On Better Call Saul, Kim’s motives come into focus
In the penultimate episode of this half season, we learn what’s really driving ABQ's best public defender
TV Reviews Saul
Fans of Better Call Saul’s predecessor have debated: Did Walter White really spend that series’ five seasons breaking bad, or did he simply finally find his way to his true self? Perhaps that question, considering the nuance Saul has spun for her, can be applied to Kim, who just wants to do good but is willing to do some not-so-good things to achieve that end. In the flashback opening for “Axe And Grind,” we find out what really what fuels Kim. She, yes, has an axe to grind, and we can consider Howard Hamlin a victim of her long-sharpened blade.
In a recall to Kim’s teenage years, her mom picks her up in the office of store, where the manager caught her trying to shoplift jewelry. It isn’t pricey loot—although it costs more than an ’80s teen’s allowance ($35.53, with tax, to be exact)—and Kim doesn’t seem particularly committed to owning the accessories. She’s rattled about being caught—her foot shakes in her white sneakers, a move that would become a signature when high heel-ed, adult Kim gets nervous—and her mom lays on the scolding thick.
That chastisement of her daughter ingratiates Kim’s mom to the store owner, and the Wexler women leave the establishment with nothing but the promise that Kim won’t be a repeat offender. Well, that and the jewelry set. Kim’s mom swiped it from the office and, tickled by the petty crime, gives it to Kim once they’re in the car. Turns out, she’s not angry with Kim at all. She’s impressed. “Didn’t know you had it in you,” her mom says. When her daughter is puzzled, she tacks on, “Relax, you got away with it!”
And that’s young Kim Wexler’s takeaway. As she rides home in silence, a look of disappointment on her face, Kim determines that being bad didn’t get her the attention she craved. It got her what she claimed by her actions to want. And if a straight-A student can’t win affection and attention with good behaviors or bad, she has to make her own path, pushed forward by self-reliance and hard work. In another flashback, this one to “Wexler v. Goodman” (season 5, episode 6), Kim is so determined to follow this philosophy that she carries a cello on her back for three miles on a cold Nebraska night to avoid riding home with her possibly intoxicated, late-to-pick-her-up mother.
That same spirit took her from Nebraska to Albuquerque and landed her a job in the HHM mailroom. Her hustle led the firm to lend her the cash for law school, followed by a position as an attorney at HHM when she passed the bar. She continued to work hard, under the radar of the partners, until her association with former mailroom co-worker-turned-lawyer Jimmy earned her a spot on Howard’s shit list. He gave her thankless assignments; she rebounded with hours spent working her contact list (remember the Post-Its stuck all over the HHM stairways windows?), winning her way back into Howard’s good graces when she landed mega-client Mesa Verde via her friend Paige. But it also intensified her resentment of Howard.
She resents his arrogance, his condescension, his blindness to how deep her intelligence, her knowledge, her skills as an attorney go. He even underestimates how bad Kim can be. After hearing from Cliff that Kim was with him when he witnessed Fake Howard (Jimmy) kicking a hooker out of his Jaguar, Howard immediately assumed Jimmy was behind the ruse. It never occurred to him that Kim was involved, let alone that she’s been masterminding much of this.
In other words, Howard didn’t, still doesn’t, know Kim has it in her. As for why it took so long for Kim to let those resentments bubble over into something so sinister, we’re not sure. We know only bits and pieces of her past, especially in the pre-Albuquerque years. Maybe she left Nebraska for New Mexico to make new opportunities; maybe she wanted to leave that young Kim behind.
And maybe her commitment to advocacy work, her raison d’etre, lets her indulge her more ruthless and selfish sides. After spending years with Howard miscalculating and undervaluing her, his villainy, in her mind, calls for a drastic (but justifiable) payback, one that now involves drugs and an animal rectal thermometer from vet Dr. Caldera, an actor who posed as Judge Casamira. Despite Jimmy’s panic about Casamira’s broken arm, Kim’s sterner stuff kicks in. “It happens today,” she tells him and whips her car around towards Albuquerque. Even if it means she’ll ruin her chances at being included in Cliff’s new justice reform board, the one she was on her way to Santa Fe to fight for, Kim has it in her to see her plan through. One of them, at least.
In the more literal counterpart to Kim’s axe-to-grind story, Lalo tracks down Casper, one of Werner Ziegler’s loyal construction workers. All Lalo wants is info on what Gus is up to so he can prove to Don Eladio that the Salamancas, not Gustavo Fring, are worthy of running the cartel show north of the border. That Lalo gets a little too axe-happy with Caspar’s foot might make that plan a little tougher at the moment.
It’s not wise to underestimate either of them, Kim or Lalo. One of them broke bad a long time ago, maybe even was born bad. As for Kim, she might just be gradually finding her way home to her genuine nature.
Stray observations
- Dr. Caldera’s little black book! Now we know the source of Mike’s Rolodex of men (didn’t it strike you as odd that Mike has so many resources in Albuquerque, when he lived in Philadelphia up to the beginning of the BCS timeline?), Saul’s many resources in Breaking Bad, and Ed the “vacuum cleaner repairman.” How and when do we think the book falls into Saul’s hands?
- Kim takes note of Ed’s business card when she and Jimmy flip through Caldera’s book. There has been so much talk about Kim possibly being killed off before Saul ends. What if something bad happens, and she goes off to a new life, thanks to Ed?
- Saul star Giancarlo Esposito made his TV drama directorial debut with “Axe And Grind,” and one of my favorite single shots of the season so far is when Jimmy sends Kim off to Santa Fe for her meeting with the Jackson-Mercer Foundation people, and in the background is a view of two crossed wires, looking like they’re making an X over Kim and Jimmy’s apartment. I suppose that could just be a coincidence, or it could mean there’s more trouble ahead at Casa McGill.
- Will Jimmy ever go back and buy that bottle of Zafiro Añejo, or is the bottle stopper we saw in the opening of the season premiere the stopper from the bottle Jimmy and Kim made “KEN WINS” pay for in “Switch” (season 2, episode 1)?
- Mike essentially created a low-key version of Gus’ lair so he can make sure Kaylee and Stacey are safe. Also, big thumbs up to episode writer Ariel Levine for giving Mike a fart joke to share with Kaylee. The man has earned it.
- Perhaps we’ll find out in next week’s midseason finale (titled “Plan And Execution”), perhaps we’ll find out before the series finale, or perhaps we’ll just have to use our imaginations, but after seeing how beautifully and tastefully Francesca decorated Saul’s office—so much moulding—I’m dying to see what happens to make it into the strip mall dive we know it to be in Breaking Bad. It did break my heart when Francesca had to watch Saul’s clients stub their smokes out on the furniture and take a whiz in Saul’s office.
- Kim’s mom is a lover of great ’80s music, from Rick Springfield’s “Affair Of The Heart,” which was playing in her car in “Wexler v. Goodman,” to newly-elected Rock Hall of Fame members Duran Duran’s “The Reflex” playing when she and “Kimmie” get in the car in “Axe And Grind.”
