Here are the headscratchers for the first 2 seasons of Better Call Saul. For the rest, click here.
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Season 1
The video
- In "Uno", Jimmy is defending three guys charged with breaking into a funeral home and performing a sex crime on a severed human head. His attempt at the "boys will be boys" defence fails when the prosecutor plays a home video the guys themselves recorded of them committing the crime. Did Jimmy even know the video existed? Duty of disclosure means that the prosecutor must have told him about it at the very least. Given that, could Jimmy not have saved himself some time and professional embarrassment by just getting the guys to plead guilty?
"Couldn't you just..?"
- In "Uno", after Jimmy meets with Hamlin about cashing out Chuck, he's outside smoking with Kim. He asks her, "Couldn't you just...?" and Kim replies, "You know I can't." What are they talking about?
- It's deliberately meant to be ambiguous.
Kettlemen exposure
- Could somebody please explain Mike's plan to expose the Kettlemans to me? So, Jimmy gives him a wad of cash, and Mike sprays it with fluorescent paint and then... puts it on an R/C car in the Kettlemans' front yard. What impression was he trying to create? That the Kettleman kids did it? That they somehow found their parents' secret cache, took a wad of cash out and then put on an R/C car and left it in the yard? Why in the world would they do that? What kind of game was that supposed to look like, that it would look natural and wouldn't raise Kettlemans' suspicions?
- Mike was presumably banking on the Kettlemans being greedy idiots. Which they totally are (I think that greed often does lead to people making irrational decisions). Also, the Kettlemans, as thieves (albeit ones who appear to be totally in denial of the fact that they are thieves) have good reason to be paranoid about anyone finding the money on their property. Regardless of how it got where it was, their first instinct would naturally be to hide it.
- First instinct sure, but after they hid it, surely they would at some point have a fit of Fridge Logic about how the hell the cash got there? Mike even watches them telling off their children and (apparently) grounding them or something, and I would really like to hear what was said there. Because I have trouble picturing even rich kids replacing dolls or toy soldiers with a wad of cash. I guess there's not much the Kettlemans could've done, even if they suspected something was amiss, since going to the police was out of question and they aren't the kind of people who'd hire muscle, but still, they appeared totally oblivious later.
- I thought Craig assumed Jimmy was covertly returning the money and argued with Betsy whether to leave it on the R/C car (that is, reject the return) or not, but yeah, looks like they're berating the kids, so I guess they dimly assumed the kids got their hands on it. Either way, the Kettlemans fulfilled Mike's plan by allowing him to trace his way to the hoard.
- From Craig Kettleman's point of view, the children got into the cash. It's only under the bathroom sink, which is not locked up, so it's plausible. He chews them out for taking it out of the bag, and when he's satisfied they get the message, he drops the matter. If he suspected someone else put the money there, it's more likely he would have looked out the window or otherwise tried to figure out who did it than immediately start yelling at the kids. As reckless as Craig and Betsy are, it's not a stretch to assume their children are also lacking in common sense.
- Thought experiment: Imagine you've watched the scene where the Kettlemans discover the money on top of their kid's car, but you hadn't seen the money being planted there, so you had no idea that it was planted by Mike. What would you think had happened? I reckon that I would have made the same assumption that the Kettlemans did. I might have created a headscratcher on here asking "why did the kids do that?" because it doesn't make much sense. But I'd still have assumed that that was what happend.
- That. In hindsight, it does look kinda weird that the kids would find their parents' hidden cash in the bathroom and decide to drive it around on their toy car. But the thing to remember, is that Mike doesn't need for it to make sense (we know Mike had a conversation with Jimmy offscreen where Jimmy asked him to do the job; Jimmy probably told him the address and maybe even told him that the Kettlemens weren't the brightest bulbs in the box so...) All he needs to do is make sure Craig or Betsy puts it back in the stash. For that, they have to be convinced it came from the stash in the first place, which means it can't look like just random money someone dropped on the front lawn. If it were, it'd probably go into someone's wallet and the ultraviolet dye trick wouldn't work.
- The Kettlemans ARE idiots (Craig embezzled by writing checks to himself), but Mike's plan makes sense anyway... even if the Kettlemans had secured their money in a safe, they still would have checked on the money after finding this stack. They would have left a UV reactive ink trail that would have helped him find it.
- Mike was presumably banking on the Kettlemans being greedy idiots. Which they totally are (I think that greed often does lead to people making irrational decisions). Also, the Kettlemans, as thieves (albeit ones who appear to be totally in denial of the fact that they are thieves) have good reason to be paranoid about anyone finding the money on their property. Regardless of how it got where it was, their first instinct would naturally be to hide it.
Dumpster diving
- In "RICO", Jimmy goes dumpster diving for evidence... in his fancy white suit. Since searching the dumpsters appears to have been his plan all along, why didn't he wear some cheaper and more appropriate clothes?
- This wouldn't be the first time Jimmy wore a suit in an environment where a suit would be inappropriate (i.e. hiking through the wilderness to find the Kettleman's). For Jimmy, wearing a suit is an integral part of being a lawyer, no matter what the work entails. The only times we ever really see him not wearing a suit or tie is in flashbacks, back when he wasn't a lawyer.
- ^ That. The suit is a big part of what it means to be a lawyer, or to be legitimate to him. Note how he decided what kind of suit he should go with. In his mind even when he's doing dirty work and cons, he's still a legitimate lawyer, because he's wearing a suit like a lawyer. If he weren't wearing the suit he'd be the old Jimmy and be dumpster diving. But with the suit, he's a lawyer gathering evidence.
- At the very least, couldn't he have gotten some sort of mask to block out the smell?
Sandpiper Crossing document shredding
- After Jimmy seems to be on to them, the folks at Sandpiper Crossing start shredding documents, with Jimmy forced to reassemble the evidence by hand. Yet Sandpiper Crossing isn't a criminal cartel, but a legal business. Surely they can't just destroy all their own financial records of transactions with their clients and expect the court to accept this as something legitimate. Wouldn't there have to be at least backup records and the like?
- While it may appear shady, shredding documents is typically not illegal. Now, if enough time and attention was given, the best Sandpiper Crossing could be faulted with might just be improper accounting practices, but as evidenced in the next episode "Pimento," the tactic for covering up such infractions is drowning the opposition in paperwork and motions to the point where they will drop the suit. That being said, having all these documents remain intact (or even reconstructed) would surely guarantee that they would be found guilty of fraud. No matter what happens afterwards, be it being acquitted of any wrongdoing or pleading down to a lesser charge of negligent record-keeping, the first thing to do is destroy the documents.
- Then why keep the incriminating evidence at all? If they're legally allowed to shred the documents, then the documents can't be too important right? Was it lack of thought or cockiness? Did they just think no one would find out?
- It's for internal bookkeeping. Businesses, illegal or ones simply using illegal practices, still need to log their transactions, otherwise they wouldn't be able to keep track of which money comes from where.
- In normal cases they need the documents since it shows the billing done and if someone just check 30 dollars for 034 item it's not a problem and the 30 dollars change hands from elderly to Sandpiper with the receipts checking out so tax checks out and here is the return. But if someone decides to check what item 034 is and find out it's a box of kleenex, better being charged for negligent records keeping of what item 034 is than charge for fraud.
- And keep in mind, no actual legal action had been officially filed against Sandpiper Crossing yet, so they are legally not destroying evidence. This is why Jimmy hastily drafts a legal complaint in the bathroom, so by serving it upon Sandpiper Crossing, he triggers legal action. Any further document destruction will count as destruction of evidence by that point.
- While it may appear shady, shredding documents is typically not illegal. Now, if enough time and attention was given, the best Sandpiper Crossing could be faulted with might just be improper accounting practices, but as evidenced in the next episode "Pimento," the tactic for covering up such infractions is drowning the opposition in paperwork and motions to the point where they will drop the suit. That being said, having all these documents remain intact (or even reconstructed) would surely guarantee that they would be found guilty of fraud. No matter what happens afterwards, be it being acquitted of any wrongdoing or pleading down to a lesser charge of negligent record-keeping, the first thing to do is destroy the documents.
Who is the other Hamlin?
- Who is the other Hamlin besides Howard at Hamlin, Hamlin and McGill?
- Howard's father, maybe? Howard himself has some sort of Roger Sterling quality about him, only without the humor.
- It's established in season 3 that it was Howard's father George Hamlin (the first name being revealed at the start of season 4 when Howard was reading off Chuck's obituary).
- Howard's father, maybe? Howard himself has some sort of Roger Sterling quality about him, only without the humor.
Rolex scam
- Can someone explain to me just how the Rolex scam worked for Jimmy and Marco?
- Watch it from the mark's perspective: he and Jimmy are stealing Marco's "expensive" watch and they're each entitled to half. But there's only one watch. Only one of them can take it home, so the mark offers to buy Jimmy's half of the watch. He gives Jimmy some of his own money (a few hundred dollars) plus he lets Jimmy keep all the money from the wallet, and he takes the Rolex. The Rolex is a fake of course, In essence, they're selling a fake Rolex (or half a fake Rolex) for a few hundred dollars.
- Why not just walk up to him in a bar and offer to sell him the Rolex for a couple of thousand dollars? It's supposedly worth that much.
- Because the mark probably doesn't have thousands of dollars on him. Especially not thousands that he'd be willing to spend on buying a watch in a seedy bar. Besides, when a stranger offers to sell you a watch in a bar you get suspicious. You also look at the watch closely, and the fakes they were using might not have passed a close inspection. Selling the Rolex is the part of the scam that makes money, but all of the other elements (getting him drunk, treating him as a best pal, 'discovering' Marco, and pretending to try and 'hide' how valuable the watch is) are important because they put the mark in the right frame of mind to go for the deal: he feels like he got really lucky (a few hundred dollars for a Rolex worth thousands), he doesn't suspect any deception from Jimmy (because they discovered the guy together) and he thinks it was his idea. The money in Marco's wallet is there to make it more believable that Jimmy would accept the deal.
- Someone offers to sell you a Rolex real cheap and you expect its a scam. Make them think it was their idea to buy it from you (or in this case buy your share) and them even thinking they are conning you, by paying you much less for it.... It's similar to the coin con they also used. The guy sitting at the bar chuckled over the pitch Jimmy made to try to "sell" it to Marco. The guy could tell it was a con. If Jimmy would have tried to just sell the guy the coin with the same pitch the guy wouldn't have bought it. But when he thought that Marco, in trying to prove it was a con and threatening to arrest Jimmy, had found out it was legit, and actually trying to get one over on the previous buyer....
- The way they did it, the guy they scammed has no legal recourse. If you go up to someone and offer to sell them a Rolex for anywhere near a legit price, there's at least some assumption that what you're actually selling them is a genuine Rolex. The mark could go to the cops and complain, which would, at the very least, put Jimmy and Marco on the radar to some degree. By pulling the scam the way they did, what's the guy going to complain about? That he insisted that Jimmy take his cash in exchange for a watch that the mark incorrectly identified as valuable? The only person who actually committed a crime in this situation was the mark, who stole the watch from Marco. It's pretty brilliant.
- ^That. It's the same logic that Nacho uses when ripping off Stupid Crooks. He likes ripping them off because he knows that thieves have no legal recourse for the stolen property that was stolen from them.
Chuck's need for financial support
- Does anyone else find it odd that Chuck would need financial support from anyone, either from Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill or Jimmy himself? By all accounts, the man is a highly successful lawyer and partner in a successful law firm. He's only been out of work for a year. He seems to have no wife (since Rebecca left him, as we learned in season 3), no kids, no family outside of Jimmy who would leech away his money. He also doesn't seem like the kind of guy who spends his money on Hookers and Blow. Unless he's taking his 'money is beside the point' approach to truly masochistic levels, it would only make sense that he would have enough money saved in his bank account to last him at the very least through a single year without his brother having to bust his ass making $700 a pop doing PD work. Why is Chuck nearly broke?
- One disastrous investment (say, in the dotcom bubble), a horrible divorce, getting scammed, healthcare bills cleaning him out before we ever see him... Who knows? There are many ways to lose money.
- Very true, but still notable enough that it feels strange it goes without any such explanation being given during the whole first season. You expect an out-of-work janitor or school bus driver to end up nearly out on the street when he can't work for a year. A founding partner in a highly successful law firm, old enough to be close to retirement (even if he doesn't really want to)? Not so much.
- It's still not like that. Whatever money he's got is in the bank, and he couldn't go to the bank or to the ATM without stepping outside, and he couldn't step outside without believing his body is being electrocuted like crazy.
- Not only has he few access but the money he has his spent on finding cure for his illness (his first scene has him asking Jimmy to send a letter to some expert on electricity sensitiveness) so if he can't access his electronic bank account and doesn't work he can't stay like this.
- One disastrous investment (say, in the dotcom bubble), a horrible divorce, getting scammed, healthcare bills cleaning him out before we ever see him... Who knows? There are many ways to lose money.
Kettleman dilemma
- Jimmy regrets not taking Kettleman's cash for himself. Question is: Why? At that point, the Kettlemans had him in a stranglehold. He took part of that money, which means he's complicit in their stealing, and if the money isn't fully accounted when the Kettlemans go down Jimmy, too, would go down with them. Returning the money to the county in full amount is the only way Jimmy could get off the hook.
- All the evidence points directly to the Kettlemans, none of it to Jimmy. As Kim said, they did an awful job covering their tracks. Even if they accuse Jimmy of taking part of the money, what could they actually prove? It would be more suspicious if the money were turned in with the large chunk of it used to bribe Jimmy gone, and if not turned in at all, it just looks like the poor, stupid Kettleman family still holding out for the chance to keep all of it and trying to deflect guilt on someone else.
- Right around the time the Kettlemans accuse Jimmy of taking the money he also started making new expenditures in a better suit, new advertising, etc. On its own that isn't enough for a conviction, or even an idictment, but it is more than enough for an investigation and once people start pulling threads you never know what will unravel or shake out of the woodwork. If nothing else, Jimmy has a big old wad of cash stashed in his office and who knows whose fingerprints are on that.
- All the evidence points directly to the Kettlemans, none of it to Jimmy. As Kim said, they did an awful job covering their tracks. Even if they accuse Jimmy of taking part of the money, what could they actually prove? It would be more suspicious if the money were turned in with the large chunk of it used to bribe Jimmy gone, and if not turned in at all, it just looks like the poor, stupid Kettleman family still holding out for the chance to keep all of it and trying to deflect guilt on someone else.
Mike's arrival in Albuquerque
- At the start of "Five-O", Mike is shown arriving at Alvarado Transportation Center on a train. Ignoring the anachronism, why is he arriving on the New Mexico Rail Runner commuter train? If he came straight from Philadelphia, wouldn't he be arriving on Amtrak's Southwest Chief?
- First off, arriving on the train isn't an anachronism. Mike doesn't have a car, and buses could cost upwards of hundreds of dollars, especially with all the transfers he'd have to make. Arriving on train is definitely the cheapest option. Secondly, I don't have access to the episode, but if he did arrive on a local train, then that would definitely have been an oversight. I just Googled that the only city in NM that Amtrak provides nationwide service to is Albuquerque. It seems illogical for Mike to come to Albuquerque, go to another NM city, come back, before getting treated for his wound and meeting his daughter-in-law.
- Original poster: He certainly couldn't change from the Southwest Chief to the New Mexico Rail Runner at any point prior to Albuquerque, that much I know of. My best guess is that they couldn't secure filming permission to use Amtrak's equipment and had to make do with the next best thing they had. Not to mention, the Southwest Chief stops in several other New Mexico towns, like Raton, Lamy, Las Vegas, and Gallup.
- First off, arriving on the train isn't an anachronism. Mike doesn't have a car, and buses could cost upwards of hundreds of dollars, especially with all the transfers he'd have to make. Arriving on train is definitely the cheapest option. Secondly, I don't have access to the episode, but if he did arrive on a local train, then that would definitely have been an oversight. I just Googled that the only city in NM that Amtrak provides nationwide service to is Albuquerque. It seems illogical for Mike to come to Albuquerque, go to another NM city, come back, before getting treated for his wound and meeting his daughter-in-law.
The opening to "Alpine Shepherd Boy"
- I don't know if it's just me, but doesn't it seem like one could consider it a waste of police resources for Chuck's neighbor to call the cops on him for stealing her newspaper from her driveway? Or was the fact that he was wearing his space blanket the reason she called the cops?
- The police knock on Chuck's door and make it clear it's about stealing the paper, although the weird guy in the space blanket probably freaked her out. As frustrating as it was to watch, police the world over get called up for asinine things like that all the time. Whether the police in real life would respond to something like that is another question.
- Original asker here: I always did think it was the 'weird guy in the space blanket' that got that lady to call the police on Chuck. However, if that was the case, wouldn't the cops be approaching the house as if they were being asked to check on the wellbeing of the guy in the space blanket? Even if that's not the case, I also realize that Chuck is a complete stranger to these cops. They don't know he has a 'condition'. He's already rambling on about something that makes no sense. Couple on them peeking through the back window to find all the camping fuel and the breaker lines all pulled out, and I can kinda see how their "rambling man in space blanket + camping fuel + all his breaker lines are pulled out = tweaker" thought process makes sense.
- Yes but then they take a look at the electrical wires being pulled out of the wall and the survival provisions that looks more like someone who does not pay the house bills and concluded he was a crazy hobo squatting the house. And think about the old lady who may know super lawyer Chuck see a tin blanket man rushing to steal her paper and doesn't know about his condition. she might have said some crazy guy is inhabiting a lawyer she hasn't seen in years.
- It's not a waste of resources if it turns out the theft is actually real. However, it would definitely be very low on their priority list, and the fact that officers showed up at all probably meant it was a very slow day.
Jimmy's nail salon office
- So how did Jimmy end up getting an office in the backroom of a nail salon? Did he do something like work out a deal with the salon's owner?
- He's on pretty friendly terms with them so it's probably that he charmed them into leasing him some space.
- Original asker: I think now it was maybe a blend of two things. I think Jimmy charmed the salon owners into leasing him the backroom, perhaps even working out some sort of agreement where he pays part of the salon's rent.
- He's renting a room in the salon from Ms. Nguyen. It's mentioned several times that he keeps paying rent on it so he can continue using it and that's why he has the keys to the salon. This isn't a mystery. Why he rented that specific room is also not hard to guess: Because it's dirt cheap — far cheaper than any actual office space would be. As for how he found it in the first place, that's honestly not important for any part of the story.
The entire Tuco episode
- After the entire incident with Tuco, I keep wondering, did the Lindholm brothers ever tell their parents/guardians about their entire encounter with Tuco or were they intimidated into silence? I know we never see them again after Jimmy drives them to the emergency room, and it borders on WMG, but it's a pretty open question.
- I Think they'll pretend having a bad accident (if their parents know their scam it won't surprise them they sold a little too well). I mean, they probably don't want to black out the event.
- Even though he hasn't become a crystal meth kingpin yet, Tuco is still a sharp and dangerous gangster, who could easily find the brothers' family members and wreak havoc on them. I'm just guessing here though.
- Tuco's been involved in the meth business for years by the time Breaking Bad starts. Maybe not a kingpin at Gus's level, but still has a strong influence on the drug scene. If anything, I'd say that he probably was on Hank's radar for a couple years before he died in that gunfight.
- I assume that Jimmy must have told Chuck exactly what happened in detail. I mean, Chuck saw the hospital bills, so....
- Did the brothers "ever" tell anyone? Ever is quite a long time. But after their adventure in the desert, it's likely they either read the mafia type situation correctly, or Jimmy explained it to them, but either way, they decided their best recollection was "didn't know nothing".
The scams in the conning montage in "Marco"
- So what exactly are each of the scams being pulled off by Jimmy and Marco in that 40s' style montage? I recognize the violin one and the Nigerian prince one are self-explanatory, since they have trope pages on this site. But what are the other scams in that montage and how do they work?
- They don't explain them well enough so you can pull them but one has him selling a cleaning product to clean bills that were darkened as some ridiculous hitman payment, no idea how they can explain that they'll give a briefcase full of dollar bills if they pay for a liquid.
- The liquid one is the 'Wash Wash' or 'Black Money' scam: the briefcase presented to the mark will be full of black industrial paper that's been bought in bulk, cut down to banknote size, and bundled with money bands. Jimmy will conceal in his sleeve a real banknote which has been covered in a substance which makes it look like the industrial paper and which washes off when washed in the chemical. The mark will then select one of the pieces of paper from the briefcase at random, which Jimmy will substitute with the real note using sleight of hand. Jimmy then shows the mark how the chemical washes away the black covering to reveal a real note. At this point, either Jimmy will explain that the tiny, now-empty vial of cleaning chemical he used was all they had; or Marco will 'accidentally' spill the remaining chemical (which was, naturally, not that much to begin with). Either way, if the mark wants more cleaning chemical, it's going to cost him.
- Another one is Marco is talking about a (non-existent) shipment of Irish lottery tickets or something, that supposedly have a high resale price, and they need money to supposedly bribe a Customs official so that he turns a blind eye on that container.
- If memory serves me right, the last one in the montage involved Jimmy convincing a girl that he's Kevin Costner (an event hilariously referenced in the original Breaking Bad, making this both a Call-Back and a Call-Forward). This "scam" is called "sex by fraud," and while it's Played for Laughs here, it could be considered rape: thankfully, it's not. But it goes to show that while every single fraud sequence within the montage made us laugh because they feature Jimmy's charming persona, his lack of scruples can have seriously damaging consequences, if put in the correct context, and thus are not excusable.
- Unless she was Miss Costner this is not sex by fraud. You have to impersonate a person that is already in a sexual relationship with the other partner.
- But it could technically be a form of fraud. He was lying about his identity. Sex by deception, possibly? I mean, in Breaking Bad, when describing the encounter, Jimmy says "You know, I once told a woman I was Kevin Costner and it worked because I believed it!" Make do with how that can cross-reference against what's shown onscreen in "Marco".
- They don't explain them well enough so you can pull them but one has him selling a cleaning product to clean bills that were darkened as some ridiculous hitman payment, no idea how they can explain that they'll give a briefcase full of dollar bills if they pay for a liquid.
Reporting Nacho to the cops?
- At the end of "Mijo," Nacho stops by Jimmy's backroom office, mentions that he's interested in robbing the Kettlemans' of their illegally acquired money, and then threatens to have Jimmy killed if he says a word about their conversation. I might be missing something here, but aren't lawyers legally required to report all future crimes their client may commit? If that's the case, shouldn't Jimmy legally be required to report Nacho to the police?
- Welllll.... first off, Jimmy almost never considers any legal ramifications to the actions he commits. Secondly, Nacho wasn't really his client: he just said that so he would be allowed entrance into the beauty salon. Thirdly, there's no record that the conversation ever happened, so there's next to no chance anyone can come after it for him. Besides, Jimmy's sole concern is to protect the Kettlemans, so he doesn't want to admit his clients' guilt.
- The whole "killing him if he talks" seems to be enough motivation for Jimmy not to talk.
The Flopsy at the beginning
- What could Jimmy have done to make sure the scam went down perfectly, as opposed to end up inadvertently crossing paths with Tuco? Something strikes me that if he'd just tailed Betsy's car (in the same way that police conduct surveillance tails) rather than wait for a phone call from the Lindholms, he'd know right away that the skateboarders had hit the wrong vehicle. Is that all he could have done?
- That would have seem suspicious even if we assume Jimmy can tail without being noticed if he shows too early, I think he could have just gave them a picture or something.
- Jimmy couldn't risk being there himself since the Kettlemans would recognize him. In addition, he gave the Lindholms all of the relevant information down to the license plate number. It's not his fault the Lindholms were completely incompetent.
Jimmy becoming Saul
- When we first meet Jimmy in Breaking Bad, he's been using the Saul Goodman name for years, but he says "My real name's McGill. The Jew thing I just do for the homeboys." This raises the question: will Jimmy become Saul Goodman by changing his name? Or is the more likely scenario, he's still James McGill on his driver's license, property lease, social security and everything, and 'Saul Goodman' is just a trade name
?- It's most likely just a "business name," much like how Heisenberg was Walter White's. In the flashback in "Hero," we see that Jimmy has already been using Saul Goodman as an alias for years, and yet is still legally named Jimmy McGill. It's most likely that he never legally changes his name, at least not until he uses the disappearer's services.
- But he has Saul Goodman on his American Samoa diploma in his strip mall office.
- Could be a forgery.
- American Samoa has been established as a diploma mill, so their screening standards presumably aren't very strict.
- People expect HHM when they see the lawyer name "McGill." As Jimmy grows and changes his practice, this will be a problem for Jimmy, too, especially since he'll be running a very different kind of practice. And "Saul Goodman" = "'It's all good, man."
- By the time of Breaking Bad, he is known all over town as Saul Goodman, as far as bus stop ads, bus ads, TV commercials and billboards go, but I'm sure to a lot of lawyers in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, they would always think of him as Jimmy McGill, not as Saul Goodman.
- The dialogue from Jimmy's first interaction with Walt always has left me with the idea that his name is still James McGill in Breaking Bad. He just uses "Saul Goodman" when he's at work. The criminals, clients, and police called him that, but that's as far as it goes. If the writers stick with that, there is no reason he cannot be Jimmy all the way through the show. We've already seen Jimmy using the name Saul when scamming, so it's not like he has to come up with the name, just decide to use it.
- Answered in episode 10 of season 4.
Chuck a hypocrite?
- Okay, in his "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Jimmy, Chuck says "I know you. I know what you were, what you are. People don't change!" Isn't that a bit hypocritical coming from Chuck, since he went from being the third name-partner at HHM to basically being almost a shell of himself due to that "electromagnetism" illness?
- People's circumstances always change. What does not change (or at least what Chuck believes), is character. Chuck believes Jimmy will never separate himself from his con man roots, and he might have a point in that as season 2 progresses (fabricating evidence for the "Squat Cobbler" thing, solicitation on the bus, producing that commercial and airing it without Cliff's permission....). Meanwhile, the real hypocrisy and irony here is that while Chuck believes himself to be the paragon of honesty and justice, that still doesn't change the fact that he used extremely underhanded tactics to keep Jimmy out of HHM.
- Well, by "Nailed", he's a hypocrite in a different sense: he's mad about Jimmy stabbing him in the back through the use of the document forgery work, yet was perfectly content to stab Jimmy in the back by blocking his attempts to get a job at HHM, sabotaging Jimmy's attorney job at Davis & Main, and stealing Mesa Verde away from Kim when he thought she was going to be Jimmy's law partner (the latter of which was the entire reason Jimmy committed the forgery).
- The whole thing about Chuck's hypocrisy, and what probably makes viewers dislike him, is that it's self-reinforcing. He is so convinced that people don't ever fundamentally change, that he can't or won't see the cases where they gradually are, thanks to a change in their circumstances or experience impacting their behavior; meanwhile, his own attempts to hamstring any changes those close to him might be making means they can't actually get their genuine growth to stick. Yet, because he goes out of his way to successfully put roadblocks in their path, he can convince himself they never would have managed it, anyway — see, they failed the test of character, like they always do. It's one of the most twisted forms of Never My Fault imaginable. I imagine that Kim and Jimmy aren't the only ones Chuck has sidelined over the years, simply because he jumped to conclusions about their character or those of the people around them.
- This line of character analysis relies on Chuck's view of Jimmy being honestly mistaken, and representing a broader flaw in Chuck's character analysis of people. The reality is, Chuck is specifically jealous of and spiteful toward his brother. Jimmy is more charming than Chuck, more sociable. Being a lawyer, effectively being a higher social class than Jimmy, was the only way he wouldn't feel inferior. If Jimmy was a lawyer too, Chuck then no longer had that on him.
- The interesting thing about Chuck as a character is that even though he clearly despises "slippin' Jimmy" and his brother's cons, he is also a conman too. In fact, he's such a good conman he outcons Jimmy (with the act about being sick, then using the tape as bait, "accidentally" letting Ernesto hear two seconds of the tape, then having the word passed on to Jimmy). Chuck is the kind of person who projects and often hates the traits in other people that they dislike so much about themselves. Chuck can't bear Jimmy's shady behavior because it's like a mirror reflecting back an unpleasant truth about him: Everything Chuck hates about Jimmy is precisely the things that he, himself, despises about himself.
