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IGN: Chuck made a big move at the end of Season 2... You'd think Jimmy would have seen it coming... Was it because it was Chuck doing it that Jimmy didn't see the game being played?
But when a kind-hearted person opens the door and someone says, "My car broke down and my wife is sick and needs medicine, can you give me twenty bucks?", I hate those bastards. I think they're going to hell, deservedly. That's what happened here. It was a heartstrings con. And it was kind of despicable on Chuck's part. But on the other hand, what Jimmy did to prompt it was a despicable act on Jimmy's part. Jimmy really stuck it to his brother. And what I'm left with as a viewer, as one of the first fans of the show, is a feeling of sadness that these guys can't just love each other. That things have gotten so toxic in their relationship that they're just sticking it to one another. And Chuck, as upstanding and correct a gentleman as he is, as someone who looks down on Slipping Jimmy, his con man brother, it must run in the family because he's a pretty good con man himself. It must be genetic.
... totally agree on the heartstrings play. You're basically punishing someone for being kind to you. It's the lowest of the low and results in an environment where few want to reach out and be kind.
I binge-watched Season 2 a weekend or two back. Amazing and heartbreaking stuff -- Chuck's wife (where is she? But Chuck couldn't accept she found Jimmy to be fun), the situation with Kim, the passing of Chuck and Jimmy's mom (which so wonderfully encapsulates their relationship... it's all you really need to know about their dynamic to grasp all of it), how Jimmy might have been stealing from their dad but Chuck only knew/accepted half the story and the dad's flaws actually directly contributed to Jimmy, and so on. Of course most painful is that Jimmy might con people on their bad qualities (the stockbroker's greed) but what Chuck does is exploit someone for their goodness. I'm still kind of aching over the last few minutes of that Season 2 finale.
I really enjoy how the characters are allowed to breathe and allowed to be human, they are all kind of a mottled mix of good and bad qualities.
CHUCK! Don't do that to Ernesto.
Mike - smarty pants. Still not totally sure about that "don't" note. I'm also convinced he never sleeps. Such a sharp old guy.
Kim - This is the beginning of the end I think. When she said 2 minutes and Jimmy just went back to painting...
AF Captain - I loved that. Who's next? That would be me. Look what Top Gun did for you and that was fake.
Yeah, I don't really care either way, but I appreciate the amount of taste and discretion they have shown about reintroducing familiar characters -- like not including Betsy last season in a potentially sensible scene with her, because it would have distracted from the BCS dramatic line. they seem very sensible and thoughtful about how they've been introducing those kinds of things.
They would have to introduce him at some point, since when we meet Mike, he is working for Gus.
I love BB to death, but I think BCS is harder to write ... Walt was essentially just an anti-hero, but Jimmy is actually more complex. The acting and writing has to be even more nuanced, and the character transitions have to be even more skillful... plus they are taking boring aspects of law and making them important/somewhat interesting. Watching Jimmy and Chuck interact, there's just so much going on there, and everyone is such a mix of good and bad. I saw one article saying it's reminiscent of the old Biblical brother stories of Cain and Abel, or more appropriate even Esau and Jacob (where slippin' Jimmy is the huckster who stole his brother's inheritance in a sense).
I was kinda disappointed we did not see exactly what is going to come of that little ploy by Chuck at the end of Season 2; apparently it will not be the most obvious blatant kind of chess move that would have immediate dire ramifications for Jimmy, but Chuck obviously still has a plan regardless to make his brother "pay"... and i have no idea what it is.
I fear for Kim. I just have this bad feeling that, much as the forecasting has suggested, she basically has her fate hitched to Jimmy and she'll suffer a lot of collateral damage. I love her so much, though -- that whole bit where she so diligently struggled over what punctuation mark to use... lol. I know that feeling, and of course she has so much more riding on that here.
CHUCK! Don't do that to Ernesto.
Mike - smarty pants. Still not totally sure about that "don't" note. I'm also convinced he never sleeps. Such a sharp old guy.
Kim - This is the beginning of the end I think. When she said 2 minutes and Jimmy just went back to painting...
AF Captain - I loved that. Who's next? That would be me. Look what Top Gun did for you and that was fake.
