Better Call Saul

Gonna enlist mike (with whom he barely interacted this series) to help him pull a switcheroo, then use chuck's now-court-established mental health issues to discredit him

good a guess as any

OL v otm about Chuck's motivations. Everybody likes Jimmy better, it's not fair!

What happened at the beginning? I think my dvr missed something as the first thing I saw was Jimmy walking into the hospital and Chuck saying their mother was gone.

Chuck and Jimmy were by their mother's bedside, the implication being she was going to pass away sometime soon. Jimmy said they need to eat, they should go get a sandwich. Chuck refuses to leave his mother's side, and Jimmy headed out to get sandwiches. Their mother woke for a moment, saying "Jimmy... " to which Chuck responded "it's me, mom. Chuck," at which point she repeated "Jimmy..." and then died.

Yeah, I had to watch on demand because my DVR did the same gahdamn thing. Another in a long string of fails, Comcast.

same here! comcast. fuckers. must have been some issue

i figure mike's plot is supposed to feel a bit death wish, he has the skills and the icy exterior but isn't quite yet the hyperrational and calculating crime guy he becomes.

hope jimmy gets him to snipe that utter bastard chuck

Jimmmy was the favored son and how unfair that was in light of Chuck trying so hard to do everything right and Jimmy being the fuckup that he is. No one should give Jimmy a shot because it's unfair that someone who refuses to follow the rules should be at all favored. It's just not fair!

http://17rg073sukbm1lmjk9jrehb643.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/prodigal3.jpg

L-R: Chuck, Everyone in the world but especially their parents, Jimmy

The tape recorder was a little like the end of every episode of diagnosis murder, where dick van dyke tricks the murderer into confessing and then barry van dyke comes out from behind a thing (he's been hiding behind a thing the whole time)

Chuck's swoon looked like typical syncope (fainting), not a stroke or a seizure. He hit his head hard enough to get a concussion but that's unlikely to be fatal. The forces involved weren't enough to produce a skull fracture and epidural hematoma, or even a contusion / subdural hematoma.

Harder to sort out the neurological status in Chuck's case because even without a specific brain injury, he can be very drowsy / encephalopathic just from his usual (psychological) hypersensitivity to EMR. Would be no surprise if he doesn't wake up for awhile even if the scans and other testing are OK. But he should recover.

― Plasmon, 15. huhtikuuta 2016 17:57

I thought was kinda funny that this is pretty much exactly what happened, the doctor even used the word syncope. I guess we should always trust the specialist in the house.

On a more general level, I really like how this show puts so much attention to detail and avoids a lot of the accepted movie/TV cliches, which having Chuck die from hitting his head would've been. Or how they showed Mike calibrating the sniper rifle like it should be done, instead of just taking it from the case and starting to shoot right away, which is how it typically happens in audiovisual fiction. There are still some absurd things happening in the show, but they result from human behaviour, the technical details are almost always correct.

Xp ha I think I did see that but forgot about it

in some ways what BCS is about at heart (and you can say the same thing about Breaking Bad) is the nature of premeditation. They really like you to see the unseen.

I did roll my eyes a bit when the doctor suggested they needed a CT because Chuck might have had a stroke -- strokes rarely cause loss of consciousness at onset, and when they do, the patient doesn't wake up a minute later. Also they could've cleared his C-spine clinically since he was awake and lucid by that point, the scan isn't really needed if he isn't having neck pain, especially given such a low impact injury.

But it's fair to say that the scans are standard practice in cases like that, and Jimmy is completely reasonable in feeling there'd be a risk of forgoing them.

The ER trauma bay scene was very realistic, I wonder if they used real medical staff for the dialogue, or at least to write it.

The show's also done a great job of handling Chuck's psychological condition, showing the suffering is very real even if there's not anglicized reason for it. His ability to rise above his symptoms at least temporarily when he really needs to is a common feature of similar cases I've seen. I often say as a neurologist that it's the patient's best performance (for Chuck, something like the meeting where he helped retain Mesa Verde) that points to their underlying neurological diagnosis (in Chuck's case, he's normal), even though patients tend to define their conditions (understandably) by their worst moments and the prolonged or recurring nature of their suffering.

* a tanglible, not "anglicized" -- thanks spellcheck

Plasmon I always appreciate yr expert input on this kind of thing!

Yes, you deserve a medical consultant credit for sure.

