car wreck. Realizing this on top of multiple "you could've died" dialogues from Jimmy/Francesca, Kim made a revelation and decided risking her life was not worth it and she needed to relax.

This was a beautiful ying-to-yang compared to Chuck that got so wrapped up into being a lawyer and being in control.

 

[Cornballer]

We all 100% certain that Chuck is dead?

I can quite easily see the next series opening with him being rushed into hospital. Or Jimmy being really upset for a good 5/10 minutes making us believe it's about Chuck but it turns out to be something completely different and then Chuck appears or some shit.

They confirmed in a few interviews that he's dead. Gould is a little coy about it, but McKean is certain.

not directly, but she did take that second case because of Jimmy's financial sitch

She ultimately takes the case because of Jimmy, but it's more because of their personal situation than out of any financial need. They dig into it during the Variety interview:

Q: A rift seemed to open up between Kim and Jimmy in this season. How do you interpret their arc?

A: It's so interesting, because in the first half of the season they're really a team. Jimmy is fighting for his law license. Sometimes we'll say he's fighting for his life — but he's not, he's fighting for his law license. He's fighting to stay a lawyer, and that's very important to him. And it's very important to Kim. The two of them, especially — there are scenes where they're really shoulder-to-shoulder, and they working together, and sometimes scheming together. Then in episode five [”Chicanery"], they win. They win. Jimmy beats his brother, he really does.

But interestingly enough, everybody takes something different from that. Chuck, who you might imagine would just set his cap against his brother and find another way to disbar him — or to destroy him as a lawyer — instead Chuck takes a long look at himself and he actually improves after that. Kim, on the other hand, is feeling guilty. And Jimmy — you can argue whether Jimmy is feeling guilty or not, but he sure doesn't want to talk about it. There's a series of scenes where Kim tries to deal with — or tries to talk to Jimmy about what they've done. And he just doesn't want to hear it. He doesn't want to hear anything because he feels, you can guess. Maybe he feels a little bad about what happened. But he knows there's nothing to be done about it now.

So that's really where, to me, that's where the rift between them came. Kim went from being a very hard worker — and someone who I admire because she's such a striver — to using work almost as an escape. She seems almost to be punishing herself, and trying to prove that she's worthy by working so hard. And ultimately it becomes destructive for her. It's really because Jimmy isn't willing or able to really deal with what they've done. That's ultimately what causes the rift, more than any of the actions that they took. If they were able to talk about it — if they were able to deal with each other sincerely — maybe things would have gone very differently.

 

[MightyHedgehog]

I'm reminded of BB S3 finale every time I see someone doubt Chuck's fate. I guess that's why Gus' end was made so clear.

 

[Don Draper's Hat]

They confirmed in a few interviews that he's dead.

Oh nuts!

Unless they're playing the long con.

Yeah, that's what is.

 

[smokeymicpot]

I don't think that all of the BCS characters have to exit before BB takes place. Saul is not in BB so much that Kim couldn't still be around.

I really hope we see alternate sides of BB scenes from the Saul perspective.

Great show. Crazy finale.

I still think Kim will join Howard at one point or Kim will move back home. Which will explain why Saul wants to go to Omaha.

 

[Lord of Castamere]

Chuck survives. One day he just happens to be in Omaha and decides Cinnabon sounds nice.

Series finale. Back alley, present day. An aged Nacho has a gun pressed to Jimmy's head. Jimmy incoherently bargains for his life. No hope left for our hero, but wait, from the shadows comes a cloaked figure. He yells "Justice!" and knocks Nacho unconscious. Jimmy rises. "Why did you save me?" he asks. The figure removes his mask, revealing a horribly burned, aged, Chuck Mcgill. "Because you're my brother, and I love you." He hugs Jimmy, puts the mask back on, and disappears into the shadows. End Series.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Series finale. Back alley, present day. An aged Nacho has a gun pressed to Jimmy's head. Jimmy incoherently bargains for his life. No hope left for our hero, but wait, from the shadows comes a cloaked figure. He yells "Justice!" and knocks Nacho unconscious. Jimmy rises. "Why did you save me?" he asks. The figure removes his mask, revealing a horribly burned, aged, Chuck Mcgill. "Because you're my brother, and I love you." He hugs Jimmy, puts the mask back on, and disappears into the shadows. End Series.

All the Emmys.

 

[stn]

They way they're talking about it, it looks like season 4 is all but confirmed? Fantastic if yes.

 

[awesome_pants]

They way they're talking about it, it looks like season 4 is all but confirmed? Fantastic if yes.

Still no official confirmation but yes, with all the talk from Peter Gould in interviews and Talking Saul, it looks like they are just waiting on that green light to get back into the writing room.

I mean they had a "For Your Consideration" commercial play during Talking Saul. This is AMC's award winner.

 

[-griffy-]

So here's a funny thing that I've been keeping to myself since I saw it. A few months back, Michael Mando (who plays Nacho) tweeted a photo of a card from the season 3 wrap. It was a card from Bob Odenkirk, and said something like "Great job on season 3! Don't worry, there's always flashbacks!" And then a few minutes later Mando had removed the tweet.

To me, I assumed that meant Nacho was gonna die this season, cause what else could that mean? I was expecting him to bite it in this episode. I'm almost wondering if they were planning on it and then changed their minds ala Jesse in season 1 of Breaking Bad.

 

[smokeymicpot]

They way they're talking about it, it looks like season 4 is all but confirmed? Fantastic if yes.

Shocked it hasn't been yet. It's not like BB had great numbers. It got huge because of Netflix and word of mouth. This will be the same during the last season assuming the 5th is the last like BB.

