Better Call Saul 4.06
Sep. 11th, 2018 04:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakWhich inspired me to a new guess as how this show will end, and was another lawyers centric one, so I'm happy.
The opening 1993 flashback to Jimmy and Kim in their mailroom at HHM days provided us with the moment when Jimmy decides to become a lawyer, and it's fitting that both the universal acclaim for Chuck after scoring another HHM victory and Kim's own ambition to succeed in this very field (as well as her then admiration for Chuck) can count as inspiration. The flashback of course also provides a contrast to the depleted HHM Jimmy later visits in the present, but more to the point, I think it reminds us that all knowledge of the future and Jimmy's con man past aside, Jimmy and Kim are different in what drives them as lawyers. It's not that Jimmy doesn't have drive and ambition, but he thrives on validation via people he cares about (as well as the persuading and convincing of strangers, i.e. the part of lawyering that overlaps with his inner con man). Kim loves him, but she didn't want an actual shared law firm last season, i.e. a true legal partnership with him, and she doesn't want one now. Her reaction to finding his doodles of Wexler & McGill is to approach Schweikart and Cokely and get herself a job that makes it impossible for her to be Jimmy's partner. Yes, it also solves her current dilemma of wanting to continue to work pro bono without losing the Mesa Verde meal ticket (at least so she thinks - I'm not sure Mesa Verde will be happy since Kim's original pitch to them was that she'd be devoted to them and them only 24/7). But given that she is the one to approach Schweikart and suggests setting up a banking legal department while later she lets Jimmy assume that they approached her and suggested the job - not to go all Jean-Luc Picard on you, Kim, but a lie of omission is still a lie -, I think "making it clear to Jimmy that Wexler & McGill is not an option" was an important factor in her actions.
Meanwile, Jimmy is back to being truthful with her as far as it goes; he admits the mindnumbingly dull truth re: his phone selling job, he doesn't pretend to go to a therapist as she had suggested, which I was afraid he would. At the same time, he does the "lies of omission" part as well; of course Kim doesn't hear about the not-dull part of phone selling, i.e. the hustling, nor about his revenge plans, which we see him pull off in style at the end of the episode. In style and criminality, because no matter how obnoxious and dangerous the three young punks were, luring them into a trap and intimidating them with a baseball bat and two disguised (future) thugs is a gangster move, not a lawyer move. Kim has started on a career as a criminal lawyer; Jimmy, otoh, has started on one as a criminal lawyer (tm Jesse Pinkman).
Otoh the episode also reminds us of his light side; note that when he learns of Geraldine Strauss' death, he doesn't true to hustle the nephew re: the Hummel figurine, and he's seriously sad, watching the ad he shot with Mrs. Strauss as the face of the Sandpiper campaign, able to grieve openly for her the way he can't for his brother (because there are no mixed feelings re: Mrs. Strauss). And when he visits Howard to collect his meagre inheritance, the sight of HHM in freefall due to the combination of Howard's guilt trip, Chuck's death and the blow to the image due to the previous season's events sincerely disturbs him, resulting in a tough love approach to Howard which seems to have worked.
Meanwhile chez Mike: the scene with Stacey where he apologizes for the way he acted with the group had the benefit of neither positioning Stacey as a reason for Mike's slide into criminality nor being repetitive, and thus I was touched. Otoh, the scenes with the German workers amused me. You bet Germans play basket ball. (See also: Dirk Nowitzki.) In case anyone wonders, the impression the German dialogues gave me was that while some of the workers (notably Kai the future troublemaker) were actually played by Germans, others were American actors who learned their text phonetically. But said text continues to be not bablefish German but correct - and plausibly slang-like, so A for effort, fellows, I continue to be impressed. Speaking of Kai, I take it we've just met the first person Mike will murder in Gus' service.
As for Gus: his supervillain monologue at Don Hector's bedside actually did provide us with something we didn't knew from Breaking Bad, for the first time since Gus showed up on this show. To wit: BB's flashback to Hector killing Max who was Gus' partner did give one the impression this was where Gus the future crime czar was born. Otoh, this monologue now tells us that long before Hector darkened his life, Gus, as a child, was capable of keeping a hurt animal alive out of sheer spite, because he wanted it to suffer, and suffer long, for having spoiled the fruits of his youthful labor. This paints young Gus as anything but an innocent.
Lastly: Kim and Jimmy as criminal lawyers in different senses and Kim's "I like it, and I'm good at it" made me wonder whether the show, at the very end, will provide us with Jimmy surrendering himself to the law rather than live out his life as Gene, and Kim becoming his lawyer...
