| 1 | [[WMG:[[center:[-'''[[Characters/BetterCallSaul Main Character Index]] | [[Characters/BreakingBad Breaking Bad]]'''\ |
| 2 | [[Characters/BetterCallSaulLawyers Lawyers]] ([[Characters/BreakingBadSaulGoodman Jimmy [=McGill=]/Saul Goodman]], [[Characters/BetterCallSaulKimWexler Kim Wexler]], '''Chuck [=McGill=]'''), [[Characters/BetterCallSaulLawEnforcement Law Enforcement]], [[Characters/BetterCallSaulCartel Juarez Cartel]], [[Characters/BetterCallSaulLosPollosHermanos Los Pollos Hermanos]], [[Characters/BetterCallSaulOmaha Omaha]], [[Characters/BetterCallSaulPettyCriminals Petty Criminals]], [[Characters/BetterCallSaulOtherCharacters Other Characters]]-]]]]] |
| 3 | |
| 4 | !!Charles Lindbergh "Chuck" [=McGill=], Jr. |
| 5 | !!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/MichaelMcKean, Creator/GabrielRush (young, "Lantern") |
| 6 | !!!'''Appearances:''' ''Series/BetterCallSaul'' |
| 7 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/singles_michael_mckean_chuck_mcgill_012917_0002_800x600.jpg]] |
| 8 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"Let justice be done though the heavens fall."'']] |
| 9 | |
| 10 | ->''"What I know for sure is that the law is too important to be toyed with. It's mankind's greatest achievement; the rule of law, the idea that no matter who you are, your actions have consequences..."'' |
| 11 | |
| 12 | Jimmy’s older brother Chuck, a name partner at one of Albuquerque’s most prestigious law firms, Hamlin, Hamlin & [=McGill=], is a brilliant man who holds himself and others to the highest standards. However, he believes that he suffers from electromagnetic hypersensitivity, a debilitating affliction acquired under mysterious circumstances, which makes it challenging for him to lead a normal life. Chuck’s unyielding belief that doing the right thing is the only true path leads to a fraught relationship with Jimmy. |
| 13 | ---- |
| 14 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 15 | |
| 16 | [[folder:A-C]] |
| 17 | * TheAce: [[spoiler:As shown by his obituary,]] Chuck was pretty much destined to become the perfect lawyer. He graduated high school as valedictorian at age 14, led his debate team at the University of Pennsylvania to the championships for three years, graduated magna cum laude at Georgetown Law, helped grow a solo law practice into the respected law firm it is, and helped win a precedent-setting state court case. [[GreenEyedMonster But it all wasn't enough for him...]] |
| 18 | * AccidentalSuicide: The audience knows full well that it was on purpose, but Schnauz advocated for a lantern to be involved in Chuck's death, so there’s wiggle room for characters to let themselves believe it was an accident. |
| 19 | * AcquiredPoisonImmunity: After his tortuous arrest experience, he starts training himself to increase the amount of time he can stand to be outside, explicitly comparing it to taking small amounts of poison. |
| 20 | * AlasPoorVillain: He's still an AssholeVictim and brought most of his fate upon himself, but it's still sad to see him gradually lose his mind as he mindlessly rids his house of anything electrical, culminating in [[spoiler:his [[DrivenToSuicide self-inflicted]] CruelAndUnusualDeath by fire]]. |
| 21 | * AloofBigBrother: The script for "Winner" openly says that Chuck's approval is what Jimmy craves most in the world, and as Gilligould confirmed, Chuck really does love his younger brother (or at least would like to, to quote his actor), it's just… stunted and asymmetrical to Jimmy's love. |
| 22 | * AllForNothing: [[spoiler:Chuck's attempts to take down Jimmy's career ends with Chuck losing everything and everyone. His illness is shown to be mental in public, Howard forces him out of the firm, and Jimmy abandons him to live in squalor. Chuck ends up retreating into delusion, tearing apart his house, and burning it down with him inside. Within a year, his reputation is so down the drain that new HHM hires don't recognize his picture. Jimmy is set down the path to becoming Saul Goodman in part because of Chuck's actions. As a final kick in the teeth, Howard is shot and killed by Lalo, permanently crippling the law firm Chuck built, going as far as changing the name and downsizing]]. To add insult to injury, [[spoiler:because of Jimmy's association with Walter White, a man regarded as a criminal mastermind by the world at large, he will have a more enduring reputation than Chuck ever did, though will never actually be considered as anything but "Saul", despite having a decent life with Kim when he gets out.]] |
| 23 | * AllTakeAndNoGive: He would really like to love Jimmy, who has [[ManipulativeBastard plenty of]] [[EvilIsPetty his own shit]], but the difference is that Jimmy genuinely did try (as he says in the finale, "I tried, I should have tried harder"), both with Chuck and to straighten out, would always eventually crawl back, try to shove his anger down and forgive, while Chuck - aside from a few moments of humility - was too wrapped up in his own controlling, resentful pride to budge. He'd only really be happy with his brother if he was an ExtremeDoormat resigned to life in the mailroom and serving his brother. There used to be more reciprocity between him and Jimmy, mostly shown in Season 1, but the realization that Jimmy's law practice will skyrocket after the Sandpiper lawsuit makes Chuck not only go back to his sabotage but also abuse his relationship with Howard, another person who respected and looked up to Chuck for all he did for him, by making him into a pawn. |
| 24 | * AmbiguousSituation: There is just enough ImplausibleDeniability given to ''both'' options. Is Chuck mentally ill or does he genuinely have an adverse medical reaction to electromagnetic fields that simply hasn't been discovered yet, as he repeatedly claims? If it's the latter, does it only affect him when he's aware of the electromagnet, and if so, how is that functionally different from Chuck being mentally ill? The biggest gaping hole in his own reasoning is when Jimmy proves in front of an entire court that Chuck didn't notice Huell having hidden a charged battery in his pocket for almost two hours, seemingly confirming Chuck's status as TheMentallyDisturbed, but even then there are aspects of his condition which don't line up with that diagnosis. |
| 25 | * AmbitionIsEvil: Well, social ambition is hazardous to your personal moral code and relationships with others, at the very least. Including [[UngratefulBastard colleagues who've supported you.]] |
| 26 | * AMFMCharacterization: He's a fan of classical and jazz music, which fits his intellectual, snobbish personality. |
| 27 | * AmoralAttorney: Very much PlayedWith, because, on the one hand, he never does anything illegal (as Kim says, he had a legal right to make the tape) and very much believes in the rule of law, but his personal ethics leave a lot to be desired. It's PlayedStraight when [[spoiler:he outright sues HHM in retaliation for Howard nicely asking him to retire and get a law teaching job]]. While legal, it was clearly done out of malice. |
| 28 | * AndStarring: "and Michael [=McKean=]". |
| 29 | * AntiVillain: At first, his motivations seem somewhat sound and it appears that he truly believes in the law, making him an admittedly hypocritical WellIntentionedExtremist contrasted against our UnscrupulousHero Jimmy. As his feud with Jimmy escalates, however, it becomes clearer that it's his own [[IrrationalHatred bitter jealousy]] and overwhelming pride that leads him to battle his own brother. |
| 30 | * ArmorPiercingQuestion: Jimmy asks him why he doesn't threaten resignation to get Jimmy a job at HHM. The charade falls apart almost instantly. |
| 31 | * ArmorPiercingResponse: His response to the aforementioned question, a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech directed at Jimmy about how Jimmy isn't a "real" lawyer, obviously hits Jimmy just as deeply as Jimmy's questions hit Chuck. |
| 32 | * AssholeVictim: While Jimmy used a lot of underhanded and illegal moves to destroy his career, Chuck didn't really help his case by treating every associate around him as pawns and refusing to admit that he has possible mental problems until it's too late. |
| 33 | * AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: Played with, and even deconstructed. Chuck does genuinely love his brother, and will take care of him in the "right" circumstances. Unfortunately, part of the problem is that he has very high and rigid standards for what those "right" circumstances are and intends to force Jimmy to conform to them if need be. This only serves to fuel the increasing feud between them. |
| 34 | ** When Jimmy comes in during "Mijo" completely wasted and passes out on the couch, Chuck forgets about "grounding" for a moment, instead just putting a blanket over him. He does this version a few times, putting a pillow under Jimmy’s head when he’s fallen asleep in "Rico" and looking after him in the "Winner" flashback. |
| 35 | ** Chuck will occasionally have a tender moment in Season 2 where he'll state firmly that in spite of their differences, he truly does love his brother and wants what he feels is best for him. How sincere he is, however, is up for debate. It's also undermined by the fact that Chuck only wants what ''he'' decides is best for Jimmy and goes out of his way to undermine anything else. |
| 36 | ** It's Inverted during [[spoiler:Chuck's freakout on the stand]], where his rant, [[VillainHasAPoint although arguably justified]], is oozing with nothing less than pure, unadulterated malice. After constantly making it a point to express how much he cares about Jimmy's well-being. |
| 37 | ** And then it's ZigZagged in the final episode of Season 3. [[spoiler:Chuck drives Jimmy away by telling him, "I don't want to hurt your feelings, but the truth is, you've never mattered all that much to me." Their relationship is strangled and thrown off a cliff, but despite what Chuck said, his ensuing relapse says otherwise. The ColdOpen to the episode establishes his love for his brother as genuine and going back to when they were kids, and as he tragically can't come to terms with his mental illness, he says the ''worst'' thing he can to make the problem go away, seemingly as fast as he can--with [[BlatantLies something he absolutely]] did [[BigBrotherInstinct not mean]].]] |
| 38 | ** In the final flashback in "Saul Gone", set during the early days of Chuck's illness, he sees Jimmy whizzing around being TheCaretaker, tells him he doesn't have to do this especially while trying to build his own practice, and actually offers to talk about Jimmy's cases, showing genuine interest in his brother's career without trying to put him down. Sadly, Jimmy has been talked down to enough that he didn't trust it, rebuffed Chuck, and the moment was lost. |
| 39 | * BadassDecay: Happens in-universe. Chuck was once a brilliant lawyer, but by the time the show begins he has been overcome by a mental illness. We only get glimpses of just how good a lawyer he was. His resentment toward his brother also got worse and more childishly petty, as early in the first season he was fine with Jimmy practicing elder law and giving him somewhat good advice until he just goes completely vindictive and petty. |
| 40 | * BatmanGambit: Pulls an absolutely savage one on Jimmy after recovering from the copy shop incident. He uses Jimmy's concern for his well-being to make Jimmy feel guilty and confess to forging the Mesa Verde files, which Chuck records. He then tries to land his brother in prison. [[spoiler:He then takes it even further in Season 3 when he uses poor, mistreated Ernesto as a pawn to lure Jimmy into a felony assault, since Chuck knew that the tape alone had no use.]] |
| 41 | * BeautifulSingingVoice: His performance of ABBA's "The Winner Takes It All" brings the house down. Given the actor who is playing him, it's not surprising. |
| 42 | * BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: |
| 43 | ** Before his death, Chuck tells Jimmy that he’d have far more respect for him if he just stopped all his hand-wringing and fully embraced his true rotten nature. If he thought Slippin' Jimmy was bad, perhaps it's for the best that he didn't live long enough to meet Saul Goodman, who not only follows Chuck's advice ''very'' well, but seems to be deliberately out to make a mockery of the law as much as he possibly can, out of sheer spite for the man. |
| 44 | ** Crossing over with GoneHorriblyRight, he might have wanted Jimmy to destroy himself, but he also wanted him to be safe, essentially thinking his brother should just go back to his mailroom self (i.e. even less spine and knowing his place). But thanks to a combination of how he treated Jimmy, Jimmy's own guilt, and a lot of grief, Jimmy becomes a DeathSeeker both literally and metaphorically. [[spoiler: Though he does get better.]] |
| 45 | * BelievingTheirOwnLies: Chuck seems to have genuinely convinced himself that he's trying to ''help'' his brother and uphold the sanctity of the law when his actions in truth have more to do with petty spite than any other considerations. He clearly only cares about the Mesa Verde forgeries for the damage they did to him personally and his reputation rather than the injury done to his firm or his clients, and it ultimately turns out that he isn't above [[spoiler:ruthlessly using people and then callously tossing them aside just to get his own satisfaction]]. |
| 46 | * BeneathTheMask: While he sabotaged their marriage and drove her away, Rebecca still managed to get the nice version of Chuck as they split amiably. Not that it wasn't genuine, but she's horrified at the glimpse of what he really feels, and is never told (as much as Kim would like to) about his darker side. |
| 47 | * BerserkButton: Although he was already on the edge thanks to Jimmy's tactics during the bar hearing, [[spoiler:the implication that he's crazy is what ''really'' causes Chuck to go off]]. |
| 48 | ** ''Any'' perceived affront to his pride, no matter how minor, will also cause Chuck to become enraged. He becomes furious at the mere idea that he could have made a mistake, insisting it ''had'' to be Jimmy and responding with a lawsuit that would destroy HHM when Howard politely suggests that he retire due to how his condition is affecting the firm. |
| 49 | ** Related to the above and fitting his resentful nature, any reminder that others have a skill Chuck doesn't really piss him off, especially in regard to Jimmy. A major source of their tenuous relationship is Chuck's rage at how easily Jimmy is able to win people over and get them to like him while Chuck has never been as good at it, particularly their parents who Chuck felt preferred Jimmy due to his charisma despite all he'd done to earn their approval. He's also clearly annoyed when Jimmy is easily able to charm Rebecca in their first meeting and make her laugh while Chuck's attempts to do the same later fall flat. |
| 50 | * BeyondRedemption: Played with. This is ultimately the crux of Chuck's attitude towards Jimmy; while he's initially willing to help Jimmy out, ultimately, he doesn't really believe in rehabilitation over punishment and believes that Jimmy can never truly move on from his Slippin' Jimmy ways in order to redeem himself. Unfortunately, while he ''does'' [[JerkassHasAPoint have a point]] that Jimmy clearly finds it alarmingly easy to regress and give in to his worst impulses, Chuck himself is clouded by resentment to the point where he can't recognize Jimmy's honest and good-faith efforts to at least ''try'' to improve himself, and his sabotage of these efforts only turns his belief into a SelfFulfillingProphecy by pushing Jimmy to a point where he sees regressing -- and worse -- as his only options to succeed. |
| 51 | * BigBad: He is the main obstacle to Jimmy's career in the first half of the series. |
| 52 | * BigBadFriend: To Jimmy during season 1. Chuck, being initially confined to his house due to his (ambiguous) electromagnetic disorder, would often advise Jimmy and give him some pep talks about how to improve his situation or give the already savvy trickster, even more, ground to stand on. {{Played with}} since it's {{implied}} that while Chuck was still blocking him from entering a respectable firm like [=HHM=], he was okay as long as Jimmy would go solo and succeed as long as he didn't enter higher leagues. Not that his actions aren't still despicable. |
| 53 | * BigBadSlippage: As each season goes by, his desire to upstage Jimmy in every way, his delusional belief in his version of the law and what's right, and his deep flaws as a person push him to act more drastically damaging toward his own brother (as well as any ally he may have), fitting him more and more into an actual antagonist. Although everything he does is technically legal, it doesn't stop him from psychologically ruining almost everyone he touches, including Howard. |
| 54 | * BigBrotherBully: |
| 55 | ** Chuck, being the responsible one in the family for years, subconsciously believes that he has the right to decide what Jimmy ought to be doing and what not, whether he likes it or not. Needless to say, Jimmy doesn't appreciate this. |
| 56 | ** While they aren't related by blood, Howard talks about how he's deferred, supported, and looked up to Chuck for about twenty years, and all he gets in return is being backstabbed and sued. Chuck stays remarkably smug about it... until he realizes he got his millions from Howard's own pocket. |
| 57 | ** Even before his sabotage is revealed, Kim (even when she’s holding him on a pedestal back in the mailroom) is made uncomfortable with Chuck’s tendency for insulting little comments directed at Jimmy to make him feel stupid. |
| 58 | ** It says a lot that everyone ''except'' Jimmy can tell "you never mattered that much to me" is BlatantLies and ShooTheDog on Chuck's part. And Jimmy internalizes it like he does every time someone insinuates he’s worthless, letting it affect his relationship with Kim and growing increasingly unhinged trying to hold in how he feels about his brother. |
| 59 | ** Tragically, as the final flashback in "Saul Gone" reveals, Chuck did realize that he's treated Jimmy pretty badly and offered an olive branch that Jimmy rejected due to him expecting to be patronized again, and it's because of Chuck ''always'' having been slightly emotionally abusive that Saul [[https://ew.com/tv/better-call-saul-bob-odenkirk-on-series-finale/ seeks out that dynamic again]]… with Walter White. |
| 60 | * BigBrotherInstinct: {{Implied}} in his younger years. While by the end, they're no longer on good terms and it's implied in "Saul Gone" that Chuck always had a mean streak (something he regrets), a {{Flashback}} shows that there was a time when Chuck cared enough about Jimmy to assure him that protagonist of ''The Adventures Of Mabel'' "will be okay", and in "Rico", one of his initial reactions to Jimmy passing the bar is why not have come to him for help. The "Winner" script points out that helping his brother to bed is one of the few times Chuck looks after his brother and not vice versa. |
| 61 | * BigFancyHouse: Chuck's house is huge (three times bigger in real life), even with all the electronics ripped out. It’s to contrast him with Jimmy, who starts out living and working in the back of a nail salon. |
| 62 | * BitchInSheepsClothing: Chuck has been undermining Jimmy for years, ever since he passed the bar while pretending to be on his side the whole time. He even snatched Kim's case by not-so-subtly saying that he is the best choice, and while flattering her, he bashed her at the same time. |
| 63 | * BreakTheHaughty: Much of his arc in the show is his gradual crumbling from an arrogant and self-righteous pillar of the legal community to an embittered, broken, and borderline-insane wreck of a man. |
