Thanks, I must have mis-remembered it, it’s been a while.
So it mostly hinges on whether Skyler talks …I need to do a little more reading.
Walt was a classic example of a tragedy because Walt’s tragic flaw was one of the classic ones - overweening pride. Walt would rather rule as a badass in Hell than be a nerd in Heaven, so he makes his own Hell.
Jimmy’s tragic flaw is that he’s always looking for the shortcut, the quick fix, the hustle. He recognized this and was genuinely pulling himself out of his flim-flam artist ways, to gain the approval of a brother whom he loved and respected, with hard work at his profession … only to discover, ironically enough, that this brother was scamming him - sabotaging his efforts all along because (as he says) he doesn’t believe Jimmy can change his character.
Let’s not get too carried away with him being Saint Jimmy. He remains an unreformed scam artist. (Remember that he even tried to scam his way into getting the Kettlemans as clients.)
Skylar is going to talk. Walt told her to do so. Walt set it up like he was the mastermind and he was terrorizing Skylar into being complicit in the meth business. It was the only way that he could save her and the kids.
From the perspective of Jimmy/Saul, the cops knew about his criminal activities, such as laundering the profits of druglord/cop-killer Walt. That’s why Saul ran - he didn’t know that Skyler was telling the cops anything, but it was wise to assume that she would.
Even after Walt died, the cops would still be looking for Saul. From the perspective of the cops, Saul was a big part of Walt’s criminal empire. The cops would be very eager to find Saul, and will be looking for him for a very long time to come.
Whether or not Skyler told the cops anything about Saul - and we don’t know for sure that she did - Saul would certainly have to assume that she did. For that matter, Saul had good reason to believe that Huell had been arrested too, which is all the more reason to vanish forever.
Saul is going to be keeping a very low profile for the rest of his life. Or, you know, maybe not - who knows where this series will go before it ends?
He was doing well before he met Walt and easily made millions from him, plus he made a fortune from his legitimate career as an ambulance chaser and criminal defender. I’m assuming he (or a dummy company and fake persona he set up) owns the Cinnabon franchise.
Not sure what the policy is on “On the Next BCS” comments, so I’ll spoiler:
In the “On the Next BCS” commercial we see that
[spoiler]He hooks up with the big guy who played the rich drunk dude in his wallet/Rolex scam-
Do you think they’re going to scam Hamlin somehow?[/spoiler]
I’m sure it’s not “just you”, but I’m not having that problem.
I went into the show assuming that it would be about “Saul Goodman”; instead the main character is “Jimmy McGill”. We know what happens to Saul, but we don’t yet know what happens to Jimmy. Sure, eventually the change is going to occur, but we have no idea when or how (or even why, recent events notwithstanding). Jimmy might transform into Saul at the beginning of next season, or the end of next season, or not until the last episode of the series. I’m actually enjoying the show more than I expected to, in large part because it’s *not *the story I was expecting to see. The deeper into “Jimmy’s story” we get, the more engaging it becomes…and the less I care about seeing Saul.
This series is all about the journey, not the destination.
Odenkirk wrote for SNL and a number of other shows. He was a recurring character on The Larry Sanders Show. He was in one episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm as a retired porn actor, and I’m assuming that he and Larry David worked together earlier on other projects. His character in most everything I’ve seen him in is as an annoying but amusing person, much like Saul. It’s a good niche for him and now it’s paying big dividends.
Surely he was running from both, otherwise the first scene in the pilot doesn’t make much sense: While working the counter, he sees a tough gang-looking dude glaring at him and mentally prepares for the worst, only breathe an uneasy sigh of relief when he sees the mistaken goon greet his girlfriend.
Based on Mike’s definition of “good criminals”, do you think he himself would qualify by the end of Breaking Bad? What about Jimmy/Saul?
Amazing that Mike only exists because Odenkirk wasn’t able to film the scene where he cleans up the death scene for Jesse’s OD’d girlfriend. Hard to imagine either show without him.
How long do you suppose before major retailers are offering a “space blanket lining” in their suits?
And I think the dumbass embezzler’s wife will figure back in, if not in the finale then next season.
And I still think Abuelita is a bitch.
For what it’s worth, I’m still expecting to see the skateboard twins again, too.
I’m with those who are saying that Chuck has a point. It seems realistic to me that HHM would not want a guy like Jimmy on their books, however much he may have made it rain with the potential class action suit. Chuck was almost certainly correct about needing HHM’s resources to properly pursue the suit, and his greater knowledge and experience of such cases would likely have had benefits both for chance of success and ultimate payout.
Where Chuck went way wrong, however, is in being dishonest with Jimmy, hiding his own reservations behind “the partners”, and lying about manipulating the outcome. Pretty crappy behavior for someone who supposedly objects to his brother’s reputation for dishonesty, and when called on it, all he can respond with is contemptuous insults. That’s all on Chuck, and what makes it so tragic: given what we know about Jimmy/Saul, his conversation with Chuck at the end of the episode puts him irrevocably on the path that leads to that Omaha Cinnabon, and for Chuck knocks away, probably permanently, the support that allowed him to be at least marginally functional despite his clear mental health issues.
