Better Call Saul - Season Four Discussion & Digestion

BCS is still one of the most satisfying series out there, particularly for BB fans, but even without knowledge of BB the writing and characters are so layered that discussions like these are possible. The acting has been just fantastic.

 

my sisters never seen bb and love better call saul.

 

How will everyone react when Gus has ze Germans killed and buried beneath the floor of the new method lab?

Of course it's going to happen. That's why they've given the head German such a likable personality, and why he's being a little chummy with Mike.

Kai will do something untrustworthy that almost compromises the whole thing, right when the lab about to be completed. Gus will then see that because of one guy's foul up, the whole lot cannot be trusted. Mike will see Gus' point, and reluctantly, though resolute, he'll have to mow down each hummel, thus creating the Mike of Breaking Bad.

Of course we'll be forced to view Breaking Bad a little differently, because now we'll know that dead folks were under the lab floor this whole time.

By the way, I really enjoyed this week's episode. I only Ep. 4 faltered somewhat. Otherwise, this has been a great season that dared to eschew the optic of the past 3 installments.

Now they're in a position to reintroduce Nacho again, without losing balance.

 

See, now this has been debated several times, of whether one could watch BCS, first, then Breaking Bad to get a firm continuum going without losing a beat.

My initial opinion was that one had to watch Breaking Bad, first. I'm changing my tune somewhat. That is, yes, in theory Breaking Bad works better, first, because it enriches BCS. But then I started to think, "Wait, perhaps a lot of my feelings when BCS first aired - that they were shoehorning in characters from Breaking Bad unnecessarily - is unfounded, tainted, perhaps, by watching Breaking Bad, first. That really there is no way for the showrunners to win, nor a correct way to watch either show, because obviously they are taking great pains to make each show stand alone.

Like my early complaints about BCS, perhaps there are more complaints now from people who have seen Breaking Bad, simply because Breaking Bad has tainted them a little, too. That is to say, no matter how they've written it, there's little way to please everybody, and I imagine for those people who have seen BCS, first, that they too might be a little less enthused about Breaking Bad, wondering where Saul is! I know someone who hasn't seen Breaking Bad either, but watches BCS. They could ask where's Gus, and Mike, and Nacho. Our view can become skewed no matter which one we watch first. Obviously we have formed some sort of opinion, for those of us used to Breaking Bad.

I began to analyze BCS, going back and watching episodes here and there (and I'm sure I'll watch the whole thing again, when it's over), all the while asking myself if they've made a compelling story, strong enough without the knowledge of what happened in Breaking Bad.

The answer is yes. A big YES! There's zero reason for anyone to wonder why Tuco came in so early in BCS. He's just a bad guy who appears for the first time. The same with anything that Mike does, or Gus. The uninitiated will see Gus' first act of violence, killing that scrub this season, as him being a really bad man. Gus and Hector's confrontation happens in a vacuum. So, does the Gene in Omaha scenes for that matter. All the audience knows is that this must be the future, and this guy doesn't look good. What happens to get him there?

The trick will be to tell the story of how he got there, without going into Breaking Bad. Even the scene where Saul and Francesca are shredding the papers should appeal to both audiences.

So, yeah, the more I watch, the more I think about how BCS is constructed, the more I see how BCS stands alone. It's not a complete standalone story, but I can see how it wouldn't confuse or turn off viewers who haven't see Breaking Bad.

Therefore, if it's a tightrope the showrunners are walking, then damn good job! It must be a tough job.

 

I hope you're wrong, but I fear you're right.

Aaaaaaaaand... I said the exact same thing this week.

There's always the chance that Mike will just kill the one loudmouth German guy, and that'll be enough to frighten the others into never talking.

Anybody wanna guess what the final cost on Gus Fring's SuperLab would be?

 

I believe great writers shouldn't have to lend to anyway of watching other than historical chronological. That means it has to be consistent quality.

I like watching Marvel that way abd it works for me. Despite the howling of fan boys I think Star Wars works well too (as long as you see the official blurays).

At one point I would like to watch these shows that way. Of course I always struggle with one more thing....once you know the story, I always like to think of watching the entire thing with all flashbacks and flash forwards in proper order too. ....but then there is the flash sideways in Lost...but I digress.

 

I think that when Mike asked how the project would be affected if Kai went back to Germany, he was thinking also along the lines of "a trip to Belize" - but only if Kai starts being a serious threat to exposure. Otherwise I think such a killing would be contrary to Mike's moral code, discussed here earlier. So I especially don't think he would kill the other Germans either, even if Gus asked him to, and I don't think Gus would ask him to, because Gus knows Mike's code. Gus might do it himself though.

