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Better Call Saul


SeanF

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Chuck was nasty to Jimmy from the start, and even in flashbacks you could see that he put him down. If we could see it, Jimmy could feel it, even if he didn't admit it. Jimmy loved Chuck, and Chuck responded to that love in very unloving ways.

The showrunners said originally Howard was going to be the bad guy but they changed it to Chuck. They often talked about the way Chuck affected Jimmy. That's the way the story was written, it's no accident that most viewers can't stand Chuck.

Chuck was jealous that Jimmy made Rebecca laugh, just like he was jealous that he made their mother laugh. He wouldn't even tell Jimmy that his mother's last word was Jimmy. Others saw the good in Jimmy and liked him for who he was, despite his flaws, but not his own brother.

Most viewers didn't mirror Chuck's attitude toward Jimmy, they were repelled by it.

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25 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

Chuck was nasty to Jimmy from the start, and even in flashbacks you could see that he put him down. If we could see it, Jimmy could feel it, even if he didn't admit it. Jimmy loved Chuck, and Chuck responded to that love in very unloving ways.

Chuck can have personal issue of jealousy when he believes he is being ignored for Jimmy, yet he can still be pleasant to Jimmy.  He still saved Jimmy's bacon.  He is pleasant to Jimmy even when Jimmy revealed that he didn't even care about the most basic aspects of work that Chuck had likely spent months working on.  While, not wanting to hire Jimmy at HHM, Chuck still vouched for him at bar.

1 hour ago, DMC said:

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

Chuck giving Jimmy a job at HHM after Jimmy had just passed the bar would be giving him an unearned job.  Furthermore, besides refusing that job until refusing him again after Sandpiper you actually have Chuck support Jimmy.  He encourages him as a public defender and elder law.  He even does basic legal work to help Jimmy with his elderly clients.  Yet, Jimmy still commits around 5 offenses that would get him disbarred and/or serious trouble if discovered before Jimmy is declined at HHM after Sandpiper.

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3 minutes ago, Minsc said:

Chuck giving Jimmy a job at HHM after Jimmy had just passed the bar would be giving him an unearned job.

You keep on making assumptions I never asserted.

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7 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

Most viewers didn't mirror Chuck's attitude toward Jimmy, but were repelled by it.

That's because, as I said earlier, people are keyed to loving the lovable conman. And if it's true that the writers view Jimmy as the good guy and Chuck as the villain, as reported, then the thing I feared has come true.

But he's a real shit when you consider the harms he's unleashed (and even more so when framing them in the context of Breaking Bad, where none of the traumatic stuff like his brother's death or Howard's murder dent his happy go-lucky worldview... whereas poor "Gene" is a sad mope because ... he lost all of his money, his big gaudy house, etc.), culminating in this mid-season finale. Chuck isn't pleasant, Chuck is harsh, Chuck is uncompromising, but as I said before, Chuck has witnessed and suffered an uncountable number of disappointments in his brother over life. His not forgiving him for petty stuff is probably because Jimmy has called on Chuck's forgiveness beyond Chuck's ability to do so over the years. 

The fact that the character who likes him most is Kim, who turns out to be even worse than he is because there's a trauma-driven reckless cruelty at the core of her being, says a lot. 

I hope the account of the writers is more nuanced than just "Chuck and Howard are the bad guys here".

Bob Odenkirk is fantastic. But Jimmy/Saul is a real asshole (per the writers, apparently, so they do have some nuanced views on the topic.)

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5 minutes ago, Ran said:

That's because, as I said earlier, people are keyed to loving the lovable conman.

Saying we are "keyed" to like Jimmy makes it sound like we are doing it without contemplation, or are somehow wrong to like a person in spite of his flaws because somehow we just can't help ourselves. The thing is, we all have flaws, and we all want to be loved for who we are. Jimmy loved Chuck in spite of his flaws.

Jimmy wanted Chuck's love, and Chuck withheld it, and that's supposed to have no effect on him? Just poor Chuck, to be so disappointed? I don't think it's as simple as that. They showed Chuck was always jealous of Jimmy, so if Jimmy was as "good" as Chuck, that would take away his one way to feel superior to him.

Jimmy is doing the same thing with Kim that he did with Chuck, he's trying to please her, to win her love. They've also said that.

Not at all saying Jimmy shouldn't get over his issues, and make amends, but it's reasonable to be pulling for him to do so, as it's a show about Jimmy. I did the same for Jesse, who did worse things than Jimmy. Walt messed with Jesse's head, too. But ultimately it was up to Jesse, and is up to Jimmy, to turn himself around (or not).