So here's a funny thing that I've been keeping to myself since I saw it. A few months back, Michael Mando (who plays Nacho) tweeted a photo of a card from the season 3 wrap. It was a card from Bob Odenkirk, and said something like "Great job on season 3! Don't worry, there's always flashbacks!" And then a few minutes later Mando had removed the tweet.

To me, I assumed that meant Nacho was gonna die this season, cause what else could that mean? I was expecting him to bite it in this episode. I'm almost wondering if they were planning on it and then changed their minds ala Jesse in season 1 of Breaking Bad.

He did that last week too I think. He just likes trolling fans it seems. I think Nacho lives or is in jail assuming that throw away line in Breaking Bad is about him.

 

[IggyChooChoo]

So here's a funny thing that I've been keeping to myself since I saw it. A few months back, Michael Mando (who plays Nacho) tweeted a photo of a card from the season 3 wrap. It was a card from Bob Odenkirk, and said something like "Great job on season 3! Don't worry, there's always flashbacks!" And then a few minutes later Mando had removed the tweet.

To me, I assumed that meant Nacho was gonna die this season, cause what else could that mean? I was expecting him to bite it in this episode. I'm almost wondering if they were planning on it and then changed their minds ala Jesse in season 1 of Breaking Bad.

Cranston played that same prank on Aaron Paul several times IIRC. Reading the script before him and coming up to him and saying "I'm so sorry..." etc.

 

[Pryce]

That was so good. Fuck Chuck, and fuck Don Hector. Gus is king now.

Glad Kim is okay, and my God, that butt. Mercy. Can't wait for season four.

 

[riotous]

The Chuck stuff was amazing; not a fan of the Jimmy/Sandpiper stuff but I guess I'm glad it's wrapped up. Was surprised he told Kim what he did.

Is Chuck's death gonna be the final nail in the Kim/Jimmy relationship coffin?

 

[greepoman]

How are you guys so sure it'll be renewed when the viewership numbers have been on the decline? I remember seeing an article with numbers and they didn't seem that much better than Hannibal when it was cancelled.

 

[riotous]

How are you guys so sure it'll be renewed when the viewership numbers have been on the decline? I remember seeing an article with numbers and they didn't seem that much better than Hannibal when it was cancelled.

Hannibal was an NBC show; broadcast networks have different standards than cable networks.

Hannibal was also likely much more expensive to produce.

BCS numbers are higher than other AMC shows that have been renewed.

 

[Cornballer]

How are you guys so sure it'll be renewed when the viewership numbers have been on the decline? I remember seeing an article with numbers and they didn't seem that much better than Hannibal when it was cancelled.

Reposting this from the other day:

The ratings are...fine. They've been declining, as has just about everything across the board on television these days, but they're still towards the top end of the AMC shows aside from the zombie properties. Note that AMC renewed The Son and Halt & Catch Fire, both of which get a small fraction of what BCS does. I don't think AMC is ecstatic about the ratings and their decline, but they aren't at a concerning level. BCS also gets a huge time-shifting boost every week since the majority of the audience watches it on delay via their DVR. Merely comparing the live numbers to previous seasons and other shows isn't sufficient to create a portrait of where the show is (i.e. the L7 numbers are a more relevant metric)

In addition to the ratings, BCS does very well in other ways. It receives awards nominations. It's critically lauded. The audience that follows the show is very devoted to it. The show isn't exorbitantly expensive. Overall, I see no reason why AMC wouldn't renew the show, so stop stressing about it.

To add to this, AMC likes being in business with Gilligan & Co, and the writers and cast have actively discussed S4 this week. It'll happen.

 

[SDCowboy]

How are you guys so sure it'll be renewed when the viewership numbers have been on the decline? I remember seeing an article with numbers and they didn't seem that much better than Hannibal when it was cancelled.

Because the ratings are still excellent?

 

[Cirion]

Is there anyone here or elsewhere who watches Better Call Saul but not Breaking Bad? I wonder what such a person would make of the show, especially of the Mike side. On the other hand, there would probably be more tension and mystery, especially about Gus and Jimmy's future.

 

[Human Trashcan]

The Chuck stuff was amazing; not a fan of the Jimmy/Sandpiper stuff but I guess I'm glad it's wrapped up. Was surprised he told Kim what he did.

I bet he told her but in a way that omitted the parts that made him look especially bad. Something like "I talked Irene into settling and now her friends hate her because they think she held out on them" or something to that effect. I can't imagine he told her everything, including the shoes and the bingo, because there's just no way Kim would stand for that, I think.

 

[Lightningboalt]

Phenomenal season, it's hard to believe that it's already over. There's just such a high level of detail and care put into every scene, every word... come on, give this show some Emmys already. They deserve it. The acting, writing, and filming are just all so spectacular that it's hard to believe they've only received nominations thus far.

I was expecting Talking Saul to have the official live confirmation of a 4th season, I'm kind of surprised it didn't. But it's so unlikely this show gets canned that there's no need to worry, especially with Peter Gould's confidence in working on what comes next. I imagine they're just figuring out how much longer they want to go, if they do an extra long 4th season or if they go onto a 5th season. I doubt there's any way they go beyond 5, they're getting so close to the birth of "Saul Goodman - Criminal Lawyer" that it feels like it'd be hard to delay it further. I expect we get a bit of the immediate aftermath of Chuck's suicide, then jump ahead a bit to some prime era Saul, then maybe a bit of Breaking Bad era before closing the book on the show with some Cinnabon Gene.

 

[BobTheFork]

The first episodes of the season felt like they were focusing on Mike maybe too much and the finale is all Jimmy. I think they paced out what they needed to quite well.