Better Call Saul

Man u guys are harsh on the last bob n david eps! There was some great stuff in there (dry cleaners/house the musical esp)

Seriously. W/Bob & David had about the same hit/miss ratio as Mr. Show.

kim helping jimmy is super out of character. and her representing him is even weirder!

also not sure if it's just because i'm watching 30 rock at the same time so everything looks slow in comparison but the pace of this season really seems to have slowed to a crawl.

Loved last night's episode.

1) the contamination ad on TV when when Mike goes to his daughter's for lasagna, fearing that he has contaminated her new safe-house with the visit

2) parking lot shot with yellow striped gate behind them angled according to Gus's sight-line, increasing in intensity as it appears to penetrate and "see" through Mike or into his heart

Actually hoping next ep is actually an hour-long legal procedural as teased

At the end of the opening scene, when Hector is standing there in his Fringèd humiliation, who else heard the wind chime going ding ding ding ding?

ha nice

kim helping jimmy is super out of character.
― k3vin k., Tuesday, May 2, 2017 1:03 AM (twelve hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If by that you mean helping him with one of his schemes, then I agree. How could what they did with Mike have been legal? Why would Kim go in for that? Plus, I don't yet see how those photos could be used in a legal proceeding without Chuck figuring out what they did.

That said, I really enjoyed this episode.

if anything could turn someone to illegal activity, it's the necessary and just ratfucking of Chuck

her representing him seems out of character too! not a lawyer but isn't it considered unethical to represent a family member?

wait are they married, i forget. anyway, a loved one

they're on-again, off-again but they're at the very least business partners now

I think their actual relationship status is "doomed to failure"

can anyone work out what kim and jimmy are up to? dunno if i'm being dense or if it's not possible to know just yet.

It seems impossibly unfathomable, but that's what I like about it. As already mentioned, the covertly taken photos pose more problems than they solve.

it seems like they're going to paint Chuck as unstable or mentally ill? it sounded like Kim recorded Chuck admitting he set Jimmy up in regards to the break-in -- who's to say that Jimmy didn't admit to something he didn't do in order to soothe his mentally ill brother?

obviously Chuck is a danger to himself with the gas lantern on top of newspapers, his seclusion, and his medically improbable condition. it makes sense Jimmy would lie about falsifying something dumb in order to make him feel better. so Chuck comes off as paranoid, and Jimmy seems at the end of his rope when it comes to caring for his ill brother. the contents of the tape become suspect, and his admission of guilt had nothing to do with falsifying documents

the admission of guilt in court -- the legal proceedings had nothing to do with the tape, and it won't even be heard by the bar because Chuck acted unethically to make it

This thing about Kim being in on the scheme is nagging at me. Earlier in the series she was practically begging Jimmy to clean up his act, and insisting that if he ever do something illegal again, he can't tell her (this was after he revealed that he manufactured evidence--the peach cobbler tape--to help out Mike and his hapless pharma-nerd associate).

Now she's fully in on a plan that involves impersonating Chuck's assistant on the phone, sending someone into Chuck's house under false pretenses to take photos without his knowledge, and who knows what else. We've seen her enjoy being in on a con before, but for her to suddenly be comfortable doing so as a lawyer is new and abrupt.

Unless, of course, everything in that episode is completely legal. But that would surprise me.

jimmy drags everyone down into shit with him, which is the one thing chuck is kind of right about

Sure, and I'm not opposed to that direction for the character. As I said, there's precedent. But it seems like there's been a transition with Kim that should have been shown, rather than just presented as having happened sometime between this episode and the last.

it sounded like Kim recorded Chuck admitting he set Jimmy up in regards to the break-in -- who's to say that Jimmy didn't admit to something he didn't do in order to soothe his mentally ill brother?

I thought it was also notable that there was the implication the judge who was brought in might be sympathetic to Chuck. She had that aside where she mentioned someone who was sensitive to high-pitched noises in her extended circle. Is everyone going to be as sympathetic to Chuck's condition, or believe him?

