Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014
So, so much has happened on this show. It's just that it's mostly character work.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014
I didn't have any trouble figuring out what Mike was doing.

I wonder what the overlap is between people who didn't understand Mike's plan in this episode and people who thought it was a stretch for Jesse to be able to figure out Walt's ricin deception.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

Dr. Tim Whatley posted:

I'm both an idiot and a trash person and people did not understand the tracker thing for multiple pages? Wow.

This is how I feel. I have trouble functioning in day-to-day life. I gently caress up making change and have trouble reading analog clocks. Yet I had absolutely no trouble understanding what Mike was doing.

That's right, I'm willing to totally own myself just to make a mean-spirited point in the Better Call Saul TV IV thread.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

Sagebrush posted:

Saul Goodman and Jimmy McGill are in fact two separate people. Saul was created when Jimmy was hit by a blast of energy from an experiment gone wrong at the Sandia National Laboratories, separating his quantum structure into two physical "Matlock" and "Shyster" superpositions. The young postdoc in charge of the experiment? Walter White.

Where does James McGill, Esq., fit in?

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014
I love Kim breaking out Saul's signature "Give me a dollar, now I'm your lawyer" trick. Slippin' Kimmy is on her way back in the door.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

SpiderHyphenMan posted:

Wait, can Jimmy just spin this to say the confession still isn't real? Like, if my brother pretended to have a mental breakdown as a con job because he was so convinced that he couldn't have made The Easiest Mistake in the World, then I'd be pretty pissed off too. He even calls the tape "nothing."

He could try, but it would be really really difficult. Basically impossible to convince a jury. Unless you tip the scales a bit.

Everyone theorizing that Jimmy's final transformation into Saul would be catalyzed by him representing himself in an impossible case and winning an acquittal with his Slippin' Jimmy superpowers looks to have been right on the money.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

Dangerous Person posted:

Chuck is a dick

It looks like he's finally starting to regret the lengths he's gone to to teach Jimmy a lesson, though. With the prospect of Jimmy actually, literally going to jail and having his entire life ruined because of him becoming a concrete reality, I think even Chuck is realizing that everything that's happened between them isn't worth losing his brother's love forever. I suspect it's too late, though. That would be some tragic irony: Chuck actually going through some introspection and realizing he was *gasp* wrong for once, but Jimmy being forced so far into the Saul persona as a result of what Chuck did that their relationship is beyond repairing.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

SpiderHyphenMan posted:

Chuck doesn't regret poo poo, except for marrying Rebecca, who he should have known would be charmed by his brother just like everyone else.

I think people's pathological hatred for Chuck (who is really more of a pitiable wretch than a contemptible villain) is clouding their ability to actually watch the show. Chuck was clearly pretty genuinely emotionally affected by what Jimmy was saying about "destroying our family" during his outburst. I don't think Chuck is going to have a sudden and immediate come-to-Jesus moment by next episode or anything, but it's impossible to miss how Michael McKean plays that scene if you watch it with a clear head.

This reminds me of the people back when Breaking Bad was airing who were so consumed with hatred for Walt that they were completely incapable of understanding the key point that Walt genuinely cared about Jesse (in his own admittedly hosed up way), and so the showrunners literally had to have Hank of all characters point this obvious fact out so people would understand it.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

SeANMcBAY posted:

They do a really good job with making people look younger on this show.

Well, as good as can be done.

Odenkirk and Banks still look pretty noticeably older than they did on Breaking Bad (especially Banks). Which is of course forgivable, given that they.....are.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

UZR IS BULLSHIT posted:

Man at this point I just don't see how they're gonna get to Saul Goodman. They've made Jimmy too human.

Saul himself was actually a fairly human character. Remember, as just a few examples:
  • He hides Jesse from Gus and Mike at the risk of his own life, seemingly only because he feels a moral obligation as a lawyer to protect his client
  • He gives Jesse a pretty heartfelt talk counseling him about his relationship with Andrea in "Hermanos"
  • He appears genuinely upset about unwittingly having helped Walt poison a child
There are some inconsistencies with this aspect of Saul, especially in his earlier episodes, but as his character grew more settled there came to be a definite, periodic element of subversion of the "sleazy lawyer" archetype that he represented. It was kind of inevitable, really. Saul was just too funny to not be given some underlying humanity--not to mention how effective a tool it was at highlighting just how utterly callous and inhuman Walt had become in comparison to everyone around him. Even Walt's ambulance-chasing strip mall consigliere is morally horrified at him.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

Herv posted:

lovely video, but my favorite Saul moment from BB.

