Hamlin, Kim, and Jimmy are experienced enough to be aware that there is no need to take a first offer. A 2nd, and probably 3rd offer is coming. Both sides know there is already enough evidence to convince a jury to find for the old folks. The only question is how generous the jury will be.
Hamlin hates Jimmy. Period. Probably wishes he never met Jimmy. (At this point in time, he might be thinking the same thing about Chuck?) However, Hamlin’s primary concern would be increasing HHM’s profits from the Sandpiper settlement. In the real world, an agreement may not be reached until a jury is actually selected.
Also in the real world, old people die before a case gets to a jury.
If Irene demands that they settle (for whatever reason), HHM would be hard pressed to change her mind, and HHM can’t proceed without a client.
Well, more to the point Hamlin thinks they can run up the tab considerably if they play the waiting game and keep up the pressure on Sandpiper. Screwing Jimmy is just a nice fringe benefit, but for Howard the company always comes first.
I am curious just how much extra they can squeeze out of Sandpiper and how long it would take. Jimmy is pretty much on the fine edge of going “full Saul” here, but the one saving grace(in terms of self-justification for doing a truly shitty thing)is he might be right. Those folks may not all live long enough to benefit from a larger settlement five years down the road.
Yeah if anything I was a bit relieved when she managed to stand up out of the car at the end. Could’ve been a lot worse. Obviously things break up between her and Jimmy, but I’m still holding out hope that they somehow reconnect in Omaha instead of her dying.
I think Hamlin is my favorite character in this show. He started off looking like a stock character, a ‘douchebag former boss who tries to keep our hero down’ but turns into a very interesting character with realistic motivations, and actually liked the protagonist. It’s really interesting seeing him without his game face on, other than the outburst at Kim way back in S1 he’s been very much in control of his outward emotions. Kim got him to break down last episode, and this episode Chuck finally forced him to take the gloves off, and his general frustration spilled over to Jimmy. I don’t think he actually hates Jimmy, I think he just no longer likes him or feels a need to be diplomatic. (I think for it to rise to hatred he’d need to have a desire to hurt Jimmy, but I think he just wants Jimmy to STFU and leave him alone).
Also, “That’s not what OK looks like, Chuck,” wins the ‘line of the episode’ prize.
I think money can make a lot of people forgive all kinds of things. What would be sad is if the old folks get paid and they still keep Irene out of their fold.
Both situations were expertly written, directed, and acted. The accident was absolutely brutal, given what we know of Kim’s hopes and the hard work she’d put into getting that job–and Jimmy’s blithe self-absorption in the lead-up scene made it all the more wrenching.
A commercial for the same network’s Fear the Walking Dead came on just afterward, and the contrast between the carefully-crafted BCS and the rather less well-crafted WD franchise was wildly incongruous.
Carefully-crafted indeed. I was really impressed at Irene’s old walking shoes - a thin-soled leather low-rise that wouldn’t be at all comfortable. They look like real shoes that old people really wear. A nice real-life touch.
I expect that he planned to return all the unneeded pairs (and that he must have had some room left on a credit card, in order to buy them in the first place).
One of the storefronts in the mall power walking scene had a large “Crazy 8” sign. Framed in directly behind Jimmy at the start of the scene as he walks up the stairs.
I’m still scratching my head over a few aspects of this episode.
Irene’s bingo prize appeared to be a Post-It note dispenser shaped like a cat. Is that all? A cheap little trinket seems like a pitiful little prize for a bingo win in a bingo hall of that size.
Why was Hector so angry that the ‘friend by the pool’ (Don Eladio) wanted for ‘The Chilean’ (Gus) to continue to transport Hector’s product? I thought that’s what he wanted? The reason Hector made an unannounced visit to Los Pollos Hermanos?
The airbag deployments on Kim’s car seemed unrealistic. Those bags deflate much more quickly in real life.
Poor Kim, wish she would have hired Ernie to drive her to the meeting with Billy Gatwood. Kim had no business being behind the wheel for the more than 3 hour drive to the TX-NM border.
At first it looked like she was crying right before the airbags engaged. Upon further review, I guess she wasn’t. Either way, brilliant job of editing that scene. Or “wonderful” or “amazing” as Vince Gilligan says way too often in the BCS Insider podcasts.
In the final scene, we see Kim’s car has come to rest against a fairly large boulder in the opposite lane of which it was traveling. Looks like the boulder has stopped her from completely going down the embankment, [along with the airbags] saving Kim’s life.
The scene ends with the camera pulling out a wide angle shot of Kim’s car.
So will the Season finale begin with a different shot of the scene? An oncoming car swerving left across the centerline to avoid Kim; and then oversteering back to the right to avoid another oncoming car, then down the embankment-- killing all aboard?
