Better Call Saul - Season Four Discussion & Digestion

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by EVOLVIST, Jul 25, 2018.

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  1. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    It doesn't, the way I look at this season is that the jigsaw puzzle is being completed slowly, obviously leading us into pre Walter White Breaking Bad.
     
  2. snowman872

    snowman872 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wilcox, AZ
    Oh Ok, more "Before Breaking Bad" or "Rogue One for Breaking Bad" ... gotcha. :thumbsdow :yawn: :disgust:
     
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  3. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    Where did you think the show was headed?
     
  4. misterjones

    misterjones Smarter than the average bear.

    Location:
    New York, NY
    I understand that's the way the BCS people have decided to go with the show, but does it necessarily have to be that way (at least to the extent it has been)? Certainly to some degree, but I'm not sure we really need the Gus stuff apart from the fact that many/most/all people want to see that aspect of the story. I guess the response is that it isn't just Jimmy's story, but equally the front story of Mike. Perhaps it should be called Better Call Saul or Mike.
     
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  5. bloodisthin

    bloodisthin And after all, we're only ordinary men

    Location:
    Australia
    As per Wikipedia, the title of episode 9 is "Wiedersehen." Intriguing.
     
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  6. misterjones

    misterjones Smarter than the average bear.

    Location:
    New York, NY
    I did not read your full post, but the "spoiler alert" is much appreciated
     
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  7. snowman872

    snowman872 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wilcox, AZ
    I don't really want to be repetitive, but I thought this show was about the story of Jimmy/Saul. Not Gus, not the Cartel, not Nacho and not Mike. Saul is a lawyer. It is possible he will start representing these people at some point. When and if that happens, I was hoping for stories related to that and the effect on his life - such as his relationship with Kim. I tune in to watch Saul and the people in his zone of existence, not retreads of Breaking Bad material. I feel like the producers are selling out.
     
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  8. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    Can't say I agree with you, the two pieces will marry up eventually and they are essential to each other. Without Breaking Bad there is no Better Call Saul. The transformation is already underway.
     
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  9. EVOLVIST

    EVOLVIST Kid A Thread Starter

    I think I'm on record to saying something in last year's thread that the moment Jimmy lost his law license that it would deviate from the show that we've been enjoying.

    So, if we're really going to pick those nits, it started last season. Add in Chuck's death and the introduction of more cartel folks, and where did we think it would go?

    It could have gone in any number of directions, but a show about a lawyer who can't practice law is not a Jimmy/Saul show.

    I guess that's to say, as much as the showrunners say they don't know where it's going to go next, I call BS.

    They have an outline. In retrospect, as soon as Tuco stuck his head out of the door, it makes sense that we've ended up where we are now.

    Are you not entertained, though? :D
     
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  10. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    Weighed in a lot on previous season threads but haven’t had a chance for this season. I’ve been watching each episode on Monday night, and I think the show is still amazingly well-done.

    Fascinated by the relative nuance of the writing with things like Kim essentially *lying* to Jimmy about how the opportunity to move to S&C came up (she says she was offered, when in fact the scene clearly shows her initiating and pitching the entire thing to the firm). Now, BB and BSC always unavoidably deal with *shades* of lying and evil, and one could easily argue that Kim is trying her best to do what she wants but not *completely* devastate Jimmy and his “Wexler/McGill” dreams by at least implying she didn’t seek her situation out but was pitched/sold on it by the firm. The end result is obviously still the same; she’s once again shooting down working with Jimmy in any capacity, even just sharing an office space.

    Stating the obvious, but it’s pretty clear both Jimmy and Kim know that Kim knows that Jimmy has been lying about something. Needing to go back to work late night, etc.

    I’m actually seeing a bit of a parallel in the Jimmy/Kim relationship and the Walt/Skyler relationship in the first few seasons of “Breaking Bad”, only in that the couple are living together and sharing each other’s lives, but they are also doing an awful lot of things separately. I’m not one to assume how a “typical” relationship works, but much like Walt and Skyler, Jimmy and Kim seem to NOT know a lot of basic details about what’s going on with each other for a cohabitating couple. Jimmy doesn’t know (or professes to not know) Kim has been doing the PD work. Kim doesn’t know what Jimmy’s been up to late night, and barely seems to know anything much about Jimmy’s job beyond that he got one.

