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Better Call Saul


SeanF

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14 minutes ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

I think this episode might have closed the door on Jimmy/Saul/Gene getting a relatively happy ending. He'll either die or go to jail. But I think we'll see Kim one last time, whether it's his funeral or visiting him in prison.

I agree.  "Gene" breaking bad ONE MORE TIME, showing again, that he doesn't care much or at all about hurting other people seems like the show is telling us that he's not going to end up with any kind of 'happy' ending, even if it would be low key, anonymous Gene type life.  I don't believe they will kill him though, and truth be told, 'Saul' and Jimmy will do well in prison, he would be running the place in a year.

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The whole episode seemed very regressive. Gould even says so here:

It's kind of depressing though, that this is a guy who, as much growth as we've seen from him, and love with Kim, you see that that he's making more or less the same kind of mistake at the end of the episode that he did way back in Breaking Bad.

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That is why I do think Jimmy will ultimately have a redemptive moment, as hard as that may be to envision after last night. I doubt the ultimate point of the show will be “Chuck and Howard were correct- Jimmy was just born bad. THE END.”

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Eh.  Jimmy getting 'redeemed' at this late date would feel false to both shows.  He's had many, many, many chances and always chooses to break bad.  The fact that he isn't a complete psycho all the time doesn't change that who he is, is someone who believes his own pain entitles him to hurt others.  

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The reaction to this episode everywhere you look is sadness, lots of bummed out viewers. Seems unrealistic to me that he'd have learned nothing at all.

Jesse did worse things, he made and sold meth, murdered a man in cold blood, was directly involved in two other cold blooded murders (and disposed of the bodies), chose to endanger two women and a friend and a child (that was his plot) who were murdered, and another child who was nearly murdered, sold meth to people at rehab in a church because he wanted a bigger cut of the drug money, much much more.

Adding:

Jesse chose to do worse things than Jimmy, and Jimmy was under duress, Walt/Jesse/Lalo all threatened to kill him, and he was told once you are in you are in.

It's a tale of two different showrunners: Breaking Bad was Vince Gilligan's show, BCS is Peter Gould's show (he's been the sole showrunner since season 3).

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I hope not. 

According to me, both shows are about choices and how our choices inform, align or conflict with who we 'are' and what it's like to live with those choices.  Many of Jesse's bad choices were in conflict with his values.  They were made under pressure from Walt, which is why I think Jesse got the good ending.  Jimmy's choices have not ever been done under duress.  He freely chooses the scam again and again. That's the difference. 

I will be very disappointed if they let him off the hook with some saccharine, unbelievable [to me] story of how, oh, now finally, after years and years of criminality and scams and harming people and laughing about it...oh, NOW he gets it, and he's sorry and off into the sunset he will go, a redeemed man.  Yuck. 

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48 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I hope not. 

According to me, both shows are about choices and how our choices inform, align or conflict with who we 'are' and what it's like to live with those choices.  Many of Jesse's bad choices were in conflict with his values.  They were made under pressure from Walt, which is why I think Jesse got the good ending.  Jimmy's choices have not ever been done under duress.  He freely chooses the scam again and again. That's the difference. 

I will be very disappointed if they let him off the hook with some saccharine, unbelievable [to me] story of how, oh, now finally, after years and years of criminality and scams and harming people and laughing about it...oh, NOW he gets it, and he's sorry and off into the sunset he will go, a redeemed man.  Yuck. 

How about if he goes to jail, sees the error of his ways, and becomes “jailhouse lawyer” Jimmy McGill? Helping people like Kim did, of course. 

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I don’t think Jimmy gets  off the hook, jail or death, no happy ending, no ride into an uncertain future. But, I think there will be some opportunity for him to not be an entire piece of shit when the final credits roll. I don”t think the BBverse goes for entirely bleak endings. Even with Walt, he was a monster but he got to have a final triumph with a litte “just add Nazis” magic whereby he was not the worst person in the room.

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This is what the director said to Variety....which suggets some opening for a 'new' personna.  Ugh.  My worst fear, the moral of the story is it's okay to commit crimes, hurt innocent people and generally be a destroyer as long as you're charming.

https://variety.com/2022/tv/features/better-call-saul-walt-jesse-1235330693/

We see so many different versions of Saul throughout the show: Jimmy, Gene and now Victor. Will we get a new persona of Saul in the final episodes?

I’m hopefully not giving anything away, but I feel like we see a whole new character at some point. There’s a version in a future episode where Bob walks on screen and it looks different than we’ve ever seen him before — and it’s great.

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I don't mind if the show ends with Jimmy embracing a part of his personality that's not a monster. But I do agree that he's beyond redemption at this point - he has been, really, since he helped Lalo get out of jail for killing the Travelwire employee - and that the ending should hold him accountable for all he's done since then.

Which was basically Walt's ending. I was ok with him going out doing a little bit of good in killing the Nazis and freeing Jesse, because Breaking Bad used Ozymandius to remind you of the consequences of all the terrible things he's done, punished him for them, and the final few episodes blew up all his justifications ("I did it for me.  I liked it. I was good at it.")