- Was Howard’s latte, the one he so meticulously crafts, for his wife Cheryl just the saddest hot beverage ever? When he presents it to her, with a peace sign drawn on top, and she barely glances at it and dumps it into a travel mug without noting his effort? Harsh, Cheryl! Is she just bored with him, like Chuck’s wife seemed with their relationship? Or is there more to it? Howard makes a special point of telling her about more shenanigans from Jimmy and stresses that he would deal with it, “whatever it takes.” There is an intense sadness about Howard that continues to make me worry about him, and he is a character I was not particularly worried about before this season.
- If something terrible, like permanently terrible, did happen to Howard as a result of actions she and Jimmy took, could Kim handle that? Has she gone so far down a different path from the Kim Wexler we initially met that she would be able to deal with that level of guilt (or even feel that level of guilt)?
191 Comments
Was it just me or was there barely any episode this week? I honestly felt at times there were just as many commercials as actual show segments.
No, it wasn’t just you…
It’s an habit with this show, we can get 52 to 59 minutes long episodes, to the 45 mins we got here and last week (which happened in Breaking Bad here and there, hell season 4 is pretty much all 47:12 except for the finale) and even down to just 40 minutes for episodes like “Inflatable”. Yeah, I was annoyed with the commercials, but now that I got it as a file (where somehow the “next week on Better Call Saul” part always are, they never air on AMC and I don’t think it’s because I’m watching AMC from Canada.Anyways, my heart was racing as I knew that, of course, Kim wouldn’t be able to go that above-board (Kim in her own way is getting a lot like Gus) business/charity meeting when the idea that they would’ve to be separated got floated. That mid-season finale will be one hell of a mid-season boss battle of an ep. Now the dominoes will come crashing down lol.
Oh and yes, Francesca, poor thing, this is just the beginning and yep, you will be making intel calls like that all the freakin’ time
😅
Commercials have been such an annoyance these past few seasons, I don’t watch the show live anymore.⏩ is the best thing to happen to television since the switch from dial to remote control.
We started watching about 9:30 so we could fast forward.
Not sure. I just FF through them. So I really can’t say.
You’re not wrong. The show debuts weekly on Netflix here thankfully, so no adverts, but this episode was something like 11 minutes shorter than last week’s.
You can watch it on AMC Plus commercial free the night it airs
Be grateful. The old network standard time of actual content airing for a “60 minute” show has almost always been about 42 minutes. Anything beyond that is extra.
Aside from Nacho’s odyssey, this season so far has had a very “slow burn” buildup, which I suppose is keeping in spirit with the type of show “Saul” has been all along. Still, I can’t believe there’s only 7 episodes left. Feels like there’s a lot of territory yet to be covered.
OK, we have part of the D-Day Plan now….with the $$ withdrawal of $20,000 (?) and the photos of Saul giving “Judge Casamiro” a fat envelope, it looks like they’re making it look like Saul is bribing the Judge. Presumably, Howard will “expose” this, and falsely accuse a Judge of Bribery. (Where the Conference Call with the Sandpiper folks figures in, I have no idea yet…)
I don’t know that they were the exact same earrings, but the ones Kim was wearing in her last scene in the car were the same style/shape as the ones her mom swiped at the store in the open.
The actor Jimmy hired was fellow Mr. Show alum John Ennis.
Starting the episode with a flashback to Kim’s childhood made me anxious something would happen to her in this episode. And when she made the U to come back, I shouldn’t have been shocked, but I was. Sure, she can keep fighting for people who need it, Jimmy has a lot of money now, but she would rather punish people like Howard, a smug, condescending, privileged silver spoon that defends criminal corporations and milks billable hours from old people. She wants to knock him down more than she wants to be of service, as remarkable at that as she is.It’s making me think of the last season of Breaking Bad. It’s not a 1:1 comparison, but there was a time when it was all over. Walter was going to die. Jesse had millions of dollars. But Hank and Jesse couldn’t let it go and they paid the price for their obsession. They weren’t seeking justice, they wanted satisfaction. I really, really hope Kim isn’t similarly fated, but it’s not realistic hope, I understand that. But there’s a little light left, where that meticulous and extremely talented writers room wouldn’t just repeat themselves. They don’t want to just end on yet another bittersweet note, they want this to be satisfying and triumphant. Jimmy as Gene still has that mentality of fighting for the little guy, and I hope both he and Kim have a future of doing just that.
I’ve watched enough tv to know that if they start with a flashback of a certain character, there is a good chance that something bad will happen to that character. Just like when it looks like a character feels like things are going well for them, well enough to let their literal hair down, bad things will also happen.
Kim’s hair looked like Skyler’s hair in late season 3 when she decided to pair up with Walt finally. When they visit Saul’s office. Maybe it’s just me.
Great post, agreed on all points, although that is not required for a great post. Your analysis is spot-on. Yes we’ve been shown Howard is a human being like anyone else, hell they did it with Mike. The only true sociopaths (not psychopaths, those are those that cannot contain themselves within society, that’s more Tuco’s territory) in this show are Lalo and Gus (well Eladio too but he’s a distant character and Hector, but there’s not much he can do…well all of the Salamancas vary between psycho and sociopaths). But what you said about Howard remains true. What the old lady (and what Jimmy said) was true, that protracted line of time…a lot of them at Sandpiper facilities, don’t have much of and it’s all about getting a larger pay for the law firm when a deal was ready from S&C was ready a year before where that 20% for Jimmy would give him 1.67 million if I recall. Now it’s grown to 2 million according to their calculations in s5e10, where Kim says, if they settle now instead of later they might not get 15-20 dollars more.
It’s all about that “reflection” BS that Kim got over with after Lalo showed up in her apartment. The last drop of Howard’s influence disappearing from her.
milks billable hours from old peopleThat’s not how class action lawsuits work. While HHM may have corporate clients like a lot of large firms, this kind of case is contingency-based, which means their fee is a percentage of the total settlement or jury verdict that results.
He’s not charging the old people. His law firm gets a percentage of the settlement.
The actor playing young Kim was great. She had that sharp‐eyed glare down pat.I got the feeling that Howard and Cheryl are effectively separated but still sharing a house. The whole discussion of which one of them should go to an event sounded that way, especially when she shut down his idea that they could both go. Not even “go together,” just both be in the same place at the same time and she had no interest in that. She ignored the “peace” offering that he meticulously crafted for her too.
I think Howard is a prisoner of others expectations.When Kim left HHM, he reminisced about how he’d dreamed of going out on his own, but he was expected to carry on with the family business.It makes sense he’d be stuck keeping up appearances in a loveless marriage that their families probably set up.At least she asked about his mattress “out there”. She still cares.
… and the actress playing the mother really channeled Seehorn. We went back n forth a bit thinking it was Seehorn, but it was not.
Even in season 5, I was thinking “wow, they really went the distance to find someone who talks a whole lot like Kim and look a lot like her too. I was almost wondering if she was the one playing (Rhea) Kim’s mom in this episode but nah…This is quite something…also like when they showed Jimmy and Chuck’s father, looked like a mix between them as adults to me, not as obvious but it was believable!
YES! Us too.
Same! I was wondering if maybe it was her real life sister or something.
I wondered the same thing, if it was a different person or just a really excellent makeup job. Whoever it was, they were great.
I was listening to the mom character while doing dishes and I swear she sounded so much like Rhea Seehorn that I thought they must have dubbed her voice in. She was absolutely perfectly cast; as was the daughter character.
Am I the only one who thinks they had Seehorn provide the voice for the mom in post? If not, that actress’s voice in uncannily Kim.
