In terms of your points, I don’t think anyone has tried to claim that everything Howard has done has been good. But if we were keeping a scorecard of these things he looked a lot better than Kim or Saul in the end and has gone out of his way to repair what little harm he might have done to them.
Particularly since a lot of it was in a professional capacity. Again, not saying that excuses anything, but e.g. keeping quiet on why Jimmy wasn’t offered a job is defensible in a work context.
That isn’t Kim’s motivation, it’s just her rationalization for her true goal of being able to do her pro bono work full time while burning Howard at the same time (or for her to scam everyone and steal Saul’s Sandpiper money for herself, but that’s another story).
Saul says to her, “Yeah, I know you can help a lot of people, I get it but… Kim, doing this… it’s not you. You would not be okay with it. Not in the cold light of day.” She responds “Wouldn’t I?” with a wry smile. She turns around and shoots the two finger guns blowing the smoke from the barrels. That isn’t someone who is just trying to get the old folks their money a little quicker.
Howard didn’t steal Sanpiper from Jimmy, it got too big for Jimmy and Chuck to handle alone. Jimmy didn’t like that, but it wasn’t stolen. I mean, he was even working on it at Davis & Main. Nor did Howard steal Mesa Verde from Kim. In fact, she quit and then (unknowingly with Jimmy’s help) Kim stole Mesa Verde from HHM.
It looked like a panic room to me. The plastic bucket with the toilet seat lid was a nice touch.
No, the first part of that is not quite accurate. Chuck and Howard DID snake HHM from Kim. She quit HHM, but had reached an agreement to represent Mesa Verde exclusively with her own firm. Chuck and Howard then underhandedly (with a wink and a nod between the two of them) persuaded Mesa Verde that Kim was too inexperienced and got them to stick with HHM and drop Kim.
Now it is true that “stolen” is a mild exaggeration - they had just engaged in a bit of perfectly legal, if somewhat predatory, business practice to retain a client (that Kim had landed). But they did indeed screw over their own former protege who was going out on her own with no other clients to support her. It may not have been immoral, but it was certainly amoral.
No, that isn’t what happened. Jimmy told Kim that she should line up Mesa Verde to jump ship with her but she flatly refused. In fact, Jimmy suggested she steal Mesa Verde twice and she declines both times. So there was never any agreement between them.
It was only after she quit and she immediately overheard Howard place a call to Mesa Verde that she tried to convince them to come with her. She realizes belatedly that Jimmy was right. But HHM holding onto their own client (even if she brought them in in the first place) isn’t really screwing her over if only because she had never intended to take them with her.
IMHO pitching the client was amoral in a corporate sort of way . I’m not a fan of all-bottom-line business practices.
Oh, of course. As I’ve said before Kim and Jimmy are clearly far worse people than Howard. But this conversation is in the context of whether it is believable that Kim would want to burn Howard, not is she justified in doing so. She is not - anymore than someone insulting your mother is justification for you shooting them. But it is a believable motive for her to act like a scheming asshole.
Partially conceded - your memory is definitely better than mine. .
But looking it up it appears she only objected to Jimmy’s tactics - she always intended to try and keep Mesa Verde, she just wanted to be more above board and classy about it. Overhearing Howard kicks her into gear, because as you say Slippin’ Jimmy was right once again about how The Man will try and screw you.
She objected to all of it. If you’re referring to the part in the wiki (which IMHO is never a great place to go for a cite, but then neither is my memory) where it says “Kim replies that she needs to do things in a way that are right for her,” her dialog in that scene to Jimmy is “the whole point of this is for you to be your kind of lawyer and me to be mine,” meaning the above board and classy thing to do is to not steal a client. Knowing how much this show loves an extravagant plan and setting up games of mousetrap, if she had a plan to take Mesa Verde with her, we would have seen at least a glimpse of it.
Howard was not screwing over Kim because it was a purely defensive move on his part. The wiki saying Howard makes the call anticipating Kim’s intent to take Mesa Verde with her isn’t right because she had no such intent. It’s because Howard now knows she’s setting up shop (though divided) with Jimmy that makes him place the call. Had she just been moving to Schweikart & Cokely (ie, no Jimmy), like he at first thought, he never makes that call.
I will concede that Chuck was the main person who stole it. But when Jimmy agreed to bringing in HHM, he was under the impression that he’d be hired as the lead lawyer for it. (or at least co-lead.) Another case where Howard should have been a better partner to Chuck and confronted him. Howard constantly gave in to Chuck, which wasn’t healthy for anyone.
He didn’t steal it. No one stole it. Jimmy says he’ll burn it to the ground before he gives it to Howard and Howard says ok. He lets Jimmy walk.
He was obviously under the impression that he would be hired and continue on the case, but that meeting in the boardroom where it all blew up was where they were supposed to hash out those particulars. There was no deal yet. Jimmy might have had reason to assume — even good reason — that he’d be welcomed in, but it was never a settled matter. Jimmy hated doing it, but he handed the case over to HHM willingly.
Just finished bingeing the half-season last night, so haven’t been following this thread in real time. I tried to read through, but might have missed some posts so my comments might not be original.
We now know for certain that Nacho is dead by the time of BB. I am fairly certain that Lalo will also be dead, and Hector will know it for certain - Gus tormented Hector in BB as the Salamancas were killed off one by one until Hector was the last one alive. He certainly would make sure that Lalo is dead.
However, Lalo’s death occurs without Jimmy’s knowledge since he speaks of Lalo in the present tense in BB - so however Jimmy and Kim escape from Lalo, Lalo survives to be killed later (presumably by the Chekhov’s gun Gus planted in the lab).
Don’t forget that from Jimmy’s POV, Lalo has cheated the grave once already.
So there are certainly scenarios where Lalo’s death is known to Jimmy, but Jimmy remains scared that he’s still out there.
I don’t think this is the way they’ll go (Gus must be 100% convinced as you say. And if Gus knows then we, the audience, will likely know. In which case it gets boring seeing Jimmy afraid of a threat we know is not there). I’m just saying it’s another possibility.
Every time Lalo calls the nursing home, he starts talking in Spanish, the receptionist says something like “sorry, I don’t speak Spanish, let me get you someone who does” and Lalo switches to English.
I mean, by now he has to know that the receptionist is not a Spanish speaker. Is this some sort of code and she is in on it?
Its way to conspicuous to be just filming accident or re-use of footage.
It might not always be the same receptionist, and he probably wants to know if the person who may be listening in speaks Spanish or not. If they do speak Spanish, he’ll either be more circumspect or not talk to Hector at all.
. I’m not a fan of all-bottom-line business practices.