| 64 | * BrokenAce: He's highly intelligent, successful, and respected by his colleagues, but lacks his brother's charming personality and charisma. Even their parents liked Jimmy better (despite Jimmy being the screw-up son) and Chuck has clearly developed a complex about this. It's also indicated that Chuck's electromagnetic hypersensitivity is, in fact, a mental illness, not an actual allergy. He ends up being destroyed by his own pride and ego and eventually [[spoiler:is DrivenToSuicide]]. |
| 65 | * BrokenPedestal: |
| 66 | ** Jimmy idolizes his older brother and desperately wants his respect. However, Chuck loses virtually all of his ability to shame Jimmy after it's revealed that Chuck has been secretly and intentionally sabotaging Jimmy's efforts to start a law practice. |
| 67 | ** Similarly, Howard looked up to Chuck as a mentor for years but Chuck's increasing selfishness and petulance destroy their relationship and Howard eventually buys him out of the firm in disgust. [[spoiler:The pedestal is rebuilt to a great degree after Jimmy's antics in Seasons 5 and 6 convince him that Chuck was right all along about him that he will always default to scamming people, and decided to take him down, only to be stopped by Lalo intervening.]] |
| 68 | ** It’s revealed in a flashback that Kim used to be moon eyes over him, but a combination of him constantly patronising her, and his treatment of Jimmy reminding her of how her mother treated her (pretending to be good in public but neglecting her in private), makes her hate him. Rhea Seehorn even said that even if Jimmy had told her about “you never meant that much to me”, it wouldn’t have mattered because she hated the man enough already. |
| 69 | * BullyingADragon: As per the Season 2 Finale. Seriously Chuck, [[SarcasmMode keep mistreating an experienced con-man looking after you even though you're at their mercy]], WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong [[spoiler:Viewers thought this was subverted when Jimmy breaking into his house in front of witnesses showed that Chuck was playing a much deeper game, [[DoubleSubverted but]] that all changed in the episode "Chicanery", where Jimmy used his con abilities and knowledge of his brother to utterly destroy Chuck's credibility.]] |
| 70 | * BunnyEarsLawyer: Played for drama. Chuck's apparent sensitivity to electromagnetism forces him to live in a dark house without modern appliances and with a limited ability to venture outside without major anxiety attacks. However, a trip to the emergency room reveals that it's all the placebo effect's nastier twin, the nocebo. |
| 71 | * ButtMonkey: Whilst he is a successful and accomplished lawyer, various things go wrong for him in the series, including injuries and public humilations. |
| 72 | * CainAndAbel: Jimmy and Chuck's relationship and rivalry is an underlying theme for the entire series. While most viewers see Chuck as the Cain for his deliberate sabotaging of Jimmy's career, he's also [[spoiler:the one that ultimately dies as a result of the rivalry]]. |
| 73 | * CannotTellAJoke: After Jimmy impresses Rebecca with an avalanche of lawyer jokes during dinner, Chuck manages to think of one as he is lying in bed with her. It falls rather flat. |
| 74 | * CantTakeCriticism: He becomes enraged beyond belief when a potential client tells him that he got a simple fact wrong. This was mostly due to Jimmy manipulating the situation, yet Chuck's self-righteousness and inability to admit that he's incorrect does make him fall into this trope. |
| 75 | * CassandraTruth: |
| 76 | ** He's right in claiming he didn't make an error in his documents for Mesa Verde, but after it causes a problem for the bank and Jimmy's swapped the forgeries back in his house, nobody can believe him. Kim does later on but denies it in front of him to help Jimmy. |
| 77 | ** Chuck is telling the truth about [[spoiler:Jimmy's confession and the subsequent break-in in his testimony before the bar association, as well as Jimmy's past misdeeds. But right after Jimmy has exposed his EHS as a delusion and Chuck has made his hatred for his brother painfully obvious via MotiveRant, his claims come across as paranoia to everyone else in the courtroom.]] |
| 78 | ** Moreover, the audience knows that Chuck's completely correct in [[Series/BreakingBad pondering the chaos Jimmy could cause with a law degree]]. |
| 79 | * CatchPhrase: He leans hard on "As an officer of the court....", "My brother has a good heart, but...." as well as "The law is sacred." |
| 80 | * CharacterDevelopment: In [[Recap/BetterCallSaulS3E8Slip Slip]], after spending so many episodes in denial about his mental condition, he starts making steps to try and buy things for himself rather than relying on Jimmy, Howard, or Ernesto to do that. [[spoiler:However, this is sadly subverted by the end of the season when it turns out to be a front, especially after the stress of being forced out of HHM gets to him, culminating in his suicide.]] |
| 81 | * ChildProdigy: Graduated from high school at fourteen years old and went to University of Pennsylvania right after. |
| 82 | * ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Howard and Jimmy both point out that they'd bent over backwards for Chuck for years and were repaid with being sued in Howard's case and completely sabotaged in Jimmy’s. Ernesto does what Chuck tells him to do and still gets fired, and Kim goes from being a tempting protege to DefiledForever in his eyes. |
| 83 | * ChronicHeroSyndrome: The condescending version, as he wants to help Jimmy out of jail, he wants to help him be a lawyer (even asking why Jimmy didn't come to him) as long as Jimmy doesn't try to step on his legacy, he wants him to have a steady job in the mail-room... he also wants his brother to stay needing him and under wraps. He just can't admit that’s actually what he wants, and tells himself he's doing good. |
| 84 | * CondescendingCompassion: Is a huge fan of telling Jimmy that whatever shitty thing he's doing this time is for Jimmy's own good, and he patronizes Kim enough that it makes her have a BrokenPedestal. It's a twisted form of affection in his mind, as he does believe everyone will be better off under his control. Even his harsh assessment of Jimmy in "Pimento" is paired with him saying that he was very proud of Jimmy...when he was working in the mailroom. |
| 85 | * ConMan: Both the "Klick" and "Chicanery" scripts take great delight in pointing out that actually Chuck is probably a better scam artist than Jimmy is. |
| 86 | -->'''Chuck''' [to Ernesto, who he's mistreated all season]: If anything were to happen to you, I'd feel just sick about it. |
| 87 | * ControlFreak: While he likes to believe that he's doing the right thing and has devoted his life to the rules, he has an obsessive need to exercise control over everything, especially the life of his brother, and he doesn't seem to understand why Jimmy might have a problem with this tendency. The writers have also pointed out that he can't even admit that he does actually want to control Jimmy and believes he has a right to determine his life and career. His psychosomatic sensitivity to electricity may be a coping mechanism related to this, as it seems to ramp up whenever he's lost control of a situation, and his insistence that the condition is not psychosomatic reflects this further, as Chuck has to believe that it's something he ''cannot'' control as opposed to something he failed to. |
| 88 | * CrazyPrepared: When he records a tape of [[spoiler:Jimmy confessing to tampering with the Mesa Verde file]], Chuck has enough foresight to make a copy in case [[spoiler:Jimmy]] attempts to destroy or steal the tape. |
| 89 | * CreateYourOwnVillain: Played with, since [[spoiler:Chuck doesn't live long enough to witness the end result]], but had he not gone through with his plot to get Jimmy disbarred, then there's a very good chance that Jimmy would have remained a small-time elder law specialist, who might occasionally have lapsed back into his "Slippin' Jimmy" persona when bored. Instead, Chuck's actions play a huge part in Jimmy's transition into the full-on AmoralAttorney Saul Goodman. Vince also said his lack of showing love for Jimmy from the start is what made Jimmy have terrible coping methods (i.e. Saul) and take affection from places he really shouldn't. |
| 90 | -->'''Kim''': I know he's not perfect. And I know he cuts corners. But you're the one who made him this way. He idolizes you. He accepts you. He takes care of you. And all he ever wanted was your love and support. But all you've ever done is judge him. You never believed in him. You never wanted him to succeed. And you know what? I feel sorry for him. And I feel sorry for you. |
| 91 | * CrocodileTears: While it's certain either way that Chuck was [[WoundedGazelleWarcry using it]] for the "get Jimmy's law license" plan, not even the writers in the insider podcast know whether the waver or not when he's talking about Jimmy's temper was real or bullshitting. |
| 92 | * CruelAndUnusualDeath: [[spoiler:Takes his own life by burning his home down, giving himself an excruciatingly painful death. That is if the lack of oxygen caused by the fire didn't get to him first.]] |
| 93 | * CruelToBeKind: He defends his behavior towards Jimmy, most notably the scheme with the tape recorder, on these grounds, giving Jimmy a lecture on how this will eventually help him find his path and Chuck will be there for him when he does. Jimmy understandably doesn't buy a word of it and simply responds by telling Chuck he is done with him. |
| 94 | * CrusadingLawyer: For his many faults, Chuck is a genuinely great lawyer, wanted to change the world when he was younger, and everyone old enough to remember those days deeply respects him even long after his death. |
| 95 | [[/folder]] |
| 96 | [[folder:D-F]] |
| 97 | * DeathByOriginStory: [[spoiler:Commits suicide by burning his own house down after Jimmy ruins his career. His suicide and the fallout from the event ends up putting Jimmy on the path of [[TragicVillain Saul Goodman]] for good.]] |
| 98 | * DespairEventHorizon: Consider the events of Seasons 2 and 3 from Chuck's perspective. First, his brother Jimmy — who cut corners and manipulated people all his life while Chuck made his success through hard work — tricks him into making a clerical error that costs his firm a client. He embarks on a scheme to expose Jimmy's fraud, [[spoiler:only for Jimmy to out-gambit him in court and ruin his reputation with his ex-wife, his law partner, and the legal community. Then Howard tries to force Chuck into retirement over the insurance issue, and Chuck finds that he can't bully Howard into letting him stay in his own firm. Chuck gets one final KickTheDog session with Jimmy, but with him gone and no one else to boss around, he has little else to do than to throw himself back into his EHS delusion. He becomes so obsessed with finding hidden sources of electricity that he undergoes severe SanitySlippage as he tears his house apart]]. After all of that, with Jimmy having mostly gotten away with screwing over Chuck, it's no wonder that Chuck [[spoiler:decides to kill himself]]. |
| 99 | * TheDeterminator: Rushes out into the deep exposure of electromagnetism just to grab the newspaper. He will also go to great lengths to keep his clients away from what could help Jimmy. Particularly in trying to retain Mesa Verde from what he perceives as Kim's and his partnership. In short, if it'll undermine Jimmy, he'll focus on pulling every stop out, however much it hurts him. |
| 100 | * DidntThinkThisThrough: |
| 101 | ** As Jimmy points out, [[spoiler:getting Jimmy arrested and firing Ernesto means that no one will be around to take care of him and he will most likely die alone]]. |
| 102 | ** Before Jimmy comes in to try to make amends, Chuck is doing pretty well. But being cruel to your brother as a way of saying goodbye and making sure he'll stay away, turns out to be a bad idea and the guilt of severing ties drives him to relapse. |
| 103 | * DirtyCoward: He lacks the guts to simply tell Jimmy upfront that he doesn't want him working as a lawyer at HHM. In fact, he has to be outright confronted by Jimmy himself when he learns of Chuck's sabotage before he can even admit it. If he did, then Howard wouldn't have had to deal with Jimmy's shit and a lot of drama at both HMM and Davis and Main would have been avoided. He then exploits Jimmy's sympathy to get a confession out of him. |
| 104 | ** To make matters worse with this trope, he pulls some low-grade XanatosSpeedChess to make sure that Jimmy is only disbarred but not jailed in the hopes that Jimmy will look after him, despite all the shit that Chuck has pulled. |
| 105 | * DiscOneFinalBoss: After Chuck is revealed as the true BigBad of Season 1, the plot shifts into various clashes between the [=McGill=] brothers, and it seems that this will be the core conflict of the series. However, in Season 3, [[spoiler:Chuck faces a HumiliationConga at the bar hearing, being pushed out of HHM, and suffering a massive relapse of his EHS which leads to him committing suicide. Fittingly for this trope, his death occurs at the midpoint of the series.]] |
| 106 | * DisproportionateRetribution: Howard politely suggests that it would be best for everyone if Chuck were to simply retire from the firm with dignity, even suggesting alternative ways for Chuck to maintain active involvement in the law. Chuck's response is to try and sue HHM into oblivion. Deconstructed as the series shows how hurt Howard is by Chuck's response and it utterly destroys whatever was left of their friendship. |
| 107 | * DontYouDarePityMe: After hearing that he’s broke, he resents the idea that Jimmy has to provide for the both of them... despite still expecting it. Jimmy and Kim play into it in "Chicanery", as sympathy from Rebecca rattles him, and everyone is looking at him with pained looks after his HiddenDisdainReveal. |
| 108 | * DramaticIrony: A staple of his character. We the audience know that everything Chuck says about Jimmy is accurate and that he'll go on to be the most amoral attorney New Mexico has ever seen, but because he doesn't have any actual evidence besides knowing how his brother operates, Chuck always looks like he's making his suspicions out of nothing but spite and it murders his credibility at every turn. |
| 109 | ** It's largely thanks to Chuck's own actions that Jimmy decides to become that amoral attorney in the first place. Jimmy probably wouldn't have returned to his slippin' habits if Chuck swallowed his pride and gave his brother some positive reinforcement or allowed him to prove his ability at HHM like Jimmy wanted or even just stayed out of his way and let Jimmy lead his own life, working as a modest attorney with the elderly. But his repeated efforts to belittle and backstab Jimmy, culminating in his telling Jimmy to embrace his ChronicVillainy during their final conversation, ultimately turn his warnings about Jimmy into a SelfFulfillingProphecy. This also occurs on a practical level as well; it's only because Jimmy is feeling the pressure of trying to build his legal career ''and'' support himself and Chuck simultaneously does he begin cutting ethical corners. |
| 110 | ** Not only do Chuck's actions fail to prevent Jimmy from practicing law, but they end up destroying his own reputation and career instead, to the point where new employees at HHM don't even remember who he was a year and a half after [[spoiler:his death]]. [[spoiler:And because of how his mistreatment of Jimmy spurred him into becoming a crooked lawyer willing to cater to dangerous criminals, Chuck also [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom played an indirect role]] in Jimmy's plot against Howard, Howard's murder by Lalo, and the ultimate downfall of HHM, destroying every trace of Chuck's legacy.]] |
| 111 | ** Chuck's largely driven by his perception that Jimmy is trying to show him up or otherwise undermine him. In reality, it's the opposite: Jimmy ''idolizes'' [[BigBrotherWorship his big brother]], holding him in the highest possible regard. His inability to understand this leads to the destruction of both their lives and careers. |
| 112 | * DramaticallyMissingThePoint: Chuck is really bad at reading others' feelings or just doesn't share their priorities enough to understand their point. |
| 113 | ** His parents and entourage don't love Jimmy more than him, they have great respect and appreciation for Chuck, they just don't find him as funny (and Chuck isn't really trying to either) or in need of open support as Jimmy. Like TheDutifulSon he is unable to see what he has and is being given because his prodigal brother gets a laugh or some love even after he screwed up. |
| 114 | ** When he tries to get Jimmy disbarred, even Howard feels like Chuck is missing the key points: First, faking selling his shares so Howard genuinely freaks out for "a touch of vérité" as he said is extremely manipulative toward Howard. Second, the Mesa Verde documents being sabotaged in Chuck's home just prove it should have never left the office and the security breach made to accommodate Chuck's condition was grossly negligent. Third, this brotherly feud has gone too far because Chuck just can't let go of his crusade against Jimmy. No one cares that he is right because his deteriorating mental health and mistreatment of people close to him are more pressing matters. |
| 115 | ** The "Pimento" commentary points out that while Chuck knows parts of his brother, he doesn't actually understand Jimmy all that well; see "Witness" where Chuck assumes Jimmy will destroy the tape out of self-preservation instead of rage of being betrayed. And ultimately, while Chuck is right for a while with Saul (and even that is a lot of spiteful appeasing on his brother's part), Jimmy proves at the end [[spoiler: he's capable of change, that he's not just doomed to be "chimp with a machine gun"]]. |
| 116 | * DrivenByEnvy: He's rather unappreciative of what he already has (he's a universally praised litigator and a partner in a more than reputable firm) and seems out to get his younger brother simply because he can't stand the fact that Jimmy has something he doesn't. |
| 117 | * DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:After driving away everyone close to him and relapsing into a downward spiral, Chuck sets fire to his own house with him in it.]] |
| 118 | * TheDutifulSon: When he and Jimmy were young. It seems to be the root of his resentment, in fact. |
| 119 | * DyingAlone: What Jimmy thinks might happen to Chuck should he keep pushing people to their limit with his overzealous belief of being right. [[spoiler:Sure enough, after alienating Howard, getting kicked out of HHM, and permanently severing his relationship with Jimmy via a vicious TakeThat, Chuck finds himself alone in his house and eventually kills himself.]] |
| 120 | * DyingCurse: Before Chuck commits suicide, he tells Jimmy that he never meant that much to him, and - full of SugaryMalice - he might as well just give up on apologising and act like a monster. While Jimmy does [[https://ew.com/tv/better-call-saul-showrunner-peter-gould-on-series-finale/ end up breaking this curse]], he believes the former unsettlingly easy and that’s exactly what he'll do when he’s just too tired to keep going, and becomes Saul. |
| 121 | * EarlyPersonalitySigns: Shows both BigBrotherInstinct and BigBrotherBully in the "Lantern" flashback, reading to little Jimmy and comforting that Mabel will be okay, but also getting easily annoyed and pointedly telling him to listen. |
| 122 | * EmotionallyTongueTied: Chuck would like to love his younger brother, maybe even give him the approval Jimmy wanted so badly, but has never been able to quite manage it when Jimmy is actually aware, awake and sober. |