Yeah, poor Ernesto. Don't drag that poor boy into the middle of your nutty schemes and threaten him like that. If anything, Ernesto would be even MORE on Jimmy's side after that mess... I mean, Jimmy might be shady, but he's not a dick to his friends.
Mike took that whole damn car apart. Man, dude. I just do not have that much tenacity. But he is thorough, and he is a professional. Wow.
AF Captain -- that was so awesome, as it was so unexpected. And that last line of his... such a forecast of doom... "The wheel comes back around. You'll reap what you sow." or something to that gist. And we know Jimmy will.
I think it's also kind of cool that we see the future Jimmy (currently "Gene" ?), and it's very clear that he just will not be able to remain in hiding. Jimmy is not as disciplined as Chuck, he has to be true to who he is, and we see that he really just loves helping people by using his ingenuity and knowledge of the law and its loopholes. If there is anything good to come after all the shit that Walt wrought at the end of his arc, it seems that Jesse is probably happy somewhere, and I suspect that Saul Goodman will once again live one day, to hell with fake identities. If we need a threefer, well, there's still the hope Brock might be out hiking in his 20's and happen to find $75 million buried in the desert....
- Gus and Mike (with Jimmy dragged in) trying to out-cat-and-mouse each other. Jimmy wasn't so hot on the surveillance, he was an easy watcher to pick out of the crowd, but Gus was still pretty slick. I like how you just see him as a blurred figure in the background and never see his face as he moves by but obviously somehow signals to cancel the dropoff.
- Was that a cameo of VICTOR?
- Francesca!!! I feel kind of bad for her, though -- she comes in seemingly more idealistic and actually adept in her people skills, and somehow by the end of breaking bad (where she is still with Jimmy), she's become hilariously caustic. Also, more bad foreshadowing with Kim.... I mean, even Francesca makes it to BB, but where did Kim finally go?
- It's fun watching the whole Mike/Jimmy thing, they are such opposites -- Jimmy is flamboyant and outspoken and outwardly emotional, the deal-spinner, while Mike is stoic and minimalist and internalized.
- The whole ending with jimmy and chuck leaves me sick. You could tell it's eating at Jimmy the whole time, he tries to bottle it but can't, and finally it just bursts out of him; and he just HAS to go over there to confront Chuck. And it's not some detached outrage, it's "how could you do this, you're destroying our FAMILY!" he realizes Chuck scammed him, suckered him in and manipulated him because he didn't want Chuck to feel bad about himself. There are apparently still lines Jimmy is not willing to cross, and he won't screw over a friend or a family member, any of his primal relationships; but those concerns are not prioritized for Chuck. So then the double-whammy... not only did Chuck sucker him once and prey off his unwillingness to let Chuck doubt himself (Jimmy's good intentions), but now Chuck has suckered him on one of his flaws... his inability to keep his emotions under control.
I do think it's hilarious that Chuck and the others are expecting Jimmy to be sneaky about getting the tape (hence their need for subterfuge) but as we could have anticipated, Jimmy just doesn't CARE about sneaking. This situation isn't a game to win, not like switching the numbers on the Mesa Verde papers. It is a personal spat, a rift, between two brothers, and it doesn't even cross Jimmy's mind that Chuck would take their spat outside their relationship. It's like the fights between he and his brother when young, when they just settled it between them. So he just busts in, smashes the drawer, smashes the tape, outraged that Chuck would try to hurt him and destroy their relationship -- all without even IMAGINING Chuck might have folks hiding in the house so that he can have witnesses to testify in court. It's not that Jimmy can't outhuckster Chuck, here it's simply he still trusts Chuck on some level.
Meanwhile, this is beyond Chuck's wildest fantasies... he'll get what he wants (Jimmy, on various charges... breaking/entering, intimidation (?), destruction of personal property. I'm not sure what the full range of charges would be or the most serious, but my guess is that Chuck wanted to get Jimmy disbarred and a breaking/entering with intent to commit larceny might be a felony charge, which in some states is automatic disbarment. I have read in Arizona that disbarment is only five years, and you can retake the bar exam and get reinstated, but still... Five years not practicing law? Especially when Kim and he were trying to make a go at a shared business? I guess Jimmy got Francesca in the custody split?
