Official Breaking Bad Thread (Vol. Better Call Saul S5)

[ZOMBIE@CTESPN]

I would invite you to breakfast but ding ding ding ding ding ding lmffffao

 

[ZOMBIE@CTESPN]

Yeah that's how I read it too. Lalo's dead and he just got back from the cartel meeting where he washed his hands of his involvement -- so, it should be a time for him to relax. For now, all the heat is completely off after being on him for so long. So he tries to enjoy it, but he still can't, because now he has to focus on the lab's completion.

That waiter/owner/whatever guy he was talking to, I don't remember him until this episode. They obviously have some sort of past as acquaintances at least. Maybe this is a weird reading of it, but it was almost like that guy was a love interest of Fring's. Fring saved the wine recommendation all this time for a "special occassion" and then the guy says something like, "well I hope I'm there for that." To me that sounded like a romantic date in the future or something. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as Seinfeld says.

You never ever see him with a woman almost duh at this point

 

[Penny Traitor]

When Gus looked into the pool it was kinda a look into his past. I took the bar scene as him trying to be normal, making conversation but realizing he cant do that. he doesn't live a normal life.

It's definitely the theme of the entire episode. Gus, Mike, Jimmy & Kim all confronting the realities of their situation.

It's been over 24 hours, so I am skipping the spoiler tags, but will say SPOILERS BELOW!!!





Gus affording himself a moment to be human before retreating back to his self imposed fortress of solitude. To see his plan through, he cannot let anyone get as close to him as he let the wine sommelier even for more than just a few fleeting minutes.

Mike tries to reach out to Nacho's father to empathize one grieving father to another and he is dismissed as just another "ganster".

And Kim finally owning up that her and Jimmy only bring out the worst in each other. That despite it being the most fun she has had in her entire life, it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt....or straight up killed.

I always said that Breaking Bad was a show about a bunch of selfish people and all the ways they enabled each other's selfishness. Now that this story has caught up to that timeline, we see that raw selfishness out of the remaining characters.

Gus' open flirtation with the wine sommelier that he walks away cold from. Mike betraying Gus' confidence to confess to Nacho's father to alleviate his own guilt for sending Nacho to his death. Jimmy's first plead to make Kim stay is "You make me happy!" and only lets out a sheepish "I love you" as a last resort that he does not even seem to believe himself. Kim looking a grieving widow dead in the eyes to lie about a dead man she once admired to save her own skin.

So is Kim redeemed?

Nah, she was just the first one to finally be honest about the situation. Much like in the closing episodes of Breaking Bad where Walter finally tells Skylar that he didn't cook all that meth to provide for his family...he did it for him and his own ego.

That was not Walter's redemption either, but it was the first time since his cancer diagnosis that he was being honest about the situation.

Jimmy McGill never got there, Saul Goodman never got there, but maybe Gene the Cinnabon King still has a chance.

 

[TL1961]

Spoiler: Is kim redeemed?

Focusing on Kim... I think they left her open to interpretation.
I get someone having the perception that she was redeemed... but I am not that forgiving, and here is why.

The life changing explosive event was Howard getting killed.
She went on with her day as usual. Doing her job, hugging clients, the whole 9 yards.
She gets home, looks at the room, Saul gets home, and then we get the scene in the bedroom- her lying there as saul gives a pep talk to her, but really more for himself.

Kim is so damn hard to read. Her and saul in bed with her being silent was used to throw us for a loop before.. you think she is feeling a moral quandry, and then she turns to saul and says "lets ruin Howard". A complete and shocking 180 of what you think she was thinking.

That in mind, The pep talk in the bedroom and her lack of response could mean anything.

Then I look at what she did afterwards.

She burnt Howards widow to the ground. Once she did that, she finished it up by salting the earth so nothing would ever grow there again.

Their plan worked. They were above suspicion. Mike confirmed it with his inside guy. Mike also told them to stick to the story and nothing more, they know nothing else.
The widow of course has questions, but what of it? They were in the midst of a divorce. Howard staying in the guest house.

Kim chose to make up the snorting coke story. Then, she really kicked the widow in the crotch by saying "you were his wife, you would have noticed something- you saw him every day!"
She maliciously tore down Howard knowing the other attorney would corroborate, then she sowed the seeds of responsibility on to the widow, making it perfectly clear to her that she absolutely should have seen this coming.

As for her leaving... She is doing it to protect saul from her OR, she realizes he is at a point where the games end. He is now a multi millionaire, he suffered a catastrophe, and he wants to get through it and move on.
Kim dumps his ass cold, and underscores where her interest is by telling Jimmy she didnt tell him about lalo because she was having too much fun destroying Howard, and she knew Jimmy would stop the game.
That is a big risk to take with jimmies life.
She said together they were poison- but she made the decision to risk Jimmies life on her own.
She made the decision to piss on howard at his funeral and destroy the widow alone.
Jimmies solo decision regarding Howard is midnight vandalism.
Kims solo decision is destroying people.