When the German crew goes out on their R&R, Kai better watch what he says in public ... I have a feeling he will be too reckless.

 

I am totally buying this theory. The split screen imagery at the beginning of this week’s episode does not represent or foreshadow their relationship breaking up--which is what everyone is thinking--but the split of their professional relationship, which has been underway since last season. So at the end of the episode, when she buys all those crayons and markers (which are kids’ art supplies really), she just made the choice to rejoin Jimmy professionally and to rekindle the McGill and Wexler law firm, where they cater to the downtrodden victims of the system like Huell, whose kids need something to do when they’re meeting with the lawyers.

To me Kim is the most fascinating character: the only times I remember her showing strong emotions is when she's helping Jimmy or advocating for the victims of the criminal justice system; yet, she continues to labor for the Hamlins and Schweikerts of the world, which makes her steely and lifeless. Maybe we are finally going to see Kim go all in. Or maybe if the silent partner theory is correct, she will be the only person in the two series who is able to successfully live in both worlds.

 

I dunno, they might have to reveal that Kim is borderline schizophrenic or manic or something if she jumps back to full-on being a party of Jimmy's seedy, ethically/morally corrupt schemes.

She works at HHM, then tries to make a go at simply sharing an office with Jimmy (let's remember that "Wexler-McGill" wasn't really a firm, it was two separate practices simply sharing a space; I'm not sure if that's what Jimmy is assuming might take place in the future), takes on the huge banking deal with Mesa Verde (which isn't exactly "helping the downtrodden" sort of work), but then for whatever reason, which seems to include feeling unfulfilled working for one big bank, goes back to PD work helping "real" people who need help from a good lawyer. She does this presumably at least in part to help people, and also because it leaves her more professionally fulfilled ("I'm good at it").

The theory of Kim being Ms. Saul behind the scenes in "Breaking Bad" requires her now to be *okay* with Jimmy helping drug dealers sell drugs, associating with sketchy ex-cons, and presumably learning the breadth of what Jimmy has done that Kim *doesn't* know about (working with the veterinarian, Mike, etc.), and Kim being not only okay with all of that, but fully embracing it.

Kim has never really fully embraced or approved of Jimmy's "style." She has basically remained optimistic (at times) that Jimmy is more simply a case of having a different "style" than being full-on "bad" or corrupt. She worked with Jimmy on a couple of scam jobs, but she only did those to apparent "douche bags", and clearly did it more for the "thrill" than a case of embracing some deep nature she had. Indeed, each time she did those gigs with Jimmy, Jimmy reached that awkward point of wanting to keep doing it, and Kim saying no. When Jimmy finally appears to sort of have his "s**t" together and wants to do a firm with Kim, she backs off and is only willing to share real estate space as two separate firms. Back when Jimmy does his "Hoboken Squat Cobbler" bit, Kim quickly goes from amusement to outrage (to the point of basically invoking a "don't ask, don't tell" rule for their own relationship) even though, on the scale of things Jimmy has done, the "Cobbler" thing is far from the most heinous.

This BB/Kim theory would make Kim much "crazier" than even Jimmy, who is pretty consistent and simply has been dealing with, as Chuck told him, owning up to what he is and what he's about.

This theory would also require either that Kim and Jimmy/Saul remain deep business/professional partners, but either break up in terms of their personal relationship, or Kim allows Jimmy/Saul to sleep with other people (Francesca, implied in BB) and get some, errr, "work" done from masseuses, and/or Kim is still "with" Jimmy/Saul at that point but doesn't know he engages in all of that.

I can't imagine Kim going "all in" with Jimmy and his scams yet also still remaining in the dark about most of what Jimmy does on a day to day basis.