- Jimmy's whole "You're gonna die alone" counterpunch in "Sunk Costs" seemed to explain Chuck's hypocrisy. Jimmy might be a little morally gray and unscrupulous but he does have redeeming qualities like heart, strong loyalty to friends like Kim and Ernesto and is basically good; he is not "evil" per se. Chuck, for all his brilliance and intelligence, is over the top sanctimonious and in essence a hypocrite. The law is inerrant in his eyes and to a degree it must be thought of as flawless, yet can be flawed. To dupe Jimmy, Chuck actually debased himself, compromised his own principles and became that which he criticizes: he became Jimmy. He schemed and ployed to basically entrap his own brother to "teach him a lesson." It doesn't matter how wrong Jimmy was, Chuck betrayed his own family, and for all of Jimmy's faults, Jimmy never complained about or laughed at Chuck's "illness" and was always there for Chuck; this is why he didn't see Chuck coming. To Jimmy, Chuck's betrayal is unforgivable and rightfully so. Jimmy loved and even looked up to Chuck but this was too far and for all of HHM's prestige, money, Howard's "loyalty" etc when things go bad, who can you really count on? Family. But to Chuck, the law and HHM trump family. That is a cardinal sin.
- Chuck hides under the law and pretends to hold it in high moral regard, but what he actually holds in high regard is his own knowledge of the law. He didn't go after Mesa Verde because he was worried for the clients, he did it out of his own vindictiveness and insistent need to lecture and put down Jimmy... and then uses the law or some sort of textbook reason to justify that his actions were completely in the right. He's not as righteous as he thinks he is, and Jimmy isn't as righteous as everybody else thinks he is.
- Although it's not explicitly stated, the flashbacks to their childhoods seem to imply that Jimmy was the one who stayed much closer to home, taking care of their parents while Chuck was out in the world going to law school, becoming a successful big-time lawyer and eventually partnering with Howard. While there's a degree of truth to his accusations about Jimmy embezzling money from the family store, Chuck seems to feel just about zero guilt for prioritizing his own career over any familial obligations, shirking those responsibilities to the point where Jimmy was the only one left to pick up the slack.
- Chuck has one of the worst personalities that anyone could come across in the world: that of a narcissistic sociopath. He's incapable of empathy and emotion for others (sociopathy), and maintains the sense of self-involved grandiosity that actually believes that he is of extreme value to everyone. His brother only exists when Jimmy benefits him (as an errand boy). Yet Jimmy's attempts to better himself and his situation threatens Chuck's need to control his image of his brother as "Slipin' Jimmy." Chuck claims that by not letting Jimmy work at HHM, he is protecting his firm; he claims he is protecting the law; he claims that Jimmy cannot change, and that he is fundamentally rotten. Thing is, with all of his exploitative behavior, entitlement, arrogance, sense of uniqueness and desire for admiration, Chuck actually is a threat to everyone and everything he claims to protect. His mental illness threatens his clients, therefore his ability to competently practice law. This also makes him a liability to his firm as shown by the malpractice premium hike. And he seeks to destroy his brother, blocking his brother's girlfriend's career advancement and stealing her client only to spite him to prevent anything good from happening in Jimmy's life.
- Chuck had a legitimate right to feel slighted when his parents favored his younger sibling and ignored his own spectacular achievements (graduating high school at 14 makes him practically a Child Prodigy). However Chuck is a passive aggressive narcissist. Every time Chuck spoke out against Jimmy, his parents were greatly unhappy with him, and his parents (and his wife/ex-wife, Rebecca) were the only people in the world whose opinions he respected, so he hid his resentment and jealousy. Chuck is deceitful and regards everyone (except for his wife and parents), even Jimmy and Howard, as inferiors to be manipulated and used for his own gain, Chuck was not motivated by love or concern for Jimmy when he bailed him out of the Cook County Jail. His mother had called and asked him to do this, and Chuck did actually care for his mom and her opinion of him. (Plus Chuck probably didn't want the embarrassment of being associated with a guy who defecated through a sunroof)
The irony in all of this is that Jimmy was the only person in the family who loved Chuck unconditionally and revered him for his accomplishments.
As to Jimmy, his lack of patience and foresight were his undoing. If he had just stuck out his position at Davis & Main for the year, he could have left on good terms and kept his bonus legitimately. With the tape recording situation, he could have just sat tight and waited for Chuck's next move with the tape recording as Kim had advised him to do, or hired someone to retrieve the tape. And the arrest and disciplinary hearing before the Bar Association would never have happened, and Wexler/McGill and his elder law practice would still be a thing.
To take a gun, or not take a gun, that is the question
- Something I noticed about the drug deal Daniel did with Nacho in "Pimento" - Mike relieves Sobchak of his guns because, as he puts it, he doesn't feel that it'll be necessary to carry a gun to the meet. But during Breaking Bad, Mike carries a gun at all times and even carries one when Gus is holding meetings similar to Daniel's dealing to Nacho (read: the meet with the cartel buttonman in "Problem Dog"). The point I'm getting is: there's no way Mike could know just what Nacho's guys might be packing, or if they'd be hostile or not, so could it be possible he did carry a gun in his jacket just-in-case?
- On one hand, Gus wanted the cartel guys dead and Mike being the main hitman probably readied himself for any kill order. In 2002, since he is laying low due to the whole killing his son's killers, there are reasons he might not want to keep a gun on him. On the other hand, it would make sense, for the deals with Nacho, for Mike to lie about not carrying a gun, which may have its risks, but is a better failsafe than hoping nothing goes wrong despite all the research (yes Nacho does not want to attract police attention or Tuco hearing of his side deals, but that doesn't mean he and his goons couldn't be trigger happy).
- I think that Mike just took issue with how Sobchak kept showing off his guns, since those kinds of guys tend to just cause more trouble than they prevent.
- Mike points out that he's done his research and knows what type of deal he's involved with here: Nacho is doing this job behind Tuco's back, so Nacho doesn't want even a rumor of this getting out. The odds of Nacho causing problems of any sort are slim because problems travel. "Two men gunned down, bodies found buried in the desert" makes the newspapers, and maybe Tuco sees that and wonders "Is somebody trying to play action in my territory?" That's why he felt that the odds of trouble were slim in that meeting, and perhaps why he felt no need to flash a weapon. I am personally of the belief that he did have a gun and (As noted above) didn't feel the need to brag about it, but he was comfortable enough to let himself be underestimated because he knew it likely wouldn't be needed.
- It was more than just Mike being comfortable being underestimated. He was deliberately getting rid of Sobchak and demonstrating his skills to Daniel all at once. He's got those cop instincts and had Sobchak pegged for exactly what he was: an arrogant fool who was all mouth and no brain or skills. Otherwise why carry all those guns? He played Sobchak like a piano. Partly because a loose cannon like Sobchak could cause that deal to go pear-shaped in a hurry and partly so Mike could just pocket the whole fee himself.
Tuco's grandma and the hit and run
- I have a very hard time buying that Tuco's old Abuelita commits the hit and run that she does and seems so completely clueless to it as she does. Yes, there's a language barrier (she doesn't speak English, the skateboarders only know a little Spanish), but it doesn't matter. Anyone who drives (even if they learned in Mexico) knows that you don't just drive off after hitting someone with your car, especially if the collision was bad enough to crack your windshield. That's a felony under Mexican law just as much as it is in US law. If she really is that clueless to the driving laws, she's a serious danger to people and Tuco should've taken away her keys.
Even harder for me to swallow is that when she exits the car and the two twins confront her, she's so completely clueless. Again, even with the language barrier, anyone with a brain should easily figure out what's going on. You hit someone with your car, this person is now confronting you, appearing to be in pain, and speaking in an angry tone of voice...she should be able to put the dots together. Yet she seems so clueless and unaware that anything has even happened. Yeah, she may be about Hector's age and she may not speak English, but the whole premise was just really pushing it.- It's not that she doesn't know what happened, she doesn't know how to deal with it. First time someone bumped me in the back I didn't even want to pull over and check with her what happened. And I was a young guy not an abuelita that may or may not understand how the american civil legal system work. It's like a child breaking a vase.
- While it isn't clear how much she specifically knows about Tuco's criminal activities, it is reasonable to suppose that with many of the family members being connected to the drug cartels, there is a general attitude of "don't involve the police" in the family. Note that the first person she goes to about it is Tuco, who says he'll "take care of it", or something to that effect.
Why doesn't Mike report on the truck?
- Notwithstanding that he got an innocent man tangled up in his scheme and murdered for it, why would Mike rely on others to report the truck at all? Why not call the cops from a burner phone right away, like he did about the fight with Tuco? Just tell them he's been passing by, saw the truck and the tied-up driver but is not staying because he's afraid to get involved and it's not his business anyway.
- Mike had already reported on the Tuco fight before it started by calling it in, was present at the crime scene, then retracted his statement under suspicious circumstances concerning the revolver. That one time, the police can rationalize things as Mike being a Good Samaritan who got caught up with a dangerous criminal, and was intimidated into silence. If his next call leads them to a cartel mule tied up in the desert with the tires sawed open and searched, they have every reason to believe the call that sounded suspiciously like Mike was made by him again, and he must somehow be involved with the cartel. Which is bad for Mike because he'll be under suspicion, and if the cartel takes notice that he's still bumping shoulders with the cops, they'll kill his family.
- I don't think anyone ever implicated Mike about the first call - it was just assumed that a random bystander called in and reported a fight (it could've started earlier after all). Also, he calls the police later, about the Good Samaritan's body, and isn't worried he'd be recognized (he doesn't even do the sexy robot voice thing!), likely because noone in the Albuquerque police knows him enough by voice (hence why he relocated so far in the first place). It was indeed very strange and sloppy for him to rely on strangers in a situation like this.
- Mike had already reported on the Tuco fight before it started by calling it in, was present at the crime scene, then retracted his statement under suspicious circumstances concerning the revolver. That one time, the police can rationalize things as Mike being a Good Samaritan who got caught up with a dangerous criminal, and was intimidated into silence. If his next call leads them to a cartel mule tied up in the desert with the tires sawed open and searched, they have every reason to believe the call that sounded suspiciously like Mike was made by him again, and he must somehow be involved with the cartel. Which is bad for Mike because he'll be under suspicion, and if the cartel takes notice that he's still bumping shoulders with the cops, they'll kill his family.
Why is Jimmy's car so run-down?
- Jimmy's car is a 1998 Suzuki Esteem and the story begins in 2002. How did it go from being brand new to barely functional in four years? Sure the door and headlights could be damaged in an accident but how does the engine not start? The warranty on it should either still be active or recently expired.
- Supposedly, the car's previous owner was pretty careless with it, leaving it out exposed to the elements, maybe not getting it serviced regularly, and that, in addition to the crash, might explain it. As for the warranty, it is doubtful it would cover someone mistreating their car to the point of it becoming completely run down after only four years. Either which way, given that Jimmy was on a tight budget, it sure would seem that an abused wreck of a car was the best he could afford.
Season 2
Zafiro Añejo math
- So, in "Switch," Jimmy and Kim trick Ken Wins into paying for a whole bottle of Zafiro Añejo tequila. It's $50 a shot. How much would the whole bottle cost?
- If you want the math a bottle is 25.4 oz, a shot is 1.5oz. It means 16.93 shots at $50 a shot. So the bottle is $847 unless of course there is a deal for buying the whole bottle.
- They wouldn't pay for the whole bottle, though. Pay for it in shots and you bilk KEN WINS out of more money.
- We learn in a later season that buying a bottle of Zafiro Añejo outright from the liquor store costs $495, meaning that based on the above math, Ken paid $352 more than that for the drinks, or a 71% markup compared to the liquor store's price, if this troper is not mistaken.
- If you want the math a bottle is 25.4 oz, a shot is 1.5oz. It means 16.93 shots at $50 a shot. So the bottle is $847 unless of course there is a deal for buying the whole bottle.
What led the cops to check behind the couch?
- The short answer is that the cops couldn't help but notice that the entire floor was covered in clutter except for the space in front of the couch.
- The long answer:
- First, Daniel gets home, finds his place trashed. Panics, "Shit! is my stash still safe?" He moves the couch. "Phew, stash is safe, but I better get it out of the house before I call the cops". He moves the couch back. I'd say that Nacho or his accomplice(s) would have dug through the couch in their search, so presumably Daniel also tidied up the couch cushions. Daniel proceeds to hide the stash in his car, or yard, or attic, or flushes it.
- Now call me crazy, but I'd assume that Daniel hid the baseball cards himself to try to create a convincing story for the cops that isn't self-incriminating, though I could also imagine Nacho taking them for future leverage since the way they were supposedly displayed in the living room would suggest Daniel values them highly. But I have a feeling Daniel just hid them himself. The baseball scoreboard over the couch plus Daniel's detailed descriptions and general knowledge about baseball cards suggests they actually exist, regardless of whether they've been stolen. I wouldn't be surprised if the cops eventually find the missing cards elsewhere in Daniel's house.
- But I do have to wonder where Daniel's head is. Even if he realizes he was targeted for the drugs (which I think he does), he may not realize it was Nacho or his crew. He might even blame Mike, given how Mike walked out on him for showing up in the Hummer. Then again, since Nacho also took the baseball cards, Daniel just might be naive enough to initially think it was a random break-in (despite the reflex to check that his stash was safe). I could even imagine Nacho taking the cards on the hope Daniel would be naive enough to believe they're what the break-in was all about. But Daniel's interactions with the cops might have led them to think he was engaging in an insurance scam or something like that.
- Furthermore, it didn't take Sherlock Holmes level detective skills for these cops to smell something fishy. Yeah, they're just beat cops, but their ages and demeanor make clear that they're pretty seasoned officers (one of the two that show up also responded to Skyler's "domestic violence" call in "IFT"). When you've worked in a field a long time, you get good at intuitively recognizing when things don't fit the norm. These cops have seen a lot of random burglary crime scenes. If things don't fit the typical pattern, they'll notice. And there was a lot to be suspicious about at this particular crime scene, like:
- The pimped-out Hummer in the driveway. Doesn't seem to match this computer repairman's income.
- Daniel's story doesn't fit the evidence presented: if the burglar was after the baseball cards, and the cards were out in the open, why would he risk spending extra time turning the place upside down unless he was looking for something else?
- The TV and computer weren't taken, so it wasn't a random property crime.
- Daniel remarked that a "fair bit" of cash was taken, but then immediately tries to downplay it. This being him trying to make it seem like the perp got off with about $500 rather than say, $200,000 (ballpark estimates).
- Daniel says he works at a pharmaceutical company (in IT - computer repair). It's easy for the officers to infer that he might somehow have access to drugs.
- Since Daniel works in IT and lives in a fairly modest place, the pimped Hummer doesn't seem to fit his supposed financial situation and lifestyle.
- Daniel's appearance and personality don't fit what the cops would expect from the owner of that Hummer.
- As mentioned before, the clean patch in front of the couch shows that the couch was moved away from the wall and back AFTER the mess was made. Tidy cushions on the couch further suggest the couch isn't how Daniel found it after the break-in.
- I think, on further viewing, I think I saw a bug crawl out from under the couch. This might have been a tipoff that there was a hole in the wall where the bugs had a nest. That, coupled with the evidence of the couch being moved, points to the cash being hidden in the wall behind the couch.
- On the other hand, the way Daniel talks about the cards as if they were "missing persons", and talks about the time-urgency of the first 48 hours of the investigation makes clear (and which is confirmed in the next episode) that the cards really were taken and he really doesn't understand the drugs were the real target (even though he checked his hiding place). He is over-selling a line of bullshit to the cops, but because he's been shown to be naive and a poor liar in the past, it's tempting to accept his concern about the cards as genuine.
- I like to think Nacho set him up. He purposefully left the stash untouched and tidy the cushions so that Daniel gets burned if he calls the cops since his stash is left in the open. I mean it's clear he can't work with someone who flaunt his cash around but if he steal everything in his house there is no concrete proof he was a criminal. And since he doesn't know Daniel know his real name all he has to go is the latino guy if he wants to make a deal.
What made the cops suspicious of Daniel?
- Tying in with the above, explained in a different way. The things that made these two police officers suspicious of Daniel are the very reasons why you want a guy like Mike around, if you're up to nefarious business. Nearly every detail they were being presented with, became more and more suspicious.
- 1. Let's start with what the two cops first see as they roll up to the house in their patrol car. They see a Hummer H2, or in cop jargon, "flashy 'new money' vehicle", parked in the driveway. It's not suspicious to own a Hummer note , but it is unusual, and sticks in a person's mind. Police are trained to observe and take note of any and all details, especially anything that doesn't really look "kosher". This is the same reason Mike wanted nothing to do with Daniel once he saw the Hummernote .
- Sidenote: The starting MSRP for a 2003 Hummer H2 was a touch below $50,000....for the plain, no frills version (which this wasn't). Up that to closer to $75-100K with the additional cruise control and climate control features.
- 2. Once the cops are inside the house, our pal the baseball card collector was completely oblivious to the fact that in listing the following things to these cops, he's painting a picture that makes him look pretty suspect:
- 3. First, after talking about the cards, he mentions a "large sum of cash was stolen also". When the cop asks him how much exactly, he sheepishly avoids answering, and refocuses on the cards. Not only is dodging a direct question from a police officer an extremely red flag, but he specified that a 'large' sum of cash went missing. Had he told them $50 was missing off his dresser as well, but be more concerned about the cards, it'd be understandable. But he specified 'large sum'. Which in itself is suspicious to cops. Most people with large sums of cash on them have gotten it through 'off the grid' means. To a police officer, the implication is that the guy is probably engaged in illegal activity on the side like drug dealing or backroom gambling, etc.
- 4. Daniel goes on to tell them he's a computer tech at a pharmaceutical company. The 'company computer guy' isn't a high paying job. And at a pharmaceutical company, he'd have easy access to drugs. This ties in with point 3 in terms of 'off the grid' money.
- 5. The biggest tip-off, though, was when this baseball nerd started listing off the important details of his collection. For instance, a 1952 Mickey Mantel baseball card is valued at over $250,000, for example. The list of cards he was naming off, altogether, was probably by ballpark estimates in the neighborhood of $1 million. That's a lot of money, for the guy who tells you to "first, try restarting", or comes to get the printer working again.
- 6. By itself, each of these things above could go unnoticed. But strung together, you have a tad too perfect picture. It got them combing the scene over for anything else completely suspicious, because at this point, it looks less and less like a conventional burglary and the guy isn't telling them everything.
- 7. Having put all of the above together, that's when the officers saw the shape of the cleared debris in front of the couch. From the shape of the cleared space, they deduced that the couch was pulled out forward at an angle, then returned back against the wall. In general, when a person is robbed, they usually first go check on the thing that is most valuable to them. It sure did sound like what was most valuable to Daniel was behind his living room couch. They looked behind it, and saw nothing there but a stain on the carpet, and a piece of siding that looked like it had been cut away and put back in place. This led them to remove the piece of siding, peek under it and find an empty space between the walls that's big enough to stash contraband like squat cobbler videos, drugs, illegal cash, etc.
- 1. Let's start with what the two cops first see as they roll up to the house in their patrol car. They see a Hummer H2, or in cop jargon, "flashy 'new money' vehicle", parked in the driveway. It's not suspicious to own a Hummer note , but it is unusual, and sticks in a person's mind. Police are trained to observe and take note of any and all details, especially anything that doesn't really look "kosher". This is the same reason Mike wanted nothing to do with Daniel once he saw the Hummernote .
The painting in Jimmy's new office
- I'm baffled by the painting in Jimmy's new Davis & Main office. What is it supposed to depict?
- Since when has art ever made sense?
- I keep thinking it's supposed to be some Breaking Bad easter egg. I mean, I think there's a photo of a train in Jimmy's new office somewhere that foreshadows the Great Meth Robbery in "Dead Freight". The pants in the painting looked like Walt's pants, honestly.
- From a distance it appears to be a figure with a pot for a head, complete with some green shapes reminiscent of cannabis leaves, which would be appropriate considering the kinds of characters Jimmy/Saul associates with and his ties to the drug trade. (Although upon closer inspection the "pot" looks more like some sort of sock cap.) This reddit thread suggests that the sprawling figure is a reference to Slippin' Jimmy, perhaps indicating that Jimmy's old persona is still a part of him even when he's trying to be upstanding and respectable.
What does that light switch do?
- So, in Jimmy's new office, there's a light switch with a sticker that says "Leave on. DO NOT TURN OFF". He defies the warning and flicks off the switch, then turns it back on. What's the purpose of the taped note?
- Secret Test of Character, maybe? The firm tapes that notice there for new attorneys...will they or won't they turn off the switch? It's a good indicator of a person's personality.
- Nothing happening was the entire point. It was a Bookend to show the contrast between Jimmy and Gene. Jimmy was a man willing to take a risk by flipping a forbidden switch for no real reason, while as Gene he's become so risk averse he's willing to stay locked up in a dumpster room for three hours because he doesn't want to set off the emergency exit alarm.
- Some buildings have 'light' switches like that controlling power flow to electrical wall outlets in a particular room. It's not uncommon for a similar label or even a plastic blocker to be in place if the outlets in question are used frequently. In other words, turning it off wouldn't typically cause anything bad to happen, it would just be annoying if someone wanted to plug something into that wall and didn't realize the switch had been flipped. Jimmy probably didn't know any of that; he just couldn't resist the urge to flip it because he likes to see what he can get away with.
Tequila-con: Is it a crime or not?
- Don't get me wrong, it's great seeing Ken Wins get subjected to the misfortunes he endures at the hands of Jimmy or Walt. However, I have to wonder, in the case of the tequila-con game, would Ken be able to implicate them in criminal activity or do you suppose he'd rather shrug it off?
- There probably is a case to be had when Jimmy and Kim gave false signatures on that document Ken handed them, but there is no doubt that Ken would be the absolute laughingstock at his workplace if it ever came out that he got conned. His job might even be in jeopardy if his bosses think this incident is indicative of greater gullibility. I know I wouldn't want my money managed by Ken.
- Even with the signature he said he will take the bill when Jimmy offered to take part of it in front of the waiter, nothing in the contract they falsely signed said he'll pay for the Tequila he was suggested. Arresting them might be possible (though he doesn't know their names and it will take time before he realized the inheritance is a sham) but recovering his money doesn't look possible.
So Kim instantly becomes a con artist?
- Something that puzzles me is, given what we've seen of Kim so far, what would convince her to go along with Jimmy in conning Ken Wins? She added information to assist with the deception, and never said anything to contradict it. And even just sitting there as an accomplice is more than I see Kim doing — she made no effort to remove herself from it.
- Well we don't know much about her but she did cover for Jimmy with the whole Kettleman disappearance, and there was more at stake than making fun of a jackass. It's not like she isn't quick on her feet.
- Have you never seen a seemingly uptight person with a wild side before? A person with a strict upbringing, focused on their studies their entire life and continually achieving more and more, suppresses baser urges which eventually compound into doing something relatively extreme if enabled by someone else. They become enthralled by a rush they've never felt before, because they've never really had an opportunity to let loose. I'd say Kim fits that picture pretty aptly given her focus on work at HHM. She wanted nothing to do with it at first, then started to get a thrill out of Jimmy's charm and success on the douche bag stock broker. A few drinks in her and she's even more impressionable. In the following scene where she kisses Jimmy, you can tell from the look on her face, that she, a girl who has played by the book her entire life, was so overwhelmed by the thrill of the danger of what she just did. Human beings are much more complex than simply treating every situation with the same default personality mode. Everyone reacts differently to different people and different situations depending on the context. I think the writers having her blow off Jimmy in that scene would have only reinforced our less complicated image of her, but instead, they made her an even more intriguing and fleshed out individual.
- Further episodes show that the "Slippin' Jimmy" way of doing things turns her on, even if she may be againts it (at first), and she might have had a knack for it since she was young.
Daniel's motive for getting into the drug dealing
- From what we know about Daniel's baseball card collection, do you suppose it's possible that he turned to drug dealing as a way to get money to trade cards? The baseball cards he listed off to the police officers had to be worth at least $1 million, maybe more.
- If that's the case I doubt he would blow up so much on his new car. I think he just wanted to get rich quick. So far most of the criminals shown are just greedy people willing to have more than what they have: Nacho does deals behind Tuco's back because he's got an agenda of his own, the Kettlemans claimed the money they stole belonged to them for all their work and Daniel told Mike that he wasn't a criminal after doing a drug dealnote . Only Mike so far has a reason other than for financial reasons, and that's only after his past as a crooked cop (which he justified that this was how it works but really Mike never had problem breaking the law.)
- I think that Daniel, like Walt or the Kettlemans, is someone who's angry at his employer or at life for failing to recognize his supposed "hard work" and "genius" (let's remember that that may have been the impetus behind Walt's departure from Gray Matter). He probably views ripping them off as payback. What I don't get is how someone like him (a middle-aged nebbish) finds a connection like Nacho to resell the pills to, and knows people who can put him in touch with someone like Mike. He looks, and acts, like the kind of guy whose worst crime prior to this was stealing office supplies. I suspect that the plot will reveal all in due time, though.
- He said something about having a nephew. My guess is this nephew brought a dog or something to the shady veterinarian/Mike's underground contact and he tried paying in drugs when short on liquid cash. The veterinarian decided to plug him with Nacho and some other contacts that get him the other enforcers. We really need to know more about that guy.
- OP here: I think that the cards could've been a front to launder the money from the drug sales. I think there was an actual case where someone was selling pills he stole, then laundered the money by buying expensive sports memorabilia in large cash transactions.
- Given how utterly naïve and idiotic Daniel is, it's most likely that he got into the drug dealing business because he thought it was "cool". Why else would he buy a very flashy and expensive looking Hummer?
- While this isn't a satisfying explanation in-universe, I highly suspect that the writers wanted to give Daniel a valuable baseball card collection that the audience would be able to easily understand as valuable, so they just included some cards of famous players (Hank Aaron, Derek Jeter, Mickey Mantle) that even people who don't follow baseball would know. I don't think they meant to give Daniel a collection that was worth millions of dollars (The Topps Mickey Mantle rookie card in mint condition alone was probably worth around a quarter-million dollars in 2002), as having cards that valuable would make little sense for someone living such an obviously middle-class life, working as I.T. support for a pharmaceutical company, and choosing to become a drug dealer to make extra money. As for an actual in-universe explanation, I suppose it's possible that all the high value cards were inherited from Daniel's father, perhaps collected at a point when the cards weren't particularly valuable, and Daniel simply can't bring himself to part with them regardless of the money he could make.
Daniel's Hummer - Did he lease it or buy it?
- I had a question about the Hummer: do you think Daniel really leased that car? It looked so highly customized that I doubt it was in any dealership's leasing pool of new cars especially as one that could only have been two months old at best. It looked more like a vehicle a used car dealership sold to an idiot with the intent of repo'ing it after 6 months and selling it to another idiot, and so on.
- The #1 rule is, a customer with money to burn does not like to hear 'no'. Daniel would have requested those flashy modifications and thrown around enough money to either get the modifications performed there, or get referred to someone who would do them for him.
- The Hummer having been leased makes for problems with the "transfer" to Nacho. What's Daniel going to do? Even if he keeps making lease payments the leasing company will eventually want it back. If he reports it stolen, his insurance will take the hit, but that'll draw more attention from the cops. Seems like a bad plan overall.
- He bought the Hummer, it was just him coming up with a bad lie. The interrogation would probably end with where did you said you got the car and Daniel would have been screwed. But after the squat cobbler video they probably don't want anything to do with him.
Is Daniel supposed to be sorta like Walt?
- He strikes me as a guy who found a way to make a side career drug dealing because his old routine was boring, kinda like Walt. But unlike Walt, he goes for flashnote , which is a big mistake that led Mike to cut ties with him.
- He looks like Walt if Walt wasn't lucky and didn't had people guiding him through the steps.
