Better Call Saul - Season Three Discussion

i didn't get it either. i thought it was some kind of symbolic "last shoe to drop" thing. so i kept looking for that.

 

He gets them in Mexico.

 

This might help. Better Call Saul is set six years before Breaking Bad's first episode. The black and white scenes with Jimmy/Saul as "Gene", the Cinnabon manager, take place after Breaking Bad ends. So the Gene scenes, at the Cinnabon, take place at least eight years after the other scenes in Better Call Saul.

I may have these years slightly wrong, but Better Call Saul is supposed to take place starting in 2002, Breaking Bad takes place in 2008-2010, and the black and white scenes in the Cinnabon take place in 2010 or after 2010.

 

And particularly interesting (to me anyway) is that we don't know precisely when the "Gene" stuff is set (although perhaps the showrunners have specifically said?). Yes, it's likely it's not *too long* after the end of BB, perhaps a year or so or less. But it could be five years later, or seven.

 

It's an interesting question. I mean, I think she's at least trying to portray it to Jimmy like she's saying it somewhat jokingly. Obviously, there may be some amount of truth to it. But she's presumably not trying to portray that's really the case to Jimmy, and I (again, stating the obvious) she doesn't fully believe it's true for herself.

An interesting sidebar to this is whether the "Sunk Cost" would refer more to her relationship with Jimmy, versus her professional career, or both.

 

I see my problem. I've never watched Breaking Bad.

 

I have to wonder, would a DA typically go through all of this hullaballoo for a case like what Jimmy did? Yes, the breaking in technically warranted a felony charge. But surely the nature of what occurred (e.g. Jimmy wasn't a cat burglar breaking into a house and beating Chuck up and stealing his stuff) would factor into this such that they would seem to be going to a lot of elaborate measures *just* to ascertain Chuck's credibility and sanity in order to get him as the prime witness in Jimmy breaking down Chuck's door *in front of Chuck*.

I'm not downplaying what Jimmy did, especially in terms of what his charges technically amount to. I'm also aware that sometimes seemingly innocuous cases are fully prosecuted.

But you'd think given *all* of the surrounding circumstances of the case (family turmoil, Chuck's clear mental/physical problems), this DA would be, *at best*, skeptical of how strong of a case she has and how much effort should be put into prosecuting it.

Also, I'm curious, would all of the surrounding facts of Jimmy's case (meaning *why* he was there and angry and breaking the door down, meaning having to reveal the taping, and the reason for the taping, etc.) be a shoe-in to be revealed at Jimmy's trial? Would he be able to exclude any of that evidence? On the one hand, the court would need to know why he was there and angry (I don't think "angry about a family situation" would suffice), but including a bunch of as-yet unproven accusations about Jimmy forging documents would certainly be prejudicial against him.

 

Well gosh, the "Cinnabon" scenes happen once per season, and are usually just a couple minutes long. Even if one found them boring, they aren't a huge part of the show.

Of course, I think the "Gene" scenes are great and I'd love to see more of it. The first "Gene" scene at the beginning of the first episode was particularly poignant, and all three "Gene" scenes from each season have had stunningly epic tension for what is seemingly such a mundane setting.

I don't mind the seeming now 30+ minutes this season of Mike taking stuff apart and just staring at stuff. I wouldn't have minded some of his surveillance stuff being tightened up in editing a bit (I enjoy creating tension, but it's painfully obvious it's all going to lead to him talking to Fring, so I think it could be shortened a bit).

But other than a bit of more restrained editing with Mike's stuff in the first couple of episodes, Season 3 is very similar in tone and style and substance to the first two seasons. I can't imagine loving the first two seasons but taking issue with the third. It has always been about Jimmy and Kim's relationship, and Jimmy and Chuck's relationship, and how Jimmy continually fails and Chuck vacillates between villain and potentially-not-as-much-of-a-villain, etc.

 

That would certainly be entertaining. Though, from a overarching story point of view, I'm more intrigued and would be more satisfied by seeing Howard realize how awful Chuck is and realize everything to do with Chuck has been as much if not more of a liability than anything Jimmy has done.

HHM and Howard are going to ultimately be much worse off with Chuck pursuing his vendetta against Jimmy than Jimmy swaying the Mesa Verde account to Kim with his shenanigans.

 

I have noticed several shows on AMC where the commercials are clearly purposely designed to be momentary doppelgangers for the actual show. One commercial for a cell phone or something features a guy driving by an "Albuquerque" sign on the road.

As for commercial breaks, I DVR the show and watch it later, and the commercial breaks are so epic that even fast forwarding through them is tedious!

