Better Call Saul - Season 2 discussion

It's a special type of laziness, which is the inclination always to seek the comfortable or the easiest way out, and to avoid doing that whichcomes unnaturally. Its source, really, is pride - the desire to have your own way. That's why he can dive in a dumpster and put together a case like Sandpiper, and why he can put together an amazing story about fetish videos, but is unwilling to do what it takes to make himself into a skilled lawyer like Kim.

 

So, in the end, despite their many difference, both Walter White and Jimmy McGill did it because they liked it. They were good at it.

 

there was another moment in the parking garage in ep 2 that concerned me. when jimmy and kim go back to her car to get jimmy's present a blacked out car, i think it's a ford mustang, drives by very slowly and ominously. maybe i'm just reading too much into it, but this is a well put together show, and things happen because they're written on the page.

or maybe....given their previous conversation about horses, kim is going to get kicked in the head by a black horse. it all makes perfect sense now.

 

Nicely put and I agree w/ everything you say- except the last sentence. To me, that tension is more emotional than intellectual.

 

I don't think it's laziness, though I agree pride is part of it. To me, Jimmy chooses his dark side over his light side. He had spent many years as a con man, but made a choice (unwillingly- at least at 1st) to try the "straight and narrow." But after working so hard on this path- mostly to gain his brother's approval- and gaining much success- he is met w/ the 1-2 punch of discovering his brother's betrayal and then his best friend/scam partner dying. He then chooses to give his dark side prominence once again. Even when he changes his mind to try the straight and narrow again and rejoin the law (to have a better shot at a relationship w/ Kim), his dark side is still prominent- as seen by flipping the forbidden switch and then his antics w/ the cops re: pie-man.

Why Jimmy initially "went over" to the dark side and became slipping Jimmy in the 1st place is something we are not yet privy too, but if it is shown, my guess is it involves Chuck in some way.

I agree they both did it b/c they liked it, but Walt's path was much more straight-forward than Jimmy/Saul. Walt had always played by the rules until he broke bad, w/ his cancer being the catalyst (not the reason) and once he took that path and enjoyed it, he committed to it wholeheartedly, whereas Jimmy "broke bad" earlier on- for reasons as yet unclear- and despite enjoying it, tried to break back good- only to break bad again, this time taking it all the way. Though whether he's back on the path to redemption once in Omaha is unknown at this time. He is certainly broken by the time he reaches Omaha, but I'd imagine he's just been defeated by the dark side as opposed to making a real effort to get back on the good path.

 

As a business litigation attorney I can attest that a lot of the work is boring. There are long periods of sitting at your desk day in and day out, reading documents and drafting rather dry pleadings. A law firm must have each attorney productive and billing out full days through all of the boring days, to survive economically as a firm. That is punctuated with exciting days of depositions and trial, but there are far fewer exciting days than one might imagine. I have known excellent trial attorneys who found the day to day grind very difficult and too boring. Jimmy seems to be one of those. With his background in scams, he falls back on them to break the boredom. His new partner at the Santa Fe firm breaks the boredom by playing guitar. I break the boredom by posting on this forum during breaks from work items during the day. But as his new Santa Fe partner said, a business law attorney needs an outlet. Jimmy needs to develop a more healthy outlet than scams. He doesn't realize that, but even if he did, he would not change. He loves scams too much.

 

...Because (I know it's not written in the script, but it has become canon), according to Michael McKean, Chuck always made their mother proud, but Jimmy always made their mother laugh. That's the emotional well that Jimmy always pulls from. You're right; it has nothing to do with Jimmy's intellect.

In fact! - Although, Jimmy is far from stupid, if Jimmy were 5-10% smarter than he is now, I believe we'd be dealing with a sociopath, who couldn't feel guilt, remorse...or even love. But that's not Jimmy. Mrs. McGill's youngest son should thank his lucky stars that he wasn't born as intellectually stimulating as Chuck.

 

Kicked in the head by a horse, like Don Draper's father?

 

I understand that you're talking about the stuck-between-two-worlds scenario that we've previously mentioned, but I do agree with the previous poster (for what it's worth) about it being laziness. Some people, when they are innately good at something, that does not require physical strength - in other words: mental gymnastics - they tend to fall into a been-there-done-that mentality. As in, "Look, I've accomplished something great, and all I had to do was use my mind to do it. Let me rest on this a bit." And rest on that laurel they will, until something outside of themselves comes along and upsets their tranquility and/or they want a new plaything so bad that they literally have to will themselves to get up and go grab it. This was perfectly demonstrated by Jimmy lounging in the pool, a second time!, while talking himself into getting out of the pool and putting his big boy pants on. Jimmy had gone right back to the pool lounging, because it was the comfy thing to do.

...Which speaks to your second point: It doesn't matter how Walt got to the end, nor how Jimmy got there. As voyeurs we enjoy the ride, sure, but in the end their stories dovetail in that they both were good at, and enjoyed, the "wrong" way of doing things. That was my point. It can be argued that Walt took the harder, more fulfilling way (for him), while Jimmy took the easy, less fulfilling way (for Jimmy), but the end-result is very similar. I don't think Gene'll die, though, from unnatural causes.

