gortiz Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 A couple bits of great dialogue: Douchebag Henchman: "What are you packing?" Mike: "A pimento sandwich. Pimento, its a cheese. They call it the pimento of the south." And then Chuck's line that, if it wasn't uttered at such a brutally gut-wrenching time, would have been a hell of a lot funnier: "Slippin' Jimmy with a law degree is like a chimp with a machine gun." "caviar of the south" Let's go Dan T. for the first time I wavered, as much as I love Saul/Jimmy, a spin off on Mike might have been better. the plot story just got so good ... and they end it next week. I wonder if we will get a cliff hanger leading into next season or a lot of closure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gortiz Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 man I felt so bad for Jimmy last night. such a ****ed up episode and **** you Chuck! That was his chance to be legit and they turned him away. They made him into Saul man, let's not forget. he has already run that scam with the twins, he did take that bribe money, albeit didn't spend it. he's doing elderly law because, well, he thinks he can make money, he could give a rats ass about taking care of old people. But i know what you are saying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOF44 Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 One thing I don't get is why didn't he just take it to another big law firm?? He would have been hired in a nice position and been able to reap the benefits of the case. F HHM! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan T. Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 he's doing elderly law because, well, he thinks he can make money, he could give a rats ass about taking care of old people. Eh, I disagree. You see hints of mutual affection as he schmoozes the residents of Sandpiper Crossing. And he shows genuine empathy when the lady can't pay for her will because her allowance hasn't come yet. Sure he wants to make a buck. But helping out underdog old folks holds some allure for him. "caviar of the south" Let's go Dan T. D'oh. Fixed, thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skinz4Life12 Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 man, let's not forget. he has already run that scam with the twins, he did take that bribe money, albeit didn't spend it. he's doing elderly law because, well, he thinks he can make money, he could give a rats ass about taking care of old people. But i know what you are saying. Yea I guess he's done shady stuff in the past but I feel like this was his chance to be a legit lawyer and his own brother didn't want him. Now he heads down the darker path.. One thing I don't get is why didn't he just take it to another big law firm?? He would have been hired in a nice position and been able to reap the benefits of the case. F HHM! Yea that's what I said. Screw HHM and take it to another firm that would be happy to have him Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gortiz Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 Eh, I disagree. You see hints of mutual affection as he schmoozes the residents of Sandpiper Crossing. And he shows genuine empathy when the lady can't pay for her will because her allowance hasn't come yet. Sure he wants to make a buck. But helping out underdog old folks holds some allure for him. good points, I forgot about how he gave that lady a break ... Yea I guess he's done shady stuff in the past but I feel like this was his chance to be a legit lawyer and his own brother didn't want him. Now he heads down the darker path.. Yea that's what I said. Screw HHM and take it to another firm that would be happy to have him I agree with you too Skinz, I'm pretty sure he would have gone a lot more legit with a more established firm like HHM. That being said, it's masterful how they are showing his path to Saul. Still buzzing about the Mike scenes, they could have not made that more badass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan T. Posted April 3, 2015 Share Posted April 3, 2015 Article on Breaking Bad easter eggs in Better Call Saul. Kinda meh, but a couple are mildly entertaining... https://www.yahoo.com/tv/better-call-saul-breaking-bad-easter-eggs-115402883670.html A couple in the comments are interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Switchgear Posted April 4, 2015 Share Posted April 4, 2015 I didn't get to watch the episode until tonight. So good, and yet so painful. Redskin-All-In, that was a great point about the 'twist' with Howard, how they get us to REALLY hate him before showing it isn't him at all. Rewatching the scene where Howard tells Jimmy they 'just want the case', the looks he gives to Chuck are so much more meaningful. This one in particular: "The things I do for you..." Great discussion all around, and thanks for the props guys. Oh, and to use spoiler tags, type spoiler in between brackets, and close it with /spoiler also in brackets. Brackets = [ ] It's also in the More Reply Options, the Special BB Code button has a dropdown where you can get the board to auto generate the tags. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDoyler23 Posted April 4, 2015 Share Posted April 4, 2015 I know people are killing Chuck, but I get the feeling we are going to get to know a lot more about Slippin' Jimmy. There is years of history there that we haven't seen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan T. Posted April 4, 2015 Share Posted April 4, 2015 I know people are killing Chuck, but I get the feeling we are going to get to know a lot more about Slippin' Jimmy. There is years of history there that we haven't seen. This is probably a really good point. IN Breaking Bad, the writers had us grow to really like Walter White at first. We tended to overlook his transgressions at first because of the larger good he was (seemingly) trying to achieve. That support then slowly but steadily eroded as the evil took over. They played with our relationship with Walter, and really with most of the characters on the show. Maybe, in Better Call Saul, we are getting to like Jimmy a little too much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redskin-All-In Posted April 4, 2015 Share Posted April 4, 2015 Maybe, in Better Call Saul, we are getting to like Jimmy a little too much. I think you're absolutely right. And it scares me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The 12th Commandment Posted April 4, 2015 Share Posted April 4, 2015 One of my favorite quotes from BB was Jesse telling Walt you don't want a criminal attorney you want a criminal, attorney. Saul is different than Walt in the regard that we already know him at his worst. Which, while bad, was no where near Heisenberg bad. I suspect his good side is similarly no where near Walt's good side. