Better Call Saul 1.07
Mar. 17th, 2015 10:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakAfter last week's backstory-tastic outing, the plot continues in this one, and I struggle mightily not to care too much for a dooooooomed couple because damm, their scenes together are so great, and there's no way....
...because Jimmy will turn into Saul, and there's no Kim in Saul's life, nor could there be. But oh, right now I wish so much they could be partners together, them and Chuck, with their own firm. (Mike can come along as the investigator and spare a lot of his future victims killed in the service of kingpins.)
Here's the small but important detail that makes Jimmy's path to Saul more than a collection of unfortunate circumstance, though: the lesson isn't just "doing the right thing sucks". If he hadn't taken the bribe from Betsy Kettleman a few episodes back, they'd be in prison by now (okay, awaiting trial), and Jimmy wouldn't have been put in a position where the Kettlemans could blackmail him to begin with. It was his inability to say no to those 35 000 dollars that landed him in the pickle from which solely giving up the money (and his dream of his own grand office where Kim is his partner) could get him out. This being said, Jimmy's final angry and crying breakdown in the empty dream office was heartbreaking. And then of course he picks up the phone, bloody knuckles not withstanding.
The Kettlemans continue to be loathsome suburbia crime comic relief. I've seen the criticism that the character of Betsy is a misogynistic caricature, and viewed in isolation, I can see the point, but not in context - Better Caul Saul offers a male boo-hiss character of equal loathsome self righteous entitlement and smugness via Hamlin, who in this episode casually punishes Kim for losing clients when it was clearly not her fault, and Betsy's not the only female character, so female representation doesn't hinge on her. (BTW, the fact Jimmy knows the nickname of the section at HMMG where unfavoured lawyers go further supports the impression he used to work there for a while when Chuck was still an active partner.)
Chuck trying to build up a "resistance" to energy fields and Jimmy leaving case files with him in order to get him focused in the law again: aw. I suppose there I can at least hope Chuck makes a recovery from whatever ails his psyche that produced the phobia and during the Breaking Bad era is out there, practicising law far, far from Albuquerque? Though again, Jimmy's relationship with Chuck, as with Kim, is such good thing to watch that knowing it will end at some point is just damm sad, despite the lighthearted tone the show has most of the time. Sure, Saul enjoys being a criminal lawyer in every sense far more than Jimmy does trying to keep the the relatively straight and compromised narrow - but Saul doesn't have the people Jimmy cares most about and who care about him anymore, or the illusion he could ever be anyone else.
Mike's "we're square now" at the end: you would think that, Mike. I wonder, though, who'll contact whom first again, since we already know Stacy (Mike's daughter-in-law) won't give Mike up to the Philadelphia cops (prequel ordained).
Trivia: I made a joke about Vince Gilligan liking blondes who secretly smoke in my review of the pilot, but now I wonder whether he's not a frustrated smoker who had to quit himself. All kidding aside, American tv tends to cast smokers (in non-period dramas) as villains, the most famous example being the Cigarette Smoking Man in the show where Gilligan cut his teeth, the X-Files. Hence, perhaps, Skyler's smoking habits being held against her on lists outranking the, you know, actual crimes she later in the show commits. I wonder whether Kim will catch similar flack for smoking when she's frustrated, angry or depressed? (Jimmy otoh solely seems to smoke when with Kim and able to share a cigarette, so presumably he's not really into the nicotine as much as he's into the comforting bonding habit.)
...because Jimmy will turn into Saul, and there's no Kim in Saul's life, nor could there be. But oh, right now I wish so much they could be partners together, them and Chuck, with their own firm. (Mike can come along as the investigator and spare a lot of his future victims killed in the service of kingpins.)
Here's the small but important detail that makes Jimmy's path to Saul more than a collection of unfortunate circumstance, though: the lesson isn't just "doing the right thing sucks". If he hadn't taken the bribe from Betsy Kettleman a few episodes back, they'd be in prison by now (okay, awaiting trial), and Jimmy wouldn't have been put in a position where the Kettlemans could blackmail him to begin with. It was his inability to say no to those 35 000 dollars that landed him in the pickle from which solely giving up the money (and his dream of his own grand office where Kim is his partner) could get him out. This being said, Jimmy's final angry and crying breakdown in the empty dream office was heartbreaking. And then of course he picks up the phone, bloody knuckles not withstanding.
The Kettlemans continue to be loathsome suburbia crime comic relief. I've seen the criticism that the character of Betsy is a misogynistic caricature, and viewed in isolation, I can see the point, but not in context - Better Caul Saul offers a male boo-hiss character of equal loathsome self righteous entitlement and smugness via Hamlin, who in this episode casually punishes Kim for losing clients when it was clearly not her fault, and Betsy's not the only female character, so female representation doesn't hinge on her. (BTW, the fact Jimmy knows the nickname of the section at HMMG where unfavoured lawyers go further supports the impression he used to work there for a while when Chuck was still an active partner.)
Chuck trying to build up a "resistance" to energy fields and Jimmy leaving case files with him in order to get him focused in the law again: aw. I suppose there I can at least hope Chuck makes a recovery from whatever ails his psyche that produced the phobia and during the Breaking Bad era is out there, practicising law far, far from Albuquerque? Though again, Jimmy's relationship with Chuck, as with Kim, is such good thing to watch that knowing it will end at some point is just damm sad, despite the lighthearted tone the show has most of the time. Sure, Saul enjoys being a criminal lawyer in every sense far more than Jimmy does trying to keep the the relatively straight and compromised narrow - but Saul doesn't have the people Jimmy cares most about and who care about him anymore, or the illusion he could ever be anyone else.
Mike's "we're square now" at the end: you would think that, Mike. I wonder, though, who'll contact whom first again, since we already know Stacy (Mike's daughter-in-law) won't give Mike up to the Philadelphia cops (prequel ordained).
Trivia: I made a joke about Vince Gilligan liking blondes who secretly smoke in my review of the pilot, but now I wonder whether he's not a frustrated smoker who had to quit himself. All kidding aside, American tv tends to cast smokers (in non-period dramas) as villains, the most famous example being the Cigarette Smoking Man in the show where Gilligan cut his teeth, the X-Files. Hence, perhaps, Skyler's smoking habits being held against her on lists outranking the, you know, actual crimes she later in the show commits. I wonder whether Kim will catch similar flack for smoking when she's frustrated, angry or depressed? (Jimmy otoh solely seems to smoke when with Kim and able to share a cigarette, so presumably he's not really into the nicotine as much as he's into the comforting bonding habit.)
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