There’s a real ring of believability to the interactions between these two characters (and those of the characters playing Kim and Hamlin), very much unlike how most TV relationships seem to work, and I guess that’s why I’m digging the show so much. Well, that and everything involving Mike; maybe not totally realistic, but so Bogart-level cool it doesn’t matter.
I don’t think it’s jealousy really. Beyond being more of a people person, Jimmy isn’t exactly in any kind of enviable spot.
Maybe, but I think it’s hard to tell with what we have seen so far.
It’s an interesting counter factual, but I don’t think Jimmy is actually that good a lawyer, and thus his career success would be limited by that more than an overbearing brother.
Good point.
Surely all of this pales in comparison to his work in Mr. Show, which for some reason no one has mentioned? Here is a Mr. Show law-related skit. And another with both Odenkirk and McKean. Who knew what the future held for them.
But couldn’t that be as much what you suggested as Chuck wanting to protect Jimmy’s feelings? Besides, I doubt the partners want Jimmy either.
There’s a huge difference between being a conman and not exercising complete, bald candor when you know it would hurt someone’s feelings.
I think it goes beyond simply a white lie to protect Jimmy’s feelings.
In essence, Jimmy believed in Chuck. Jimmy had Chuck’s back when Chuck was incapacitated. Jimmy was willing to take care of him, bring him his groceries, basically cater to him, keeping him from being committed (when it was in Jimmy’s power to have him committed).
But Chuck wasn’t willing to believe in Jimmy.
Both had pretty good reasons for not believing in the other - but in the end, Jimmy came through for Chuck, but not the other way around.
Wow. I don’t watch BCS until Wednesday and already there’s this huge thread.
It’s going to make the season finale hard to follow.
Yet so many interesting things haven’t been mentioned.
E.g., I was quickly concerned about the dude Mike took out. This guy has guns (he was conscious enough to know Mike was throwing them into the trash can), is ticked off, and knows that Mike was hired by the vet. This is someone who is going to track Mike down and cause trouble.
The Pill Guy: Mike would never let him behave like that. This is a screw up waiting to happen. Mike would have told the guy to sit in the car and he would have taken care of it.
Throughout the later part of the episode I was practically screaming “Check the call log on your cell phone!” Surprisingly, Chuck was smart enough to erase it off the phone, but not smart enough to know that Jimmy can easily check it via phone company records.
How long is it going to take for all these lawyers to get their own cell phones back? There are just too many lookalikes. And just phones? No laptops, etc.?
I had early on suspected the onset of Chuck’s symptoms was due to Jimmy becoming a lawyer. This episode reinforces this.
Jealousy isn’t quite the word I was looking for. Maybe a bit of resentment? Chuck seems like some people I know where the older sibling is much older than the younger sibling. They haven’t stated their ages, but in real life McKean is 15 years older than Odenkirk. In a lot (not all of course) of those relationships, the older sibling feels like things were harder when they were young, and that the parents have less time and energy for discipline as they get older so the younger sibling gets away with more. They haven’t shown any of that on the show, so maybe I’m reading into things, but that’s what I would guess is part of their background.
Chuck does love Jimmy, but I’m not sure he likes him all that much, for a variety of reasons. They do very good showing the brother relationship and making it seem very real.
I don’t know much about the law, definitely not enough to say whether Jimmy is good or would have been destined for greatness. If not for his brother, he might have had a successful firm, or he might have just been scraping by, I don’t know.
I think what changes his career trajectory is that his brother, someone he’s looked up to and admired for so long, still sees him as Slippin’ Jimmy, and will always see him as Slippin’ Jimmy. He’ll never see him as a legitimate lawyer, so why not just act like a “criminal” lawyer. His career success isn’t limited by an overbearing brother. His career goals of what he can see himself as being is limited by his brother.
But the season and the show aren’t over, so it might be something else that tips him over into becoming Saul, but it’s interesting to theorize about.
I assumed that would be the last time we ever see him, but he definitely could pop up again. I don’t know if he’d track Mike down, but they could run across each other’s paths again. That could be funny or tense.
That would seem out of character for Mike to take over. It’s not his deal, he’s just security. Did he ever do something like that on Breaking Bad? I honestly don’t remember.
I hope they show the onset of Chuck’s symptoms. I figure it has something to do with stress; being a partner at a law firm would be stressful, and Jimmy becoming a lawyer could add to that stress.
I think the writers did a good job of portraying a person mentally justifiying a shitty act as being for someone’s “own good”. Chuck wasn’t doing that to protect Jimmy’s feelings, IMO; he did it to protect Chuck (and thereby keep the ice and Coleman lamp fuel coming). Regardless of what he meant, however, he was patronizing Jimmy, and basically assumed he was too clueless to figure out what was going on.
I’m not interested in getting into an argument over this, but someone calling his brother something like “a chimp with a machine gun” does not impress me as one who is overly concerned with feelings.
And there I’ll leave it.