Better Call Saul 4.09.
Oct. 2nd, 2018 08:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which the other shoe drops, in a lot of ways.
That argument between Jimmy and Kim on the roof has been brewing the entire season, with her delight them pulling off last week's con (and this week's opening teaser) just a delay of the inevitable, as it turns out. And yet it comes in a way both expected and unexpected. I've been afraid since 4.02, where he reviled the copier people who'd have hired him because they were so quickly won over by him, that Jimmy might turn his self loathing on to Kim one day, and here it happens, and yet what I didn't guess but should have was that it would be triggered by other people's (i.e. people other than them) actions, and specifically his not being reinstated as a lawyer. (Though I expect that will happen in the finale.) And it comes all together here. His season long refusal to talk about Chuck, or the emotions his brother's death and their entire relationship have caused in him. The fact that he became a lawyer originally to impress two people, his brother and Kim, and one of them then turned out to think that the very concept of Jimmy practicing the law was sacrilege. Kim's steadfast refusal through all seasons to share a law firm with him (while supporting him in every other way). Even the fact she showed herself capable of enjoying and participating in cons, and very recently, too. It all feeds into that visceral outburst. The BB/BCS writers were always able to write fights between people which really hurt because they know each other so well. On the one hand, Jimmy is clearly projecting and being unfair when he accuses Kim of seeing him only as Slippin' Jimmy, using him just as a distraction when she is bored and not seeing him as a lawyer. She rightly points out all the ways she did and does support him, and that her refusal to partner with him in a law firm shouldn't be the ultimate test as to whether she loves him.
On the other hand, it's clear to see, in retrospect, why it became so important for Jimmy that she does this last thing, and it's not just because he loves her, it's because she and Chuck were the original inspiration to become a lawyer, Chuck couldn't have been more clear on how abhorrent the idea of Jimmy-the-lawyer was to him, and so Kim becoming his partner-in-law has become the final sanction.
"You see me as the kind of lawyer whom only guilty people hire". Betsy Kettleman, your season 1 insult clearly stuck. And he'll become that kind of lawyer, in the most flamboyant "so there!" manner. And yet, and yet, he could have become otherwise. Could he? Kim certainly believes that. If there's a kernel of truth in Jimmy's accusations, it's that the occasional con serves as a distraction in her otherwise straightlined life, but she certainly believes in his capacity to be a good lawyer (in her definition of good). (See also the job she got him at a prestigious law firm in early s2, where his boredom in it and manoeuvring to get rid of it got her demoted at HHM.)But. Is holding back in this one regard about keeping her independence, or is it because a part of her does expect him (and not without reason, see above) to screw up a shared law firm if she partnered him there as well?
"You're always down, Jimmy." Most cutting sentence I heard on my tv screen since "You're beneath me, Spike", and that's how Jimmy heard it, too. And in Kim's case, too, what gets out of her isn't just the stuff related to the present situation, it's what has been collecting in her through the season (and the last), and which she couldn't, wouldn't say before, because she knew the awfulness of the Chuck situation, and she wanted to support him and be there even though he kept doing things like needlessly getting in fights with cops and breaking into offices and so forth and so on.
Because this is the last but one episode of the season, not the finale, that fight does not mean the end of Jimmy and Kim yet; their last scene has them talking again, both numb and regretful from the fight. "Do you still want to be a lawyer?" "Yes." "Then that's a start."
But Jimmy couldn't reply to the question of what the law means to him for an endless, very awkward silent moment, and that as much as his silence on all things Chuck might have swayed the comitee in his disfavour. It's not that his eventual reply wasn't literally true and sincerely meant in as much as it describes how he became a lawyer. It's that the element of calculation there, the wanting to tell these three people just what he thought they needed from him, the urge to please was too obvious. Now Chuck was pompous, clueless about people, jealous of Jimmy in a way that ended up poisonous and very selfish not just in regards to Jimmy but in all his relationships (just ask Howard), but he wouldn't have had to think long about a reply to such a question, because the law was too central, too essential to him. So much so that he could not see a point in living with the prospect of never working as a lawyer again. And Jimmy knows that. Knew it when he set events in motion to ensure this would happen in retaliation of what Chuck had done earlier. Knows it now, where speaking about anything Chuck related is what he's made impossible for himself.
When I didn't sit glued by the Jimmy-and-Kim drama, I found myself surprisingly captivated by the now ending tale you could subtitle "Mike and the Germans". I mean, I couldn't care less about the proto superlab per se, but I'm not immune to the rarity of having compatriots depicted a) not as Nazis, b)not shouting "Jawohl!" or "Gesundheit" at any point, and also the Werner and Mike bromance was oddly effective. Poor old Werner just signed his death warrant with that escape, and so, possibly, did all the other Germans following. In a way, it's as irrational a gesture as Jimmy's insistence on selling mobiles to criminals when he was just one month away from getting his license back (or so he thought); Werner has no reason to believe he won't return to Germany as a very rich man (well, not much reason, I mean, obviously his mysterious employer has something shady planned with this underground room that had to be created in such secrecy, but Werner hasn't watched Breaking Bad and thus does not know what Gus Fring is capable of if he deems it necessary), just like Mike promised, and most of the work is done. And yet we've seen the loneliness wear him out through the last episodes, bonding with "Michael" not withstanding. And when he risks his life to reconnect the wire in this episode, he's damn near losing it, and knows that. So it does make emotional sense. Still. Death warrant.
"Wiedersehen" is a different word than "Goodbye"; it means the same as "au revoir" - "till we see each other again". Werner will see Mike again. One very final time, I really can't see this ending any other way now. And then Mike will have become Mr. Full Measures.