Anyway, another poor outcome for Jimmy. He's predictable and being true to who he is, and his flaw here is just his blindness about Chuck. He still idolizes his brother and can't believe Chuck would take things THAT far to the degree of ruining Jimmy's career, although to Chuck even the small (but large-impacting) trick of Jimmy's was in effect ruining HIS career.
i really love Gilligan's music/video montage sequences (which highlighted Breaking Bad as well) -- just some really great visual sequences and music that makes the show more interesting to watch. musical selections are typically great.
Looks like Chuck is playing this as expected. Poor Jimmy. I like his line delivery out by the curb, there were many ways to say what he said to Chuck but it was more with resigned sadness. jimmy lost a piece of his heart and I don't know if he will ever get it back.
At the end, it was kind of a touching sequence with Jimmy and Kim, and I like how it hails back to those scenes outside HHM in the parking garage, where they'd stand outside and share a smoke together. Poor Kim. This was her chance, maybe her last chance, to extract her fate from Jimmy's. Now she might be in over her head.
The look on Chuck's face when Jimmy told him he would die alone and in pain... that was like chopping off a limb but Chuck won't get that until it's too late. I want to know what all went down with his wife!
Kim. I love her and I don't want anything bad to happen to her but it's a collision course. I felt bad that she sleeps at the office and showers at the gym until I realized it's across the street from the office.
Gene - Was this ever covered in BB? Granted I didn't watch BB until it was over and I binged so I may have missed things here and there.
The look on Chuck's face when Jimmy told him he would die alone and in pain... that was like chopping off a limb but Chuck won't get that until it's too late. I want to know what all went down with his wife!
There was that great flashback last season with her, where Chuck set Jimmy up negatively before he came over for dinner, and then it turned out that she didn't find Jimmy nearly as annoying as Chuck did... and in fact even liked him. I'm really curious too.
Gene - Was this ever covered in BB? Granted I didn't watch BB until it was over and I binged so I may have missed things here and there.
Jimmy as "Gene" is a complete flash-forward, so you know as much as anyone else does I think... there was just the throwaway about Saul popping back up as cinnabon guy.
There was that great flashback last season with her, where Chuck set Jimmy up negatively before he came over for dinner, and then it turned out that she didn't find Jimmy nearly as annoying as Chuck did... and in fact even liked him. I'm really curious too.
I have a feeling that the black and white present day scenes are eventually going to culminate with a Kim reunion. Probably a few seasons down the road.
But Jimmy was right -- Chuck had him boxed in, there was no other real escape route for him. Still, that was a hell of a hail mary pass... for a moment I felt like it was channeling another famous movie courtroom scene starring Jack Nicholson.
I burst out laughing for about half a minute when I saw who Jimmy blind-hired through the black-market contact to do the "professional job." What a crackup.
... anyway, this was a definitive moment. Chuck insisted on playing so much hardball with Jimmy that finally Jimmy stopped soft-pitching his brother and did what he had to do to win.
... but at what cost?
I mean, the gist is Chuck actually IS unstable and is also (apparently) suffering mental symptoms, not really physical, which we knew based on the tests at the end of last season. Chuck isn't "crazy" in the sense that he totally figured out what Jimmy did, but Jimmy just "Slippin' Jimmy'ed" him, making him look like a total nutcase in front of the bar. Chuck saying the truth, but in a way that made him look nuts... and also proving that Chuck's symptoms are mental, not physical, conclusively. He even suckered him in on the empty cell phone. He played the hell out of him, which is exactly what Chuck is claiming, but Chuck is who looks nuts, not Jimmy. The only thing Jimmy had to lie about is why he "confessed" -- it now seems remarkably believable that Jimmy lied on the tape, or at least there is "reasonable doubt" that the confession was honest, because everything Jimmy is claiming just got established right there in front of the entire court; he really looks like the younger brother who took care of a mentally ailing older sibling despite the abuse he received, and worried about how his brother's sanity seemed to be slipping past the point of no return he lied on the tape to make his brother feel better and not totally lose his mind.
it would be poetic justice if this would prevent Chuck from being able to practice law himself -- his reputation is likely ruined permanently, HHM's reputation is shaky, and it's his own fault for trying to take down Jimmy. At the same time, it's not what Jimmy wanted for Chuck. You can tell by his attitude and the look on his face that he hated doing this, yet did it anyway... because Chuck had betrayed him, sundered their relationship, and even put Kim in jeopardy. Kim's disclosure to Mesa Verde probably saved that account for her, since now Chuck does look like a nutjob before the court.