- He's also there to sort of establish Mike's Cool Old Guy status.
Squat Cobbler
- While the video seemed to have been with the intent of getting Daniel off the hook, I have to wonder, were the tapes really necessary to give Daniel his alibi? I mean, wouldn't it work just as well to have the fictional "receiver" of the "videos" be the one in possession of them?
- Well the cops sounded curious and let's be honest, everyone just want to gut Daniel for his stupidity so it's not like they won't enjoy the payback.
- Related question: is it possible Jimmy's drawing from his Chicago sunroof experiences when describing the "squat cobbler" videos?
- Given the Call-Back when he gets a new car with a sunroof yes.
The reupholsterer's place
- So, looking at the car upholsterer's business where Nacho works, I have to wonder, could the business be a front business for one of Tuco's operations?
- It's probably just Nacho working with his parents as a cover. He still needs a day job to not draw suspicion.
- Do you suppose Nacho's parents know about his activities? I mean, it's not clear if they know and will lie to cover for him if the police come around asking questions, or they are blissfully ignorant about Nacho's drug work. Plus, they reupholster cars, which makes me think they could easily modify cars to transport drugs more easily.
- I don't know, if his father knew about Nacho's activities he wouldn't bother waiting for him to leave before talking getting to brass talk to Mike, my guess it's that like Tuco's abuelita -Nacho tries to hide stuff from his parents, his parents might have some ideas but as far as they are concerned he just reupholsters cars at their shop on a part-time basis and that's what the police needs to know.
- OP here: the reason I think it could be a front business is because I once read a Monk novel where drugs were being smuggled onto a Hawaiian island stuffed inside the seats of rental cars, and the guys used a body shop as the front for their operation - they'd arrange for the rental cars to be vandalized or damaged in accidents; then have the vehicles towed back to the shop where they'd extract the drugs from inside the seats. On that logic, it makes Nacho's father's car upholstering business act like a potential front - Tuco has mules transport drugs stuffed inside their car seats from wherever they are produced. They stop at this place, where the seats get reupholstered while the drugs are extracted and picked up by the dealers.
- Yes but then why Nacho didn't tell his dad it's a criminal shakedown? His dad won't rat him to Tuco. Although yes I imagine the reupholstering trick is how Nacho got in the business in the first place, he is good at stuffing drugs.
- Perhaps Nacho has a Gus-like quality of keeping in character with people he really doesn't want to deal with, at least while in the presence of others. Obviously his father wouldn't know who Mike is. I mean, the way Nacho acts once his father leaves to attend to other things, he's clearly not happy with Mike showing up to strong-arm him.
- It's probably just Nacho working with his parents as a cover. He still needs a day job to not draw suspicion.
- Nope, as of Fall, the reupholsterer's place is owned by Nacho's father, it's a legit business, and Nacho just works there though it almost becomes a front.
What's Chuck bearing witness to?
- When Jimmy asks him this, Chuck says "Bearing witness." Bearing witness to what, exactly?
- Of Jimmy's change. He wants to see if Jimmy can truly be a lawyer.
- Given the events of "Pimento," I keep thinking of how Chuck was brazen enough to crash Jimmy's presentation, then say that "to bear witness" line as if Jimmy has done something inexcusable by daring to be a real lawyer.
- It can also be interpreted as Chuck wanting to see Jimmy screw up and get disbarred. Obviously he won't actually get disbarred since he becomes Saul, but still, that seems to be Chuck's end-goal.
- Jimmy is doing his thing with Davis & Main, and he is killing it at that point. Jimmy asks Chuck why he's there, and he says “to bear witness”. What he really means is, “I know you’ll fuck it up somehow, you always do.” This moment shows that Chuck was never going to be supportive of Jimmy even if Jimmy did things by the book. In season 2, Chuck goes full offensive on dismantling Jimmy's career. He makes a point to attend the Sandpiper meetings with Davis and Main after Howard tells him Jimmy was hired there. He not-so-subtly accuses Jimmy of solicitation in front of Cliff Main and everyone else. Then he jumps at the chance to meet with Mesa Verde to screw Kim (in order to thwart Kim's solo practice since he knows that will tank Jimmy's practice by extension, since they had rented an office together and shared expenses.) And finally, the whole confession tape trap he does in season 3.
- Of Jimmy's change. He wants to see if Jimmy can truly be a lawyer.
Is Jimmy truly incapable of changing?
- I keep thinking about Chuck's "The Reason You Suck" Speech in "Pimento" and wonder, is it true when he believes that deep-down, Jimmy will always at heart be Slippin' Jimmy? 'Cause in my mind, Jimmy seems to be many pegs above Walt in terms of morality:
- Jimmy was opposed to Brock's poisoning and tried to sever his relationship with Walt once he realized what Walt had done
- He seemed to care about people (even showed concern for Walt when he saw him in 'Granite State'; encouraging Jesse to reconnect with Andrea in Season 4 of Breaking Bad; engaging in a playful conversation with Brock (Brock responded better to Jimmy than he ever did to Walt whom he acted aloof around)
- Even when Jimmy recommends taking out a hit on someone's life, he looks as if he can't even stomach giving the order as "you have to kill him" and has to come up with "colorful metaphors" for it while doing so.
- Thus, to me, "Saul" was more like a morally flexible Jimmy.
- Jimmy can't change, he tried to but once cornered he will turn his back on the law, lie to officers and fake evidence. Saul is not even a more morally flexible Jimmy, he is Jimmy with more money and no reason to hide. He can't do worse but he can't do better either.
- Jimmy has always been the type to bend the rules to get results. As Saul, he's beholden to nobody because he owns his own practice, so he can bend (or even break) as many rules as he wants.
- Young Jimmy was dipping into his father's till. Older Jimmy returned the Ketterman's stolen money, then regretted it. However, Saul kept Jesse's money safe for him while he was in rehab. That shows some change (from outright theft to simply charging large fees to successful criminals), though it might be pragmatic one. His father and the Kettlemen were sheep; drug dealers like Walter and Jesse were wolves. He could talk about why his fees are justified or reduce them after the fact, whereas outright theft from dangerous people is a line Saul knows better than to cross.
- I believe that Jimmy is capable of change, but in order for that to happen his earnest attempts at change need to be awarded. If people just keep reinforcing his belief that sheep get eaten by wolves, then he'll be a wolf. Even the job at the law firm isn't really the product of attempting to change so much as it is his desire for Kim to really care about him in spite of his habits.
- Consider the differences between when he is Jimmy, Saul and "Gene". Jimmy at the start of BCS was a guy with a troubled past who was mostly trying to do the right thing and start anew, but wasn't above cheating and cutting corners now and then to get an edge. As Saul, he was at the top of his game and enjoying life to the fullest, but by that point he was breaking the law as a regular course of action. Then we have Gene, who from what we've seen seems to be living a quiet, law-abiding life, but mostly out of fear of being exposed. Plus, he appears miserable and misses the glory days.
Poor baseball card security
- Daniel supposedly has a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle baseball card in his collection. Someone on the IMDb threads said such cards are worth about $330,000. At that much value, wouldn't such cards be safer in a safety deposit box?
- No point in having a collection if he can't see them. Most of those are keepsakes.
- The writer of the show might not have realized that the card is worth that much, or the IMDB person might be mistaken. I don't think the card is supposed to be worth that much in the show.
- Based off Daniel's description of the card (Mint, Rookie, 60/40, 90/10 on the back) and the time in which the show took place (2002), the card is probably worth around a quarter million dollars. The same card in the same condition was sold for about $280,000 in 2006. Either way, I'm pretty sure the writers just wanted to give Daniel a collection of value and didn't do enough research into exactly how valuable those particular cards are. I supposed it's possible that they were all collected by Daniel's grandfather/father at a time when they weren't especially valuable, but a middle-class working stiff like Daniel has no business owning one of the most valuable baseball cards of all time. As for his poor security, well...best I can say is that Daniel showed many times throughout his appearances that he's not particularly sharp.
Is Nacho more dangerous than Tuco?
- I say this because we know Tuco is obviously not right in the head, and resorts to swift violence on several occasions, such as what happens to the skateboarders and to No-Doze. But Nacho is super calm and articulate, one of those people who always has this permanent smirk just PLASTERED to their face, even when angry. It's unsettling because you never quite know what is going on behind that ambiguous smirk. He did seem to take Jimmy's criticism about being caught outside the Kettlemans' house to heart as he never did deliver those "consequences" to Jimmy, which I'd say makes Nacho ruthless but fair. He's an intelligent thug and I think that makes him more dangerous than Tuco. He seems to be able to size people up at first glance, which makes me categorize him with characters like Gus more than with Tuco.
- That would still make him less dangerous than Tuco, because you can strike a deal with him like Mike did and if it was Tuco Daniel would have been buried in the desert by now, unstable is more dangerous than collected. Now if Nacho decides to hold grudges, it might make him dangerous except Mike, Jimmy, and Tuco are all rendered bulletproof by canon, so even if he plans on giving trouble to Mike or Jimmy, it's not gonna end well for him.
- There is also the fact that Nacho, even though he's performing business behind Tuco's back, is still terrified of him.
- Dangerous in what sense? Dangerous as in better at crime? Probably. But dangerous as in more of a danger to the public safety? No, Nacho is pretty predictable in his behavior and if you just act as he wants you to act then you have nothing to really fear so he's not dangerous in that sense.
- Nacho being the better criminal and more predictable actually ended up making the cartel more of a public safety hazard, by accident. He is much more American in his outlook, careful to keep a low profile and expecting the same professional conduct from others he displays himself, causing him to overestimate people. The cartel banks heavily on its unpredictable reputation to intimidate enemies, being able to get away with it in Mexico where every cop has a price and people know not to cross them. But this attitude is challenged by the DEA, who are less corruptable, and Gustavo, who has a vendetta against them, resulting in inevitable violence. By trying to get Tuco removed, Nacho made him and the cartel as a whole more dangerous than they were before. That arguably makes his conduct worse than Tuco.
- That would still make him less dangerous than Tuco, because you can strike a deal with him like Mike did and if it was Tuco Daniel would have been buried in the desert by now, unstable is more dangerous than collected. Now if Nacho decides to hold grudges, it might make him dangerous except Mike, Jimmy, and Tuco are all rendered bulletproof by canon, so even if he plans on giving trouble to Mike or Jimmy, it's not gonna end well for him.
So, sans-Hummer....
- ...what sort of explanation will Daniel have to give to explain the sudden disappearance of his brand-new Hummer, now that Nacho has it and it's on its way to a chop shop? I know he's back to presumably driving that old wood-paneled Honda Odyssey unless he sold it, but it sure stood out to the police officers who visited his house. Jimmy may have gotten Daniel an alibi for the secret hiding space, but what alibi can be given for a car?
- A good old "none of your business" defense. The Kettlemans went camping in the woods and sacked their house, well, because. Daniel got buyer's remorse. No report on a gone Hummer and no point to ask the billion of reasons Daniel would return a ridiculous looking Hummer. Police already asked them for his fetish video and got one if they start asking for more they'll look like they harass the guy.
So the arrangement between Mike, Nacho and Wormald was.....
- Nacho gives Daniel his cards back and $10,000 to Mike for his troubles, and he gets Daniel's Hummer, which he immediately takes to the chop shop to destroy. Is that where the $60,000 Mike says Nacho will net himself comes from? Would it really be possible to get $60K for that Hummer at a chop shop? I thought chop shops were typically known for paying pennies on the dollar for stolen cars, even though Daniel's Hummer is technically not stolen.
- Well Nacho is kind of a well known criminal so he has a bigger stick when it comes to negotiate the price (parts for Hummer are still good money) and even without that he still keeps most of the money he stole from Daniel.
- Thinking about it, was he really going to take it to a chop shop? It sounded kinda like a jab at Daniel than a blunt reassurance. It's such a brand new car that I think it'd be more practical for Nacho to take it and sell it on the black market for full value. There's got to be some drug kingpin who'd be willing to buy that school bus for six-year old pimps.
- Yes he will scrap it, a car like that even if you find someone that want to buy it the same with Daniel will happen. Police see his car ask a bunch of questions and realize he doesn't have the papers for the car and then it's unnecessary heat. And you can bet those cops will talk about the pie sitter with a playuh Hummer to other cops which will just make things complicated if a shady guy who bought this car on the black market get arrested.
- OP Here: I still think Nacho said that as a dig at Daniel. Though since Nacho's dad owns that upholstery business, I suppose that it could be real. See, my only problem with the 'destroy' route is, since it's 2002 in the show and the H2 had only just started production in 2002, so the ever-changing circumstances might make it more practical to just repaint it, change out license plates, and sell it down in Mexico or even Belize. I'm not sure how they'd make any more money parting it out, unless they mark up the parts. I think around 19,000 '02' model H2s were sold in real life. Based on that, I don't know what kind of demand there would be for parts from that model year. It may depend on whether it's more profitable to sell off the entire car or just the parts (Mike said to Nacho when proposing the offer that they would roughly net $60,000). That has to be a pretty good engine that could be installed in some other vehicle. And the spinning rims on the wheels have to be about $6,000.
- Well, first off, going through all those steps to sell the Hummer a thousand miles away in Belize doesn't sound more practical than taking it to the local chop shop and being rid of it. Also, the parts will definitely fetch more money than the car. That's the case for just about any car on the road. The reason you can buy a whole car for cheaper than you can buy all the car's parts is because the automakers mass-produce them, but the parts can be marked up pretty heftily. Also, the parts will be useful on more than just the 2002 H2. The H2-specific parts would be good for several model years to come. The collision parts - fenders, hood, and such - would fetch a premium. And the powertrain parts can go in any number of GM vehicles. The transmission, for example, can go in Suburbans, Silverados, you name it. Finally, that Hummer is so damn conspicuous that Nacho (who is already working outside his boss's purview and needs to avoid scrutiny from all directions, not just the cops) will not want to spend one minute longer in possession of it than he has to. Nope: that Hummer went straight from the deal to the chop shop and was probably no longer in existence by sunset.
- OP Here: I still think Nacho said that as a dig at Daniel. Though since Nacho's dad owns that upholstery business, I suppose that it could be real. See, my only problem with the 'destroy' route is, since it's 2002 in the show and the H2 had only just started production in 2002, so the ever-changing circumstances might make it more practical to just repaint it, change out license plates, and sell it down in Mexico or even Belize. I'm not sure how they'd make any more money parting it out, unless they mark up the parts. I think around 19,000 '02' model H2s were sold in real life. Based on that, I don't know what kind of demand there would be for parts from that model year. It may depend on whether it's more profitable to sell off the entire car or just the parts (Mike said to Nacho when proposing the offer that they would roughly net $60,000). That has to be a pretty good engine that could be installed in some other vehicle. And the spinning rims on the wheels have to be about $6,000.
- Of course, how do they handle the lease Daniel took out on the vehicle? Does he just continue paying it off as if he never gave it away and then at the end claim he wrecked it and pay the difference? For that matter, is the vehicle even a lease to begin with (it seems to be hinted that Daniel may have lied about the lease because he didn't want the cops to know he paid cash)?
- It's not a lease he just lied to explain how he got that big of a car. Besides it sounds easier to sell it in parts than sell it whole to someone who want to buy a Hummer illegally and isn't dumb enough to get cop's attention (even with a paint job it's still a car that raise suspicion if the rest of the belonging doesn't match).
- Most people don't put premium gas and get their cars waxed. Given the instructions he gave to Nacho, I do not think Daniel would have been so concerned about his car if it were leased.
"I don't want to hear this"
- The fabricated Squat Cobbler tapes are the first truly Saul-like actions that Jimmy has taken. Kim calls him out on it and says "I can't hear this again". The way she says it is kinda vague and makes me wonder, does she mean, "Jimmy, stop doing this" or "if you do it, I don't want to hear about it lest I become an accessory after the fact"? It's possible that she meant the former and Jimmy heard the latter. But I personally believe Kim means the latter because, given her complicity in helping Jimmy con KEN WINS, she's clearly wise enough to think Jimmy's not going to stop being fast and loose with the law. So she just plans to put her fingers in her ears and turn a blind eye, and be a "Danny"note to Jimmy (read: someone who "looks the other way", and can be "trusted completely").
- She doesn't want to hear it but she knows the only reason the Kettlemans took her deal is because Jimmy does this kind of stuff all the time, but as long as he does not outright say it, she's fine. And technically his first Saul moment is when he helped Mike swipe that cop's notepad in "Five-O".
- OP: I'm wondering if Kim wronged the Kettlemans by discussing their situation with Jimmy when he was in the bathroom at the restaurant. On that note, the Kettlemans' situation was interesting. Jimmy could have played it "by the book" and just kept defending an unwinnable case, and depleting that $1.6 million by $300 per billable at a time. In two years—5,000ish hours—he could have taken it all. It would have been completely legal, if not moral. It was on Kim's lead that he sought an "extralegal" way to get the Kettleman case back to HHM.
- She didn't and Jimmy would have been in trouble since once the Kettlemans lose it's gonna be easy to get Jimmy arrested (ambulance chasing lawyer charging 5000 the hour? Who also found them when they went on their camping trip? Yes he wasn't in on it at all) when Betsy throw him under the bus. And given how blatant the evidence were Jimmy couldn't stretch the trial much simply on his good charms.
- Law and ethics aren't the same thing. Fabricating evidence is illegal, and Kim has a problem with that because it could get him disbarred (and in fact she may even be obligated to report him since she knows, and is complicit after the fact by not doing so). But just telling the police another theory about why his client was being suspicious is fair game (even if said theory is complete bullshit). There is also a gray zone if Jimmy knew it was actually a drug cover-up, because while he doesn't have to tell the cops this, he shouldn't be saying things he knows aren't true either. At the same time though, it seems like Kim's problem with it had more to do with the fact that it could ruin Jimmy's new career. Kim doesn't mind when Jimmy's a little shady (hell, she smiled a little bit when Jimmy did the billboard stunt), and even had fun ripping off KEN WINS at the hotel. But as soon as it jeopardized his job, and maybe hers because she vouched for him, she wouldn't tolerate it. Jimmy's moral compass doesn't really discern between the two.
- There is also the fact that if she can be liable as an accessory after the fact, since she now knows about the crime but did not report it. She's doing this to protect herself as much as she is trying to protect Jimmy.
- I've always thought that maybe it's something akin to a "Don't ask, don't tell" policy.
- She doesn't want to hear it but she knows the only reason the Kettlemans took her deal is because Jimmy does this kind of stuff all the time, but as long as he does not outright say it, she's fine. And technically his first Saul moment is when he helped Mike swipe that cop's notepad in "Five-O".
Those two African American police detectives conducting the interview with Daniel and Jimmy
- Don't be alarmed as I'm African American myself. However, as I was watching the police interview, something about those two just had me thinking were they were intentionally picked because their superiors gambled if Daniel (already under their suspicion) was only in the room with those two, he would have cracked like an egg under those two playing the "part"
- Probably have more to do with them being the one that answered Daniel's call. Besides like Mike said they were going more the "let's befriend the guy so he drop valuable info and corner him."
- I believe that they're the detectives assigned to this case.
- I'm the same guy who made this folder and I respect the above viewpoints. Like why this was a headscratcher to me because when I watch a certain TV show and that certain character is being questioned, both interviewing detectives would be mostly white or white and a minority. I just have never seen two fictional African American detectives in the same interrogation room. Guess that AMC's promo was right, this show is marvelously original.
- Probably have more to do with them being the one that answered Daniel's call. Besides like Mike said they were going more the "let's befriend the guy so he drop valuable info and corner him."
Why did Howard tell Chuck that Kim pushed for Jimmy's position at D&M?
- I'm just curious why Howard would add in Kim's involvement with Jimmy getting the D&M job. Was he being honest or could he have fudged a bit on her role in the decision to stay in Chuck's good graces?
- Because that's what happened, Kim did push for Jimmy more than anyone else like she always did. Why would Howard not mention that? Although that scenes does show Howard is brown nosing what with the Charlie hustle and but I didn't stand in the way as to say I didn't sabotage but it's still on the table if you want.
- It's Howard's way of making sure Chuck fully understands the situation. Howard always kept Jimmy out of HHM at Chuck's orders, and he would have continued to do so if Jimmy was still trying to get into HHM, but he's letting Chuck know that he (Howard) hasn't been blackballing him at other law firms in New Mexico. Howard saying "didn't stand in the way" is a clear statement of "I know you don't want Jimmy working as a lawyer at HHM, but I'm not torpedoing his chances with anybody else". Mentioning that Kim is the one who pushed for it says how it did actually come about.
Mike and Jimmy fallout?
- So Jimmy and Mike seems to be in a favor for favor relationship, but compared to when Mike threatened Saul for Jesse's location, it's kind of a neat deal. While I don't doubt Mike will drop Jimmy since he seems apathetic toward him but is there something he will do so that Jimmy refers to him as just his private investigator and help planning a hit on Mike's boss? I mean this is the guy that helped him stole more than a million in cash.
- There's still a lot of ways to go before we catch up with Breaking Bad. That said, in Breaking Bad, Mike works for Gus as the lead enforcer of Gus's operation, but on the side he does the fixer work (bugging houses and cleaning up crime scenes) as a favor to Jimmy, and in return Jimmy gives him his network of connections. Yes, Jimmy himself actually says at one point in Breaking Bad that Mike has far larger connections than himself. And if you're someone like Mike, having an Amoral Attorney on your list of contacts is really good for when you might get caught up in a jam.
About Daniel's drug dealing
- So, Daniel works at a pharmaceutical company and steals factory-sealed drugs to sell on the streets. How has he been able to do so for three, maybe even five, deals without getting caught by his superiors? My best guess is that he does something similar to what Lydia does to Madrigal's methylamine barrels in Breaking Bad - delists the drugs from the inventory so that it's like they never existed - but they never really give any suggestion as to how Daniel does that one part.
- They said he was I.T, so it's probably not hard to delist if he is the one who sets up the access to inventory.
What was wrong with Jimmy's commercial?
- So, was Cliff upset at Jimmy for producing and airing a Davis & Main commercial without authorization or was he more upset about the potential legal issues that could result?
- There is no legal issue they can get from that, however it might hurt them if it's not their politics to be so sentimental during their commercials.
- I dunno. Couldn't Sandpiper have grounds for defamation or misleading information?
- No, he doesn't mention Sandpiper. Even when he was going to see the elders he made sure to not make it look like they got robbed. The ad just said you might have been overcharged call here. And even if he does mention Sandpiper, their own law firm confirmed that there have been overcharges.
- In the ad he does say, "If you or a loved one is a resident of a Sandpiper Crossing facility or other associated retirement community, you may be eligible to receive compensation." You may not have noticed it because Kim asked Jimmy at that point if the elderly lady's tear was real or not.
- The danger is the possibility of causing ongoing damages to a business. See, in similar ads for pharmaceutical companies, they can name the specific drug because it's no longer on the market or being prescribed for that condition, hence, the Big Pharma can't claim lost sales damages on a product no longer for sale. Sandpiper could easily claim libel here unless of course D&M/HHM win the case.
- Thing is the attorneys did admit that some of the Sandpiper residents were eligible for compensation in "RICO". That's not libel if they say it and since they shredded the documents to avoid fraud charge, they won't backtrack from this. It's not like they are explaining they committed fraud by buying syringes from other states. If Jimmy is cocky enough he can ask them to tell their residents of the "accidental" overcharges they might had suffered for them.
- It's part of an ongoing lawsuit, though. There's usually an exception to libel laws for communications that relate to a legal proceeding. Firms routinely mention specific companies have committed fraud in press releases and ads. But the reason you don't see that more in such cases as drug cases is simply because often, victims don't know the drug manufacturer, they only know the drug they're taking. Also, it's not always crystal clear which company manufactured a particular drug. That's how the concept of "market share liability" came into existence. Mentioning Sandpiper was necessary in this case because prospective clients wouldn't know the commercial was talking about them otherwise.
- Yes but even if Sandpiper try to take down the commercial they'll probably need to set this in court, which is the last place they want to go and they'll have the burden of proof now since they have to prove the commercial's claims are false, which is kind of problematic since it is what they do and they are really not in position to go on offense. It's like when Bell company tried to sue an ad where their competitor said their network was the fastest in the province of Québec and had not-so-subtle jabs about Bell in the commercial. Bell lost the case because evidence proved that yes, the other company had a faster network.
- I think Jimmy was just taking the initiative by airing the commercial - it was just a single airing in a test market and it brought in 100 new potential clients. Jimmy was in charge of client outreach, he ran the idea by Cliff, and misconstrued Cliff's reaction as a green light to run with it. Now, in the next episode, "Gloves Come Off," Hamlin and Chuck are shown raking Kim over the coals about it. Why is she Jimmy's keeper? I know about the legal obligation to report misconduct of fellow attorneys, but just because she knew a commercial had been made doesn't necessarily mean she knew Jimmy didn't get it pre-approved before airing it. Part of me thinks Chuck has his hands in this, something like:
Chuck: He got a hundred new clients in one day? Seriously? How?Omar: The commercial he made - it was a great success...Chuck: A commercial? Did Jimmy run this commercial by your bosses before airing it? Have you personally seen it? What content was in it? What if the information is slanderous towards Sandpiper Crossing? This could tank the whole case!Omar: I'll contact Cliff and we'll get to the bottom of it ASAP.[And then Cliff calls Jimmy and chews him out about the commercial]- Well Howard went through Kim too when Jimmy did the billboard stunt, so they know that for them she is the best person to tell Jimmy to get back in line. Plus the way it goes it makes Chuck putting even more effort to destroy the case than Sandpiper's lawyers which would kind of be crossing a line to stop Jimmy from being a successful lawyer (note that Chuck had no problem when Jimmy was some cheap lawyer you send to defend people with no attorney or just doing elder law.)
- Another possibility: Jimmy is an associate of Davis & Main, not a name partner. Because of his position in the "chain of command" as it may be, he is not permitted to put something out into the world with the partners' names plastered all over it without their authorization. That's why Cliff is mad: He has absolutely zero idea what just got sent out into the hinterlands with his name over it. And more importantly, Jimmy knows this. Any associate knows this. The bigger issue here, regardless of the success of the commercial, is that you simply can't do this. If the partners' names are on something, like a commercial, the partners must approve of whatever it is and sign off on it before it can be aired. It's not that Jimmy did the legally right thing; it's that he went over the partners' heads to do it because he felt it would take too long if he ran it by the partners'.
- Also, aside from Jimmy going behind the partners' backs, I watched the TV spot a few times and I felt it was a little too directed towards a specific audience. That is, when the commercial narrator says, "If you or a loved one is a resident of a Sandpiper Crossing facility or other associated retirement community, you may be eligible to receive compensation." That is to say, it may imply that you have to be a resident of a Sandpiper facility in order to qualify. Davis & Main may have been able to maintain plausible deniability when Jimmy was out pressing palms on his own. But when a TV spot airs with the firm's name on it, then the firm maintains all liability for any legal fallout if it's found to be in violation of anything. That's why they were so impressed with the previous, boring mesothelioma ad with the swirl that Jimmy didn't like ... because it was 100% legalese and probably 100% bulletproof.
- Well Jimmy said the commercial breaks no federal or state laws, and there is enough ambiguity that Sandpiper probably won't try countering it. But more important is the image. All about the image. Big law firms don't normally do that type of sentimental commercial because they end up coming off more like ambulance chasers than a big office law firm ("ambulance chaser" is the alleyway that Jimmy's own ads go up once he becomes Saul).
- I'm playing Devil's advocate here, but think about it from Jimmy's perspective: while there's a rationale to making a low-key ad like the mesothelioma ad, they only work for certain clients. The all-text ad with swirl really is what Jimmy thinks it is: a dull, uninspired ad. To be honest, I actually thought that too. It's made worse by the fact that it's about mesothelioma. We're deluged with lawyer ads like that all the time, so Jimmy probably thinks it would be better to stand out in some waynote . Let's remember how Jimmy is the best at reaching out to elderly people. He probably realizes, no doubt, that the potential clients at Sandpiper, being over 75 and in a group setting, may need more graphic and audio stimulation, as well as emotional pull, and his ad delivers on just that. Kim definitely believes the ad hits those notes. You don't just make ads based on hidebound company policy (and it still doesn't excuse that it was wrong for Jimmy to go behind the boss's backs to air the ad), but you should try to "target" them towards a specific audience, as Jimmy says.