| 123 | * EntitledBastard: No matter how badly Chuck treats Jimmy, he still expects Jimmy to move heaven and earth for him and expects Howard and the firm to put up with his actions without complaint indefinitely, to the point of being genuinely surprised when Howard reveals how Chuck's behavior has destroyed their friendship. Even after trying to get Jimmy put in jail and disbarred, he still expects that he will take care of him and is genuinely surprised when Jimmy says he is done with Chuck and in fact, looking out for his own benefit is the only reason Chuck tries to get him a lesser charge that would spare him jail time. |
| 124 | * EntitledToHaveYou: A bitter Marco calls him Jimmy's "master", he's appointed himself as his brother's keeper, and he tries more than once to get Kim to leave Jimmy, telling her what her boyfriend has done "for her own good". She's having none of it. |
| 125 | * EstablishingCharacterMoment: Despite not deciding until episode five that Chuck was sabotaging Jimmy, his first scene in the pilot still tells what kind of man he is; a brilliant mind who is adamant that he’s fine, that he doesn’t need to be looked after but still expects it, wants to do right by the legal system, and loves his brother but also treats him like a five year old who should really just shut up and behave. |
| 126 | * EvilCannotComprehendGood: Like Jimmy, he doesn't get that abusing people's trust and manipulating them into doing your schemes is bad; even worse, Chuck is doing this to friends and confidants instead of strangers with the same detachment that Jimmy has for his marks. When he provides Howard with proof that Jimmy doctored the Mesa Verde file, Howard is more upset that Chuck scared him by pulling his shares of the firm for a touch of "vérité" in his scheme than Jimmy's sabotage. |
| 127 | * EvenEvilCanBeLoved: For all the bad stuff he did to both of them, Jimmy and Howard do still care about Chuck and are sincerely devastated at how he has allowed his spite, pride, and jealousy to destroy their relationships and Chuck's eventual suicide. Even years later, Jimmy is still struggling with Chuck's death and how badly their relationship wound up. |
| 128 | * EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: |
| 129 | ** Through all of his pride and ego, deep down in his spiteful heart, he still actually does love his little brother. He just can't stomach the idea of him being a lawyer. Gould himself said Chuck loves Jimmy, it's just stunted and entitled, and Jimmy seems to echo this in the finale, calling Chuck brilliant but limited. |
| 130 | ** One of his more sympathetic reasons for hating Jimmy is that he blames him for the death of their father. He also loves his mother; it was largely for her sake that he bailed Jimmy out of jail after the sunroof incident. He sobs at her side on her deathbed and is heartbroken when she dies. |
| 131 | ** He cares about his ex-wife Rebecca and leaves her his house in his will. |
| 132 | ** Chuck also has a lot of affection for Kim, seeing himself as a mentor to her and trying to steer her in a positive direction. While Kim initially admired Chuck greatly, the combination of Chuck's treatment of Jimmy and his condescending behavior toward her made her grow to despise him even more than Jimmy. |
| 133 | * EvenEvilHasStandards: |
| 134 | ** For all of Chuck's ''many'' [[KickTheDog cruel]], [[EvilIsPetty petulant]] and [[AmoralAttorney morally dubious or outright loathsome]] actions, he seems to draw the line at doing anything outright illegal in his quest against Jimmy. Whether this is due to caring about the sanctity of the law, his pride refusing to let him stoop to that level, or just pragmatism and [[DirtyCoward fear of getting caught]] is up for debate. For example, he claims to be an "officer of the court" to the copy-shop clerk in an attempt to convince him to hand over evidence on Jimmy, seemingly riding on the idea that the clerk will be confused and think he's a police officer. He's not ''technically'' lying since "officer of the court" is just a generic term for anyone part of the common law legal system, but he is seemingly deliberately misleading the guy. It almost works but when the clerk has the foresight to ask him if he's an actual cop, Chuck is forced to admit that he's not, as claiming to be so would be [[ImpersonatingAnOfficer impersonating a peace officer]], which is a [[https://law.justia.com/codes/new-mexico/2018/chapter-30/article-27/section-30-27-2.1/ serious crime]]. |
| 135 | ** Earlier when Jimmy says he will stop practicing law if Chuck brings Kim back from the Cornfield Chuck is tempted but refuses as that would be extortion. |
| 136 | ** Chuck also thinks Howard punishing Kim for Jimmy's actions is unfair and works to get her back in her old position. |
| 137 | ** In "Klick", when Jimmy is going slightly overboard in taking care of him, Chuck tells him "you've done your duty, you can go now". When Jimmy does the human equivalent of the pleading eyes emoji, he admits that was harsh. |
| 138 | ** While his self-righteous smugness is clearly getting a bit out of control throughout "Chicanery", when practicing his speech for the stand even he realises how over-the-top and insufferably pious comparing Jimmy to Ted Kaczynski -- aka "The Unabomber" -- will sound. |
| 139 | ** As much as Chuck hates Jimmy, he doesn't want to see him in danger or hurt or killed and part of his desire to control Jimmy is borne from wanting to keep him out of trouble or pissing off the wrong people and getting into a mess he can't talk his way out of. |
| 140 | * EvilIsPetty: Brings up the time Jimmy used fake I.D. passports to get his mate's beer in High School. |
| 141 | ** His TakingYouWithMe plan is rationalized as ok in Chuck's mind because he was a partner whilst Howard "was in diapers", essentially. Even though in reality, it's not as black and white as that. |
| 142 | ** He takes as many chances as he can to rub salt in Jimmy's wounds, such as gloating to him that he will be late for work while already on less than ideal terms with his bosses. This is after [[UngratefulBastard Jimmy spent a whole night with Chuck when he was sick.]] |
| 143 | * {{Expy}}: As a character [[TheAce once respected in his field]] who has [[BrokenAce fallen on hard times]], he [[BelievingTheirOwnLies insists that his actions are for some great or noble purpose]] when they're really [[ItsAllAboutMe selfish and done out of pride]]. He values his ego above all else, even [[FatalFlaw his sense of self-preservation]], and looks down on others and refuses to see himself as similar. He first [[BitchInSheepsClothing pretends to be nice and kind]], but becomes [[TookALevelInJerkass increasingly bitter and unpleasant to everyone]] over the course of the show and [[NeverMyFault has a pathological inability to take responsibility for their actions]]. Does that remind you of [[Characters/BreakingBadWalterWhite anyone in particular?]] The key difference is that Walter White eventually does admit his mistakes and tries to make up for them while Chuck never does, but in-universe Jimmy ''went'' to Walt because of the Chuck reminder. |
| 144 | * FamilyThemeNaming: Likely named for Charles II (the middle ruler preceded by an interregnum of stewards, Charles II was contentious, and no one can quite say whether he was a good king or not, much like how Chuck is seen as both good and evil by different sides), while his father and brother are named for Charles I and James II. |
| 145 | * FatalFlaw: |
| 146 | ** His pride and UngratefulBastard tendencies ultimately turn into this over the course of Season 3, due to his severe tunnel vision: |
| 147 | *** In "Chicanery", Howard tells him that there's no need for him to testify in Jimmy's bar association hearing, as both Howard himself and the private detective hired by Chuck can do that. Instead, he insists on being there personally to ensure Jimmy's disbarment, [[spoiler:but ends up ruining his own credibility via a MotiveRant after Jimmy proves that his sensitivity to electricity isn't real, meaning that Jimmy just gets suspended for a year instead of being disbarred outright]]. Chuck even knows Jimmy plans a "Perry Mason" moment where someone crumbles in the stand but he thinks he is immune to this while everyone else knows he is just setting himself up for failure but is too blind to see how his character gives a lot of mitigating circumstances. |
| 148 | *** In "Fall", it turns out that Jimmy leaked information about Chuck's mental state to HHM's insurers, thus causing them to demand vastly increased premiums so long as Chuck remains actively involved with the firm. [[spoiler:Howard sees the writing on the wall for Chuck's continued role at HHM and suggests that he drop down to silent partner status, while also taking up a professorship at the state university, which would still be a vastly more active life than he's had over the last few years. Chuck responds by threatening to ''sue'' HHM if they try to force him out in any way.]] |
| 149 | *** In "Lantern", Howard finally decides that he's had enough of dealing with Chuck, and decides to TakeAThirdOption and [[spoiler:buy Chuck's shares in the company using his own money. Chuck gets over $3m upfront and will ultimately receive $8m, an amount that he could either retire comfortably on or use to set up his own firm. However, being ditched by HHM finally sends him over the edge, leading to major SanitySlippage over the course of the episode, which eventually culminates in his suicide]]. |
| 150 | ** His greatest flaw is [[GreenEyedMonster Envy]]. Chuck was an esteemed and wealthy lawyer who had a successful practice, a loving wife, good friends, and the respect of the law community at large, but it wasn't enough. He simply could not cope with the fact that his younger brother was able to effortlessly charm people while he struggled, unable to conceive that Jimmy could be better than him at anything. He never learned to be happy with what he had and instead projected all his insecurities onto Jimmy, to the point that he thought Jimmy was trying to undermine him even as his little brother practically worshipped the ground he walked on. It's heavily implied through [[spoiler:his speech at the stand in "Chicanery" that his resentment drove most of the amoral actions he blighted his otherwise-impeccable record with throughout the series. If he was more comfortable with himself, the series would have played out very differently.]] |
| 151 | ** His view that people don't change. No matter what Jimmy did or how hard he worked or repeatedly showed how sincere he was in trying to straighten out and leave his old con artists way behind, it was never enough for Chuck to see him as anything more than "Slippin' Jimmy" and sabotage his career, eventually pushing Jimmy to decide ThenLetMeBeEvil. Similarly, he still thinks of himself as a noble officer of the court striving to protect the sanctity of the law and the dutiful son and older brother and can't see the petty, envious, and cruel man he has become. This flaw in particular is what destroys his relationship with [[spoiler: Howard in the final two episodes of Season 3.]] |
| 152 | * FisherKing: The state of Chuck's house usually coincides with how Chuck is doing mentally and emotionally. |
| 153 | ** In Seasons 1 and 2, Chuck's home was originally perfectly normal, with the lights on and working, before his mental issues forced the wiring in the walls to be torn out and all the lighting to be replaced with dimly-lit gas lanterns. When he's gaslit into believing he made a mistake and that his skills are dulling, he spirals ''hard'' into his delusion and covers much of his home's interior with foil and space blankets. [[spoiler:Which is also Invoked on his part, playing up the condition he believes is real in order to manipulate Jimmy's concern for him]]. |
| 154 | ** As Chuck tries to overcome his "condition" in Season 3, he slowly restores the lights in his home and is seen using the kitchen appliances. [[spoiler:At the end of the Season, after burning bridges with everyone he knew and loved, his slow relapse into his belief in EHS is signaled by his turning off the lights, done the second Jimmy leaves. The more he spirals, the more he tears into the house to find the last source of electricity, throwing every appliance into the backyard. At his lowest point, with objects strewn about around him in the dead of night, he chooses to burn it all down]]. |
| 155 | * FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: The Responsible to Jimmy's Foolish, though it's slowly deconstructed: for all of the work Jimmy puts in at first to try and rise above his crooked past, he learns that Chuck has been secretly undermining his struggle, believing him unworthy of practicing law, and is disgusted by the shortcuts that Jimmy's taken along the way. It's implied that Chuck's sabotage is, in part, to ''keep'' his brother a useless ne'er-do-well ("Slippin' Jimmy I can handle") because he can't stand the thought of Jimmy succeeding -- and easily, at that -- in a field that he has as well, [[GreenEyedMonster thereby invalidating his own hard-earned respectability]] as the "good" son. [[spoiler:When Jimmy, now comparatively the "responsible" one of the two, tries to make peace in "Lantern" after having brought Chuck low, Chuck rejects him and cuts all emotional and family ties, even though it causes him such emotional anguish that it triggers an EHS relapse and contributes to his suicide.]] A few seasons later Jimmy as Gene/Viktor goes on a suicidal relapse like Chuck did, willing himself to get caught, but he manages to pull himself out of the spiral, atone for his actions and feel like he could done more to mend the relationship. Something Chuck could never do even when he had regrets. |
| 156 | * ForYourOwnGood: He will occasionally try to justify his actions against Jimmy on the grounds, that they will help Jimmy become a better person and find his path (as long it's a path that Chuck approves of, of course). He eventually drops the facade and lets his resentment and borderline hatred of Jimmy become clear. |
| 157 | * FreudianExcuse: |
| 158 | ** Chuck holds Jimmy responsible for their father's store bankruptcy; it’s after that point that he saw Jimmy as less as a foolish sibling and more as an inconsiderate person who drags people into the muck with him. He's also extremely resentful at being liked less than Jimmy despite all his achievements and Jimmy had been a small-time thief and hustler for most of his adult life. |
| 159 | ** As stated by [=McKean=], Jimmy’s parents passed on the responsibility of "sorting him out" to Chuck, leading to both Jimmy desperate to please his surrogate dad and most of Chuck's life centering around his brother whom he'd rather sometimes just not exist and sees as having stolen the love he earned. It also means he has resentment issues for them too, but can never voice that, so he'll take it out on Jimmy instead. |
| 160 | * FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: As Kim says when Jimmy is ObviouslyNotFine, the fact that Chuck is sick and has resentment issues doesn't excuse the fact that he treats his brother like crap, just explains some of it. |
| 161 | * FreudianSlip: When Jimmy first expresses his desire to move up from the mail room and get hired by the firm, Chuck instinctively asks, "As what?" Later, he does the same thing when Howard tells Chuck that Jimmy has landed a job at Davis & Main; Chuck asks him without thinking "as what?" before catching on. Howard seems momentarily taken aback. |
| 162 | [[/folder]] |
| 163 | [[folder:G-L]] |
| 164 | * {{Gaslighting}}: Both does this and is on the receiving end of it. He emphasizes that he ''does'' love his brother, despite all the trouble between them and his underlying jealousy and resentment. Chuck swears that hindering Jimmy's career is only for his own good, alongside the justification of "protecting" everyone from the danger a conman with a law degree poses, all while ignoring his pettier and selfish motivations. |
| 165 | ** Unbeknownst to Jimmy, his older brother has been using his position as a partner of HHM to ensure he never progresses his profession as a lawyer, hiding behind Howard all the while. Jimmy initially can't figure out why he was constantly rejected from the illustrious firm no matter how much he tried, sometimes coming to believe ''he's'' the one most at fault for his troubles. Once he figures out the root of the cause himself, Chuck verbally beats him down with a scathing rant about how people never change ("Slippin' Jimmy" especially) and that he ''has to know'' he's right on some level. |
| 166 | ** Later on in Seasons 2 and 3, Jimmy transposes the numbers on Chuck's documents regarding Mesa Verde's address for one of their projects, then switches them back. The result is him initially doubling down on the wrong number, being blamed for an error he never made, and swearing he had everything right before. [[spoiler:When he eventually lands Jimmy in trouble for it, the tables turn and he's made to break down in front of all in the hearing, [[JerkassHasAPoint and while his rant holds some truth in reciting shady things Jimmy has actually done]], his character has been assassinated far too much for anyone to trust him at his word]]. |
| 167 | * GoodIsNotNice: Condescending, arrogant, borderline KnightTemplar when it comes to sabotaging his brother's law career (let alone joining big law firms), and openly contemptuous of anyone he deems his inferior....but he still isn't the one breaking the law. While he is right that Jimmy shouldn't be practicing the law, and his extreme methods are responses to Jimmy's ''illegal'' ones, he ruins both his health and relationships over it. |
| 168 | * GoneHorriblyRight: He really wanted to hurt Jimmy in their last meeting, gaining some sort of power in wounding him so bad he’d never come near him again, but aside from the fact that it’s Chuck’s own catalyst for suicide, the words are like a weight around Jimmy’s neck as he tries to push away Kim (at least at first, and she knows what he’s trying to do so doesn’t stand for it), goes deeper into Saul Goodman and is so used to cruelty from someone older and smarter that once he finds Walter White, he gets attached and wants his love. |
| 169 | * GreaterScopeVillain: In Season 4, [[spoiler:Chuck takes this role [[PosthumousCharacter posthumously]] after his suicide. Jimmy spends the season struggling with grief from the suicide and the suspension that Chuck caused. Jimmy eventually deals with his grief by completely rejecting Chuck and the type of lawyer life he represents while feigning regret about it towards the bar committee and Kim. After this, he begins to practice law under the name ''Saul Goodman'']]. |
| 170 | * GreenEyedMonster: As we learn more about Chuck's relationship with Jimmy, it's revealed that envy is a pretty huge part of his motivation for continually hurting his brother. Chuck has always been envious of Jimmy's easy way with people; Jimmy makes friends quickly whereas Chuck is largely charmless. He may have gained a great deal of professional respect and esteem, not to mention loyalty from more charming people like Howard, but it isn't enough: he wants people to like him for himself. In short, he wants everything Jimmy has, and more than that, he wants Jimmy to have nothing. |
| 171 | * HatesBeingAlone: He admits early on that he likes having company, the problem is his method of dealing with setbacks is pushing everyone else away and isolating himself. It's implied that this is part of why Chuck wants to stifle Jimmy's legal career so as to prevent him from leaving Chuck behind. |
| 172 | * HatesBeingTouched: He's not a dick about it, but he makes it obvious both times he's not exactly keen on getting a hug from his brother. The script for "Klick" mentions they rarely touch, and Jimmy’s taking a liberty rubbing Chuck's arm. In a rather dark turn, Word Of Gould is that if he just hugged Jimmy and told him he was okay a few times, then Jimmy would have been eating out of his hand forever. |