I think the thing that really made me start thinking about what Kims intentions are was her having the smoke as saul pulled up.
Their smoking together seemed to me a metaphor for their "secret pleasures" or hidden lives.
Kim usually started the fire, saul would grab it and join in, and more often than not he would be the one to extinguish it.
Kim enjoying a smoke solo and keeping it from jimmy was of course her making a decision on her own... but the motivation of that decision is not cut and dry in my opinion.

I think if redemption is what she wanted, she would do that via defending people who needed it- she could do it pro bono with their new found riches.
She burnt that path to the ground, and it was her executive decision.
In the same conversation where she tells Jimmy that, She speaks of another solo, executive decision she made and pointed out that her motivation was she wanted to continue inflicting damage because it was fun.
I cant see those two point being unrelated.

To go a little further, She burnt Jimmies future to the ground.
I think he was being genuine when he said he was jealous that Howard had Chuck's respect.
Saul wanted a classy office, he wanted a solid partnership, he still wanted to honor Chuck.
Their actions erased Chucks legacy entirely.
The firm with his name is erased.
The scholarship will of course die with the firm.
Saul has no family. No friends. Kim was all he had left, and partnering with her made his "goodman and associates" sign something to be proud of... there he was, proud as could be putting it up and imagining him and kim and their bright future. He put that bad boy up, and Kim cut his legs out from under him.
Saul wanted to turn the page and move on. Kim had no interest and left Jimmy with literally nothing- no partnership, nobody to make proud, no dream to build for- Nothing.

She took away every single last motivation he had to do the right thing.

TLDR- I think kim is a sociopath. She destroyed every motivation Jimmy had to be a good person, and left him 100% alone.

This is excellent analysis. And while it always seemed Kim was the moral one, and Jimmy the con man, this points to how that wasn’t really the case.

Mirrors Breaking Bad where Walt starts off in the drug business for a moral reason then becomes more immoral as time goes by. Meanwhile Jesse turns out to be the one with morals.

Great mirroring at least between Kim and Walt. I won’t say Saul turns out to be the upstanding citizen by any stretch.

 

[TL1961]

You never ever see him with a woman almost duh at this point

I never see Mike or Nacho with one either because we see them “at work”. Just sayin’.

 

[Penny Traitor]

Great mirroring at least between Kim and Walt

Absolutely. Maybe that is why I get the feeling we will see Kim again before it's all over in four weeks. Walter successfully ran away from all his problems too, but still drug himself right back into the frying pan at the end.

I never see Mike or Nacho with one either because we see them “at work”. Just sayin’.

Mike is an old man with the features of a retired boxer, so I doubt he was ever gonna get a moment to show himself as a ladies man.

Nacho had two women living in his one bedroom apartment, so I am gonna assume that was not just a platonic thing.

 

[Granada]

I never see Mike or Nacho with one either because we see them “at work”. Just sayin’.

What? Nacho had the two girls living with him.

 

[Granada]

It's definitely the theme of the entire episode. Gus, Mike, Jimmy & Kim all confronting the realities of their situation.

It's been over 24 hours, so I am skipping the spoiler tags, but will say SPOILERS BELOW!!!





Gus affording himself a moment to be human before retreating back to his self imposed fortress of solitude. To see his plan through, he cannot let anyone get as close to him as he let the wine sommelier even for more than just a few fleeting minutes.

Mike tries to reach out to Nacho's father to empathize one grieving father to another and he is dismissed as just another "ganster".

And Kim finally owning up that her and Jimmy only bring out the worst in each other. That despite it being the most fun she has had in her entire life, it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt....or straight up killed.

I always said that Breaking Bad was a show about a bunch of selfish people and all the ways they enabled each other's selfishness. Now that this story has caught up to that timeline, we see that raw selfishness out of the remaining characters.

Gus' open flirtation with the wine sommelier that he walks away cold from. Mike betraying Gus' confidence to confess to Nacho's father to alleviate his own guilt for sending Nacho to his death. Jimmy's first plead to make Kim stay is "You make me happy!" and only lets out a sheepish "I love you" as a last resort that he does not even seem to believe himself. Kim looking a grieving widow dead in the eyes to lie about a dead man she once admired to save her own skin.

So is Kim redeemed?

Nah, she was just the first one to finally be honest about the situation. Much like in the closing episodes of Breaking Bad where Walter finally tells Skylar that he didn't cook all that meth to provide for his family...he did it for him and his own ego.

That was not Walter's redemption either, but it was the first time since his cancer diagnosis that he was being honest about the situation.