- Most attorneys view advertising as low class. In fact, for many years, it was ethically prohibited. Cliff is apparently more open minded than most, but even with all the years he has in the profession, he has reservations about looking like an ambulance chaser. That was the point of the ad that Omar showed to Jimmy.
- If I could hazard an alternative guess: I think it's because they view the commercial as not fitting their brand seeing it as melodramatic and relying to much on emotional appeal. Their normal commercials are boring but they have to be boring because they need to project a professional image.
- Jimmy liked using the law to help people, not to protect some old guys' reputations amongst the New Mexico Bar fraternity. Cliff didn't care that Jimmy's commercial brought in hundreds of new class representatives within days, or that it couldn't possibly ruin anyone's reputation, except with elitists who are so uptight that they'll see anything other than boring legalese as some kind of moral affront. Those elitists are who Cliff was worried about upsetting, and that's why he was mad. For reasonable people, Jimmy's commercial is pretty straightforward, and just happens to be emotionally compelling and well-acted. It's not deliberately designed to be lawsuit-free, but it also contains nothing that would actually attract a non-frivolous lawsuit.
One could argue that if Davis & Main had allowed that commercial to continue running, they'd lose a bunch of clients who believed it had turned into a third rate personal injury-type firm. But the counter argument to that is, well, nobody forces the clients to panic if their law firm appears to be changing its image;note because that's exactly the conflict that occurred with Kim and Mesa Verde, wherein she defended her worth despite being a solo practitioner against HHM, and she won their business. Kevin and Paige didn't simply bolt at the thought of one individual handling their case; they heard Kim's case out, and considered her merits rationally. In Jimmy's situation with Davis & Main, it's the elitism of the clients, nothing more. Now, the rational thing Jimmy should have done would've been to show it to Cliff and the senior partners before airing it. But his failure to do that can be explained by his inferiority complex.note As in, he knew, looking at their commercial, that Davis & Main would never agree to any commercial that's actually likely to work, which meant he wouldn't have a way to attract new clients, which means he could get fired for subpar performance, since he was hired specifically to oversee client outreach. - I think it's less the content of the advert and more that Jimmy didn't get any approval for it before sending it out; it both undermines their authority and shows that Jimmy doesn't think the rules apply to him.
- There is no legal issue they can get from that, however it might hurt them if it's not their politics to be so sentimental during their commercials.
So how will D&M handle Jimmy after the commercial?
- For that matter, why did Jimmy decide to go behind Cliff's back instead of waiting for Cliff to approve the ad?
- I can argue that the situation is meant to plant the seed that Jimmy doesn't handle authority well and will do whatever he thinks will win the case, and doesn't see the need to consult his superiors. Which eventually will get him canned and get him one step closer to being Saul, but not for a while. I mean, while what Jimmy did was bad, I don't know if D&M is the kind of firm that might terminate someone over this. But if he does something egregious, he will be canned. I think this incident could be construed as an accidental slip-up and Jimmy could argue that he forgot to run the ad by Cliff before airing it. They might discipline him and put him on probation, and have him watched very carefully. Jimmy will screw up again, and that will get him fired......eventually. I think 'eventually' because Cliff or Omar mentioned that they need a certain amount of plaintiffs from each district to build the best case, and that's what Jimmy's been doing - client outreach. I can foresee that the other Davis & Main people just don't have the magic touch with old people that Jimmy does and might need to keep him on long enough to complete their class action claim. After that, they might find some way to railroad him into being terminated or resigning.
- Well shouldn't he already be on probation since he is a new hired? And if Jimmy breaks during the scolding it's gonna end poorly.
- The results of his client outreach commercial will save him temporarily. It would be difficult for the Davis & Main bosses to dismiss the sudden influx of clients even when they were possibly improperly solicited. What Jimmy did with his commercial spot may not have been that much different from the Mesothelioma, other than instead of the swirly nebulousness, Jimmy features an actual elderly person whose emotions are clearly on display. I'm not sure that falls entirely under the category of ambulance chasing but it's close. Cliff knows how big a case Sandpiper Crossing is and also that Jimmy is responsible for dumping it in his lap, which is why Jimmy will probably get a temporary reprieve, but not without a blackmark.
- Yes but Jimmy doesn't seem to cope with reprieve well. He will probably try being even more shady.
- A look at the upcoming episode schedule, in particular for "Rebecca," suggests at this point that Jimmy will probably merely face reprimand.
- I can argue that the situation is meant to plant the seed that Jimmy doesn't handle authority well and will do whatever he thinks will win the case, and doesn't see the need to consult his superiors. Which eventually will get him canned and get him one step closer to being Saul, but not for a while. I mean, while what Jimmy did was bad, I don't know if D&M is the kind of firm that might terminate someone over this. But if he does something egregious, he will be canned. I think this incident could be construed as an accidental slip-up and Jimmy could argue that he forgot to run the ad by Cliff before airing it. They might discipline him and put him on probation, and have him watched very carefully. Jimmy will screw up again, and that will get him fired......eventually. I think 'eventually' because Cliff or Omar mentioned that they need a certain amount of plaintiffs from each district to build the best case, and that's what Jimmy's been doing - client outreach. I can foresee that the other Davis & Main people just don't have the magic touch with old people that Jimmy does and might need to keep him on long enough to complete their class action claim. After that, they might find some way to railroad him into being terminated or resigning.
Why did Nacho have to go through the vet to talk to Mike?
- I say this because Nacho knows Mike, and he's dealt with him before.
- Nacho doesn't know his name, phone number and address. He just went to the vet and said "do you know an old man that did that bodyguard job? I want him."
- Going through the proper channels to talk to someone is also a good way of indicating to them that there's no implicit or explicit threat and what the nature of the relationship will be. Mike didn't just go to Nachos families leather shop to talk to him because it's the only way he knew to find him. It's an implicit threat that he knows how to find his family even if Mike would never actually intend to harm them. It puts Nacho immediately on the defensive worrying for his families safety.
Had Jimmy showed Cliff the commercial first?
- What would've happened if (I repeat, IF) Jimmy had done that instead?
- We don't know. But I'm thinking that the end ad would probably be reduced to the same white text over blue swirl that they used for the mesothelioma ad.
- And as "Bali H'ai" shows, they did reduce it down to white text over swirly nebulousness. I remind you that it took them A LOT of effort to get the swirl down right, not to mention the speed of the text.
- Part of the point is that Jimmy and us didn't know. He might have gone into the meeting, presented the ad as a work in progress he made as a way to take the initiative, and either been accepted right away, or they'd tell him "This doesn't look like what we envisioned, Jimmy. Go back to the board and start over." There may not even be a firm no, they might like the commercial but need to make changes in order to more fit their vision without turning it into swirling background hell. We'll never know though, and Jimmy didn't really have the confidence to think he could sell them on the idea.
- We don't know. But I'm thinking that the end ad would probably be reduced to the same white text over blue swirl that they used for the mesothelioma ad.
The ethics of solicitation
- This show points out a double bind irony in the legal profession: when Jimmy went to the Sandpiper seniors on the bus in person, presented the case - that was true — and let them come to him to sign up, that was something considered ethically questionable. Yet he was not criticized by the board at all- just trusted to figure out a way that seemed more 'correct'. But then he does the legally right thing with the TV commercial, and gets himself in trouble for running the commercial behind Cliff's back. But I don't understand, what's the real difference between his emotionally manipulative commercial (which presents an actress and dramatic overstatements plus a telephone number to contact) vs. Jimmy standing up in person and telling them on the bus where they could ask questions back in person?
- Well for starters he bribed a bus driver to let himself have a word in a place he knew everyone could hear him, pretty much implied they were being ripped off and while he told them get the idea that those guys mugged you out your head that's kind of exactly the idea they mentionned, his commercial is simply asking if you have financial trouble and live in an assisted living call now we might help you. That's the difference between someone running an commercial and a door to door salesman which can be turn down with a non solicitor sign.
- ^That. The difference between the commercial and the mail fliers vs. the solicitation is that there's much less pressure. You don't have to say no to a TV commercial or a mail flier. You just ignore the former and trash the latter. It's harder to say no in person.
- Because as they said in the episode, Solicitation law to the elderly was basically written by the lobbying body representing Sandpiper Crossing and other retirement care facilities. Advertising on tv by comparison isn't something they specifically control and which has far lower standards to actually do what they want to do with it.
- The American Bar Association is pretty clear on what lawyers can and can't do: "(a) A lawyer shall not by in‑person, live telephone or real-time electronic contact solicit professional employment when a significant motive for the lawyer's doing so is the lawyer's pecuniary gain, unless the person contacted: (1) is a lawyer; or (2) has a family, close personal, or prior professional relationship with the lawyer." The ideal is that clients seek out lawyers, not the other way around, whenever possible; this is why "ambulance chaser" is an insult and suggest unethical practices.
- Well for starters he bribed a bus driver to let himself have a word in a place he knew everyone could hear him, pretty much implied they were being ripped off and while he told them get the idea that those guys mugged you out your head that's kind of exactly the idea they mentionned, his commercial is simply asking if you have financial trouble and live in an assisted living call now we might help you. That's the difference between someone running an commercial and a door to door salesman which can be turn down with a non solicitor sign.
Is Nacho good at being a criminal?
- This is starting to bug me because Michael Mando's performance makes him look really threatening but so far: He got arrested when he was just doing a lookout for the Kettlemans, he was forced by Mike to cough up part of his gain from stealing Daniel and he apparently needs Mike's assistance for killing someone. I know we don't know much of his agenda yet but it feels like he is already in over his head.
- It is easy to assume he's making mistakes that will eventually get him a target on his back from someone like Gus or Tuconote . "Amarillo"'s cliffhanger makes clear that he's hiring Mike to either kill or cripple someone that he wants out of the picture; but Nacho can't be seen to be doing it because someone higher up in the chain of command would then never trust Nacho and would have him removed. Whatever it is, there've been preview clips of what appears to be Mike getting a gun from the Arms Dealer that Walt buys the M60 from, which probably will be Mike getting a working gun for the hit.
- Does he really have no one he can trust in killing someone other than the old man that made a fool out of him? Just send one of his croonies he brought for his side deals and make sure Nacho is with Tuco when the guy die. And if it's Gus it will kind of make Nacho's plan failing a running gag by that point.
- There's a difference between using hired muscle and hiring a professional. From his two encounters with him, Nacho knows Mike is extremely knowledgeable, competent, and most of all keeps his word. Plus, there's also the fact that Nacho and Mike are not officially affiliated with each other, so if Mike was ever caught, Nacho would have a level of plausible deniability, something he couldn't do if it's one of his own goons that gets caught. Nacho also no doubt noticed that Mike was smart enough not to show up with Daniel in that school bus for six-year old pimps.
Stacey and the "gunfire"
- So was Stacey legitimately mistaking the sound of the newspaper car doing its route for "gunfire" or was she making it up as a way of manipulating Mike for whatever reason? I mean, she said that she heard three quick shots. Those newspapers were far apart, as they were being thrown out of a slow moving car. So I doubt what she thought she heard was the papers, unless (because it was in the middle of the night) she just didn't gauge the time between thuds correctly. But then there's the matter of what caused the notch in the wall at the corner of the house. Did she just not notice it before and assume it was caused by a bullet the night before? Or did she put it there to sell her story to Mike for whatever reason?
- Also, why not check with her neighbors to see if they heard anything, before talking to Mike?
- She is probably just really paranoid, thinking someone is out there to get her since her husband was killed by crooked cops and her father-in-law is getting a lot of money to help her even though he works in a parking booth. A house chipped like that is not even rare. Usually it's just erosion from the elements denting part of a wall.
- Here are a few more things that bother me about this:
- 1. The paper did not just magically start being delivered. It's been delivered for years and Stacey should know the sound of the paper being delivered by now, and when it's delivered. That is assuming she could ever hear the dropping of the paper to pavement through the walls of her house to begin with.
- 2. Stacey said that she didn't sleep a wink all night. Mike saw her turn out the lights and go to bed. Even if she tossed and turned in bed all night, if you hear gunshots AGAIN, you look to see who it is and hopefully the car/license plate.
- 3. If you are a parent so concerned for the safety of your child, you are going to peek out the window and probably develop a habit of checking.
- 4. She said there were 3 shots, very fast - that is not what we heard. If she was half-awake, yeah she may have incorrectly gauged the time between thuds, but still...
- 5. If she called the police the last time it happened, wouldn't they ramp up patrols in the neighborhood? Furthermore, don't the cops protect their own - she's the widow of a fellow officer alone with a kid, right?
- 6. If she's so paranoid, why hasn't she spoken to the neighbors to see if they heard it or know anything? And for that matter, have the neighbors called the cops to also report gunfire? That one neighbor we did see seemed very relaxed and well-rested as she retrieved her morning paper...must be a heavy sleeper to not hear the shots, or the shots weren't there.
- Point 1, it probably started during a stressful night (she needs to be awake at 2 am to hear it), like when suddenly the creaking of the house feels threatening. Point 2 and 3 is because only the newspaper that hit the pavement further away, can be mistaken for gunfire as it gets closer it doesn't sound like gunfire at all. Gunshots don't make a pop sound when it's one house away. Point 5 and 6, not only Matt was not an Albuquerque cop so the "one of us" rationale doesn't apply, but Matt died because his whole precinct was crooked and he didn't do what they asked. She might even think the neighbors are just used to it and it's one of those neighborhood secrets. The thing to get is that she is going crazy. It's just like how after Hank gets shot, Marie freaks out and questions the hospital's sanitary standards because of a water spot on a fork, and Walt has to step in to keep Marie from having a breakdown.
- The pace and number of newspaper impacts does demonstrate that, if they are indeed what Stacey is hearing, her perception is either really warped or she's embellishing in order to gain even more sympathy from her already guilt-ridden father-in-law. If there were no newspaper impact sounds and Stacey still told the same story the next morning, then Mike would know she was just a straight up liar, which wouldn't come across as a believable plot point. I guess from a writer's standpoint, Stacey has to hear something in order to either embellish or simply demonstrate her level of PTSD. Perhaps the more important question is, if Stacey knew that Mike had been staking out the house, would she still have told the same story?
- Stress can really mess up your head. Stacey is hyper-stressed by her tenuous life, and while that one night she was just hearing things it's not at all clear she hadn't been right the first or second time. The response times from the cops are in line with a lot of "dangerous" neighborhoods (if exaggerated). Having heard the gunshots a couple of times could lead to her picking out any number of noises which she mistakes for the gunshots.
Talking about Squat Cobbler to Kim
- Was Kim more concerned about Jimmy losing his position at the firm, Jimmy possibly getting in trouble with the cops (if the cops find out the truth about the videos), or concerns on D&M or HHM taking a hit in reputation if Jimmy got in some trouble but dodged disbarment?
- She did explain in the next episode that any problem Jimmy causes can ruin her career too. Which might bring one of the worse scenario for why Kim is not in Breaking Bad: her career got ruined because she believed Jimmy could be a good lawyer but when he got fired, D&M probably had a bunch of complaints since they hired a Samoan university graduate on Howard and Kim's word who turned out to be an Amoral Attorney. We know Jimmy but for outsiders that sounds like Cliff was an idiot to believe a guy with that background would not be a sleazy lawyer, and when someone has egg on their face they are gonna take it out on the person that suggested it and Howard will have zero problem shifting all the blame on Kim and send her in the cornfield.
- And the show clearly has put us one step in that direction with Kim being unable to dig herself out of the Cornfield after securing Mesa Verde Credit Union as a client for HHM.
- She did explain in the next episode that any problem Jimmy causes can ruin her career too. Which might bring one of the worse scenario for why Kim is not in Breaking Bad: her career got ruined because she believed Jimmy could be a good lawyer but when he got fired, D&M probably had a bunch of complaints since they hired a Samoan university graduate on Howard and Kim's word who turned out to be an Amoral Attorney. We know Jimmy but for outsiders that sounds like Cliff was an idiot to believe a guy with that background would not be a sleazy lawyer, and when someone has egg on their face they are gonna take it out on the person that suggested it and Howard will have zero problem shifting all the blame on Kim and send her in the cornfield.
Is Chuck in denial?
- Chucks says that he wouldn't sink so low as committing extortion but thing is he didn't do that much better. He lied to Jimmy into giving the case to H.H.M (he could have went to see any other law firm if really stuck but there he was sure Jimmy wouldn't get hired), he pressured Howard into not hiring Jimmy and take all the blame (Jimmy coming with Sandpiper's case in exchange of being hired that's not unreasonable) and he put a bunch of roadblock in Jimmy's way. That's just stopping at the letter of the law instead of the spirit.
- While it's certainly dishonest, there's nothing illegal about Chuck telling Howard not to hire Jimmy. As one of the name partners, it's well within his right to refuse to block the hire of any associates, even if it's his own brother.
- And how did he convince Howard to play the bad guy? By using the same threat Jimmy has used to Howard when he thought Howard feared selling his partner's shares once he becomes Chuck's legal guardian. Otherwise Howard could have told him to do it himself.
Was Krazy- 8 snitching already?
- In the scene, it's clear Tuco's doing his lie detector thing on Krazy-8, but I have to wonder, did he figure Krazy-8 was snitching for the DEA or not? I base this question on the nervous look Krazy-8 has while he's handing the money over to Tuco - is he nervous because he knows of Tuco's reputation for violence (what happened to Dog Paulsen clearly must have circulated around the criminal underworld) or is he nervous because he's trying not to out himself as an informant?
Kim is back in the cornfield
- I have to wonder, based on the dialogue, was Kim being placed back in the cornfield entirely Howard's decision or do you think, despite his statements, Chuck may have had a minor part in the decision? (I understand why Jimmy came to the assumption it was Chuck's decision, given that after "Pimento," he seems to have assumed that Chuck was a puppeteer behind Howard’s decisions, but still....)
- "Rebecca" seems to make to indicate that it was Howard's own decision to transfer Kim to the Cornfield, since even Chuck is slightly surprised that Howard decided to keep her there after she secured Mesa Verde Credit Union, and even promises Kim that he would convince Howard to reinstate her position.
- There seemed to be quite a bit that happened offscreen that we didn't see. I wouldn't be shocked if Chuck had a lot more to do with Kim's banishment than was onscreen. The whole conversation that Chuck and Kim had together late at night in "Rebecca" that made Chuck look like the good guy feels like a ruse given others' skepticism of Chuck's story about Jimmy embezzling money from their father's store. Chuck still envies Jimmy...the way he got his law degree...the way he had his wife enjoying his jokes...and possibly how Kim is loyal to Jimmy, over HHM and Howard.
- "Rebecca" seems to make to indicate that it was Howard's own decision to transfer Kim to the Cornfield, since even Chuck is slightly surprised that Howard decided to keep her there after she secured Mesa Verde Credit Union, and even promises Kim that he would convince Howard to reinstate her position.
Skull fragments
- Knowing about the source of Nacho's scar, and what we know about what happened to Dog Paulsen, is it humanly possible for a skull fragment to lodge itself in someone's skin?
- Suicide bomber's have some of their bones piercing people's skin like shrapnel, so a skull fragment after Paul's head was blown off? Might happen. My guess is that Vince Gilligan played MGS 5.
- Speaking of which, why didn't Nacho go to a shady veterinarian to get rid of the fragment? He implies he didn't go to a doctor for it because he didn't want to appear on the radar of police investigating Dog's death, but he could've found a shady vet in the yellow pages easily.
- Stitching up Mike is one thing, removing a foreign object is another.
- Two possibilities: A) After a foreign object is inside your body for awhile, a sort of pocket of scar tissue forms around it. If it wasn't irritating him, Nacho would have no reason to remove it, or B) Nacho wears it as a badge. Some guys like showing stuff like that off to show how hardcore they are or what a cool dangerous lifestyle they have.
The Tuco fight
- While Mike's execution of the plan went off as planned, I can't help but wonder, did Mike plan for possible mitigating factors (like a police car being in the area when he made the 911 call, or Tuco reacting differently)?
- The plan was really bad actually. Tuco is a big guy that could have killed Mike with his punches before the cops arrived, and as Nacho said Tuco might be crazy enough to ask revenge. Mike went with it because he didn't want to kill people even though, like Nacho's plan, there was a bunch of ways this can go bad.
- I think that Mike's decision is supposed to be a "half-measure". Consider that the episode is about whether you go for short-term gain or long-term consequences - do you act immediately on a great idea and worry about/completely miss the long-term damage that action could cause (Jimmy running his ad without approval from the bosses)? Or do you show restraint, lessening the immediate reward now for better long-term results (Tuco gets caught attacking Mike in front of cops, goes away for five-six years, allowing him to be out of Nacho's hair but without the risk of Nacho being targeted by the Cousins that would've happened if Tuco was killed)?
- Well in that case Mike's a big liar when he said he'll never take a half-measure ever again to Walt. And why would Mike risk killing himself just so Nacho would be fine? He won't give money to his daughter in law. He can't show that face at work for a while or to her without any freak out. Hell Nacho might have been overconfident but he was ready to make the Cousins his problem and if Mike was worried he might snitch on him he could have laid a hand. Mike wanted to stop killing people because he didn't seem to have taken any fun in his revenge.
- Mike's story is easy enough to read as just creative license. "In retrospect that was the beginning of me learning to not take half measures, but over the years I've had to make a lot more serious mistakes and learn from them to come to my present understanding" doesn't have the same punch to it.
Why not hire a private investigator to catch Sandpiper redhanded?
- Jimmy and Omar review response rates for their class action mailers and find that they've gotten no replies from any of the 283 mailers sent to the Sandpiper facility in Colorado Springs. Jimmy later speculates to Cliff that he thinks the Sandpiper staff members in Colorado Springs are intentionally throwing their mailers away before residents can see them. I'm not a legal expert, but isn't tampering with the mail (especially when trying to keep residents from lawyering up with D&M) a federal crime as well as the kind of move that could allow D&M to win the lawsuit against Sandpiper immediately? If so, wouldn't it be plausible to consider planting a P.I. undercover as an orderly to hide cameras all over the place? It may not exactly be something inside D&M or HHM ethics, but still....
- It might just be that old people don't reply to their mail too. The only person that replied in Texas needed Jimmy to jog her memory about the letter.
- There's also the concern that hiring private investigators could affect your reputation. As was seen when Cliff chewed out Jimmy for running the commercial without running it first by the bosses, Davis & Main takes their image very seriously, and hiring P.I.s could be seen as too shady of a practice.
- Admittedly, it is the kind of thing that we see Jimmy use Mike for at certain points in this show and in Breaking Bad, but professional firms probably try to make minimal use of private eyes, like, only when there's practically no other choice but to send one in.
Phonebooth Fingerprints
- Trust me, I get why Mike did it, but would the police actually check the phone booth for fingerprints?
- If the cops had reason to suspect that Tuco had been set up, they would have. But I see no indication at any point that the cops are entertaining that idea. As far as what's shown on-screen, it appears the police believe that Mike stopped in at the restaurant, accidentally bumped Tuco's car, an argument broke out, an anonymous pedestrian saw the argument and called the police from that payphone, and the police arrived just as Mike and Tuco's argument got physical. Yes, the 911 logs will certainly show that the call was made from that payphone), but unless the cops have reason to think that Mike was scamming Tuco, they'd be unlikely to dust the phone. Given this is the first job Mike has done where he does more than just stand around, it stands that he'd err on the side of caution, just in case.
- Tuco's attorney could ask about it since it's really convenient and doesn't match any plausible timeline. After all, it appears about six minutes lapse between when Mike hangs up the phone and when the police arrive. A lawyer would've argued that it's unrealistic that Tuco was threatening Mike with his gun for that long. Furthermore, if the counter guy talked (unlikely, since he's being paid to turn a blind eye to the Salamancas using his place to count money), his testimony would show that Mike pulled into the parking lot just five minutes before the police arrived, and after the 911 call was made (the Salamancas' attorneys would have had a field day).
- It would still be ridiculous to expect finding any fingerprints matching Mike (who may not even have his fingerprints in a database) and it's a public phonebooth, so anyone can smudge themselves on it. But Mike is really careful when it comes time to erasing evidence. It was his first major job where he went in planning to be physical rather than just standing there as muscle. Still, Mike's savvy enough as an ex-cop to eliminate any possible traces of evidence that might disprove his "story".
Why do people sometimes criticize Mike's way of taking care of the Tuco problem?
- I've seen some people say that Mike's choice of plan was risky and uncharacteristic considering Mike's previous cutting of ties with Daniel after the entire episode with the schoolbus for six year old pimps. While I don't entirely disagree, I would argue that the writers showed Mike taking a large risk (and the eventual Ali beating that came with it for half the reward) to show an extra layer of depth to Mike's character.
I think the fact the episode ends with Nacho posing the question to Mike about why he bothered going through everything he did when there was an easier way is a poke at the audience to ask ourselves (just as Nacho did) why Mike wanted to avoid killing Tuco. A possible answer to that question is that he still feels serious guilt over the fact that Matt died following his advice to go against his better instincts. That is to say I think Mike didn't want to kill Tuco because he believed Matt wouldn't have wanted him to and that in avoiding doing so he was honoring his son's memory (now, true, he does hitman work for Gus later on in the timeline and kills without hesitation, but we're not there yet). Likewise, while Mike definitely allowed himself to be pummeled, is it also possible he felt kind of good taking the beating as a way to punish himself for the guilt he feels about what happened to Matt?- He already killed Matt's killers and he didn't even seem happy about it. So it might just be that Mike is still on Heroic BSoD after Mike's death. Now my big problem with that scene is that Mike not only can get intel on everyone from who the Salamanca's are to where Nacho work and disarm everyone in a single move but apparently he can take punches that killed someone younger than him without problem. Add that to the bullet the Dirty Cop shot him with in the flashback and he might as well be terminator. He really didn't need that last punch for the cops to arrest Tuco and even if he wanted to avoid being testified it still could have got himself killed taunting Tuco like that. There are only two times in Breaking Bad where Mike gets physical - on Walt in "Thirty-Eight Snub" and garotting the cartel bodyguard in the back in "Salud".
The Cops FINALLY arriving
- Don't get me wrong as I understand like most shows, BCS has its artistic licenses but it really took that long for a bunch of cop cars finally arriving to see Tuco punch out Mike (as he planned it would)? Wouldn't it take 5-10 minutes in real life for a cop car to even show up or even less considering the exact words of Mike's "passerby-concerned citizen" phone call: "I would like to report a fight going on at the El Michoacano Restaurant in the 5000 block of the Isleta Boulevard. There's a man threatening another man with a gun."
- It takes four minutes so still in time.
- I imagine that there's Fridge Brilliance to this. Remember that Mike strives to be the best, he's not perfect, especially since he's only just starting to do the sorts of things he'll do for Gus. For the record, the entire plan seemed to depend on the closest police car being no less than four minutes out when Mike made the call. If there was a police car within a three minute radius of the restaurant, the plan would've blown up. For a real-life example, look at the North Hollywood shootout. The two perps who robbed that bank had meticulously planned their heist, even calculating what they thought would be the police response time. Except a police car happened to be driving by the bank at the exact moment that they were entering the bank and spotted them. Here, Mike is lucky the police didn't show up early and force him to change his plans, since he probably didn't have a plan B or even a plan C.
- It takes four
Mike driving.... with a swollen eyelid?
- After he receiving it from one hell of asswhooping by Tuco, Mike drives at night to meet with Nacho at the abandoned warehouse to collect the money. I found it so peculiar he managed to get there without scratching because that eyelid was too swollen and I even ran a fan poll on Twitter asking has anyone drove with an swollen eyelid and 100% said no.
- Old men driving slow I guess. I mean if it's something like burning eyes, he probably pulled over a bunch of times, and was super slow.
- We have two eyes for a reason.
How much would Mike's medical bills be?
