Better Call Saul - Season Three Discussion

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by stereoptic, Jan 16, 2017.

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  1. artfromtex

    artfromtex Honky Tonkin' Metal-Head

    Location:
    Fort Worth, TX
    You gotta set up the pins before you can knock 'em down.
     
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  2. bystander

    bystander Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    One thing I can’t figure out is why does Gene need to work at all? Walt got to take a barrel stuffed with millions of dollars with him to New Hampshire. Didn’t Saul keep a stash of cash in his office vault? He had time to pack a rolling suitcase, wouldn’t he have taken the cash with him to the vacuum repair shop? I can see being banished to the middle of nowhere in Nebraska, buy why not just lay low there? Why work at a low paying job in a mall out in the open?

    So many questions, such a long time to wait between Mondays!
     
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  3. Hot Ptah

    Hot Ptah Forum Resident In Memoriam

    Location:
    Kansas City, MO
    I think Saul did make off with money. But a middle age man, not working and apparently independently wealthy, could attract attention. Better for hiding out and laying low, to have an unchallenging job--a seemingly normal life, a life so ordinary that it would not attract attention.
     
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  4. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    It's a self inflicted curse. Having a large stash of cash and not being able to spend it, so you live on a minimum wage job. But for how long? Sooner or later this laying-low tactic becomes your life. He needs to talk to a few Russian oligarchs, me thinks! :)
     
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  5. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    It was indeed quite interesting to hear Jimmy's reference to Rebecca. Presumably, Jimmy is well aware how sensitive of a topic it is considering he hasn't once mentioned her name over the course of more than two seasons.

    I'm curious if Rebecca leaving Chuck has anything even tangentially to do with what Chuck did to Jimmy. Not so much literally like Chuck taped Rebecca, but rather he did something cold and calculating and manipulative regarding his wife and she left.

    It's also not impossible that since leaving Chuck, she has died, which could potentially add to Chuck's agony of course.
     
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  6. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    While obviously the plot has taken a turn as any show would, I'd say the tone and quality of writing and everything is pretty darn similar to previous seasons. I don't see any marked change.

    I know it's easy for people to just say "oh, you don't like the most recent plot developments, and you're conflating that with the actual quality of the show declining", and believe me, I've had similar moments watching shows where I have to figure out whether the actual quality is declining or if I just don't like what's happening plot-wise. In the case of "Saul", I'd say for me, it's most definitely the latter. The quality of the show has not dipped at all (the Mike stuff is dragging just slightly, but that's nothing major); I think they've just written the show *so well* that it's hard not to get frustrated seeing Chuck "win", and to see Kim and Jimmy on the verge of happiness only to see it crushed (a similar thing happened to Norma Bates on "Bates Motel").
     
  7. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    And I think it speaks to the great "universe building" and writing on the show that a guy seemingly hampered by illness and generally trying to do "the right thing" is seen as such a despicable character. Rightly so. It would in fact be pretty easy to poke so many holes in Chuck's moral/ethical high horse act.
     
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  8. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    I'm really hoping they delve more into how there's NO WAY Hamlin would like how *any* of this is going down. I'm sure he finds Jimmy's actions despicable and he's pissed he lost Mesa Verde, but I also have to believe a guy like Hamlin would not want HHM dragged into what is unavoidable a messy case. While there are only scant legal issues involving HHM's part in this (more on that later), it's a PR nightmare. I don't think Howard would want HHM tied *in any way* to this scandal, however innocent the firm is.

    Even if they could get the cleanest of clean convictions of Jimmy, it's still a blight on HHM by association.

    I'm curious if there will be any issues surrounding Chuck (via HHM) hiring a surveillance/body guard guy. Could Jimmy in a defense raise the question of *why* Chuck hired the guy? Chuck could say he did so due to simple protection, but more realistically he would say he was worried Jimmy would steal the tape. But then Chuck would have to admit he knew Jimmy knew about the tape, and Chuck (and HHM potentially) would have to then possibly explain how they knew or assumed Jimmy somehow learned about the tape. That would lead down the path of having to admit that Chuck planned his elaborate scheme involving Ernesto. But I dunno, maybe there's nothing questionable about everything Chuck did from a legal point of view. But in a trial where there's going to be some subjectivity and leeway (e.g. Jimmy possibly still claiming he only confessed to make Chuck feel better), Chuck's actions *could* at least possibly/theoretically make it look like he was *going out of his way* to entrap Jimmy (though perhaps not entrap by any legal definition).