Plasmon, you should listen to the BCS podcast (ep 210) where Gilligan and his co-writer for this episode talk at length about their Medical consultant's advice both during writing and on set. Interesting stuff.

btw i know nothing about medicine and the whole stroke suggestion made me roll my eyes too.

Or how they showed Mike calibrating the sniper rifle like it should be done, instead of just taking it from the case and starting to shoot right away, which is how it typically happens in audiovisual fiction. There are still some absurd things happening in the show, but they result from human behaviour, the technical details are almost always correct.

― Tuomas, Thursday, April 21, 2016 6:54 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Fun fact: All the through the scope shots were actually filmed through the actual rifle scope. no long lenses. no effects.

I was just thinking earlier that a real bare bones, TV Guide-esque summary of this season could easily make BCS sound like the most boring show on earth. "Jimmy makes a commercial. Mike watches people from afar and almost kills some people but doesn't actually kill anyone. Chuck has an episode after he mistakenly believes that he made a clerical error."

much as i enjoy the show's methodical pace and personal intrigue etc i did feel this was somewhat lacking and a little abrupt as a finale :/

xp "Jimmy Makes some photocopies"

that's basically how Mad Men episode summaries used to read. "Don takes a trip. Roger has a problem at the office."

Chuck's gonna be flatlined and it's going to fall to his next of kin to pull the plug.

― Honor thy pisstake as a hidden intention. (WilliamC), Friday, April 15, 2016 9:11 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Chuck would def have wanted the plug pulled tbf

― Kevin Ageusia Smith (wins), Friday, April 15, 2016 9:14 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

But on this show, coulda gone any number of ways.

I thought this was a great episode.

I keep trying to predict developments as if I were still watching Breaking Bad. I was very good at forecasting the long game with BB, not so much with BCS.

I thought the first episode was pretty good. I'm going to give it eight out of ten

― paolo, Monday, 9 February 2015 19:17 (1 year ago) Permalink

I'm going to say that this is a nine out of ten show. Not quite as good as the holy trinity of The Wire, Breaking Bad and The Sopranos but not far off

Lols weren't from the prediction but the electricity joke xps

Be interesting to see what Chuck does with that tape, since we know Jimmy doesn't get disbarred/convicted

Do we know he doesn't get disbarred?

In BB, he's practising as Saul Goodman so perhaps this is the start of his journey down that road.

passing the bar under a fake name seems like it would be p difficult but idk

especially living in the same town where he's already had his face on billboards and tv ads

Spoiler depending on how sensitive you are
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Did anyone else see the christiantimes.com article naming 3 BB regs appearing in S3??

No, and no thank you! One is fairly obvious. If you follow the threads on the obvious one, I can think of maybe one or two regular supporting characters that would make sense. I'm certain that Flynn is one of the three, though.

Clearly Holly.

if we're throwing out guesses the most obvious one is Gus, other two could be just about anybody at this point

lol "Flynn" I forgot about that

The beloved fan favorite Tyrus will return, obvs, if Gilligan & Co. have any sense.

It seems at least possible that Hank will show up eventually. That's probably the most likely path to a possible Walt cameo, however inconsequential and unconnected to the larger narrative of the show it would be.

Ugh I don't want that

I'm thinking ppl related to gus's operation plus maybe saul's receptionist and huell

I don't want that, either, but I'm accepting that it'll probably happen. I just hope it happens in a way that makes sense and compromises the integrity of the narrative as little as possible. These guys and gals can handle it.

Yeah I'm crossing my fingers for Huell.

I don't really see any reason for Walt to show up in this but who knows

at this point I def trust the showrunners not to do some clumsy shoehorning fan service bullshit tho

They've at least hinted at possible cameos from Walt and Jesse. I'm sure that, when and if it happens, it won't be much more than a quick winking nod. Like in half focus walking through the background at the grocery store or something.

Hank is a definite possibility. Maybe Gale, too. He was involved with Gus before the events of BB, no?

I'm certain that Flynn is one of the three, though.

― There must be some magic clue inside these gentle walls (Old Lunch), Thursday, July 7, 2016 8:59 AM (4 hours ago)

can't tell if serious

such a useless character

it's pretty amazing how much better the characters are in BCS than BB btw, gus notwithstanding

Maybe Gale, too. He was involved with Gus before the events of BB, no?

my memory is that Gale is Gus's original cook so yeah I thought he might be a possibility too

xpost I'm totally serious. We never got to see the oft-alluded to story of Flynn's summer job as an intern in Saul's office.