- I know Mike is old-school tough, but taking a beating from a cranked up piston-fisted thug like Tuco... how much of Mike's $25K went towards his hospital bills?
- Thankfully Nacho might have a coupon for a veterinarian that may be able to deal with head trauma. I mean when a dog smash his face while running after a car he gets mostly the same damage no?
- He left the scene in an ambulance after Tuco punched his lights out. Mike would be treated at an actual hospital.
- Thankfully Nacho might have a coupon for a veterinarian that may be able to deal with head trauma. I mean when a dog smash his face while running after a car he gets mostly the same damage no?
Chuck's watch
- In "Gloves Off," Chuck is having his electromagnetic attack when Jimmy finds him, yet he still has his watch around his wrist. Was it a mistake or it's just that Chuck is slowly starting to know he is faking it?
- It's heavily been implied, even in season 1, that Chuck's sensitivity to EM waves is all in his head, and it's also shown that he can actually do regular activities without even realizing it. He probably just forgot he was wearing the watch.
- Even though at the same moment he is in his "I'm having an attack" pose? I mean he doesn't know it's fake if he starts suffering super hard. Shouldn't he check himself before wrapping in tinfoil? If he thinks he has peanut allergy shouldn't he at least check if he doesn't have peanut butter on his lip before drinking his homemade treatment?
- Not all timepieces require electricity to work. It's probably an antique spring-driven watch that winds up instead of running on a battery. Note that Chuck has a working antique mantle clock in his house as well.
- Doesn't even need to be an antique. Most of the more expensive watches (like the ones senior partners at a law firm might wear) are completely mechanical.
Jimmy's embezzlement
- So, Chuck tells Kim that Jimmy embezzled about $14,000 from their father's store and that caused the business to go under. Months later, he died. Here's my problem: Jimmy was a teenager; pulled $14,000 out of the till, "over the years", as Chuck puts it. How many years was that? 3 years? 5 years? He allegedly 'grew up' in the shop? That sounds like at least age 13 thru age 18, or maybe even 19 or 20. That's maybe 6 to 7 years tops. $14,000, over 7 years is $2 grand a year.. in addition to whatever salary he was making. Was dad even paying Jimmy minimum wage? Or maybe Jimmy worked the shop in the afternoons for FREE, in exchange for Dad just being generous with the till now and again.... to the tune of $2 grand a year which is, ahem, less than $300 a month? I find it really hard to believe that paying out less than a hundred bucks a week to Jimmy was enough to drive the business under. So is it me or is Chuck being ridiculous, to claim this was the CAUSE of 1. the business failing and 2. the death of their father?
- From what Chuck has said, it sounds like their father's store was a small family owned shop, so they're already most likely only earning a very meager profit. Chuck also pointed out that their father wasn't exactly the best businessman, so it's very likely that a lot of money was mismanaged and Jimmy's embezzlement made the problem worse.
- Two better questions might be: A) is Chuck telling the entire truth here? Part of me thinks he isn't and it's possible Jimmy's embezzlement either wasn't as bad/was worse than he made it out to be. And B) will Kim believe Chuck? At this point she is probably still fairly mad at Jimmy and likely to use this information against him in her mind. Then again, she doesn't really respond, as if to say that she doesn't want to be involved in any sibling rivalry. It's just hard to tell if Chuck was telling the truth and not just trying to drive a wedge between Jimmy and Kim. Assuming their father did die because his business closed, and how much Jimmy wept at the funeral, I'm more inclined to believe Jimmy may not have had anything to do with the missing $14,000, and Chuck was just making assumptions about Jimmy.
- OP here: What I thought was interesting is that Chuck, being the mightier than thou lawyer who values the law, ignored the fact that men are innocent until proven guilty. "Money is missing, therefore must be Jimmy"? Jimmy may have embezzled money but there could be a million other possible reasons why the store went under. One: I think it's possible that Mr. McGill was a Nice Guy in a poor neighborhood (this would've been in the 1970s, and I don't know what sort of class neighborhood Cicero was at the time, but it may have been a working class neighborhood). I could see him giving things on credit to needy families and not keeping track of it. Over the years, that could add up. Just a thought.
- Well seeing it this way, Chuck has called his father a pure saint so it's not like he doesn't embellish things but it's also possible that Jimmy needed the money to get out of trouble.
- Here's another reason I'm skeptical about Chuck's story: NOTHING was actually proven by what Chuck said to Kim. By the same logic, that Howard, and not Chuck, was behind Kim being on 'modified assignment' means nothing, necessarily. What some may see as justification for Chuck's feelings towards Jimmy ($14,000 missing, resulting, in Chuck's mind, their father's death), if you look at other parts of the episode, could be the opposite. See, the flashback shows Chuck's wife Rebecca actually thoroughly enjoying Jimmy's company, confounding expectations, and Chuck was not happy about that. Getting Kim "on his side" could be retaliation for that and maybe other perceived slights. How did Chuck reach the conclusion that Jimmy pilfered the $14,000? And the wording he used - (Dad) refused to believe that "his Jimmy" could have stolen it? Just sounds fishy...
- Alternately: I think it's possible that their dad probably gambled or something. That rosy idealized image of their father Chuck came up with sounded like he never really got to know the man beyond how a little kid sees his dad. The future payoff is most likely going to be Jimmy laying out what actually happened and shattering that image.
- Jimmy seems to be the guy who takes a mile when you give him an inch (his defense for the commercial is "hey you put me in client outreach. I can plaster your name on an ad without asking") so yes he might have picked up more from the till than his father expected and his father thought it couldn't be that bad until Chuck pointed out the size of the loss.
- The flashback opening to "Inflatable" shows that Chuck's story had a half-truth to it. We do see that Jimmy did pocket some money from the cash register, and this does line up with Chuck's narrative to Kim. Chuck also said their father wasn't exactly the best businessman. This is also shown to be true, since the flashback establishes that their father was very vulnerable to conmen. Consider that the eleven year old Jimmy could tell that the guy's story about the cold medicine and the broken car was bullshit, and how he told his dad, "Every grifter in town knows that this is the spot for an easy grab". Mr. McGill was a Nice Guy, but he was also kinda naïve and didn't know when he was being scammed. It may have also been a catalyst event that caused Jimmy to become a con artist.
- I posit that maybe Chuck could have had some personal doubts about it. Perhaps he caught Jimmy returning or taking money from the till and came to the conclusion that Jimmy was stealing money, but it wouldn't flat out tell Chuck that Jimmy was a thief (at least, back then before Jimmy graduated to con games and Chicago sunroofs). Remember that in explaining himself to Kim, Chuck does pretty much say "Jimmy stole all that money", but he says so in non-definitive language (as in, he neither confirms nor denies it). As a skilled attorney, he would only avoid definitive language if there was a reasonable doubt. In his mind, he doesn't trust Jimmy, but also in his mind, there is a little doubt.
- Another possible idea as to why Chuck's version doesn't match entirely with what's shown in the flashback, that I saw on a Reddit thread, is that Chuck saw Jimmy pilfering some small amount of cash from the register, and, being aware that the store was losing money, immediately blamed Jimmy for the entire loss, while the lion's share of that loss was money that their father, of his own volition, to grifters. We saw both happen in the flashback, so it stands to reason that their money was being hemorrhaged by way of both channels. We also don't know what happened subsequent to Jimmy pocketing the few bucks from the cash register. Did he have an attack of conscience the next day and return the money? Did Chuck return home the following day to see Jimmy returning the money to the register, and misinterpret it as Jimmy stealing?
- Alternately: Jimmy did steal thousands of dollars from the store and in some way he believes doing so caused his father's death (Chuck said their father died shortly after closing up the store), causing a small bit of guilt on his part, preventing him from screwing over family again (at least until he pulled the forgery stunt to gaslight Chuck). At least in the form of stealing from them, it could also tie with how Jimmy repeatedly took advantage of Chuck's willingness to defend him until Chuck was forced to demand he move to Albuquerque and do away with Slippin' Jimmy entirely.
- Or: Jimmy's thievery was going on, but there was something else big that happened, like perhaps their father was the victim of a much bigger scam or theft, and Chuck assumed Jimmy was at fault. Even at the height of his con artist days, Jimmy doesn't exactly strike me as one who would intentionally hit his family that hard, which is why I like to believe something else was going on and Chuck just wanted to believe Jimmy was responsible for more than his part.
- It's unlikely that Jimmy regularly stole from the register. We only see him take any money after one of those hustlers asks Jimmy "Are you going to be a sheep or a wolf?" and when Jimmy reaches into the ceiling to grab his rare coin collection.
- It's also very clear that Willard McGill regularly gave away money very easily. In the flashback in question, Jimmy tells him that everyone in town knows his father is very easy to scam, and that he had been scammed by a bum only a week prior. When Jimmy told his father about the rare coin he found, his father tried to chase down the customer and give it back to him, and that he wanted to donate the coin to the church. It's implied that Jimmy knew that his father would have given those coins back anyway and decided to hide them for safekeeping, and the face value of those coins was worth at most a couple dollars.
- Worth also noting is that Jimmy also never outright steals from anyone in the series, and only scams people who kinda had it coming to them in some way. In the flashback where Jimmy and Marco do their Rolex scam, the victim thought he was actually robbing a Rolex from a "passed out drunk" Marco. In seasons 2 and 3, Jimmy and Kim also discuss who they would scam based on how much of an asshole they were. They got a douchebag investment banker to pay for a bunch of expensive tequila shots that I'm guessing didn't exactly break the bank. When they did their brother & sister investment scam, they only wanted to keep the check as a souvenir. In season 4, Jimmy and Kim do their big scam to strongarm the ADA who wanted to subject Huell to a jail sentence that was disproportionate to his crime under controversial three-strikes laws.
- Also a very important detail to note, is that Jimmy always refuses to take handouts from anyone. The only handout he ever did take was when the county treasurer family bribed him to keep quiet about the embezzled funds, and he even refunded the bribe in the end (possibly minus the $10K he had used to buy the billboard and suits). Jimmy could have easily accepted guardianship over Chuck and cashed him out of the firm, but he couldn't do that to his brother. So rule of Jimmy's moral code is that the only money he accepts is that which he earns through his own hard work, even if he earns it in morally questionable ways.
- Chuck only knows half the truth. He never worked in the store, and he blamed the missing till money on Jimmy without any evidence. He never experienced dealing with grifters like Jimmy had, as he'd only returned to Cicero in order to do an audit. Chuck thought Jimmy had skimmed $14,000 out of the register, which would have just been such an incredible amount of money to go missing without a trace. Chuck operates under the assumption that "if an action is legal then it is moral, and that if something is illegal, it is immoral". Case in point: it's plain as day obvious that Mesa Verde is Kim's client, since HHM hadn't heard of them until Kim brought them to the firm in order to regain her position and get out of the mailroom. However, Chuck saw nothing wrong with keeping Mesa Verde an HHM client, and even went so far as to seriously hurt himself based on his condition, and nearly have to be hospitalized in order to win them over with a rather passive-aggressive “sales pitch” to Kevin and Paige.note Chuck also had some classism going on, as he believes that he is more moral because he went to a prestigious law school, while Jimmy is less moral because he did an online law school. Because of Jimmy's "immoral character" in Chuck's eyes for those two reasons, he could not see that Jimmy had actually been taking care of him very well, far better than Chuck deserved.
So based on Chuck's character and his idea about what makes someone moral and how that affects his opinion of Jimmy, it makes perfect sense that Chuck very easily would blame Jimmy on his father's financial problems. And based on Jimmy's character, whatever money Jimmy had taken from the till couldn't possibly have been anywhere near the $14,000 that went missing. Main point: Jimmy cared about his family and loved ones, while Chuck primarily cared about the law.
- From what Chuck has said, it sounds like their father's store was a small family owned shop, so they're already most likely only earning a very meager profit. Chuck also pointed out that their father wasn't exactly the best businessman, so it's very likely that a lot of money was mismanaged and Jimmy's embezzlement made the problem worse.
- The story is deliberately held somewhat ambiguous as to whether Jimmy really stole that amount or not. Three things, however, are certain:
- Chuck's and Jimmy's dad, according to both of them, was a really bad businessman.
- Chuck says to have discovered a huge financial discrepancy when he went through the books.
- Jimmy, by his own admission, took coins out of the till that seemed special or interesting to him.
- So, for one thing Chuck is technically right in his assertion that Jimmy took money, even though Jimmy's coin collection certainly doesn't amount to $14,000 and Chuck doesn't seem to refer to this collection (let alone know about it).
- On the other hand, though, Chuck himself admits that he isn't an accountant, so there's at least a theoretical chance of him having made an accounting error, especially since going through his father's books was but some kind of summer job during his legal clerkship when Chuck had surely other things in mind like making a name for himself to get noticed by law firms looking for prospective talent.
- Then, Chuck doesn't seem to properly acknowledge his father's failures as a businessman: yes, he admits that his dad wasn't the world's best businessman. However, Chuck seems to have, much like Jimmy, somewhat put his father on a very peculiar pedestal. His description of him, particularly of his kindness, shows some real admiration, even idolizing: Chuck is fondly speaking of an absolutely good man achieving his life's dream. Therefore, it seems somewhat reasonable to assume that Chuck might be led by his own prejudice about his father instead of his sharp mind regarding the facts when accusing Jimmy.
- Furthermore, during his breakdown on the stand in "Chicanery," Chuck says that his dad wouldn't hear the accusation, there's something in how Chuck delivers the line, "No - not his Jimmy" which seems to imply that there is some amount of jealousy or even outright envy of his brother. So, maybe Chuck's negativity towards Jimmy is ultimately rooted in a feeling of being put back by his parents who may or may not have played favorites with their younger son, and the fact that Chuck would've been in his early teens by the time Jimmy was born doesn't help. Chuck's bitterness about this, in turn, would then result in such an accusation as a means of putting down the favorite son.
- Now, the obvious counter to this might be that we clearly see at least one occasion in which Jimmy pockets a fair amount of money, namely when he's giving the two cartons of cigarettes to the deadbeat. On the other hand, this wouldn't result in a discrepancy regarding the till, i.e. a difference between what should be in the till according to the receipts and what actually is in the till, because the money for such transactions wouldn't be registered with the receipts in the first place (and in the scene where Jimmy first puts the money into the register he merely opens the till without registering anything). If anything, this practice would have resulted in a discrepancy regarding the inventory of the corner store, i.e. a discrepancy between the amount of inventory that has been purchased and the items that have been sold. Therefore, and although this practice would have also resulted in an accounting discrepancy, Chuck's accusation should rather be that Jimmy stole inventory items, not money from the till.
- In fact, it's actually very unlikely that Chuck even heard Jimmy's side. He was clerking at the time, and their dad wouldn't entertain the possibility of being taken advantage of, so Jimmy wouldn't have had opportunity to voice his concerns in any family discussion. Plus, apparently, when the loss of the money was discovered by Chuck, their dad absolutely refused to entertain that Jimmy could've done it, so it's not impossible to theorize that he just refused to believe any theft occurred at all. It's also possible their dad never talked about being taken advantage of, even to Chuck, so Chuck may not have found out about that part, either. Believing Jimmy stole and spent it all would be more than enough excuse for him to drop the matter entirely, and he's not an accountant by his own admission, so it's plausible. Chuck and Jimmy are both pretty bad at communication, and Jimmy was a kid at the time, so good chance they never talked about it, brother to brother.
- Last but not least, we unambiguously see Willard giving the deadbeat $10 out of the register, which is most certainly money that had been registered in the receipts.
- When this scene took place, in the 1970s, there were a million mom and pop corner stores and they did not have much stock except for the basics: bread, milk, butter, toilet paper, smokes, pop, penny candy, newspapers, etc. Some of the stores were a combo of groceries and had butchers. Nonetheless, if you walked two blocks you would run into one of these stores. Not very high-profit margin items. So $14K missing would have been a disaster. Chuck was exaggerating.
- Odds are good that Chuck legitimately doesn't know how often his father got scammed by customers. His dad refused to believe it was happening, and didn't seem to want to discuss it at all, so it would only be Jimmy's word. And since Chuck already suspected Jimmy of being the one to pilfer the $14,000, there isn't any other plausible explanation that would occur to him. Given that their dad died six months after the store went under, and their mom died with Jimmy's name on her lips, that alone would fuel a great deal of hatred and resentment in someone like Chuck. After all, the McGill boys aren't the type to actually talk about how they feel.
Do you think Hector knows the truth?
- Given who he is, I keep thinking the reason why Hector told Mike to take the blame for the gun possession charge was because he (Hector) figured out the truth about the circumstances behind Tuco's arrest.
- How could he know? He is not omniscient and usually he kills people who wrongs him. It would have been easier to go straight for the threat than buying him off. How is he supposed to know that some old man who was a former cop and has no connection to the cartel yet decided to get his ass kicked to frame a violent and unpredictable brute without reading the script? Nacho explained last episode just how bad of a deal it is not just because of the beating but now Tuco knows his face and might want to settle score once out of jail.
- Hector says "You are an ex-cop. They go easy on you." He clearly knew about Mike's past. I still believe he thinks Tuco was set up. The way he told Mike, "I would like you to confess to the gun charge", I think Hector was giving Mike one of those "An Offer You Can't Refuse"-type deals.
- If he really knew about Mike, he'll know that his ex-cop story won't protect him, especially that not counting the whole he was under suspicion to kill cops he already screwed two cops when they wanted him to pressure Jimmy in "Nacho".
- I said this under Fridge Brilliance: by approaching Mike at the diner, Hector essentially told Mike between the lines "we found you and we can find you again anytime we want, or any other member of your family for that matter". If he knows that Mike is an ex-cop, surely he's aware of his daughter-in-law and granddaughter. If I were Hector, that would provide me great leverage to threaten Mike.
- How could he know? He is not omniscient and usually he kills people who wrongs him. It would have been easier to go straight for the threat than buying him off. How is he supposed to know that some old man who was a former cop and has no connection to the cartel yet decided to get his ass kicked to frame a violent and unpredictable brute without reading the script? Nacho explained last episode just how bad of a deal it is not just because of the beating but now Tuco knows his face and might want to settle score once out of jail.
Was Jimmy really embezzling money or not?
I ask this because I honestly think that Chuck isn't telling the whole story. Here's some things worth considering:
- Chuck has always looked down on Jimmy and always, ALWAYS thinks the worst of him. He didn't like it when Jimmy got a law degree. Instead of being proud, he was offended and angry, and did everything he could do - including lie - to keep Jimmy from being hired as an attorney at HHM.
- Jimmy has never been shown to be anything but good to his family and friends. Look at all he did for Chuck, the way he took care of him. By Chuck's own admission, Jimmy was close to and loved his dad. If Jimmy can take care of his loony, mentally deranged brother, he can probably keep himself from stealing from his old man. He even does his best to take care of Kim, including offering to quit his job if it will get her out of doc review, or hiring Mike to retrieve the Kettlemans' dirty money to save her from "the cornfield" on the earlier occasion. These are the acts of a selfless man who's willing to put the needs of other people before his own. Not the sort of thing a guy who would steal from his own father would do.
- Jimmy isn't a thief. He is a con artist, a grifter, and by the time he's really Saul, willing to take money from anywhere. But Jimmy doesn't steal.
- Chuck is a loony.
- Chuck has no proof that Jimmy took that money. His own father denied it, and by Chuck's own admission, he wasn't a smart businessman. Now, if you didn't know Jimmy at all, but only knew that Jimmy's dad wasn't a good businessman and had trouble paying the bills, what would you conclude? Me, that he took that money himself. He took it keep from declaring it as income and spent it, or used it for gambling or to pay off gambling debts. But Chuck IMMEDIATELY assumes it's Jimmy. Did he ever confront Jimmy about it? Nope. He just decides that's what happened and uses it as yet another reason to feel smugly superior.
To me the real issue here is, "who's telling the story here?" Chuck has shown a pattern of running Jimmy down and seeing the worst in him at every possible turn, so it makes sense to me that he just believed Jimmy took the money and wouldn't hear otherwise. It's funny that he accuses others of not seeing Jimmy for what he is and not listening to any criticism about him, when he's doing the same thing but in reverse. He sees nothing good in Jimmy and always assumes the worst, and won't hear otherwise. I'm guessing at some point the truth will come out about this, and that truth is going to be that Jimmy didn't do it.
- The flashback scene in "Inflatable" confirms that Jimmy really was stealing from the register, and that their father was such a Nice Guy that he'd gladly give handouts to complete strangers without question. If he's willing to believe in the integrity of complete strangers, how would he ever consider questioning the integrity of his own son?
Kim in doc review seems like a waste of resources
- From an HHM standpoint, I am not sure I really understand too well their disciplining of Kim. Why deliberately under-utilize one of their best assets (Kim) as a penalty because she knew about an ad produced by someone else (Jimmy) for ANOTHER law firm (even if they do happen to be working together on the Sandpiper case)?
- Same reason Cliff didn't like Jimmy's successful client outreach. It's not because you are good that the bosses can't suspend you when you messed up (in this case have them looked like they vouched a sleazy guy in a suit for a lawyer to another firm). It's kind of harsh given Howard is the one Cliff probably blames the most and he just put Kim in the front for the mistake. But yes, you don't just let someone who may have put a wedge in their relationship between H.H.M and Cliff's firm. Worst case scenario is that any lawyers working at H.H.M will have less chances to find job somewhere else if Jimmy makes it look like they are a bunch of conman and can't advance in their career if H.H.M have all their posts full.
- Howard’s mad about the commercial, but the problem I have is that he's too angry about the commercial. Angrier than Cliff is. Hey, Cliff disciplining Jimmy by putting him under close scrutiny and assigning Erin Brill to be his handler is reasonable. Howard putting Kim into doc review was a slight overreaction, but sending her back after she lands this huge new account? It’s not only irrationally spiteful, it’s stupid. Howard is taking the risk that Kim won’t just say “Screw This, I'm Outta Here,” call the Mesa Verde Credit Union people, and make sure that HHM loses $250K in billings when she leaves. Even at his worst in Season 1, Howard wasn’t quite that much of a pigfucker.
- He wasn't gonna put her back right away. This is not a sitcom where if you do one good thing the boss flip flop and put you back right away. Howard was probably gonna do it but he went to see Chuck before because he seems to want to avoid doing something that can piss his partner off. I mean Howard can't just demote/promote on a whim all the time at one point the laugh track starts when Kim say "Aww nuts, well back to the cornfield again".
- It's clear that Kim is on the fence about possibly leaving. That's why she asks Chuck, "Do I have a future here?" But, it is doubtful she would **walk** as that would potentially ruin her career in law. Instead, just discretely looking for new work, and then putting in two weeks' notice once she found something.
- Of course, moving on would be Kim's best option. Howard has shown what kind of pigfucker he is and a lot of disrespect towards Kim. Bringing in a huge client will drastically improve your career.....if you do it at the right time AND at the right firm. She seems to have wasted her big score. But more important, when you figure out the decision makers in the firm are petty and have no real respect for you, you move on.
- At the same time, though, a big part of being a successful lawyer hinges a lot on reputation. It doesn't seem like Kim has made a name for herself, so leaving what is portrayed as a pretty successful firm at this stage in her career would look suspicious. If she tries to go to another firm, they're going to ask why she left HHM and saying it's because she got demoted for a bad character judgment isn't going to play well. And Howard is so ticked off at her, he'd probably get her blackballed at other firms if she jumps ship.
- She gets solicited by Rick Schweikert from the Sandpiper legal team in the next episode. Honestly, I think this whole arc might end with Kim no longer working at HHM or at any successful law firm because of her association with Jimmy. Or conversely, she'll have to give him up for the sake of her career.
- Interestingly, Jimmy was correct about Kim being able to sue HHM (or file an EEO complaint). She was essentially penalized for something that she was unaware of, in that Jimmy told her that Cliff was on board with the ad when he very clearly wasn't.
- Kim never said that suing HHM was impossible. She pointed out that a lawyer, especially a mere associate like her, suing their own firm is career suicide, because who would hire her after something like that? We see just how that turns out in season 3, when Howard tried to convince Chuck to retire, Chuck responded by threatening legal action against HHM, and Howard saw this as the final straw for Chuck's career.
Beanie Baby bribe
- Personal question: does a $6 Beanie Baby constitute a bribe or not?
- If it was a private business it would probably just be a gift, in public service it would be a facilitating payment at best but in short yes it's a legal bribe. If the counter girl (don't know what is the job) can give him the time but not after checking a bunch of thing and Jimmy give her a plushy to do it it's not illegal it's an incentive for her to do her job faster and try more.
- Basically if you buy a car and in exchange you get a discount or a teddy bear, it's not a bribe. You were going to buy the car. It's just to make sure you chose this one, not the competitor and get ready to buy it.
Who's looking after Abuelita while Tuco's in jail?
- I'm guessing one of the cousins, huh?
- Maybe she went to Casa Tranquila.
The Sandpiper suit in its current state
- I found it interesting how the two firms involved on both sides of the Sandpiper case are handling their respective arguments. For a medical release request hearing, Schweikert and Cokley send the partners, while HHM sends just Kim. Now Kim does a great job making the case, but I wonder, is it me or does it seem like HHM and Davis & Main aren't exactly making Sandpiper a top priority anymore?
- They never did. The new ad with the swirly nebulousness is proof of it. But there is a reason, if their clients lose a $20 million lawsuit and they are known as the lawyers that defended ripping off elderly. Davis and Main said that Sandpiper is not paying the electricity so when the other firm snowballed them with cases in Sandpiper's favor, they won't give much effort. Same goes for H.H.M - this is a big case but not the only case while the other firm has it as a career destroying priority. It's simple logic too: Schweikert and Cokley are being paid by Sandpiper to win the case and need positive feedback. H.H.M are not being paid by the elderlies and financial return comes from the net gain of the lawsuit. Which one will spend the most money on the case and try to win every small battles?
- Not to mention, the particular hearing that was shown was already considered a Foregone Conclusion, because there honestly was no way S&C wouldn't prevail on the request for medical records. It's pretty common practice for lawyers to just not waste the time showing up at those kind of hearings.
Mike's welcome mat trick
- So we see Mike use a trick to allow him to know if Hector's henchmen are waiting for him inside the house - several sheets of carbon paper underneath a welcome mat in front of his front door. So far so good. But what if they'd entered through the back door or a window?
- Well Mike would have been in trouble then. It relies on the goons having no reason to overthink how to enter an elder's house.
- I don't believe Mike would just let his guard down even if the carbon paper turned up markless. He probably still would have entered his house cautiously and checked for other possible discrepancies, it's just that the paper gave him an immediate affirmation that the goons were inside.
- Well Mike would have been in trouble then. It relies on the goons having no reason to overthink how to enter an elder's house.
Getting Mike's cooperation
- So Hector is trying to get Mike to take the fall for the gun possession charge. So far, his attempts to intimidate him have involved having legbreakers break into his house, and having the Cousins do a gun gesture directed at Kaylee. But is it me or is Hector's threat against Stacey and Kaylee kinda empty? I mean, I think Hector's in a lose-lose situation. If he had Mike's family killed, Mike wouldn't cooperate anyway (and for all they knew, Mike could have already alerted the police that Kaylee and his DIL were in danger and if anything happened to them, they would be picked up). And if Mike is killed or disappears, there'd be a police investigation that would probably in time link back to Hector, plus, they wouldn't get Tuco's sentence reduced.
- He proposed $5000. Mike refused, so the next step is "if my family lose yours lose too" and it's not like the witness protection program is all fine and dandy for a ptsd mother and her kid. He knows Mike won't gamble with his granddaughter's life just to play chicken with him. The only way Tuco can get his sentence reduced is if Mike complies.
- I think that the threat was hollow because Hector's nephews showed up at the hotel to threaten Mike. Mike probably relocated Kaylee and her mom that same day (there was plenty of time he spent offscreen where he'd have done this).
- In theory, Hector could've just ordered his men to kidnap Kaylee and tell Mike that he can either play ball or lose a grandchild. In the real world that's what would probably happen (kidnappings are pretty routine for the cartels), but I could make an argument that Hector is pragmatic and knows that this wouldn't be a wise way to press the matter at hand.