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I identify (to an extent) with Jimmy, not because he’s a loveable conman (although it’s fun to see him trick arses like Ken Wins), but because he does have sympathetic traits.  

He really dedicated himself to looking after an unwell Chuck for years, only to be repaid with scorn.  Chuck was essentially the Just Pharisee.  Nothing Jimmy did could redeem in Chuck’s eyes.

No one would root for Jimmy if there was not at least some good in him.

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Almost everyone has 'some good' in him, even Hitler liked dogs.  Finding Jimmy 'likeable' is different than rooting for him.  Why is anyone rooting for a guy who wanted to have Badger shanked and send Jesse,or was it Mike? to 'Belize' and who engineered the professional downfall that led to his own brother's suicide and now has gotten another innocent person, who tried to help him in the past, killed? 

Yes Chuck was jealous of Jimmy, and why wouldn't he be jealous that the person he knew was a con artist, grifter, criminal scoundrel was so 'likeable'.  Any normal person who knows the truth about the likeable rogue would be resentful to see that rogue use his likeability as a shield against his actions again and again.

ETA.  We saw, as a counter example, that both Jesse and Nacho had done terrible things, but this was because they got in over their heads, they were RELUCTANT to do these things and we saw that it took an emotional toll.  That isn't Jimmy.  The only scam we've seen Jimmy be reluctant about was this latest one with Howard.  He enjoys scamming people and grifting and his grifts and crimes do not take an emotional toll on him. 

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33 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Almost everyone has 'some good' in him, even Hitler liked dogs.  Finding Jimmy 'likeable' is different than rooting for him.  Why is anyone rooting for a guy who wanted to have Badger shanked and send Jesse,or was it Mike? to 'Belize' and who engineered the professional downfall that led to his own brother's suicide and now has gotten another innocent person, who tried to help him in the past, killed? 

Yes Chuck was jealous of Jimmy, and why wouldn't he be jealous that the person he knew was a con artist, grifter, criminal scoundrel was so 'likeable'.  Any normal person who knows the truth about the likeable rogue would be resentful to see that rogue use his likeability as a shield against his actions again and again.

ETA.  We saw, as a counter example, that both Jesse and Nacho had done terrible things, but this was because they got in over their heads, they were RELUCTANT to do these things and we saw that it took an emotional toll.  That isn't Jimmy.  The only scam we've seen Jimmy be reluctant about was this latest one with Howard.  He enjoys scamming people and grifting and his grifts and crimes do not take an emotional toll on him. 

I think it’s more Kim that got Howard killed.  Jimmy was content to call the job off when they found out the judge had a broken arm.  It was Kim that pressed the issue.

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I am sure that Saul will rationalize to himself that it was" "really" Kim's fault, just as he absolved himself of Chuck's death and just as he absolves himself of any guilt for pretty much anything.

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7 minutes ago, briantw said:

I think it’s more Kim that got Howard killed.  Jimmy was content to call the job off when they found out the judge had a broken arm.  It was Kim that pressed the issue.

 

Yes, sure Kim is primarily to blame, this was all her idea in the first place, because she is so broken that she wanted to ruin Howard's career because he put her in doc review and then had the temerity to think she needed to be 'saved' from Jimmy, and also made a handful of generous gestures to help her.  To me, that means Kim, now that she has been as Ran said, 'unleashed' may be worse than Jimmy.  In all of Jimmy's scams except the Chuck one, people being hurt is collateral damage, but not the purpose.  Or, they're really both equally bad, because they both now have the blood of two people on their hands that they choose to ruin professionally and their targets ended up dead.

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12 minutes ago, Ran said:

I am sure that Saul will rationalize to himself that it was" "really" Kim's fault, just as he absolved himself of Chuck's death and just as he absolves himself of any guilt for pretty much anything.

Or, they will both just blame Lalo and rationalize their own actions.  The writers may feel that Kim can still be redeemed, but I hope not.  I wanted her to take herself off the path she's been on the last 2 seasons, but I feel now she is a lost cause and does not deserve redemption.  She got someone killed as a result of her own petty cruelty and arrogance.  That last u-turn says it all as to who she really is.

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59 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Almost everyone has 'some good' in him, even Hitler liked dogs.  Finding Jimmy 'likeable' is different than rooting for him.  Why is anyone rooting for a guy who wanted to have Badger shanked and send Jesse,or was it Mike? to 'Belize' and who engineered the professional downfall that led to his own brother's suicide and now has gotten another innocent person, who tried to help him in the past, killed? 

