Better Call Saul 4.10
Oct. 12th, 2018 09:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIt’s Frankfurt Book Fair time, and that means I’m on my feet from morning till late at night, but I did finally manage to catch the Better Call Saul finale.
Trust Gilligan & Gould with the help of these splendid actors to make the very premise of the show into a tragedy. Saul on Breaking Bad was a comic relief character, and great fun as such. And yet, four years later, Jimmy McGill’s “‘S’all good, man” announcement confirming what the audience has seen happening for a while now hits you like a physical blow. It definitely hits Kim this way. The best (in the sense of most gutwrenching) element here is that in a way, Kim knew, and yet she didn’t. She knew the whole “mourning for Chuck” thing was planned as a con - it was her idea, too - , in order to impress Albuquerque’s lawyering community, so that Jimmy would get reinstated as a lawyer after all. She wanted it to work, of course she did. Biut it’s pretty obvious she also hoped that Jimmy pretending to mourn would lead to Jimmy actually finally allowing himself to access those emotions she was sure he felt and confront Chuck’s death. When she heard his speech this time, despite all previous knowledge, she believed him just as the comitee did, partly because she wanted to, and partly because it was so very, very plausible. So when a jubilating Jimmy later twirled her around and poured scorn on “those suckers”, it not only hit her because she had been sucked into the performance as well, but because she could no longer tell when Jimmy was lying and when he wasn’t. She honestly couldn’t tell anymore. And at a guess, that might have been the most disturbing element of all.
As opposed to Kim, the audience sees Jimmy emotionally vent without this being an act exactly twice (for sure) during the episode, once when catching up with Kirsty, the girl who was declined for a scholarship, when he was projecting his own issues (not just with Chuck but with the entire world at this point) on her with a vengeance in his outburst. (Which basically was Jimmy’s “I am the one who knocks” speech, fittingly since while this speech out of context usually is treated as a badass moment for Walt, in context it was Walt at his most pathetic and powerless (he was slaving away in the basement for Gus at that point) exploding at Skyler.) The other time, Jimmy is alone in his car, crying (quite differently from his pretend grief at Chuck’s graveside) with anger and frustration. Saul, when not playacting, is not the crying type, so I doubt we’ll see him this way again often anymore. Mind you, the joy at the end was real, too, but how different from the joy at the very start of the episode, a flashback to Jimmy’s being accepted as a lawyer at the bar, with, lo and behold, Chuck acting as sponsor, then not only showing up at Jimmy’s and Kim’s celebration at a Karaoke bar but actually letting Jimmy draw him into a shared Karaoke performance. (At which point I learn that Michael McKean, as opposed to Bob Odenkirk, can actually sing.)
Other than last season’s finale flashback to child Chuck reading Jack London to child Jimmy, I think this flashback is the sole sincere, unguarded and unambiguous moment of (mutual) affection between the brothers McGill the show gave us. Which btw at first made me wonder whether it would be revealed as a dream of Jimmy’s, as opposed to a memory or a flashback, because Chuck was pretty much like Jimmy must have always wanted him to be there: professionally supportive, indulging Jimmy in his whim, later taking care of a drunken Jimmy in his apartment and falling asleep beside him. (And one more surprising detail - Chuck knows ABBA lyrics at heart. Yes, in the karaoke bar they must have been in front of him, but when Jimmy starts to sing again drunken on the bed, and Chuck responds with the correct line, there was no text lying around.) “The winner takes it all”, they sing, and Jimmy refers to that bit of lyric in his verbal explosion years (and ugly truths from and about Chuck) later when talking to Kristy but really about himself. By the end of the episode, Jimmy has won, but he’s also lost. Kim, more likely than not, and most poignantly, the Jimmy McGill who was so happy that night, celebrating with his two favourite people.