- Well if he had kidnapped them now he would be in way more trouble (yes the guy who lost his granddaughter suddenly claim the gun is his). Plus Don Eladio might not like his hitman is doing kidnapping behind his back. The threat is real and it is based on Mike not wanting to scare his family by saying let's move to Pittsburg just for fun and from now on run when you see a Mexican.
- A few things to consider about the deal, and the reason Mike walks out alive:
- They need Mike alive and well to get Tuco's charges reduced. He can't claim the gun is his if he's dead. Not to mention there's now heat from the police.
- Mike's family is (relatively) safe for the same reason. If they hurt them, Mike might be compelled to spill everything to the cops and that's attention they don't want.
- $50k is nothing to Hector. Mike even points that out. In fact, in any shady deal you sort of want to feel like both sides got a fair shake. Look at the end of World War I - the Germans were punished to the extreme and this led to World War II. Hector is fine with giving Mike a larger payday if it helps him feel like Mike will believe he did okay for himself. It was all bravado.
- Hector's life was never really in danger. Hector believes (and is probably right) that if Mike was foolish enough to try and shoot Hector, Mike would be dead and whoever is left in Hector's family would make sure Kaylee and her mom were killed too. Hector knows that Mike knows this so he never really worried that Mike would try to shoot him. Now IF Hector had actually killed Kaylee or even hurt her badly, Mike might be desperate enough to just try a suicide mission to kill Hector for that (similar to what Gus does eventually). Again, all the more reason to let Mike think he got fair pay for taking the gun charge himself.
- I think Hector is banking on Mike, as an ex-cop, having pull with the Albuquerque Police Department. It may vary by town and precinct, probably, but active and former cops do tend to stick together, as do people in other professions. Remember how quick the two cops who had Nacho locked up were to charge Jimmy with assault after he poked Mike with just one finger? I found it especially funny, given the way Mike disabled Jimmy as quickly as he did—he was hardly in danger. Also, it would be tempting for the AQPD to have a former law enforcement officer as a witness against Hector as well as Tuco; Hector's remark of "You're an ex-cop...they'll go easy on you" seems to imply that he's banking on the local police showing favoritism to Mike as an ex-cop.
- Not to mention it's possible Mike wouldn't do jail time. Mike has a concealed-carry permit in multiple states (when interrogated by Hank in "Madrigal," Mike said it'd be shorter to list the states he wasn't licensed to carry in). The only problem is if the serial numbers were filed off the revolver Tuco had in his possession when he was arrested. In that case, Mike might be in trouble.
- Two problems with that: One, Mike pissed pretty much every police officer he met on the show. Two, this is Tuco's gun, there is probably a bunch of corpses linked to it and while it's gonna be hard to pin Mike for killing a junkie while he was in Philadelphia, he might not like having people looking into his thing and see $25,000 in cash, a new car's upholstering done at the Varga-owned shop, another gun linked to whoever Aruro killed, blood on his floor from the break-in, and whatever evidence showing Mike is living a pretty interesting life for a lowly courthouse parking lot attendant.
- As I recall it, the only cops he truly pissed off were those Philadelphia detectives, especially the younger one. I can't exactly recall how the patrol officers who spoke with him regarding his scuffle with Jimmy at the booth thought of Mike. The AQPD has approximately 1,000 rank-and-file officers. It's not like Mike did something to piss off every single one of them. Besides, I think by Breaking Bad that Mike clearly has some inside contacts in the police and DEA so that he would know if Gus was under investigation.
- The officers are kind of pissed at him for dropping the charge by the look of it and Breaking Bad showed that when he needed information about Gus's laptop he needed to convince a regular officer by sweet talking them. Which is pretty much the same level of influence he has now minus AQPD finding out his One of Us means Philadelphia's most corrupt precinct and might had killed some cops too.
- The Cousins threatening Kaylee was a trump card. Mike conceded they won that round. The district attorneys that Mike gives his amended statement to in "Inflatable" recognize right away that he's been bribed/threatened, and while they don't like it, there isn't much they could do. What neither the police or Hector realized is that Mike conceded the round, not the game. The game is just going to be much longer than Mike realizes as he comes into contact with more of the pieces on the board (notably Gus Fring, and eventually the death of them all, Walter White).
- I thought about it, and the entire matter of Mike's original solution to the problem with Tuco, and I keep thinking, maybe the reason Mike isn't willing to kill and put his life at risk at this point in time is because of Kaylee. For him to be the professional killer that he is in Breaking Bad, Mike probably will be indebted to Gus for something, and that something has to be related to the two being mutual enemies of the Salamancas.
- Mike already got his revenge once on his son's killer and he didn't seemed to be that happy about it. Gus probably just made his "a man provides" speech to Mike.
The Gargoyle Cousins
- I get that, to quote George Merkert, "the cartels tend to be dramatic" and have a preference for theatrics, but how long did the Cousins stand on the rooftop of that church in the hope that Mike look in that direction? Why did they think that was the best course of action, as opposed to say, paint a scythe on his front door?
- Remember, after Hector's goons failed to convince him breaking inside his house, Mike told them to "“Try harder next time,” and a painted scythe on his front door would be seen to Mike as a dismissed version of a threat.
- Why not just break in again but instead leave a picture of Kaylee with a scythe on it? Or, ransack his house?
- Because showing up and threatening him in person is a far more effective method intimidation, because it sends the message that not only can be find him anywhere at anytime, but that he's also being constantly watched.
- How standing on a roof like a bunch of jumpers in the hope Mike raises his head effective? If Mike's family dies the police just have to follow on the "there were these two bald guys who looked like cartel hitmen, standing on the roof of the church across the street and one of them did this finger gun gesture". There is no discretion.
Kim has never seen Howard act like this before?
- She's worked there for 10+ years and has never seen the pigfucker side of Howard until now? Or even heard of it from other co-workers? I find that hard to believe.
- Presumably because nobody had really pissed him off to this extent.
Is Jimmy smarter than Howard, Cliff or Chuck?
- And for the record, I don't mean "does he understand the law better?", because I think Jimmy grasps the fundamentals as well as they do, despite his bargain basement degree. It seems to me that Jimmy's more innovative and resourceful than either of them (have we seen any original thinking from either of them?), that they realize it, and want to hold him down because they feel threatened. Same with any other bosses.
- Chuck proved to be smarter in "RICO", where not only did he built back the shredded files while Jimmy was sleeping exhausted and found the best evidence of fraud but he also spot a $20 million class suit by catching something their lawyers slipped. So when Schweikert remembers him as a genius and Jimmy is calling him the smartest guy he knows to the nurse in "Alpine Shepherd Boy", that's not Character Shilling. The others I don't know for sure. So far, Cliff seems to prefer playing it safe and Howard is being a pigfucker toward Kim, but that's it. Also Jimmy is resourceful but in the same way someone who cheats at his exam is resourceful, he is good because he drags the fight where he is good.
- OP here: The reason I ask this is because Jimmy's methods, at times, seem to work better than the methods others use, even if they aren't ethical. For instance, the TV ad he produced probably drew in more clients than the white text-on-blue swirly nebulousness that replaced it.
- Drew in more clients, but it also gave more chances for those client's testimonies to be rejected when Schweikert made a point to make those testimonies uneligible. It's easy to get people's attention by screaming free cookies but that doesn't mean those people know what they are getting into and back down when someone asks them their medical history. And it's downright stupid to do it without asking permission from anyone, either from the clients or the boss who you get your paycheck from. All in all it's a smart move in a tunnel vision way.
- Jimmy is is not exactly smarter per se, but he is more charismatic and resourceful, which are also important aspects for a good lawyer.
Why out of the blue Schweikart & Cokely wants Kim?
- Yeah, they were impressed with her but she's working for the rivaling law firm that's trying to bring their down their clients, being Sandpiper Crossing. Getting that gut feeling something's not right about the whole thing.
- Possibly to weaken the legal team HHM has working on the Sandpiper case? The fact that she's working for a rival firm that's representing the plaintiff in a class-action case where Schweikert & Cokely is the defendants' counsel makes me wonder if that's not a conflict-of-interest...even if they keep her far away from the Sandpiper case and have her work on the firm's other business.
- It's either S&C saw Kim as a diamond in the rough, they wanted to sabotage HHM's case, or a little a both. As has been demonstrated throughout the series, Kim's skill is NOT an Informed Ability, as she is a very hard working and competent lawyer. The only problem is that she's always hobbled either by her superiors of her relationship with Jimmy.
So how much was Jimmy's severance bonus?
- Just wondering.
- It would depend on the contract, but it was certainly enough that Jimmy didn't think twice about buying a $7,000 desk.
So about Hector's proposition
- Based on the amended statement Mike hires Jimmy to give to the DA about the gun with Tuco's prints, I keep wondering, why did Hector want Mike to specifically say the gun was his own, as opposed to just say, "The gun was not Tuco's, but at the same time, I didn't touch it at all?"
- Because the DA knows right away he is being paid off. Having Tuco's grabbing the gun from Mike's pants at the same time he took his wallet? That's plausible. A bird dropping the gun in the middle of the parking lot and it landed underneath Tuco's car? That's just saying, "The Salamancas have coerced me into providing you bullshit. Please dig further into this criminal's past. You are clearly on the right trail."
- Why do the DAs assume Mike had been bribed, when for all they know the Salamancas could've just threatened him through the usual blackmail methods?
- They went for threat first but one look at Mike and you can see he is more annoyed than scared. Mike seemed to have his own revenge plan too so it's not like he is scared more that he is waiting for his time to get the drop on Hector.
- I can get why the DA was like, "Mr. Ehrmantraut, it's clear to us that the Salamancas have either paid you off or threatened you." It's clear that Hector has a history of paying off, threatening or killing witnesses in cases involving Salamancas or their associates, and we know that the Albuquerque DA has caught on to this. A better question to ponder is why, even though he's not 100% omnipotent, Hector didn't consider this possible little hanging chad when making the proposal to Mike.
- Why would he care? He expected Mike to play the old cop so they let it slide routine but even if he doesn't the gun charge is dropped and Tuco gets a lighter sentence.
- OP Here: Mike knows Hector will not be happy, as he really didn't do as he was told to do, he never said the gun was his, as he agreed to do. He just said the gun wasn't Tuco's. I'm wondering, could Mike have thought Hector had an ulterior motive, and that's why he claimed the gun wasn't his? Namely, if it was Mike's gun, wouldn't it suddenly look to the police like Mike was threatening Tuco with the gun? That would mean Mike would be facing more serious charges than just illegal possession of a firearm.
- Then the story just wouldn't make sense since Mike's wallet was in Tuco's pocket when the police arrived, and there were none of Mike's fingerprints on the gun meaning he wouldn't even draw it. It's just that Hector want him to say it is his gun because that's the only logical conclusion if the gun is not Tuco's and why Mike would say it was (to cover the fact that it wasn't a legally obtained firearm).
- Even if Mike were to claim that he was the one who brought the gun, Tuco is stated to be a felon and thus cannot be in possession of a firearm legally for any reason. His sentence would still be significant regardless of Mike's testimony, especially depending on whatever past offenses he has. Additionally, the federal government has often stepped in to prosecute drug offenders who are caught with weapons. Given the fact that the Albuquerque Police Department is aware that Tuco is a major player in the local drug scene as well as a violent ex-con, they might be just as likely to turn his prosecution over to the feds as they are to lower the charges against him.
The Kidney Guys
- When Jimmy gets his old car back, he says something along the lines of, "The kidney guys wouldn't take it." What does that mean, exactly?
- The National Kidney Foundation runs one of the biggest car-donation programs in the U.S.
- Why wouldn't they take the Suzuki?
- That's the joke. The car was such a complete piece of junk that a car donation program known for taking complete clunkers wouldn't take it.
- The National Kidney Foundation runs one of the biggest car-donation programs in the U.S.
Wouldn't Kim have grounds to sue HHM?
- I think Jimmy was in the right for once when he suggested Kim sue HHM for unfair discrimination. After all, the events that happened were entirely Jimmy's fault (running the commercial without permission), and the only wrong thing Kim did was not inform HHM about it (which I don't feel sounds like the kind of thing that should put someone in doc review). As Jimmy so succinctly pointed out, the behavior towards Kim was clearly discriminatory and punitive and she could have filed against him for that, but she didn't (it's understandable why she rejects Jimmy's proposal, given what was just mentioned above). Howard technically did commit an abuse of power as a boss, not to mention a host of other employment-related issues. And it's not like he's the only one at HHM who's violated lawyer ethics, given that Chuck has done things on which there'd be grounds for malpractice, lapse of fiduciary duty, an entire host of malfeasance charges, etc.
- Kim's pay is the same, she is still a lawyer and the only thing Howard did is move her desk which he is totally in his right to do and if she goes being sent there is torture it's kind of hurting everyone who works there because there is not enough locals available. Kim doesn't have an office because everyone does, she has it as a reward.
- Kim never said that she had no grounds to sue HHM on. Her main concern was that suing her own employer would damage her reputation, as no self respecting law firm would want to hire her.
Kim's debts
- Isn't $15,000 in law school debt peanuts for someone with a job like Kim? I think it should, since she lives in Albuquerque and it's not like she's trying to support a family. I mean, yes as a fourth year associate, she isn't exactly at the same pay grade as the partners like Howard and Chuck might be, but still....
- Kim has other expenses to worry about such as her own living costs, which can quickly add up, and she's still relatively low level in HHM's hierarchy. Even Jimmy seemed to be getting much better perks than her in his position at D&M.
Characters' lifestyles
Is it me or do most of the characters across the joint timeline of both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul that have a good education doing professional jobs live like they are impoverished? I mean, just look:
- Jimmy living in a closet of a nail salon when he was still a public defender. It may not have been the highest paying job, and it's hard to say what the cost of living in Albuquerque would be in 2002, but surely it would allow him to rent some half decent apartment. And maybe a more decent car, like a Ford and not a Suzuki? I mean, the writers clearly thought Jimmy's transformation into Saul would be more dramatic if he literally had to start at rock bottom with a shithole of a living situation in the nail salon, plus Chuck's health issues, and a crappy beaten down car.
- Kim is a fourth year associate at HHM, which is one of top law firms in Albuquerque. She would probably make at least about $80-$90,000 per year. Yet she dresses cheap, lives in a small apartment and appears to have no expensive habits except for smoking and a possible drinking problem. Arguably she could be saving up for her eventual retirement, but still...
- Chuck is a name partner at HHM and has had a fairly long, successful career, yet he can't take a year off from work without running into financial problems even though he seems to live fairly modestly. Perhaps his health issues could be a contributor to this, but still....
- Mike was a cop in Philadelphia for over 30 years. Someone like Mike would've made Detective at some point. Not to mention that by his own admission, he used to pocket thousands of dollars at a time in dirty money. His cop salary would have been about $70,000 a year, plus the stolen money and his pension would probably pay about $50,000, yet he seems to have no assets and has to work odd jobs like the parking lot attendant post or jobs set up by Dr. Caldera. Now, admittedly, this might be by choice: Mike has made clear on multiple occasions that he doesn't really want to attract any attention to himself. The fact that he was able to purchase a house for Stacey and Kaylee without having to take out a loan of some sort makes clear that he's certainly not broke, even though Stacey seems to be having financial difficulties (Mike seems to carry out the criminal jobs to support Stacey and not to support himself, and this principle clearly extends to how he approaches taking on the Madrigal work and his new duties for Gus beginning in season 4).
- Even in Breaking Bad, Walt was a high school chemistry teacher with a master degree and head of the school's science department, but only made $43,700 per year and had almost no savings.
- Jimmy was doing shitty defense cases that people with no lawyer are getting by default and has been a public defender for all his time in Albuquerque before he tries conning the Kettlemans out of despair. Kim is a fourth year associate with an debt loaded on interest, a car and an apartment, yet she still has to make it big. Chuck would be rich if he could access his digital bank account. And Mike's career is marred with so many dirty events to go from cop to hitman with barely a scowl. Being smart with science and law doesn't mean people will throw money at you. You are still gonna accumulate on debt, you won't touch your 1.5% interest savings account unless you're starving and unless you paid off your house, you better pray a debilitating illness or having to start from scratch in a new town doesn't happen because while not poor, you won't be able to dress up for the sake of it.
Does Jimmy really "transform" into Saul or not?
Everyone talks about Jimmy "transforming" into Saul as if they are polar opposites (just like a mild-mannered high school chemistry teacher gradually becoming a ruthless drug kingpin). But what are the actual differences? I think Jimmy's transformation is more about the type of lawyer he is (his practice) and less about the kind of man he is. Jimmy has clearly been a crook since before he even became a lawyer..... and even after becoming Saul, there are several times in Breaking Bad where Jimmy clearly takes a moral stance on several occasions:
- He was appalled by Walt's poisoning of Brock
- When Jesse confronts him in "Confessions" about this, Jimmy says, "I never would have agreed to it if I knew Walt was going to poison him! You've gotta believe me, Jesse! I didn't want any of THIS!"
- Jimmy's scene in "Granite State" and the way he tries to give Walt proper legal advice for a change
- The scene where he's racking his head before Ted arrives in his office, saying: "This is a bad idea...this is a bad idea...this is a bad idea..." as if Jimmy knows Ted is probably on the same league of idiocracy as the Kettlemans or Daniel Wormald
- The scene where Jimmy goes out of his way to tell Jesse that he should go see Andrea and Brock in Season 4
- The scene where Walt tells Jimmy, "I can't be the bad guy anymore" in Season 3 and Jimmy sits in his car afterword, looking bothered.
- Saul is a successful Slippin' Jimmy, Jimmy is a remorseful Slippin' Jimmy. That's probably why unlike Heisenberg he had his namesake before the series started. Also unlike Walt who was lucky that fate enabled his kingpin fantasies, Jimmy would be more successful if he kept doing illegal stuff, and like Saul he was more okay with suggesting unethical activities when it is needed.
- But even though he sometimes suggested murder as an option, he never directly would say "kill this person". He always used euphemisms ("send him to Belize," "old Yeller type situation," etc.) as if he was uncomfortable saying "you should commit murder".
- Well yes he is suggesting to murder employees, he is an employee, he tries to influence more than act like it's something you should do all the time. When not hired he did say why don't you just kill Badger instead of me?
- Saul is a successful Slippin' Jimmy, Jimmy is a remorseful Slippin' Jimmy. That's probably why unlike Heisenberg he had his namesake before the series started. Also unlike Walt who was lucky that fate enabled his kingpin fantasies, Jimmy would be more successful if he kept doing illegal stuff, and like Saul he was more okay with suggesting unethical activities when it is needed.
So where does Hector carry his drugs?
- The best guess is "inside the truck's tires". This would explain the drilling noise Mike heard after that garage door was closed behind that ice cream truck. It would also explain why Mike is building a spike strip out of a garden hose.
- The drugs could also be in the Thermo King, the unit over the cab. That could explain why the tracking shot was done in such a way so as to emphasize the ground-centricity of the inspection process.
- "Nailed" shows that it's all stuffed inside the tires.
Chuck's gambit with the Mesa Verde accounts
- Is it me or is Chuck being deliberately deceptive trying to get Mesa Verde back in the good graces of HHM? Notice how Chuck deliberately didn't present himself as he truly would handle them. He makes it sound like they are in good hands yet he hides the fact that the next time he meets them, all lights will be off and all their electronics will be confiscated at the door. If this had been any other account, Chuck would have made them go through those procedures, but because it was an account that was never truly theirs to begin with, and one that would definitely make life much easier for Kim and Jimmy for a while, Chuck put himself through a (psychological) near death experience just to hold them back.
- Surprise, the guy who spent season one faking support to his brother is deceptive. And the whole point was to spin the story so he keeps a million dollar contract in HHM instead of someone bringing customers outside of it.
Did Kim misrepresent her new "firm" to Mesa Verde?
There's probably a reason why Chuck was able to persuade Mesa Verde to stay with HHM: Right now Kim has no office, no associates, and basically zero resources. A few days prior, she was working as a relatively low level associate at HHM.
Did she really think that she could possibly land such a big client by herself (or even just herself and Jimmy)? She could say all the right things in the meeting (which they showed us), but it should take around three minutes of research tops for the Mesa Verde people to see she doesn't have the resources to handle their account.
I know some people probably will get on Chuck for being underhanded and stealing a client away from Kim, and I have no doubt that that's what the writers intended, with the way Chuck almost facetiously threw out compliments for Kim in the middle of his spiel. But he was never untruthful and seemed to me to say what was blatantly obvious. Compliance law should be pretty straightforward and doesn't really require "new age, out of the box" ideas. It's more proactive than reactive insofar as attention to detail, so as Chuck said, thoroughness and experience that HHM can offer far trumps Kim's position.
- Kim could totally have done it, but Chuck, being the asshole that he is, decides to undermine it by saying "play it safe". This is pretty much like the Kettlemans refusing Jimmy because he looks like the kind of lawyer guilty people hires. Kim doesn't really need that many resources. And Chuck over-exaggerated how complicated compliance law is. Compliance laws are merely things you can do without law firms backing you. This is following the rules to get an expansion. Unlike Sandpiper, where there is another law firm - Schweikert and Cokley - ruining them in court, this is just a long process that Kim is totally fit for, especially when all the money she receives is devoted to this case and the problem is more how time consuming it is and you have to make it perfect.
Also keeping on the comparisons with Sandpiper, look at how Jimmy actually gave a shit about getting the elderly's money back while Cliff and the others at Davis & Main were "don't do that. Play it safer. We don't even give much of a shit about this case because we have a bunch of others." Sandpiper might throw again the no soliciting sign they did in the first season that didn't stick and only served proving Sandpiper is actively controlling their customers' information source. Kim is willing to call every contact available for a week to get a customer, but Chuck can't use a phone.- But Chuck knowingly misled Kevin and Paige into believing that he would be imparting his experience/knowledge to Mesa Verde legal work. He insisted on showing up sans-space blanket, and without going through the other processes of "lights off, all electronics confiscated". That tells me he was deceiving them by not telling them about the fact he's a) in ill health, b) psychologically broken, and c) because of (a) and b) likely won't be the one actually doing work for Mesa Verde. Chuck pretty much committed fraud to rob Kim of a client.
- I'm pretty sure A does not constitute fraud, B he doesn't consider himself psychologically broken, and C he outright said he wouldn't be working alone, but he was working on the files which is why they were in his home when Jimmy came to visit.
- He was pretty much having a heart attack after that meeting for pushing himself to go into it without protection. Now, I'll be fair, that lots of lawyers do have crazy mental ailments. It's just that few of those actually impair their ability to function as lawyers. In Chuck's case, I think it qualifies as a mental impairment. Even if you believe that Chuck doesn't realize he's crazy, Howard, who was also in the room should have made that disclosure ("I should point out that Chuck here is a bit wound in the head. Otherwise, he's perfectly all right").
- Chuck only freaks out when he's exposed to electricity, and it only actually impairs him in large quantities. It essentially functions as an allergy. You might as well say that people who are allergic to sunlight can't be lawyers without committing fraud. His condition is psychosomatic, which makes it a mental problem, but it doesn't actually impair his ability to be a lawyer. He can read, form arguments, write up documents, and reference cases just fine, which is all he actually needs. Sure, if he fainted in front of the clients, that'd be bad, but that's because people aren't hyperrational computers that realize such things are irrelevant to a lawyers duty such as what they need from him. That meeting was just a special case wherein he was the only one that could make that persuation, but it's simply unlikely to reoccur. They can throw other lawyers to communicate his ideas in 99% of cases. Lastly, Hamlin saying that would not only be stupid as hell as he'd do nothing but hurt his chances of keeping them, but also slanderous. Even if there was some rule where lawyers have to disclose their medical records, "A bit wound in the head" is not a medical condition, it doesn't explain and frame anything, and it's completely misleading. He isn't 'crazy'. He's suffering from a psychosomatic condition, but while that's a condition where physical distress is mentally caused, he's not actually mentally impaired. He's physically impaired, through mental means. Chuck's mental acuity is as sharp as ever. So no, there is nothing illegal or immoral or intelligent about having full and candid disclosure over lawyer's health, and in the terms your using, it's not even accurate.
- Chuck would have been interned if Jimmy didn't go against a 'doctor saying that Chuck need assistance since his trauma is that severe. If a doctor was brought when he asked for one they would have said this guy is not mentally fit and need to be checked.
- Yes. Now how about you remember the context that went along with that scene? You keep trying to misrepresent Chuck's condition because by trying to lump all mental issues into one bag as if they all have the same problems and effects. When the doctor said Chuck needs to be interned, it's because he can't interact with the outside world like a normal person. He cannot buy his own groceries or call for help if he needs it. The doctor wanted him interned because, as she saw it, if there was an emergency, Chuck might not be able to save himself, so he needs to be an environment where he can have those needs met by professionals instead of having family members, who have their own lives going on and cannot be there for him 24/7 like a mental institution could be. The second reason is so they can look to find a fix for his condition. Those are safety and rehabilitation reasons, but they have no implication on Chuck's mental acuity. She didn't say "Dude is nutso, can't do anything, you wanna sign off on him being carted in a loony bin, Jimmy mah man". This isn't the 1800's where you throw people into the asylum with no understanding of what their problems actually are. Chuck has a mental issue and no one denies that he needs help, but he is not mentally impaired. He's not schizophrenic, not delusional beyond the belief that his condition is actually physical, he's not hallucinating, he's not making word salad, and as a lawyer? He's fully functional.
- Not showing a weakness or taking one for the team is not exactly misleading, yes. But when Mesa Verde finds out in the near future about Chuck's illness, I think they might feel betrayed because it was hidden from them during that meeting.
- Again, see the "people are not rational computers" bit. There was a social experiment where two guys, looking nearly identical, dressed nearly identical, just casually walked around, and people were asked to guess at their job or personality. Except one was taller than average and the other shorter than average. Guess who people made staggering, baseless assumptions of success about? Guess which people made assumptions of failure about? I'm sure that the Mesa Verde clients would feel uncomfortable. So what? They'd feel uncomfortable if Howard had a bondage porn fetish, even though that would have no logical connection to his ability to be a lawyer. It's human nature to be uncomfortable about being around the unusual, so Mesa Verde's feelings aren't a reliable source of indication whether Chuck is doing something wrong here.
- He had an attack right after they left and needed a whole night to recover. Imagine if the meeting lasted 2 more minutes and he did that in front of Mesa Verde. Lawyers can't do their job well when they accidentally set their house on fire because their electricity attack struck before they could turn off their lamp. The doctor didn't say, "Chuck can't take care of himself, but he can totally be a lawyer, that's easier to do than feed yourself". And again, if a doctor met him after his last attack, he wouldn't be able to help with the Mesa Verde case since he would be sent to get treated.
- Why would she say "He can't be a lawyer"? Chuck wasn't even lawyering at the time he got hospitalized and even if he was, it's not relevant to his condition in any way. However, notice that she doesn't ask what his occupation is. That's because it's not relevant. Think about what lawyering actually consists of as far as Chuck goes: Reading, thinking, talking, and maybe typing. Those are the tasks that would be necessary for Chuck to do his job. Don't imagine whether the doctor would say if he can do job or if he can be a lawyer. Imagine them saying "your allergy makes reading, thinking, and talking a dangerous activity for you. And don't even think about typing." Because that is what your essentially trying to argue. Prove that his condition affects those things, and you might have a case. As of now, you're just insisting that because he's sick, he MUST be unfit, even that sickness does nothing to affect his ability. I hope you're at least consistent in your argument and argue that every lawyer who has any kind of illness ought to have his medical condition revealed to the world no matter how irrelevant it is. Anyone with autism, or allergies, or a flu. Doesn't matter what they're ill with, their ill, it has to affect their judgement, can't be good lawyers as result.