I was curious if they even mixed in Seehorn’s voice, it was so close to her adult voice.
Me too, I wondered if Seehorn actually dubbed in her dialog.
The earrings teenager Kim stole — the same sharks tooth triangles that adult Kim always wears!
Hm…she only was aware of the bowling balls, pretty sure he didn’t tell her about the 3/4 high rent prostitutes he was hassled by. Maybe he told her about Jimmy’s crazy (and hella funny) outburst in the courthouse but I doubt she even hears what he has to say when it comes to anything at work from Howard.Their relationship reminds me of Jimmy’s and Kim’s in season 3-4 when it was hanging by a thread, except with slightly more bitterness…Kim would have noticed the huge effort that went into this latte, but the parallels between Jimmy and Howard are getting more and more striking, especially since Howard admitted to find Jimmy admirable even before that episode in season five when he has dinner with him. Oh man is Gene likely still thinking about how he should have taken that job at HHM, becoming instant partner and the regrets regarding whatever’s coming next that only hits him once he’s forced to leave town and his Saul persona.
I would say a rewatch really changes your perception of how Jimmy and Kim’s relationship evolves over the series. In retrospect, I don’t think it was ever hanging by a thread, even though that’s what you’re led to believe on first watch. I think Kim is attracted to Jimmy BECAUSE of all the red flags he presents, so he can literally do no wrong in her eyes. If she left him for all the reasons she should have, their relationship would have been over long before the pilot.
The gradual dawning in season 1 that there was romantic history and chemistry between them was amusing, since you just assume he’s trying unsuccessfully to punch above his weight class.
Howard is the one living in the guest house. I presume he’s done something to warrant landing there. It also accounts maybe for his solicitousness.
It’s conventional for the man to sleep on the couch (/in the guest house), no matter who did what. Even if it wasn’t, Howard is the type of guy to insist on it – as you say, he’s solicitous to a fault.
I feel as though Cheryl must be Checkhov’s Wife — why is she suddenly in the show? I think her being introduced in this season’s first act must be because she’s the catalyst for whatever Howard’s final act is; either something horrible happens to her as a result of all this, or this all results in her causing some horrible outcome for him.
Ohhh, that’s a really good call. I like that!
It would’t surprise me; but I think it may just be that, as with his therapist, they’re just trying to flesh in the world around Howard to make him seem more sympathetic. Kim and Saul are so determined to hurt him, so the showrunners are showing us how vulnerable Howard is, to make clear that Kim is the villain.
I’ve got a vague suspicion Howard’s going to die as an accidental result of their scheme, which would make her existence potentially important afterwards.(Actually, I’ve vaguely wondered if Howard’s going to stumble into the cartel half of the show because of their scheme and then die. I have absolutely no idea how that would come about, but I just feel like these threads are all going to come together in a really shocking way, probably next week.)
Kim definitively broke bad at the end of this episode. She was on the verge of getting legitimately what she’s been claiming this whole con with Howard has been about, solid financial support for her pro bono legal work, and gaining the respect of her legal peers to boot, but deep down putting the boot to Howard was just too important to her.
I’m not sure if she’s breaking bad or breaking stupid.The jury’s still out, but there seems to be better options than blowing up an amazing opportunity that pretty much fell in her lap.
Just postpone D-Day.
I think she decided to post-pone that meeting, she’ll have to make up some wild excuse, because of course she hasn’t abandoned her career….she wants that final assault on Howard first though, obviously. I’m sure she can chat away with Cliff as to why she couldn’t be present. Unless something awful happens before that…
I’m not sure if she’s breaking bad or breaking stupid.
Lot of overlap there…
My theory is that Kim is gone by BB because she ultimately breaks badder than Jimmy, leaving him in her dust and by the time of the other show is off out of ABQ somewhere, very successful and as crooked as hell while still keeping her pro bono thing going. Perhaps she even ditches him when he’s too soft to go through with something, like killing someone.
Maybe she’s running the Salamanco cartel from behind the scenes in BB.Or she’s become the power behind Gus’ multinational.
I doubt she’s running one of them, but they presumably need a lawyer…
No, too extreme
I bet in her head, she can explain her absence to Cliff due to some made-up emergency. It’s funny that the plan fails because the retired judge has a broken arm, just like she did a few seasons ago, we were made to be afraid of something going wrong in the car for her, for just a tiny second while she reacts to the bad news.
Kim’s been bad. She has been planning this for months and doing some real shitty things in the planning.
I felt some deep parallels when Walter had to skip his daughter’s birth to finish a drug deal back in B.B. So yeah, sacrificing something wholly good so your plans come to fruition tracks theme-wise.
Was the origin of the axe Marco Salamanca used in the BB world from this episode? I’m thinking Lalo comes back to the States with that axe and gifts it to the Cousins.
The Cousins had what appeared to be a fireman’s axe.
Ah ok, so maybe not the same axe then. I couldn’t remember exactly what kind of axe the Cousins used.
This show is somehow making me feel bad for Howard. Vince Gilligan truly is a master of the craft.
I think that’s part of the point, a way to reinforce how Kim’s actions are definitely not good and come from a bad place. We’re supposed to feel bad about Howard because what Kim is doing is bad
Absolutely. This review is very, very sympathetic to Kim. But her motivation for going after Howard is not his condescension when she was an associate at HHM seasons ago. The triggering event for Kim’s push to destroy Howard was him expressing concern about Kim, because she’s married to the man who threw bowling balls over his fence to destroy his car as revenge for . . . Howard offering him a job.
Exactly. What she is doing is wrong and we should not be rooting for her. There’s ways to go about doing it and destroying Howard’s career and reputation is not the right way. Jimmy is just as culpable but he does turn in into a bad guy at the end.
“we shouldn’t?” it’s fiction. we can do whatever we want. fiction and games are where you can do things you cannot in real life. so hell yes, I hope she’ll run over howard with a car. because it’s fun. tv has not to be fair, or make things right. and I don’t need to watch fictional evil to pay the price of their crimes. could we ever have a show where the really bad wins, fgs?
Do people not like Howard? I mean he’s definitely not perfect but he overall has been portrayed as a pretty decent guy IMO. And yes, I know he was cold to Kim. But only after Kim asked him to vouch for Jimmy, which he did, and then opted to take part of the blame for Jimmy’s decision to air an ad without approval. What Kim is doing to him now is like 100x worse.
And then Howard forgave Kim’s loans with barely a thought when she left.I forget how much it was, but it would’ve had to have made things a lot harder for her. He could’ve been vindictive at that point, but when push came to shove, he really couldn’t have been kinder to her.And then Jimmy turned around and snaked him and Chuck by switching addresses, and stole a client that was arguably better off with Chuck.And then Kim blamed Howard for Jimmy pushing Chuck over the edge.
It was 14k. The same amount Walt “lost” gambling according to Skyler when she made it all on the spot. Another of those nice little nods to Breaking Bad sprinkled into the text. Howard gets cocky with Kim after he and Kim crushed him and Chuck in court after a random encounter at a restaurant where he’s doing “damage control” due to Chuck’s breakdown in court. She gets angry at his cocky little remarks, gives him back a cheque of 14k, absolving herself truly from his hold, but Howard refuses and tears the cheque in half and then Kim still owns him legally as they argue while waiting for the valet to bring in Kim’s car.That was a brillant scene btw, etched in my mind.