Jimmy McGill never got there, Saul Goodman never got there, but maybe Gene the Cinnabon King still has a chance.

Seems like everyone wants to equate Kim with Walt. I got to disagree with that comparison. If Kim is like anyone, she's like Jesse. Jesse is the one who still has empathy. Like with the motorcycle kid -- Jesse is a wreck over that. Likewise, Kim is a wreck over Howard. Saul and Walt really don't give two shits about their victims, ultimately.

It's like when Jesse catches Walt whistling right after they both see the dead kid on the news, Saul is the same way, he can just go about his business like nothing happened. But Jesse? No, he quits soon after the moto-kid is killed. Same with Kim -- and she quits the first instance where shit really hits the fan (Howard). Up until that point, her sins were child's play.

So yeah, compared to Saul, she is redeemed in at least choosing to walk away now. Saul just triples down.

 

[TL1961]

Absolutely. Maybe that is why I get the feeling we will see Kim again before it's all over in four weeks. Walter successfully ran away from all his problems too, but still drug himself right back into the frying pan at the end.



Mike is an old man with the features of a retired boxer, so I doubt he was ever gonna get a moment to show himself as a ladies man.

Nacho had two women living in his one bedroom apartment, so I am gonna assume that was not just a platonic thing.

True

 

[Penny Traitor]

Seems like everyone wants to equate Kim with Walt. I got to disagree with that comparison. If Kim is like anyone, she's like Jesse. Jesse is the one who still has empathy. Like with the motorcycle kid -- Jesse is a wreck over that. Likewise, Kim is a wreck over Howard. Saul and Walt really don't give two shits about their victims, ultimately.

I did not mean to equate Walt and Kim. They are two very different characters with two very different character arcs. I just thought her final scene with Jimmy mirrored Walt's final scene with Skylar.

It's the first time either of those characters were finally being honest about doing some terrible things for terrible reasons.

It's also just the way these characters mirror the Breaking Bad characters, selfish and self absorbed at heart. Every last one.

So yeah, compared to Saul, she is redeemed in at least choosing to walk away now. Saul just triples down.

But she does it so devastately wrong.

She disbars herself and leaves her husband with zero regard to anyone. Not the clients she made a life out of righting for, not the husband she was trying to make a life with.

It's a cowards way out, but again...selfish and self-absorbed.

Every

Last

One

 

[Granada]

But she does it so devastately wrong.

She disbars herself and leaves her husband with zero regard to anyone. Not the clients she made a life out of righting for, not the husband she was trying to make a life with.

It's a cowards way out, but again...selfish and self-absorbed.

Every

Last

One

Nah, I don't see it that way at all. She did the right thing. The hard thing. She does have regard and remorse for what she'd done. That's why she can never go back. Keeping her practice would be the selfish, easy, and wrong thing to do. In giving up her practice, she's taking responsibility for her actions.

If anyone is selfish and self-absorbed, it's Saul.

 

[Penny Traitor]

In giving up her practice, she's taking responsibility for her actions.

Disagree.

Taking responsibility for her actions would have been going to the police about Lalo. It would have been NOT lying her ass off about Howard's death.

Even at his own memorial service.

If anyone is selfish and self-absorbed, it's Saul.

Absolutely he is.

Just like Kim

Just like Howard

Just like Chuck

Just like Fring

Just like Mike

Just like Walter

Just like Skylar

Just like Hank

Just like Hank's wife

And on and on and on

 

[Granada]

Disagree.

Taking responsibility for her actions would have been going to the police about Lalo. It would have been NOT lying her ass off about Howard's death.

Even at his own memorial service.



Absolutely he is.

Just like Kim

Just like Howard

Just like Chuck

Just like Fring

Just like Mike

Just like Walter

Just like Skylar

Just like Hank

Just like Hank's wife

And on and on and on

There are degrees. If you're equating Skylar, Kim, and Hank's wife with people like Gus, Mike, and Walt, I'm sorry but that's a little silly.

Going to the police wasn't really an option obviously. She knows that would lead to not only her but Saul being killed; or lead to their arrest, which something a married couple would want to avoid for their spouse, obviously. She did what she could and took as much responsibility as she could, which is more than Saul ever did.

 

[Penny Traitor]

There are degrees. If you're equating Skylar, Kim, and Hank's wife with people like Gus, Mike, and Walt, I'm sorry but that's a little silly.

Still not equating, just saying they all have one similar character flaw. They are all selfish people by nature.

Going to the police wasn't really an option obviously. She knows that would lead to not only her but Saul being killed; or lead to their arrest

Absolutely, but that would have been the literal definition of taking responsibility for her actions. Instead she chooses to literally run away from her responsibilities.

which something a married couple would want to avoid for their spouse, obviously

Obviously.