- And the allergy is not real, at all, as she puts it it's a manifestation of something deeper and he needs a 30 days psychoevaluation for it which means taking a break so they can see what is really going on (pretty sure she would say no to but can he work in during the tests). You can't say his sickness makes him functional we don't even know what it is all about because Chuck persists and is enabled in doing so by Jimmy and H.H.M. Someone with an unknown flu that is worsening can't be a lawyer because he needs to be treated first, it won't help anyone if he dies mid case because he stubbornly believed he could ignore it. I hope you're consistent too in that if someone who is not using meds to treat himself you just let him kill himself at work when he should be taking care of his health because hey he can still read who cares if he will spent all night in incredible pain.
- It functions essentially the same as an allergy. That it's psychosomatic (not the same as being not real) doesn't really matter when that's simply how it works. And you cannot make up that there is perhaps some hidden feature that prevents him from working when it hasn't shown up in the two years since he's had it. This isn't like an unknown flu that's worsening, because it's not worsening, it's consistent. Electricity = averse reaction, worse reaction with greater quantities. That's how it's been except for the odd instance where he actually got better temporarily, but never worse. He doesn't suffer in the slightest so long as he avoids electricity, which he mostly does. As for consistency, I'm not claiming what you just described there. I full agree that Chuck needs get help and that lawyers should get better rather than work themselves to death. However, the original argument was about whether there is anything either unethical or dishonest about him not disclosing this information to the clients. And no, there isn't. A lawyer who is allergic to peanuts wouldn't have to disclose to his clients that he might become unable to work on their case in the event that he eats peanuts and becomes comatose or dead, even supposing there was a therapeutic cure of peanut allergy that he could take. I'm pretty sure that it isn't any kind of fraud to keep that information to yourself even if you have cancer and will die in two months, though it might be discourteous. In that event, the only thing Chuck might be obligated to do was have end of life plans where he passes the buck on to someone else. But Chuck isn't dying, nor is he spending his nights in incredible pain if he hasn't been exposed to electricity. All Chuck needs to do for it to not be an issue is stay away from electricity, which he mostly does. So the question is should lawyers who have a condition where they might be incapacitated for a day (which in most cases won't be a problem anyway, since most of what Chuck does is paperwork. "Can't get it in to me today? Sure, get it tomorrow, or I can just have my interns get it, just tell me what it is" Lawyering isn't typically a intense activity sort of career). So what your left with is a person who is completely normal so long as he doesn't have electricity near him. Now, if you'd stop making up additional conditions that he doesn't actually have and misrepresenting his illness, you'd see there's no compelling reason for him to say anything.
- OP Here: I have to admit that Chuck may not have been unethical, but it was still a dick move against Kim and Jimmy. And the passive aggressive way he did it bothered me as well. If I was Kevin and Paige, I'd be tempted to tell HHM to suck it for talking to me like I'm a complete idiot.
- Kim could totally have done it, but Chuck, being the asshole that he is, decides to undermine it by saying "play it safe". This is pretty much like the Kettlemans refusing Jimmy because he looks like the kind of lawyer guilty people hires. Kim doesn't really need that many resources. And Chuck over-exaggerated how complicated compliance law is. Compliance laws are merely things you can do without law firms backing you. This is following the rules to get an expansion. Unlike Sandpiper, where there is another law firm - Schweikert and Cokley - ruining them in court, this is just a long process that Kim is totally fit for, especially when all the money she receives is devoted to this case and the problem is more how time consuming it is and you have to make it perfect.
Wouldn't Mesa Verde bail if they found out about Chuck's condition?
- While many say that Chuck wasn't misleading anyone in that meeting with Kevin and Paige, I respectfully disagree. Remember the meeting in season 1 when Schweikert and Cokely met with Chuck and Jimmy at Chuck's house? That was not misleading. Schweikert and his team left their phones, etc. outside because they were told beforehand about Chuck's .... issues, phobias, whatever. Everything was out in the open.
But by contrast, all of Chuck's "issues" were concealed from Mesa Verde. Chuck endures their phones and watches, the lights being on, etc. Everything is set up to conceal the fact that Chuck was a basketcase. I mean, hypothetically, suppose that Rick Schweikert knows Kevin and Paige socially, and the meeting with HHM had come up in conversation. Imagine the astonishment on both sides, and the reaction from Kevin and Paige when Schweikert mentions Chuck's illness. Or what if MV followed up the meeting with a phone call to Chuck with an urgent question? The guy probably wouldn't even have been able to string a sentence together. If Kevin and Paige knew the whole story, they would likely have bailed.- They probably wouldn't since it's clear he is the most competent choice even with his sickness, however if Jimmy starts talking about how it's all in Chuck's mind and he would probably be forced to take time off the work if a doctor examined him, that's gonna put it in doubt. If it was just a real electromagnetic sickness (which everyone but Jimmy, Kim and a doctor believe), Kevin wouldn't care as long as they have a system, but knowing it's more people enabling him in a delusion and he can be taken off work at any moment, that's different.
Are those soldiers blind?
- How do the soldiers pose with "Major Fudge" and not notice that his oxygen tube isn't hooked up to a tank?
- And they thought Jimmy was Kevin Costner too. Fanboy are unobservant.
So what was on those documents we saw Jimmy doctoring?
- Here's a URL showing "Before" and "After" side-by-sides of some of the pages.
- That's just a letter to the stockholders of Mesa Verde's statement to open a new branch in Scottsdale, Arizona. Jimmy changed the address on this and all the paper so when Chuck send the request it won't work.
- That's an actual map, too. They've just changed out some street names for obvious reasons.
- And for the record, there's no way they could build a bank on that lot in real life because that lot is occupied by a Goodwill. Interestingly there is bank at that location, in a lot on the opposite side of that intersection.
Is Chuck a hypocrite?
- In the meeting with Kevin and Paige, Chuck says that Howard has friends in the government who can smooth the waters if Mesa Verde gets in trouble. But isn't that considered the unethical process of undue influence with government officials?
- No, there is nothing more ethical than befriending people you work with. Plus would you call Kim using her friendship with Paige to influence Kevin unethical? It's not because they work for the government that you can't say pretty please just try to make it go faster.
Kim and Jimmy's relationship
- I know they were Friends with Benefits in the beginning but since season 2 they don't seem to be looking for someone else, sleeps together more often and Jimmy really wants to share everything with her. So are they still really close friends or they are an outright couple?
- I would say "really close friends".
- Not all "couples" are on a track that includes eventual cohabitation and/or marriage. For some people that track doesn't make sense. It's possible to be emotionally and physically intimate with someone without those things.
- I think the best analysis can be interpreted by the way Kim defended Jimmy against Chuck's allegations, in spite of knowing that Chuck is right. She knows that at least part of Chuck's claim is true, but she has known that Jimmy is "morally flexible" for a long time. She also enjoys cons herself, so there's that. But she also really seems to despise Chuck now. The way she said "I feel sorry for you too", was very different than how she said it about Jimmy; her tone was hateful and disgusted toward Chuck. Anyways, I think she genuinely loves Jimmy; she's still on the fence about how to deal with Jimmy's inevitable, future scams, lies and whether he can really make it as a "real" lawyer when he is now insisting on "doing things his way".
How come Hank didn't know Mike was the one who put Tuco in jail?
- I'm jumping ahead here to Breaking Bad. But in season 5A, Hank mentions digging into Mike's past and looking for possible connections between him and Gus's drug empire. Yet he never mentions the fact that Mike was the reason Tuco was put in prison just a few years earlier (since Mike, even though he was the "victim" of the incident, undoubtedly ended up in the official police report on the altercation). I know the meta reason is "BCS hadn't even yet been greenlit," but still, knowing the extra context, it's odd that Hank wouldn't notice such a yellow flag on Mike's record.
- There is no good reason, but given Mike getting punched by Tuco had no link between him and Gus, maybe Hank saw it as trivial compared to the offshore account in Kaylee's name. Why point out jaywalking when you have him burning Idaho on record?
- This isn't going to be the last instance where the writers are going to have to retcon certain lines from Breaking Bad. You just know certain people are going to meet in Better Call Saul who act as if they have never met in Breaking Bad, like Jimmy and Gus. Not that big of a deal. I would rather they call as little attention to that kind of stuff as possible rather than make a big deal about having people pinky swear to pretend like they have never met before or suffering from amnesia or some such nonsense.
- There is no good reason, but given Mike getting punched by Tuco had no link between him and Gus, maybe Hank saw it as trivial compared to the offshore account in Kaylee's name. Why point out jaywalking when you have him burning Idaho on record?
Why take the mask off?
- So when he ambushes the truck, Mike is wearing a mask. But once the driver is hog-tied and on the ground, he takes it off. Isn't that a bit risky for Mike? Yes it's a very rural two lane road with very little traffic, but what if a motorist came upon the area before Mike left the scene? Would he have given this person a little money to silence them (since he's not a hardened killer yet)?
- Well a ski mask under the sun like that is not really comfortable and he would have taken the first opportunity to remove it. I'm not even sure why he is still wearing black clothes in broad daylight like that.
- I guess he's wearing black because he started laying his trap before dawn and didn't bring another change of clothes.
- Wearing all-black has the practicality of making it difficult for someone to identify any of your clothing.
How did Nacho figure out that Mike was responsible for the truck attack?
- When Nacho starts out in S1, he's not very smart, as Jimmy points out. In the plot line involving the Kettlemans, he's listed on the main page under "Stupid Crooks". But now he's smart enough to do the math and figure out that Mike was behind the truck heist. How did he get so smart so fast?
- He's not stupid. He's just operating completely outside of his wheelhouse with the Kettlemans and he never adjusted for the different circumstances. Normally, Nacho deals with other crooks and their criminal associates, operating in abandoned areas and bad neighborhoods, filled with the kinds of people who wouldn't call the police after they've been robbed no matter what had been stolen and who don't poke their noses into other peoples' business. See, if the Kettlemans had been junkies or crystal meth manufacturers who happened to come into a big score and were hiding out in an abandoned house, nobody in that run-down neighborhood would have thought it was suspicious to see a van parked nearby overnight or thought to record the license plate. That's Nacho's way of thinking. His mistake was that he didn't consider the institutional paranoia that comes from living in the more upscale suburbs that exist in that part of Albuquerque, the kinds of areas where real-life homeowners have been known to write down and record 'suspicious' characters (The kind that are like "There's a black guy on my street, I better call the cops").
The reason why Nacho was able to figure out Mike was behind the truck robbery is because he's back in his own operational comfort zone; given their organization has probably been robbed before, maybe with similar methods. And for all we know, the Salamancas probably have done these sorts of jobs on other cartels. Thus, Nacho knows that the typical robbery crew on a such job would execute the driver. But this job didn't fit the typical execution of such an ambush - what specifically doesn't fit is that this guy left the driver alive. It's not a big stretch for Nacho to put two and two together and conclude that Mike was responsible, because Mike is the one guy Nacho knows who has the skills for this and has shown himself hesitant to kill. Nacho still fully remembers when he and Mike orchestrated Tuco's arrest. I'm not saying it's the first thing that would come to my mind (Personally, I would probably have seen it as some sort of message of some kind, or maybe the crew got interrupted), but it doesn't require him to transform into a criminal mastermind. - It's less that he is dumb and more that he is careless and has the worst luck ever (Daniel hired the only bodyguard that knows where Nacho lives and what he is doing, Jimmy called the Kettlemans the same day Nacho was scouting, the Salamancas are fucking psychos etc.) and since he knows Mike, it is not hard to see the crime fits him. Plus, he no longer has a junkie with anger issues as boss so he has more room to think once the "Tuco will kill someone else while hopped up on crank" afterthoughts is gone.
- Also, he's been spending time with Mike and observing the pro at work. Must be rubbing off him.
- Plus Nacho said the driver described the attacker as an old gringo, that narrows down the list for him.
- He said that he was just now going to pick up the driver to find out information, and if he said that it was an "old gringo" then Hector would realize it was Mike. He was saying that soon it would be the organization as a whole looking at him, not just Nacho.
- But what are the odds that the driver would even recognize the man who robbed him as an "old gringo"? Mike didn't take off his mask until he'd blindfolded the driver.
- He didn't. Hector clearly thought it was an inside job, they tortured him in that shack trying to get info out of him, and when he didn't talk, they shot him and threw him in that grave in the desert.
- He's not stupid. He's just operating completely outside of his wheelhouse with the Kettlemans and he never adjusted for the different circumstances. Normally, Nacho deals with other crooks and their criminal associates, operating in abandoned areas and bad neighborhoods, filled with the kinds of people who wouldn't call the police after they've been robbed no matter what had been stolen and who don't poke their noses into other peoples' business. See, if the Kettlemans had been junkies or crystal meth manufacturers who happened to come into a big score and were hiding out in an abandoned house, nobody in that run-down neighborhood would have thought it was suspicious to see a van parked nearby overnight or thought to record the license plate. That's Nacho's way of thinking. His mistake was that he didn't consider the institutional paranoia that comes from living in the more upscale suburbs that exist in that part of Albuquerque, the kinds of areas where real-life homeowners have been known to write down and record 'suspicious' characters (The kind that are like "There's a black guy on my street, I better call the cops").
Why kill the Good Samaritan?
- Like I get the common rationale, but all the GS did was just pick up the driver.
- What driver? There was no driver. Or a truck. No truck with sliced tires for anyone to get suspicious over should they learn about this story.
- Also, venting. The driver is still useful, but somebody just has to get it.
- Or hell, maybe Nacho was lying, just to make Mike feel like shit.
- If that's the case, who found the driver? We know the truck was found because that's the only reason why Hector is so furious when Mike spies on him at the ice cream parlor after the job.
- Because they need to avoid not just being caught by the cops, they need to avoid even being suspected. If the Samaritan goes and tells his buddies this weird story about how a guy was hog-tied up by the side of the road and his tires were slashed so badly, it wouldn't take a lot for somebody to realize that there was probably something being smuggled. Maybe all of the Samaritan's friends are just nobodies, maybe he wouldn't notice enough to give anybody enough information to work with, but maybe he has a particular eye for weird details like that and he's friends with a cop, or a reporter, or somebody who would put the pieces together while they were bullshitting over a beer. Suddenly their trucks aren't just getting the usual border inspection, they're being targeted because they have a tip that there's something specific going on. Once the authorities know where to look and aren't just sifting all US/Mexico traffic, they're going to find something. See, way too many possible ways for that to go wrong. Given this would be out in the middle of nowhere, and don't need to worry about any witnesses or even having the body being discovered, getting rid of the witness rather than take even the tiny risk is the safer solution.
So who is the smarter McGill, Chuck or Jimmy?
- Yes, I know, Chuck may operate more within the confines of the law, and Jimmy is very shady. But there's an old saying that "Just because you're a genius doesn't make you a smart guy." Chuck may know the ins and outs of the law—- but it seems he's more a BUSINESS lawyer than a criminal defense lawyer. He probably isn't as "smart" as Jimmy, when it comes to reading people, and guessing people's reactions, etc... Look at the scene between Chuck, Kim and Jimmy at Chuck's house, for instance. Chuck clearly expected Kim to come alone. He assumed that she'd be smart enough to 'see reason' and agree with him about what happened. Even with Jimmy there, he probably still felt that Kim would be 'on his side', because she's a good lawyer. And, truth be told.. SHE is the one who's actually smart enough to figure out that Jimmy actually did it. Because unlike Chuck, she actually sees the REAL Jimmy, and understands THEIR relationship— the McGill brothers— better than THEY do themselves. Which may be why she SIDED with Jimmy, even while knowing that Jimmy was in the wrong.
- Not only that, but Kim essentially uses legal principles to thwart Chuck — a brilliant lawyer — and then manipulates master manipulator Jimmy into realizing he needs to clean up his own loose ends.
- He is more a business lawyer because for starter it is his job and Jimmy's reading still means nothing, if he can't successfully defend his clients without breaking laws then he is kind of a shitty lawyer. Also it's kind of hard reading someone when you just had your greatest career flop because of your brother and you are 100% right in your deducing and the only reason thing goes wrong is the person who calls you a liar just TOLD your brother that he missed a loose end. Chuck's mistake is pretty much believing Kim had more morals instead of going straight to Lance for the proof and let the police sort it out, but since he still thinks she is Jimmy's partner, he called her to explain the conflict of interest she is totally in.
- From our side Chuck is showing his prideful and smug side that he kept hidden from everyone until "Pimento". To Chuck, this is an Orwellian Retcon with people telling him to believe something he knows didn't happen. While screaming "I did not made a mistake!" sounds pompous it doesn't make it any less true, if he said he made a mistake that is accepting a brainwash.
- I think that a key component of Chuck's mental illness is a personality that tends to fixate. His ability to fixate on his "enemies" makes him a particularly effective lawyer when it matters most. Unfortunately, he's also hyper-sensitive to situational incongruity, which causes him to mislabel loved ones as enemies when they don't behave in a manner that is consistent with his idea of how people should conduct themselves in a relationship. Which means that he eventually fixates on his loved ones, and attempts to take them down for perceived wrongs. The tiny things people do that would only irritate a person without Chuck's ailment, get elevated to a deeply felt betrayal in persons with Chuck's disorder. Chuck's a dick, only because he's internalizing every little thing and he doesn't realize that doing so isn't what normal people do. Chuck is perplexed by people being permissive of Jimmy's behavior because he thinks that everyone is ignoring major misdeeds. It never occurs to him that he should ask himself whether or not the wrongdoing he sees in others is actually as wrong as it feels to him.
So how is Jimmy's Gaslighting of Chuck able to work?
There's a lot of important things to note about the entire scene that explain why Kim would seem to side with Jimmy when Chuck starts throwing accusations of forgery at Jimmy, and why she'd say that any normal person would think Chuck is crazy:
- For one thing, as Kim pointed out, all Chuck had made was an accusation with no evidence other than "Because I've known Jimmy all my life," which is pure speculation that would never hold up in court. He constructed a(n unknowingly accurate) story which implies malice with cruel intentions, but is just as easily explained away by stupidity. The only evidence of forgery, outside of the copy shop clerk (who has been bribed to keep his mouth shut), is that one of the documents had a little dab of ink hanging off of a "6", but that document has since been removed and replaced in Chuck's files. All documents with the bad address on them were those that Chuck prepared from the doctored files, which no longer exist because Jimmy switched the doctored ones out for the originals while Howard and Chuck were on their way into court.
- Because Chuck has shown a determination at keeping Jimmy from succeeding, Jimmy's expectation seems to be that Chuck wouldn't let it go and the more he persists, the nuttier he looks. I think that if he recovers, his next courtroom appearance for him will be his own commitment hearing.
- Kim is likely aware of what Jimmy did, but she was not part of the planning or execution phase. Her only role has been in the coverup, and all she did was tell Jimmy, "Chuck is smart and if there is something, he will find it." Now I doubt that Chuck has told anyone other than Ernesto about what Jimmy did, and Chuck at the moment is far from being a reliable reporter. In fact, I'd say that from the way he reacted before he collapsed in the shop, that Chuck is too far gone to see how far gone he is in the eyes of a normal person.
After Chuck collapses...
- ....what was Lance the clerk handing to Ernesto?
- I think it's the photo of Jimmy that Ernesto and Chuck brought for ID-ing purposes.
- It looked more like a Kleenex or something, but maybe it was the photo. It wasn't just any photo by the way - it was the photo of Jimmy from the Albuquerque Journal article about the billboard stunt.
- I think it's the photo of Jimmy that Ernesto and Chuck brought for ID-ing purposes.
How did Mike know that the contraband was in the tires?
- While it may seem odd how Mike knew that the truck's tires were where the money was stashed, look closely when he's watching Hector and his crew receive the truck in the previous episode. Right after the truck goes into the garage, as the door is closing, you can hear the sound of an air wrench, which is used to remove tires. There's a knowing look on Mike's face as he seems to recognize the sound.
Out of character moment for Mike?
- Is it me or is it a bit out of character for a guy like Mike to buy a round of drinks for the house?
- Well, when is the last time we saw Mike being happy? I don't mean playing with his granddaughter while contemplating what toys, balloons or hose he is gonna use to hurt someone or kill someone, I mean job well done satisfaction. Mike always looked dead-eyed but that truck heist was probably the only time revenge felt sweet for him until Nacho dropped the casualty bomb: No blood on his hands, he is rich enough to stay off shady jobs for a while, the assholes that threatened his family would have been under police radar and he saw Hector snarling in impotent rage.
- In hindsight, it's kind of sad how Mike has few happy moments going on with his life and when he does it's slapped down again. It's exactly like how Jimmy's been slapped down by Chuck when he tries to go on the straight path.
Is the road really that deserted?
- Mike's truck attack is completely dependent on nobody else coming along that road for at least seven minutes, while he spikes the road, overpowers the driver, ties him up, slices open the tires, extracts the money from the tire, puts the money and the spike strip rig back into his car, and drives off. The driver is moving contraband up from the El Paso border crossing to Albuquerque and back. And the driver is definitely not using Interstate 25. So he's using US Route 54, which is a little bit out of the way, but would allow him to pick up his stashed gun easier because it's a smaller road. In fact, Google Earth shows that much of US Route 54 is a two lane highway, divided by a dashed line. So the question is - is US 54 really that deserted for that long? Seven minutes at a time in the middle of the day?
- Seven minutes on the highway without meeting someone is not that hard, depending on what time he traveled. It's likely the driver wouldn't travel at peak travel times.
- Drug smugglers have a big incentive for traveling on the least populated roads. Far less witnesses that way.
- Why cross the border at El Paso? Why not cross at Columbus, New Mexico or the remote one at Antelope Wells?
- Driver is still human, he wants to get home in short time, plus he found a perfect gun cache on that road.
Would Howard have believed Chuck?
- So Chuck outlined his (unknowingly accurate) theory of how Jimmy sabotaged the documents. Kim knows that it's true, but Chuck has no evidence aside from the copy guy (bribed to keep his mouth shut). Which led me to wonder, "What if Chuck had been outlining his theory to Howard, instead of Kim?" I'm thinking that he would have dismissed Chuck too for the following reasons:
- Howard knows Chuck's mental state is not in the best of shape.
- Howard said the correct thing when he said that such a mistake managed to slip past all the paralegals at HHM.
- Chuck (accurately) describing an elaborate sequence of events to Howard to defend his incompetence would fall on deaf ears. In Howard's mind, it probably wouldn't matter IF there was forgery, because Chuck's incompetence is that he took the documents home where he may or not be able to function, depending on how much time Chuck has spent in the outside world (not to mention, it's bad ethics to take work home and leave it somewhere where it's so easily accessible).
- Howard probably feels stupid for allowing Chuck to pretend his illness wasn't debilitating when he went to HHM for the meeting with Kevin and Paige. "I was in a coma because my body was dealing with a dangerous amount of electricity" is NOT a rational explanation. It's an admission that Chuck's only value to HHM is as a SALESMAN. When Kim resigned, the ethical response that Howard should have done would be to find someone qualified in compliance law to replace her (whether in-house or from an outside firm), or pull another qualified lawyer at HHM away from another task.
- Howard had planned on assigning someone else who was specialized in compliance law. He just didn't plan on making Chuck be an active part of the process (he probably just wanted Chuck to give him some key points because his plan was having him and not a completely random person trying to gain Kevin and Paige's trust, but Chuck overruled him) and wanted to leave Kim in doc review. If there's any problem on Howard's behalf, it's that he is really submissive towards Chuck and probably towards his dad too (see below). When you think about it, he could have told Chuck to deal with his brother issues himself instead of serving as a scapegoat. Same goes when Chuck tells Jimmy it was Howard's decision to send Kim to doc review, and then just forcing Howard to bring her back in her desk (which match Jimmy's image of Howard being Chuck's puppet when he brought up the subject).
- Chuck wanted to present proof of Jimmy's criminal wrongdoing to Howard, because he's threatened by the idea of Howard thinking that Chuck has lost a step. I think we kind of get an idea of why this would scare Chuck from the discussion that Howard had with Kim when she informed Howard that she was resigning from HHM. In that scene, Howard said that he had a desire to stand on his own, and to make a difference, but was coerced by his father into becoming the second "H" in HHM. It's possible that if Howard believes that Chuck is no longer competent to practice law, that Howard will attempt to sever his working relationship with Chuck to branch out on his own. If Howard tried to do this, Chuck would have a very difficult time trying to practice law on his own, to say nothing of trying to join another firm.
- Therefore, the only one who will know truly what happened is Kim - same as when she punched Jimmy's arm in the car (after defending Jimmy). Her intuition will be 100 percent accurate - because that's how things work in fictional drama.
- Well that and Kim knows Jimmy can do a lot of amoral things without thinking twice (as shown when he told her about fabricating evidence for the police to get Daniel Wormald off on the drug charges back in "Cobbler"), but Howard doesn't better and frankly he doesn't care because that won't bring Kevin and Paige back if he said "it was a brother dispute that led to this issue with the paperwork for your new branch. It won't happen even though that's how we almost lost Sandpiper when all Jimmy was asking for was a job". It's not spelled out but I don't think Howard is happy with Chuck and Jimmy's feud, which might be why he told Kim about it in "Pimento".
- Howard has a liking for Jimmy, but even he's aware of some of Jimmy's actions, like the billboard stunt (which he refused to press deeper on because to do so would be a big embarrassment due to the publicity Jimmy received as a result), or Jimmy's unauthorized Davis & Main commercial.
- I think Howard was just ass kissing when he played nice with Jimmy. He called Chuck Charlie hustle too and pretty much every time someone might have equal standing to him he tries being polite and praising them but he doesn't care about anyone more than stay on their good side.
Could Chuck have hired a private investigator to find fingerprints?
- I think some people might have also pondered if Chuck should have hired a private investigator to look for evidence of Jimmy's criminal activities. However, I don't think that would be an option for Chuck for the following reasons:
- Neither Chuck, nor Ernesto would know how to dust for prints - and Chuck can't have the police do it. They'd just laugh in his face at the story that the inaccurate documents were temporarily in place, and then permanently gone. They'd point out that without the doctored documents, there's no case to be built against Jimmy. Not to mention the police opinion of Chuck might not have changed since that last visit they made to his house.
- Chuck could have hired a real PI to conduct a forensic analysis - but he wouldn't want to pay for it. Ernesto's time is apparently free (or he's being paid extra by HHM) and Chuck was happy to assume Ernesto was a functional replacement for a qualified professional investigator.
- The main problem is that forensic analysis by police or a PI would be worthless. Chuck doesn't hire cleaning professionals and Chuck isn't exactly a fastidious cleaner. Due to the fact that Chuck's falling out with Jimmy was fairly recent, and Jimmy had been providing Chuck with essentials prior to that falling out, the police would say that Jimmy's fingerprints were expected to be found because of how long he had had access to Chuck's house.
- There's also the fact that if Chuck took evidence of Jimmy's criminal behavior in the Mesa Verde case to the police or the New Mexico Bar Association, he would have to go on public record as having a debilitating condition that renders him unable to sufficiently secure confidential legal documents. This would jeopardize his license to practice law. Put it another way, Jimmy might go down, but Chuck would be going down with him.
- Well Chuck doesn't know his condition is debilitating and losing the documents had nothing to do with it ("It was your brother who still has a key to your house, and persuaded Ernesto to leave"). Everyone in court knows about Chuck's condition and they are completely ok with it but if they know it's actually self diagnosed and the reason behind the affliction is different, that might change it. Also he is not dumb if he asks Ernesto to find and contact a P.I since he can't with his EMS, Ernesto is not gonna do it without asking Howard or Jimmy if he is still sane.
- Yes the Banking Board commissioner knew that something had kept Chuck out of action (from the way he says "Nice to have you back, Charles"), but unless he'd visited Chuck, he wouldn't know exactly what Chuck's condition was.
- Schweikert and Cokley knew about it. If the guy who has an interest in declaring Chuck unfit doesn't use his condition as leverage, no one will.
- Let's not forget that Chuck always sees himself as the paragon of morality and legal ethics. He's too proud to stoop as low as hiring a private investigator. That's a practice only the shadiest of attorneys (like Jimmy) would do. Which makes it quite ironic in season 3 when he ultimately settles for hiring private investigators to sit on the house while waiting for Jimmy to come and steal the tape.
Why didn't Chuck consider the possibility of Jimmy bribing the clerk?