I can’t even imagine being Howard dealing with these two. They’re like a couple of toddlers. You try to be nice and do nice things for them, and they find a way to mess it up and make it your fault. Honestly he’s had the patience of a saint with them. The more chances he gives them, the more they are pissed off at him. If he had cut them loose a long time ago I bet they wouldn’t be so fixated on him. It’s like they hate him because his patience exposes all their flaws. I actually think my ex-husband was the same way. lol
“Toddlers” is right, although “teenagers” might be more accurate: Howard really feels like their parent. The patient, understanding parent who the teenagers keep rebelling against harder and harder because he keeps refusing to be the tyrannical monster they want him to be. Until eventually they push him too far, he finally puts his foot down, and they take that as proof that he was a monster all along and as justification for their actions…
Mine are 3 and 6 so I don’t have any experience with teenagers yet. You make it sound awesome. LOL
the loans wouldnt matter. saul could pay em off from his lalo stash.
My only frustration with this show is the huge gap between seasons that keep me from remembering why they’re so dedicated to screwing Howard. To get the Sandpiper money sooner? To get it at all? Just because of wrongs perceived or real? It’s such a drag. Trying to ruin him seems like an overreaction that I just don’t get.
Hm, there’s no time jumps. The only one is when everything is doing great for Kim at S&C and Jimmy is living his punishment in a slow cell phone store (until he decides to buy em and resell them for even more on the street), still, he’s not a lawyer which is what he wants. They want the 20% that’s coming to Jimmy, which was established in S1E9…so maybe you would benefit from rewatching the series, because those details are not mentioned much at all after he reveals himself to the oldsters in the finale of season 3 so that the case would go back to its slow pace and that he would stop torturing poor old Irene when her friends wouldn’t let go of her not going ahead with accepting the class action offer from Sandpiper/S&C.Kim, amongst her reasons, left S&C not only cos she was fed up with Mesa Verde, but because S&C were the law office standing between Jimmy’s (and now by extension) Kim’s money that has been stuck in the usual courts rigamarole for 2 years. The time they skipped was a time where nothing out ordinary happened and also out of necessity, since the show couldn’t end in 2003, that would have been too far away from Breaking Bad (which starts in 2008).
The reason Kim gives is to have Sandpiper settled sooner – yes. There was a scene this season which showed Howard is the one basically keeping the plantiffs from settling that made it pretty clear that he’s holding everyone together.But as the review says, the real reason she is likely going after Howard is because she seems to have a huge grudge against him for both actual and perceived slights.
They say they are dedicated to screwing Howard for the sandpiper money, but the real reason is for perceived wrongs.
Yeah, same issue I had with Ozark. So much time between seasons, I spend half my time watching the shows trying to remember things that I’ve forgotten already.
I’m with you. Howard’s treatment of Kim in S2 has literally been his only crime the entire series. Everything else he’s done has been entirely warranted by the circumstances. I honestly find him quite likeable – the actor does a good job portraying his professionalism as a veneer over a genuine personality, rather than him just being a soulless corporate suit.Honestly, it seems very much like Jimmy and Kim are unable to distinguish their personal resentment of him from: ‘He’s a genuinely bad person.’ Which I’m pretty sure it the point Vince Gilligan’s going for.
There’s signs the mistreatment of Kim at HHM was something that was going on since Chuck left the office due to his condition…also it was implied Howard viewed her post-breakup friendship with Jimmy as a bad thing for her reputation and that’s why they kept their relationship almost secret….remember that’s how it was when the show started. They have a past, and to Howard, having Kim hang out with Jimmy was not very acceptable at all, for no valid reason, maybe some jealousy. What’s for certain was that if you worked for HHM, there was a firewall between you and Jimmy, at least if you were an attorney there.
All of that stuff was because of Chuck. Chuck was the one who stopped Jimmy having a career at HHM, not Howard. The show explicitly makes this clear. Howard even tell Jimmy ‘I always liked you,’ after the revelation about Chuck. He even sort-of backed Kim when she recommended Jimmy to the other law firm in S2 (Davis & Maine, I think?). The only reason their relationship soured was because Jimmy tanked that job and made Howard look bad in the process.
This! Howard seemed to like Jimmy when he was working in the mail room. And I think he genuinely would have given him a job as a lawyer if Chuck hadn’t said no. Howard played the bad guy for Chuck so Jimmy wouldn’t resent Chuck. Most people probably would have gotten fed-up with Jimmy blaming him and told him to blame his brother, but he took the abuse anyway.
She clearly sees Jimmy differently than most others do, and well-meaning people would be justifiably concerned about her being with someone who used to do fake slip-and-falls and now works out of the store room at a nail salon. It’s not a good look for her.
You’d have to be a barbarian to run a firm like HHM, between the serious demands of the business and a building full of lawyers. His actions, with a few petty exceptions, have always seemed reasonable to me.The biggest issue was Jimmy believing that a firm like HHM would ever hire him, even if he was Chuck’s brother. I can understand why he didn’t like it, but it shouldn’t have ben a surprise.
One thing I read Odenkirk said about Jimmy is that he can’t let things go. And when someone is like that, they can morph the initial offense into a HUGE thing it never really was.
One of the reasons I stopped watching and only read the recaps is because they were treating Howard like shit from the jump, he’s obviously kind of conceited but he’s just trying to do his best.
In the first 2 seasons, we were seeing the show through Jimmy’s eyes/bubble…to build-up his anti-hero cred. The stunt he pulled in Hero was hilarious and remains one of the funniest thing in the show to this day. Hamlindigo-blue….seriously?! Howard, a bit embarassed : “Yes…”
He screws up but always tries to do the right thing by the end. The show does a good job of letting you know that despite his image, he’s a fundamentally decent guy.
Eh it’s just fundamentally too mean for me, honestly.
I haven’t stopped watching, but I’m really disappointed in this season so far. I feel like the show added depth to Howard over the seasons and didn’t make him a cartoon villain. But Jimmy and Kim are treating him as such. And I don’t think the writers have done a good job of explaining why, particularly for Kim.
well yes, that’s the point. They’re letting their petty resentments ruin an innocent man’s life. You’re not supposed to be rooting for Jimmy and Kim here.
From one of the very first scene, we’re painted a bad image of Howard, season one being seen through Jimmy’s eyes more than anything. That letter with a cheque for 26k to pay Chuck (but through Jimmy) that he tears apart and all the jokes about how he’s barely human and more of a Greek-roman figurine who only cares about his apperance with slight jokes made at his possible bisexuality “like the bath scene in Spartacus” , is a hardass with employees that don’t deserve it because Jimmy is somehow interfering with Kim’s life once they somehow break up for the first time, likely after she leaves the mailroom to become another stuffed shirt at HHM.
He became partially, out of jealousy, a lawyer, studying when he should have been delivering mail in secret, of Kim and hatred of Howard for treating her the way he does….which I guess started before we got to see the show, Kim had been a 4th year lawyer, so, a lot of time for animosity for Jimmy to develop towards. Add the Chuck angle on that, which was additional drive, he wanted to make Chuck proud of him and totally forget about the past between them, in a future where Chuck would have retired, gotten the real amount of money he should be given and have Jimmy replace him as the M in HHM. That’s how Jimmy saw things and it fit a lot of what I expected back then, Jimmy had noble intentions for everybody and tried to do the right thing all of the time but life would throw him crazy curveballs and people would still not see him as a competent lawyer, no matter what he did, except Howard, who’s the one who arranges his payment towards Sandpiper, a generous 20% of the proceeds.
