Great episode.
I don’t think the lie about the street numbers regarding power will affect anything, it maybe just shows where Jimmy got the idea later. But also that was important because of Jimmy asking if Chuck really wanted to go through with the whole lie, since the bigger the lie the harder it is to keep going and worse it is when it falls apart. It’s the bigger theme for the whole series really.
Jimmy specifically said that it was Huell Babineaux who did it and was on the witness list.
I know, but I wrote that comment during the commercial right after that scene.
Watching this show by myself, I wanted to memento with people on it, during the show. I couldn’t wait to post.
Also, Chuck was remarkably nonchalant when Jimmy pulled out the pictures of Chuck’s house. Either Chuck was expecting something like that and determined not to be ruffled or he didn’t think anything was wrong with those pictures. I would have thought Chuck would have tried to get those pictures thrown out since they weren’t exactly collected legally, but I guess Chuck was so confident in his rightness he wasn’t bothered by the pictures.
Ok that makes sense.
Also regarding the cell phone/battery trick, what would a bar association think of a trick like that? I’m guessing it’d be frowned upon, but that Chuck’s outburst glossed over that.
It was the same actor, Lavell Crawford.
I wonder if turning on his brother to protect himself from the results of his own misdeeds really is the final breaking point where he surrenders to the dark side.
We all keep talking about Jimmy and Kim and wondering what causes her to apparently be out of his life by the time of BB.
Maybe at some point Jimmy will turn on Kim to protect himself and that will be the breaking point.
Then again, it’s probably more of a long slow slide than a single incident.
He’s been sitting in that motel room so long he nearly starved to death. (Yes, I know this is before that. It’s a joke, son!)
This episode kind of fell flat for me. We all knew that Jimmy would turn Chuck’s illness against him and it was widely speculated that there would be some sort of trick to show that it was a mental illness and not real. The acting was great as always but there were no surprises.
It was predictable. We pretty much nailed it here. But I still found it entertaining.
See, I thought it was him when I saw it (though he was thinner) and immediately went to his IMDB page and Better Call Saul isn’t listed on his page, so assumed they couldn’t get him for some reason.
That’s the problem with the internet - too many intelligent people speculating intelligently can unravel a lot of puzzles ;).
It was quite predictable, I probably could have guessed at 80-90% of the plot of the episode. But I loved it anyway and was riveted despite knowing where they were heading. For me it was all about the performances. I’m the sort of guy who usually isn’t bothered much by spoilers - it isn’t always so much the surprise that entertains me ( though that certainly can be very entertaining ), but the execution.
Frankly I hope Michael McKean gets at least an Emmy nomination out of this episode. He was superb and made this episode shine. Superbly oily and unctuous, superbly petty, superbly nuts, superbly pathetic and superbly sad. Huell showing up was just a happy bonus :).
This episode gets an “A” from me.
Another quality scene with the veterinarian. 90% of the vet’s concern was over an animal that Jimmy clearly didn’t have for any purpose other than as an excuse to go to see the vet. Fan-tastic stuff!
As soon as he said “do you need him to fit in a tight space” was there any BB fan who didn’t know that we were going to see Huel?
I share your puzzlement how making Chuck look crazy wrt the tape would necessarily get Jimmy a pass from the bar board, but for a different reason.
If the felony (‘allegedly’) admitted to on the tape, Mesa Verde fraund/scam, was the one the board would use to disbar Jimmy, it might in fact help to show Chuck is a lunatic, to justify a claim that Jimmy was just humoring him. But that’s not the felony in question, but rather Jimmy breaking in, witnessed by others and now admitted in writing by Jimmy in the Pre-Prosecution Diversion settlement. IOW I don’t see so far how Chuck’s plan has been derailed. That plan was always to induce Jimmy to commit some kind of breaking/entering crime in front of witnesses (reason for 24/7 PI, though Howard also happened to be there when it happened), which he did and now has admitted to. There’s no clear reason AFAICT for the bar board to ignore that documented plea of guilty and not disbar Jimmy just because Chuck was nutty in provoking Jimmy to commit that felony.
But then again there’s probably another angle I haven’t figured, there usually is.
Interesting note for people who don’t use closed captions: In all of the Chuck episodes, the captions call out ‘electricity buzzing’ when they zoom in on electrical devices.
I love that the vet really is mostly concerned about the animals that his criminal contacts bring in as a pretext. I knew Huel was the guy when he talked about tight spaces. FYI, it is the same actor, he’s just lost a lot of weight since his BB days. They will probably have to fat suit him for future scenes, especially if they jump to BB time.
I feel like they went a different way with Jimmy’s defense than I expected - while he does portray Chuck as crazy a bit, his defense really centers on “Jimmy cares about Chuck and Chuck hates Jimmy”. I thought there would be much more of a point-by-point detailing of what Jimmy has done for Chuck (especially giving up the medical power of attorney). I liked the performance, though I wonder how the bar will feel about the battery trick. It is interesting that Jimmy did it entirely above board, even called the guy who did it as a witness.
While dragging Rebecca in definitely rattled Chuck, I don’t think it was an entirely self-serving move. Remember when Jimmy was waiting for the police and told dejectedly Chuck that he was going to die alone hooked up to painful electronic machines? I think by exposing Chuck’s condition to Rebecca, he’s made it so that Chuck can’t keep things secret from her, which means she’ll be set up as the relative to take over his care if Chuck is incapacitated. I think Jimmy is writing off his connection to Chuck in this last bitter battle, but did one more thing to help her out.