- I think Chuck of all people should have at least considered Jimmy would grease Lance at the copy shop. I mean, that's the whole point of Chuck's crusade against Jimmy in this case - to prove he is unethical and that he committed a crime. If Jimmy was capable of forging 13 documents to create such a calamity for Chuck, it's not a stretch to think that he would be capable of throwing a few bucks to cover his tracks. Chuck already correctly determined the documents had been replaced along with the exact time and date when this would have happened.
- Another thing to remember is that Chuck is a lawyer. And generally, one thing lawyers probably know is that when a witness says one thing, but then they suddenly change their testimony or back off, there are two possible reasons why: they have been threatened with violence, or promised a lucrative payment. We even saw an example of this a few episodes earlier when Hector tried to get Mike to change his testimony about his fight with Tuco - he started with a bribe, then used the Cousins to threaten Kaylee's life, then finally was coerced into giving Mike a larger bribe. But then when Mike went to the district attorney and prosecutor to give his amended statement, they immediately asked Mike if he had been threatened by the Salamanca crew. If that district attorney could so quickly conclude that Mike had been threatened/bribed into changing his testimony, surely a lawyer like Chuck could make the same conclusion that Jimmy had threatened or bribed Lance in the time it took Ernesto to drive from the copy shop to Chuck's house, pick Chuck up, and drive back.
- Yes but that's even crazier, Jimmy just showing up after Ernesto got Lance to say he remembered sawing Jimmy and bribing away what is left of evidence right on time? Chuck doesn't know it's a fiction drama where coincidences happens all the time. Even if he knows Lance is bribed, what can he do? Try telling someone he is being bribed in his workplace, you just broke the customer-employee agreement and he can kick you out. The moment the district attorney asked Mike if he was bribed gave the perfect excuse for Jimmy to fake outrage and justifies why Mike don't want to talk to them anymore.
- Unrelated, but something else to point out is that had Chuck been a desperate man, he could have suspended his moral code and thrown a few MORE bucks at Lance and perhaps easily discovered the truth...and have evidence to get Jimmy disbarred. Yes of course Chuck, as a man who sees himself as the paragon of morality and legal ethics would be too proud to try that move, but that's one case where he could have done that...
- No, Chuck might be an asshole, might do some shitty politics and manipulation but he won't break the law. He didn't extort Jimmy and he won't bribe someone, when he says the law is sacred he means it. That'll be a Motive Decay that will have removed any valid arguments he had not wanting Jimmy as a lawyer and means everything was done because he hates his brother.
Hourglass in the copy shop
- Maybe I'm nitpicking, but why would there be an hourglass on the desk at the copy shop? It seems kinda odd why it would be there.
- It's still full of sand, signaling that his time isn't up yet? (Seen on Facebook)
Why Chuck didn't tell Jimmy that she woke up, said her last words and then finally died
- Just a thought.
- It very much seems like Jimmy was the "favorite" of their parents. Not a surprise, given Jimmy's way with people. Chuck probably resented Jimmy for it and never got over it, which was why Chuck continued trying to thwart Jimmy's efforts at success well into adult life.
- Bob Odenkirk confirmed in Talking Saul that Chuck is jealous that their mother apparently loved Jimmy more.
"DON'T" note
- It's a given that Gus left that "DON'T" note on Mike's car. Weird question: Gus left that note AFTER Mike had gone up the hill. How would he know that Mike wouldn't shoot Hector?
- He didn't know, if Mike would have shot though he would have heard it so he knew he had time to come up with a plan.
- It was posited on WMG that Nacho might be working for Gus as a spy. Nacho stands adjacent to Hector in such a position to block Mike's shot. There are obviously many other vantage points on that hill where Mike could have been stationed. A few hundred feet off and Mike would have had an opening. For Nacho to know exactly where Mike would be, he'd have to be in collaboration with whoever planted the note. Gus or one of his men shadowed Mike, and got word relayed to Nacho as to where Mike would be, so that Nacho would be blocking Mike's shot. The theory also goes that in learning about Mike, Gus also knew Mike and Nacho saw each other as close associates and reasoned that Mike wouldn't take the shot if doing so would harm Nacho.
- It also kind of mean Nacho is willing to put himself in the way of a sniper hoping Mike won't kill him too, just because he "sees him as close associate" which we can put that on the Nacho is dumb for a paycheck scoreboard (Mike has everything to gain from killing Nacho since he knows he hold a grudge with Hector and he probably knows Mike is not above killing when properly motivated what with the dead eyes and saying he can snipe Tuco from a distance). Mike doesn't have any problem killing. He just doesn't kill wantonly. This was shown in "Bullet Points" when Mike blindfolded the tweaker who had stolen from Jesse's rave party - he said he was going to kill the guy but Jesse knew that Mike wouldn't go through the trouble of blindfolding the guy if his intent was to actually kill.
- Mike has respect for Nacho. Nacho knows that. That would make the risk worth the reward.
- Does he? because last meeting they had ended up with Mike lying to him about being done with his boss and proved he didn't care if Nacho got police attention as collateral. Nacho even tried shooting him over that.
- But it couldn't necessarily have been Gus who planted the note. At this point, it would be probably more plausible for it to be Victor planting the note, not Gus. Would Gus really follow Mike around like that? He's got a cover business to run. But maybe Gus's people have probably been watching the Salamanca's operations with the very same tactics Mike uses, maybe for an even longer period of timenote , so they've probably seen Mike causing problems with the Salamancas and looking to do more. While Mike would put himself in danger of retaliation for knocking off Hector, what's to say that the cartel wouldn't assume that Hector had been offed on Gus's orders? It'd be bad for Gus for Mike coming in and a starting a war when he doesn't know all the players yet.
Chuck's plan
- So I don't know if Jimmy just took his bar back after being disbarred from felony but how is the recording supposed to work? Chuck just spent a bunch of days in the hospital, put himself in a catatonic state and pretty much forced a confession by deceit (legal but easy to overrule). He can't win with only that. Jimmy can backtrack simply by saying he was still lying because his brother abused his care for a condition he knows is not even real. It will just show him being even more paranoid and no one will bat an eye when they commit him.
- That or it's not about the court matter, but getting Jimmy to change his name.
- He is gonna force his brother to change his name? That would be a new low but after that confession trick it might not be impossible.
- It's certainly enough to start a case against him. The jury is still out on whether the charges will actually stick, but the trial itself would still be incredibly damaging to Jimmy's reputation.
- I don't think Jimmy will get disbarred though. In Breaking Bad, he's still practicing law in Albuquerque. People who were clients for him when he practiced law as "Jimmy McGill" would still recognize him as that. Jimmy has even been on the local news (thanks to the billboard stunt) under that name, and he filmed two different commercials so far - his unauthorized Davis & Main ad and his "Gimme Jimmy!" ad. So I think that in all likelihood, what's going to happen is that "Saul Goodman" was the result of Jimmy being blackmailed by Chuck.
- You can repass the bar in most case.
- Not when you're disbarred for crime, like there is a way to have it revoked but it's hard.
- How bad Chuck's reputation is gonna be when Jimmy has enough and let the doctor commit him because he has severe issues that needs to be treated?
Why did Hector have the driver killed?
- Obviously it's not easy to tell seeing how we only get to see it happening through the view of Mike's scope, but what would lead Hector to want the driver dead? Furthermore, what were they doing with him inside that shed?
- Hector is an asshole. When Nacho reported the guy knew nothing, he wanted to make sure of himself just before killing the driver because he got robbed.
- It's either because Hector still suspected the driver was in on the heist, or because he can't tolerate failure, or a combination of both.
- I'm banking towards "failure". But from the looks of it, I imagine they tortured him inside that shed, trying to get the name of his inside accomplice. When he didn't say it (because it wasn't true), Hector decided, "Fuck this mule, kill him," and then the Cousins carried out the order. But Arturo had already dug the grave before they brought the driver out. Which suggests they were planning on killing him regardless of the outcome.
- Related question: was that the Indian reservation where Hank and Gomez were killed?
Chuck's Faraday Cage
- I get the setup with the Smoking Gun tape and whatnot, but I keep thinking back to the start of the show, and I'm like, if Chuck REALLY were so sensitive to EM waves, in his mind, why would he be living in a suburban home with all the EM saturation in an average neighborhood? Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of the radio spectrum understands ordinary walls are no protection; that's why your TV and WIFI work in your bedroom. Chuck should either have been living in a rural compound like the one where Hank killed Tuco, or he should have built a Faraday Cage in his house. So, obviously, the surprise isn't that Chuck got WORSE and felt he needed the Faraday. He only built it so that his Smoking Gun tape could go off without a hitch, but why hasn't he felt he needed it ALL ALONG, if he were that hypersensitive?
- In his mind it's just distance, like hearing the tv static close because here how it works: He has to be aware there is electricity around to have his body freak out. Instead of believing it is in his head he just come to the logical conclusion that if the doctor close the lights and leave her cellphone outside it is far enough for his body to take it. Note that when he went in real freak out it was because someone tazed him otherwise all he needed was just a blanket.
- By now, it's clear that Chuck suffers from a form of OCD. Every sufferer has different variations or rules for their compulsions that don't necessarily line up with any objective logic. One could be like Adrian Monk and wash his hands constantly, which would most definitely kill all the germs, but he would still feel unclean and keep washing them. EM sensitivity is at best a pseudoscientific condition so Chuck can rationalize the details of it in any number of ways.
Gus Fring wrote the note, but who left it?
- I don't know if I should put it there or the WMG page but if Gus Fring was the one who wrote the don't note (and it is probably him), do people really picture Gus being the one that broke the window, put a stick on the horn and disappeared in the wilderness? Of course he got someone doing the job for him but who was Gus's Mike before he hired Mike? Tyrus was said to be a sniper but he seemed an unobservant jerk, and Victor didn't seem to have the finesse to pull it. Of course I am not ruling out a new character but expanding a second character as a big part of the show.
- Tyrus wasn't recruited for the operation until after Victor died. And there was dialogue in "Bug" that suggested Mike was the one who recruited Tyrus into the operation. So he's out.
Have the writers gone too far with Chuck?
- I'm sure there are still arguments for liking Chuck, but at this point, even more than last season, how many people are rooting for him? The beauty of this show (and Breaking Bad) is writing that allows one to care about all the characters, "villains" or not. I mean, that's why Gus Fring was a popular "villain" for Breaking Bad season 4, and the same could be said for Hank in season 5. But with Chuck's final stunt, I imagine most viewers will find him an unforgivable character. He's so calculating and so steadfastly ignorant of how much Jimmy cares and how much he is willing to do to help him. Was that a good decision for the show?
But within the show, was Howard playing along with Chuck's scam? I personally doubt he was, so wouldn't dangling him along hurt the only professional relationship Chuck has left? He can't be happy that, one minute, his firm is going to collapse, and the next everything's back to normal. This entire season Howard has put on a patient face but has clearly been trying to keep Chuck away as much as possible. Not having Howard in his corner would be a very bad move for Chuck. And no matter what Chuck does with the tape (pursue legal action, just show it to Kim, any possibility in between), even though he's entirely correct, his mental illness will probably weaken any arguments he makes. Where would he even be able to go from here?- Talking Saul explained that the core character of Chuck is the brightest man in the show with resentment about being The Dutiful Son. Gus did mess up too, but since he was against people we didn't like (Hector Salamanca) audiences were okay with it, even though it's clear he is wasting his life for petty and cruel revenge. Just like Chuck who can't go over the fact that Jimmy could get the best of him once. The problem isn't Chuck's illness. It's his sentiment that Jimmy is preferred by everyone. Having Chuck finally do something like that makes him a villain and not just someone who, you know, is completely right that Jimmy shouldn't be a lawyer and that removes the Protagonist-Centered Morality by showing that Chuck is obsessive over that. That not only gives Jimmy a better reason to becoming Saul but opened an arc where Chuck and Jimmy can view themselves as equal instead of one admiring and the other resenting.
- All good points. But as Mike said in "Pimento," you can be a noble thief or a corrupt cop (or lawyer). Chuck follows the law but his deep, obsessive jealousy of Jimmy causes him to lash out at the one person that truly cares about him. Chuck ignores the huge sacrifices Jimmy has made to care for him over the nearly two years he's been housebound, he ignores what Jimmy has done to keep him out of a mental hospital. He ignores the warmth and adoration Jimmy has shown him over the years. He holds onto every mistake (obviously, I am not forgetting that there have been countless times where he's needed to be bailed out, he is NOT perfect and can make huge messes) and makes his decisions to purposefully hurt and limit his brother. When Jimmy does what he does, he is never malicious, and everything we've seen him do on the show has been to help people, in some way or another.
- And the people he helped ended up with broken legs, humiliated, accomplice of felony and poisoned a kid. Chuck doesn't see his brother as evil but he knows Jimmy has a knack for getting himself in trouble and dragging people with him. Mike's a good assassin does that mean his daughter-in law will keep accepting money once she knows it. Being good at what you do is not an excuse for doing something bad. Of course Chuck's problem is that he can't see past the brother who shat in front of two kids and yet his parents loved him more (possibly biased though) which not only is wrong but makes Chuck being even worse than what he sees Jimmy as. The story about if the brothers will try making peace or completely estranged themselves is a good reason to care for Chuck, you want to see him realizing how far he has gone and finally try to reach for Jimmy and Jimmy finally seeing Chuck as something other than an enemy or a figure to please or you want to see who will permanently break ties with the other or if one realized that yes, Chuck needs to go to a mental hospital for a while. Because when it comes down to it Jimmy is not helping Chuck by keeping the truth about his EMS secret and enabling him into thinking his tinfoil sheet works.
- I actually think that's a beautiful and well written piece of Dramatic Irony: that across two shows about (mostly) criminals, one of the hardest characters to root for is a lawyer who's never actually broken a law in his life.
- Talking Saul explained that the core character of Chuck is the brightest man in the show with resentment about being The Dutiful Son. Gus did mess up too, but since he was against people we didn't like (Hector Salamanca) audiences were okay with it, even though it's clear he is wasting his life for petty and cruel revenge. Just like Chuck who can't go over the fact that Jimmy could get the best of him once. The problem isn't Chuck's illness. It's his sentiment that Jimmy is preferred by everyone. Having Chuck finally do something like that makes him a villain and not just someone who, you know, is completely right that Jimmy shouldn't be a lawyer and that removes the Protagonist-Centered Morality by showing that Chuck is obsessive over that. That not only gives Jimmy a better reason to becoming Saul but opened an arc where Chuck and Jimmy can view themselves as equal instead of one admiring and the other resenting.
So what does Chuck want of Jimmy?
- Jimmy is just a small time con artist and a habitual liar, but he has good intentions. So what does Chuck want for Jimmy? I have two possible theories:
- My first guess is that Chuck just wants someone, anyone (i.e. Kim) to see Jimmy the way Chuck sees him. Chuck works hard, does everything "right" and earns everything he has. In Chuck's eyes (and mostly in reality), Jimmy doesn't work that hard, takes shortcuts and still has a life nearly as good as Chuck's if not better in some ways. And that drives Chuck nuts - it's some sort of narcissism or whatever they call it these days. On top of that, nobody else in Albuquerque seems to think Jimmy is that bad. Honestly, if someone went up to Chuck and said "gee man, your brother is a slacker and you work so hard - can't believe you're related", Chuck would probably do cartwheels he'd be so happy. Instead everyone - even Chuck's wife - seems to think Jimmy is great and Chuck is a fucking stiff. To me Chuck will do anything to get people to see "the real Jimmy" and take Chuck's side. What he does to Jimmy to make that happen is less a factor as the end goal.
- My other guess is that Chuck wants Jimmy to be in exactly the situation he himself would be in if he had tried to live the life Jimmy has been living. What bothers Chuck is not that Jimmy breaks the law, takes shortcuts etc. - it's that Jimmy makes it work. Well, by and large. He hates Jimmy for Jimmy's positive traits, not his negative ones.
Look, there's "sibling rivalry," and then there's Chuck. There are always siblings who will despise one another for various reasons. Chuck is in his late 50s and STILL can't let it go—the fact that Jimmy is well-liked, charming, yes, a con-artist but one who doesn't seem to get caught much. Chuck is a guy who played by the rules, but because of this, has no sense of humor and was insanely envious of the attention Jimmy got, at least from his parents. People like that, who feel ignored, cast aside and who think they were treated unfairly by life, really, REALLY want to inflict pain on others, especially on those who DO get attention, who have a social life and who basically like themselves. And boy does Jimmy like himself. That's probably the reason why he's so endearing with the audience and with almost every character who isn't Chuck—because Jimmy does it without taking anything (important) away from others. He's kind and compassionate, yet he treats himself to all kinds of guilty pleasures: girls, booze, fun, cons, later on, nice clothes, poolside drinks and so on. Consider Chuck's rage when he found out that Kim and Jimmy were going into business together. He was furious. He wants Jimmy, not only to "pay" for his "sins", to be seen as a criminal by the law, but by everyone. And most of all, he wants Jimmy to be as miserable as HE is. He tried already to grind him down with criticism, lies and insults by barring him from getting on the HHM payroll, and that didn't work. So now he's trying to take away everyone who likes or loves Jimmy. - Well Jimmy actually do a lot of dumb shit that ruined people. There was the Chicago Sunroof that happened with kids in the backseat. Then his attempted setup of the Kettlemans ended with Tuco breaking the skateboarders' legs. And Cliff didn't deserve any of Jimmy's "get fired by being obnoxious" schemes (and rejected Jimmy's attempts to apologize). Chuck spent a lot of time bailing out Jimmy so he knows that Jimmy is too morally flexible to be a criminal or business lawyer (he seemed ok with him doing elder law since it wasn't that risky), and from what we saw of Chuck in season one, he can be really helpful and kind to his brother but when he sees that everyone prefers Jimmy over him, even though that while Chuck is an asshole, he always sticks his neck out for people in need like Howard during the Mesa Verde meeting or Jimmy when he needed proof about Sandpiper's large scale fraud. The perception of being the unloved made him hate Jimmy more than he should.
Is season 2 still 2002 or 2003?
- Just wondering!
- Season 1 started in May 2002 (we know this because of the check) and seemed to take place over the course of the summer. Season 2 seems to take place in late 2002/early 2003.
Do you think Howard's in cahoots with Chuck's set-up of Jimmy?
- I mean it's not the first time!
- No. Notice how Howard repeatedly argues with people like Jimmy and Kim and even the doctors that Chuck is only temporarily "ill" and that he "WILL get better". If Howard has an ulterior motive for that (as Jimmy says: keeping HHM going, even if Chuck is doing work at home, and Howard also NOT having to pay out $17 million if Chuck "cashes out", or worse, pay it to Jimmy as Chuck's legal guardian!), the tape would be a disaster for everyone. Chuck knows that, and I doubt he'd EVER admit to Howard, of all people, that he's a psychological wreck. And he doesn't even want Jimmy to be a lawyer, much less to take control of his interest in HHM! That would finish him off. So, Howard must stay in the dark too—not as much as Jimmy, perhaps, but then, Jimmy seems far more aware of Chuck's condition than Howard is. Howard would never want all that stuff about Chuck's inability to function on audiotape! What if it got out? There goes a $17 million investment.
- Another thing: Jimmy's not the only one who "confesses" things on that tape. Knowing that, I can't see Howard agreeing to that scheme. He was obviously very upset that Chuck resigned or retired (whichever it was—probably doesn't matter since he never intended to follow through with it). I can imagine that Howard wouldn't take too kindly to being used like that—another reason for Chuck NOT to make the tape public.
- The existence of the tape shows the clearness of Chuck's mind more than anything. Since Chuck has the tape, he is in the position to set the battle ground when using it. However, Howard, as slimy a pigfucker as he comes across, probably wouldn't like the methods. At several points in season 2, we saw Howard constantly trying to talk sense into Chuck. He clearly is in Chuck's hand, but at some point he won't accept anymore how his loyalty gets misused. Chuck pulled a Slippin' Jimmy on Jimmy. So I doubt Chuck will just tell Howard of his own demise.
- It will be Chuck who shows the tape to anyone, so you can be sure that whoever hears the tape will be able to look at him while evaluating it, which makes his persona on the tape rather relative. The whole setup is a bit shady of course, and I am skeptical if it would be worth anything in front of a court of law. But customers and maybe (if it exists at all in the US) a chamber of lawyers might think different. Let's remember that Howard went through a lot of hell to keep his firm (a situation compounded by the fact that he inherited it from his father, making him responsible for his dad's legacy). I doubt that Howard would afford to sacrifice it for things like Chuck's vendetta. There is that moment in "Pimento" when he gets ticked off at Kim for asking why he did not hire Jimmy on at HHM. That is Howard not being able to keep things in. Strategically it was idiotic to tell her the truth - that Chuck didn't want Jimmy on - but there we could see his breaking point and a human being underneath the mask that he puts on every day. Which means, in season 3, there's going to be that point, maybe when Chuck endangers HHM with his own "stop Jimmy" vendetta, which might make Howard ask Jimmy to get rid of Chuck.
- Honestly, I think Howard would have probably 86ed the plan in favor of something more likely to work. The recording might be legally admissible, but it would be hard to make it stick when "I lied to make my brother feel better while he was having a mental breakdown" is an entirely reasonable justification for what he said in the tape. And given how there's still no other evidence whatsoever to prove Jimmy did what was said (we presume Jimmy shredded the forgeries), it could easily end up as Chuck's last straw if no one believes him even after Jimmy admits on tape to what he did. And on a further level, consider that this sort of entrapment with the recording trick could be seen as Chuck sinking to Jimmy's level. It's an ethically questionable way to attain evidence which is worse than most of the things Chuck has seen Jimmy do as a lawyer.
- That actually seems to be the case in the season 3 premiere when Chuck actually plays the tape for Howard. Howard spends the entire time dismissing the evidentiary value of the tape, and admonishes Chuck for doing the tape without his knowledge. It's pretty clear from Howard's tone and dialogue that he now sees Chuck as a liability more than anything. Howard's first priority is protecting HHM, not about siding with Chuck, but that is lost on Chuck who's such a legal purist so intent on burning down his brother. Howard is not down with Chuck's malicious behavior toward Jimmy anymore. Howard is done with the McGill brother crap, and Hamlin is going to seize the reins and attention away from Chuck.
- The expression on Howard's face when he was listening to the tape was like "I can't believe Jimmy would do something as brazen as this, but I also can't believe Chuck went to this extreme to get this", at least that's how I read it. Then he quickly snapped out of it so as not to show Chuck he was annoyed. His phrasing after Chuck asked him what he thought was purposefully ambiguous on his part: "I don't even know where to begin."
- Howard's tone makes clear that he sees this whole sibling feud Chuck has with Jimmy as a complete humiliation for HHM, which Paige touches on when she's talking with Kim about how Chuck treated her and Kevin at the Banking Board hearing. Moreso for Chuck himself. Howard is correct in distancing himself from whatever this is. He tried his hardest to keep Chuck from falling further into this madness, but his hands need to stay clean. He's hoping to free himself from the responsibility.
Will Chuck fire Ernesto?
- Since the latter lied to him about how Jimmy arrived to help Chuck so quickly, just because he doesn't want to see the brothers torn apart forever and considering Chuck has taped evidence of Jimmy's confession.
- Unlikely, first he'll have to explain to Howard his whole plan which he probably won't like since for a moment he thought he would go back to two partners and then ask Howard to find someone else to take care of him when he was shown to be an asshole to caretakers.
Mike and Stacey
- I read something elsewhere about Mike, and it got me wondering, does something happen between BCS and BB that causes Mike and Stacey's relationship to turn cold? In Breaking Bad, the only interaction we ever see between the two is a distant wave in "Full Measures". I mean, I can think of a few possible reasons:
- One is that maybe she finds out about the danger of Mike's work for Gus. But then again, she already knows Mike does dangerous things to some degree and doesn't seem to mind.
- Others have speculated that she is using Mike and manipulating him for money, so maybe this is also part of what causes them to stop speaking.
- Consider the offshore accounts set up for Gus Fring's henchmen: Mike's is set up in Kaylee's name, implying that Mike's money was only meant to go to her, not to Stacey.
How is Chuck in such good physical shape?
- Either on the first time Chuck ended up in the hospital, or maybe the second time, the doctor keeps saying that Chuck is in good physical shape. But his "condition" must be taking its toll on his general physical health as well. Consider that:
- His stress levels seem to go through the roof, especially when interacting with the outside world.
- His lifestyle must be really sedentary because he rarely ventures outside the house. It's not like Chuck is likely to go outside for a stroll or even walk to a grocery store (which ends up as the responsibility of Jimmy, and later Ernesto), and the gym is right out.
- He was really relaxed before the series started so it's not like stress had time to take a toll on him (especially since it's only when Jimmy is involved that he starts panicking otherwise he seems to be a stuck up but all around calm person before Howard gives him the news.) and if everyone pushing sixty is in poor health for being sedentary then we live in a world where tough old people is the norm. Unless he eats junk his lifestyle fits someone his age and proportion.
- We're talking about the same show universe where a terminal cancer patient, heavily dosed with cytotoxic chemotherapy and radiation before and after major surgery, who vomited constantly, could still have fistfights with a 20-something like Jesse, haul giant barrels of methylamine, work in a lab or RV all day with 100-degree heat, chemicals, tear out floors in his house, install water heaters and fix the subfloor and dig giant holes in the desert to bury barrels of money...to name a few of Walt's feats of strength.
- Walt last a day in a half in bed after his fist fight with Jesse and even hallucinated to the point he confused his son for Jesse, he rolls his barrel and pretty much everything listed here is not a feat at all when he needs a whole afternoon to recover from each.
Mike's clothing for the truck ambush
- I can explain the mask away as Mike wanting to make sure the driver wouldn't recognize him. But I would think it would be more ideal for Mike to be wearing the full body yellow-green camo clothing he wears for the sniper scene in "Klick", given the surroundings. In certain lighting conditions, I think all-black clothing would stick out in the terrain.
- Maybe he didn't have that camo before and he bought it with the truck heist money. He gives most of his money to his daughter-in-law and that doesn't look lie something he just owned.
- He probably started his operation before dawn and didn't bring a change of clothes.
- Mike is a former sharpshooter. He knows that something like this requires waiting for long periods of time. Mike presumably had spent several days monitoring the truck to see what route it took. Mike probably had been waiting on that roadside for hours for the truck to come along, since it certainly didn't operate on a fixed schedule.
Recording over the tape
- When Jimmy's bribing the copy shop clerk, he and Lance talk about the security cameras, and the dude mentions that they go to a VCR, which tapes for 12 hours then records over itself. So Jimmy paid him to erase the portion of the tape showing him currently there. Why is there any reason Chuck has to know that the tape records over itself though? When Chuck comes in to question further, why didn't Jimmy instruct Lance to say "Yeah, I thought I recognized him when your associate here showed me the picture, but I checked the tape from that night and he actually wasn't here at all. I was mistaken." That'd be a much more solid lie than just contradicting what he'd told Ernesto. Maybe Chuck asks to see the tape? Not only does the guy not have to give it up, but maybe Jimmy could have done some more doctoring. We've seen him have an interest in production/filming with the UNM crew, surely he could have conjured up a tape showing the date in question if he were given time.
- That is not convincing at all, what clerk checks their tape for such trivial reason or show it to the client right away? Giving too much proof can be seen as proof of foul play while the clerk can simply stick to play dumb.
How would HHM have been in trouble over Jimmy's Davis and Main commercial?
- Howard made a professional recommendation of Jimmy to D&M so anything bad Jimmy does reflects poorly on him.
How does Mike stating the gun wasn't Tuco's actually work?
Hector's demand that Mike claim the gun was his own makes sense. Mike went against that a bit by not claiming it was his own gun, but also saying it wasn't Tuco's. How would that work in getting Tuco off? The DA is in no way relying on Mike to establish the gun is Tuco's. In a court case, Mike wouldn't even need to be called to testify, considering the police (by design) were witnesses to the assault. The gun is there with Tuco's fingerprints and it's HIGHLY likely there is other incriminating evidence in his car and restaurant.