| 173 | * HatesTheirParent: On the other side of his being TheDutifulSon, Chuck holds a lot of resentment for his parents for supposedly letting their youngest child ruin their lives, and most damningly, making him the surrogate dad for his brother when he just wanted to leave his family in the dust. |
| 174 | * HeadInTheSandManagement: There are hints that this goes beyond Chuck's attempts to manage his illness (whatever it might actually be) and the change in his circumstances. Chuck may push the ethical side of the practice, but the other partners of his firm don't seem to quite share his ethos and are quite willing to use his strong beliefs on a number of topics for their own ends. He may have been TheFace of the firm. Later subverted, as he is clearly the top dog and just lets Howard work the day-to-day operations. |
| 175 | * HeroAntagonist: Initially, then [[MotiveDecay progressively less]] so as the [=McGill=] bowl escalates. |
| 176 | ** Chuck stands against our antihero Jimmy, even though Chuck is fighting to maintain the integrity of the law and prevent his brother from becoming a corrupt lawyer. His tactics and demeanor, however, often leave something to be desired, keeping Jimmy sympathetic even when Chuck calls him out on his unethical behavior. |
| 177 | ** This is outright subverted by Season 3 when Chuck displays a host of unethical behavior himself and it becomes more and more apparent (despite what Chuck is telling himself and everybody else) that he really ''does'' have it out for his little brother. A NominalHero antagonist at best. |
| 178 | * HisOwnWorstEnemy: The people around him (like Jimmy, Howard, etc) were actually very understanding and accommodating towards Chuck's condition and did their best to work with him and make him feel as normal as possible. Its his [[{{Pride}} more]] [[NeverMyFault personal]] [[HolierThanThou flaws]] that constantly drive them up a wall and before long, [[spoiler: pushes them completely away, leaving him alone, broken, and with nothing else to live for.]] |
| 179 | * HistoricalHeroUpgrade: By the time of "American Greed" (post-"Granite State"), he's depicted in-universe as a brilliant and honest man who had every reason to feel ashamed of his hopeless brother. However, [[spoiler: Jimmy starting to talk in court about how Chuck treated him, and Kim's full confession pointedly mentioning Jimmy desperate to win Chuck's love]], time will tell if the upgrade stays. |
| 180 | * HoistByHisOwnPetard: |
| 181 | ** Chuck's endgame all along with [[spoiler:the Mesa Verde confession was to boot Jimmy from the legal profession. He thinks he's about to succeed by forcing Jimmy to take a deal where he avoids jail time in exchange for letting himself be disbarred. But during the hearing, Jimmy manages to turn the tables on Chuck through an elaborate BatmanGambit which eventually sends Chuck into an enraged MotiveRant that completely undermines his version of events, ruins his reputation with everyone he knows, and eventually ends his career when HHM's insurer hikes their premiums over Chuck's mental issues. It also causes the bar to only suspend Jimmy for a year, instead of disbarring him as Chuck wanted.]] |
| 182 | ** Even more so with his decision to testify at all. If Chuck took Howard's advice not to testify, [[spoiler:he would have pulled the rug out from under Jimmy, who wouldn't have been able to pull off the battery ploy and gotten disbarred relatively easily. But Chuck was just too eager to personally watch Jimmy fall, allowing Jimmy to play him into self-destructing.]] |
| 183 | * HolierThanThou: His defining characteristic. He was extremely haughty about his lawfulness and considered it an affront that someone like Jimmy could become a lawyer. |
| 184 | * HowTheMightyHaveFallen: |
| 185 | ** Much is made about Chuck's dedication and competence as one of the best attorneys in New Mexico, being the moving force behind HHM and turning it into a powerhouse law firm without peers. At the beginning of the series, Chuck has been benched due to unspecified mental issues that made him act afraid of electricity and turned him into a [[TheShutIn shut-in]] with Jimmy as his caretaker. The condition worsens his ability to function and his pride makes it all but impossible to voice his needs to anyone, keeping the problem hidden from all. Then, as his relationship with Jimmy worsens, Chuck tries to get better after an altercation with a neighbor and being tasered by the police. |
| 186 | ** Eventually, he's able to function outside his comfort zone and return to work temporarily... at least until his feud with Jimmy reaches a breaking point due to a mishap at court, after which he uses every method to destroy his brother. [[spoiler:He ends up being publicly humiliated at Jimmy's bar hearing, having his mental condition discovered, getting his insurance rates hiked, being forced into retirement, and seeing his counterattack burn all remaining bridges, forcing isolation from everyone and a slide back into insanity. Finally, tired, self-deluded, broken, alone, and in constant pain, Chuck chooses to off himself by burning his house down while inside it. Wow.]] |
| 187 | ** [[spoiler:Even his death doesn't improve his posthumous reputation. After Howard fondly reminisces about to him to an intern in front of his portrait, the intern turns out to have no idea who Chuck even is. Howard says that he was the "greatest legal mind" he's ever known. The intern says he hopes someone says that about him someday, to which Howard solemnly admits that there are more important things for him to aspire to, realizing that Chuck's "legal mind" is the very thing that drove him to his own destruction, via his obsession with preserving the sanctity of the law. Then, Howard's own reputation secretly gets ruined by Jimmy and Kim and he supposedly commits suicide in response, effectively destroying HHM. The last we see of it in the series, it's stated to be ''heavily'' downsizing as well as changing its name to avoid being associated with the two of them. Everything Chuck worked for was for nothing, reduced to a footnote in New Mexico law history, if that.]] |
| 188 | * {{Hypochondria}}: Chuck suffers from [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivity electromagnetic hypersensitivity]], a psychosomatic illness where being near any electromagnetic fields causes someone pain. In season 1, a doctor turns on an electric medical device without Chuck's knowledge to determine that the illness is just in his head. In season 3, [[spoiler:Jimmy proves it at his disbarment hearing by slipping a battery into Chuck's pocket without Chuck suffering any ill effects. After this, Chuck begins to consider whether he's ruined his life for nothing. He finally admits that he's mentally ill and begins treatment for it, but it doesn't last]]. |
| 189 | * {{Hypocrite}}: One of the most frustrating things about Chuck [=McGill=] is that he's guilty of just as many of the things he derides and resents his younger brother for. |
| 190 | ** He spends the entire first season chiding Jimmy about his less-than-ethical behavior promoting himself as a lawyer before it's revealed that he has been lying to his brother for years, sabotaging his career, and foisting the blame for Jimmy's troubles with HHM onto Howard, pretending to be on his brother's side but in actuality horrified at the thought of 'Slippin' Jimmy' working as a lawyer. |
| 191 | ** He means it as a slightly twisted form of affection, but the only time he expresses hope that Jimmy can change to his face is when he's just orchestrated a BatmanGambit to get Jimmy in jail. Jimmy, showing some rare semblance of spine (though at the end he's willing to give up until Kim comes in, partly because he misses it too), seems to understand he just wants their mailroom-era relationship back, and tells him where to go. |
| 192 | ** During a later argument with Jimmy, he accuses Jimmy of stabbing him in the back by doing document forgery. This is true. But Chuck already backstabbed Jimmy by keeping him from succeeding as a legitimate lawyer. Chuck's actions, at least, weren't illegal... but they had been going on for ''years''. |
| 193 | ** Turns out he's not above a little entrapment himself. Yup: fraud's okay if he's the one doing it "to catch a crook" — even though Jimmy is both his brother and still his primary caretaker even at that point. |
| 194 | ** Chuck paints himself the high and mighty do-gooder compared to Jimmy, but when it comes down to it, he resorts to backhanded shady tactics to get what he wants, just like Jimmy. Jimmy [[AtLeastIAdmitIt at least is honest about who he is]] (while trying to make an effort at bettering himself), while Chuck is still in denial that he's no different than Jimmy. |
| 195 | ** He tells Jimmy that laziness is the ''only'' sin he's not guilty of. Even applied to [[MrViceGuy Jimmy]], a statement like that is extreme and hardly fair, and Chuck's actions in regards to his brother have ironically been fueled by his own [[{{Pride}} vanity]] and [[DrivenByEnvy jealousy]], traditionally ''the'' top two worst of the SevenDeadlySins. |
| 196 | ** After having told Jimmy that abusing the law could get people hurt, he [[spoiler:shows no compunction about suing the very law firm he helped build after Howard tries to force him into retirement, even though he knows that HHM can't afford to pay back the damages he's seeking, which would mean liquidating his own firm and putting Howard and the entire staff out a job]]. His actions against Jimmy in Season 3 also show that Chuck has no issue manipulating the law to help him achieve his goal of getting Jimmy disbarred, all for his own personal vendetta. |
| 197 | ** Chuck also justifies his actions with the tape recorder by saying it was to show Jimmy that he needed to change before he destroys himself and others and facing the consequences would make him a better man. Chuck adamantly refuses to change his behavior throughout the series and eventually ends up hurting others, including pushing Jimmy onto the path to becoming Saul Goodman and subsequently tries to get out of facing the consequences of his own actions by getting Jimmy a lesser charge so he can still take care of him. |
| 198 | ** He tells Jimmy that he's ultimately going to destroy all his relationships because that's all he's good for. This comes from the man who destroyed his marital [[spoiler:and professional]] relationships on his own, and in the ''very same conversation'', looked his brother dead in the eyes and told him [[spoiler:that he's never mattered that much to him]]. |
| 199 | ** In the same moment mentioned above, he gives Jimmy shit for not changing his ways. Chuck is a ''firm believer'' that people don't change and his entire reason for sabotaging Jimmy's career was motivated by his belief that Jimmy was still the same hustler and always would be. |
| 200 | ** For that matter, his conviction that people don't change; while he was certain enough about his brother to slowly torpedo Jimmy's earnest attempt at redemption ([[SelfFulfillingProphecy and ensure that he'd fall back into criminality]]), Chuck's own pride leaves him unable to admit that his actions are grossly unethical and done for selfish reasons, or that his deteriorating mental health has adversely affected his competency on the bar and in the office. The man himself has changed, for the worse, into an embittered shut-in, and refuses to acknowledge it as anything but a setback. |
| 201 | ** Chuck's testimony during Jimmy's trial has him say he sees the law as sacred because it means "whoever you are, your actions have consequences" as well as lecture Jimmy on that principle before his arrest for the tape recorder incident. This is despite having spent a good portion of his time on the show trying to weasel out of the consequences of his own actions, by letting Howard take the blame for Jimmy's stalled legal career to avoid the fallout and losing his primary caregiver and even trying to prevent Jimmy from going to jail solely so he will continue to care for Chuck and later suing HHM to keep him on, avoiding the consequences of his breakdown and refusal to deal with his issues. For all his pontificating on the subject, Chuck clearly doesn't believe consequences should apply to him as much as they should to others. |
| 202 | * HypocriticalHeartwarming: He really does want Jimmy to be safe, and Jimmy has a big talent for getting into trouble, the problem is that he also preferred it when his brother was an easier target, and him being a lawyer is Chuck's nightmare. |
| 203 | * IgnoredEpiphany: |
| 204 | ** Mostly because he doesn't see it as worth it anymore, but in "Bingo" he's really trying to get used to being outside while aware of himself. After what happens in "Pimento", he goes back to square one. |
| 205 | ** In "Saul Gone", a flashback before the pilot, he sees that his brother is doing the utmost to look after him, thinks maybe he was wrong about Jimmy never being able to change, and tries to support and talk to him. Of course the BigBrotherBully damage has been done and Jimmy rebuffs him, so the moment passes. |
| 206 | * IgnoredExpert: |
| 207 | ** Jimmy really does admire Chuck's skills, but just doesn't want to hear about how much too much they've bitten off to chew with the suit against Sandpiper. He'd rather get buried in files than go to Hamlin in any capacity whatsoever. But Chuck's got a point, whatever his motivation: more hands ''are'' needed to do the case justice, as the opposition is more than willing to throw cotton wool at them to bog them down. Chuck did get him to back down on this, but since the reveal of his role in Jimmy's lack of success, there's no way he's going to just leave it be; as far as Jimmy is concerned, ''his'' case got conned from him. |
| 208 | ** He's also this over his case against "Slippin' Jimmy with a Law Degree", though mostly attributing the "expert" part to himself. Knowing how Jimmy's been throughout his entire life as his older brother, he assumes the worst in what such a conman could do to bend and desecrate The Law and the trouble he'd be in the legal world. His fears aren't unfounded from what we see in flashbacks and knowing what Saul Goodman's like in the future, yet still, [[UnreliableNarrator much of his motivation is influenced by his own biases against Jimmy]], and [[SelfFulfillingProphecy he ignores how much he plays a role]] in making sure Jimmy resorts to his worst impulses, so how much he can be trusted in this regard is up for debate. |
| 209 | ** He thinks he's this whenever his "EHS" is brought up. In reality, it's the other way around, ignoring the medical experts whenever they try to go against his aversion to electronics. |
| 210 | * InfantSiblingJealousy: He doesn't really want a brother at all, especially not one sixteen years younger than him, but if he has to, then the least Jimmy could do is stay in his place and let Chuck be his keeper. Everyone tells him fixating on his brother will end in disaster, and it does. |
| 211 | * InferioritySuperiorityComplex: Chuck is a very prideful person, and is infuriated by the idea that his 'crook brother' could achieve anything remotely resembling legit success. The reality is that Chuck has a lot to be proud of, but takes no joy in his own achievements if Jimmy is achieving anything on his own. He appears to keep his own ego bolstered by Jimmy's misery. |
| 212 | -->'''[=McKean=]''': [[https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/apos-better-call-saul-apos-061600270.html A great deal of his life has revolved around Jimmy in a mostly negative way, but there were times when Chuck had the upper hand that it made him feel better. [...] And his way of getting rid of Jimmy, of sending Jimmy out the door that one last time with a lie — if he had told the truth, he would say, "I want you out of here because my life can no longer revolve around you" — there is some kind of duplicitous pride that comes into play there. [...] But there is something in saying something as untrue as, "You've never mattered that much to me" just for the purpose of hurting him so badly that he won’t even come near the door again]]. |
| 213 | * InnocentlyInsensitive: Chuck does mean well in his own warped way, but his narcissism and controlling tendencies, combined with his poor ability to express his emotions and understand those of others, badly undermine his intent and he often fails to understand how he comes across. This is most prominent in his relationship with Kim who he cares a lot for and sees himself as a guide and father figure to but can't stop himself from seeing her as a lost little girl who he needs to protect from Jimmy's influence, which Kim absolutely hates and finds demeaning, resulting in her being pushed further into Jimmy's grasp since he treats with far more respect. During his brutal speech in "Pimento", he also sincerely tells Jimmy how he was proud of him after he went straight and started working in the mailroom. In Chuck's mind, he's praising Jimmy for turning his life around but all Jimmy hears is Chuck saying he never wanted him to be anything more than his loser younger brother who he was generous enough to put somewhere Chuck could keep an eye on him. In general, Chuck honestly thinks he's doing what's best for Jimmy by preventing him from being a lawyer and controlling his life as a whole and can't really understand why Jimmy would have a problem with that. |
| 214 | * InsufferableGenius: His way to bring up law and culture trivia during season one sounded wise, but when he starts explaining why he is the best choice for Mesa Verde or how Jimmy had done a misdeed, it's insulting. Even characters like Kim and Howard, the former of whom Chuck knows is smart and the latter Chuck has worked with for decades, aren't spared this condescension and it eventually leads to Kim turning against him entirely. |
| 215 | * InstantlyProvenWrong: As said in the "Pimento" commentary, Chuck doesn’t understand all of his brother that well, in that instance thinking he would only care about the Sandpiper money and nothing else, and later on, think he was only angry about the tape out of self-preservation. |
| 216 | * {{Irony}}: Amidst his general hypocrisy, Chuck's life and actions are greatly ironic. Chuck adamantly refuses to change his behavior throughout the series and eventually ends up hurting others, all the while he tells Jimmy that he's ultimately going to destroy all his relationships because that's all he's good for. Yet, Chuck had destroyed his marital and professional relationships on his own, and in the very same conversation, looked his brother dead in the eyes and told him that he's never mattered that much to him. |
| 217 | ** Chuck is a firm believer that people don't change and repeatedly chides his brother Jimmy for not changing his ways. And yet, in spite of Jimmy's honest attempts at change, Chuck's repeated attempts at sabotaging his career are major catalysts for Jimmy's eventual decline and rebirth into "Saul Goodman". And while he chides his brother for his antics as "Slippin' Jimmy" and slipping back into his old habits, he's greatly capable of being a great ManipulativeBastard con-man in his own right if he had decided to go that route. |
| 218 | * ItsAllAboutMe: Chuck has been stabbing his kid brother in the back all these years because ''he'' doesn't think Jimmy should be a lawyer, not seeming to register that this is in no way something that's up to him to decide. Later [[spoiler:he drags Howard, Ernesto, and the rest of HHM into his vendetta with his brother, cruelly using Ernesto's concern for his friend to place Jimmy right where he wants him and dipping into ''company funds'' to hire the private investigators needed for his gambit against Jimmy. Howard tries to be diplomatic about it, but even he gets fed up with Chuck's antics (along with his patronizing attitude).]] This reaches a head when Howard politely suggests that Chuck consider retiring, and Chuck's response is to threaten a lawsuit against HHM that would destroy the firm, at which point Howard has no choice but to abandon him entirely. |