How bout it counselor... do you concur??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO6467SKGG8

I love how even in BB you could always feel the genuine contempt Saul has for authority figures and "legitimate" lawyers who think they're better than him. It kind of baffles me that some people watching BCS are having hard time connecting Jimmy's character to Saul's. Everything about Jimmy is derived from little bits and pieces of what we saw of Saul, right down to Saul's tendency to occasionally exhibit brief flashes of a conscience. It's not a show about a completely different character as some have claimed. The reason Jimmy is the way he is in BCS is because he's the sort of person Vince and co. determined would have something to gain by becoming Saul.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014
I have to agree I would like Mike's and Jimmy's stories to intersect a bit more. And with Gus in the picture now, I think we're going to start to see that happen more. Now, Breaking Bad already established that Saul never dealt directly with Gus in a real way--and while you could always retcon that as Saul lying to cover his rear end, I think that would end up ringing false. (For one thing, it always made sense that Gus would never have directly involved Saul in his operations. Saul obviously isn't the kind of guy Gus likes dealing with.)

But from his introductory episode in BB we already know Saul ends up getting into some shenanigans with the Juárez Cartel, which would involve him directly in plotlines involving Mike, Nacho, and Gus, even if Gus himself remains at a distance from him.

sweetmercifulcrap posted:

Same, its similar to how some people talk about Walt and Heisenberg as if it's a Jekyll and Hyde thing.

They're obviously not literal split personalities but Heisenberg and Saul are alter-egos of Walt and Jimmy respectively, and it's perfectly natural to talk about them in a literary, Jekyll-and-Hyde way. BCS is entirely about Jimmy "becoming" Saul, in the sense that he gives into his darker impulses and becomes something recognizably distinct from what he started out as.

Cnut the Great fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Apr 20, 2017

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014
I wouldn't mind seeing a few of the events of Breaking Bad from Saul's perspective and getting a little more context for how the guy we've come to know as Jimmy felt about all of it. And it's not like it would have to be a whole season of Walt showing up constantly. It's not like they were bros hanging out together all the time. They only met up when they needed to. I'm sure Saul had lots of other poo poo going on too.

I don't think Cranston showing up in some capacity would be jumping the shark as long as his presence legitimately served Jimmy/Saul's story. At the same time, I wouldn't bet big on it happening.

Wafflecopper posted:

Mike looks about the same age though. Jesse would look quite obviously much older

Mike definitely looks older, dude. Again, though, willing suspension of disbelief.

Cnut the Great fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Apr 21, 2017

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

SpiderHyphenMan posted:

I just realized that if Jimmy's legal defense is "I was upset at being emotionally manipulated by my brother who I have done nothing but try to help and who has constantly treated me like poo poo," that puts him in a great position to ruin Chuck's relationship with Howard by making Howard testify about how he really feels about that crazy fucker.

Once again, your hatred of Chuck is blinding you to what's actually going on in the show. Howard is indeed getting weary of all this poo poo, but he's still on Chuck's side way more than Jimmy's. He legitimately thinks Jimmy is an rear end in a top hat for what he did to Chuck. He isn't going to completely turn on Chuck to help Jimmy.

People keep forgetting that Howard is kind of a jerk. It turned out he wasn't the kind of jerk who would deny Jimmy a job based on nothing but a personal animus toward him, but he's still a jerk. He basically operates according to a system of extreme meritocracy. He would have hired Jimmy even though he didn't like personally like him, since Jimmy proved his competence as a lawyer. But he also treated Kim like complete poo poo whenever she screwed up, even though he clearly personally likes Kim. It doesn't matter how crazy he thinks Chuck is. Chuck is a really good lawyer and an asset to the firm, while Jimmy has at this point proven himself repeatedly to be a criminal screw-up in Howard's eyes.