So yes, the bad guy never was Howard regarding Jimmy, but Kim has a longer history with him that she was pushing down inside her, staying her extremely professional self-image she had crafted for everybody, but deep inside she resented Howard even more than Jimmy ever did. It wouldn’t have happened had Howard grown a spine towards Chuck, but he knew Chuck was the brains in that office, Howard being the seller and not a particularly good attorney despite him mentoring Kim, the student surpassing the master is a classic trope and H.O. Ward had a lot of issues with that.
Due to how slowly the series gets rolled out, I honestly can’t remember what my feelings have been towards Howard. I’m feeling kinda bad for him this season tho.
I think people hate him for being everything Saul isn’t, and part of the magic of good narrative drama is making you identify with the protagonist despite their failings. People hated Skyler in Breaking Bad because she often stood in Walt’s way, despite him being a sociopathic criminal by the end and her just being a good housewife.
It’s funny, I didn’t start watching BB until right as it was ending, so I binged through the first four and a half seasons; as such I’d never been exposed to the misogynistic “Skyler sucks!” meme, and didn’t even know about it until after I finished watching the show. And I never once had felt like she was getting in his way: she came off 100% as someone dealing with this horrible situation that her selfish, misguided husband had put her in, and trying to make the best of it.
The amount of people that HATED her while simultaneously cheering on the monster that poisoned a child was pretty fucked up
He’s not a villain or a “bad” guy, but I don’t think he’s been intended to be a “good” or “decent” guy either. The way he’s presented from the start, you’re inclined to think he’s a typical slicked up lawyer. The clothes, the million dollar smile, the car, etc etc. The stereotype that everyone thinks of when you say “lawyer”. And storywise, Howard hasn’t done anything to outright screw Kim/Jimmy over, but both kind of give off a feeling of slights that may have happened in the past (offshow) to where you’re lead to believe he’s not innocent or someone you’re suppose to like. It’s enough to where even his good natured gestures in the show come off as maybe disingenuous. So while it may not be you’re suppose to hate him or root against him, you’re also not suppose to be given a reason to like him or root for him either. With their plan going after Howard, the audience reaction much like the characters Kim and Jimmy is suppose to be in the neighborhood of “Oh its just Howard. If he gets screwed or slighted, so what”.But as we’ve seen through this season especially and definitely with this episode, Howard has a lot going on in his life that’s actually quite sad. He’s careful, meticulous, and planned out with dress, how he makes coffee, how he lives his life. It’s almost like Gus’ attention to detail (funny given how Giancarlo Epsoito directed this episode). But it doesn’t matter because he’s in a lifeless home and a marriage that’s all but officially over. His home life is wrecked and despite how well put together he is, his work life is about to wrecked too for what we’ve come to discover is (likely) gonna turn out to be no reason other than Jimmy/Kim decided to screw him.
Basically, how we’ve been trained to view Howard has been filtered through the lens of how Jimmy/Kim see him. What I think makes Gilligan and Co so masterful is they’ve slowly been taking away the filter and you see it differently.
S1 I get it – he’s definitely portrayed that way. But after that, I kind of just saw him as a guy caught in-between unreasonable people trying to get back to normal. The small thing I’ve noticed is he’s generally shown treating all people well – like he knows the locker room attendent’s name at his country club and is friendly towards him. So honestly, I’ve never thought “so what” when Jimmy and Kim went after Howard. I’ve kind of struggled to understand their justifications for doing so. This episode shed some light on Kim but my feeling is both of those characters deserve whatever is coming for them at this point.
It’s possible that whatever happens with Howard at their hands is Kim’s undoing and why she and Jimmy don’t end up together (if that’s what happens). Disbarment, or worse.
I thought of the Gus analogy as I was watching – and thinking that if Howard ever does get mad, he wouldn’t be a good guy to cross – and now I’ve just thought: here me out here, but… Howard Hamlin: Future Cartel Lawyer!?He’d never be Saul. But if we imagine a man like Hamlin, weighed down by guilt over the horrible death of his friend and mentor, with his marriage destroyed, and potentially now his reputation and his career gone as well… I could kind of see him going ‘screw it’ and giving legal advice to a man like Fring…
Agree. Howard isn’t perfect and he has been ruthless at times but he has a good heart and nothing Jimmy or Kim have cooked up is justified. I get trying to accelerate the Sandpiper payment, but not to the extent it involves unethical behavior that would in real life cost both of them their ability to practice law.
The way I see it, Howard is everything Jimmy & Kim hate about the big firms. Both came from small towns and worked their way up from mailroom to law degree. Even Chuck came from the same humble beginning in Cicero, Illinois and worked his way up to the top. But Howard was a silver spooner who only got where he is because his dad basically handed it to him. Jimmy himself has said that Howard is a bad lawyer. We see that Chuck was a superb lawyer, and we don’t know much about George Hamlin; but assuming that Chuck did take him under his wing, George had to have something to have made Chuck want to partner with him. I might be off. But I think for Kim and Jimmy, the takedown of Howard is not just about Howard; it’s about the entire system that shunted them both. Howard is basically metonymic of everything they hate about the big firm life. But while Saul is responding by becoming “the cartel’s man” and basically everyone’s favorite *criminal* lawyer, Kim is responding by providing firm quality defense pro bono.
I think Howard is clearly a decent, ethical person. A bit smarmy, yes, and a total lawyer, but overall, I don’t think he’s holding grudges the way our two leads are. I’m already expecting him to die.
Patrick Fabian has been great in the role. I remember the first time I noticed him, when he played a totally unethical professor that started hooking up with his student, Kelly Capowski, on Saved By the Bell: The College Years.
I never hated Howard. Is he a regular rich guy who acts like a regular rich guy? Yeah. Did he ever do anything that was just super awful? He really hasn’t. He’s just a guy trying to hold a business and a legacy together, and be good at his job. He looks out for his friends and he is pretty darn loyal, as we see again with his wife tonight. I don’t think it’s a stretch to feel bad for him. He never was a villain.
I think Jimmy and Kim wanted him to be a villain, but from an impartial perspective he’s doing what needs to be done for the benefit of a firm with a whole lot of employees and clients to take care of.
Exactly. They both have huge chips on their shoulders with regard to what they think they “deserve,” so anyone who doesn’t give them 100% that becomes an enemy, and no amount of impartial evidence would convince them otherwise, and certainly not when they are the each playing the devil in each other’s ear saying how much justification they have.
I keep thinking of that scene when Kim tells Howard she’s leaving HHM; he says how it’s so great that she’s choosing her own path. He mentions a previous dream and how his Father basically set his life/career path out for him at a young age, and then stares out into space for a few sad moments.
The review really over-sells Howard as a villain. He’s kind of a doof, but he’s definitely in the top 2% of niceness as far as big law partners go.