| 219 | * ItsAllMyFault: He will never fully admit it in a million years, but he does know deep down that a lot of why Jimmy is the way he is falls at his feet. He looks guilty when Kim points it out, and he does a genuine "what have I done" to Dr. Cruz. "Saul Gone" shows a flashback where he thinks he might actually be wrong and tries to reach out, but too much damage has been done already, and he buries the regret. |
| 220 | * IvyLeagueForEveryone: He attended the University of Pennsylvania, at only fourteen no less, and later went to Georgetown, which isn't Ivy League but still a very prestigious university, showing his intellect and also contributing to his snobbery. |
| 221 | * JerkassHasAPoint: It seems to be a RunningGag that Chuck will have a legitimate point while still being a complete asshole about it. We already know that Chuck is completely correct that Jimmy is a corrupt lawyer, but it's pretty hard to pay attention to that after he admits that he's been secretly betraying his brother for ''years'' because of that assessment. Ultimately it's deconstructed, as his behavior towards Jimmy [[NiceJobBreakingItHero eventually ensures that he'll become the 'chimp with the machine gun' that he feared.]] |
| 222 | ** Putting aside Chuck's knowledge of Jimmy's past: |
| 223 | *** In Season 1, it was a gut punch to Jimmy and the audience that Chuck was the one secretly keeping Jimmy from getting a job at HHM. But Chuck worked hard to build a prominent and respected law firm, and Jimmy has a criminal record, a correspondence school degree, and passed the bar on the third try. There's no way he'd even be considered on his own merits, and it's pretty presumptuous to assume that he should be hired out of straight nepotism. He has a better argument after proving his worth on the Sandpiper case, but Chuck has ample reason to not want him on board. |
| 224 | *** Controversially, even the 'confession tape' is an example. Jimmy ''did'' gaslight Chuck after all, and in Chuck's mind, he needed to be absolutely sure that it was Jimmy who doctored the files and not just Chuck screwing up due to stress. |
| 225 | *** In Season 3, Chuck's behavior towards [[spoiler:Ernesto]] is at least somewhat justified, given that [[spoiler:Ernesto has lied to cover for Jimmy before, even when it was clear that Jimmy was doing something illegal]]. Chuck is still an UngratefulBastard and an awful person socially, but he nonetheless has a legitimate argument that [[spoiler:Ernesto has demonstrated twice that he will put his personal loyalty to Jimmy above his professional duties and ethics]]. |
| 226 | ** He calls out Jimmy's attitude of repenting every time he hurts someone yet never stops his hurtful ways. |
| 227 | ** His assuming that Jimmy manipulated their mom by crying on the phone, and faking tears at their dad’s funeral, is probably cruel and unfair, but Jimmy does have a tendency to cry and use his InnocentBlueEyes to get what he wants, to the point that in "Nippy", needing something is the only way he can actually express how he really feels. |
| 228 | ** During the season finale of season 6 "Saul Gone", we get a flashback to Chuck and Jimmy during one of their lonely nights together. After hearing that Jimmy has doubts about representing clients and already condemning them as guilty, Chuck is the one to advocate for them. No matter how guilty or innocent someone may appear to be, Chuck illustrates one of the most important aspects of Law, everyone has a right to a fair trial. They can be guilty as sin or have a face of an angel, but no matter what, the defendants have a basic human right to good representation, so if even by some slim margin they are actually innocent that does need to come to light. That's the main crux of being a defense lawyer, and Chuck is quick to remind Jimmy that if he cannot stomach that thought he can always change his path. Sadly Jimmy ignores the advice and it would eventually lead him down the road to what we see at the finale with Jimmy behind bars (but also knowing he can change with a chance of getting out). |
| 229 | ** The way he goes about it is really cruel, and he partly wants Jimmy to be an easier target, but he also thinks pre-lawyer Jimmy is easier to take care of, and wants his brother to be safe. Considering Jimmy gets himself into trouble with the cartel in the first episode, and is kidnapped by them in the second, he's not entirely wrong. |
| 230 | * JerkWithAHeartOfGold: He really does treat everyone around him badly, especially Jimmy, and has a lot of bias and resentment he doesn't want to admit, but he has multiple moments of MyGodWhatHaveIDone, his illness is implied in season three to a manifestation of guilt, and he's a very good lawyer who cares about fairness in the world. Even if only in theory. This degrades as his [[DrivenByEnvy true motivations are revealed]]. |
| 231 | * KickTheDog: Beneath Chuck's noble persona, he's capable of some pretty striking cruelty: |
| 232 | ** After he gets Jimmy out of prison, he only gives Jimmy a few minutes to say goodbye to Marco before blaring the car horn. While he's not wrong in the alcoholics comparison, he wastes no time in being a dick about it. |
| 233 | ** "Mailroom Jimmy" is his favorite out of the many masks of his brother, and could have loved him if he stayed that way, but even that version he has no problem making feel small and stupid in front of anyone. |
| 234 | ** In retrospect, even after they mended the argument and apologized to each other, he can't help himself (while also blaming Howard) and brings up that Jimmy should change the name of his law practice, and doesn't he want to build his own identity instead of "riding on someone else's coattails"? |
| 235 | ** He reveals how much he really believes in Jimmy at the end of "Pimento" in a needlessly brutal way. |
| 236 | ** Kim is the ''only'' person who tells Jimmy YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre, and Chuck insults her by saying her one mistake is believing his brother has any worth to him. She wants to talk about her job future in "Rebecca" and he uses his power as her boss to tell her instead about how awful Jimmy is. Even when she can admit the story has some truth, it really pisses her off that he wants to isolate his brother that badly. |
| 237 | ** Taunts Jimmy about the fact he will be late for work whilst already being on shaky ground at Davis & Main. After Jimmy had spent all night taking care of and watching over Chuck when he felt sick, made him tea, and begged him to get Kim her old position back. Although the context of Jimmy's screw-up makes it come across as PayEvilUntoEvil in that moment. |
| 238 | ** Uses Jimmy's own brotherly concern against him by faking a mental breakdown, indirectly guilt-tripping Jimmy into confessing to the Mesa Verde file tampering, and recording the confession without Jimmy's knowledge. |
| 239 | ** He then uses that tape in a larger gambit to [[spoiler:bait his brother into breaking into his home in front of witnesses and then have him arrested]]. |
| 240 | ** And, at last, having succeeded in his BatmanGambit, [[spoiler:he fires Ernesto, who he deliberately manipulated into making the gambit work]]. |
| 241 | ** He threatens to ''sue his own firm'' over Howard's justified concerns over his unpredictable judgment and decision-making, as the Mesa Verde confession tape gambit shows. |
| 242 | ** Jimmy has an epiphany after [[spoiler:Kim's car accident]] and approaches Chuck, saying he regrets escalating their feud and wants to reconcile. Chuck's response? "The truth is, you never really mattered much to me." That, of course, after trying to sue HHM into not booting him. [[spoiler:And they turn out to be the last words Chuck ever utters to Jimmy before he kills himself.]] |
| 243 | * KickThemWhileTheyAreDown: PlayedWith. At the end of Season 3, he [[spoiler:tells Jimmy he never cared much for him, among a choice selection of insults and NeverMyFault protestations by himself, when Jimmy makes one final attempt to make amends]]. This comes after Chuck's dismissal of HHM and the collapse of his purpose: returning to form to work again; likewise, Jimmy is forced to confront Kim's overworking might be partly his fault and wants to make amends to soothe his guilt. Chuck simply decides to use one last jerk move to gain some momentary satisfaction and a sense of superiority while at the same time calling Jimmy out on how his moves have screwed people around him and how a simple "I'm sorry" won't do at this point. Of course, he's unaware of Kim's accident, but the effect is the same. However, once Jimmy goes... |
| 244 | * KindnessButton: Helping Jimmy sleep and tucking him in is his most used form of PetTheDog, as he does it three times. Jimmy is still his baby brother after all. |
| 245 | * KryptoniteIsEverywhere: Electricity is everywhere in the modern world, so Chuck cowers from basically everything in pain. Of course, the pain is psychosomatic, so if he can't ''see'' something using electricity, he shows no symptoms. |
| 246 | * LikeFatherUnlikeSon: He was named after his and Jimmy's father but is very different from Charles Sr. In contrast to his dad's trusting, idealistic and humble nature, Chuck is cynical, egotistical and is quick to believe the worst about people, especially Jimmy. This is perhaps best summed up by Chuck affectionately describing how Charles knew everyone's name and what was going on in their lives while Chuck himself has consistently treated those he sees as beneath him poorly. |
| 247 | * LivingEmotionalCrutch: As much as he resents Jimmy and wants him under control, Chuck can’t actually let go of his brother, both genuinely loving him and still wanting him to be his caretaker so he won’t be alone as well as wanting someone around to look down on and who will seek his approval so he can feel better about the downturn his own life has taken. |
| 248 | * LivingLieDetector: Spots pretty quickly that Jimmy is hiding something about suddenly getting clients in “Hero”. Of course it doesn’t help that Jimmy tends to suck at lying around his brother. (He’s better at gaslighting.) |
| 249 | * LossOfIdentity: A lot of his problems (and everyone else’s, as he takes it out on them) come from defining himself as a CrusadingLawyer or TheDutifulSon, and stewing in resentment or anger if he either can’t be those anymore, or someone else approaches his territory. |
| 250 | * TheLostLenore: As much as Jimmy would be loathed to admit it, parts of him have been missing ever since Chuck’s suicide. When Gene is manipulating a breakdown in “Nippy”, he starts off hammy and just looks completely destroyed when he admits his brother is dead. |
| 251 | [[/folder]] |
| 252 | [[folder:M-P]] |
| 253 | * TheManBehindTheMan: The one really preventing Jimmy from a career with HHM isn't Howard, it's Chuck. |
| 254 | ** In a broader sense, season 3 reveals that Chuck was the real power at HHM, with Chuck personally building the firm into the powerhouse it comes to be at the show's beginning. It's even implied that Howard was brought in by his father specifically to make the Hamlins look better in the deal. [[spoiler:After Chuck's death, Howard spends Season 4 struggling to keep the firm afloat by himself.]] |
| 255 | * ManChild: When he lashes out during Jimmy's hearing, screaming that he didn't make mistakes or brings up Jimmy's favoritism, it shows that deep down, he didn't mature as much as he wants to appear. For all his achievements and intellect, Chuck is at his core a child throwing a tantrum over the fact that someone is getting more attention than him or respect he feels they don't deserve and is pissed at Jimmy for getting the parental affection he felt he'd earned. |
| 256 | * ManipulativeBastard: |
| 257 | ** In the “Nacho” flashback, while he’s genuinely hurt and disappointed by Jimmy’s actions, he makes a move to leave the jail, and then Jimmy tearfully begs that he’ll do anything; for Chuck to just tell him what to do and he’ll do it. Even when Jimmy is trying to be good, Chuck holds that moment over his head. |
| 258 | ** He's been keeping Jimmy out of HHM because he doesn't want him succeeding as a lawyer. |
| 259 | ** At the end of Season 2, he reaches a new low, taking advantage of his brother's fear of hurting him to manipulate him into a [[EngineeredPublicConfession taped confession]] of his tampering with the Mesa Verde files. |
| 260 | * ManOfWealthAndTaste: Despite all the electricity taken out, he has a BigFancyHouse with art, a piano and records (that for obvious reasons rarely get played). Being told he’s actually broke doesn’t seem to get through to his brain, as HHM are more than willing to help him. |
| 261 | * MarriedToTheJob: Takes his work very seriously and didn't have much of a life outside it even before his EMS took hold. As Jimmy puts it in "Winner", "The guy never has any fun". |
| 262 | * MeanBoss: As an employer, Chuck isn't entirely unpleasant, but he can still be rather impatient and condescending, especially with Ernesto. Then he [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished punishes Ernesto for his good deeds]] and [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness fires him]]. Even Howard grows weary of how Chuck [[ItsAllAboutMe puts his own agenda]] before everyone else's interests, the final straw being when he decides to turn on Howard and sue him because Howard suggested he retire and become a ''partner emeritus''. |
| 263 | * MirrorCharacter: |
| 264 | ** Michael [=McKean=] has talked about how Chuck would ''like'' to love Jimmy, but feels he can't or shouldn't because of how he feels about himself. So as much as Chuck would hate to admit it, they're two sides of the same mentally ill coin. He's even a better ConMan when it comes to it than Jimmy is. Gets more pronounced later on [[https://www.tumblr.com/saulguzman/711171427984949248 as Jimmy]] loses himself more and more, gaining Saul Goodman as his very own space blanket, too scared to leave the house as Gene, and fully altering into Viktor St Claire in his relapse. Unlike Chuck however, Jimmy [[spoiler: gets better]]. |
| 265 | ** To Nacho. They both haunt this show and ''Series/BreakingBad'' after their deaths, but while Nacho is remembered through Mike and his father for his sacrifice, with a blue flower grown by where he died, Chuck leaves a burned down house and he's remembered by Jimmy, Howard and Kim for the cruel things he did to them. |
| 266 | ** To Walter White. Chuck is a ControlFreak who likes Jimmy best when Chuck is the one in the position of power like Walt prefers Jesse when Jesse needs him, they both feel like they've been made the ButtMonkey in life, have complicated relationships with their mothers (though in Chuck's case, it's resentment of Jimmy being her favorite whereas Walt was an only child), both have a lot of pride and believe they've been justified in everything, both start out in an upstanding position only to rot and show their true selves over the course of the series, and both love their wives intensely but also don't respect them enough to tell them the truth. Made explicit in "Saul Gone", with TheReveal that Jimmy saw them as mirrors too, and was such a mess over Chuck that he subconsciously found someone else who could hold his head down. The main difference between Chuck and Walter is that Walter gradually descended into being a repugnant crime lord, but eventually came to realize his evil and atone for what he did, whereas Chuck remains on the right side of the law, but never owns up to his mistakes. |
| 267 | ** To Hank Schrader. Chuck is Jimmy's brother and obviously represents the morally correct way of dealing with the law, much like how Hank is Walt's brother-in-law and represents the morally correct way of dealing with the drug world that Walter has entered into. But whereas Chuck was initially hailed as one of the best legal minds in Albuquerque before it's revealed that he's unlikable and distasteful in his adherence to the law, Hank is initially shown to be somewhat bigoted and insensitive at first, but gradually becomes more heroic and morally righteous surrounding his work with the DEA. Chuck is willing to sue his own brother and use the law in ways that are, although legal, immoral, and personally distasteful, whereas Hank is more passionate about fighting the good fight and even bends the rules at times just to resolve what he believes to be right. Whereas Hank's correctness leads him to be the heroic, popular family member who is looked up to by everyone, Chuck's correctness leads him to be a lonely, selfish man. It's Walter who's often envious of Hank and his position in the family, especially when his son looks up to him, whereas Chuck is the one who is envious of Jimmy, who he doesn't understand why he is more loved considering his own correctness. |
| 268 | *** They are also the UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom to the main characters, which causes them to become who they are. Hank offered to take Walter on a ride-along to a meth lab so they can do a drug bust, which causes Walt to make the decision to produce and sell crystal meth after meeting his former student Jesse Pinkman from the raid, whereas Chuck's envy to push Jimmy out of being a lawyer causes him to turn into Saul Goodman. But whereas Hank's actions were unintentional, Chuck's weren't, though this drove his brother further into being a con lawyer due to Chuck thinking Jimmy won't change. Hank also didn't know about Walt's empire until the end of ''Breaking Bad'', whereas Chuck knows what Jimmy was doing, [[spoiler:though he never lives long enough to meet Saul Goodman]]. |
| 269 | *** [[spoiler:Even their respective deaths have opposite effects on the series protagonists. Hank's death befalls him in the line of duty, complete with valiant last words, which causes Walt to snap out of his selfish "Heisenberg" persona and express genuine remorse for his actions, ultimately atoning for his wrongdoing in the finale. Conversely, Jimmy does not witness Chuck's death, arriving at the scene after he and his place are incinerated, and he then spends most of Season 4 refusing to grieve or even acknowledge Chuck's existence, only doing so when it helps his career. This culminates in "Winner", when Jimmy uses Chuck's letter to him as a prop to garner sympathy, playing up his loss, then showing no remorse behind closed doors]]. |
| 270 | * MoralityPet: Inverted. The original intent was for Chuck to be a helpless, weak, [[Literature/SherlockHolmes Mycroft Holmes]]-style shut-in kind of character, that Jimmy would look after in order to demonstrate for the audience that this wasn't Saul yet. [=McKean=] played the role with such a proud, domineering self-righteousness that they changed him to a Walter White parallel, who actually helped Jimmy move towards Saul through a lot of emotional damage. |
| 271 | * MoralityChain: It's clear that Jimmy's main reason for trying to be a good guy is because he doesn't want to let Chuck down. [[spoiler:The discovery that Chuck has been actively sabotaging his law career and refuses to see him as anything but Slippin' Jimmy the con artist is what makes Jimmy decide ThenLetMeBeEvil.]] |
| 272 | * MotiveDecay: Chuck’s motives for Jimmy seem to devolve from "Jimmy should stop getting in trouble" down to "Jimmy shouldn't work in HHM", "Jimmy shouldn't be a lawyer at all", and finally "Jimmy should have nothing and nobody besides me." |
| 273 | * MotiveRant: [[spoiler:A combination of Jimmy bringing his ex-wife into the courtroom, Jimmy publicly exposing his EHS as a delusion, and another attorney accidentally implying he's schizophrenic sends Chuck over the deep end in front of the bar association, launching into a rant that makes his hatred of (and vendetta against) Jimmy plain for all to see.]] |