SpiderHyphenMan posted:

I absolutely think "no wonder Rebecca left you" is just the opening shot in Jimmy going scorched earth on Chuck. If compelled to testify about his relationship with Chuck, Hamlin will absolutely not lie under oath to continue humoring the crazy man.

He won't lie under oath, but at most he'd just admit that he personally sees Chuck's symptoms as psychosomatic. He's still going to be as sympathetic to Chuck as he possibly can. He doesn't hate Chuck.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

SpiderHyphenMan posted:

haha wait I assumed this whole time that Chuck did something like have Howard and the P.I. sign sworn statements that they had listened to the contents of the tape and that Jimmy would be charged for what he confessed to on the tape. Is he actually such a piece of poo poo that it's not even about that anymore?

The tape itself is basically worthless in a court of law. This point has been hammered home over the past two episodes. Why would the sworn statements of two people who listened to it be worth anything when the goddamn tape itself isn't?

In Chuck's mind, Jimmy deserves to be punished for committing the first felony, but since it's impossible to prove, he concocted a scheme to bait Jimmy into committing another felony that's more easily proven. It's never really been fully about what's on the tape, though. It's always been a mixture of Chuck being jealous of Jimmy for his success and popularity, and him genuinely wanting Jimmy to be punished for routinely bending and breaking the law he holds so sacred.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

SpiderHyphenMan posted:

A huge part of why that tape was worthless was that "he could argue it's not his voice" kind of went kaput when Jimmy burst in shouting "YOU TAPED ME?!" and if Jimmy had tried to steal the tape under the cover of darkness or whatever that would have essentially proven that the confession on the tape was legitimate, whereas with him doing, well, what he did, let there be much more of a gray area that I've been theorizing about all week.
But hell, isn't the contents of the tape gonna come up in court anyways? Considering that's what all the property destruction was about?


Anyway, I have NO loving idea how Kim and Jimmy are going to approach this trial.

Kim pointed out last episode exactly what everyone in this thread has been saying: Even if forced to concede that the voice is his, Jimmy can credibly claim that he was just telling Chuck what he wanted to hear to snap him out of a complete mental breakdown. In this scenario, he came to steal the tape because he was afraid of the possibility of the tape being used to falsely implicate him. And then there are the other problematic elements pointed out by Howard which would still apply.

But there's no wiggle room on breaking and entering with the intent to commit a burglary, with three witnesses present.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

NowonSA posted:

Anyway, everything in this season has been real good and I have high hopes for a big deal season finale that really changes things for both Jimmy and Mike. I don't want to see Rhea go at all, but I could easily see Kim choosing to no longer be a part of Jimmy's life as the big season 3 finale cliffhanger.

I'm a bad person because a big part of me wants Kim to just go full Saul along with Jimmy so they don't have to split up.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

Junkyard Poodle posted:

He banged sugar tits?

Her name is Honey Tits. Please show some respect.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

OctaviusBeaver posted:

It would have been way easier to just call the border patrol and tell them a truck with license plate # abc123 had drugs in the tires. Then he wouldn't have wasted his cocaine and a perfectly good pair of sneakers.

Then the cartel could potentially find out through their information channels that someone narced on them. This way they have no loving idea how it happened. It might even make the cartel question the reliability of their drugs-in-the-tire trick. What Mike did is a far more ingenious way to spook Hector Salamanca and get under his skin.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

Rupert Buttermilk posted:

Tyrus must be his #2, behind Victor. I just saw it as a way to explain how Gus was able to find a replacement for Victor so quickly; he already had one.

Wait, are you trying to tell me Gus had multiple employees in his region-spanning drug empire???

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

Colonel Whitey posted:

Because he enjoys the hell out of it and it's the only thing he's good at.

Yeah, and for the record this is the same reason Walter White does what he does. He was never really doing it just to get money for his family. The Schwartzes could have taken care of that.

Steve2911 posted:

Is it ever stated whether he legally changed his name? From what I remember of BB Saul was more of a stage/working name.