I liked “when everyone tells you you’re drunk, it’s time to sit down”.
On the time lapse before the accident, I just thought it was a little jarring because I don’t think they telegraphed her sleepiness or other condition that would have lead to driving off the road. But I guess that’s why it was so surprising- whenever someone is in an accident like that, they usually say “one moment I was driving and the next I was sitting in a ditch”.
Also, Francesca seems hesitant to drink the shot of rum. I wonder if Francesca is a recovering alcoholic, and this starts her down the road to Saul’s less than stellar secretary.
So much went on in the episode, not seen much comment about Lydia’s scene.
Re: airbags, I think it is director’s license to let the audience know what had happened.
They didn’t telegraph it in that episode until the last minute*, but they sure laid the groundwork this whole season. Kim has been shown getting progressively more and more burnt out. This was actually a pretty straightforward plot move, but as others have noted, skillfully executed.
I’m really glad she isn’t dead and I really hope she has become “too popular” to kill off. But…being popular didn’t save several characters in Breaking Bad from the axe hand of Vince Gilligan.
Actually I rather thought she was about to pull over and cry, overwhelmed by the overwork and stress. But the car crash was a bit more true to her character.
Yeah, that was a good one too - that and and the one I liked were both calling out Chuck on the “I’m fine” BS for a change, which no one other than Jimmy (who Chuck won’t believe) has been willing to do. Chuck really doesn’t realize that he’s gone crazy beyond the “EM Allergy” thing, he’s acting more and more unhinged and is completely unaware of how nutty holding a lamp to his head and saying “I’m fine” is. And I’m pretty sure that committing the firm to go to war with an insurer is something that is supposed to require a vote by all of the partners, plus it was clear that he was just deciding to go to war, he didn’t have any idea whether the insurance company was actually doing anything illegal or what it was.
I think part of why Howard was so vicious to Jimmy is that he’s had to be diplomatic to everyone else in his life recently. He’s going out to do damage control with clients, having to come up with clever things to say, putting on the kids gloves for Chuck, and never doing anything but being charming Howard. When Jimmy came along and tried the sleazy sales pitch on Howard, he seemed to take it as an insult (like ‘you’re trying to con ME that way? I’ve lived telling people their best interest is my interest!’), then realized this is the one person he doesn’t have to be nice to at all right now and just let go. I’m not sure what he’s going to do in the finale, but I’ll bet good money that it’s not going to be pleasant for Chuck - Jimmy is like a dog that keeps nipping at your heels, annoying but not really dangerous, but Chuck is an attack dog biting the one thing that Howard’s been working to protect for his entire adult life.
They’ve shown that she doesn’t get enough sleep throughout the season with her little time lapse nap early on, Jimmy talking about her all-nighters, her losing track of days, and the like. When she was driving she had a bottle of no-doze in the car, then when Jimmy came in to celebrate she looked pretty ‘running on empty’, and Jimmy commented that she had obviously pulled an all-nighter (and she didn’t deny it). When she was in the car, she started to nod a little after she was done talking but before the accident, though it’s easy to miss on the first viewing.
Hector needed to use Gus’s network temporarily to move product after Mike robbed Hector’s usual truck. Hector enjoyed ‘forcing’ Gus to do it since he likes throwing his weight around, and would have had cash flow problems if he hadn’t. But his plan was to set up another pipeline (using Nacho’s dad’s shop), because he wants to be in charge of his own operation and not dependent on Gus. Being reliant on the contemptible Chilean was rather obviously not what he was planning, and this also raises Gus’s absolute and especially relative status immensely. That’s why Gus was so happy when Hector ‘forced’ him to carry product, he was confident this would happen and is part of his long-term plan.
Did airbags from around 2000 deflate that quickly? I don’t know if that’s a function of the time period or if they just decided to do it wrong. I liked the touch that her face was brutalized by the air bag. I had a friend who had a mild collision where she bumped a guardrail at low speed because of a problem with brakes, and the airbag deployed. There was no real injury and only superficial damage to the car, but she looked awful, with several cuts from her glasses and lots of bruising.
Jimmy had paid for the commercial time already, so when he ‘broke even’ with the $6500 from the music store twins he ended up with something like $4500 in his pocket, plus got another quick $700 from the mug mealer. He also might have sold the guitar for money after enjoying it for a bit, if it’s actually signed (not just the ‘signature’ line) it’s probably work another chunk of change. He paid some to Kim to cover his half of the office for the next little bit, but I don’t think he used up all of the cash. Also he still has credit cards, and the limits were probably established back on his Davis and Main salary. So he’s got some money, and can probably return all of the other boxes of shoes to get his money back on them.