Better Call Saul

I was thinking of Ray Bradbury's "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl", and doesn't McKean go and mention that very story in the "Talking Saul" wrapup

i already miss this show.

at the talkback i was at, they specified the Blockbuster scene as a little special moment for folks of a certain age.

it did make me think of how I lived through the entire lifecycle of an industry model, from birth to death

Blockbuster always sucked tho tbh

whenever they show chuck's house i keep hoping that it's the same neighborhood as Jesse Pinkman's house and that maybe we'll see his parents walking on the sidewalk or something

The finale had a couple of brilliant scenes (Chuck literally tearing the house apart) but it felt like the weakest season over all. Lots of watchable but baggy and disjointed plotlines, a general sense that you can see the strings moving, with Jimmy's storyline in particular.

Jimmy ending up broke (and on the road to Saul) through an act of selflessness was an excellent character move but I dunno if the Sandpiper stuff was the most interesting way the writers could have gone about.

cosign that post 100%

sort of feel like it veered a little close to camp at times. there were a few real groaner acting moments for me, most notably jimmy in the office with chuck's insurer

The drug dealer stuff feels like a completely different show now and the writers haven't done a great job at establishing the main players or giving them particularly credible motivations. They've got closest with Nacho but any details of his life are kinda sketchy, and whenever Gus appears it feels like fan service. Leaving Mike out of the finale feels like an admission he isn't the central protagonist that side of the show maybe needs.

Like it feels like we're being shown all this stuff because it needs to happen for the events of BB to take place but it isn't particularly exciting to me as drama in its own right, despite great work from the actors and some terrific setpieces.

Overall this felt like a 'groundwork' season - I've a feeling the criminal and legal aspects of the plot will be more closely connected next time.

Has there been any indication how many seasons there'll be? I'm guessing 5, like BB.

Gould has said he feels like going past five would be a stretch, but also acknowledges that they thought he’d be Saul Goodman by the end of Season 1, so isn’t making any definite predictions (and they still write each season without a plan).

Hasn’t been renewed for S4 yet though. Just checked, and it was renewed a week ago.

Finally caught up with season 3, great stuff as usual. I feel terrible and conflicted about nearly everyone, and dread learning the fates of Chuck (despite his assholery) and Kim (especially Kim). Sandpiper's not done yet, is it? They just have to wait out the settlement. The question is why/how Jimmy doesn't still get his cut of the bigger number whenever down the line.

And yeah, groundwork season, but featuring stuff it's still useful to show/learn. Compared to, say, the last season of the Americans, where almost nothing happened, and just when you thought something would happen ... something happens that takes them right back to the beginning.

Bunch of weird movies choices in the background at Blockbuster. Could have sworn there were several shelves of Lawrence of Arabia.

spotted the Howard Hamlin actor in an old episode of 90210 last night. that guy's delivery/line readings have not changed one bit lol.

I finally decided to give this another try last week after dipping out after a couple of episodes when it first aired.

I’m on e3 of s3 already & i love it so much. So much.
I like it more than Breaking Bad because it’s not clamoring for drama; I love the pathos, I love that it’s slower & quieter, and that there’s so much room to breathe.

And I am loving the complexities of Chuck v Jimmy. It’s like an onion & a pearl at the same time. All the layers of resentment & envy & humiliation, plus the tiny grain of sand implanted so long ago that you could never truly say what started it, but that it grew so much it took an entirely new form.

I never have seen McKean in any other dramatic roles but god he’s so good.

And Odenkirk is a golden god. GAH i love this show!

I will go back & reread the thread when I’m done.

Rhea Seehorn is also an amazing "discovery" for that ensemble of veteran faces. Each year I get angry near the end of the series, just bcz whatever bullshit Jimmy and Chuck are going through is inevitably going to derail Kim from getting her life together.

i was just coming back to say Kim is incredible. Everything about her character, her screen time, she just makes everything better & more interesting

And without her we would not have
https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2016-04/19/10/enhanced/webdr08/original-25873-1461077806-12.jpg?downsize=715:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto

there’s something about her that adds a layer of likeability to Jimmy that you wouldnt get otherwise. she’s kind to him, even when she’s trying not to be. and he doesn’t have as much artifice when he’s around her. it makes you wish he’d do it more bc she’s SO GREAT but he’s such a fuckup aasdfghgkfjffjfjjffjdkdmaaaaaaaaaaa it makes me crazy

and I have a tiny crush on Nacho

it makes you wish he’d do it more bc she’s SO GREAT but he’s such a fuckup aasdfghgkfjffjfjjffjdkdmaaaaaaaaaaa it makes me crazy

otm

also Gus’s El Pollos Hermanos store seems like a good place to work. He’s a good manager & treats his staff well. Beats the hell out of any of my shitty lazy KFC managers

ahhh veg how come you didn't get into this the first time round?! it's possibly one of my favourite shows to watch

I also have a crush on Nacho!!!

xxpost - kinder, my comment at the time was basically complaining about “all the annoying BB fanservice”. O_o
idk wtf my problem was, obv i am a better person now than i was 3 years ago lol

<3 Nacho <3

it is my new fave show

it’s so good i’m so glad you’re on board vg

i haven’t seen ANY of season 3 is it streaming now

This show and Fargo are my two favorites. They are both operating at such an across the board top level. The Americans ... I haven't started the new season yet, but last one was getting a little shaggy.

xxpost - kinder, my comment at the time was basically complaining about “all the annoying BB fanservice”. O_o
idk wtf my problem was, obv i am a better person now than i was 3 years ago lol

<3 Nacho <3

This might be my favorite TV show right now but it still feels like two different shows to me, a gripping one about Jimmy that tells stories I've never seen on television before, and a much more contention crime one about Mike.