He does have a couple of degrees on his wall in BB that say "Saul Goodman" on them, which might suggest he legally changed his name and requested new diplomas to reflect that. Or maybe he just made new ones himself for appearances' sake, who knows. I would actually tend to agree that it's just a working name. I can't imagine what could happen that would make him bother to amend it legally.

Cnut the Great fucked around with this message at 14:27 on Apr 28, 2017

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014
Jimmy will go to prison, where he'll meet Jimmy In-'N-Out for the first time. Deciding that having two Jimmys on the same cell block is too confusing, Jimmy will start going by Saul Goodman, and the rest is history.

drunken officeparty posted:

Well uh part of the crime is that he hosed with lawyerings

Saul will argue in front of the state bar association that the disgraced lawyer that was Jimmy McGill died in prison, and that the man who stands before them today is in fact upstanding citizen Saul Goodman, a distinct entity.....from a certain point of view. The bar association will reluctantly allow Saul to continue practicing law in New Mexico, as, try as they might, they are simply unable to find any logic or philosophical flaws whatsoever in his argument.

Cnut the Great fucked around with this message at 04:04 on Apr 29, 2017

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

SpiderHyphenMan posted:

No way will Jimmy be found guilty of a felony.

The only thing he'll be found guilty of by the geriatric jury is being a good boy who loves his brother and appreciates the delicious homestyle cooking of Cracker Barrel.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

TBeats posted:

I would try to bang Kim Wexler if she were my attorney.

Well, as of this moment in the show she's banging at least one of her clients.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

Sagebrush posted:

I don't know about that. We haven't seem Kim and Jim really acting like a couple this season, that I can recall at least. All of their interactions have been platonic and professional. For that matter have we even seen where Jimmy lives at this point in the show? Is it still in the broom closet at the nail salon?

Dude.

God Hole posted:

Yeah if he saw any of that money by Breaking Bad, he wouldn't be operating out of a strip mall. Then again maybe he really does enjoy rolling around in the muck.

To be fair, he obviously does enjoy that. He also has a certain image he wants to project to his clientele.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

veni veni veni posted:

Howard is funny to me because he just looks and has this demeanor like he is going to be a douchey villain, and I was waiting for him to turn into one for like 1.5 seasons, but he is probably the most well rounded, sane person on the show and generally a good guy.

That's not true at all. Hamlin is a dick. Remember how he treated Kim? He's just not the exact kind of dick we were led to believe he was for the better part of the first season.

Also never forget Hamlindigo Blue.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

veni veni veni posted:

Agreed. It made me worried for his suit.

It really is the tensest show on television right now.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014
So Gus giving that speech at the fire station is definitely more foreshadowing that something big is going to happen with fire at the end of the season, right?

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

drunken officeparty posted:

If Black Lady was Chucks lawyer then why was Hamlin there acting like his lawyer and BL was like the middle man

She's the prosecutor. She's just disgustingly sympathetic to Chuck and his "condition."

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

Regy Rusty posted:

Basically exactly what Chuck said about the fact that this isn't a court so evidence rules are different is what's going to bite him in the rear end. Going to trial and using the "Discredit Chuck" strategy would've been a losing proposition because it doesn't change the facts of what Jimmy did being illegal. But at a disciplinary hearing it's not a matter of law, it's up to the discretion of the other lawyers hearing the case. So now demonstrating that Chuck is insane and vindictive has a real chance of success.

Yeah I admit I thought based on last episode that we were going to go to trial and that Jimmy was going to win a seemingly impossible case by Saul-ing it up, but I guess as usual the show is going a slightly more plausible yet likely even more satisfying route.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

clown shoes posted:

Love me some Cane's. In high school we would sneak out to go to the original location down by LSU. This was before they were all over town. Box used to have five fingers, not four.

I always imagined the chick at Los Pollos Hermanos to be like a more flavorful version of Chick-fil-A.

Except obviously Los Pollos Hermanos is down with the gays.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

hiddenmovement posted:

If you didn't like mike vs chuck : the drilling than break your TV you don't deserve it

I love how Jimmy essentially becomes the audience surrogate afterwards and goes, "So Mike, what did you think of Chuck??? Tell us what you thought of Chuck, Mike!" and Mike just stares and says absolutely nothing and blueballs all of us. Vince, you clever troll.

