Better Call Saul (spoilers)

[ceecee]

AITA for not having much sympathy for Howard's wife?

I mean, I think Kim just had to do what she did so she could live with herself, but as far as what happened in that episode, I just recalled that Howard (despite his faults) tried to remain classy and considerate with his wife while she just callously dumped his cappuccino efforts into a travel mug and seemed to dig needlessly at him about living in the guest bedroom.

So when she is suddenly acting like the aggrieved spouse, I ... had trouble caring. I know people are complex, but it seemed almost like a case of "only I can treat Howard poorly, how dare you harass him on your end." Also rather like a person of privilege, who felt sideswiped because peons like Jimmy were treading on Howard's space.

Or maybe there was just more grievance going on that we didn't see in their marriage. Who knows?

And the thing is, everyone knows someone like this. I think it makes what happened to Howard even worse.

 

[Totenkindly]

I think the reaction to last week's show is interesting. It seems to have been divisive. One reviewer even called it the only bad episode of the series. I don't agree with that, although it's one of my least favorite episodes overall.

I do think there were technical problems that impacted its reception. One was needing to recast Jeff, and the two actors seem to approach the part differently; the Jeff in this episode doesn't really feel threatening, not nearly as much as earlier Jeff. So Jimmy's response seems to target a Jeff that doesn't appear in this episode, was this risky action even warranted? This was really unfortunate and maybe the only actual "mistake" made in what was otherwise pretty decent writing and montage work. (My son who follows college sports also was able to track the sports discussion, which ended up being pretty authentic for that time? It was gobbledy gook to me, but apparently the writers did their research.)

Another was that this subplot had not been revisited for a long period of time so it was not fresh in the viewer's mind. I needed time after the episode to recall where we were, and then I realized (1) it was Jimmy taking care of his own mess rather than relying on the cleaner guy, and (2) this helps interpret the scene at the end where Jimmy leaves the Saul Goodman clothes on the rack. He pulls off this scam within a scam, remembering what it felt like to be at the height of his powers so to speak... but when he dabbles with the idea of taking back up the Goodman mantle, he reconsiders and puts the clothes back. It was a reflection of his choice to not go back to that -- which I think is really important in terms of how this series resolves. It suggests a desire for Jimmy to move forward and find something meaningful, maybe highlighted by his honest admission in the middle of a scam that he was lonely and had no one anymore.

It's also not clear whether the mother character will play a role in the last three episodes, because of Jimmy's not seeming to care about his dog much at the end and thus tipping his hand.

---

I guess they aren't beating around the bush, if tonight's episode is actually called "Breaking Bad."

 

[Totenkindly]

Maybe I am just being a bit obtuse lately but these last two episodes I had more trouble following intuitively in terms of tracking character and behavior and needed a little time to think about afterwards to bring some coherence.

Also, the timeline always feels more short to me. I feel like Jimmy's depression / loneliness needed more time to fester before really getting him to this place, whereas it's only been part of a year from what I can tell (March through Nov 12, 2010?) About the only thing the shorter timeline really supports well is why they are still looking for him so desperately and the heat has only gone up.

I think I have a decent handle now on Episode 11, anyway:

