Lincoln keeps looking behind after that thing at Ford’s Theater.
Problem with the coin scam: the half dollar prior to the Kennedy was the Franklin, NOT Lincoln (as Jimmy stated). Lincoln has never graced the half dollar. I’m wondering if that was a writer error or if it was deliberate, but I can’t come up with a reason for the latter. If you’re going to run a scam on a stranger, why would you make a mistake like that?
To be fair, it looked like they drank a lot of beer.
He got it resized, I suppose.
“I still contend that the level of tint on that car was illegal under Illinois law.” I laughed my ass off at that line for some reason.
I agree with many others, though. His transition to Saul seemed rather forced. As a solo practitioner, I can understand his turning down an offer for a Big Law firm. There are many benefits of “being your own man” and it is a lot about personality. Jimmy would not fit in working Big Law and reviewing documents. His talent is as a people person.
However, it doesn’t follow that he has to become a crooked lawyer. He made $20k plus 20% on the backside by finding a legitimate case in the nursing home. There is no reason not to think that with experience and his reputation growing in the community that he couldn’t make a very nice living playing by the rules. There was no need to decide, in an instant, to resort to a life of crime.
Sheriff Andy Taylor pulled that on Deputy Barney Fife on with a buffalo nickel on 2/13/1961 in the episode Mayberry on Record.
I’m not so sure we saw the “transition to Saul” in this episode. All we know is Jimmy is sick of working for other people and wants to work for himself. Certainly there’s a criminal element to his motivation: he never wants to say goodbye to $800k for his brother’s sake again. Which makes sense because Jimmy is and always has been a criminal. I don’t think the transition to Saul is going to be a single moment. But we did see something of a turning point in his attitude and that’s a big step down the road to Breaking Bad Saul. He’s no longer trying to win the esteem of his loved ones. He’s trying to make money and a name for himself, on his own terms.
I’m expecting the name “Saul Goodman” to start being used in episode 1 next season. I think $20k can buy a decent office and an assistant’s first few weeks salary. But I expect the big office with the constitution wallpaper doesn’t come until the Sandpiper case pays off.
I’ve been wondering about the chronology…was that in fact 2002? That means there are at least 10 years of Saul Goodman story potential before Breaking Bad riaght?
As for the epsiode… I liked it. Alot better than Justified’s final episodes for sure.
The Breaking Bad storyline begins in, I think, 2007, and runs for two years of story time. Although the timeline has a few issues along the way.
Anyway, I suppose the hard limit on how much time there is to work with is however long it would take Mike’s granddaughter to go from BCS-sized to BB-sized. Someone else will have to come up with a definitive number for that, because I absolutely suck at estimating kids’ ages. Although I would guess something like five years, tops? If so, that fits with 2007 for BB.
Yes. There was a flashback scene in the beginning showing Jimmy’s goodbye to Marco and then after Chuck betrayed him and he had his nursing home breakdown, Jimmy went back to Cicero and reunited with his old scamming buddy, in the show’s “present” of 2002.
The main timeline in Better Call Saul occurs in 2002, and the entirety of Breaking Bad happens between 2008 and 2010. So not quite 10 years, though some of the flashbacks to Cicero must have happened in the 90s, so those are probably 10 years before Breaking Bad at least.
I’m not sure exactly when Jimmy left Cicero with Chuck. Let’s say it took him 4 years to finish his undergrad and law school and pass the bar, which is pretty quick for a guy working full time in a law firm and taking online classes at night. And that was at least two years before the show’s present (Chuck has been out of the office for 18 months and mentally ill for two years, and he didn’t show any signs of his illness in the scene where Jimmy tells him he passed the bar). So I imagine '96 is probably the latest that Jimmy could have left Cicero to come work in HHM’s mailroom.
How is the cough related to a heart attack? Or is it just a universal foreshadowing of death by any cause?
When Jimmy meets up with Marco he (Marco) says “I don’t see any color. I mean, ten years in the desert.”
I’m not sure if that was a heart attack. We may have on our hands the first case in the medical literature of death by pure plot device.
It wasn’t just the cough. It was a deliberate cough and thumping his chest. I think the idea was he was having chest pains and thought it was just bad heartburn.
Good catch. I figured '96 was the latest he could have left Cicero. '92 works, as well. 
I confess I totally missed the cough and was surprised Marco died.
Want to canvass you guys about something. Over at AV Club there is a big brouhaha in the comments section because a bunch of people are insisting that Jimmy’s “Kevin Costner” scam makes him a rapist. Not just that it’s sleazy, but that the woman only consented to sex with Costner, and thus it is full blown rape. I tend to disagree, but I found myself chagrined to be lumped in with some kind of skeezy, MRA types who used misogynistic verbiage in their arguments. No one “decent” seemed to be arguing in Jimmy’s favor. Yet at the same time, I don’t see any professional critics, or anyone at all in any other comments sections (including this one) calling Jimmy out for this at all.
So is it a completely bogus allegation? Or has the all-pervasive rape culture just kept it from occurring to most of us (including, it would appear, the BCS writing staff)?
I wouldn’t call lying about who you are to a willing sex partner “rape”. It’s certainly asshole conman behavior though, which is who Jimmy is. Of course, I’m not a lawyer. But I think consent was given, she just regretted giving it.
But was it really a lie? Remember, as we know, Jimmy/Saul only managed to trick her into thinking that he was Kevin Costner because he himself believed it.