| 274 | * MyGodWhatHaveIDone: |
| 275 | ** After telling Jimmy that he should just give up trying to be decent and that he never really mattered to him, he has a terrible breakdown, tearing his house apart and ending up killing himself. |
| 276 | ** In a flashback during "Saul Gone" (set a while before "Uno"), he actually tries to give some support to Jimmy after seeing how much he is doing for him without being asked. Jimmy rebuffs, not trusting him enough after too much damage has been done, and Chuck is lucid enough to feel regret at how he's treated his brother, if only for a moment. |
| 277 | ** He appears to feel genuinely bad on realising that Howard has drawn the millions required for the settlement over his wrongful dismissal from his own personal finances; the revelation certainly makes the smug attitude he had adopted over the matter slip. |
| 278 | * NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: In his case, while he inherited "Charles" from his father, his middle name makes it a nod to pioneering aviator Charles Lindbergh (Chuck Sr.'s middle name was "Willard"). |
| 279 | * {{Narcissist}}: Whether 'Team Chuck' likes it or not, he is this trope fair and square due to his Walter White-levels of {{Pride}} and ManipulativeBastard tendencies. |
| 280 | * NeverMyFault: Chuck has a serious problem admitting when he's messed up or is in the wrong about anything, always trying to blame the other person: |
| 281 | ** While Jimmy did do something shitty with Mesa Verde numbers swapping, Chuck considers him a sadist just out for humiliation, when Chuck tried to ruin Kim's career in the first place. Jimmy could at least apologise for his fuck up. |
| 282 | ** He fires Ernesto for telling Jimmy about the Mesa Verde tape despite the fact that Chuck ''intentionally manipulated him'' into doing that. Justified in that Chuck is [[TheChessmaster covering his tracks]]. |
| 283 | ** When he smacks Rebecca's phone out of her hand, instead of admitting this was due to his condition, he blames her for being 'rude' by answering a call during dinner. |
| 284 | ** When the Mesa Verde address mix-up scheme happens, his first impulse is to say "No, my client is wrong, I'm right" before even doing a double-check on the numbers. Sure, the address really was tampered with, but if any other clerical error had happened, he'd probably have thrown his client under the bus on that too. |
| 285 | ** Jimmy’s apology in “Lantern” isn’t exactly fantastic, a little backhanded and generalized, but he is sincerely trying to take responsibility and make amends and provides an option for Chuck to admit he hasn’t been a completely innocent victim either, and Chuck makes the choice of telling his brother he’s worthless and should give up feeling remorse. |
| 286 | ** He thinks it's entirely Jimmy's fault that he acted out so much as a child and teenager. While Jimmy obviously has his own agency and Chuck is biased from his parents getting him to sort his brother out, the "Lantern" flashback shows Jimmy UsedToBeASweetKid and Chuck got annoyed with him easily even then. Gilligan confirmed himself that Jimmy has always been a bit of a product of Chuck's lack of love. |
| 287 | * NiceJobBreakingItHero: |
| 288 | ** Chuck's continued campaign of [[spoiler:betraying Jimmy forms one of the reasons, if not ''the'' primary one, he'll end up becoming Saul Goodman.]] |
| 289 | ** Chuck betraying [[spoiler:Jimmy]]'s trust and manipulating his emotions in the Mesa Verde saga seems to be [[spoiler:a tipping point for Jimmy, leading him to become more ruthless and cynical in getting what he wants.]] |
| 290 | ** In season one, Jimmy tries to get Chuck to force HHM to buy him out, and separately to approve of Jimmy as a lawyer. Chuck, for his part, is more in love with his idealized view of the law in general, and his life's work with HHM in specific, to ever let Jimmy touch either. By the end of season three, and largely by his own petty jealousies, [[spoiler:Chuck has sabotaged any future he has in law, has brought HHM to the brink of destruction, all the while ensuring Jimmy has no recourse but to be the kind of lawyer Chuck said he'd be.]] |
| 291 | ** Chuck's disastrous bar hearing also sets a chain of events which leads to [[spoiler:Jimmy taking up cartel clients, Lalo killing Howard due to being at the wrong place at the wrong time, the collapse of HHM and Kim's DespairEventHorizon after the fallout of the above events.]] |
| 292 | ** His constant digging into Jimmy's self esteem is the main reason why Jimmy as Saul seeks out, is attracted to, and debases himself for Walter White's "love", so used to an older, smarter man degrading him anyway. |
| 293 | * NiceJobFixingItVillain: Trying to get Kim on his side, and repaying the favour of thinking Jimmy ruined his marriage, he tells her about baby Jimmy StealingFromTheTill. What he doesn't know is that Kim has a history of shoplifting, and no advocate in her parents, so she sees through his powerplay/attempt at isolation, it just makes her relate more to her boyfriend and they get back together in the next episode. |
| 294 | * NiceToTheWaiter: Inverted; he treats Ernesto like an errand boy and can be quite patronizing of people subservient to him. Those scenes happen after he reveals his pride and envy issues. |
| 295 | * NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: A strong argument in favor of 'Team Chuck' would be that Jimmy has failed to completely throw away his conman ways even though Chuck pulled strings to get Jimmy out of prison for the 'Chicago sunroof incident'. The Sandpiper Commercial as well as the 'Fire Me' plan all but confirm this, along with the Mesa Verde scam which was the main trigger for Chuck using the 'confession tape' plan. Subverted in that Jimmy did clean up his act working in the mail room and it's only after Chuck's bad deeds that Jimmy reverted back to his conman ways. |
| 296 | * NotHelpingYourCase: It is a genuine NotMeThisTime with Howard putting Kim in Doc Review, but it doesn't help that he has to snidely point out that if Howard were his puppet he wouldn't recommend Jimmy to Davis & Main, and everything that happened in season one. A few episodes later he grabs Mesa Verde away from Kim because he thinks he needs to save her from Jimmy's influence. This is a recurring problem for Chuck: [[JerkassHasAPoint he often has legitimately good points or arguments]] but his condescending attitude and petty dickery undermine any possibility of people listening to him. |
| 297 | * NotMeThisTime: Contrary to what Jimmy insists in 'Gloves Off', Howard is behind Kim being sent to Doc Review, not Chuck. Granted Chuck did push Howard asking him what he'll do about it but Howard decided the punishment. |
| 298 | * NoTrueScotsman: Chuck explicitly insists that Jimmy isn't a ''real'' lawyer due his unsavoury past and the means he used to acquire his law degree (though it's more likely that acknowledging Jimmy as a fellow lawyer would make Chuck unable to feel superior, which he finds unconscionable). As such, Chuck repeatedly works to quash any opportunities Jimmy might get to advance in the law world, and attempts to get him disbarred. |
| 299 | * NotSoAboveItAll: |
| 300 | ** Jimmy is TheMovieBuff of the two, but when he makes an ''Film/ErinBrockovich'' reference, Chuck easily rejoins. |
| 301 | ** After Jimmy visits him and his wife and tells a bunch of lawyer jokes during a flashback together, Chuck himself gives a pretty good self-deprecative zinger when he and his wife are reading in bed together. |
| 302 | ** During Jimmy's celebratory karaoke event for passing the bar, Chuck is initially reluctant to join him in singing "The Winner Takes it All" by Music/{{ABBA}}, but eventually starts getting into it, to the point where he snatches the mic from his brother and starts belting out the words himself. |
| 303 | * NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist: He insists that his actions are because he cares about the law, wants to prevent Jimmy from abusing it and that he's really looking out for Jimmy. It's obvious to everyone else that it's really his pride and refusal to share a profession with the brother he sees as a useless fuck-up, as well as his own seething resentment at decades of perceived mistreatment and seeing Jimmy be more popular due to his charm. |
| 304 | * NoSocialSkills: A downplayed and realistic version. Chuck is undeniably a brilliant and talented man and, as a successful and well-respected lawyer, clearly has more than a little in the way of persuasive ability and communication skills. However, overall he is clearly somewhat lacking in social intelligence and the kind of silver-tongued charisma his colleagues and Jimmy possess. While he's capable of getting by in most personal interactions, has managed to earn the respect and even affection of his colleagues regardless, and has the ability to persuade, influence and even dominate, charm is clearly not his main strength, and what he particularly lacks is the ability to ''dazzle''. This is in stark contrast to both his brother Jimmy and his law partner Howard, the former of whom especially is able to effortlessly charm just about anyone he meets; consider how Chuck and Howard work as a double-act in "Fifi" to convince Mesa Verde to come back to HMM, or when Jimmy meets Rebecca and instantly wins her over with his sense of humor while Chuck's later attempts to make her laugh fall flat. And it's clear that this rankles Chuck, [[GreenEyedMonster especially when it comes to Jimmy]], and feeds into his insecurities and resentments; while others who have his formidable intellect, impressive list of accomplishments and public regard might simply accept and brush off a comparative lack of charisma as a fairly minor aspect of their personality and compensate by focusing on their other strengths, the fact that others, ''especially'' his 'worthless' younger brother, are capable of doing something he lacks the ability to do clearly eats away at Chuck. |
| 305 | * ObliviouslyEvil: No matter what Chuck does and how horribly he acts, he always thinks of himself as morally in the right, believing his supposed good intentions and character, especially compared to Jimmy, make him the hero by default and someone whose actions are at worst [[CruelToBeKind harsh but necessary]] for Jimmy. Even in the end, he still can't fully bring himself to own up to how far he has fallen, how badly he treated everyone around him, and how much he betrayed the spirit of the law he claimed to want to protect. |
| 306 | * ObliviousToTheirOwnDescription: When he hears that Kim has gone into private practice with Jimmy, he automatically assumes that Jimmy is controlling and dominating her. Jimmy might be very good at manipulating, but the controlling/dominating bit is all Chuck's department. |
| 307 | * OffendedByAnInferiorsSuccess: Chuck is disgusted at the idea of his screwup younger brother actually being a lawyer and while he begrudgingly accepts that he can't stop Jimmy from being one, at first anyway, he does his best to limit him to small-time public defense work that barely covers Jimmy's living expenses, much less the added burden of having to take care of Chuck later. Chuck would rather live in poverty than accept his brother having a respectable law career. |
| 308 | * OmnidisciplinaryLawyer: Chuck, when he's on his game, can slide from criminal law to civil litigation to wills and estates to banking law without skipping a beat. And he's equally TheAce in any area of the law, even allowing for the Mesa Verde mixup because Jimmy deliberately sabotaged him on that point. We learn that he was a ChildProdigy who graduated from high school as class valedictorian at age 14, and has been a trailblazer in legal practice from a very young age onwards. So the series makes a point of showing that he really is that much of a genius who can demonstrate expertise in almost every area of the law. Almost every other lawyer in the show is more realistic in that they stay within their career specialties, with the possible of exception of Kim who's own intellect possibly approaches Chuck's. Even Jimmy, who himself is no slouch, needs some time and learning, along with some guidance from Chuck, to transition from criminal defense work to elder law and back to criminal law over the course of his story. |
| 309 | * ParentalSubstitute: Michael [=McKean=] believes that Ruth got Chuck to be the "surrogate parent" of Jimmy and passed on the responsibility to go and save him if he ever got in trouble, and that contributed to his resentment and only feeling better if he has some power over his brother. |
| 310 | * PassiveAggressiveKombat: Even lying in a hospital bed, he can't seem to stop insulting his brother's intelligence every five minutes. Flashbacks show that while he really does want to love Jimmy, their dynamic has always been like this, Jimmy hurt but mostly taking it because he thinks Chuck has his best interests at heart. Starting season two he also manages to be cruel to Jimmy ''and'' Kim in the same sentence, acting like Jimmy ruined her to her face, and criticizing her judgment because she believes in his brother. |
| 311 | * ThePerfectionist: As Gould talks about on the Nailed Insider Podcast, Jimmy doesn't really understand his brother, and had no idea how much Chuck would be shaken at his brain (apparently) not operating at perfect efficiency. |
| 312 | * PetTheDog: |
| 313 | ** At first, Chuck isn't completely selfish regarding Jimmy's help, insisting that Jimmy shouldn't pay out of pocket for getting Chuck's favorite newspaper and reimbursing him for it. |
| 314 | ** He actually listens to Jimmy when he first brings up the Sandpiper case and helps him start it, compliments him on finding it, works through the night after Jimmy falls asleep, and crafts a deal whereby Jimmy would get a consul's fee and ultimately over $1.16 million from his 20% share of the common fund.[[note]]In a period piece set in 2002; that's $2 million in 2023, enough to set Jimmy comfortably for life with some basic investing. As Kim says later, he's essentially getting all the money and none of the risk he'd get from working on it.[[/note]] ''[[DownplayedTrope But]]'' he still doesn't want Jimmy actually working on the case and is too spineless to tell him that directly, leading to a lot of problems. It's consistent with his character whereby he really does want his brother to do well but only so long as he can control his path and keep him away from things Chuck deems too important. |
| 315 | ** Takes a neighbor's newspaper and leaves five dollars, even making sure the wind doesn't blow it away by placing a stone on top of it. |
| 316 | ** Seems to do this for [[spoiler:Jimmy in Season 3, by suddenly suggesting that Kyra Hay offers his brother a deal in which he can avoid jail in exchange for confessing to the charges and throwing himself at the mercy of the state bar association. Subverted in that it's hinted that he's doing this for selfish motives (he doesn't want to die alone as Jimmy predicted) instead of any epiphany]]. |
| 317 | ** He gets Howard to let Kim out of Doc Review. |
| 318 | ** His [[spoiler:obituary]] reveals that he was a founder of the Southwest Coalition for Better Schools and the Native People's Education Counsel (presumably organizations to improve schools and help Native American children get good educations, respectively), and contributed significant funds to both. [[spoiler:He also leaves a large endowment for youth scholarships in his will.]] |
| 319 | ** In sharp contrast to how he was in the show's main timeline, a pre-series flashback in "Saul Gone" has him bemused that Jimmy is going to so much effort to care for him, and realizing the disconnect between that and thinking his brother can never change, tries to reach out. Jimmy rejects it, unable to trust him, and Chuck is clearly regretful. |
| 320 | * PleaseDontLeaveMe: For all the abuse he inflicts on Jimmy and admitting to his open resentment, Chuck also needs him around more than he'd like to admit, although his motive is less brotherly love and more having a punching bag and someone to look down on, and his treatment of Jimmy is an effort to keep him around and always looking for Chuck's approval, keeping him just broken enough to stay around and believing he can still get the love he desperately wants if he just does what Chuck wants. |
| 321 | * PoorCommunicationKills: Chuck is absolutely terrible at expressing his emotions and being open with those close to him and it ends up seriously damaging or outright destroying his relationships with all of them. If he'd ever been able to talk to Jimmy honestly and express his concerns about Jimmy's behavior as a lawyer rather than trying to control him from behind the scenes, been able to admit fault and take responsibility openly or simply learned how to be more affectionate with him, much of the problems of the show could have been avoided or at least considerably lessened. |
| 322 | * PosthumousCharacter: Chuck still appears in flashbacks after his [[spoiler: death in the Season 3 finale.]] |
| 323 | * PracticallyDifferentGenerations: Chuck is 16 years his brother's senior, similar to the fourteen year age gap between their actors. Besides the ParentalSubstitute bend this gives to their dynamic, it also played a major part in shaping their respective opinions about their father and, by extension, the value of hard work and honesty. Chuck grew up watching their father achieve his dream of owning his own business through his discipline and integrity whereas Jimmy grew up watching their father run said business into the ground by falling for every sob story that passed the register. The age gap also played a part in Chuck's resentment towards Jimmy who he saw as stealing the attention and love he had earned and deeply resented being forced to act as a third parent to him, showing Jimmy never had much chance of winning Chuck over. |
| 324 | * PresentAbsence: Especially after his death, Chuck takes up residence in Jimmy’s, Kim’s and Howard’s brains. Kim has to deal with the after-affects of the emotional damage he did (along with his similarities to her abusive mother), and Jimmy and Howard are battling all sorts of guilt, anger, resentment and misery of never getting his approval that they craved. In a CerebusRetcon, he’s also in ''Series/BreakingBad'' too, and Saul more than noticed Walt’s mirrors with his brother. |
| 325 | * PrematurelyGreyHaired: Chuck looks considerably older than Jimmy, even considering their large age gap. The flashback in "Piñata" shows that he was already grey-haired by the time Jimmy was working in the mailroom at HHM. It has been suggested that this is a result of his [[MarriedToTheJob dedication to his work]] and the ensuing stress. |
| 326 | * {{Pride}}: Chuck has been actively undermining Jimmy's attempt at being a respected lawyer, believing that Jimmy simply doesn't deserve to be one considering all the work he's put himself through. In fact, Chuck is so concerned with not looking foolish in public that he leaves his protective "space blanket" in the car when he goes to confront the clerk at the photocopy center where Jimmy did his forgeries. In the Season 3 finale, [[spoiler:he commits suicide by burning to death, presumably to make it look like an accident. Since he had no reason to be concerned about life insurance payouts, his only reason would be a concern for his legacy. He'd rather suffer an excruciating death by fire than have everyone know that the great Charles [=McGill=] took "the coward's way out".]] |
| 327 | * PromotionToParent: Something that caused much grief, as the [=McGill=] parents wanted easy children, and handed Jimmy over to Chuck to sort out. |