• Jimmy and Francesca talk on a payphone as planned back in s4e5.
• She is reluctant to say anything but feels bad for him after his repeated begging and tells him that Kim called -- and that she asked about him.
• For Jimmy, who is lonely and desperate, this is like a sign that Kim wants him back / is still connected to him
• Either she told him where she was going or Jimmy easily managed to track her / have Mike track her.
• When he calls her, the conversation is withheld from us. We don't know whether he was talking to Kim or whether Kim is no longer there or whether he was simply told that Kim no longer wants to speak with him. Whatever it is, Jimmy freaks and shatters the glass of the phone booth in his rage.
• Also, he was done with the scamming as per last episode, but it sounds like he feels he has lost Kim for good because now he no longer cares and again embraces his depravity as Saul -- he goes back to the guy he was trying to shut up about him, and instead starts initiating more scams. These are not simple prank scams, he is basically making lots of money, ruining people's lives in the process, through an invasive burglary that is almost impossible to detect.
• When one mark says he has cancer (and the guy actually seems kinda nice), Jimmy feels bad but either is reminded of Walt who ruined him in the long run and/or is so detached from his empathy that he goes through with it anyway.
• When one of his cohorts bails on the job because of the cancer (we're making good money, let's just hit someone else), he flips out, fires the guy, and insists on going back after the drugs probably wore off and also physically breaking a window. (The prior jobs, nothing left any traces, so the person wouldn't even know; now the guy will know someone broke into his house.) It is almost like Jimmy wants to be caught and is acting out more and more outrageously because he no longer cares. It's like when he broke into Chuck's house.
• Walt and Jesse factor in his flashbacks not only to clarify the Lalo/Nacho moment but also to show that Jimmy made a number of bad decisions based on hubris and greed over this time, resulting in him pursuing an amateur like Walt (which is how Mike described him). Jimmy is basically falling back into his old ways again, ,making the same dumb decisions he made before, and also acting out / reacting emotionally in ways that ruin his normally air-tight scam game.
• Jeff's mother is catching on and/or at least knows something is endangering her son and will likely do something to thwart jimmy.
• Francesca is as great as ever.
• Figures that Huell would escape scott-free back to Louisiana; after all, he is a pillar of his community down there!

 

[Totenkindly]

Watched Episode 12 today. I about flipped when my Comcast DVR didn't work (despite me checking an hour before the show last night) for TWO separate chances to record... but I found a buried menu of selections where I could choose what to watch on Comcast and thank god the series was there in my Free to View section (with ads) so that happened today.

I really have no idea what is happening in the series finale next week but I got this to say -- kudos to them for not taking an easy way forward just to appease fans. Kind of like the Season 4 episode with Dom and Darlene, it doesn't end up where you'd expect but is painfully true to what the characters need. This episode was catharsis of some kind for one, and I have no idea what next week will bring, but it feels less hopeful than I had expected.