R-Type posted:

She is just the absolute perfect typical democrat-affiliated and blatantly biased public prosecutor. They got that down to a loving T.

Uh yeah okay sure. Fuckin' Democrats, am I right? I think that's what everyone got from that scene.

Cnut the Great fucked around with this message at 06:27 on May 2, 2017

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

NowonSA posted:

Yeah, now that you mention it that reminded me of the little things Walt would do to celebrate when one of his plans worked out for him. Sinking a basket after pulling off your crime masterstroke is a total Walt thing to do, it was fun to see Fring have that brief human moment, alongside how he was giving a little smile behind Hector's back.

A lot of the characters in BCS are more than a little reminiscent of Walt--more reminiscent of him than we might have expected based on how much they all come to resent him in BB. We're learning that Mike in particular was motivated by pride at certain key points in his early career as a criminal. Gus even points out that Mike kept going after Hector Salamanca even after his family was no longer in danger. That pride-based persistence resulted in the death of an innocent civilian. And all along Mike claims to be doing everything for his family, even though his family probably doesn't really need everything he's giving them; his guilt over his son's death seems to be being taken advantage of more than a little bit by his daughter-in-law. Mike is essentially doing everything for himself, just like Walt was. The difference is Walt's is mainly just a straight-up power fantasy come to life as a means to make up for a lifetime of frustration and impotence, whereas Mike's is a futile quest to wipe away his guilt over breaking his son's spirit and then getting him killed (even if it costs Mike his own soul in the process).

Mike's story obviously is far more sympathetic, but they're both ultimately doing bad things for reasons that have more to do with their own emotional needs than with the real material needs of their loved ones. In the BB/BCS universe there are no really rational, moral reasons to become the sort of criminal Mike and Walt are. But there are always very compelling emotional reasons.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

Supercar Gautier posted:

She knows perfectly well that she's chasing sunk costs. That's why she says, out loud, that she is.

She also knows it's a logical fallacy, but love isn't based on logic. I'm pretty sure she decided a while ago (I think after the commercial fiasco in Season 2) that Jimmy's her guy, no matter how many times or how badly he fucks up. Of course she probably doesn't truly realize exactly how badly he can and will gently caress up going forward.

Cnut the Great fucked around with this message at 13:40 on May 4, 2017

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

Rupert Buttermilk posted:

At first, I think it was for money for both him and his partner, thinking that if they worked FOR the cartel, they'd be taken care of. They could have a shot at the kind of life Don Eladio has.

Once Max (was that his name?) was killed and Gus' world was effectively shattered, revenge was likely his goal at that point. He's just extremely patient and methodical, two traits that Walt sorely lacked.

Edit: gently caress Chuck, but gently caress Walt forever more. I'd love to see those two together in a scene.

I'm always amused at people who get mad at Walt for killing Gus, a murderous drug kingpin who destroyed countless lives with his business and threatened to murder Walt's entire family, infant daughter included.

I mean yeah Walt's a bad guy but come on, you really think him killing Gus was nothing but some crybaby outburst of pride? No, it was pretty drat justified self-preservation and in the grand scheme of things a morally neutral action (and of course I'm talking about the discrete act of killing Gus in a vacuum, Brock's poisoning itself being indefensible in any context).

And this ties in to Mike's final tirade against Walt before being killed by him, which people often cite as being a really cathartic put-down of Walt but which ultimately made no sense. Walt should have just kept his head down and enjoyed the good thing they all had going? The whole reason Walt's troubles with Gus began is because Jesse went out to kill Gus's two thugs after they killed Tomás, which spurred Walt to kill Gus's thugs in order to save Jesse's life (then Walt hid him from Mike, who was out to find and kill Jesse!). Then Walt had Jesse kill Gale to save both his and Jesse's lives from Gus, who wanted them both dead. There was no point where Walt could have just let things alone and walked away with his life--and the whole conflict started because he was trying to save Jesse's life, which you would think Mike would have come to appreciate.