 

All good points. But as with any theory, there will always be some evidence that contradicts or problematizes the theory. For me, and I am sure for many other viewers going into BCS, this show promised to be mainly about Jimmy's transformation into Saul Goodman. But as we have come to find out, the show is really about Jimmy's world in which he is just one character among many others, some of whom have stories that are far more interesting and compelling than his. What is so slick and smart about the show is how this this dynamic is reflected in the show itself and at the meta-level of the series. The scene with Jimmy measuring Kim's office corresponds to the amount of screen time he has to share with Kim but Mike, Nacho, and Gus as well. The show isn't just about him. But in Jimmy's personal life the only way he can get attention within the family and with Chuck and Kim in particular is by acting out and playing the role of Slippy Jimmy. The first time Kim and Jimmy have sex is right after a con. Throughout the series Kim has played along and in the process has discovered who she really is: the bad girl who likes to sneak smokes in the car garage at HHM. We have seen her compartmentalize her life throughout the series, trying to have her cake and eat it too, but it almost killed her. She has comported herself as the ambitious corporate type in control of a world she could really give two $h*ts about. The true Kim is the reckless maenad who wants to wear her hair down. Unlike the other characters in the BB universe who "break bad", I think Kim will willingly join the ranks of Jimmy and the dark world of the Albuquerque underworld. Whether that means she will be a silent partner or not, who knows. Maybe it doesn't matter. I just think we have to see Kim as someone who is in control of her own destiny and not as an unwitting victim of Jimmy's fall.

 

All certainly possible. I just haven't read the show quite in this fashion.

On screen, the "bad girl" stuff has been the aberration, and even when it occurs, it is pretty quickly tempered and not embraced. It's not impossible that it's her "true nature", but one would have to guess at that without any strong evidence. The strongest evidence we have is her unknown history back before she came to Albuquerque. I read her quick allusions to life back on the Kansas-Nebraska border as escaping from the mundane nature of life there, or possibly escaping something more traumatic (which of course could have included her doing "bad" things, and/or having bad things done to her).

We've seen a few times where Kim has symbolically if not literally let her hair down, but she seems to very quickly feel a sense of lacking self-worth or usefulness when doing this. Little to nothing she has done on the show, even the "bad" stuff, seems anywhere remotely close to literally dropping her entire life and career to help a drug cartel guy in "Breaking Bad", being arguably complicit in murders, and so on.

Not that it particularly matters, but when Kim sleeps with Jimmy after they run a con, we don't actually know that it's the first time they've slept together. I suppose it more than likely is, but from the pilot episode they depicted a Kim-Jimmy relationship with some ambiguity as far as the present and the past. The first time he takes a drag off her cigarette in the pilot, you wonder if they've had a past relationship.

If the BCS team is looking for the biggest *surprise*, then Kim just going full "bad" would make sense. But I don't know that they've sprung that type of character-arc-reversal on the show so far. Most characters vacillate back and forth between their good and bad nature (Jimmy is obvious, and then Chuck seems more amenable to Jimmy at some points and then cruel at others, Mike is also pretty obvious, and we could even pull in characters that Hamlin and Nacho and Fring; they all vacillate back and forth and often meet some sort of demise not due to one huge self-inflicted decision, but due to a confluence of circumstances including the actions of themselves and others. Even Chuck's suicide kind of falls into this category, though there is still plenty of understandable ambiguity to his death). Kim going full "Saul" style bad would be the biggest flip of a character they've ever done. It would be pretty jarring. And, as a separate issue, I'm not sure that would be the most interesting development. Having Kim and Jimmy estranged but still associated in some way creates potentially much more interesting drama and tragedy.

Also, Kim being a full associate of Saul through BB would create some issues with continuity. Even now, when they've done a BB-era flashback on BCS where Saul is getting ready to "order a vacuum cleaner", we don't see Saul making any reference to Kim. They absolutely *could* still write the additional backstory in such a way that Kim was (and is at the time of that flashback) still back "at home" helping Saul as a full partner. Nothing on either show has fully precluded that from happening. But it doesn't seem to be the direction they would typically go in.

The show can, as the now vastly overused phrase goes, subvert expectations in an impressive fashion. But they usually do that with plot and character and context rather than big "twists."

 

I have been pondering where Mike will take the Germans for the R&R. What would be a safe enough location in terms of perfect security for the project, still fun for the men, and something that Mike (or Gus) would know about?

 

Laser Tag maybe?

 

After seeing how Gus handles the Hector sit

Was I imagining things, or did the preview appear to show the german guys "relaxing" in mexico?

 

My recollection on the next episode preview is that they implied they were at a strip club of some sort. Which is weird, because that could lead to all sorts of problems. But I also would imagine the guys wouldn't burn off a lot of steam by just being taken out for a round of miniature golf or something.

 

I saw what appeared to be a strip club, but I dunno where. Wouldn't it raise more potential questions transporting a van full of Germans into Mexico? I dunno.

 

I think specifically Gus' character in BB would lose out if BCS is watched first.
We don't know right away in BB how deeply bad a guy Gus is. BB lived by shock value. To get the shocking reveal at the same time as Walt, Gus' first shown kill needed to be in BB.