Hamlin was great in this episode too. I think his comment about how his job includes protecting the reputation of the firm portend that he feels Chuck is a liability to the firm now, and we’re going to see Chuck pushed to retire or actively bought out. The line “He went to work for Davis and Main, I could talk about that if you like” was pretty funny, and seems to fit him - he knows it’s not going to be allowed, but it lets him bite back after getting brutalized by Kim’s questions.
Perhaps Kim’s career and social status will be destroyed by her association with Jimmy. That would turn Jimmy against the establishment. Chuck’s soliloquy on the majesty of the law may set this up.
Crane
If you listen to the State Bar’s case at the hearing, a key part of their argument for disbarment is that Jimmy broke in to destroy evidence in an investigation, which is a big deal for a lawyer. If he didn’t actually destroy evidence in an investigation, then one of their key points isn’t proven. Breaking through his brother’s door in a fit of anger over a long-running feud between the brothers isn’t an offense that shows he shouldn’t be allowed to practice law, it’s a family matter not misconduct related to legal matters. Also, it was clear that calling what Jimmy did a felony was an unusually high charge, and that most felt it should have been charged as a misdemeanor. So what Jimmy confessed to isn’t really felonious conduct in the first place, so on it’s own wouldn’t result in him being disbarred. Chuck’s plan was specifically to get the confession in, and to show that Jimmy’s B&E was not just a family dispute but him trying to cover up a crime.
You could see the Captain Queeg moment coming from afar (or was it A Few Good Men?), but it was fun to see what was going to set Chuck off.
I heard the question as “do you have to have it have to fit in a small space” as referring to the battery; I didn’t think about “it” being “him”. Either way it works.
Speaking of works, do batteries emit electrical noise when they’re not connected to anything? I thought it was going to be a small voice recorder or MP3 player.
I agree with Tamerlane that Michael McKean deserves recognition for his acting here. His acting through a whole range of emotions made me as a viewer first angry at him then sorry for him. If Bogart can get an Oscar nomination, McKean should get an Emmy nomination.
I loved this episode. Like a couple others said, even without any real shocking twist, it was riveting television. But then, I’ve long said I’d be totally fine with Gilligan just announcing this is an alternate reality, and having the show chug along indefinitely as a legal drama, with a blend of ongoing serialized stuff and COTW, with Mike (and Gus, and Nacho, and Hector) kept relatively sidelined. I realize this opinion is antithetical to many fans of the show!
Well done!
I’m no expert, but I was briefly an electrical engineering major years ago, and I agree with this nitpick. It would have been better for it to be an already-on cell phone (they made really small ones then, before people always needed a certain amount of size for the screen).
Phew, glad to hear it–because I was gonna say, I thought it did look like the same actor…but I fretted this might mark me as someone who can’t tell black actors apart! :o
This may have been satisfactorily addressed upthread. But although IANAL, my two cents:
It sounds to me like it’s not an automatic thing, “confessed to a felony, therefore disbarred”. They take into account whatever extenuating circumstances there might be.
It does however seem like Jimmy would get at least a suspension, like 90 days maybe? He could work as a paralegal in the meantime (there’s an indefinitely suspended attorney in my city that does this, although of course everyone assumes that behind the scenes he’s doing more work on the cases than a normal paralegal would).
Jimmy said he only confessed to put Chuck at ease, then he showed how deep Chuck’s “allergy” truly goes, and how Chuck is actually suffering from a mental illness.
Seems quite clear to me - he was trying to keep his very sick brother from getting even sicker.
Absolutely. He should have already gotten one for the series, but if he doesn’t get one for this then either he or Vince Gilligan must have run over somebody’s cat or something.
The “does he need to fit into a tight space?” and knowing who he had in mind was the second time I had a “Squeeeee!” moment yesterday (the first being when Bette Midler’s Hello Dolly cast recording was released free online). Great to see him again and great to see the actor’s lost weight.
The callback of Rebecca makes me think we’re going to see a callback of the pissed off Air Force officer as well, or at least learn exactly what it was about him that made Jimmy break bad in that scene. (That’s the most openly hostile and unhinged we’ve seen him other than perhaps the break-in scene.)
Whether Chuck is investigated or not, and knowing nothing of Bar Association rules I have no idea whether they could investigate his mental state after his meltdown when it wasn’t germane to his brother’s guilt, Jimmy has exposed him as mentally ill (did you notice how many times the phrase “mental illness”/“mentally ill” were used? They were definitely wanting to put it out there) and destroyed him in the eyes of his peers, who you know will gossip like schoolgirls about what they saw.
Loved Kim’s calling Hamlin the Younger on Hamlin… and Hamlin, and McGill being against nepotism. (If there’s a bigger bastion of nepotism than law firms this side of royal families I can’t think what it would be.)
Also loved that Chuck’s deliberate and oily compliments of his brother to show that he himself is a caring a loving big brother served to paint Jimmy, not Chuck, in the favorable light, especially when he hanged himself on his hubris and craziness and exposed the fact he is NOT a caring big brother but still a teenager with major league jealousy issues of the baby.