Perhaps. Actually, at the time (in BB) when Saul said it, he might have been thinking of Omaha / proximate to Kim as a place to relocate to. I had been thinking that Kim was going to use the Vacuum guy (and with Robert Forster’s death I thought Carol Burnett - famous for her ‘Cleaning Lady’ role) but we don’t know where Kim is either in the BCS timeline(s) or BB (of course).
So when Saul said the bit about Omaha to Walt it may not have been a random place. One might assume with all his funds that he’d choose somewhere else.
Short IRL answer of course is that it was a joke the producers made into a thing, because funny.
The long in-universe answer is it was either a.) the most God-forsaken place Saul could think of (less likely as the whole answer, but maybe part of the answer) and/or b.) he wistfully fantasizes about one day seeing Kim again and he either knows or dreams she might be there (probably the more likely half of the answer). We may get more detail laying all that out, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the writers just left that to be inferred.
I mean an Omaha mall is actually a pretty decent place to hide in plain sight. Medium-sized city of a half million, so big enough to pretend to be an anonymous drone but not so small (like, say, Beatrice, Nebraska) that a stranger might stand out. And not the sort of destination law enforcement is likely to allocate resources to specifically hunt for a flamboyant and wealthy character like Saul. People outside of Nebraska or other lightly populated adjacent states don’t generally visit Omaha as tourists. And it’s a small world and all, but for that reason the odds of meeting someone from Albuquerque who recognizes him are quite low. Not so low as to be wildly implausible, but low enough to be worth the risk.
But there are arguably equally good or even better places. I assume Kim is the main draw. Everything else just works out with it.
The point is not to look at the variety of human experience of “relief,” and the ways in which it can be manifested in fringe cases.
The point is what is shown onscreen when the intention is to show a particular response/emotion? When the writer(s) and director and actor want to convey a specific reaction from a character? When they want to communicate clearly to the audience ‘this is what just happened to this character and this is how he is taking it’?
And the answer to that is: what is shown is what will most clearly signal to the audience what the show-creators want signaled.
I had forgotten which movie contained the ‘template of the heist location’ scene and it drove me crazy for several days! I knew it was something I’d seen in the last six months or so, on TCM’s “Noir Alley” feature—so by going through the list of what they’ve shown recently, I was able to remember it was that French-language noir/heist flick.
Of course I don’t know for certain that the BCS creators were paying tribute to that movie–but it is a bit of a cult film for connoisseurs of the genre, so it seems quite possible.
And to many of us, it clearly signaled relief. It was obvious relief. It was the kind of relief I have personally experienced and it made perfect sense. It didn’t to you- clearly- but it’s not like your perspective is somehow more logical or the default one. When I think of relief I don’t think of smiles- that’s happiness or pride in success. When I think of relief I think of the cheating death type and the shaky type.
That’s rather prescriptive, don’t you think? Why must they show it according to one person’s assumptions about what is supposedly most clear to an audience? I’d say the majority of audiences get such nuances quite clearly, and even if they didn’t, why must the show be tailored to only certain mindsets anyway?
It’s not about one person’s assumptions. It’s about what conveys an emotion most clearly to the most people. Because that’s the choice the show-creators are going to make.
The ‘Jimmy was purely running a con, and felt no actual emotion during his distraction-outburst theory’ fans are hitting hard on the idea that ‘showing an anguished expression is the best way to convey relief’. I don’t think that holds up for most people who watched the show. But you think it does.
Neither the ‘Jimmy was untouched’ advocates nor I can present evidence. I suppose we could post online reactions to the scene from the Internet in general–but of course that’s not actually “evidence.” It would just be suggestive of a widespread difference of opinion.
I guess we will just have to leave it that you are certain the show-creators intended to convey that Jimmy was untouched emotionally, and that I am equally certain that the show-runners intended to convey that he was deeply touched.
You said that how Jimmy/Gene was portrayed in that last episode was NOT how people showed relief.
I disagreed, saying that in my experience many people portray relief in such a fashion. I’ve seen folks sob with relief, break into tears, be acutely short of breath, tremble, get lightheaded, even faint.
Back on the question of whether the store could track down the perpretators of the theft…
There was one thing I thought could do it. If the manager realizes at the end of the day that stuff is missing, and attributes it to a shoplifter, they might go back and review the store camera footage of the day in question, reviewing the actions of the customers to see if any looked like they were doing something suspicious. They might then realize that the footage shows a guy leaving who never apparently entered. Even if the footage of the robbery sprint had been erased, if they get a shot of Jeffie’s face they might be able to ID him- esp. if he has a prior criminal record. That could lead them back to Jimmy.
And I think that’s almost certainly where they’re going with it, though how it plays out, we’ll have to wait to find out. IIRC, the manager found one of the security tags he cut.* Even just that alone (but moreso if/when she finds a few more), she’s likely to report it to security. Upon reviewing the tape, I don’t think it would be a big stretch for Jerry/Gerry/Gary/Larry to realize that he didn’t notice it happening because he was talking to Gene. It doesn’t mean he’ll put together that Gene was involved in it (in fact, I think Gene should keep showing up with cinnabuns for at least the next few days), but Gene will certainly be a bit closer to the fire than he was before.
Also, Gene mentioned the tape would be over written within a few days. If that’s the case, how can he use it against Jeffie going forward? If Jeffie wants to out Gene as Saul in a 5 years, he still can, Gene could report him to the police but it would do about as much good as me reporting you for shoplifting from the mall. With no evidence and no proof, there’s no crime. I’d be surprised if the local police even took a report.
*I’m not seven sure why they bothered doing that since everything was leaving out the back/dock door.
The first and second half of this quote seem contradictory. If the footage is erased, where is this shot of Jeffie’s face?
Jeffie left sometime after the store opened and had gotten busy. So there is a lag of 12 hours or more from the actual robbery; i.e. Jeffie does his run between 9 and 10 pm, shortly after the mall closed and Gene is getting off work; but he leaves presumably after 9 or 10 am when it opens again amd is crowded. If the write-over operation is a rolling 72 hours, there will be a window where the robbery is written over but the day footage is still available. That could coincide with it taking the manager a couple days to realize what had happened.
If I understand, you’re saying they might catch it within a few hours of being deleted, right?
I’m still wondering how Saul can use this as blackmail (mutually assured destruction) once it’s deleted.
Jeffie can ID Gene as Saul Goodman going forward for as long as he knows Saul’s whereabouts. Saul won’t have anything on Jeffie as soon as the footage is gone unless he somehow got a copy of it or has his own proof.
I suppose it’s possible they find out about the heist and security pulls (and saves) the footage but they can’t ID Jeffie and they don’t connect Gene with it.
Yes, exactly. And that is a good point about once the footage is gone so is the blackmail leverage. Perhaps Saul thinks Jeffie is too dumb to realize this; or maybe he has a backup plan. We’ll see!
I think this whole episode is just setting up a call back for when Gene teams back up with Kim for a scam. Relapsed scam junkie Jimmy is going to want to keep going but Kim is going to use the mutual assured destruction strategy to get rid of him - because they are too dangerous together.