I was starting to think Bob Odenkirk wasn’t quite as good an actor as I had been thinking in previous episodes, at least not when it comes to convincingly portraying a man who is at the end of his rope and breaking down crying. But then it turned out to be a scam! Great acting indeed, as it turns out.
OMG, I had no idea! How did he convince these news shows to let him on?
I’m pretty sure that he’s actually a comedian and the clueless persona and lack of any actual yoyo skills are his shtick.
Sure, I get that; but it doesn’t seem likely the news stations were in on the joke.
I really like that this show is being built in ‘season’ form, so they don’t feel like they need to make each episode really start and end. There’s plenty happening, but they have time to let it develop.
I liked that this time Jimmy’s clever schemes aren’t panning out, it’s fun watching him scam away but it’s also realistic that his mostly-legit desperate business idea isn’t really working. We can see that he really doesn’t have good financial planning skills and just tends to spend money until he runs out. I also expect him to go back to scamming people for money, conning some guy out of $5k would make a huge difference to his life right now. The ‘breakdown’ at the insurance office was really good, and shows some outright meanness from Jimmy that we haven’t really seen before, and the ‘we could make it zero’ line also points to him become harder.
The Chuck situation is putting huge strain on his and Kim’s relationship and I think that his all-out assault on Chuck is not going to sit well with her. Couple that with the casual way he lies to her about major issues, the fact he’s likely to pull some scams for money, and we’ve got the beginning of the end of that partnership.
I like that Mike is getting involved in the Nacho deal for his own reasons. I suspect that he’s going to use this to get in a better position with Gus, though I don’t know if he’s going to tell Gus beforehand. Mike’s cash stash is a nice contrast with Jimmy’s empty wallet, it really highlights how different the two characters are in terms of planning and caution. Also makes the fact that Jimmy got away with money in BB while Mike lost all of his more ironic. Hummer guy really did learn from his experience, though he’s not street smart enough to dissemble to Nacho about the pills until he talks to Mike, and I like the way they brought him back into the story line.
I think the Chuck attack is qualitatively different than anything we’ve seen him do before. Conning drunk people and jerks out of money isn’t that bad, bending ethical rules to help clients is arguably moral, pooping in a sunroof is just immature, even the Chuck forgery was supposed to be a minor incident that didn’t really hurt anyone, and the defense after was self-preservation. But the ‘breakdown’ was intended solely to hurt Chuck, there’s nothing playful or one-upping about it, Jimmy (probably) doesn’t gain anything directly from it, and the smirk says it’s coldly calculated. (For clarification; I’m not saying none of those things should be crimes or that they’re OK, just that they’re much lower level than what we saw last night).
I think the video production is supposed to be a desperate scheme Jimmy cooked up on the fly, it’s not supposed to be all that sensible. It doesn’t really seem to actually be working for him, and I think story-wise it works really well even if the logistcs wouldn’t work IRL.
I think they felt sorry for him. Kenny Strasberg is a stage name. The stories of his strained relationship with his father and not actually being very good at yoyoing were all part of the schtick.
Nope, but they were all looking for local stories to broaden their audience appeal. It worked.
Yay! Squat cobbler guy is back!!
If you dial the number 505–842–5662 you hear Saul’s voicemail. Be sure to leave a message!
What happens if you leave a message? My phone died at exactly the wrong moment.
I don’t get Kim’s conscience pangs. Chuck wasn’t even harmed in court, just embarrassed. Only a schmuck would roll over because of his mental illness.
I think that Kim would agree that it had to be done. She just didn’t like that the client was making fun of Chuck. They had to do a shitty thing but it was a shitty thing.
Actually, leaving a message does nothing. Sorry about that - don’t know why I ended the post that way.
IMHO, being a corporate lawyer, Kim isn’t used to the less genteel aspects of law. She deals with capitalization ratios and regulatory burdens, not people issues and family disputes. The law is clean, clear, concise, and painless in her experience… and now she’s beginning to see that Jimmy views it differently. In time, her issue with Jimmy might mirror Chuck’s - that Jimmy isn’t “good” enough to be a lawyer.
Who knows? Maybe they did him a favour. By forcing him to realize it’s a mental illness, which may be treatable, perhaps he’s finally seeking help. I mean, he did take that horribly painful walk to the cellphone.
Pay phone. That horribly painful walk to the payphone. FML
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80-90% of the time, I am a corporate lawyer doing basically similar work to Ms Wexler. The remainder of the time I do criminal and family work for people, often *pro bono *or for reduced fees.
You get far more pangs of conscience dealing with large cooperation than you do with even defending murderers or rapists. Its hardly clear, concise and painless, it has actual real world deletarious impacts for a lot of people.
Maybe. But the Mesa Verde client seemed to be making fun of the way Chuck speaks, that’s just an affectation of his “officer of the court” persona.
I assumed he changed his mind about the Nacho deal so he could get information about the woman from the grief support group’s husband. Not knowing the area, but I assume that Mike suspects that his disappearance had something to do with the drug trade going on in the territory that Nacho is in.
Because Chuck is mentally ill- and causing a mentally ill person to have a breakdown in open court, among the people he respects and whose respect he values above all else, feels like a crummy thing to do. She wishes she could have found a better way to defend Jimmy, or feels guilty that they didn’t look hard enough for another way. Whether they could have is a different issue.
Don’t forget she worked with Chuck for a long time, and probably still has some genuine feelings for him.
I find that to be childish in the extreme coming from a sharp and professional lawyer but OK. I like new Jimmy anyway (so far). Finally the story is moving beyond Chuck.
The disappearance of the woman’s husband was eight years ago, it would be a very long shot to be able to find information that would help find him. My take is that the possibility that the woman’s husband had been killed by Hector or his crew was enough to convince Mike that he had to finish the business with Hector.
Childish? She didn’t not do it. She just has a bit of humanity to feel bad about it.