Better Call Saul - New TV Series 2014

[AcGold]

Jimmy doesn't seem honest at all. He seems like a typical lawyer, doing whatever he can to bend the law to suit his goals.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

^In what way did he bend the law in that episode?

Anyway, the whole partnership agreement thing is going to come back to bite them. Hamelin is going to say that Chuck broke the agreement by working with Jimmy on this case, and so he's out of the firm and owed nothing, somehow.

[1stLand]

Jimmy:
He has a lot of redeeming qualities. You can tell that he has a conscious and he tries to do the right thing as well as bend the rules a bit to get ahead.
I agree that there must be something traumatic that causes him to work with criminals and break the law.

Mike:
Was completely content with lying low and working as a parking lot attendant. Now we are seeing hints that his daughter in law is struggling financially. It was clear in the last episode that Mike wants to live for his granddaughter and do everything possible to give her a better life. What makes it hard is knowing that he made a lot of money in Breaking Bad for her but it was all seized.

Jimmy & Mike will forge a mutually beneficial relationship in that regard until they eventually meet Walter White

[Flash Walken]

I think we're seeing the turn coming up.

Does Kim sell Jimmy out that he's working with Chuck, and does that cause his class action suit to crumble?

Or does Mike need Saul's help, and is that the gateway between Saul and the criminal underbelly?

[Yamer]

Go Landcrabs!

[ben voyonsdonc]

This show is brilliant. The cinematography is fantastic...there are so many little flourishes that can just fly past you...I loved when they dropped the bar exam letter and it fell in slow motion down towards the camera.

[Daradon]

This show is really taking off now. Love it!

[AcGold]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

^In what way did he bend the law in that episode?

Anyway, the whole partnership agreement thing is going to come back to bite them. Hamelin is going to say that Chuck broke the agreement by working with Jimmy on this case, and so he's out of the firm and owed nothing, somehow.

Rummaging through the garbage, taking bribes, conning people, ripping off the ad, calling the Kettlemans with a fake voice. He's done a lot of shady things.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Rummaging through the garbage is not breaking the law; all the other stuff was in previous episodes.

The bribe thing he clearly struggled with and ended up doing the right thing. His call to the Kettlemans was an attempt to prevent them from being hurt in a home invasion. His attempted con was pretty sleazy, but hey, he's certainly not perfect. On the whole I think he's been pretty above board considering he's an ex-con man and has been more and more upright as the season's progressed.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by AcGold

Jimmy doesn't seem honest at all. He seems like a typical lawyer, doing whatever he can to bend the law to suit his goals.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by AcGold

Rummaging through the garbage, taking bribes, conning people, ripping off the ad, calling the Kettlemans with a fake voice. He's done a lot of shady things.

Rummaging through the garbage was completely legal. Even Chuck admitted so. Shoot, if not for people willing to do things like that, bad people and corporations might never be exposed. Totally a good thing in my books.

He called the Kettlemans more to warn them than anything.

The ad was shifty, for sure. And yeah, he took the bribe. But I don't think it's all so black and white as you seem to see.

[AcGold]

I didn't say it's black and white, I said he bends the law, which he does. The garbage thing would have gotten other people in legal trouble but he knew how to get around it (if animals can get in it's legal). Multiple times he's been in the legal grey area working his silver tongue magic to get out of almost anything. Other times he's flat out broken the law (fraud, defamation, conspiracy, bribery) which is counter to the person who said he's an honest guy.

He's so obviously not, so much so that he caused his brother to develop a psychosomatic agoraphobia because of his slipping Jimmy tendencies.

[Yamer]

Originally Posted by AcGold

I didn't say it's black and white, I said he bends the law, which he does. The garbage thing would have gotten other people in legal trouble but he knew how to get around it (if animals can get in it's legal). Multiple times he's been in the legal grey area working his silver tongue magic to get out of almost anything. Other times he's flat out broken the law (fraud, defamation, conspiracy, bribery) which is counter to the person who said he's an honest guy.

He's so obviously not, so much so that he caused his brother to develop a psychosomatic agoraphobia because of his slipping Jimmy tendencies.

To be fair, at this point it has been suggested that his personality aggravates Chuck's condition, but there has been no implication to say that he caused it.

Jimmy/Saul is a shades of gray character, just like the rest of us. Honesty is a matter of degree on a spectrum, and so far I would say his character leans more righteously, even if it might be for all the wrong reasons.

[Barnes]

It's like you're watching an entirely different show or at least watching with SAP on.

There is absolutely nothing that has happened that could lead one to believe that Jimmy caused Chuck's EMP sensitivity.

Jimmy would do anything for Chuck. He agreed to go straight for his brother after Chuck had him freed of charges in Cicero. He followed him to Albuquerque and worked and studied hard to make Chuck proud of him. He entertains Chuck's illness to the point where he is enabling but this is all to keep him safe and out of any mental institution. Jimmy is ultimately good but flawed.

He is Jimmy and not Saul because of Chuck. Take away Chuck and Jimmy reverts to Slipping Jimmy (Saul).

[Mister Yamoto]

Originally Posted by Yamer

Go Landcrabs!

My favourite was

Why are you whispering?

Because I am at the opera.

[Da_Chief]

My favourite has been the look on Saul's face when they guy who wanted his country gave Saul a boatload of money with his face on it. That was epic.