 

You raise some good questions...
Couple of points as I remember them.
Do you remember the map that Hank had up showing drug distribution (Gus' network)? It covered pretty much the entire southwest, excluding New Mexico (the supposed base of Gus' operations). That area was left, intentionally I would assume, to be filled by numerous regional small players. Guys like Jesse, Krazy 8 and the like. Tuco had recently been in prison, a cell mate of Skinny P, and was now out and looking to consolidate his turf.
I don't think any of the three major meth dealers in the story (Gus, Tuco, and Krazy 8) are part of one network. Rather I think Gus is the big US guy, Tuco is the cartel connected buffer, and Krazy 8 is a small time (like Jesse) local dealer/snitch. Maybe I'm wrong and they all ARE related and that will be revealed on BCS.

 

I'm not arguing that Jimmy's not lazy- he certainly can be- just that his motivation to go back over to his dark side is not primarily driven by laziness; I think his main motivation is that he enjoys the forbidden fruit/getting over aspect. Had Chuck not betrayed him, I think he would still have stayed on the right path and worked hard. Getting a law degree- regardless of where/how obtained, can't be done by a lazy person (esp. while you're working full-time). Passing the bar also takes a lot of hard work. Though the dark side would have always been in waiting and something else may have knocked him back to the dark side.

As you say in the 2nd paragraph, he was good at and enjoyed the wrong way (though I'm unsure why you say it was less fulfilling for him than Walt). I also doubt Gene will be killed, as things stand- unless at some point Jimmy/Saul re-emerges and gets into new trouble. But I don't think any bad guys from his Saul days are looking for him- as someone said upstream, none of them are left alive.

 

I took his emphasis on the we to be happiness at Kim's inclusion of herself in Jimmy's house plans.

Def agree w/ your insight that he now feels like he can have it both ways.

 

I had totally forgotten that Gus avoided distributing in his own area, which makes a lot of my speculation above rather meaningless. I think you nailed it that Gus had the big distribution and the local little pie was left to locals- so Tuco and Gus probably avoided each other- despite both working for the cartel- to keep Gus clear of any suspicions by local authorities. Good call.

 

One can analyze Jimmy at every angle but really its boredom and the need for the thrill of the scam. Its like a drug to Jimmy.

 

I think that Gene will not die of unnatural causes either. I think that like Miss Jones in "The Devil in Miss Jones", he will end up suffering in a private hell of boredom, being unable to do anything exciting forever.

 

Yes! Like Miss Jones was left to try and pleasure herself- to no avail- Gene is left to try and rekindle the excitement of his glory days sitting in his condo watching BCS commercials- also to no avail. Nice parallel!

 

Oh, I think it will be a less fulfilling journey for Jimmy (and I could be wrong), because it's going to take a lot of tragedy, stupid mishaps, etc. etc. of Jimmy's own doing that will leave Jimmy pretty broken until he becomes Saul Goodman...which we know he will. Saul becomes Jimmy's lifeboat out of misery, just as Saul will be become Gene's same life preserver, too. This is all just guesswork, of course. I doubt Jimmy will ever feel he has the upper hand, like Walt did (even though there were many times that Walt was in denial when he no longer had the upper hand; still, the illusion of being boss; nevertheless, satisfied Walt a great deal).

I believe that what we're watching in BCS will become more of a back comedic dirge as the story progresses.

 

I try to bring in comparisons to great works of art, whenever possible.

 

OK- that makes sense- though I thought you were talking about how fulfilled they were once they had broken bad, not the whole journey. I agree Jimmy's final tip to the dark side will likely be the result of much tragedy. But I'm not sure who was more fulfilled once they broke bad. Walt did have much more of the upper hand, but he also had much more tension to deal w/, having a family that he had to deceive and more dangerous conflicts to resolve. But I feel certain that Gene's ending will be nowhere near as fulfilling as Walt's was.

 

lmao. Though as pornos go, DiMJ was a classic. It was the 1st porno I ever saw- as a 1st year at UVA, they had a midnight screening in one of the huge lecture halls.

 

I never knew the plot until you and @JimW discussed it just then. Spoiler alert, by the way!

 

If you want a more detailed plot summary:

Spoiler: Devil in Miss Jones

Miss J is a very devout virgin who is so unhappy, she kills herself. Despite her pious life, her suicide damns her to hell. Upon meeting the devil, she reflects that had she known things would turn out the way they did, she woulda been really bad. So the devil offers her a chance to return to the living for a short while as a total slut. Then the porno starts and she experiences the whole gamut of sexual experiences. After she's "played out" and returns to hell, the last scene shows her feverishly masturbating crying out for someone to help her b/c she can't get off by herself, but all the other lost souls are too deep in their own suffering to be able to help.

It really does have quite the plot, decent cinematic values and even a moral- quite rare in my (admittedly limited) experience w/ porn. Thus it's classic status.

 

What I'm seeing is that BCS is hanging around the same viewers per initial broadcast (or even better) than that of Mad Men. The same thing with Breaking Bad, at least all the way until the 2nd part of Breaking Bad's Season 5 where viewership skyrocketed. In fact, BCS is doing a little better than both of these popular shows. BCS averages about 2.5 million viewers per show.

Contrast that to a very unpopular, and cancelled, show on AMC, Halt and Catch Fire, who averaged out closer to 600k viewers per show.

For what it's worth, Blu Ray sales of Season 1 of Better Call Saul is still in the top 100 dramas, even though it came out last November. Its competition, of course, is newly released films, deep discounted overstock, re-releases, and even the Complete Breaking Bad box set.

So, I would say the show is doing pretty well.

P.S. - Oh yeah, and BCS beats the hell out of Homeland in viewership