The problem was actually worse in S3 with the addition of Gus and all those other BB characters, who were often quite literally retelling stories we've already seen in BB. Like, learning about the Los Pollos and Madigral drug fronts are not as exciting the second time around because... we've literally seen them explained on the previous show.

also (SPOILER) the season three finale closes the door on everything I found most interesting about the show (the Chuck/Jimmy relationship, the law firm intrigue, the class action suit, Jimmy's relationship with elderly clients). The show had to move on, but I'm gonna miss all that stuff

xp that kind of redundancy could never bother me in a show so beautifully realised - the standard complaint against prequels is that foregone conclusions aren't interesting but a) that's wrong, cf all tragedy and b) those conclusions are not exactly unforegone in the original

Sincerely, a fwwm stan

The thing I love is the way show lives in the grey areas of morality & behaviour. It’s pretty rare to find shows that are confident enough to do that.

And the Jimmy/Chuck story is on some kind modern-day Greek tragedy arc that I cannot get enough of. I think about it all the time, and how even though its obv heightened for tv, so much of the emotion & motivation of both characters is SO relatable, sibling-wise
Esp if you have ever experienced the fuckup/not-fuckup dynamic

Chuck is only slightly below Walter White on the hatefulness scale imo, he just happens to also be mentally ill and technically "right" on some incidental points - this is a v smart choice on the writers' part

wins relentlessly otm

yeah, BB was very black and white in its conviction that bad actions have bad consequences; that show was obsessed with collateral damage. But Chuck is roughly as culpable in his downfall as Jimmy was (well, maybe not, depending on how you view his mental illness, but that's the beauty of grey areas).

interesting parallel in the season finales: In S2, Jimmy does the right thing by coming clean to Chuck. But he still doesn't follow through and take responsibility for his actions. In S3, Jimmy rights his wrong and clears the old lady's name, at great and permanent personal sacrifice. His path to villain hood is a lot less linear than Walter White's

chuck seems to believe that doing what is legally right equates to showing love. but he’s incapable of actually expressing which leaves him with nothing other than the law to back him up.
jimmy so far (s3 e5) is still capable of expressing love but he often uses love to justify making really bad decisions. he’ll choose what feels morally right/satisying over what is legally right, but the kindness he shows people in life generates a reserve of good will that can keep him afloat when he fucks up.

and that’s what chuck can’t understand.

it’s not that chuck is bad and jimmy is good, or vice versa, it’s that they just both have really jacked up ways of showing love lol

s3 episode 9

welp

i guess it’s officially goodbye caring Jimmy, hello proto-Saul :/
i wanna crawl through the tv & shake him! this shit he’s pulling on poor sweet Irene makes me want to cry ;_;

this is the best show, but a disconnected battery is not a current source.

oh god i’ve been bawling non-stop through episode 10

chuck’s breakdown is so hard to watch.

Yeah. S3 is really intense. I can’t wait for the next one. It’s my favorite ongoing show, I think

oh god that ending

why did u make me watch this show i hate you all

poor chuck. he’s a motherfucker but oh god that destroyed me

;_;

i reread the thread & i’m surprised at the few underwhelmed comments re season 3 and/or the final ep. i thought it really shaded the greys so beautifully. and i love that it doesn’t put a bow on every plotline, but unravels or tangles one with another... it feels like a lived-in world where “plots” ie ppls lives ebb & flow or mistakes just repeat/repeat/repeat til they break and form new patterns.

dramatically, it’s so studied and beautiful that it looks boring bcz it mirrors so much of life irl; and yet still heightens it to make it watchable & interesting. that’s why it’s SO good.

sorry for shitposting - one last thing

Francesca, Kim & Jimmy’s receptionist?
She’s Saul’s receptionist in BB. <3
She’s the one he says “How bout I follow you home?” which is even more O_o now that we’ve met her etc

So when Jimmy mentions Chuck's condition to the malpractice insurance representative, grinning mischievously, he did have any real plan or was he just being vindictive?

I get that he was reeling from his own financial losses, but in hindsight the spitefulness of that act (which set in motion the events that killed Chuck) seemed out of character. He'd already defeated/humiliated Chuck, and generally he was only willing to harm his brother when it was to protect his own interests; he rarely plotted against Chuck out of pure spite

I think he was just in a dark-ass mood at that point. Wasn't that just after his seething monologue at the bar?

considering watching all of this again

Just kind of an interesting choice narratively. In the end it's not any of Jimmy's scheming, conniving, or half-rationalized attempts to do something good that brings about the show's great tragedy. It was an uncharacteristic act of malice.

it felt spontaneous. jimmy had just learned about his own insurance increasing 150%. I read it to be a large part of what he regrets in his last talk with chuck. I don't know that jimmmy expected it to lead to chuck's forced retirement. just good at tearing things down.

yeah i think he felt that chuck had ruined him & in that moment decided fuck it, why should i be the only one suffering, i’ll ruin him right back etc

all good points. it's yet another incremental step towards the total amorality that would lead him to suggest that Walt and Jesse kill Badger in S2 of BB.

sucks so hard that s4 got delayed till the fall