 

What I'd love to know is whether Howard's awkward, non-atheletic trot/brisk walk motion during the scene was something the actor was purposely going for, or if it was just more the result of being in the tight suit. Funny stuff.

 

Indeed. And when he is finished with his job in Mexico, he simply leaves them behind.

To me, a minor collector of guns for casual range use, the rifle looked like it was a bolt-action .22 which would be accurate enough as well as pretty cheap and therefore disposable. You don't really need an AR15 to shoot a hole in the toe of a sneaker.

 

In my experience, finding a male attorney who is a really good athlete is pretty rare. I have known some attorneys who were college varsity sports starters, but just a few. Law is a refuge for the humanities majors who want to make a good living, and the non-athletic nerds who want to be successful through their academics.

 

I think this is an interesting question and speaks to the larger issue of how much Chuck, as the person pressing charges and the main witness, ends up effectively "going on trial" himself to test his credibility/character.

If someone has their house broken into in front of them by their brother, do they often end up having their ex-wives come to testify about their character? Is a witness's credibility usually tested that much?

Yes, Chuck is a different situation because of his "condition", but then that gets us back to whether a DA would even go to trial with a case where their main witness (and "victim") has as much baggage as Chuck.

Related to this, I know Chuck has "a lot of friends" in the law community, but would he really be able to so strongly dictate/sway the DA to use *his* plea idea?

 

I would tend to agree. I have to wonder how far Jimmy would go to throw Chuck off, though. Would he bring a microwave oven and ten cell phones and turn them all on at his desk? Would he put some sort of electronic item on his "person" while he questions Chuck, etc.?

 

That would be a great courtroom strategy.

 

On one of the Insider Podcasts, they said that the actor did that intentionally for this character. Apparently in real life the actor is quite fit.

 

He was, after all, the hip college professor in "Saved by the Bell: The College Years!"

 

I remember this came up in BB. Didn't WW start the series with his 50th birthday and the show ended after he had his 52nd birthday?

 

I liked this 3rd episode much better for some reason. I noticed that Vince Gilligan directed the first two episodes. Maybe I just don't like the way he directs. He did the last episode of "Breaking Bad" too didn't he? That might explain some things.

 

For BCS, Gilligan also directed the first episode of Season 1 and the 10th episode of Season 2.

 

I guess I need to go back and watch those again and see what I think.

 

In this case, I don't think Chuck will be haunted by the spectre of his wife appearing in court, didn't she pass away off-screen sometime?
Though if that event was forgotten about, one would kinda assume that a sensible woman would have run away in the dead of night and not look back

Chuck's reputation does appear to inspire deference to a fawning scale but it does beggar belief that it would stretch that far to manipulate the prosecution..
Did a part of Chuck's scheme include the idea to a serious extent that Jimmy would cop the plea and take his chances with the bar ethics committee at a later stage?

 

It is all speculation, and trial attorneys make judgment calls which are not objectively factual. But this DA said something to Chuck like, I am not going any easier on this guy because he is an attorney. I think we are supposed to think that she will be tenacious about bringing the case to trial. No doubt Chuck gave the DA a highly sanitized version of his condition, too. We saw some of that in the last episode.

Since what Jimmy did is really not all that open to question, I would think that a trial attorney defending Jimmy might think that the best defense is a good offense, and portray Jimmy as an ordinary person trying to react to the increasingly psychotic behavior of a beloved brother, and making mistakes along the way. The mistakes might have been dumb, but not criminal. The effort is to make the jury (which could have many elderly members--the group that naturally loves Jimmy), see Jimmy's behavior as something that anyone might have done if they were under the extended strain of caring for a mentally ill relative. If that is the strategy, then it would be no holds barred to show what a crazy person Chuck is. Anyone who had experienced his strange behavior might be presented as a witness--Ernie, for example.

 

He didn't come across as the brightest bulb on the chandelier. Also, The way he fell for Chuck's two schemes: (1) tricking him to confess - and then being shocked it could have been recorded and (2) getting him to break in and carry on like a madman, without at all suspecting a trick, was not like Jimmy/Saul in other arenas. Not too sharp, but I suppose the Chuck incidents can be explained away on the basis he is too emotional when it comes to Chuck. But then his whole thing about Chuck seems kind of ridiculous too. Your a grown up now Jimmy ... get over the need for approval of your brother. I guess that's easier said than done, but it seems like an overblown device to justify such a normally very astute character as Jimmy, with his powerful observation skills, doing stupid things.