It's one of those things where Jimmy is guilty of everything technically, yet Chuck was the one who came across as "immoral" due to his motivations, and Chuck will be the one punished most likely even if he was right the whole time and within legal bounds. Yet even with that "moral outcome" it's essentially the end of Jimmy. This "victory" will define his path for years and devastate him / leave him calloused, he basically had to be what his brother claimed he was all along in order to win. They both took each other down into the mud and assured mutual destruction on some level.
...What a beautiful show. Painful and frustrating and sad, but so beautifully written and acted.
I have a feeling that the black and white present day scenes are eventually going to culminate with a Kim reunion. Probably a few seasons down the road.
I have thought of that too. I would love that -- that maybe there could be SOME kind of happy ending after all the pain that Walt caused as well as the frustration Jimmy has suffered in his life.
I'm getting the idea maybe they simply "drifted" and she pursued her opportunities overseas, although maybe with Chuck being a bit more rigid and she being a tad more open, that didn't help matters.
Honestly, pretty much anything bad that has happened to Chuck has kind of been his own fault due to his unwillingness to either accept his own mistakes or just ease up a bit and accept adversity and even the differences in other people. He's just so rigid that he cannot "breathe" and relax/accept things outside of his plan.
Note the excuse Chuck uses in the opening flashback to explain why his "power was turned off" -- the situation he makes up directly keys into Jimmy's choices in Season 2. I'm not sure if it was just that the seed of a scheme was planted or whether it was partly poetic justice, but... I noted that as soon as I heard it.
- While Jimmy wasn't necessarily being altruistic, it looks like revealing that Chuck's illness might be psychosomatic has lit a fire under Chuck to beat this thing, so that's good.
- I don't necessarily agree wit Rebecca when she accosts Jimmy for not wanting to help Chuck. When someone has been using you for years and you have a dysfunctional relationship, one of the most healthy things to do in the beginning of the process of breaking away is to insert some distance so you can get your bearings. While Jimmy is being kind of blunt about it all, it's not really fair for her to expect him to put himself back in a situation where he was already taken advantage of for years, and it's not reasonable to expect Jimmy to have a happy pie-in-the-sky attitude about Chuck.
However, it does sound like Jimmy's love for Chuck did "snap" rather than just bend and right now he really has washed his hands of his brother.
- One year off lawyering. Now he has to find other ways to raise income to support Kim. This is where Slippin' Jimmy comes in...or another name that we all know and have been waiting for.
- Nacho's an interesting character. I can't quite call him a "good guy" because he's a drug dealer and will do what he needs to do as part of his business. However, he doesn't seem to have a particular love for it (like Tuco does, for example). he tries to give people a break when it's possible. He has people he loves and doesn't want to drag into the business. He also has professional scruples and wants to operate sensibly and with excellence, rather than a half-assed job. So you can still respect him on some level and appeal to his humanity. It's not clear that appealing to Hector's humanity will get you anywhere.
Well, episode 9 was it -- a real turning point for Jimmy in terms of going Dark Side. Episode 6, going after Chuck? Well, the history of the brothers is bad, and they both kind of deserve a come-uppance. But what Jimmy does in this episode is very different tonally and it's a sign of how far he has slid.
Kim also reaches the end of her own rope, so to speak. And Chuck does some rotten things as well, and Hamlin gets some decent scenes.
And there's a lot going down with Nacho and Hector Salamanca... plus another fun "first meeting" between Mike and someone he figures prominently with in some scenes in Breaking Bad.
I've heard stuff really hits the fan in the finale. I hope Nacho will be okay... he might be morally compromised in some ways, but he still has values he tries to uphold especially where family is concerned.