And I know that even the creators likely intend Mike's tirade to be exactly what many fans take it as--and Mike obviously does have a solid point about Walt, even if the example he used is horribly flawed--but I think this is one instance where the writers themselves got a bit too wrapped up in the Mike cult and didn't really consider the full context of everything that had happened in the story before.

Chernabog posted:

I don't get the prediction that Kim will die, it doesn't make any sense at this point of the story. Right now neither she nor Jimmy are in any physical danger. Maybe in the future she will be but I can't imagine a situation resulting in her death other than a freak accident or collateral damage (cartel related?). Either way would be a pretty lame way to go.

It makes a lot more sense that they will grow apart either by choice or circumstance and eventually provide a nice hook to wrap up the story in the post-BB era.

Unlikely prediction: She goes to the Cinabbon and doesn't recognize Jimmy. He is really nervous so he screws up her order and apologizes profusely though he is really talking about the past. She forgives him nonchalantly and walks away. Jimmy smiles.

There's no way she wouldn't recognize him. This is a man she's known and loved for years. He didn't get reconstructive surgery. A sparse hairline and a mustache aren't going to make him unrecognizable to her.

Capntastic posted:

Gus was always who Walt thought he was: cautious and reasonable

Not when it came to his vendetta. If he was cautious and reasonable, he would have let Mike kill Hector. One business rival out of the way, justice for Max's murder served, and absolutely no way to trace it back to Gus, since Gus actually wouldn't have been involved. But Gus wanted Hector to suffer, and he wanted to be the one to make it happen. So he let Hector live that day, and Hector ultimately ended up being the agent of his demise.

I think that's the point actually. Walt thinks he's as cautious and reasonable as Gus, but he isn't. Gus thinks he's above reckless emotional impulses, but when it comes to his vendetta, he's just as bad as Walt. When he first meets Walt, Gus tells Walt never to trust an addict (referring to Jesse). There's a double irony there because they're both addicts themselves. Walt is addicted to the adrenaline rush from his life of criminality, and Gus is addicted to revenge. Jesse, who's only addicted to drugs, is the only one who makes it out alive and free.

Cnut the Great fucked around with this message at 17:01 on May 5, 2017

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

Karmine posted:

I get being mad because Gus is a really engaging character portrayed by a really talented actor and you want to see more of him, but yeah Gus vs. Walter was the last time I actively rooted for Walt until he started gunning down nazis.

I definitely want to see more of the cold-hearted "I will kill your infant daughter"/"a bullet to the head is too good for him" side of Gus Fring moving forward. It's loving chilling.

I agree, it's always good to see more Gus. I just like to keep things in perspective a little bit sometimes by pointing out that these are all bad guys.

Right now though it's hard not to root for Gus against Hector. Gus comes across as so calculated, cool, and strangely principled while Hector is just a boorish, vulgar rear end in a top hat. The ironic thing is that by the end of their arcs on Breaking Bad I somehow still start to feel some empathy for Hector, whose life has become reduced to a living hell where he sits all day trapped in his paralyzed body, incontinent, condescended to by babying nurses who he has to have change his diapers, and forced to watch his entire extended family killed by his arch-rival who periodically stops by to cruelly mock him. His final hateful stare at Gus before he detonates the bomb and kills them both strangely makes me feel some catharsis on his behalf. And once again, it's basically a morally neutral action: Gus got his revenge, Hector got his revenge, then they cancelled each other out forever.

That's what's so ingenious about these shows though--the way they're constantly forcing you to shift your point of view and see things from different, and in some ways equally valid perspectives.

Cnut the Great fucked around with this message at 17:26 on May 5, 2017

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

The Shortest Path posted:

Don't forget that the entire situation with Jesse being involved with Gus came about because Walt just couldn't loving stand not being the smartest person in the room and fired Gale.

That's not why Walt fired Gale. At no point does it come across like Walt resents Gale for being smarter than him (which he clearly isn't, at least not when it comes to chemistry). Walt obviously likes Gale and finds him a refreshing change of pace at first. Walt fires Gale in large part because he genuinely misses working with Jesse, going so far as to offer Jesse a 50/50 partnership with him to get him to come back, which is not something a prideful guy like Walt does lightly.