    We get a decent sense on the show that Kim knows a bunch of stuff is up with Jimmy. At best, he’s traumatized from Chuck’s death and acting out. More likely, she knows he’s doing shady stuff to the point of getting beat up and mugged, leaving late at night, etc. What we don’t know quite as much is how much Jimmy knows or senses about Kim and their relationship. He probably knows things aren’t getting better, and he knows Kim is now “abandoning” him in some fashion.

    It’s a great, fascinating, complicated relationship in its ambiguity. They’re kind of sketched out as potential “soul mates”, and they also seem distant and detached both emotionally and literally (again, a Walt/Sklyer-esque lack of basic knowledge of what each other is doing on a daily basis). Jimmy is much more morally/ethically corrupted than Kim and in some ways finds it much easier to do bad things to other people. Yet, when it comes to their relationship, clearly Kim is much less emotionally caught up in just doing whatever is needed to stay together.

    I find it also quite fascinating that “romance” as such barely exists in this show. No scenes where Jimmy or Kim are jealous of potential “competition.” Jimmy is so apt to do shady business/scam stuff that, when he goes out late at night and Kim asks what the deal is, I don’t sense she’s worried he’s out cheating with another woman or something. She much more likely is guessing he’s doing some scam-ish stuff.

    We’re so trained to see shows where past romantic relationships are made into a thing, that in early seasons I wondered if Kim and Howard had dated at some point in the distant past. I also wondered for a time if perhaps one of the reasons for Chuck’s divorce was some sort of affair between Chuck’s wife and Jimmy. But this doesn’t seem to the type of angle they go for on this show (which I’m fine with).

    Very broad interpreted metaphors aren’t my favorite thing, but I also wonder if Jimmy’s nightly dinner choices that he mentions to Kim are meant to mean something. Most recently, he pitches sushi.
     
  11. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    In the preview for the next episode, they appear to show Jimmy and Kim attending some sort of party/function at S&C. I'm curious if Jimmy will discover at this function that Kim approached S&C rather than S&C offering her the position.
     
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  12. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    As far as Mesa Verde having to sign off on Kim making some pretty substantive changes to her representation of the company, I was definitely thinking of that too.

    But I don't think anything on the show has precluded the needed/legal/professional steps to happen for this change to take place. Obviously, Mesa Verde would have to agree to this arrangement. A change in billing would be likely I would imagine if nothing else.

    I would imagine Kim would pitch this to Mesa Verde with the most positive of a spin, that they would still have her "on" the case, and also now have a big, seemingly well-respected firm behind them as well.

    By and large, one can change their legal counsel/representation at any time, so I don't see any reason to *not* think that Kim (and thus the writers) are well aware that one of the many possible outcomes of Kim pitching this move would be that Mesa Verde could just walk and go to some other firm, because that could *always* happen at any time, for any number of reasons. There are always pluses and minuses to doing so. The drawback to Mesa Verde just completely firing Kim and moving to a whole new lawyer/firm would be the time factor of getting a new firm up to speed, etc.

    I also don't see S&C offering Kim a partner position (or partner track) as hugely crazy. Indeed, when S&C offered her the job a couple seasons back, it was a "partner track" position. If she's now coming to S&C with the same resume/pedigree/likability as before, but now with a potentially huge client and the ability/willingness to essentially build their "banking" department up from near scratch, it's not crazy that they would work her in as partner.
     
    Last edited: Sep 12, 2018
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  13. Squealy

    Squealy Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Vancouver
    It's interesting actually -- neither Better Call Saul nor Breaking Bad feature any characters that are heavily driven by sexual desire. As I wrote two years ago, "It's actually a surprise to me how unsleazy Saul/Jimmy is in that department. I'd expect a guy like him would also be a womanizer and yet instead they've given him only the quite pure crush on Kim. He has this in common with Walter White, actually, who never seemed to have any sort of sexual temptation despite every other moral abyss he slid into." It's just not something Vince Gilligan is interested in writing about, I guess. It was a surprise last week when Mike appeared to arrange a hookup with the woman from his grief group.
     