Decent season finale to Better Call Saul. Jimmy earns a bit of redemption the hard way (his slow decline is full of false starts and stops), Kim decides to take a vacation of sorts, we might have seen a turning point with Hector, and there's a big shift for Chuck.
Chuck probably got the worst of it, this episode. His bluff against HHM to be reinstated as a partner fails; Howard realizes Chuck isn't prioritizing the firm anymore, after everything he did to help Chuck, and decides to call his bluff by paying him out of pocket to spare the firm. Chuck loses the job that he loves.
He then decides to hurt Jimmy as much as possible, when Jimmy comes over to say he has regrets about things he has recently done. The criticism Chuck provides in return isn't necessarily all inaccurate (which is the beauty of it), in terms of how Jimmy feels bad but still keeps hurting people, but finishing by telling Jimmy that "you never meant that much to me anyway" and acting like Jimmy is a persona non grata in his life is devastating -- Jimmy leaves wordlessly. Considering what happens later, this will probably reverberate terribly in the younger brother's mind.
Chuck seems like he has been recovering greatly from his psychosomatic illness -- in fact, this is all really impressive, that Chuck through sheer force of will was overcoming his problem now realizing it is psychosomatic -- but alas, willpower can only take one so far. In the end, drugs and alcohol and will cannot do it; he spirals back into paranoia and proceeds to take hammers and axe to the house looking for the elusive last bit of current he cannot turn off. After destroying the interior of his home, he just smashes the meter. Problem solved.
But he has lost his career. And he has lost his brother. And now he's losing his sanity. The last bit is Chuck kicking a table repeatedly, wrapped in his mylar blanket, until finally the lantern shown in the opener, from younger happier days with Jimmy, pitches off the table... and the long shot of the house going up in flames. With a suicide hotline number appearing on the screen right after the episode closes, it seems pretty probable that this was the end of the McGill brother relationship. Chuck's last words to Jimmy will eat at him for the rest of his life.
I think it's interesting to watch Jimmy, who seems to be doing more and more awful things, yet then bucks up and tries to do something right, pulling himself briefly from the abyss. Still, the end of this season might be a blow he can't easily recover from.
Howard is also a great character. I love how he was the villain of season 1, whereupon you realize maybe he's not actually the mastermind; and then despite being a bit uptight and needing to impose some structure (he's extremely professional and wants to wear that face), he's actually trying to do the right thing much of the time. This season we finally see him exposed rather than wearing the Hamlin face, because of some of the outrageous things that have happened; he ends up being pretty likable and possessing more moral fiber than originally was granted him.
Decent season finale to Better Call Saul. Jimmy earns a bit of redemption the hard way (his slow decline is full of false starts and stops), Kim decides to take a vacation of sorts, we might have seen a turning point with Hector, and there's a big shift for Chuck.
Chuck probably got the worst of it, this episode. His bluff against HHM to be reinstated as a partner fails; Howard realizes Chuck isn't prioritizing the firm anymore, after everything he did to help Chuck, and decides to call his bluff by paying him out of pocket to spare the firm. Chuck loses the job that he loves.
He then decides to hurt Jimmy as much as possible, when Jimmy comes over to say he has regrets about things he has recently done. The criticism Chuck provides in return isn't necessarily all inaccurate (which is the beauty of it), in terms of how Jimmy feels bad but still keeps hurting people, but finishing by telling Jimmy that "you never meant that much to me anyway" and acting like Jimmy is a persona non grata in his life is devastating -- Jimmy leaves wordlessly. Considering what happens later, this will probably reverberate terribly in the younger brother's mind.
Chuck seems like he has been recovering greatly from his psychosomatic illness -- in fact, this is all really impressive, that Chuck through sheer force of will was overcoming his problem now realizing it is psychosomatic -- but alas, willpower can only take one so far. In the end, drugs and alcohol and will cannot do it; he spirals back into paranoia and proceeds to take hammers and axe to the house looking for the elusive last bit of current he cannot turn off. After destroying the interior of his home, he just smashes the meter. Problem solved.