(Of course he also wants to divert Jesse from suing the DEA for Hank beating him up.)

quote:

And the entire loving premise happening because Walt couldn't get over his bullshit with Grey Matter and take the money from them.

Mike was 100% correct.

Okay, but then he wouldn't be working for Gus in the first place, which is what Mike was saying Walt should have been doing. And neither Walt nor Mike should have been working in the meth industry. They both had their own reasons for doing so, which ultimately weren't that good. BCS makes it even clearer than it already was that what Mike is doing is not really entirely about getting money that his family desperately needs. Stacey and Kaylee don't actually need the kind of money Mike's pulling down at that point to be okay. But Mike keeps giving them money anyway because he feels guilty and is willing to do whatever Stacey asks for in order to assuage that guilt.

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

Colonel Whitey posted:

I think Jesse basically gave up on his revenge plans against Hank when Hank got shot by the twins. His reaction as he's leaving the hospital and sees Hank being carted in indicates this, though it's fairly subtle. What you describe is the ostensible reason Walt brought Jesse in and it may explain part of his reasoning but it wasn't really necessary at that point. Walt was also threatened by Gale because he was too competent and could easily replace Walt once he knew the cooking method. Gale was probably a deliberate insurance move on Gus's part in case Walt became a problem and had to be disposed of.

In what way does it ever come across like this enters into Walt's decision at that point? Walt hires Jesse back because he's his partner, not Gale. Part of Walt's whole power trip is that he wants to be better than Elliott Schwartz ever was. In Walt's mind, Elliott betrayed Walt, his partner, because he was an elitist who thought Walt was low class, beneath him. That's why Walt is so obsessed with the idea of he and Jesse being partners, gets so mad whenever he perceives Jesse has betrayed him, and ultimately ends up feeling so much guilt himself when Jesse accuses Walt of the same. Jesse is the only person Walt would ever, ever admit to being equal in skill to himself as a meth cook, even as an emotional ploy. Jesse may be a low class meth addict burnout, but Walt believes he has "potential" to be a great meth cook like himself. He sees him as a surrogate son, even groggily referring to Walt Jr. as "Jesse" at one point during an extreme low point in his and Jesse's relationship which Walt is clearly very distressed about. It's never outright stated by him, but Jesse's obviously the one who's supposed to carry on Walt's legacy as Heisenberg after he's gone.

e: It's extremely weird to claim that Mike's rant to Walt was meant to be in reference to Walt's fondness for Jesse and his belief in Jesse's potential--the exact things which Mike himself came to feel about Jesse.


quote:

There is no reason to think that Elliot and Gretchen's money would not have been enough and that they wouldn't have helped out Walt's family after he died. Nothing in the show indicates this and there's a simpler, more direct explanation that the show's text does support. The show makes it pretty clear that Walt could have easily chosen the charity path if not for his impotent ego trip.

You'll find no disagreement from me here. But that's not what Mike's rant was about.

Cnut the Great fucked around with this message at 22:36 on May 5, 2017

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

some guy on the bus posted:

But the show doesn't end there. He does die with a smile on his face after finding a way to get money to his family, saving Jesse, and admitting to Skyler that he did it all because he liked it, he was good at it, and he was alive.

This is the part a lot of people miss. Even Vince Gilligan, the biggest proponent of the idea that the Breaking Bad universe is one where karmic repercussions reign supreme, has admitted (I believe, I at least remember reading this in a lot of interviews at the time) that Walt's is arguably a happy ending where he gets what he wants. I think this may still be in keeping with the themes of the show, though. At this point, Walt has come to terms with why he was really doing these things and is on a mission of quite justified revenge. And then, at the last moment, he spares Jesse out of genuine love and pity, at the cost of his own life. Maybe, in some way, he almost balances out his negative karma with those final actions. I mean, he killed a bunch of Nazis. That's got to count for a lot, right? (Not really. I still maintain that the show is morally agnostic in spite of it all.)

At the very least, Breaking Bad is not a show where an unrepentant villain gets his just deserts. It's more complex than that.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

The Shortest Path posted:

Can confirm, killing nazis counts for a lot of positive karma.

Enough to make up for poisoning a child? Hmm, actually, yeah, that checks out.

  • Locked thread