Amph Better Call Saul (Spoilers within)

thanks Diggy.

 

He is a great villain... the show really makes you feel the fear that everyone that works for him or does business with him has. The way he calmly and methodically changes out of his suit and puts on the rubber suit, cuts someone's throat with a box cutter, and then changes back again is just chilling. It also helps that he has someone as effective as Mike working for him.

Speaking of BB/BCS t-shirts, a friend of mine has this one:

 

Finally watched the last episode tonight, can't believe it's taken so long. Much as as I want to hate Chuck more than ever, I still can't separate him from this masterpiece:



Oh, and it just occurred to me that while Chuck thinks he's got one over Jimmy with the recording, Jimmy's the one with the ace in the hole. As mentioned towards the end, he has Temporary Enduring Guardianship over Chuck.
He got it for Chuck's benefit (to get him home), but if need be, he can have Chuck committed. For all we know, Chuck might be alive and well at the time of BB, rotting away in some psychiatric facility and screaming at the nurses to turn off the lights.

 

Chuck's going back to mental health facility, that's for sure.

 

well just finished it .

the thing I love about it is how they take such small things and have someone obsessing over them , it was a common theme in BB too .

one thing about the plot bothered me tho - Hector Salemanca must know that Mike was involved in a scheme to get his nephew (?) imprisoned . I mean originally Mike was just pretending to be a doddery old geezer , but when he met Hector he had to drop the act , so why didn't Hector want to know why Mike did it ?

.

 

He was there, so probably had no sea he was being doddery. He was probably told it was some old blanco bastardo.

 

Better Call Saul 360 degree tours

 

Watching GoT and FtWD back to back -- nearly two solid hours of anti-entertainment.

 

I forgot about the Temporary Enduring Guardianship over Chuck. However, that doesn't remove the tape recording from the table. I would tend to think by the time Jimmy finds out about the tape recording, it will be too late as Chuck would have submitted to the state bar or Howard or something like that. Unless Chuck still, for some reason, trusts Ernesto. Speaking of Ernie, I was surprised how much loyalty he has towards Jimmy. You'd think if he was that loyal, he wouldn't have helped Chuck in the first place to track down the copy store clerk.

 

Well Chuck does have the tape, and he can play it for Kim or Howard. But I'm not sure it was legal at the time to record someone without their knowledge. Something for the BCS researchers to figure out.

 

I think it's still an issue over the phone, right? Not sure about in person. But maybe that's the catch; it might not be admissible in court, making the only real damage that could be caused by it be between Kim and Jimmy. On the other hand, she already knows he did it, but not "officially".

 

Well, the show made it very clear that Chuck doesn't respect Jimmy as a lawyer and pretty much challenged him at every turn. I think Chuck wants Jimmy disbarred, and since it's not really a criminal case, it's still a ethical one, which state bars don't take lightly. But yeah, I'm sure what's Chuck's play here. If he tries to blackmail Jimmy, Chuck will be playing checkers while Jimmy is playing chess. It's not Chuck's strength to play it that way. I'm thinking Chuck's first move is to contact Howard.

As far as Mike and Gus, well, it's sort of prequel Gus (not the Gus from Breaking Bad). BB Gus would not break character of a chicken restaurant manager just to stop a sniper from killing Hector. Gus was very smart and wanted to hide in plain sight. I'm thinking it has to be one of Nacho's friends, as Nacho made sure Mike didn't get a clean shot of Hector.

 

That's assuming Nacho knew that not only Mike was going to do this and new exactly where he was placed. I'm still thinking it's Gus connected or unknown third party connected.

 

Well, Nacho figured out Mike made the hit on the delivery truck. Nacho may have figured out the only place for a sniper to hide and take a shot at Hector was on the ridge where Mike was. I mean, there was a lot of flat and open area there; not too many places to hit. It might have been the only logical place for Mike to set up.

The other thing, why wouldn't Gus not want to take out the competition in Hector?

 

That remains unclear. Maybe he wants to take care of it himself? It's tough to know without knowing Gus' current status.

 

Ya know, after giving it some thought, perhaps Gus didn't want Mike to take the shot because it might create a drug war between the two crews. I doubt it, but I'll leave it as a possibility.

 

New Mexico is a one-party consent state. That means Chuck can legally record a conversation without Jimmy's knowledge and it's admissible in court. Chuck is an ******* but he knows what he's doing.

 

Yeah, that's what I was thinking after my previous post on this. He would know that would work before he did it.

 

Although... no matter what Chuck does with that recording, Jimmy could always say something like, "yeah, I know I said on there that I did it... but that was me lying to make my brother feel better." If pushed, he could reveal more about Chuck's condition and mental issues in order to cast doubt on what Chuck says.

 

Whenever he's been pushed to take advantage of his brother's mental state, Jimmy has shied away. We've seen him twice refuse to commit Chuck despite it probably being the best course of action. I think he will say that he was just trying to make his brother feel better, but so far he's refused to even come close to crossing the line regarding Chuck's illness.

Chuck could also have some evidence that we don't know about yet. He is indeed a great legal mind.

 

So based on the start dates of the first two seasons of BCS, season 3 will probably not start until February 2017... ugh. Ten episodes is just so short for a season.

 

Same with GoT, the seasons go by so fast, but for as much as I complain, I'd take 10 episodes over CW's 22 episode seasons any day. Too much filler!

 

wow, i took a bit of a midseason break after ep 5 but ive been catching up today and damn... rhea seehorn is a ****ing standout. i think kim might be my fave character now. kim's plotlines are enthralling, she's incredibly well written, and seehorn's acting is compelling. love her

 

Welcome to three months ago. And get on The Insider podcasts. Rhea is even more fantastic in those.

 

yeah Seehorn and Kim in particular took a jump this season to being probably the third lead on the show. I was totally enamored of her with that montage of her tracking down legal leads. And the "You've got a lot on your plate in doc review" was just heartbreaking. I think next season should be fun with Jimmy and Kim working in the same office and Jimmy doing his slippin' Jimmy thing which would probably run into Kim playing it on the straight and narrow. They are destined to fall apart, Saul ain't got no Kim in Breaking Bad, but I keep holding out that Cinnabon Gene will reunite with Kim eventually.

As for the final episode, that one shot of Chuck strapped in the gurney was amazing. And it was just done by having an off-kilter / upside down shot to disorient the viewer and McKean playing it to the hilt. I will admit, I slowly got back on the Chuck sympathy trolley over the course of the season but after that final shot, and how you realize he's playing Jimmy the whole damn time to get that confession.... that's it. Chuck = supervillian. He's going down, dammit!

Oh yeah and Gus Fring coming into the picture would be fantastic. Unless the "DON'T" note was either left by Nacho's buddy or Nacho has some sort of super-speed ability we don't know about. But there is a lot of drama to mine with Fring's relationship with Hector, and Fring associating with Mike. While him going out of his way to write a note and stop Mike from killing Hector does seem like Fring sticking his neck out real far, it's just an awesome way to bring him in. If Fring left the note. But he totally did. I mean, come on.

Question: when Better Call Saul is done, would going into rewatching Breaking Bad be a decent choice or rewatch BCS and then Breaking Bad so it can play out in full on prequel to sequel mode (despite the Cinnabon Gene stuff)