• It was odd watching Kim in Florida. She's living as less than she is, and yet it's also more than she feels she deserves and it is an environment with a lot less pressure and drive than she put herself through as a lawyer. So it's still a relief to her in its banality, despite it being banal? I also saw flickers of old Kim, in terms of overachieving for a pretty routine job -- she needs to always dig in and control and understand whatever she can even when it's not necessarily needed. It's like her fingerprint, it identifies her no matter what she looks and acts like socially.
• The phone conversation we finally hear is heartbreaking. The differences between the two are made clear. Kim's still broken up and tortured, plus it hurts her to hear Jimmy being so callous on the phone -- maybe he's Jimmy but he's even more fully immersed into Saul, brushing aside a lot of horrible things he's done and showing he and Kim even have less connection now.
• It's amazing that Jimmy basically retaliates by claiming Kim never owned up to what she did either -- and this is where old Kim comes back and she suddenly becomes resolute in owning that and doing her best to remedy it, although she's not so dumb as to NOT realize she still might have gotten away with much of it. It's the best apology she can make, even if not 100%.
• Sad to watch her watching the new female lawyer care for unprivileged clients, recalling that that had been her dream.
• I'm a little slow -- in the past I was thinking Howard's wife was actress Sadrine Holt (who I knew from House of Cards and Mr. Robot), but then in some shots she looked different. Here, suspecting this again, I finally looked her up. Yep.
• I think Kim lied to Cheryl about Jimmy being alive simply to give him a little grace -- she wasn't there to get him in trouble, she knew he was alive, but she was the one choosing to confess for herself and that choice to confess still firmly remained with Jimmy from his side. She tried to keep him out not necessarily to protect him but because his choice to get re-involved and/or confess would have to be his own. Kim also knew about the charges maybe not being filed (she'd never really "pay" for what she and Jimmy did), and maybe there is nothing she can do to fix Howard's reputation, but she did what was within her power. Her main slip in this scene was forgetting to think of Howard as a person ("He didn't... didn't suffer" -- yeah, bullshit rationalization, Kim), rather than just a wrong they had committed.
• The bus scene should have won Rhea Seehorn accolades. I cried with her, watching it. Bless whoever's hand that was.
• JImmy meanwhile has gone in the opposite direction, becoming more jaded and careless and indifferent to people. He does something foolhardy because he's angry, because he wants to be in control, because he wants to hurt someone else (taking out his pain), and also maybe on some level he wanted to get caught + loves the rush. Like, when Kim tells him to turn himself in, well, he's not a guy who can just abandon the game -- but he's totally capable of being reckless and maybe getting caught by skirting the edge too close, and if he falls he falls.
• I think the worst part of the breaking-in scene was Jimmy taking the jar of ashes of the guy's dead dog and preparing to bash a dying helpless man in the head with it in order to escape. Like, how fucking low can you go? I no longer know this guy.
• I think the divorce signoff comes after that in the episode -- a flashback to Kim and JImmy signing off -- and Kim is obviously distraught (but containing it), while Jimmy has gone totally Saul. His garb, his behavior, impetuously throwing his feet up on his desk (after agonizing for a hour throwing a ball against the wall in private), his final flippant crack ("Have a nice life, Kim"), it's really awful and she can't even figure out how to respond, it's like a denial of everything they ever were to each other. Francesca needs money from Jimmy to live, but her emotional loyalties are to Kim. It was just so fucking awful, even knowing he was doing it to mask his own pain because he's too cowardly to wrestle with it and maybe can't anymore.
• To be honest, I liked the impromptu scene between Kim and Jesse more than Walt and Jesse last episode. It felt more natural. Now she's smoking with Jesse, not Jimmy. Soon enough Jesse will be trying to dissolve Emilio in an acid bath. "When I knew him, he was," is just painful.
• Jimmy is so slick talking to Jeff, even if he's right -- there was no evidence Jeff took anything, he can just claim he was driving on no sleep or something and was startled, etc. Might never drive a cab again. It'll only be an issue if they start investigating him in depth, but no one has probably reported identity theft yet and they don't even know this guy's identity was stolen... just some objects Jeff does not have in his possession.
• Flicker of old Jimmy -- we're wondering (after the jar bashing almost-incident) whether he's actually going to strangle Marion with that phone cord.... and then when Marion says "I trusted you" it achingly harkens back to Jimmy being so good with the elderly and his actual compassion for them, and he just can't do it. Maybe Walter White was enough of a rigid asshole to play his ruthlessness out, but Jimmy is a runner and he is not a killer. So he runs again. Something of old Jimmy still lives. I don't know if it's enough.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I'll watch the new one tonight, but man, I'm really loving that they've finally spent episode length time on Gene, and also given some background on the fallout and aftermath of the White and Pinkman drama.

The department store sequence was so tense, like up there with the BB fake Heisenberg switcheroo or Gus and the box cutter. I think in some ways this show does a better job of suspense, but maybe that's just because I'm so familiar with BB by now.

Despite Saul's constant good luck, there's some vulnerability and regularity about him that I think increases the suspense. I suppose that worked with Walt in the earlier BB seasons too, but not so much later on.

 

[Totenkindly]

Despite Saul's constant good luck, there's some vulnerability and regularity about him that I think increases the suspense. I suppose that worked with Walt in the earlier BB seasons too, but not so much later on.