Hector on the other hand I don't think we really know throughout BB why there is so much hatred between the two.
Knowing their history first in BCS helps frame the animosity, and I think BCS still needs to do that more.

 

Arizona new red sands...

 

Based on what their boss insinuated, maybe they will go see the girl with stormy eyes.

 

Actually, it was explained in a Breaking Bad flashback why Gus hated Hector -- because he killed Gus's partner. There hasn't been any reminder of that in BCS, we're expected to already know it happened and that's why the animosity is there.

 

Right, that reveal was late in BB so knowing in BCS before would allow that to simmer all throughout BB which may be a benefit of seeing BCS first.

But as you mention, they won't repeat the story, as we are meant to know it, so BCS remains weaker to see first.

 

Great posts above. I skimmed them, but did not read all of them in depth. Here's my take. (I've been away from the thread for several days, so my apologies in advance if I'm going over covered territory.)

I see this week's episode as illustrating Jimmy's and Kim's differing responses to the same situation. As symbolically illustrated with the opening, they both exist in separate mental worlds (which sometimes mesh) while at the same time physically living together. Jimmy's MO is to try to manipulate a given situation to get a favorable result. In Huell's case, he comes up with a lame plan to try to make the arresting officer look drunk, which essentially is an outright blackmail plan. Kim is good (better than Jimmy) at reading people to get the result she wants. Just like when she pegged the ADA a couple episodes back as a wimp who could be manipulated into a plea bargain - as unrealistic as I think that scenario was - she sees Huell's prosecutor as capable of being manipulated in another manner. That ADA has a soft side for the sympathetic defendant. Kim sees she can use this.

If I were writing the next episode, based on what we've seen so far, I would have Kim and Jimmy work out a plan to have Huell's residence searched. Jimmy, as a material witness, would have to be interviewed at some point. Like he did when he planted the seeds of suspicion with HHM's malpractice insurance carrier, Jimmy could suggest that Huell might be using his portion of the take to buy something illegal (drugs for resale, perhaps). When the prosecutor finds out about this, she aggressively seeks a search warrant for Huell's apartment. The basis for the search warrant might have to be based on more than just Jimmy's implication, and preferably - for dramatic purposes - the warrant would be supported (at least in part) by an affidavit from Huell's arresting officer. When the search warrant is executed, all the cops find are boxes of school supplies labeled (say) "St. Mary's School for the Deaf". Yes, that's right, Madam Prosecutor, Huell was using his purported drug money to buy crayons and the like for needy children. Not only does this appeal to the prosecutor, who apparently goes easy on sympathetic defendants, but pressing the case would not exactly play well in the press (for the DA's Office or the police department, especially the arresting officer). Kim plays hardball (again). The ADA is willing to greatly reduce the sentence. Kim now wants the case dismissed. Both settle on a plea to a relatively minor crime (say, obstructing governmental administration or disorderly conduct) with the sentence being time served. Huell walks.

Perhaps a bit far-fetched, but I think it works.

I'm not so sure Jimmy "walks". Kim . . . I mean Giselle . . . might want something in return, even if it's getting Jimmy to see the shrink she recommended.

But I do not see Kim walking any time soon. I know I'm in the minority on this, but I think she knows who Jimmy is, what he does and what he is capable of. She often finds him disappointing and infuriating, but that's the extent of it. She will be around for a while.

 

Mike's "moral code" extends to who he's loyal to. Right now, in Better Call Saul, Mike is a killer. We've seen Mike wax several people for Gus in Breaking Bad, and it had to start somewhere. At least one person, Lydia, Mike knew for a good while. It's assumed that he probably knew Fong well, also.

To Mike, Gus is his meal ticket. We see that in Breaking Bad. So, if Mike is loyal to Gus and/or somebody threatens his meal ticket, Mike might think twice about it, but in the end he's going to side with what keeps his grand daughter in clover.

So, if ze Germans step out of line enough to threaten Gus' and Mike's livelihood, maybe even bringing the police down on them, you're saying that Mike won't pull the trigger? What's 7 more to his total?

 

I haven't been thinking of the other Germans as being threatening types - only Kai. And if the others did not become a threat and Gus ordered them killed - just to be safe, I don't think it would be in character for Mike to do it. They'd have to be a clear threat - like Mike thought Lydia was. Plus the German workers are "civilians". I don't think they know they are in the drug game.