Better Call Saul - Finale

Cafe Society
101

Just releasing that tape to Mesa Verde destroys Kim’s career.

And their relationship.

Mesa Verde runs from putting their portfolios in the crazy and finds new non-Kim non-HHM representation. Kim is tarred among future prospective clients. Moves to another state.

Destroying Kim will hurt Jimmy and is to Chuck a win. Hurts HHM’s rep too? He cares little.

Without Kim to anchor him Jimmy let’s his slippin’ side loose.

It was pretty obvious that Chuck was setting up Jimmy to confess … but I was expecting Howard to be behind some of that Mylar and to step out as Jimmy was leaving, “No need to call me Jimmy …”

102

Nevermind. After listening to the podcast, they did want it to be the same place, but when they re-scouted the location, it had been horribly vandalized and walls collapsed. Plus the surroundings were all flatland and scrub.

So they chose a different location.

103

Other than the Parking Demand Study, none of these documents have dates on them. I know that these are simply props, and not legally binding, but IRL, shouldn’t there have been dates on them?

FWIW, it would seem that the PDS would confirm that the show takes place in 2002, as has been questioned in previous threads.

104

Chuck isn’t a cartoon villain trying to destroy the protagonist just because that’s what the villain is supposed to do. He doesn’t want Jimmy to be a lawyer because of how Jimmy can cut corners and how that could hurt people. Chuck might inadvertently hurt Kim, but I don’t think he would set out to do that. He wouldn’t purposely hurt Kim and think of that as a win; he would try to get the truth known about Jimmy, and Kim might be hurt in the fallout, but that would be an unfortunate byproduct to Chuck. And Chuck might hurt HHM’s reputation because he thinks the truth is more important, but Howard wouldn’t help him do that.

I read an article somewhere that said that Kim isn’t the Skyler White of BCS, but Chuck is instead, and that makes some sense to me. Not as the love interest, but as the unwitting antagonist trying to stop the main character’s fun. I like how it’s done, it’s not just that Chuck is a buzzkill (although that’s part of it), but of the kind of lawyer and person that he is. I like how Chuck and all the characters are written on the show.

105

My prediction is definitely that Howard decides that Chuck is more of a liability than an asset to HHM as this debacle gets worse and ends up wanting Chuck out. I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually goes in on some underhanded scheme with Jimmy if it can result in a clean break without the firm collapsing.

I don’t agree. Mesa Verde already considers Chuck unreliable after his transcription error and vulgar display of crazy arrogance at the hearing, and Kim has someone on the inside pulling for her. A tape from an unreliable witness isn’t going to make them want to restart their law search from scratch without at least asking questions, and at that point Kim will simply be completely and forthrightly honest about Baked Potato Chuck’s behavior, including his persecution of Jimmy in spite of all that Jimmy does for him, while explaining that Jimmy ‘confessed’ purely to try to snap his brother out of the crazy zone, and let them draw their own conclusions about it’s veracity.

I think it’s much more likely that scenario ends with MV seeing Chuck as a raving lunatic who’s only at HHM because he owns 1/3 of it and can’t accept that they went to another firm, and admire her professional restraint in trying to win the account on her own merits instead of torpedoing HHM by revealing what she knows about the senior partner’s mental stability and personal life. She could certainly have torpedoed HHM earlier by telling them about the foil suit and that normally there’s a ‘place your cell phones and watches in the box’ phase of a meeting with Chuck.

And this is the sort of thing that would push Kim to push Jimmy to get Chuck committed so he’ll stop trying to sabotage the two of them.

106

Actually there are two documents with dates.

The image labeled “Neighborhood Contact Map” has a date of 3-11-02 and the “Parking Demand Study”, as you say, has a date of October 2002. I’m not sure what to make of the 7 month difference.

107

I’m surprised that some people didn’t like this episode. I thought it was absolutely riveting (as mentioned earlier).
One speculation: if Kim does end up getting called into an actual situation where she might be required to testify against Jimmy, might that prompt them to get married, so she would have spousal privilege?

108

I found Betsy Kettleman interesting.

http://superstardetails.com/Celebrityimg//wp-content/gallery/julie-ann-emery/Julie-Ann-Emery-sexy-hot.jpeg

109

Spousal privilege only covers communications made during the marriage, not before (as Adriana learned to her dismay onThe Sopranos).

110

I agree that Chuck himself doesn’t believe that he’d deliberately set out to harm Kim. But on some level, I would guess, Chuck is thinking ‘I lost my love; now it’s your turn to lose yours, Jimmy.’

In other words: yes, I think Chuck’s choices may include actions that will harm Kim, and that he is unconsciously interested in doing exactly that–because he knows how it will devastate Jimmy.

The showrunners have been masterful in giving us a character who genuinely believes he is motivated only by the highest of principles (respect for the legal profession, etc.)—but who is actually wildly, passionately vindictive. The fact that his implacable malice toward his brother is something he simply can’t let himself acknowledge or even glimpse, is at the root of his mental illness (manifesting as electromagnetic hypersensitivity).

111

Some interesting observations after the 2nd viewing - I half-watched it again while the wife caught up.

Didn’t put it together after the first viewing that it was the tape recorder that Chuck was fetching from the garage.

The superimposed shot of Kim’s smiling admiration while the commercial aired was foreboding…similar to the impending disaster after the 1st commercial viewing. Also, the followup commercial for the garden weasel was obviously intentional.

The ER scene was exceptional…I wonder if they used real EMT folks? Never showed their faces.

“NO CAT SCAN…NO CAT SCAN!!!”