Here’s the thing with Howard: he’s a douchebag, and a comparatively mild one on the douchebag scale. He’s the kind of pompous and pretentious guy you’d meet out somewhere, and after the conversation, you’d turn to your friend and say “Well, he’s kind of an ass,” and then you’d think about it for another second and follow up with “…but y’know what? He’s not a *bad* guy, though. If you could put up with his schtick, he’d probably be a good guy to have in your corner.”And I think that’s the key to understanding how our sympathies toward him are evolving. Because Howard’s level of (un)likability has stayed pretty consistent, while everyone around him is sinking into increasingly evil behavior. Compound this with the writers’ clever decision to start pulling back the curtain on Howard’s sad private life at the exact point in the series when Jimmy and Kim are reaching the point of no return, and suddenly, you have a relatively sympathetic character in a place you didn’t expect.It’s the exact kind of thing that makes Gilligan and Gould the best in the business.
I’m starting to wonder if the man who recognized Gene as Saul is somehow related to Howard, a la Tony Soprano facing Eugene’s suicide and later dealing with Mr. Members Only Jacket.
I’m having trouble buying Mexican drug lord Lalo Salamanco traipsing through Germany like the world’s greatest PI. It’s even more difficult to believe than Gus Fring buying up all sorts of ABQ property for security measures. Or having the money to pay for it all.
Was the lumberjack the guy who punched Mike?Cause I think that guy would give the info up with less drastic measures.
Nobody ever punched Mike, except for those street thugs. Mike punched Kai, Casper told Mike that Werner was worth 50 of him. Somehow I knew we would see him again…he’s badass.
Caspar is the one who stood up to Mike before leaving “He was worth a hundred of you”
Gus is backed by Peter at Madrigal, a multinational, he has funds for a whole lot, but yes, Mike is reminding him that they are stretched thin. He must be aware of how costly this all is.
Gus is backed by Peter at Madrigal, a multinational, he has funds for a whole lot, but yes, Mike is reminding him that they are stretched thin. He must be aware of how costly this all is.
“Or having the money to pay for it all.”I suspect he might be a drug dealer.
Pretty sure they showed him working at a chicken shop in one episode. That’d be a pretty neat fan theory otherwise.
plus, he owns the chicken place.
I read a description of Albuquerque as a “poor man’s Mos Eisley” so I can imagine Gus buying houses for all cash and nobody noticing or caring.
Plus this is in the olden days (lol) before housing prices really started skyrocketing. And it’s not like Gus’s DIL is in the nicest of neighborhoods. It’s not the dumpiest, but it’s working class.
ABQ is not exactly San Jose or Central Park West when it comes to property prices. Not even during the housing bubble of the early ‘aughts.
I read a description of Albuquerque as a “poor man’s Mos Eisley” I’ve heard the mineral springs there are nice.
It’s a nice spot these days but that has definitely not always been the case. The first time I went in the early/mid 2000s it was pretty run down.
Lol. I’ve been thinking of moving to ABQ because property is dirt cheap there, compared to many other US cities. It’s completely plausible.
I dunno. You looked up property on Zillow lately? You used to be able to get a splendid mcmansion in Rio Rancho for so little.
I look it up daily. Granted, I’m comparing ABQ to Los Angeles, which is ridiculously overpriced. Compared to that it’s dirt, dirt cheap.
Did you miss the episode where Lalo pays his bail with millions in cash like you or I would empty a piggy bank?
Yeah, that’s challenging my sense of disbelief too. Since killing those coyotes and stealing their truck, Lalo apparently: procured a passport and money, flew to Germany, acquired a gun in Germany, tracked down Margeritte based presumably off of memory of the documents he saw in the money wiring place, used information from a gift to track down a guy who seemed to be trying hard not to be found. Not only is he doing all this in a country, culture and language that’s unfamiliar to him, he’s also doing so while still faking his own death.
My favorite shot is probably going to be ‘razor card,’ but overall, I didn’t think the direction from Esposito was anything special, I’m sorry to say. But I’m a little down on this episode. Even with another flashback, we don’t learn anything about Kim we didn’t already know.
The scene I liked best was Mike stargazing with Kaylee. Really sweet. What I was baffled by was how quickly Saul’s office got spruced up. For a show that takes as much time as it does (it spent a whole season building a lab), this felt instantaneous. That kind of remodeling takes time, and Jimmy still has the bruises from boxing. How much time has passed between last week and now?
If last week was place setting, I guess so was this, because little happens, and
I admit I do like a bit more escalation and momentum going into my
finales… or mid-season finales, as it were.
I buy that Francesca wanted to spruce up the office right away because the first thing she said when Saul hired her was “I get a say in the decorating.” But as we see, the scumbag clients pissing all over his office are going to zap that enjoyment out of Francesca real fast.
I wish we knew more details of the D-Day plan so we could fully understand why Kim thought that it couldn’t wait. Maybe I missed something, but it just seemed like it only involved pictures of the judge and the HHM/Sandpiper call, and something to do with Jimmy’s eyes being dilated. If they were going with a picture of Jimmy as Howard where you could clearly see his pupils dilated, then surely anybody would be able to tell it wasn’t actually Howard.
With the Howard stuff I’m starting to wonder if he’s closer to Kim personality-wise than we’ve been let on to so far. He has from the outside the seemingly perfect house, perfect marriage, and the perfect job but all of it is as much a con as Jimmy’s persona. Maybe just as much as how Jimmy has been on and off trying to “get back” at Howard over perceived slights this obsession with getting Jimmy is Howard’s version of that, getting back at what he sees as Jimmy betraying him, stealing Kim from him (to whom I bet Howard has more than simply friendly feelings), and maybe that it’ll somehow make his wife interested in him again when it’s clear that marriage is just dead.We’ve all talked about how Kim will go over the line this season but I’m wondering if it might be Howard who ends up doing it first and that instead plays some part in Kim leaving.
Good analysis, except, as we’ve seen in the flashback when Jimmy passes the bar exam, finally, Kim grabs him and kisses him passionately. He was there first!
Good analysis, except, as we’ve seen in the flashback when Jimmy passes the bar exam, finally, Kim grabs him and kisses him passionately. He was there first!
We’ve all talked about how Kim will go over the line this season but I’m
wondering if it might be Howard who ends up doing it first Yeah, there’s a lifetime of repression building up inside him, and he’s getting increasing pressure from all sides now, and he does have a very particular set of skillsHoward could be a ticking time bomb, just waiting to explode all over everybody.
I think Howard’s setting up a trap. It was meant to enscare Jimmy, which is why he worked with Clifford Main to have Kim out of town, but she’s heading right back into it.
Hm…maybe. But before letting Kim know he’d like her to come to that meeting, he asks her about what she thinks of her time spent with HHM and her thoughts about Howard. Which sounds like the truth, at least what Kim considered the truth before her 180 in S5E10. Looked like Cliff was looking in to see if she was sharing Jimmy’s opinion/resent.
I thought Cliff might be asking about HHM because they were involved in the project somehow, but I was waiting for that to come up and it never did.
No -I don’t think Cliff would be that big a dick. I think he genuinely respects Kim and wants to channel her away from Jimmy’s scams and towards doing some good.
Was it me, or did Kim’s mother in the opening flashback actually have the same voice as Adult Kim? She even looked enough like Kim to be her actual mother.