[AcGold]

Originally Posted by Yamer

To be fair, at this point it has been suggested that his personality aggravates Chuck's condition, but there has been no implication to say that he caused it.

Jimmy/Saul is a shades of gray character, just like the rest of us. Honesty is a matter of degree on a spectrum, and so far I would say his character leans more righteously, even if it might be for all the wrong reasons.

But there was indication that he caused it, in the episode Hero it starts. The beginning is Jimmy being a conman, this character is Slippin' Jimmy that is referenced later. It is obvious that Jimmy has several character transformations throughout the show and the names given to that time (3 so far; Slippin' Jimmy, Jimmy Mcgill and Saul Goodman) all equate to different characters. Slippin' Jimmy smokes weed, cons people and causes his brothers psychosomatic agoraphobia.

This is directly shown near the end of the episode Alpine Shepherd Boy. Near 34:00 of the episode his brother is discussing how Jimmy's appearance in the newspaper and his dishonest behavior caused Chuck to get tazed and suffer a sever electromagnetic sensitivity attack.

Then Jimmy literally says "From here on out I'm going to play by the rules". "I'm on the up and up" and "I will be good. Slippin' Jimmy? He's back in Cicero. Dead and buried". Character transformation complete.

Chuck nods in contemplation. "Ok". Removes foil blanket. "We'll see"

Chuck gets up and Jimmy asks "Where you going?"

Chuck responds "Somebody's gotta make that coffee"

Walking in his house completely devoid of any agoraphobic withdrawal symptoms he previously was experiencing Chuck walks off screen.

[Yamer]

Originally Posted by AcGold

But there was indication that he caused it, in the episode Hero it starts. The beginning is Jimmy being a conman, this character is Slippin' Jimmy that is referenced later. It is obvious that Jimmy has several character transformations throughout the show and the names given to that time (3 so far; Slippin' Jimmy, Jimmy Mcgill and Saul Goodman) all equate to different characters. Slippin' Jimmy smokes weed, cons people and causes his brothers psychosomatic agoraphobia.

This is directly shown near the end of the episode Alpine Shepherd Boy. Near 34:00 of the episode his brother is discussing how Jimmy's appearance in the newspaper and his dishonest behavior caused Chuck to get tazed and suffer a sever electromagnetic sensitivity attack.

Then Jimmy literally says "From here on out I'm going to play by the rules". "I'm on the up and up" and "I will be good. Slippin' Jimmy? He's back in Cicero. Dead and buried". Character transformation complete.

Chuck nods in contemplation. "Ok". Removes foil blanket. "We'll see"

Chuck gets up and Jimmy asks "Where you going?"

Chuck responds "Somebody's gotta make that coffee"

Walking in his house completely devoid of any agoraphobic withdrawal symptoms he previously was experiencing Chuck walks off screen.

That entire sequence only really suggests that Jimmy's behaviour aggravates Chuck's condition, putting up with stress that flares his mental illness. Jimmy is aware of it, and tries to convince Chuck that he's going to behave. Once Chuck is satisfied, his symptoms go away.

There has been nothing on screen that I can find that would indicate Jimmy at any point in the background story arc caused Chuck's affliction. I guess it's an interpretation you can make through some leaps, but I don't see it.

[AcGold]

I'm fairly certain I'm correct. The writers pretty much hit us over the head with it without explicitly saying it. There was a direct 1:1 correlation between slippin' Jimmy and Chuck's agoraphobia, you want them to literally come out and say it?

If Slippin' Jimmy disappears and Chuck's symptoms immediately go away I don't know how you can possibly make any other interpretation. That's not even correlation that's about as strong of a causation the writers could make it without staring directly into the camera and stating it as such. There was hinting at it earlier in the episode too, every single moment of Chuck's illness is indicative of Jimmy causing it.

[Yamer]

Originally Posted by AcGold

I'm fairly certain I'm correct. The writers pretty much hit us over the head with it without explicitly saying it. There was a direct 1:1 correlation between slippin' Jimmy and Chuck's agoraphobia, you want them to literally come out and say it?

If Slippin' Jimmy disappears and Chuck's symptoms immediately go away I don't know how you can possibly make any other interpretation. That's not even correlation that's about as strong of a causation the writers could make it without staring directly into the camera and stating it as such. There was hinting at it earlier in the episode too, every single moment of Chuck's illness is indicative of Jimmy causing it.

Except they don't simply go away. Chuck feels alleviated, but the illness is still there. Again, at best, it seems like Jimmy's reversion is merely aggravating Chuck's symptoms through stress over worrying about his brother.

One example in the show's timeline that disrupts your theory, brought up as recently as the last episode, shows that Jimmy had turned things around after his brother had bailed him out and gave him a job. He just passed the bar at the University of America Samoa (Go Landcrabs!), and almost all remnants of Slippin' Jimmy are virtually gone. Yet, somehow after this (as we see Chuck still at the head of the firm) Chuck manages to develop his illness.

Unless the plot snaps to a flashback of Jimmy reverting to his old ways before Chuck becomes ill we really have no reason to believe that Slippin' Jimmy's antics actually caused the onset of the illness.

That's my interpretation of what has happened on-screen thus far. You're free to hold your own interpretation, but the evidence I see doesn't lead me to that conclusion at all.