Yes Chuck was jealous of Jimmy, and why wouldn't he be jealous that the person he knew was a con artist, grifter, criminal scoundrel was so 'likeable'.  Any normal person who knows the truth about the likeable rogue would be resentful to see that rogue use his likeability as a shield against his actions again and again.

ETA.  We saw, as a counter example, that both Jesse and Nacho had done terrible things, but this was because they got in over their heads, they were RELUCTANT to do these things and we saw that it took an emotional toll.  That isn't Jimmy.  The only scam we've seen Jimmy be reluctant about was this latest one with Howard.  He enjoys scamming people and grifting and his grifts and crimes do not take an emotional toll on him. 

IIRC he suggested to Walt that it was time to "discuss options" in relation to Jesse.  By the time of BB, he's completely depraved.

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1 minute ago, Cas Stark said:

Or, they will both just blame Lalo and rationalize their own actions.  The writers may feel that Kim can still be redeemed, but I hope not.  I wanted her to take herself off the path she's been on the last 2 seasons, but I feel now she is a lost cause and does not deserve redemption.  She got someone killed as a result of her own petty cruelty and arrogance.  That last u-turn says it all as to who she really is.

She's become even more like Walt than Walt was.  That same rage against a world that has wronged them, resulting in their abandoning all moral restraint.

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10 minutes ago, SeanF said:

She's become even more like Walt than Walt was.  That same rage against a world that has wronged them, resulting in their abandoning all moral restraint.

Yeah, you might be right.   Walt kept the pandora's box of his rage locked until he was well into middle age and only unlocked because he had a death sentence.  Kim unlocked her rage after a handful of dumb cons and turned her back on what would have been a lucrative, successful career as a lawyer, just because.

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On 5/26/2022 at 3:16 AM, SeanF said:

I identify (to an extent) with Jimmy, not because he’s a loveable conman (although it’s fun to see him trick arses like Ken Wins), but because he does have sympathetic traits.  

He really dedicated himself to looking after an unwell Chuck for years, only to be repaid with scorn.  Chuck was essentially the Just Pharisee.  Nothing Jimmy did could redeem in Chuck’s eyes.

No one would root for Jimmy if there was not at least some good in him.

Exactly (the bold).

Something Peter Gould said on the blu-rays about Chuck when talking about the Jimmy and Chuck relationship that stuck in my mind is this: "Chuck doesn't have the milk of human kindness."

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It seems odd that the writer said the audience was rooting for Kim and Jimmy's plan against Howard to succeed at least 'somewhat'?  I don't get that. 

I wasn't rooting for it to succeeding.  I was hoping they would call it off or at least, fail.  My god, no wonder our society is falling apart if that is really in line with how the majority of viewers feel.

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6 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

It seems odd that the writer said the audience was rooting for Kim and Jimmy's plan against Howard to succeed at least 'somewhat'?  I don't get that. 

I wasn't rooting for it to succeeding.  I was hoping they would call it off or at least, fail.  My god, no wonder our society is falling apart if that is really in line with how the majority of viewers feel.

Jimmy is the protagonist, so I don’t think it’s crazy that viewers are rooting for him.  You can acknowledge he’s a criminal and a con man while still pulling for him in a fictional, unrealistic show.

In real life, I’d want Jimmy jailed and disbarred, but BCS isn’t real life. 

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10 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

It seems odd that the writer said the audience was rooting for Kim and Jimmy's plan against Howard to succeed at least 'somewhat'?  I don't get that. 

I wasn't rooting for it to succeeding.  I was hoping they would call it off or at least, fail.  My god, no wonder our society is falling apart if that is really in line with how the majority of viewers feel.

Yeah I was never rooting for that plan. The writers kinda went out of the way to make Howard more likable as the show went on so kinda surprising that they would think the audience would want the plan to succeed imo

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1 minute ago, Mark Antony said:

Yeah I was never rooting for that plan. The writers kinda went out of the way to make Howard more likable as the show went on so kinda surprising that they would think the audience would want the plan to succeed imo

Yes they definitely did.  They took pains to show that he was not a 'villain' or even a bad guy, which is a great thing about the show the way they create different layers to their characters.  Such as how I rooted for Kim to come out unscathed and now I despise her and want her to pay for what she has done.

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4 minutes ago, Mark Antony said:

Yeah I was never rooting for that plan. The writers kinda went out of the way to make Howard more likable as the show went on so kinda surprising that they would think the audience would want the plan to succeed imo

Even early on he never really seemed like a bad guy outside of his treatment of Kim.  

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