112

I certainly agree that it’s riveting in the moment - all the hospital scenes, Mike and the sniper rifle, etc… all had me on the edge of my seat. But in the end, nothing really happened. We’re in pretty much the same spot at the end of Season 2 that we were at the end of Season 1. It’s the story-telling equivalent version of blue balls.

113

Well we can’t have a single discussion in an SDMB thread about any episode of any show ever made without at least one person complaining that “nothing happened!” So it’s good you made our quota.

114

I tend to disagree. Chuck didn’t go out of his way to screw Jimmy over initially; it was the other way around. (And no matter how you slice it, causing HHM to lose MV at Chuck’s hands was exactly that.) He’s getting his own back, as he sees it. If he proves that Jimmy did it, he also proves to Howard and MV that he didn’t make a mistake, and may even believe that he can recover MV’s business. And if he proves it, he finally gets to see justice done to Slippin’ Jimmy.

His animosity is certainly shown by the Mom flashback, but it’s not all black and white. As a matter of fact, none of Gilligan’s main characters are ever that way. He specializes in grey areas.

115

But you’re forgetting the original initially - Chuck torpedoing Jimmy at HHM in season 1 because Jimmy with a law degree is like a “monkey with a machine-gun” ;). We don’t have the full story of their childhood, but it seems to read like irresponsible but good-hearted Jimmy cheerfully screwing over many while charming the pants off them. And the latter has always struck in Chuck’s craw, even though there is no evidence Jimmy ever harassed his brother in earlier years. More it seems like he hero-worshipped him just a tad ( while maybe simultaneously thinking he was a square ).

116

Yeah, as soon as I saw all the appliances in the garage, I said, “He’s getting a tape recorder.” As wily as Jimmy is supposed to be, I thought it out of character that he didn’t see that coming. Unless he has some other way of dealing with it. But I thought the admission a gross blunder.

117

No question. But he also specializes in characters who are self-deluded, who think that the harms they cause are incidental and in service of a greater good (see Walt’s long standing self deception that what he was doing was for his family).

Chuck is written as someone who as Sherrerd points out, can fool himself that his motives are noble, “the truth”, “the sanctity of the law”, so on, while in fact being motivated by resentment that irresponsible undeserving Jimmy was always the favored child on the pedestal unto his mother’s dying breath. He can fool himself that the harm that he causes to Jimmy and to others is just unavoidable in service of “truth” and “respect for the law” … but he is written such that we see that the harms are more the goal and the noble merely props to be used as self-justification, fairly early on.

At some point we will learn more about what happened with his wife and how his “sensitivity” developed. One suspects he blames Jimmy for whatever happened with his wife as well.

118

Indeed, I think Chuck is one of the most truly human characters on TV today.

There’s no reason to think Chuck’s desire to torpedo Jimmy necessarily comes from one place. People don’t work that way. Chuck resents Jimmy for things that aren’t his fault, he resents him for things that ARE his fault, and he knows that Jimmy is, in fact, a liar and a cheat. He has kept Jimmy close to him because Jimmy is his brother, and he loves him, even though he hates him. That’s how real relationships are; they are a multitude of conflicting threads that connect us. Chuck believes himself to be a righteous person, and in a lot of ways he is, and he is totally, 100% correct in his assessment of Jimmy’s character. Sherrerd’s assessment of Chuck is quite good, I think; he is truly a carrier of ethics, but he is boiling over with resentment and anger that will make him explode.

Jimmy, for that matter, is a great character for the same reasons; he’s a real human. The truth is he IS a liar and a cheat. Chuck is quite right about Jimmy, and we’ve been shown indisputable evidence that he is right. Jimmy is going to hurt Kim, which will be the show’s great tragedy because she is a good person and loves him. But he’s also likeable and decent and kind in a thousand ways. And he loves Chuck. He twice put himself in danger to help Chuck.

Chuck’s decision to fight to keep Mesa Verde doesn’t really have to be explained in any way except that he’s proud and legitimately a great lawyer and wanted his company to keep the client; I do not believe he had, at the time, any problem with Kim at all. If anything he probably harbors the honest opinion Kim is too good for Jimmy, which is probably true.

As to what happens with the tape, the problem with its being released is it would result in Jimmy being disbarred in New Mexico, upon which he cannot be Saul Goodman; you can’t avoid disbarment by using a pseudonym, and he is still a real lawyer in “Breaking Bad.” So whatever else happens it does not end up as evidence in a court.

Could Chuck use it, rather than going to a cop, simply to pry away Mesa Verde? Possibly, but how? We know it cannot be used to formally incriminate Jimmy, or if so the effort will fail. Does he bring it to Mesa Verde? I agree with the assessment that they would think him mad and would find the conversation irrelevant - if anything, it just makes HHM look even more like a bunch of chumps.

So I think he’ll go to Kim with it.

119

Chuck fighting to keep Mesa Verde is completely ethical, but it was self-evident in that scene that he only decided to personally intervene when he realized that she had moved to a joint practice or joint whatever with Jimmy.

120

I certainly expected more of this episode. It was a cliffhanger, but i guessed what it was from the start.

Then I got thinking: What if Chuck’s whole electro-hysteria is a set up that’s been running for years, just to catch Jimmy in some kind of screw-up. I would have laughed if after Jimmy confesses, Chuck throws off the Mylar, holds the tape recorder up high, and says, “I finally caught you a lie after all of these years”. Except then it would have been Chuck who was living a lie.

Just how long has he had his condition? The stuff in the garage didn’t appear to be coated in dust and dirt (like the junk in my garage). If the tape recorder had been there several years, I would expect the batteries to be shot. I’m pretty sure Chuck wasn’t quite up to changing batteries…