But he has lost his career. And he has lost his brother. And now he's losing his sanity. The last bit is Chuck kicking a table repeatedly, wrapped in his mylar blanket, until finally the lantern shown in the opener, from younger happier days with Jimmy, pitches off the table... and the long shot of the house going up in flames. With a suicide hotline number appearing on the screen right after the episode closes, it seems pretty probable that this was the end of the McGill brother relationship. Chuck's last words to Jimmy will eat at him for the rest of his life.
I think it's interesting to watch Jimmy, who seems to be doing more and more awful things, yet then bucks up and tries to do something right, pulling himself briefly from the abyss. Still, the end of this season might be a blow he can't easily recover from.
Howard is also a great character. I love how he was the villain of season 1, whereupon you realize maybe he's not actually the mastermind; and then despite being a bit uptight and needing to impose some structure (he's extremely professional and wants to wear that face), he's actually trying to do the right thing much of the time. This season we finally see him exposed rather than wearing the Hamlin face, because of some of the outrageous things that have happened; he ends up being pretty likable and possessing more moral fiber than originally was granted him.
That ending was the deliberate, final poignancy of the Mcgill brother's flawed relationship, and their general individual flaws.
I enjoyed the set up of Chuck's words to Jimmy, then realised in the aftermath of the Irene-isolation tactics that genuinely made me a bit uncomfortable (this is by no means a bad thing, although rare, but it made me surprised at myself given that I deal with the general public a lot and know old ladies are not necessarily innocent, but I guess I still have that soft spot). This of course culminates in Jimmy's (well-deserved by most accounts) self-flagellation in confession. They played that very well.
I'm curious to see how Nacho's side of things will develop (as an aside I didn't spot until recently that Michael Mando was the voice of Vaas Montenegro in Farcry 3, the character even looks like it is modelled after his appearance). The series has been well-developed, given it's past setting, with introducing new characters relevant to Jimmy's past before embracing Saul. And this open, but effective, angle to the their method of writing/directing means that they give themselves plenty of avenues to pursue in the future of their characters, even familiar ones whose final ends are known.
And the Nacho/Mike/Gus side of things seems to be ramping up. I suspect the next season will be half Jimmy coming to terms with
his final interaction with Chuck before his death
and their general relationship up to that point, that's if he can. It seems like the kind of lasting impact that can make a person change, though if this is to the result of a colder (at least internally), morally corrupt Jimmy remains to be seen.
I think next to that will be the ramping up of Nacho/Mike/Gus with Nacho either becoming more involved on the Gus side of things (or maybe taking over from Hector?) or something else entirely with a more negative, final end.
Into this Saul will probably have to be inserted at some point, so we might see the latter half getting us closer to Jimmy's progression into embracing his more ethically questionable & damaging (at least mainly to others, cheers Chuck) side.
I enjoyed the set up of Chuck's words to Jimmy, then realised in the aftermath of the Irene-isolation tactics that genuinely made me a bit uncomfortable (this is by no means a bad thing, although rare, but it made me surprised at myself given that I deal with the general public a lot and know old ladies are not necessarily innocent, but I guess I still have that soft spot). This of course culminates in Jimmy's (well-deserved by most accounts) self-flagellation in confession. They played that very well.
yeah, the sequence also reaffirms Chuck's power of influence over Jimmy (Gould says Chuck has both brother power + daddy power over Jimmy, the way Jimmy looks up to him); his decision comes after Chuck's comments, and Jimmy is willing to give up the few things he had left going for him in order to avoid the fate that the Chuck of Christmas Future had decreed for him and those he cares about....
it just might not be enough. (And well, obviously we know it won't be.) I'm not like Jimmy in how I work, but I can grasp him enough... he's pretty tender under the bluster, and those kinds of things really devastate him. He'll devolve into jaded Saul soon enough, because it all hurts too much.
I'm curious to see how Nacho's side of things will develop (as an aside I didn't spot until recently that Michael Mando was the voice of Vaas Montenegro in Farcry 3, the character even looks like it is modelled after his appearance). The series has been well-developed, given it's past setting, with introducing new characters relevant to Jimmy's past before embracing Saul. And this open, but effective, angle to the their method of writing/directing means that they give themselves plenty of avenues to pursue in the future of their characters, even familiar ones whose final ends are known.