I thought young Kim stealing the jewelry and getting caught was a hustle concocted by her mother to steal it. Which then made me think, weirdly enough, of why some women go into porn: to take back the control they lost in the area they lost it in. Replace sex with con. Kim looked miserable after the scam, suggesting she didn’t want to do it. So decades later, she is in the driver’s seat, so to speak, masterminding her own con on her own terms. It’s sort of getting back at her mom for mistreating her while also trying to win her bad, neglectful mother’s approval. Rich characterization deftly, economically rendered.The judge crucial to the get-Hamlin plot in his newspaper photo looked like Kelsey Grammar with a big mustache; I’m a little disappointed they didn’t get him.MVP of the ep: Tina Parker. We got a poignant innocence corrupted plot with Francesca, who was so happy to see Kim, whom she thinks is the much better moral half of that marriage. She’s gonna have her heart broken soon.
I am glad someone thought the same thing. I was very sure Kim’s Mom put here up to it and if she got away with it, cool. If not, she could play the heavy and have the department store guy walk away.I may be wrong, but I don’t think Kim went in there on her own volition.
It was very clear that the mom put her up to it the whole time. The second they got out of there the Mom had a huge smile on her face and was mocking the stern talking-to she had been giving Kimmy in the office.
It was equally clear to me that Kim’s mum didn’t put Kim up to the theft or know she had done it. She was surprised about it, and Kim was surprised she took the jewelry and gave it to Kim. The fact Kim still wears those earrings every day is telling. Her mum acted all indignant to get Kim off but didn’t take the crime seriously because she’s the same. I think that shocked Kim a bit because she was expecting to shock her mother.
I was pretty excited when I saw Giancarlo Esposito had directed this. I think he did an awesome job! Last week was Rhea Seehorn, right? I wonder if all the main actors are gonna get a crack at it before the season’s out 😛 That would be cool.
There was a great little Easter egg for fans of Mr. Show— the actor who dresses up as the Sandpiper judge was played by John Ennis! (And if you’re not a fan of Mr. Show, well, it’s available on HBO and you should really check it out).
I noticed that! It was so fast I was sure he’d come back for more, but maybe it was just a cameo.
Anyone wonder if it’s just a coincidence that Kim grew up in Nebraska while Omaha is where Saul will end up post-Breaking-Bad?
I have to say, at this point I’m having trouble buying Kim’s motivation in trying to destroy Howard. Jimmy I could believe, Howard treated him poorly and Jimmy could have easily lumped Howard and Chuck together in his mind, and found it easier to redirect all his Chuck anger at Howard. It would make sense for Saul to go overboard trying to get revenge on Howard. But I’m still not really buying Kim doing the same.
I trust that this is the last we’ll be hearing from the folks who were adamant that Kim is a good person who just needed to soak Howard in order to get the money from the settlement to help tons of people? Because here she was nearly a lock for a job that would allow her to help as many people as one person could hope to help in a lifetime, and she threw it away just to ruin Howard’s life.I’m not sure I have the stomach to watch the rest of this season. 🙁 I’m feeling like I did the last couple of seasons of BB where I could barely stand to look at Walt. I really don’t want to see Howard’s life destroyed and Kim get away with it.Sidebar: It’s crazy how similar the actor playing Kim’s mom got her voice to be to Kim’s. The entire resemblance is very good
I get serious anxiety watching awkward situations in film, and this show has been so hard for me for nearly it’s entire run. I’ve always just gritted my way through it because I really believe the quality makes it worth it.
ME TOO. People think I’m crazy because I’ll often google the plot of a movie before I’m watching it, or a TV show if it’s one that’s already finished, because I really don’t like the stress. I obviously understand that that’s what makes good television but it’s easier on me if I know what will happen, which is why I struggle with shows that I’m watching in real time. It makes me feel better to know it’s not just me. lol
I’m the same way, especially if they bill themselves as having a big twist or twisty for twisty’s sake. I just get too distracted to enjoy things otherwise. It’s only tense shows where I trust that the plot choices will make character and narrative sense that I don’t spoil myself. This show is one, The Americans was another.
People still liked Walter White after he poisoned a child, so….
Ugh, he was the worst, and so were people who liked him. Which reminds me of all the hate Skylar got. People legit hated her because she didn’t like having a drug dealer who also happened to be an enormous dick for a husband.
I know. It was kind of disturbing
A lot of the hate on her seemed to be that she was competent with money laundering and was able to find out her old boss was embezzling funds. A lot of it was “HUR DUR HOW CAN A WOMAN BE GOOD WITH NUMBERS?!/11″
I’d say 99% of the hate directed at her was completely sexist. She’s frequently on “worst TV character of all time lists” and it’s all based on her not being sufficiently supportive of her mean, lying husband, and like you say she was smarter than him, which people really don’t like. lol
Oh absolutely sexist. I was just thinking of some of the examples of what set them off more. They thought of her as the nagging wife but then suddenly getting upset because she’s also really smart.
Also, I’m a bit annoyed at the contrivance of seeing the judge guy in the liquor store. I wish they had come up with a more believable way for him to find it out.
That was one sharp ax, being able to slice through a man’s leg while on on the floor as he was.
Not even an axe, it was a splitting maul, or should have been. Other than 007 Lalo cavorting around Europe, solving mysteries without any clues, this season has been great. Lalo’s exploits tho….
My favorite shot was Mike watching Kaylee and Stacey. The framing was quite ominous – I kept expecting someone to step out of the background shadow to Mike’s left and try something. It wouldn’t work, of course, because it’s Mike, but tense nonetheless.I’d love to know how Howard got so deep in the dog house with Cheryl. Infidelity, maybe? At least they’re saving money on air conditioning when they’re in the same room.
When are people going to realize that somehow Jimmy McGill in Omaha Nebraska Cinnabon is going to run into Wexler’s family who is from Nebraska! They flash the Nebraska license plate pretty hard in the Kim flashbacks.
People have been realizing this since she mentioned where she was from when interviewing with the Swchweikart and Cokely partners a few seasons back. In fact the comment currently above yours reads:
Anyone wonder if it’s just a coincidence that Kim grew up in Nebraska while Omaha is where Saul will end up post-Breaking-Bad?
Not really related other than that they both air on monday, but I can’t believe HBO is currently airing the closest thing we’ll ever get to “The Wire 2″ and this site isn’t recapping it.
That show is so great. I mean, who can turn Josh freaking Charles into a total dirtbag?
Mentioning the name might help sell it, you know.
It is really good. The best thing they did was showing us the main character getting arrested in the first episode (but not his sentence…still hoping its a long one) so we knew he is going to get some level of punishment for his bad deeds. And they are bad.Jamie Hector has been tremendous. As usual
what show is that?
We just started last night, made it through 2 EPs, it’s pretty fantastic. What a cast, Jon Bernthal, Jamie Hector, Tray Chaney, and Wunmi Mosaku is just a delight, we fell in love with her in Lovecraft Country (she’s in the Netflix movie His House, very solid).And this is weird, I was shopping Kuchi Kopi glow-in-the-dark figures on Amazon this week …
Haha, nice. I have a glow in the dark one and a much cooler nightlight night one where you press down and it lights up.