This doesn't mean that Chuck was right and that Jimmy was bad from the beginning and doomed to this ending. Jimmy began as a much better person than Walter White, with a much greater and more genuine desire to do good. But we've seen him make terrible choices with increasing consequences throughout the show. Some of those choices were understandable and tragic. Some of them he atoned for and somewhat made right, like when he initially tried to rush the Sandpiper settlement by manipulating the old ladies. But at a certain point, the bad choices accumulated, the attempts at atonement diminished, and Jimmy developed into the worst version of himself.

Edit: I've been reading lots of interviews about the recent episode. One amazing detail: the "Danny" from the laser tag money laundering place is meant to be a reference to everyone's favourite purveyor of squat cobblers:

 

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Pretty good episode and I didn't get that out of place feeling like last week, probably because of last weeks episode!

The BB cameos were nice and used to tie up some lingering questions and show us some decisions Saul made that we didn't see on screen.

So in one of the previews I remember Victor on the phone saying "I was made, but I'm gonna handle it myself".  Have we seen that in an episode yet or did I imagine it? Maybe it's how he deals with the "soft guy" who wouldn't ruin the life of the cancer stricken guy.( took me a min to recognize Stuart from The Big Bang Theory).

It leaves off with Victor breaking into the house, does he go in and end up not doing it and getting redemption through that and the final episode he sees Kim from a distance and she is happy so he walks away?

I had a rambling thought but talked myself out of it, question, does the guy with the dog know who Victor is Saul or just the cabby? I can't remember how he even got in the picture.

 

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7 minutes ago, dbunting said:

So in one of the previews I remember Victor on the phone saying "I was made, but I'm gonna handle it myself".  Have we seen that in an episode yet or did I imagine it?

This was from last season, when Jeff first confronted him. He called Ed the vacuum guy but then changed his mind.

7 minutes ago, dbunting said:

 does the guy with the dog know who Victor is Saul or just the cabby? I can't remember how he even got in the picture.

Yeah, he knows. When Jeff first confronted Gene he's standing behind him. I think Jeff says something about how he told his buddy.

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1 minute ago, RumHam said:

This was from last season, when Jeff first confronted him. He called Ed the vacuum guy but then changed his mind.

Yeah, he knows. When Jeff first confronted Gene he's standing behind him. I think Jeff says something about how he told his buddy.

Ok thanks, with the flash backs it's hard to keep track of what has been on screen vs previews. 

Do we also need to mention that Gene was seemingly ok being Gene until he found out all his money was gone? Up to that phone call with Francesca he seemed satisfied with his life. Then when he realizes that the feds got all of it except what he took with him he decides to go back to scamming for money and not just to put the cabby in check.

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8 minutes ago, dbunting said:

Ok thanks, with the flash backs it's hard to keep track of what has been on screen vs previews. 

Do we also need to mention that Gene was seemingly ok being Gene until he found out all his money was gone? Up to that phone call with Francesca he seemed satisfied with his life. Then when he realizes that the feds got all of it except what he took with him he decides to go back to scamming for money and not just to put the cabby in check.

His money isn't gone.  I will try to find the interview where either the writer/showrunner or director says this.  They said he still has the diamonds and that the scams were not about needing money.  Here it is:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/better-call-saul-bryan-cranston-aaron-paul-1235190687/

He’s not desperate for money. He still has all the diamonds in a little Band-Aid case, and Francesca mentions all that money he got away with and he kind of sloughs it off. So he is not desperate for money. He’s not doing this for money at all. He’s doing this because something about that phone call brought up a lot of pain and hurt. And as we know from the past — and all that went down with Howard Hamlin, and Kim hiding the truth about Lalo and the reasons why she did it, and the breakup that happened — it all caused a lot of pain that pushed him into going full Saul Goodman. He’s been Gene for a while now, but he had a little taste of Saul Goodman or Slippin’ Jimmy or whatever you want to call it, in episode 610 with the mall scam. He was able to push that aside, but something on that phone call upset him so much that the pain welled up again and he had to go back to his drug of choice, which is Saul Goodman, to numb that pain. So he’s doing none of this for money. I don’t think he gives a crap about any of the money. As we see in the montage, he just shoves it in a hole and leaves it there. The money is really secondary. I mean, it’s part of the game. It’s how you keep score. How much money you earn during these scams is a way of scorekeeping how successful you are. That’s the only reason he cares about the money. It’s like, “How many points did I score today?”

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So one thing that always bugged me about this show is, there seems to be hardly any interactions between Jimmy and Gus, yet Saul is the one who sets up Walts first meeting with Gus in season 2 of BB and mentions that Gus and Walt are very similar.

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I never got the sense that Saul and Gus had many interactions if any beyond the botched spy misson at Los Pollos. I think Saul mostly knew about him by reputation, the only way Walt and Gus were similar is in their double lives. I think Saul describes his relationship with Gus to Walt as second hand- “I know a guy who knows a guy…” Saul is not the type of person Gus would directly associate with as a criminal or in a legal capacity.

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