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  14. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    It occurred to me last night - have we ever seen Mike laugh or smile outside of his interactions with his granddaughter? His demeanor made me think of this line from "The Godfather".

     
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  15. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    There are little moments, but they're usually about "something else." For instance, there's that super awkward scene where Skyler is pregnant and Walt tries to, um, "get" with her in the kitchen in a pretty aggressive fashion. But scenes like that are obviously more about Walt's weird aggressive lust for power, ego, etc.

    I do believe in "Breaking Bad" that Saul makes a reference to having "been" with Francesca at some point (in addition to his masseuses). But again, this was less about trying to paint some epic picture of Saul as a sexual deviant or whatever, and more just to paint a broader picture of him as a skeevy sort of character doing some of the things you'd expect a TV, "ambulance chasing" sort of lawyer to do.
     
  16. Squealy

    Squealy Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Vancouver
    It's not like sex is never mentioned, but when you compare to the characters on cable show peers like "Mad Men" or "The Sopranos" the BCS/BB characters are pretty chaste.
     
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  17. Lonson

    Lonson I'm in the kitchen with the Tombstone Blues

    Don't forget "You're not Kevin Costner" . . . twice. And the gal in the bar near the guy with the breadsticks the evening after Tuco breaks the twins' legs. There's more too I believe.

    I personally think that there WILL be a connecting payoff to the threads this season, Jimmy seems on the path to run into the orbit Mike is now circling. These show runners are very clever and always surprise me how they knit story lines together.
     
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  18. mpayan

    mpayan A Tad Rolled Off

    Jimmy is slowly converging into knowing a guy that knows a guy. I think the payoff will be well worth the wait. Ive doubted Gilligan before..not this time.
     
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  19. Squealy

    Squealy Forum Hall Of Fame

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    I can't even remember -- in Breaking Bad, how wrapped up was Saul in Gus and Mike's business? Was Mike just a contact of his or did Saul work directly for them?
     
  20. mpayan

    mpayan A Tad Rolled Off

    Walter also got hot and bothered by the principal at Jrs school.
     
  21. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    And I absolutely appreciate that. I *hate* how a lot of cable (and streaming) shows clearly stick in gratuitous sex scenes, often into the pilot episode, clearly for no reason than to grab attention. Even some genuinely *good* shows do this.

    But I love that the arguably most graphic sex-related references in "Better Call Saul" have been the hilarious "Hoboken Squat Cobbler" stuff.

    I think it speaks to the show's amazing quality that it probably *would* be awkward to see like an extended bed scene with Kim and Jimmy. They've put just enough in the show so that you know what their deal is. They are "together", they sleep together, and they have some way heavier stuff going on that's also way more interesting.
     
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  22. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    Even some shows that getting GLOWing reviews? :)
     
    Last edited: Sep 12, 2018
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  23. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    I also have to say that in the last episode, the Jimmy-Howard scene was great, in numerous ways.

    Jimmy simultaneously burning Howard epically and then also pep talking him and complimenting him. Genius.

    Interesting also that they left the F word in even though the thing airs at 6pm for some providers on the west coast (I recall them muting the "Pig f***er" line in an earlier season, then leaving it unedited on the Blu-ray).
     
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  24. Squealy

    Squealy Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
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    What I find noteworthy is that in the shows I mentioned (and others), the characters' ambitions and greed and amorality go hand in hand with sex drives that get them into a whole other kind of trouble. But in the Gilligan universe, that correlation isn't there.
     
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  25. kouzie

    kouzie Forum Resident

    Location:
    Batavia, IL
    I noticed that coming out of the commercial, AMC ran a disclaimer saying that the episode contains adult language and parental discretion is advised, which I thought was odd as I hadn't recalled ever seeing this message on BCS. Then about 2 minutes later came the F bomb.
     
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