And the Nacho/Mike/Gus side of things seems to be ramping up. I suspect the next season will be half Jimmy coming to terms with
his final interaction with Chuck before his death
and their general relationship up to that point, that's if he can. It seems like the kind of lasting impact that can make a person change, though if this is to the result of a colder (at least internally), morally corrupt Jimmy remains to be seen.
I like Nacho a lot -- he's realistic and can make hard choices when need be, he knows how the game is played and can see where things will go, but there's still love in his heart. He loves his father and was willing to sacrifice his father's pride in him (and maybe more) to save his life, and there's that scene where he almost gives 8-Ball a second chance a few episodes back, except Hector basically insists he teach 8-Ball a lesson. Nacho is pragmatic and plays the game out, but he resents Hector for that and a lot of things -- the old man is an asp who will bite you on the ankle at a whim. It's all kind of nuts considering we know how it all ultimately plays out, between him and Gus.
Kim made a big step for her as well. She's given up trying to compensate for Jimmy and/or what happened earlier in the season, she needs to do some self-care now.
A great interview with Patrick Fabian (Howard) and how that last scene at the office with Chuck went down.
The beauty of it is that, while it's nice to hear his detailed thoughts, it's all very discernible from how the scene plays out. Howard is such an interesting character, because of his formality -- there's so much subtext to him, ways he acts on the surface that doesn't necessarily express his feelings... or it's channeled into the socially acceptable way to express something. Kind of like when southerners are talking about someone and say "bless their soul"... there's a lot bundled up in that. Same thing when Howard says, "Can we have the room?" Such a simple phrase, but it expresses the impending severity of what is about to commence... or how they go out and the entire staff is in the outer foyer waiting, and after giving the speech Howard says, "Do you want to say anything, Chuck?" knowing damn well there is nothing Chuck can say without losing far more face, and that it's done and over because if that just happened, Chuck's office is also probably already cleaned out and his HR papers are being processed.
Back in "Chicanery," when he is telling Chuck, "You don't need to testify," it's so obvious that Hamlin is saying, "Please don't testify, you have this on strength of case and you are not running a risk for yourself but potentially for the firm." He's trying to do preventative damage control in case something goes wrong, but Chuck is so hellbent on shooting down Jimmy and hammering his fate home that he insists on testifying.... which ruins him and also reflects poorly on the firm.
It made the few times that Howard has said what he means to seem almost emotionally violent (like when he recently chewed out Kim and at a different time Jimmy -- ouch).
I think it just was terrible for him when Chuck revealed he was going to sue the firm without really thinking twice about it, or when Chuck basically pulled the "I built this firm" bit (and Chuck probably did the heavy legal lifting, but without Howard to be the face, the firm would have died because Chuck is horrible at inspiring confidence and interacting with people), or when he basically called him a little boy by pulling the "I mentored you (so I am superior to you and know better)" bit. Still, even in the end, Howard really did what he did to protect the firm, rather than sheer personal animosity. He's actually one of the more "moral" characters on the show along with Kim... he's not perfect, but his actions are serving a higher cause in a sense (the firm, here) even when he wants to do and say other things.
oh, this was a nice touch -- the song playing when Jimmy goes to visit Chuck is "It never entered my mind."
lyrics:
I don't care if there's powder on my nose.
I don't care if my hairdo is in place.
I've lost the very meaning of repose.
I never put a mudpack on my face.
Oh, who'd have thought
that I'd walk in the daze now?
I never go to shows at night,
but just to matinees now.
I see the show
and home I go.
Once I laughed when I heard you saying
that I'd be playing solitaire,
uneasy in my easy chair.
It never entered my mind.
Once you told me I was mistaken,
that I'd awaken with the sun
and order orange juice for one.
It never entered my mind.
You have what I lack myself
and now I even have to scratch my back myself.
Once you warned me that if you scorned me
I'd sing the maiden's prayer again
and wish that you were there again
to get into my hair again.
It never entered my mind.
(I recognized it because Linda Ronstadt covered it on one of her three Nelson Riddle albums...)
Don't do that to Ernesto. 
