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Better Call Saul


SeanF

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24 minutes ago, DMC said:

I definitely don't "hate" Howard or Chuck, but Chuck was still a dick and a bad brother to Jimmy.  Perhaps if he showed Jimmy he believed in him, Chuck wouldn't have been 100% right about Jimmy.

Eh, Jimmy keeps showing us that Chuck was right about him.  He has had several chances to 'play it straight' and he doesn't and cannot, he always defaults to corner cutting and scamming. 

Chuck was a jerk to Jimmy and was jealous of his way with people and his mother's affection for him.  None of that changes who Jimmy has been since Better Call Saul premiered.  It is unfair to blame Jimmy's actions on Chuck, especially since Chuck has been dead for several seasons and Jimmy continues to be the same person, a bad person.  Sure, he has some generous, positive impulses and sometimes a conscience.  But, he's a bad person who does bad things and refuses to take responsibility for them.  Just. Like. Chuck. Said.  

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On 5/25/2022 at 4:34 PM, DMC said:

I definitely don't "hate" Howard or Chuck, but Chuck was still a dick and a bad brother to Jimmy.  Perhaps if he showed Jimmy he believed in him, Chuck wouldn't have been 100% right about Jimmy.

Agree.

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4 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Eh, Jimmy keeps showing us that Chuck was right about him.  He has had several chances to 'play it straight' and he doesn't and cannot, he always defaults to corner cutting and scamming.

My point is Chuck was basically god to Jimmy - and Chuck knew it.  If he had nurtured that relationship to support Jimmy instead of undermining him, it's entirely possible Jimmy would have turned out differently.  That is in no way "blaming" Chuck for Jimmy's actions, just saying he played a role in how Jimmy turned out akin to any parent.

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16 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Sad to say, I don’t think Kim will give a toss about Howard, other than the potential repercussions for her and Jimmy.

 

Is that really consistent with the Kim Wexler of the past 5 seasons?   She has definitely broken bad in a huge way, but I never saw her as someone who wouldn't feel an injustice and Howard's end is not only a terrible unjustice but is her fault.

That would mean that Howard was right about her, she's a sociopath.  It's going to be interesting how they resolve all of this.

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Just now, DMC said:

My point is Chuck was basically god to Jimmy - and Chuck knew it.  If he had nurtured that relationship to support Jimmy instead of undermining him, it's entirely possible Jimmy would have turned out differently.  That is in no way "blaming" Chuck for Jimmy's actions, just saying he played a role in how Jimmy turned out akin to any parent.

But, according to Chuck, Jimmy was slippin Jimmy his whole life.  Chuck spent all those years getting him out of jams, cleaning up after him and being disappointed in him, over and over again.  We aren't just talking about stealing as a kid.  Jimmy was an  actual grifter.  At some point, people like that--who do the same things again and again and disappoint their friends and families over and over again--you resign yourself that they can't change.  

I agree that Chuck should have pulled the plug on the relationship in an honest way and not under cut Jimmy through Howard the way he did.  But, Chuck paid a high price for that.  Let's not forget that it was Jimmy who pushed his mentally ill brother over the edge resulting in his suicide.

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26 minutes ago, briantw said:

Chuck may have been right about Jimmy, but he was also an asshole who continued to punish his brother for decades over something he did as a kid (taking money from the till), and pretended to support him while going behind his back to undermine him and then letting Howard take the blame for it.  And that's despite Jimmy doing literally everything for him.  He was a terrible brother.

Agree. Chuck was a terrible brother. Jimmy tried so hard to please him, but he never could, and it affected him on a very deep level. There's definitely a cause and effect thing going on there. Not saying Jimmy shouldn't get over it, but it's not all that easy to do.

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9 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

 

Is that really consistent with the Kim Wexler of the past 5 seasons?   She has definitely broken bad in a huge way, but I never saw her as someone who wouldn't feel an injustice and Howard's end is not only a terrible unjustice but is her fault.

That would mean that Howard was right about her, she's a sociopath.  It's going to be interesting how they resolve all of this.

I do hope she feels remorse, and it can happen.

Sadly, I think it’s very common for people in that position to double down on self-justification.

I’m reminded of the scene in The Witcher saga, where Philippa Eilhart carries out a coup d’etat, in breach of diplomatic immunity, and her old teacher, Tissaia, confronts her.

”You were my most brilliant pupil, I was so proud of you.  Now I feel nothing but contempt for you.”

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@briantw

"Taking money from the till"... that scene was just emblematic of something Jimmy would continue to do for years, until the store went under and his broken-hearted failure of a father died six months later. That is what Chuck blamed him for. According to Chuck, Jimmy stole $14,000 from the business. This is probably not entirely true -- Charles Sr. was taken in by other two-bit conman in the town and gave money away to people who never rapid him -- but that Jimmy was responsible for some part (perhaps even a substantial part) of that sum is certainly true.

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Just now, SeanF said:

I do hope she feels remorse, and it can happen.

Sadly, I think it’s very common for people in that position to double down on self-justification.

I’m reminded of the scene in The Witcher saga, where Philippa Eilhart carries out a coup d’etat, in breach of diplomatic immunity, and her old teacher, Tissaia, confronts her.

”You were my most brilliant pupil, I was so proud of you.  Now I feel nothing but contempt for you.”

Yeah, you're probably right.  She won't feel remorse.  If either of the two of them were normal people they would have remembered the unintended consequence of the whole Chuck shenanagans and would never have started in on Howard in the first place.  But, they forgot about Chuck and now, they'll forget about Howard.  