Two little things I noticed in the episode:First, the actor they recruited to play the judge is none other than John Ennis…formerly of Odenkirk’s crew on Mr. Show with Bob and David. Nice seeing them working together again.The Albuquerque (Isotopes I believe) air freshener that Kim presented in her trial defense…isn’t that similar to the one that “Gene” spotted in the cab coming from the hospital that ended up rattling him and made him abandon the ride?
Every so often I’m like “wait, what year is it?” BCS, like BB, really avoids any timestamp on its world. Aside from the cars, fashion and technology, the shows don’t make much use of their cultural settings. It’s easy to forget the US is in the middle of its War on Terror or that Katrina turned a major US city into a wasteland or, as the series winds down ca 2008, a black man is rising to be the presumptive Democratic candidate for president. I hate historical films that overdo it when it comes to temporal nods, but using a few well-chosen bits and pieces (a la Lady Bird) to add some specificity to the cultural moment would be welcome. The 2000s were a very specific time with a very specific vibe that I wish we saw more of. Arrested Development probably did the best job of manifesting that era, though of course that was contemporaneous to that era.
They might be being vague on purpose because some stuff is never going to make sense. Like unless Lalo’s revenge plan involves freezing Kaylee in carbonite for a few years her ages on the two shows makes no sense.
Kaylee is presented no different as to any other characters in so far as their aging. That’s my theory as to why they didn’t bother to cast and incorporate someone who was younger than her age in Breaking Bad.Also, I wonder if the show’s Gene endgame includes trying to make amends with Howard, depending of course what actually comes from this plan.
I like that they run these series through the post-cellphone introduction age. So many older stories would be wrecked by their simple existence and it’s distracting. You don’t need full-on smartphones and such, just the ability to communicate in a contemporary fashion. The rest really doesn’t matter, and actually helps to keep the story somewhat timeless.
In terms of pop culture, music, etc. – I find the 2000s to have been pretty generic and non-descript, especially in comparison to the 90s and 80s. But you’re correct that the 2000s were memorable for major world/political events like 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Katrina, Obama, the Great Recession and bailouts, etc. The thing is – political events are harder to capture on a day to day level. Eras with more distinct cultures, fashions, etc are easier to capture. For example – the earlier timeline of the show Yellowjackets takes places in the 90s, a decade where transformational political events were far less frequent but that had a very distinct culture and style (think Grunge music, baggy fashion, Seinfeld and Friends, etc.). There was still a monoculture which crystalized what that decade’s vibe was. It’s true for the 50s through 90s, really. In the 2000s everything became fragmented, and pop culture, music and fashion followed suit. This was even more true during the 2010s. Again what I’d say distinguishes everything since 2000s is the much more turbelent nature of national and world politics, and all these major, transformational events like Trump, Covid, etc. A super involved and plot-driven show like BCS would have a hard time capturing that. If the 2000s had had a pop culture as distinctive as the 90s or 80s, it could have captured that, but the 2000s was just too generic in that regard.
If the 2000s had had a pop culture as distinctive as the 90s or 80s, it could have captured that, but the 2000s was just too generic in that regard.I get what you’re trying to say here, and I tend to feel the same way, but don’t you think this sentence actually makes no sense, if you stop and think about it? If the 80s and 90s were distinctive, the 2000s being “generic” means they weren’t differentiated enough, right? But differentiated from what? What does a “generic” decade look like? Or better, if you couldn’t mistake the 80s and 90s for another decade, which other decade would you mistake the 2000s for? Not the 80s and 90s of course, and certainly not the 70s, nor the 60s, nor the 50s, and so on. So isn’t that like saying the 2000s were in fact unique as well?
I recall last week’s episode or the one before that very clearly showing it was 2005. I don’t remember how, though.
I think many people are leaving out the one thing that has been made very clear the last two years. That Kim seems to really love Jimmy and I think her desire for “revenge” has a lot to do with what she sees as bad treatment Jimmy received from HHM. Once they were married, she seems to have doubled down on the relationship and sees herself as the woman who will do what Jimmy will not. Jimmy throughout the series has not “broke bad” as in he became an evil person. He plays pranks and is very morally questionable when it comes to getting clients and whom he will represent, and he is also way more back street than posh about the law, but he has never really yet taken firm actions that are truly evil. Even now, this whole half season he always has this wistful expression when he sees Kim acting like him like he did not want this, and tried to back out of the “plan” now at least three times, but Kim is not having it.
Very good point. As I wrote on another thread, seasons 5 and 6 really change your perception of how Jimmy and Kim’s relationship evolves through the series upon rewatch. In retrospect, I don’t think their relationship was ever close to being in jeopardy, even if that’s what you’re led to believe on first watch. I think Kim is attracted to Jimmy BECAUSE of all the pranks and the street smarts, so he can literally do no wrong in her eyes. If she left him for all the red flags he’s presented from the start, their relationship would have been over long before the pilot.
It’s hard to believe there are only 7 episodes left. I still can’t see this Saul casually suggesting that they have Badger (right?) murdered in prison.
We may not get that Saul during the run of this season. If he’s just really working in with his shadier clients that kind of mentality may still take a while to fully develop.
Is Kim’s mom really a “lover of great 80s music”, or does she just have the radio on in 1983?
It would be 84 or later in the flashback.
Lol, I thought this as well. Hell, I listen to a station in 2022 that runs Casey Kasem countdowns.
Kim is in prison during Breaking Bad
I am enjoying the Howard conversation this season and think his heel turn is still to come. If Kim and Jimmy do end up destroying him, I hope he doesn’t totally lose his shit and continues the efforts he appears to be putting into his relationships. I picture him newly divorced and loading his shit into a mid-size SUV while reciting Kipling/Grandpa Simpson quietly to himself with resolve.
“What if something bad happens, and she goes off to a new life, thanks to Ed?”What if she went to Ed and managed to find Jimmy’s whereabouts, using the cab driver to track him down to reunite with him again, giving us a – gasp – happy ending?
I haven’t seen it mentioned in the reviews of this season so far, or on the boards (if it has though, forgive me) – but it was no coincidence bringing the Kettlemans back this season. The husband who had the reputation for being the crook, when the wife was actually in cahoots and much more dangerous and willing to go further than he was. They’re a mirror of Jimmy and Kim, and a sign of how this was going to all go down that’s been right under our noses since the very first season. Absolutely brilliant.
My bf and I are very hopeful that the only reason we hadn’t seen Kim in BB is that she was ‘vacuumed’ by Ed and is somewhere living happily as “Blanche” or something. Maybe even in a town nearby Saul??
Apologies if this has been noted before…Jimmy/Saul/Gene living the Gene life in Nebraska & Kim being from Nebraska…not just a coincidence?
I think Kim’s foot tapping may prove to be her undoing.
Howard laid his guilt about making Chuck leave the firm on Jimmy right after the funeral. As Kim notes, he didn’t do that to Chick’s widow. He used Chick to help get Sandpiper back and go after Jimmy, but gave him the boot over the insurance increase. He would constantly punish Kim by sending her to work with the paralegals in the reference room. He always has the salesman smile and banter that seemed to push his wife away as well. Howard may seem a bit sympathetic ATM, but he made his bed.
Did Jimmy wind up in Nebraska because of Kim? Either due to her returning ‘home’ after abandoning law practice in New Mexico or to lay her to rest there if she dies? I’m sure this has been speculated on since S5 when her background was first revealed, but I’m just getting around to asking.