Yeah, I mentioned in my spoilers but Walter was rigid and could coldly justify anything, whereas Jimmy has always been flexier and warmer, reachable in some way. When Jimmy does get volatile or horribly callous, it is usually to avoid experiencing emotional pain where Walt barely even seemed to empathize much

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Yeah, I mentioned in my spoilers but Walter was rigid and could coldly justify anything, whereas Jimmy has always been flexier and warmer, reachable in some way. When Jimmy does get volatile or horribly callous, it is usually to avoid experiencing emotional pain where Walt barely even seemed to empathize much

Walt’s little speech to Jesse about how it tore him up inside knowing what they did to that missing kid reminds me of every narcissist I’ve encountered when they try to feign remorse.

 

[Totenkindly]

Better Call Saul‘s Bob Odenkirk Explains Gene’s Steep Downward Spiral: ‘He’s Trying to Destroy Himself’

Bob Odenkirk explains Gene's dark turn in 'Better Call Saul's' penultimate episode, and more insight from the cast and producers.

tvline.com

 

[ceecee]

Better Call Saul‘s Bob Odenkirk Explains Gene’s Steep Downward Spiral: ‘He’s Trying to Destroy Himself’

Bob Odenkirk explains Gene's dark turn in 'Better Call Saul's' penultimate episode, and more insight from the cast and producers.

tvline.com

I was one of those people.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

"YUUP. YUUP. YUUP" Fucking gross

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I also much preferred the second Jesse scene. now I want to watch El Camino.

 

[Totenkindly]

I liked Episode 12 so much I rewatched it again later last night. I even paused to read things like the birthday card in more detail, etc.

Does that mean Tammy and Jimmy have the same bday? (Nov 12?) There's an interplay I did not think of -- Jimmy sure didn't get any bday cards, as typical/cliche as that one might have been.

"YUUP. YUUP. YUUP" Fucking gross

I also much preferred the second Jesse scene. now I want to watch El Camino.

I have been wanting to rewatch that again, I ended up watching some last season BB episodes a few weeks back.

I really really like the 2nd Jesse scene better too. It just felt more natural and was about two characters who might have been the only ones who find/found some kind of escape or redemption and/or didn't slide into utter depravity.


Something else to add about Episode 11, that I picked up when reading something else. Jimmy wasn't just a bystander with Walt and Jesse. We tended to see him later in the series as another victim of Walt to some degree, or just small fry, and much of BCS might make us more sympathetic to Jimmy until maybe Season 6. But originally he was a person who actually enabled Walt to get on his feet and become who he became. Maybe we can't credit Jimmy completely with Walt's downfall, but he actually positioned Walt as a kingpin and made it happen. His greed and ambition put Walt on the fast track to hell and got a whole bunch of people hurt, and he also was benefitting off the drug business preying on addicts. This episode actually highlights that and ties him directly to Walt's getting his business going.

EDIT: There also seems to be several layers to the onion of Jimmy/Saul as well. Some of them use the same "name" but they are almost distinct in character.

• Jimmy McGill -- Slippin' Jimmy, seems to enjoy the rush of the scam, not necessarily trying to hurt people, still has concern for others
• Early Saul -- Right after he got his law license back. Consciously committed to the little criminals, etc., more willing to break the law, a bit more open about his disregard for the law, his scams are bigger and more hurtful.
• Saul after everything goes down in mid-Season 6 and Kim leaves -- Completely callous, doesn't care about anyone else (partly to protect himself), willing to do anything for a buck and screw over anyone especially in authority with impunity. Like a rapacious ID seeking to fill its own inner hunger and avoid pain.
• Early Gene -- feeling empty, lost, pretending to be nice, but not quite alive anymore, wishing for the glory days.
• Current Gene -- Like regular Saul but far worse, willing to do just about anything as part of his scams, no real boundaries, almost no empathy left. Pretty much the closest to Walt we have seen. Basically the darkest form of the character we've seen.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

^I picked that up too, it made me think of Saul's role in BB in a different light. I always felt sorry for him when Walt went full Gus intimidating him in season 5 of BB, but knowing Saul played such an important role in encouraging and aiding Walt's meteoric rise to that point, it makes Saul a more tragic character.