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2 minutes ago, Ran said:

@briantw

"Taking money from the till"... that scene was just emblematic of something Jimmy would continue to do for years, until the store went under and his broken-hearted failure of a father died six months later. That is what Chuck blamed him for. According to Chuck, Jimmy stole $14,000 from the business. This is probably not entirely true -- Charles Sr. was taken in by other two-bit conman in the town and gave money away to people who never rapid him -- but that Jimmy was responsible for some part (perhaps even a substantial part) of that sum is certainly true.

Right, but I'm saying that Chuck held Jimmy responsible for that for his entire life and never forgave him.  He never forgave Jimmy for anything he did.  There's that scene where Chuck finally snaps at court and he brings up Jimmy pooping in the sunroof, a fairly innocuous act from years prior.  He cared more that he was embarrassed to bail Jimmy out than he did about his brother.

At the end of the day, Chuck loved the law more than he loved Jimmy, and he could never forgive Jimmy for breaking it.

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16 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

But, according to Chuck, Jimmy was slippin Jimmy his whole life.  Chuck spent all those years getting him out of jams, cleaning up after him and being disappointed in him, over and over again.  We aren't just talking about stealing as a kid.  Jimmy was an  actual grifter.  At some point, people like that--who do the same things again and again and disappoint their friends and families over and over again--you resign yourself that they can't change.  

You seem to be arguing Jimmy was born that way and there's nothing Chuck could've done that would've ever changed Jimmy.  On a philosophical level I think that's antithetical to the ethos of the show and the Gilligan-verse in general.  And on a thematic level I think the main thrust of the first three seasons was to show how Chuck's lack of support, undermining, and clear belief that Jimmy would never change became a self-fulfilling prophecy.  If the most impressionable people in your life are constantly reminding you they don't think you can change, chances are you're gonna eventually believe it yourself.

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Jimmy learned his loathing of suckers from his father, not Chuck. 

It's a lot to expect Chuck, away at university and then law school, to be able to impact the teenage Jimmy settling into his grifting ways... and once he did, the pattern was set. Even when he's trying to go on the straight and narrow for a bit, in the first season, the siren call of a quick buck or a clever scam proves too much for Jimmy.

He's a product of his environment. Maybe unconditional love from Chuck might have mitigated it... but then, he had unconditional love from both his parents, and where did that lead? Why would Chuck's unalloyed support be any more effacious?

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3 minutes ago, DMC said:

You seem to be arguing Jimmy was born that way and there's nothing Chuck could've done that would've ever changed Jimmy.  On a philosophical level I think that's antithetical to the ethos of the show and the Gilligan-verse in general.  And on a thematic level I think the main thrust of the first three seasons was to show how Chuck's lack of support, undermining, and clear belief that Jimmy would never change became a self-fulfilling prophecy.  If the most impressionable people in your life are constantly reminding you they don't think you can change, chances are you're gonna eventually believe it yourself.

Hmnm.  I don't know.  I feel like the show tells us again and again that character is destiny. Walt was always a bad guy.  Hector was a bad guy and he imbued his terrible view of the world into his family.  Jimmy is a grifter with a loose to non existant moral compass.  And the chickens always come home to roost.  

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4 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Walt was always a bad guy.

Walt was always capable of being that bad guy that emerged due to his resentment and arrogance, but no, if you think the point of a show titled Breaking Bad was that Walt was always destined to be a bad guy, we just fundamentally disagree.

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1 hour ago, Relic said:

I don't find anyone in this show all that likeable, tbh. Kim was, but she's changed, and otherwise its a show about lawyers and drug dealers. Not sure which is worse. 

Lawyers are worse, obviously.

It’s interesting that Christian ideas, of the potential for redemption, or damnation, are so central to great dramas, like this, or The Sopranos, even though the dramas themselves aren’t Christian allegories. 

Ultimately, Tony Soprano, and Walter White consciously choose to go to hell.  In LOTR, Gollum chose hell, even as his fate weighed in the balance.  In ASOIAF, I think Tyrion has chosen hell, while of the other five main characters, their fate remains to be determined.

In drama, no one goes to hell unless they will it.

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1 minute ago, DMC said:

Walt was always capable of being that bad guy that emerged due to his resentment and arrogance, but no, if you think the point of a show titled Breaking Bad was that Walt was always destined to be a bad guy, we just fundamentally disagree.

If Walt never gets cancer, Breaking Bad does not happen.  I do think that he was never the man he pretended to be, but he also wasn't the guy who was willing to order the murderers of a dozen men in cold blood that he became by the show's end.

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14 minutes ago, Ran said:

but then, he had unconditional love from both his parents, and where did that lead? Why would Chuck's unalloyed support be any more effacious?

Because he was in an extraordinary position to aid Jimmy's pursuit of a legit legal career and instead he constantly undermined such efforts.  Also, I think it's clear that Chuck held much more sway over Jimmy in terms of who he looked up to and wanted to please than either of his parents.

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6 hours ago, DMC said:

My point is Chuck was basically god to Jimmy - and Chuck knew it.  If he had nurtured that relationship to support Jimmy instead of undermining him, it's entirely possible Jimmy would have turned out differently.  That is in no way "blaming" Chuck for Jimmy's actions, just saying he played a role in how Jimmy turned out akin to any parent.

Jimmy's parents were loving and supportive of Jimmy, but all that led to Jimmy stealing from them.  Jimmy throughout season 1 thought Chuck supported him yet Jimmy still committed numerous scams and crimes.  Cliff Main only treated Jimmy with respect yet Jimmy still screwed him rather than just follow rules.  Why would Jimmy being any different if he got an unearned job after graduating his z-grade law school?

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27 minutes ago, Minsc said:

Why would Jimmy being any different if he got an unearned job after graduating his z-grade law school?

Chuck supporting rather than undermining his career does not mean giving him an unearned job.

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