The opening 1993 flashback to Jimmy and Kim in their mailroom at HHM days provided us with the moment when Jimmy decides to become a lawyer, and it's fitting that both the universal acclaim for Chuck after scoring another HHM victory and Kim's own ambition to succeed in this very field (as well as her then admiration for Chuck) can count as inspiration. The flashback of course also provides a contrast to the depleted HHM Jimmy later visits in the present, but more to the point, I think it reminds us that all knowledge of the future and Jimmy's con man past aside, Jimmy and Kim are different in what drives them as lawyers. It's not that Jimmy doesn't have drive and ambition, but he thrives on validation via people he cares about (as well as the persuading and convincing of strangers, i.e. the part of lawyering that overlaps with his inner con man). Kim loves him, but she didn't want an actual shared law firm last season, i.e. a true legal partnership with him, and she doesn't want one now. Her reaction to finding his doodles of Wexler & McGill is to approach Schweikart and Cokely and get herself a job that makes it impossible for her to be Jimmy's partner. Yes, it also solves her current dilemma of wanting to continue to work pro bono without losing the Mesa Verde meal ticket (at least so she thinks - I'm not sure Mesa Verde will be happy since Kim's original pitch to them was that she'd be devoted to them and them only 24/7). But given that she is the one to approach Schweikart and suggests setting up a banking legal department while later she lets Jimmy assume that they approached her and suggested the job - not to go all Jean-Luc Picard on you, Kim, but a lie of omission is still a lie -, I think "making it clear to Jimmy that Wexler & McGill is not an option" was an important factor in her actions.
Meanwile, Jimmy is back to being truthful with her as far as it goes; he admits the mindnumbingly dull truth re: his phone selling job, he doesn't pretend to go to a therapist as she had suggested, which I was afraid he would. At the same time, he does the "lies of omission" part as well; of course Kim doesn't hear about the not-dull part of phone selling, i.e. the hustling, nor about his revenge plans, which we see him pull off in style at the end of the episode. In style and criminality, because no matter how obnoxious and dangerous the three young punks were, luring them into a trap and intimidating them with a baseball bat and two disguised (future) thugs is a gangster move, not a lawyer move. Kim has started on a career as a criminal lawyer; Jimmy, otoh, has started on one as a criminal lawyer (tm Jesse Pinkman).
Otoh the episode also reminds us of his light side; note that when he learns of Geraldine Strauss' death, he doesn't true to hustle the nephew re: the Hummel figurine, and he's seriously sad, watching the ad he shot with Mrs. Strauss as the face of the Sandpiper campaign, able to grieve openly for her the way he can't for his brother (because there are no mixed feelings re: Mrs. Strauss). And when he visits Howard to collect his meagre inheritance, the sight of HHM in freefall due to the combination of Howard's guilt trip, Chuck's death and the blow to the image due to the previous season's events sincerely disturbs him, resulting in a tough love approach to Howard which seems to have worked.
Meanwhile chez Mike: the scene with Stacey where he apologizes for the way he acted with the group had the benefit of neither positioning Stacey as a reason for Mike's slide into criminality nor being repetitive, and thus I was touched. Otoh, the scenes with the German workers amused me. You bet Germans play basket ball. (See also: Dirk Nowitzki.) In case anyone wonders, the impression the German dialogues gave me was that while some of the workers (notably Kai the future troublemaker) were actually played by Germans, others were American actors who learned their text phonetically. But said text continues to be not bablefish German but correct - and plausibly slang-like, so A for effort, fellows, I continue to be impressed. Speaking of Kai, I take it we've just met the first person Mike will murder in Gus' service.
As for Gus: his supervillain monologue at Don Hector's bedside actually did provide us with something we didn't knew from Breaking Bad, for the first time since Gus showed up on this show. To wit: BB's flashback to Hector killing Max who was Gus' partner did give one the impression this was where Gus the future crime czar was born. Otoh, this monologue now tells us that long before Hector darkened his life, Gus, as a child, was capable of keeping a hurt animal alive out of sheer spite, because he wanted it to suffer, and suffer long, for having spoiled the fruits of his youthful labor. This paints young Gus as anything but an innocent.
Lastly: Kim and Jimmy as criminal lawyers in different senses and Kim's "I like it, and I'm good at it" made me wonder whether the show, at the very end, will provide us with Jimmy surrendering himself to the law rather than live out his life as Gene, and Kim becoming his lawyer...