Jimmy uses Chuck’s letter as an effective prop in his presentation, reading out loud only an excerpt, but if you remember how it ended in the earlier episode where he reads it to Kim, Chuck says he’s glad he and Jimmy share the name McGilll. So Jimmy’s decision, once he’s reinstated, to no longer practice as Jimmy McGill but under a new name might have an immediate practical reason (his mobile phone criminal customers all know him under the new alias), but it’s also a big fuck you to Chuck, without Jimmy ever admitting as much, possibly not even to himself. Saul is ready to go, using Jimmy’s emotions only as props without allowing himself to feel them, and it’s - well, devastating. Masterfully played, show.
Meanwhile, Mike, too, leaves a key bit of his humanity behind when, as I expected, he kills Werner, his first murder not for vengeance or in defense, either directly or indirectly, but because his employer deemed it necessary. It’s a quietly powerful scene; Werner might be clueless in terms of just how dangerous working for someone like Gus is, but once he knows he’s about to die, he shows a kindness towards Mike that proves the friendship between them had been sincere. The cinematography is beautiful as Werner pretends to go to “watch the stars” so that Mike can shoot him from behind instead of having to look him in the eyes, and by itself, as a part of Mike’s story and a reflection of Jimmy’s, it works. I’m just not sure it retrospectively justifies all the screen time for Gus and the building of the superlab this season.
Lastly: Breaking Bad’s fourth season had Walt freeing himself from both his slave situation and the imminent death threat from Gus, his last employer, and becoming the new kingpin. Season 5 then gave us Walt in complete supervillain stage. Presumably s5 will give us Jimmy as fully Saul, but I do wonder whether there’ll also be a secondary storyline finally offering a payback for all those season openers with Gene, telling us about his post BB life and bringing things eventually full circle (I hope).
Trust Gilligan & Gould with the help of these splendid actors to make the very premise of the show into a tragedy. Saul on Breaking Bad was a comic relief character, and great fun as such. And yet, four years later, Jimmy McGill’s “‘S’all good, man” announcement confirming what the audience has seen happening for a while now hits you like a physical blow. It definitely hits Kim this way. The best (in the sense of most gutwrenching) element here is that in a way, Kim knew, and yet she didn’t. She knew the whole “mourning for Chuck” thing was planned as a con - it was her idea, too - , in order to impress Albuquerque’s lawyering community, so that Jimmy would get reinstated as a lawyer after all. She wanted it to work, of course she did. Biut it’s pretty obvious she also hoped that Jimmy pretending to mourn would lead to Jimmy actually finally allowing himself to access those emotions she was sure he felt and confront Chuck’s death. When she heard his speech this time, despite all previous knowledge, she believed him just as the comitee did, partly because she wanted to, and partly because it was so very, very plausible. So when a jubilating Jimmy later twirled her around and poured scorn on “those suckers”, it not only hit her because she had been sucked into the performance as well, but because she could no longer tell when Jimmy was lying and when he wasn’t. She honestly couldn’t tell anymore. And at a guess, that might have been the most disturbing element of all.
As opposed to Kim, the audience sees Jimmy emotionally vent without this being an act exactly twice (for sure) during the episode, once when catching up with Kirsty, the girl who was declined for a scholarship, when he was projecting his own issues (not just with Chuck but with the entire world at this point) on her with a vengeance in his outburst. (Which basically was Jimmy’s “I am the one who knocks” speech, fittingly since while this speech out of context usually is treated as a badass moment for Walt, in context it was Walt at his most pathetic and powerless (he was slaving away in the basement for Gus at that point) exploding at Skyler.) The other time, Jimmy is alone in his car, crying (quite differently from his pretend grief at Chuck’s graveside) with anger and frustration. Saul, when not playacting, is not the crying type, so I doubt we’ll see him this way again often anymore. Mind you, the joy at the end was real, too, but how different from the joy at the very start of the episode, a flashback to Jimmy’s being accepted as a lawyer at the bar, with, lo and behold, Chuck acting as sponsor, then not only showing up at Jimmy’s and Kim’s celebration at a Karaoke bar but actually letting Jimmy draw him into a shared Karaoke performance. (At which point I learn that Michael McKean, as opposed to Bob Odenkirk, can actually sing.)