| 328 | * PureIsNotGood: Chuck believes in the sanctity of law and that if used right, can help people out of several predicaments they might find themselves through no fault of their own. Chuck is also honorable in terms of refusing to sink down to outright illegal means to achieve something and will work hard for his client if push comes to shove. In terms of his history as a law entity, one would think Chuck to be nothing more than a respectable, caring individual whose biggest {{pride}} is to do a job the right way. However, since Chuck has a very clear-cut definition of what's right and wrong, he can often have a very different opinion when it comes to what's right ''for him'' and what's right for other people to do ''according to him''. His sense of righteousness can reach such high standards that anything short is unforgivable and lacking in work ethic. Doing the right thing makes him think he can't do wrong as long as he keeps heading on toward what he believes to be the correct choice. And since he's often lavished and rarely makes a mistake in court, Chuck often buys into his own propaganda and plays the role while being flexible when it comes to personal matters. Last, Chuck is an honest attorney, but a very petty person. |
| 329 | * PyrrhicVictory: Tricking his brother into admitting [[spoiler:his forgery regarding Mesa Verde leads to Chuck getting publicly humiliated in a bar hearing and kicked out of HHM due to Howard no longer deeming him trustworthy, leading to his suicide.]] |
| 330 | [[/folder]] |
| 331 | [[folder:R-Y]] |
| 332 | * RageBreakingPoint: After having it proven without a doubt that his disease is a mental one, the hypothetical possibility that he might be schizophrenic proves too much to him and makes him scream "I am not crazy!" He proceeds to go on an angry rant regarding Jimmy's past deeds right there on the stand, bringing up transgressions all the way back to the age of 9; by the end, he's almost ''weeping'' with rage. |
| 333 | --> "And ''he'' gets to be a lawyer?! What a sick joke! I should've stopped him when I had the chance!!" |
| 334 | * TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: |
| 335 | ** To Jimmy at the end of Season 1. |
| 336 | --->'''Chuck''': You're not a real lawyer! "University of American Samoa," for Christ's sake? An online course? What a joke. I worked my ass off to get where I am, and you take these shortcuts and you think suddenly you're my ''peer''? You do what I do because you're funny and you can make people ''laugh''? I committed my ''life'' to this! You don't slide into it like a cheap pair of slippers and then reap all the rewards!...I ''know'' you. I know what you were, what you are. People don't change. You're "Slippin' Jimmy." And "Slippin' Jimmy" I can handle just fine, but "Slippin' Jimmy" with a law degree is like a chimp with a machine gun. |
| 337 | ** And again, at the end of Season 3, [[spoiler:as literally the last thing he ever says to his brother]]. |
| 338 | --->'''Chuck''': Jimmy, this is what you do. You hurt people over and over and over and then there's this show of remorse. I know you don't think it's a show, I don't doubt your emotions are real, but what's the point of all the sad faces and the gnashing of teeth? If you're not going to change your behavior, and you won't, why not just skip the whole exercise? In the end, you're going to hurt everyone around you. You can't help it. So stop apologizing and accept it, embrace it. Frankly, I'd have more respect for you if you did. |
| 339 | * ReluctantPsycho: To the point where he doesn't even want to believe he's mentally ill, a BerserkButton of his is simply just suggesting that he might be, and his wanting to believe that being TheShutIn is just a minor setback. |
| 340 | * TheResenter: One of Chuck's defining character traits, however much he refuses to admit it. He is deeply resentful of how Jimmy has skated through life doing little but is still loved by everyone due to his charisma while Chuck, a hard-working and highly respected attorney, feels he has never gotten the same affection. Even something as minor as Jimmy making Rebecca laugh while Chuck can't pisses him off. This reaches its head when he takes the stand against Jimmy and basically admits he's still bitter about how Jimmy was always looked on favorably by their parents, who refused to hear a bad word against him no matter what he did. For all his insistence that his campaign against Jimmy is borne from brotherly love and a concern for the sanctity of the law, it's clearly much more about Chuck's decades of building anger at his perceived mistreatment. |
| 341 | * {{Retirony}}: [[spoiler: Played with, technically he retired (albeit against his will) at the beginning of "Lantern" but he dies within 48 hours after his retirement was announced.]] |
| 342 | * RevengeBeforeReason: Although Chuck is a clever man regarding the law, Jimmy, accurately, argues that [[BullyingADragon Chuck's vendetta against him]] will ultimately be self-destructive as he will deprive himself of a career and eventually die of electromagnetic seizures, alone. Jimmy would have probably gotten himself disbarred without help because of his ethics, yet Chuck's insistence on testifying against and harping on him not only let Jimmy stay a lawyer but also decayed a lot of Jimmy's morals and destroyed their relationship for good, turning him from selfish but well-meaning Jimmy McGill to the utterly amoral Saul Goodman. |
| 343 | * RightForTheWrongReasons: A major part of his character is that much of what Chuck says or assumes is correct but he is either acting out of far less noble motivations that he claims or he has some of the facts right but draws the wrong conclusions due to his biases: |
| 344 | ** This screws him over something fierce in season 3; he correctly realizes that Jimmy tampered with the documents, but he came to that conclusion, not through logic or evidence, but because ''he'' would never make an error, [[NeverMyFault so obviously it must be Jimmy's fault.]] This is why Jimmy is able to frame Chuck's accusation as the conspiratorial paranoia of a mentally disturbed man with an inflated ego--because even though Chuck is right, he would have reached exactly the same conclusions if he were wrong. |
| 345 | ** This applies to his campaign against Jimmy becoming a lawyer in general. He's absolutely right that he could end up doing serious damage and, as [[Series/BreakingBad we see later]], that's exactly what Jimmy does as Saul Goodman. But it's made abundantly clear that Chuck's behavior is more motivated by his disgust at the idea of his screwup younger brother being successful and his own ego and insecurity issues than any real concern for the law. Furthermore, Chuck's claims about the danger Jimmy poses as a lawyer are largely a SelfFulfillingProphecy borne of Chuck's own efforts to sabotage him [[note]]Bob Odenkirk confirmed that Saul is so amoral because he wants to spite Chuck[[/note]], and they could have been averted or at least significantly reduced had Jimmy just been given some encouragement and positive reinforcement. |
| 346 | ** "Jimmy can't help himself, and everyone else is left picking up the pieces." While it’s true that Jimmy is impulsive and makes plenty of choices that screw him and everyone else over, Chuck needs to believe for his own sake that his brother is just passively awful. There’s always a reason why Jimmy does what he does, whether it’s pettiness or wanting to make someone happy or greed or doubling down on a bad choice because he thinks it will help in the long run. Chuck especially doesn't want to consider that any of Jimmy's actions might be a response to his own mistreatment. |
| 347 | ** He gets worried for valid reasons about the hospital bill in "Mijo", assuming it’s the return of Slippin' Jimmy. The reality is a bit more complicated, but it's not exactly like Jimmy can say he tried a scam that got him kidnapped by the cartel but saved two lives. |
| 348 | ** Chuck blames Jimmy for their father going out of business and dying shortly after due to his regularly [[StealingFromTheTill stealing small amounts of cash from the till]]. While Jimmy was stealing small amounts over the years, Chuck ignores or is presumably unaware of how their dad was also far too trusting and gave money and groceries away freely to anyone who claimed to need it, making himself an easy mark for grifters, which played a huge role in his failure. |
| 349 | ** His pushing Jimmy into being a public defender and later trying to limit him to small-time elder law is just because he doesn't want his fuck-up younger brother achieving any actual success, reasoning that if he can't stop him from being a lawyer as Chuck would like, he can at least keep Jimmy from ever getting into a position of considerable success or respectability. That said, Jimmy's time in the former does sharpen his skills considerably, and his easy charisma makes him both able to form bonds of trust with his clientele and makes him a natural as a trial lawyer. His experience as working in elder law, conversely, demonstrates that he has a genuine talent and empathy for working with the elderly, and he is generally much better suited to one-on-one relationships and acting independently rather than working in an environment like HHM, making a small one-man firm handling individual legal matters a perfect position for him to thrive in (as, indeed, Saul Goodman later demonstrates, albeit in a much darker fashion). Had Chuck genuinely encouraged Jimmy's skills in those areas rather than simply using them to try and cut him off from any success entirely, things might have been different. |
| 350 | * RightlySelfRighteous: He always claims he's doing these things for Jimmy's own good, and of course he's right that his brother will at some point [[Series/BreakingBad destroy himself]] [[spoiler: though he decides to prove Chuck wrong in the end]], with Howard and Rebecca believing he had the correct opinion, but he doesn't seem to understand that he's contributing to said self destruction. According to [=McKean=], it’s only in a few quiet moments that Chuck can admit he actually ''wants'' Jimmy to be ruined and have nothing. |
| 351 | * SacrificedBasicSkillForAwesomeTraining: Chuck was a teen prodigy who graduated high school at only fourteen and went on to impressive colleges, making him a brilliant lawyer but coming at the cost of him never developing much in the way of social intelligence or learning to deal with others. The former feeds into his envy of others who do have such skills, mainly Jimmy, while the latter has led him to not be able to fully understand how he treats others and why they'd be offended at his behavior, being genuinely confused at Jimmy's resistance to Chuck's controlling tendencies and later at Howard's sense of betrayal over Chuck's mistreatment, and undermines the occasions when he has legitimately good points due to not knowing or simply not caring how much of a snide dick he's being. |
| 352 | * SecretKeeper: Never tells Jimmy what their mom's last words were, as he needs some power and would rather die himself than let his brother know. That and he's pissed off that her last words were asking for Jimmy, which was just the cherry on top of his resentment sundae. |
| 353 | * SelfFulfillingProphecy: This is much of the tragedy of his relationship with Jimmy. Chuck believes that Jimmy can only ever be a crook and a conman, and doesn't deserve to be a respected lawyer. Because of this, he also goes out of his way to sabotage Jimmy and ensure that he has essentially no good routes to that position... which ensures that Jimmy pursues the ''bad'' routes, pushing him further and further into being a crook and a conman. |
| 354 | -->'''[[https://ew.com/tv/better-call-saul-finale-cover-story/ McKean]]''': He was right about a lot of things, but you don't go around planting dynamite under the people you're trying to help, and that's what happened. There was a time in his quiet moments when Chuck thought, 'Well, if he can break all the rules and screw with people, maybe that's how I'll get to him. Maybe I'll find a way to make him destroy himself.' |
| 355 | * SelfServingMemory: It runs in the family, as he tells the prosecutor in "Sunk Costs" that he and his brother had a "falling out", neglecting to mention that this was because he told Jimmy he'd never be a real lawyer. He also tells Kim he's only ever tried to look out for Jimmy when not even he truly believes that one. "Saul Gone" thirdly reveals that when Jimmy was first running around doing everything for Chuck, Chuck realized maybe his brother had changed, so tried to make amends but wasn't trusted thanks to a lot of damage, and went back to his usual refrain. |
| 356 | * ShippingTorpedo: Using Jimmy as an excuse to ruin his marriage, and wanting his brother to be alone and controlled, Chuck tries multiple times in season two to get Kim onto his side. [[JerkassHasAPoint He may be right that Jimmy did steal and tamper with the documents]], but Kim always sees the bias and doesn't fall for it. |
| 357 | * ShooTheDog: He doesn’t mean it at all, but Chuck already takes any sort of pride in having the upper hand over Jimmy, and is breaking down anyway, so sends him off with what he knew would destroy his brother who DesperatelyCravesAffection, just so Jimmy will never come near him again. The words affect everything Jimmy does after, from pretending he doesn’t care about Chuck’s suicide to pissing off Kim again and again because he thinks he means nothing to her. |
| 358 | * TheShutIn: In season 1, when his condition was at its worst. He would get around to keeping himself busy by catching up with work or simply playing music. Worse, his intolerance for electricity would be crippling in every way: long enough and he would pass out. This causes some major issues: since he can't go outside, Jimmy has to bring him groceries ''and'' provide for the bills; he ''won't'' quit [=HHM=], so he keeps receiving a rather measly paycheck; and he won't tell anyone other than the brother of his condition, so he's left to his own devices. There's also the tasering incident when he went outside with the "space blanket" for the newspaper and [[spoiler: the "not telling [=HHM=]'s insurance provider of his condition".]] |
| 359 | * SiblingYinYang: With Jimmy for much of their lives. Chuck is intelligent, hard-working, and admired by his colleagues but lacks social skills and charisma. Jimmy is a hustler who has no interest in finding steady work and operates well below his capabilities but is liked by people all the same for his charm and friendly, laid-back nature. Chuck is very attached to such a narrative and insists on holding on to it to protect his all-important pride. In the series, the contrast still stands. Jimmy knows exactly what kind of person he is while Chuck is heavily in denial and still sees himself as the noble, virtuous son. It's heavily implied that Chuck has based much of his own self-image around this and that's a big part of why he's so desperate to avoid seeing Jimmy succeed. [[spoiler: The finale noticeably has Jimmy take full responsibility for his many crimes and keep a happy marriage to Kim even while in prison while Chuck refuses to ever do so before taking his own life, having pushed away everyone who cared for him.]] |
| 360 | * SmartPeopleKnowLatin: He corrects Jimmy for using a wrong Latin term while discussing a case. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]]: as a lawyer, Chuck would be expected to frequently use Latin terms. |
| 361 | * SmugSnake: Whenever Chuck has or thinks he has an advantage over Jimmy or sees Jimmy fuck up, expect him to bring it up in the smuggest manner possible, to the point that watching Jimmy wipe said smug look off his face is immensely satisfying, such as coldly pointing out how Chuck's efforts to send Jimmy to jail mean Chuck will have no one to look after him or when Chuck believes he's seen through Jimmy's scam in "Chicanery", only to be caught out by Jimmy's actual plan. |
| 362 | * SoreLoser: In direct contrast to his complaining that Jimmy takes shortcuts and slides into a lawyer career, his first impression is that Jimmy must have worked so hard and should have come to Chuck for help. He's speechless when Jimmy says he didn’t want to bother him, and has to be prompted for a SoProudOfYou. |
| 363 | * SoProudOfYou: As {{foreshadowing}} in "Rico", he has to be prompted by Jimmy to say he's proud of him. He admits that he ''was'' proud when Jimmy got his mailroom job, just... wanted him to stay there and know his place. |
| 364 | * StealthPun: |
| 365 | ** As the character the most involved in {{Gaslighting}}, from the delivering and receiving end of it, he also happens to be the one most involved with gas-powered stoves and lanterns thanks to his perceived "EHS". [[ShoutOut It's no coincidence]] given what the term's [[Film/{{Gaslight}} namesake]] entails. |
| 366 | ** Chuck's Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity really began around the time Jimmy told him he passed the Bar Exam. With all the lack of faith, he has in his brother, and his EHS being a manifestation of "something deeper" according to Dr. Cruz, Chuck's delusion boils down to him being ''shocked beyond belief''. |
| 367 | * StepfordSmiler: He has an outburst in the pilot that suggests he wants to pretend none of this illness ever happened and he'll go back to work, and more generally really wants to believe that Jimmy is the HairTriggerTemper fuck up and he has nothing mentally wrong with him. |
| 368 | * StubbornMule: After a brief moment of thinking people can actually change, and telling Jimmy that it's not too late to change paths if he doesn't like where he's going, Jimmy is quick to remind him that he usually thinks the opposite. |
| 369 | * SugaryMalice: How he delivers telling his brother that he never mattered to him. He says it in a reassuring tone, begins with "I don't want to hurt your feelings", and purposefully gives the touch that Jimmy craves [[note]]as Gould himself said that no matter what, Jimmy just wants to be held by Chuck and told he's okay[[note]]. Ultimately it proves too malicious for even Chuck. |
| 370 | * TakingAdvantageOfGenerosity: Whether he does it consciously or not, both Jimmy and Howard feel indebted to Chuck for various reasons, and he'll use them as essentially errand boys he can control. |
| 371 | * TakingYouWithMe: Chuck intends to do this to [[spoiler: HHM as of "Fall"]], when [[spoiler: Howard tells him it might be best for Chuck to retire.]] |
| 372 | * TautologicalTemplar: As far as Chuck is concerned, any action he takes, no matter how unethical, petty, or downright cruel, is acceptable because he is, in his own mind, a morally upright person who is trying to protect the sanctity of the law from someone like his con artist younger brother and he refuses to think any further on the subject. The idea that he might be in the wrong or motivated by [[GreenEyedMonster less than noble]] impulses is genuinely unfathomable to him. |
| 373 | * ThenLetMeBeEvil: Chuck did briefly consider that Jimmy might be sincere in his desire to change and tried to extend an olive branch but was rebuffed due to a history of passive aggressive behavior and disapproval and abandoned the notion. This is a less sympathetic version of this trope than usual as it shows that rather than realize he needed to make more of an effort and give Jimmy time to come around after years of mistreatment, Chuck gave up almost instantly and returned to his former behavior, blaming Jimmy and concluding that his initial assessment was right all along. |
| 374 | * TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou: Chuck [[https://ew.com/tv/better-call-saul-finale-cover-story thinks]] that if Jimmy could manipulate and mess around with everyone (and not just with doing something illegal, he also assumes Jimmy has manipulated his parents from childhood) then he can do the same back and make his brother destroy himself. |