That argument between Jimmy and Kim on the roof has been brewing the entire season, with her delight them pulling off last week's con (and this week's opening teaser) just a delay of the inevitable, as it turns out. And yet it comes in a way both expected and unexpected. I've been afraid since 4.02, where he reviled the copier people who'd have hired him because they were so quickly won over by him, that Jimmy might turn his self loathing on to Kim one day, and here it happens, and yet what I didn't guess but should have was that it would be triggered by other people's (i.e. people other than them) actions, and specifically his not being reinstated as a lawyer. (Though I expect that will happen in the finale.) And it comes all together here. His season long refusal to talk about Chuck, or the emotions his brother's death and their entire relationship have caused in him. The fact that he became a lawyer originally to impress two people, his brother and Kim, and one of them then turned out to think that the very concept of Jimmy practicing the law was sacrilege. Kim's steadfast refusal through all seasons to share a law firm with him (while supporting him in every other way). Even the fact she showed herself capable of enjoying and participating in cons, and very recently, too. It all feeds into that visceral outburst. The BB/BCS writers were always able to write fights between people which really hurt because they know each other so well. On the one hand, Jimmy is clearly projecting and being unfair when he accuses Kim of seeing him only as Slippin' Jimmy, using him just as a distraction when she is bored and not seeing him as a lawyer. She rightly points out all the ways she did and does support him, and that her refusal to partner with him in a law firm shouldn't be the ultimate test as to whether she loves him.
On the other hand, it's clear to see, in retrospect, why it became so important for Jimmy that she does this last thing, and it's not just because he loves her, it's because she and Chuck were the original inspiration to become a lawyer, Chuck couldn't have been more clear on how abhorrent the idea of Jimmy-the-lawyer was to him, and so Kim becoming his partner-in-law has become the final sanction.
"You see me as the kind of lawyer whom only guilty people hire". Betsy Kettleman, your season 1 insult clearly stuck. And he'll become that kind of lawyer, in the most flamboyant "so there!" manner. And yet, and yet, he could have become otherwise. Could he? Kim certainly believes that. If there's a kernel of truth in Jimmy's accusations, it's that the occasional con serves as a distraction in her otherwise straightlined life, but she certainly believes in his capacity to be a good lawyer (in her definition of good). (See also the job she got him at a prestigious law firm in early s2, where his boredom in it and manoeuvring to get rid of it got her demoted at HHM.)But. Is holding back in this one regard about keeping her independence, or is it because a part of her does expect him (and not without reason, see above) to screw up a shared law firm if she partnered him there as well?
"You're always down, Jimmy." Most cutting sentence I heard on my tv screen since "You're beneath me, Spike", and that's how Jimmy heard it, too. And in Kim's case, too, what gets out of her isn't just the stuff related to the present situation, it's what has been collecting in her through the season (and the last), and which she couldn't, wouldn't say before, because she knew the awfulness of the Chuck situation, and she wanted to support him and be there even though he kept doing things like needlessly getting in fights with cops and breaking into offices and so forth and so on.
Because this is the last but one episode of the season, not the finale, that fight does not mean the end of Jimmy and Kim yet; their last scene has them talking again, both numb and regretful from the fight. "Do you still want to be a lawyer?" "Yes." "Then that's a start."
But Jimmy couldn't reply to the question of what the law means to him for an endless, very awkward silent moment, and that as much as his silence on all things Chuck might have swayed the comitee in his disfavour. It's not that his eventual reply wasn't literally true and sincerely meant in as much as it describes how he became a lawyer. It's that the element of calculation there, the wanting to tell these three people just what he thought they needed from him, the urge to please was too obvious. Now Chuck was pompous, clueless about people, jealous of Jimmy in a way that ended up poisonous and very selfish not just in regards to Jimmy but in all his relationships (just ask Howard), but he wouldn't have had to think long about a reply to such a question, because the law was too central, too essential to him. So much so that he could not see a point in living with the prospect of never working as a lawyer again. And Jimmy knows that. Knew it when he set events in motion to ensure this would happen in retaliation of what Chuck had done earlier. Knows it now, where speaking about anything Chuck related is what he's made impossible for himself.
When I didn't sit glued by the Jimmy-and-Kim drama, I found myself surprisingly captivated by the now ending tale you could subtitle "Mike and the Germans". I mean, I couldn't care less about the proto superlab per se, but I'm not immune to the rarity of having compatriots depicted a) not as Nazis, b)not shouting "Jawohl!" or "Gesundheit" at any point, and also the Werner and Mike bromance was oddly effective. Poor old Werner just signed his death warrant with that escape, and so, possibly, did all the other Germans following. In a way, it's as irrational a gesture as Jimmy's insistence on selling mobiles to criminals when he was just one month away from getting his license back (or so he thought); Werner has no reason to believe he won't return to Germany as a very rich man (well, not much reason, I mean, obviously his mysterious employer has something shady planned with this underground room that had to be created in such secrecy, but Werner hasn't watched Breaking Bad and thus does not know what Gus Fring is capable of if he deems it necessary), just like Mike promised, and most of the work is done. And yet we've seen the loneliness wear him out through the last episodes, bonding with "Michael" not withstanding. And when he risks his life to reconnect the wire in this episode, he's damn near losing it, and knows that. So it does make emotional sense. Still. Death warrant.
"Wiedersehen" is a different word than "Goodbye"; it means the same as "au revoir" - "till we see each other again". Werner will see Mike again. One very final time, I really can't see this ending any other way now. And then Mike will have become Mr. Full Measures.
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Date: 2018-10-04 02:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-05 03:17 pm (UTC)