I wouldn't put it past Jimmy to have a prior doctor's report in his back pocket where someone had deemed Chuck's condition as psychosomatic. Rather than believe them and seek treatment, he's gone down the rabbit hole with his perceived illness to the point he's actively endangering his well-being

It's never been explicitly tackled, but past Chuck had obsessive-compulsive tendencies when he had a partner, and I wouldn't doubt some psychologist pegged his condition on his need for complete control of his environment. When he's lacked control over Jimmy or felt his standing with the firm was threatened, he has been better enough to go into the office, use a tape recorder, or steal a newspaper when deprived of his own

I think the fact that Chuck emphasized that there is a lower standard of evidence admissibility for the bar hearing is setting things up for it to cut both ways. They are going to use that standard against him.

Yeah, my general thought (although I'm not sure what steps it'll take to get there) is that Jimmy is angling for Chuck's disbarment.

I think it's a long shot but I'd probably stand up and applaud if he gets Chuck disbarred

more likely to die i'd say

I wouldn't put it past Jimmy to have a prior doctor's report in his back pocket where someone had deemed Chuck's condition as psychosomatic

He does, doesn't he? From the time Chuck was hospitalized in Season One?

Die because he gets disbarred is my vote. He doesn't have much else going.

SO good. This show just keeps getting better and better.

And yeah . . . FUCK Chuck.

Chuck completely breaking, ranting, turns to the panel and they're just staring

beautiful

literally shouted "fuck you chuck" at the tv. comeuppance!

Great to see Huell back.

This show is amazing.

Jimmy still caring about Chuck and Rebecca kind of sad, that little sigh when Kim tells him that Rebecca is going to hate him after this

Chuck's long-term social responsibility to take care of Jimmy is just gross, totally something he does as part of his "must uphold the legal standards but also the social contract" bullshit. Completely clueless about relating to actual human beings personally. Fuck him.

Chuck's attitude toward Jimmy is p clearly fueled entirely by resentment. The mother/deathbed scene p said it all.

p much

tbh at some point he should have just cut off his brother instead of letting him stick around as an object of loathing

or given him his start in his law office

"Great to see Huell back."

I liked the obv clue that he was coming back from the vet "is the job in a tight spot?"

What a classic ep, again.

Better Fuck Chuck

I found the end of this episode powerful not only because of the schadenfreude for Chuck, but out of sympathy for him, because we all know he's right: Jimmy is an inveterate conman who will hurt others and himself. And he gets away with it because he's charming. He's charming the viewers of this very show, even though we all know what kind of person he turns out to be.

Yep. I'm very much on Team Jimmy but I've got to admit that Chuck sort of has a point

But then again maybe Jimmy would have become a pillar of the community if he'd gotten the job at HHM. It seems unlikely though

yeah was gonna raise that. like the stealing from the till and all that stuff, it's just so real that one brother is this pompous charmless jerk who plays by the rules and he hates his charming sympathetic younger bro who has a crooked streak.

so like - wouldn't the bar frown on jimmy's way of setting chuck up? it doesn't exactly dispel the idea that he's shady as fuck.

I had a similar thought--but I suppose the disbarment hinges on the tape, and if the antics, however questionable, discredit the tape, then that's all that matters.

I'm wondering if the nature of the proceedings will get back to Mesa Verde, and if they might look askance at Kim for participating in this sort of thing.

Also: at first I was very satisfied that the photos of the house that Mike took just ended up being sent to Rebecca. But then it looked like they actually were entered into evidence. That surely wouldn't escape the notice of someone like Chuck, but he said nothing about it. Then again, maybe he just figured they were pictures Jimmy took back when he had regular access to the house. But that all doesn't sit quite right with me.

tbh my prediction accuracy has been pretty low lately but I seem to be simpatico with the writers of this joint

yeah like, why even have the mike as workman plotline when that angle of questioning led to nothing whatsoever? seems a bit weird.

xpost

it's not an actual legal proceeding, so the provenance of the pictures is neither here nor there. it's part of the plot to show Chuck's not a clear-thinking person, even in his EMF-free cave imo

all the details were mostly there to get Chuck to crack, or to further the line of questioning -- Chuck has a condition but he's reasonable? no, he has this condition and is doing crazy shit like putting gas lanterns on top of newspapers

or more accurately "has this condition"

i can see that but i guess they maybe dismissed the pictures a bit too quickly, like the panel didn't even look at them really. felt like they were almost useless given we had a fairly long scene showing how they were taken.