Entire Series Discussion Thread Archive

Rewatching the show made me realize Howard was actually one of the few decent people trying to do better. Yeah, he had his flaws, but compared to everyone else?
Kinda crazy how much I disliked him the first time around.
Anyone else change their opinion of him after rewatching?

I feel like Better Call Saul is a show that everyone can relate to at some point in their lives. Anyone who has ever felt like they're falling behind in life, struggling to get back on their feet, or slowly losing hope can relate to Jimmy McGill in some way.

Whenever I'm feeling really low, sad, or unmotivated, I sometimes go back and watch an episode of Better Call Saul. And somehow, it reminds me of something important: no matter how many times life knocks you down, you shouldn't give up on yourself.

I'm a huge fan of BCS and I wanted to offer an uncommon take. In Chicanery, when Chuck finished his rant against Jimmy at the hearing, I was surprised to see the panel looking disgusted and confused at him.

The anger that Chuck has was a bit familiar to me: it's very much like the anger of the good brother in the Prodigal Son fable. The good son who stayed home and played by the rules resents the good fortune that comes to his wayward brother. I have a close friend who has struggled with addiction and has often been quite coddled by their loved ones. When you see that enough, and when you doubt the addict is maturing, you can begin to have the anger, distrust, and resentment that McKean conveys so well in Chuck.

When I saw the panel looking disgusted, for a moment I thought, "What did he do wrong? He's just stating what he's gone through." But I realized that by letting it all go, unbottling it in one moment, maybe for the first time in public being that honest, he sounded completely insane and unreliable. And of course by releasing it, he also deeply wounded his brother, along with destroying his own reputation.

I wonder if anyone else sympathized a bit in what Chuck's rant in that moment. Great acting by Mr. McKean.

Probably not the first one to notice, but I have been rewatching BCS and just noticed the kids on the right of Mike are wearing all dark and look kind of serious while Kaylee is wearing bright colored clothes and happy. The kids in black and Mike are both looking at Kaylee, the only bright spot in this shot and in Mike's life. Also, there are two kids on the right and they are outnumbering Kaylee just like Mike's crime life is overshadowing everything else, but the only things he looks at and looks forward to is Kaylee.

I posted a progress picture of this awhile back but never got around to posting the finished piece! Second slide is the wip I originally posted on this sub

I just realized that jimmy and kim have sex only when they are actively plotting something or right after they finished a scam.
I can not recall a single scene where they wouldn’t be fully clothed in bed when they are not working together. Thoughts? Why do you think that might be?

I’ve never seen a character like him. His charisma, intelligence, unpredictability, and the way he can be genuinely charming while still being terrifying. Every scene he’s in feels different. He’s incredibly well written, and every detail about him makes him truly unique.

My favorite is the “flickering candle” because of how it sets the tone when Lalo shows up and kills Howard in 6x7, but I also love the border crossing song and the song that plays when Nacho confesses what he did to Hector and kills himself in 6x3

Got it signed at the breaking bad store last week !

*Couldn't post this in BB subreddit cuz of dumb karma regulations so i figured to post it here. let it be known i didn't watch better call saul*
Why does Mike consider himself morally superior to Walter White and act so outraged by his decision to retaliate and kill Gus, even going as far as calling him a ticking time bomb? Walter White is the only one who actually honored the strictly business, professional relationship he had with Gus, while Gus was actively trying to replace him with Gale and eventually have him killed.

People love to pretend they understand the show by judging every single decision Walter makes, but by the end of Season 4, he’s the only character whose actions seem reasonable and make sense to me. He’s genuinely the only one who remained professional and tried to make his working relationship with Gus work.

I’m not here to blame Gus, Jesse, or Mike for the way the business fell apart. What confuses me is why Mike keeps insulting Walter and acting as though he’s the one who was wronged, or as though Walter did something completely out of the ordinary, when all he did was defend himself.

Just like Jimmy did at Cliff&Maine, Jimmy would want to do things his way and not stick to the rules. Chuck and Jimmy would still resent each other eventually, Chuck will kick him out or whatever and we will definitely reach the same outcome.

Jimmy had no reason to leave the dream job at cliff and maine just because it didn't suit his personality due to the micromanagement that he would definitely face at HHM. He didn't even have the decency to hold his end of the contract and pushed his manager-who was extremely nice to him- to fire him to be able to keep the bonus. He told kim that there's no point in being a lawyer if he's not gonna do it his way (colorful)

You can't just assume that Jimmy will be a good lawyer exactly like Chuck wants because he loves and respects Chuck, this is not reliable on the long term.

I dont know if someone has asked this before. I think kim, my dad thinks jimmy.( Better lawyer over all, booksmart, good in court, making deals, winning cases, etc) what do you think?

Rewatching the series now and I have to say that their relationship has so many layers compared to most others from other shows.

You have them navigating their relationship through a friendship lens, growing together while growing apart, learning about themselves and personal development, understanding what kind of partner they want and their values.

I feel each scene to feature one of these and so much is communicated thru small expressions and inflections on words.

Would love to hear y’all’s opinion

I was watching the scene in S1E1 "Uno" where Jimmy was telling the two young skateboarders about his glory days, where he made 6 to 8 grand a wack. Figured that jimmy (perhaps subconsciously) relates 8 grand to an image of glory and success.

This theme is bolstered in S5E3 "The Guy for This", when Jimmy is asked how much he charges for one afternoon, his mind reaches $7925 (pretty close to it) when dealing with lalo.

Also, funnily enough, in the episode after, he proudly says IM SAUL GOODMAN, I TOOK 8 GRAND JUST FOR THE AFTERNOON implying he's back in his prime slippin jimmy days.

I think the whole “Howard was actually a good guy” sentiment is largely driven by recency bias. The later revelations about his personal life and how Jimmy and Kim treated him make people forget how much of a dick he was in the early seasons.

He was condescending toward Jimmy, helped keep him out of HHM, being an asshole boss towards Kim by demoting her to doc review, and got petty over the Mesa Verde situation, taking it personally when Kim left and trying to make things difficult for her. He was an arrogant, privileged corporate guy who could be pretty petty when he had power over others.

The show gradually humanizes him, reveals his personal struggles, and turns him into a tragic figure who gets unfairly destroyed by Jimmy and Kim and because those later events are so much more emotionally impactful, viewers seem to retroactively rewrite his entire character in their mind.

Howard absolutely didn't deserve a bullet to the head but that doesn't automatically mean he was a great person all along. I think people confuses feeling sorry for him with the idea that he was always a good person.

Two questions, how realistic and how reasonable.

Realistic is, would everyone gossip around that much to the point that even the security guard and secretary would know stuff? And would those people really care that much about a lawyer getting a guy out of prison? Like, that's kind of their functions.

Reasonable is, how do you feel about it? Do you think they were right to give him the cold shoulder? Or was it hypocrite as lawyers are often defending a bunch of shitty people and that's kind of their thing