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Switchgear Posted April 7, 2015 Share Posted April 7, 2015 Last week was a hard act to follow, but it was fun seeing Jimmy in his element. I'm sorry to see season 1 end, but what a start to the series. Chicago sunroof is already on urban dictionary. http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/06/better-call-saul-season-1-finale-recap-its-never-stopping-me-again/?_r=0 So why does “Marco,” as this episode is called, feel like a letdown? We know that Bad Jimmy will ultimately prevail in the internal war for Mr. McGill’s soul, and the last scene suggests he is driving straight toward the dark heart of Saul Goodman, his ethically challenged alter ego. I’m just not sure why. Much of the season finale is given over to a weeklong bender in Chicago, where Jimmy reunites with his former scam buddy, Marco (played with a reprobate’s élan by Mel Rodriguez). Together, they relive the good old days of separating barflies from their cash, until Marco expires in mid-con, from a heart attack. At the funeral, Jimmy gets a call from Kim, who tells him to hurry home to Albuquerque because a corporate law firm is interested in hiring him. Hurry he does, but just before he is to meet his potential new employers, and reach the perch of respectability that has long been his goal, he gets back in his car and drives away. As he exits he sidles up to Mike, who is still the parking lot attendant. Jimmy is having a kind of reverse crisis of conscience. Why, he asks, didn’t the pair split the $1.5 million they had lifted from a thieving county bureaucrat and his criminally inclined wife? “I remember you saying something about doing the right thing,” Mike says. “I know what stopped me,” Jimmy replies. “And you know what? It’s never stopping me again.” I can think of any number of reasons that someone might bail on a career in corporate law, and many are offered in this episode. Kim’s complaints about life at HH&M underscore that she is mistreated and bored. Chuck is no longer an inspiring example. Surely the approbation of Chuck is what Jimmy is referring to when he says he knows what stopped him. But Jimmy hasn’t just opted out of white collar office life. He has announced that he wants to resume his career as a nonviolent criminal. It’s this decision that seems a little mystifying. Nothing about that week of scams in Chicago looks very appealing. In fact, it ends with Marco’s funeral. Additionally, throughout this entire season, aside from a brief moment when he considers keeping that $1.5 million, Jimmy McGill appears to be a reformed man. He’s genuinely helping those elderly people with their wills and estates. I can see him rejecting corporate life. The embrace of the felonious life makes me scratch my head. Last week’s episode implied that Chuck was dead wrong when he said that Jimmy could never shed his roguish past. (“I know what you were, what you are!” he yelled.) Now it seems, Chuck was right. And that’s fine, especially because we have long known that Jimmy is bound to become Saul. I just wish the writers gave us more of an explanation for the about-face. The subtext of episodes one through nine was “People can change.” The subtext of that last few minutes of this season finale was “Not really.” Maybe Jimmy is headed for an outlaw’s career as revenge against Chuck, or as an act of defiance. Maybe. But that’s a pretty big commitment, as acts of revenge or defiance go. He is choosing a lifestyle, after all. Beyond this, it was kind of a disappointment that the episode spent so long in Chicago. It felt like water- treading to me, in part. If it is necessary to explain why Jimmy declines the straight and narrow life back in Albuquerque, I don’t think it worked. And that con involving the Kennedy half dollar marks one of the few times that the audience was a step ahead of the writers. We knew where it was going, as it unfolded. Part of the delight of “Better Call Saul” is always being a step behind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StillUnknown Posted April 7, 2015 Share Posted April 7, 2015 That article pretty much summed up my feelings on the season finale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elkabong82 Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 I think it's that Jimmy is no longer trying to impress his brother nor does he feel he owes his brother anything anymore. Right before he died, Marco said "best week of my life." Jimmy keeps his ring, and at the end we see him rubbing the ring, remembering Marco. I think since Jimmy no longer feels obligated to his brother he's thinking back to the thrills from his old life and then kicking himself for letting all the money go, the past him never would have done that, and he's blaming his brother for it so now he'll never let that happen again. The prestige and respect he no longer cares about, he's no longer trying to impress his brother. So he's now opting for his old ways and those thrills, and making lots of money doing it, rather than go Kim's route and be miserable. Jimmy has lost his moral compass due to brother, and he had the reminder from Marco about the thrills/highs of his past life, and he sees he can apply it to law and make lots of money rather than go the honest route just to end up miserable. He let the chance for big money slip through his fingers over his brother, which now furthers the resentment for him and their divide, pushing Jimmy all the way over to Saul. Great transformation and causes, but I do think the creators could have added an extra line or two to better convey it all. I liked that we found out where the ring came from, why Jimmy had to leave Chicago, and Marco's line about the caddy being why Saul later does drive that. Very good season 1, looking forward to them building off of it for an amazing season 2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warhead36 Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 The season finale was awesome. Jimmy tried going by the straight and narrow and his brother still scorned him, so F it why not go full rogue? Especially to honor his fallen friend Marco. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan T. Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 I tend to agree with the piece Switchgear posted. Jimmy abandoning his attempts to go legit at the end of the episode felt a little bit too forced and abrupt, a rare misstep for the show runners. In Breaking Bad and, so far, in Better Call Saul, character motivations always felt believable and in line both with the story arc and with what we know so far about the characters. This twist didn't quite feel right. He took the call from Kim and seemed genuinely psyched about the opportunity at the other law firm. But them, BOOM, he idly twists Marco's pinkie ring and decides - right there and then - that he will always be Slippin' Jimmy? I don't know. I thought we would watch the transformation to Saul over the course of episodes, not see it happen like a flip of a switch at the end of a season finale. Which is what seems to be the case. But hell yeah I'll be tuning in when Season 2 rolls around. I'd be a fool to underestimate the people who do this show. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoCalMike Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 Yeah I figured he would at least initially take the job, and then maybe somewhere during the case-work he realizes that even going legit has it's pitfalls which would lead him to decide to leave the firm and do his own thing. The fact that he was just handed the best opportunity of his life and didn't even make it through the door? A bit "iffy" on the believable scale, but I can forgive it due to how great the show has been overall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan T. Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 This was an interesting observation from June Thomas, a critic for Slate: She noted that Jimmy's very first spoken words of dialog on the series premiere of Better Call Saul—after the flash-forward to "Gene" as Omaha Cinnabon manager— were uttered as he's defending the three young idiots who defiled a corpse. “Your brain, it’s just not all there yet. If we were held responsible for what we did when we were 19 … ” Thomas writes "That particular case was hopeless, but the question of whether it’s possible to rewind the VHS tape of life and erase one’s youthful mistakes became the overarching theme of the first season." Very cool observation by Thomas... the writers hint at the entire theme of the season in the very first line of spoken dialogue. --- Side question... which is a worse youthful discretion, a Chicago Sun Roof with kids in the back seat, or the antics with the corpse videotaped by those knuckleheads? Or maybe we should just call it a tie. A miserable, disgusting tie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momma There Goes That Man Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 I don't think it happened at the flip of a switch. He's always been Slippin Jimmy. He never wanted the straight life, that was all for Chuck's approval. Once he realized Chuck's approval was never going to happen, he stopped living for something he didn't really want. Touching the ring just reminded him of his lost friend and the fun they had for their week in Chicago. Marco's last words were that it was the best week of his life. I think it finally dawned on him, do I really want this? He knows he's great at doing things outside the lines and he also is a talented lawyer. Why compromise that and getting ahead while also being happy if he can do it his way. This was his moment of clarity. The entire season has been building up to it and teasing the audience often with his Saul persona. He took the bribe money and it seemed like that might be the impetus for his switch but he gave it back and continued to do the right thing at the expense of getting nowhere. I don't expect next season to just start with him as Saul, I think there is still a lot of room for that to develop and some internal and external struggles that need to take place. This was simply Jimmy rejecting the ideal goal of being a credible corporate lawyer which has always seemed to be Chuck's vision not his. At least he believed that it was Chuck's goal. This epsiode showed when he said his goodbye to Marco that he didn't really want it imo, he only felt obligated because his brother saved him. He's been living for Chuck this whole time both physically in all the errands he performs and emotionally in the dreams and goals he's had. He is now living for Jimmy and doing things his way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redskin-All-In Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 I agree with Momma. I don't see this episode as a sudden switch to becoming something different. I see it as a "moment of clarity" / sudden rejection of something he never was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JCav06 Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 Jimmy's turn into Saul did seem a little sudden, but I think his abrupt decision was actually the result of years of frustration trying to do the right thing. In the season finale, I believe Saul said he's been in Albuquerque for 10 years. So for a decade, he's been trying to go legit (working in the mailroom, getting his degree, doing elder law, etc.) only to have people constantly doubt him ("You're the type of lawyer guilty people hire,"). Despite everything he's done, he has nothing to show for it. Kim's offer was great, but what motivated Jimmy up until this point was his brother's approval. He was doing all the right things, but he was miserable. Taking that job would've meant on some level he was still looking to please him. Now that he's not burdened by him, he can go back to his Slippin Jimmy ways, only now with a law degree. Already looking forward to season 2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan T. Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 I agree but it still seemed abrupt and forced. Come to Jesus Moments can be tough to do well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redskin-All-In Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 I agree but it still seemed abrupt and forced. Come to Jesus Moments can be tough to do well. I agree too, wasn't up to the usual standards we've come to love about BB and now Saul. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky21 Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 Great read Switch. Thanks for the link. And I agree with those above. It seemed forced. The writing team is so good it actually surprises you when you see them look fallible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.