| 375 | * TherapyIsForTheWeak: [[JustifiedTrope Chuck is so self-assured]] ''and'' [[AppealToAuthority backed by the respect his reputation commands from his peers]], he comes to believe Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity is a real condition and something he has, letting him he believe he doesn't need treatment for any psychological problems. By Season 3, [[spoiler:it's subverted when he's forced to realize it's fake, seeking treatment after freaking out in court. Then tragically DoubleSubverted as he relapses, canceling future appointments]]. |
| 376 | * ThereAreNoTherapists: |
| 377 | ** DoubleSubverted. When he gets hospitalized, Dr. Cruz explains to Jimmy that he believes he has "EHS" to substitute a manifestation of inner turmoil and requests that he get psychiatric treatment, even institutionalization if necessary. Jimmy vehemently refuses, and it's also the last thing [[SlaveToPR Howard and the partners at HHM want]]. [[JustifiedTrope Not helping]] is [[AppealToAuthority his high reputation for his intellect as a lawyer]], as it means everyone other than the doctors takes him at his word when he says his allergy is real. |
| 378 | ** Eventually Zigzagged in Season 3. Chuck fefies this by seeking Dr. Cruz's help in treating it and undergoes treatment to get over his delusion, yet still doesn't have anyone to go to so he can recognize and address the root of said delusion and doesn't get any sort of mental diagnosis. [[spoiler:As a result, by the end of the season, he's pushed everyone away, and seemingly with them, the chance to properly reconcile with his personal grievances. He then cancels all his appointments with Dr. Cruz and relapses]]. |
| 379 | * ThousandYardStare: [[spoiler:His final moments have him sporting one of these, numb and ready to end it all.]] |
| 380 | * ToughLove: What he ''thinks'' he's doing with Jimmy, complaining at both Kim and his parents for giving his brother support when they shouldn't. While he has traces of a point a lot of the time, the metaphorical choke chain he has around Jimmy's neck and his open resentment of Jimmy in general just makes him worse. |
| 381 | * TookALevelInJerkass: Once his true colors have been revealed, he seems to be openly trying to sabotage Jimmy's new job at Davis and Main. He even shows up to joint meetings between them and HHM, seemingly just to mess with Jimmy. He is also really haughty toward Ernesto and Mesa Verde. |
| 382 | ** He sinks to new lows by the end of Season 2, when he becomes willing to exploit Jimmy's concern for his well-being in order to make him confess to the Mesa Verde forgeries. |
| 383 | ** For season one and the first half of season 2, he made his peace that Jimmy is a lawyer as long as it is small cases or elderly law outside his firm (he even refused Jimmy's deal to have him stop practicing law if he brought back Kim out of the archive room because it would be blackmailing), when he believed Jimmy is working with Kim he goes out of his way to take back Mesa Verde from her even though she did all the work to get them for HHM and scared the hell out of Howard and Ernesto when his condition kicked in. Then when he is rightfully convinced his brother forged his documents he tries every gray area he can find to make sure Jimmy is disbarred and takes pleasure from it. |
| 384 | ** The second half of season 3 has Chuck at his worst due to his pride. Not only does he push Jimmy out of his life for good, but he also holds HHM hostage when Howard makes the suggestion that he should retire after his courtroom debacle. |
| 385 | ** As seen in the “Saul Gone” flashback, while he's always been a BigBrotherBully to Jimmy (and even in that, he regrets what he's done but Jimmy rejects an attempt at making amends, not trusting him), he watches Jimmy running around being a good housewife, wanting to do this every day while trying to start his own practice, and thinks maybe he was wrong about his brother never changing. Fast forward to the pilot where he expects Jimmy to do even more for him, and "Klick" where he sees Jimmy running around trying to help and uses that love to take advantage and trap him again. |
| 386 | * TheoryTunnelVision: Seems to suffer from this. He believes Jimmy (or people in general) cannot change, so Jimmy becoming a better man cannot be genuine, meaning it's just another of his cons and Jimmy hasn't really changed. Chuck needs to justify his belief that he is better than his brother so his resentment for Jimmy would be justified, even if only in his head. |
| 387 | * ThisIsUnforgivable: "Don't think I'll ever forget what happened here today. You ''will'' pay." |
| 388 | * TinfoilHat: Well, the tinfoil-style, thermal blanket wearer and cell phone thrower (with tongs) variety, at least. As yet, no actual hat has turned up, except metaphorically. As his condition improves and he is more comfortable leaving the house, the blanket is made into a lining for his suit jacket. |
| 389 | * TragicVillain: Chuck refuses to believe that his illness is mental because that would mean he would have spent years in his house for nothing, can’t face the fact that Jimmy is more liked than he is so both tries to keep him under and drive him away (like [[MirrorCharacter Walter with Jesse]], only unlike Jesse, Jimmy can bite back much harder, and become much worse) and ends up [[spoiler:committing suicide, his career, reputation, and house in ruins.]] |
| 390 | * TroubledAbuser: Chuck treats everyone around him like crap, especially the people who look up to him the most, Howard and Jimmy. He even reminds Kim of her own mother, and his VillainousLegacy lasts through the whole show through to ''Series/BreakingBad'' [[note]]as one of the reasons Saul willingly debases himself for Walt is because Walt reminds him of Chuck[[/note]]. But it's never forgotten that he’s mentally ill and can't admit it, he’s a TragicVillain that Jimmy ends up destroying [[Recap/BetterCallSaulS3E7Expenses acting]], and he was made to be a ParentalSubstitute for a TroubledChild by his parents. |
| 391 | * TheUnapologetic: Fitting with his pride, Chuck has a serious issue apologizing to those he has mistreated. Even when Jimmy sincerely tries to take responsibility for how bad their relationship has become and reach out to him, Chuck dismisses him and refuses to admit to any wrongdoing, preferring to cut Jimmy out of his life entirely than swallow his pride. |
| 392 | * TheUnfavorite: Seems to make up a major component of Chuck's resentment of Jimmy. He sometimes mentions how Jimmy is "good with people", typically in a sarcastic tone of voice which does nothing to hide the envy. We see Jimmy having dinner with him and his wife in a flashback, in which he appears increasingly uncomfortable at how well the other two get along. He also tells Kim a story about how Jimmy stole money from their father's business, yet their father refused to hear a negative word against him. Again, there's a strong tone of bitterness there. Especially after it's revealed that the story about their father is partially untrue, as [[SuperGullible he was a virtual ATM for very obvious grifters]]. However while Jimmy is a fun person to hang out with, Chuck is the one people respect the most (and H.H.M.'s ovation when he reenters the office shows they love him too), but Chuck can only see how people laugh along with Jimmy, regardless. To add a cherry to the top of the resentment sundae, we find out in the Season 2 finale that Chuck and Jimmy's mother's last words were her repeatedly calling for Jimmy, even though Chuck was by her side and Jimmy wasn't. However, it's implied that Chuck's resentment of Jimmy has more to do with his own insecurities than anything else, since he's been a hardworking, law-abiding man his entire life while Jimmy has been an irresponsible schmoozer, [[LovableRogue and yet Jimmy is the one everybody enjoys.]] |
| 393 | -->'''Michael [=McKean=]''': That’s the worst crime of all. I made my mother very proud, but Jimmy made her laugh. That kills me. |
| 394 | * UngratefulBastard: Jimmy's been going above and beyond to help him survive despite his condition and is helping him slowly recover from his illness, [[spoiler:but he's determined to keep Jimmy a failure in the law profession simply because he doesn't believe that his brother has reformed, despite all evidence to the contrary]]. He even exploited Jimmy's sympathy for his condition ''right after he was released from the temporary guardianship emergency''. While Jimmy went too far and mistakenly assumed Chuck would get over the number swap, he was deeply regretful and just wanted to connect again, and Chuck just used him. |
| 395 | ** While Chuck is arguably justified in firing Ernesto — who has twice chosen his loyalty to Jimmy over his duty to Chuck — his dropping Ernesto like a rock with no explanation certainly makes Chuck one of these. |
| 396 | ** Despite HHM accommodating his condition for several years, Chuck threatens to [[spoiler:sue them to oblivion after Howard suggests he retire; a fair suggestion, given that his public blow-up at the Bar Association has made him a massive insurance liability]]. |
| 397 | ** DramaticIrony aversion in “Saul Gone”, as a pre-series flashback has him bemused that Jimmy is bringing him groceries every day while trying to start a legal practice, compared to the pilot where he complains he didn’t ask for help, but still expects both groceries and his brother to send papers off to be translated. |
| 398 | * UnreliableNarrator: His version of events is that baby Jimmy was a little nightmare that ruined his and his parents' lives for no real reason other than he was just born that way. While flashbacks show Jimmy as [[JerkassHasAPoint already petty and having issues like stealing]], they [[SelfServingMemory also show Chuck as an older teenager]] who looks after his sibling but quickly loses patience with him for small things, and Jimmy thinking he had to protect his dad from scam-artists. Word of everyone involved is Chuck definitely had something to do with Jimmy acting out in the first place, which fed into Chuck believing Jimmy was just a monster. |
| 399 | * UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Chuck intends his frequent manipulations against Jimmy to keep people safe, but his constant rejection instead ensured Jimmy views doing the right thing as a sucker's game. Had Chuck been supportive and respectful, Jimmy'd have been less likely to become Saul. [[spoiler:And because Jimmy becomes Saul, he comes into contact with the man who eventually kills Howard Hamlin and indirectly brings HHM, his life's work, to ruin.]] His treatment of Jimmy is also one of the biggest reasons why Saul Goodman runs into the arms of Walter White, subconciously wanting to recreate the relationship. |
| 400 | * VillainousBreakdown: Chuck responds poorly to having his EMS exposed as purely a product of his mind during Jimmy's cross-examination, resulting in losing his cool and ranting before the entire court about how his brother is irredeemable and how he should have stopped him when he had the chance. While all the crimes are true, it's coming from a warped and resentful place because Chuck has always felt like TheUnFavorite. |
| 401 | -->'''Chuck:''' I AM ''NOT'' CRAZY! ''[[[{{Pun}} chuckling]]]'' I am not crazy. I ''know'' he swapped those numbers. I knew it was 1216. One after Magna Carta. As if I could ''ever'' make such a mistake. Never. ''Never!'' I just, I just couldn't prove it. H-H-He covered his tracks. He got that idiot at the copy shop to lie for him.\ |
| 402 | '''Alley:''' Mr. [=McGill=], please. You don't have to go in--\ |
| 403 | '''Chuck:''' You think this is something? You think this is bad, this, this [[TitleDrop chicanery?]] He's done worse. [[Recap/BetterCallSaulS1E4Hero That billboard! Are you telling me that a man just happens to fall like that? No! He orchestrated it!]] Jimmy! He defecated through a sunroof! And I saved him, and I shouldn't have. I took him into my own firm. What was I thinking?! He'll never change. He'll ''never'' change! [[Recap/BetterCallSaulS2E5Rebecca Ever since he was 9, always been the same. Couldn't keep his hands out of the cash drawer. But not our Jimmy. Couldn't be precious Jimmy! Stealing them blind.]] And he gets to be a ''lawyer?!'' What a sick joke! ''[voice breaking]'' I should have stopped him when I had the chance! And you, you ''have'' to stop him! |
| 404 | ** The disastrous outcome of his testimony before the bar causes Chuck to hole himself up in the house and refuse to answer the door. Rebecca spends an hour knocking on the door, and Howard only compels Chuck to let him in when he says he won't leave until they've had a chance to talk. |
| 405 | * VillainousLegacy: It's clear that [[spoiler:his suicide and antics leading up to it have permanently changed the lives and mental states of Kim, Howard, and Jimmy for the worse. It gets a lot of focus in Season 4, where he is effectively a posthumous antagonist for Jimmy before he meets Lalo]]. |
| 406 | * VillainousUnderdog: Despite being a respected lawyer with a lot of sway in legal circles, Chuck is effectively handicapped and unwilling to break the law while Jimmy is neither. Chuck manages to be a threat to everyone around him by taking advantage of their love and trust for him. |
| 407 | * VillainyFreeVillain: While he did some morally dubious things, he technically never breaks the law while trying to end Jimmy's career. But that doesn't make him any mess of a jerkish antagonist. |
| 408 | * VillainRespect: Not that he sees himself as the villain, but he tells Jimmy he’d respect him more if Jimmy just gave up crying and apologizing and feeling bad, and just hurt people like he’s meant to. |
| 409 | * VillainWithGoodPublicity: |
| 410 | ** [[spoiler:While it's arguable whether he is a "villain" in the traditional sense or not, Chuck's standing in society versus his private persona has heavy shades of this and is a big part of why he often acts in such an obnoxious manner. He is regarded in his profession and by his social contacts as a heavyweight intellectual, an excellent lawyer, and a good man who is morally whiter than white. In private by contrast, he is vindictive, unforgiving, [[EvilIsPetty petty]] and calculatingly cruel towards his own brother. While Jimmy is regarded by many as a [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold sketchy guy but seems to have good intentions]], Chuck mirrors this by being regarded as a [[BitchInSheepsClothing stand-up guy despite his often malicious intent]].]] |
| 411 | ** While his legacy in and with HHM is ruined; after Jimmy destroys his life as Saul Goodman and has to escape, the “American Greed” episode cements his dynamic with Jimmy as “genius older brother and a younger brother who was the fuck up”, nothing more, nothing less. |
| 412 | ** In "Gloves Off", trying to get Chuck to ruin his life so Kim will be okay, Jimmy reassures his brother that he'd get away with it because it's not like Jimmy will tell anyone. He makes good on that promise, not giving Rebecca a reason for (supposedly) being done with Chuck and never telling anyone what was said in the last conversation they had before Chuck died. In both instances it probably would have helped his mental health if he had. |
| 413 | * WellDoneSonGuy: He resents his parents for having an obvious favourite, feeling alone and uncared for because he had to take care of a new little brother who kept getting into trouble, and Jimmy could actually get their love instead of just pride in achievements. |
| 414 | * WentCrazyWhenTheyLeft: Chuck had plenty of issues while he was with Rebecca, and [=McKean=] stated that he played it as feeling like Jimmy “intruded” on the marriage, which was the beginning of the end, but his EHS delusion was fully triggered when she left him and Jimmy came in as a ReplacementGoldfish. |
| 415 | * WhatIsThisThingYouCallLove: Chuck really is capable of the emotion, for his family and wife and HHM, but he's also confused when Jimmy is actually angry about betrayal with the tape instead of just mad he got caught, and can't comprehend Howard's anger over being backstabbed with the lawsuit after nearly twenty years of loyal support. This inability to understand others is a major motivation for his actions as he has always regarded love and approval as things to be earned and was incensed at the idea that whatever he did, his parents would always prefer Jimmy, failing to understand that they loved them both, and keeps Jimmy on the hook by withholding any love and respect to keep him desperate for both from Chuck. |
| 416 | * WhyDidYouMakeMeHitYou: In his mind, every single cruel thing he's done he's tried to justify as the other person deserving it. It's mostly Jimmy, but Ernesto, Kim and Howard all get it too, and sometimes Chuck himself can't even push the guilt down hard enough. |
| 417 | * WoundedGazelleWarCry: He gives a big speech in "Sunk Cost" about how he's doing this for Jimmy's own good, and he'll come out better before he destroys himself or someone else. Even without factoring in Saul and ThatManIsDead, he genuinely does think Jimmy would be safer under his control (but also doesn't want to admit that he does actually want to see Jimmy [[https://ew.com/tv/better-call-saul-finale-cover-story/ destroy himself]]). There's also his ploy with Kira, as he portrays himself as the victim of his emotionally unstable brother - and he genuinely was scared in that confrontation - who wants a "better solution… for everyone", i.e. no jail for Jimmy and he stays close, just extorted into giving up his lawyer career. It helps that Jimmy, for the few minutes where he's been completely ground down, finds that idea a little appealing. |
| 418 | * WrongGenreSavvy: He is not wrong when he says Jimmy will default back to a conman given enough incentives, and makes it his personal mission to stop him. [[SelfFulfillingProphecy Unfortunately, this gives Jimmy many of said incentives]]. He believes [[CrusadingLawyer he's the one who will stop Jimmy from committing further harm and expose his true nature]] and believing he'll never change, when Jimmy truly attempted to change and his "Saul Goodman" persona is directly related to Chuck's sabotage, and Chuck being nothing more than [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom an instigator]]. Chuck thinks he's the noble protector of the law trying to stop a dangerous lawyer from abusing it rather than a control freak whose petulance and resentment played a major role in pushing Jimmy to abandon his morality. |
| 419 | * YankTheDogsChain: One that makes him treat Jimmy even more as TheScapegoat. His mom wakes up while he's in the room, but all she says is Jimmy's name. And then she dies. |
| 420 | * YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: To Howard, who gets respect and friendship as long as he stays in line, but the moment he talks back he gets betrayed in the form of a lawsuit. |
| 421 | * YourMindMakesItReal: |
| 422 | ** His sensitivity to electromagnetic field has no direct physical grounding and appears to be an extreme form of the nocebo effect. A doctor even demonstrated to Jimmy and Kim that he is unaffected by machines that he doesn't know are turned on. Chuck, however, treats it very seriously and refuses to have psychological tests run, as he believes it is a physical condition. Regardless of its origins, his condition has an extremely detrimental effect on his quality of life. |
| 423 | ** It's suggested that his denial of this fact stems in part from his ego: his condition ''has'' to be an untreatable ailment of the body, rather than a mental issue that could be corrected through therapy because that would imply that Chuck's normally ironclad mental acuity and perceptions are vastly wrong. And furthermore, if it ''were'' a mental issue, then that would mean Chuck has been deluding himself and making the wrong decisions for years on end. |
| 424 | [[/folder]] |
| 425 | ---- |
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