I’m confused. Where was this? This episode? This series? I watched this off a torrent and there was a previously on, and a trailer for the next chunk of episodes. Not sure where that black and white thing fitted in. I can’t recall seeing it.
That wasn’t a scene from the episode. It was the promo for the final half of the season.
And this is just one example of why I’m complaining about all the mystery and complication: I suspected, and now am sure, that it was put there by the writers as a way to misdirect and confuse us into thinking it was all important, but there was just too much of it for us to follow clearly. So we ended up discussing and arguing about stuff that turned out to be irrelevant in the end. Trickery, in other words, to cover up the weaknesses and failures in the crafting of the plot.
They didn’t know how long Howard was going to look at the photos. If had picked up on the broken arm, he wouldn’t have accused the judge at the meeting.
Does anyone remember how the photos were switched? I’m technically at work right now, but it’s bothering me, as the whole thing fails hard if Howard puts the photos in his briefcase and goes to the meeting.
So why was it so crucial that Jimmy look like Howard when he was driving the hooker in his car 100 feet away from Cliff Main? Main never saw Jimmy inside the car at all, and one guy inside a car from 100 feet away looks like any other guy from behind? But a tremendous big deal was spun about Jimmy’s disguise in several ways that would never show up at that distance, from that angle: the tooth-whitening, the exact shirt, all that stuff. Misdirection–of us, not of Main.
We get it. This plot is not for you.
No, there’s a lot I enjoy about BCS–the acting, the photography, the overall story arc. But the plotting is very disappointing. Writers need to play fair with their audience, and I feel (more strongly as the season goes on) that these writers are taking advantage of all the slack the audience is willing to cut them in all this misdirected pseudo-intrigue. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was one of the points they were shooting for–“Don’t be so gullible” or “Demand more coherence” being two lessons that they may be trying to drive home.
There’s a lot of plot holes here, not all pointed out by me, that they can’t ever resolve, but the time has passed when we care about those particular plot holes that at the time some people were saying “They’ll work it out beautifully in the end, wait and see.” Now that we’ve waited and seen, and they’ve come up short, some folks are dismissing my complaints as being all in the past, and no one cares anymore. Which is kind of my point–that’s how the writers get away with their shoddiness. Some viewers enjoy having been fucked with. I don’t.
Yep, Roger that.
I think in terms of the Howard make up, I think it was thrown in there as a fun thing, despite the overall plan being dark.
In that, we all found it fun when Jimmy impersonated Howard for the billboard ad. So I think it was supposed to be similarly fun to have Jimmy dressing up this time, even if it wasn’t necessary for the plan.
It didn’t work for me, but some of my friends found it amusing.
Up to about this point, people were thinking that Jimmy and Kimmy’s complicated scheme was intricately planned, every detail anticipated, every bit of to-the-second plotting necessary, etc. But if it turns out that Jimmy didn’t need his teeth whitened at all, or he could have just parked the Jaguar in a different spot and Howard (assuming he noticed “Hey, that’s not where i parked”) would have wondered what was going on, which was what they wanted him to think anyway, and on and on, we were getting jerked around over nothing, trying to guess what it was all about. I expected to take more pleasure seeing how all this intrigue was actually brilliant planning that I couldn’t quite follow as it was happening. As it stands, I’m just feeling there was no need to try to understand all these twists and turns because they weren’t actually significant.
I have to agree that the convolutedness of the Plan made no sense. The whole car/prostitute thing was pretty dumb. Though I think it tied into what Howard said at the end - they did it for fun. Because they are terrible people who get off on zany schemes to make Howard look like a druggie who goes to prostitutes.
I also wonder if that Howard monologue was meant for the audience. Some of whom likely were cheering the terrible Jimmy and Kim screwing up Howard’s life. I remember when David Chase was a bit shocked that Sopranos viewers rooted for Tony, so he deliberately made him do some more terrible things in the last season to drive home the point that this isn’t a good guy.
Take all the time-pressure schtick in picking Wendy up, not letting her buy a root beer, etc.–turns out that if Jimmy had allowed a few extra minutes in their schedule, he could have let Wendy buy three root beers. The Jaguar was just waiting around for Kim to signal “Go” anyway, and she was sitting with Cliff Main for about an hour having lunch, so the timing didn’t matter at all. But at the time, we felt that it did matter, a lot, and we just didn’t know enough to understand why Jimmy felt he had to bribe Wendy to leave the root beer machine immediately.
He had to hurry to get the car back. It’s one thing if Howard maybe notices his car is askew. It’s another thing if his car is missing and he calls the cops to report it stolen.
I think Howard ran off to the meeting while the PI was still in the office so he could switch envelopes.
The plan didn’t need to work in court. They don’t care who finds out after the fact. The plan was to get Sandpiper settled and it worked. As long as there’s no evidence of a crime (drugging Howard is the only one I can think of, and they got those pictures back so there’s no evidence left), it’s just Howard’s word against theirs. Like they said in the first episode, it just has to pass the sniff test, not fool cops or a jury.
I’m reasonably sure Cliff Main will conclude that Howard was right, but won’t be able to do anything about it. I hope he doesn’t die but now that I think about it, he might be on the chopping block too. He wasn’t in Breaking Bad and basically everyone who wasn’t is a potential death this season.
Yeah, me too, but it gets the point across that it’s bugged, so it works in a dramatic sense. But also, I can imagine someone like Mike using old technology, and since they’re not police and have to install it covertly (or with the help of a nursing home employee), using outdated technology is plausible. At least they didn’t use the “keep him on the line five minutes so we have time to track the call” trope.
There’s no real reason for him to show up in Breaking Bad. It’s not like we saw everyone Saul knew in the show, just his criminal contacts. Plus, doesn’t he work in Santa Fe?
Cliff Main does know how much of a pain of the ass Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman IS due to Jimmy’s actions during his short stint working at the Davis & Main law firm. He knows Jimmy orchestrated his firing from the firm so he can could keep his “bonus” so he is aware how manipulative Jimmy can be.
So I am sure he thinks it is possible Howard was right but Cliff wanted to settle for the sake of the clients.
And he probably won’t go after Jimmy/Saul because he does NOT have any hard evidence Jimmy/Saul actually did anything wrong.
That’s true, but the same things were said about Chuck, Nacho, Howard, etc. I’m not saying Cliff will die, but I am saying it’s a real possibility. He’s been a pretty big part of this season too, which could be foreshadowing a dark end. And his line about his drug addicted son wasn’t just a throwaway. I think we’ll come back to Cliff before the season is over, even if the Howard/Sandpiper/HHM story line is done.
And yes, just because I think Cliff will eventually believe what Howard told him, I don’t think that changes anything with Sandpiper, and I doubt he’ll go after Jimmy. But he might get curious enough to go snooping around where he shouldn’t be, and possibly end up in another one of those wrong place/wrong time situations.
I could see Cliff’s son overdosing on Walter’s product
You’re missing my point. All the time pressure is at the beginning of the car-theft thing. Kim has lunch with Main, so she’s sitting with him for an hour or so. Howard is going to be in therapy for almost all that time, so unless Kim screwed up scheduling her lunch or arranged to have it take place far away from Howard’s therapy there’s plenty of time for Jimmy to drive up, throw Wendy out of the car, and return the car. Jimmy’s frantic tone with Wendy suggests that any deviation–a need to pee, a detour in the route, a flat tire ANYTHING–messes up the plan, which we can now see, it very well might not. We just didn’t have enough information to see it when it happening. In retrospect, the panic was an artificial element, gratuitous and manipulative on the writers’ part.