    It's interesting, because while Jimmy can presumably be nailed for busting into Chuck's house, nothing Jimmy actually said once he burst in would necessarily negate the theoretical defense that he confessed on the tape to make Chuck feel better. Obviously, bursting in doesn't do anything but hurt Jimmy. But he could argue he was pissed because he felt the whole thing was a setup and he was being wrongfully gone after by Chuck.
     
  9. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    Regarding the Mike stuff, I wouldn't say anything particularly bad about the pacing. I think it's a smidge too slow and drawn out. I rewatched Episode 1 before doing the new episode, and I have to say *that much* continuous footage watching immediately back to back of Mike just taking stuff apart and driving around and doing surveillance was a bit tedious. I wouldn't have minded it being tightened up just maybe 10 or 20%. Nothing major though.
     
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  10. hbbfam

    hbbfam Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chandler,AZ
    Ah...the second spin off. Back in business with that bank roll. We go-BB, BCS, G.
     
  11. Jerry

    Jerry Grateful Gort Staff

    Location:
    New England
    One of my favorite lines from Monday's show:

    Francesca Liddy to Jimmy about the wall art: "You're a little crooked...........The bottom of the end there."
     
  12. Vinyl Addict

    Vinyl Addict Forum Resident

    Location:
    MA
    "It doesn't look like a stock market crash?"
     
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  13. mpayan

    mpayan A Tad Rolled Off

    Yep, she had Jimbo pegged from the get go. Little did she know that she'd be with him for years and how right she would be about the "crooked" comment.

    Her personality certainly changed from how she is in BCS episode 2 and her droll deadpan personality in BB. Must have been quite a journey with Jimmy to Saul for her.
     
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  14. rburly

    rburly Sitting comfortably with Item 9

    Location:
    Orlando
    Remember that Rebecca found Jimmy more entertaining and funny then Chuck. We all wondered where that might go. We may have our answer.
     
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  15. George P

    George P Notable Member

    Location:
    NYC
    I have coffee mugs that are more entertaining and funny than Chuck.
     
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  16. vinyldreams

    vinyldreams Forum Resident

    Location:
    Main St.
    Interesting photo. Wonder why Mike, Gus, and Nacho are in the courtroom?

    [​IMG]
     
  17. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    Plus you can put THEM in the microwave!
     
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  18. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    I think this is just a staged promotional photo, which happens to contain the top 7 actors in the credits, and no one else. I don't think it indicates anything in terms of where the story is certain to head.
     
  19. mpayan

    mpayan A Tad Rolled Off

    Promo, getting all the main characters in there. But still cool. They'll all be connected by the time this winds up though. Probably the messege.
     
  20. Brian_Svoboda

    Brian_Svoboda Senior Member

    Location:
    Virginia
    This is a great analysis and I think it correctly assesses Howard's perspective. This is a dog case that no sensible prosecutor would want to have anything to do with. It's a family conflict in which Crazy Brother #1 seeks to entrap and ultimately provokes Crazy Brother #2, ostensibly over an apocryphal and unprovable story of fraud, but really over half a lifetime of accumulated grievances. If the case were to go to a jury, and if Chuck were to testify, the jury would hang faster than Frankie Avalon in "Beach Blanket Bingo." And, yes, Chuck would testify. The state wouldn't call him. But Jimmy would, and he would know every button to push to make his narcissistic brother seem even more unlikable than he does already. I'd bet a dollar that it's Howard, perhaps with a back-channel to Kim, who brokers the deal that keeps Chuck from pressing charges: Jimmy changes his name to avoid embarrassment to HHM and Chuck, an unseemly pound of flesh that will humiliate Jimmy to the repellant pleasure of a vengeful Chuck.
     
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  21. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    I have to share a bit of witticism I read by a commenter on a different site about this:

    "If you take the first letter of every episode title, it spells out the name of the IKEA dresser Mike will be assembling in real time in the season finale".

    Too funny! :D
     
  22. Brian_Svoboda

    Brian_Svoboda Senior Member

    Location:
    Virginia
    But it would at least seem to indicate that Jimmy will be incarcerated (if briefly) and arraigned, wouldn't it? Otherwise it's a total non-sequitur.
     
  23. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    Perhaps. Or it may be an orange herring.
     
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  24. Gavinyl

    Gavinyl Remembering Member

    Pretty, pretty damn good...
     
  25. yesstiles

    yesstiles Senior Member

    Who the heck is Gene? :confused:
     
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