Other than last season’s finale flashback to child Chuck reading Jack London to child Jimmy, I think this flashback is the sole sincere, unguarded and unambiguous moment of (mutual) affection between the brothers McGill the show gave us. Which btw at first made me wonder whether it would be revealed as a dream of Jimmy’s, as opposed to a memory or a flashback, because Chuck was pretty much like Jimmy must have always wanted him to be there: professionally supportive, indulging Jimmy in his whim, later taking care of a drunken Jimmy in his apartment and falling asleep beside him. (And one more surprising detail - Chuck knows ABBA lyrics at heart. Yes, in the karaoke bar they must have been in front of him, but when Jimmy starts to sing again drunken on the bed, and Chuck responds with the correct line, there was no text lying around.) “The winner takes it all”, they sing, and Jimmy refers to that bit of lyric in his verbal explosion years (and ugly truths from and about Chuck) later when talking to Kristy but really about himself. By the end of the episode, Jimmy has won, but he’s also lost. Kim, more likely than not, and most poignantly, the Jimmy McGill who was so happy that night, celebrating with his two favourite people.
Jimmy uses Chuck’s letter as an effective prop in his presentation, reading out loud only an excerpt, but if you remember how it ended in the earlier episode where he reads it to Kim, Chuck says he’s glad he and Jimmy share the name McGilll. So Jimmy’s decision, once he’s reinstated, to no longer practice as Jimmy McGill but under a new name might have an immediate practical reason (his mobile phone criminal customers all know him under the new alias), but it’s also a big fuck you to Chuck, without Jimmy ever admitting as much, possibly not even to himself. Saul is ready to go, using Jimmy’s emotions only as props without allowing himself to feel them, and it’s - well, devastating. Masterfully played, show.
Meanwhile, Mike, too, leaves a key bit of his humanity behind when, as I expected, he kills Werner, his first murder not for vengeance or in defense, either directly or indirectly, but because his employer deemed it necessary. It’s a quietly powerful scene; Werner might be clueless in terms of just how dangerous working for someone like Gus is, but once he knows he’s about to die, he shows a kindness towards Mike that proves the friendship between them had been sincere. The cinematography is beautiful as Werner pretends to go to “watch the stars” so that Mike can shoot him from behind instead of having to look him in the eyes, and by itself, as a part of Mike’s story and a reflection of Jimmy’s, it works. I’m just not sure it retrospectively justifies all the screen time for Gus and the building of the superlab this season.
Lastly: Breaking Bad’s fourth season had Walt freeing himself from both his slave situation and the imminent death threat from Gus, his last employer, and becoming the new kingpin. Season 5 then gave us Walt in complete supervillain stage. Presumably s5 will give us Jimmy as fully Saul, but I do wonder whether there’ll also be a secondary storyline finally offering a payback for all those season openers with Gene, telling us about his post BB life and bringing things eventually full circle (I hope).
no subject
Date: 2018-10-12 09:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-15 01:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-19 12:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-13 04:25 pm (UTC)And yet, what do we also see? Chuck ultimately taking the spotlight off of Jimmy at his own party; being way, way better then Jimmy at what they're doing; and even almost seeming to forget Jimmy's there for a moment as he steps forward to deliver his own performance, leaving Jimmy in the background. None of the characters are, in that moment, thinking of this as a toxic pattern. Nobody minds, everybody is happy. But we in the audience can see it, and we know where it ultimately leads. And that just adds to how heartbreaking it is.
no subject
Date: 2018-10-15 01:44 pm (UTC)Oh, and I forgot to mention in my review that the final scene between Jimmy and Kim is a way more subtle homage to the ending of The Godfather than Luke Cage’s second season ending literally restaging the final shot, but it’s still a very clear nod towards it.