You also think a married couple would work through this together, but from the start she just shuts Jimmy completely out and straight up leaves him after fulfilling her minimal duties giving a statement to the police and making the appearance at Howard's memorial.

She did what she could and took as much responsibility as she could, which is more than Saul ever did.

She did what she could to make sure she could walk away and then did. It was the right call, but does not make the act any less selfish.

Figuratively speaking, she murdered Jimmy McGill that night and all that is left is Saul Goodman with his shitty strip mall office and more money than he knows what to do with.

 

[Granada]

Still not equating, just saying they all have one similar character flaw. They are all selfish people by nature.



Absolutely, but that would have been the literal definition of taking responsibility for her actions. Instead she chooses to literally run away from her responsibilities.



Obviously.

You also think a married couple would work through this together, but from the start she just shuts Jimmy completely out and straight up leaves him after fulfilling her minimal duties giving a statement to the police and making the appearance at Howard's memorial.



She did what she could to make sure she could walk away and then did. It was the right call, but does not make the act any less selfish.

Figuratively speaking, she murdered Jimmy McGill that night and all that is left is Saul Goodman with his shitty strip mall office and more money than he knows what to do with.

Disagree on a lot of these. She didn't need to walk away at all. They essentially got away with it. All she had to do, was continue with her life with Saul just as it had been before Howard died. She couldn't. The selfish thing would have been to just continue and sweep it under the rug and go on as if nothing ever happened; and continue to practice law on top of it.

She leaves Jimmy because they are poison when they're together. She sees that she can't just "work it out" with him, because he's past the point of no return. When he says, "one day we'll just go to work and not even remember this happened," that was proof that he was beyond saving and that if they stuck together, it would just be a slippery slope. It's not like she wants to leave Saul, but she has to, because they're not good for each other and more importantly, because they hurt others around them (Howard). She had both of their interests in mind when she walked away, not just her own. So I don't view that as selfishness.

I also don't see it as she murdered Jimmy when she left him. I see it as, she was the last good thing that was holding Jimmy back from his destiny as Saul. Saul was always there, beneath the surface -- hell, we see that throughout the series. And he was a scumbag before she entered his life too; he was only ever "decent" when she was there. Saul was only able to fully manifest when she was out of the picture. because she was the one and only reason he had to not go down that terrible path.

 

[TL1961]

Neither viewpoint is 100% right or wrong.

But this is the brilliance of the show. What other show has the viewers thinking like this? The depth of the characters and the depth of the plot lines is fabulous.

 

[ZOMBIE@CTESPN]

I think we give her allot of credit maybe trying to redeem herself. I think she is a scum bag just like Jimmy. In her head prob can’t top getting away with what just went down. She is prob out to look for her next thrill ride. She is who she is

 

[Penny Traitor]

Disagree on a lot of these. She didn't need to walk away at all. They essentially got away with it. All she had to do, was continue with her life with Saul just as it had been before Howard died. She couldn't. The selfish thing would have been to just continue and sweep it under the rug and go on as if nothing ever happened; and continue to practice law on top of it.

What stands out most to me is that she never makes an attempt to bring Jimmy with her on this "escape from everything" plan.

Maybe you are right and she is convinced Jimmy is already gone and she just can't be Mrs Saul Goodman, but she never even tries.

Is it beause that love was never real?

Or was it all just fun and games, until someone got hurt?

I see it as, she was the last good thing that was holding Jimmy back from his destiny as Saul.

100%

And his best friend in the entire world did nothing but enable it.

It's a heavy reoccurring theme in both shows.

 

[Granada]

What stands out most to me is that she never makes an attempt to bring Jimmy with her on this "escape from everything" plan.

Maybe you are right and she is convinced Jimmy is already gone and she just can't be Mrs Saul Goodman, but she never even tries.

Is it beause that love was never real?

Or was it all just fun and games, until someone got hurt?



100%

And his best friend in the entire world did nothing but enable it.

It's a heavy reoccurring theme in both shows.

Yeah I think it was just fun and games until someone got hurt. I mean, Kim's greatest sin up to the point Lalo killed Howard was that, she was essentially tarnishing the reputation of a former boss who treated her and especially her eventual husband like complete dog shit. That's it. I think the love was real, but it's like she says, she loves him but they're poison together and they hurt people around them.

I see your point in how she enabled him. That's true, and maybe I'm wrong here, but I still feel like Jimmy was holding back because of her. I mean, she enabled him to an extent, but shit really got off the rails once she left, lol. It's like, once he lost her, he truly had nothing to lose now.

 

[zack54attack]

I think we see Kim again, but a quick appearance or a flashback. I believe we are fully into BB timeline now for the final four episodes.