Then I thought back to the scene in BB (season 2 I believe) when Saul tells Walt to make him his consiglieri. Like you'd think he would have learned enough by dealing with the likes of Lalo and Gus (albeit less directly dealing with Gus, but still seeing his reach and ruthlessness in some form)

 

[Totenkindly]

At least he's got more irons in the fire.

Vince Gilligan Prepping New Series; ‘Better Call Saul’ Followup About To Hit TV Marketplace With A Bang

EXCLUSIVE: As Better Call Saul is coming to an end, series co-creator — and Breaking Bad creator — Vince Gilligan is ready for what comes next. And once again, for his next drama project he is going with a wholly original idea. No one would comment, but there is a lot of anticipation in the […]

www.yahoo.com

Also:

Better Call Saul’s Most Surprising Crossover Transcends Fan Service

There’s a lot more to Kim Wexler and Jesse Pinkman’s chance encounter than meets the eye.

www.vulture.com

 

[Totenkindly]

The cinematography was always better than it needed to be.

 

[Totenkindly]

 

[Totenkindly]

I honestly don't want to watch the finale tonight.

I mean, I do, obviously. But once I do, it's all over. The story is over -- and I don't want it to end.

Plus, I kinda don't want to see what happens to Jimmy/Gene/Saul. I don't feel like it's going to be good. And that's heartbreaking, when thinking of Jimmy.

My thoughts on what might happen:

1. Jimmy is captured and/or turns himself in, and is eventually locked up for his crimes. Kim visits him in jail as a final farewell.
2. Jimmy tries to reach Kim to get her assistance and/or say a final goodbye, and she either turns him in or is the last person he sees before he turns himself in.
3. Jimmy somehow manages to escape -- whether or not through a relocation effort -- and spends his entire future away from people, isolated, alone, and abandoned, even more bitter.
4. Isolated and alone, Jimmy kills himself like Chuck did. Kim never knows what happened to him. (Probably not this one.)

Based on the penultimate episode, Kim likely doesn't pay for her crimes despite admitting to them? Although if Jimmy is captured or turns himself in for his crimes as a cartel lawyer, I bet he is given a chance to corroborate Kim's story in order get off some time, which could put Kim in jeopardy as far as a trial goes.... and he refuses and takes the full sentence for his other crimes because the one thing he will never ever do is hurt Kim. His soft spot has always been the elderly + Kim.

More fantastical -- maybe he can stage "Saul Goodman's death" and live somewhere as Jimmy again once no one is looking for him.

I would be surprised if they kill Jimmy off, honestly, although the track record really sucks for the BB universe. Everyone else of import has literally died, except for Walter's family, Marie, Jesse, and (probably) Kim. Sure, Francesca and Huell are still alive too, but you get what I mean. All the major players are gone through the worst ways possible. For some reason, Jimmy dying doesn't feel right. But other tragedies might be more likely. Basically he will be forced to admit he fucked up his entire life and he has to take responsibility for it. Maybe, also, that is what the audience wants to see.

 

[Totenkindly]

Welp... it sucks being right.

Aside from Jimmy probably didn't exonerate Kim from the civil suit she will likely be hit with, but he did win himself back to her respect. It looks like when it came down to it, he valued that and her, more than money and freedom. But boy did he cut it close. It was hard to watch them share that last cigarette together -- painful but endearing. And then the finger guns.

Meanwhile, he's still baking in prison, and he's still a minor celebrity. So he did always get the acclaim he wanted.

 

[The Cat]

It's been a real treat getting to See Bob Odenkirk in more serious roles.

 

[Totenkindly]

It's been a real treat getting to See Bob Odenkirk in more serious roles.

He was incredible. Role of a lifetime for him. He has acknowledged such and says there's no point in worrying about how he would top this, just do the best he can with whatever he continues to do and go where it may. He had such a way about him, everything just gel'ed