Better Call Saul

Well, apparently in 2019 shit-talking Breaking Bad is something that only happens in private conversation and over text-message and we're not ready to have The Talk in public just yet

― flamboyant goon tie included, Thursday, April 4, 2019 8:58 AM (fifteen minutes ago)

it makes you sexist iirc, deeply steeped in stuff and whatnot

If anything I wish Breaking Bad treaded water more. It was cool that the plot was always hurtling forward but it was undeniably stressful to watch, especially if your only time to watch it is right before falling asleep (as it was for me). I'm still impressed at how well everything came together - my only complaints were 1) the foreshadowing of the plane crash in S2, which leads you to believe one thing but is actually something completely different - once you get down to 15 minutes left in the last episode, as soon as they reveal Jane's dad as an air traffic controller, you know exactly what's going to happen (the plot point itself was great, I just wish they hadn't done the B&W foreshadowing) and 2) Andrea's brother just so happening to be the one who shot Combo, the sort of random coincidence that this show was pretty good at avoiding. Still, it kind of feels like nitpicking given how great the whole thing was.

Nah it's more like I cannot remember a time when I've seen a more acutely observed and perfectly realized character as I see in Chuck. His relationships with Jimmy and Howard gave me some deep recognitions of stuff I've subconsciously observed in others but never been able to nail down... a specific trait of claiming to "care deeply" for an individual you're actually trying to destroy? a quintessentially American character!

We're nothing if not inveterate self-mythologizers.

(A quality cultivated in the course of pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps and carving out a great nation with naught but our bare hands.)

Chuck is just Lois from Malcolm in the Middle; unlikeable but technically right about everything

nah, lois actually cares about everyone

also Chuck was wrong about lots, and would cut corners & mislead in order to try and trick Jimmy into revealing that Jimmy was cutting corners and misleading

Yes, the subtext being that Chuck had quite a bit more Slippin' to him than he ever would've admitted.

Chuck embodies so many interesting traits! First, this particular kind of hidden resentment that try-hards have for people who drift from situation to situation with minimal effort and are able to stay afloat with nothing but their charm and ambiguous morality. Second, this kind of scheming manipulation wherein an individual can convince others (and himself) that what he's doing is RIGHT and GOOD but it is in fact just a method of exerting power and influence. Third, this incredible psychosomania, which was so meticulously shown in the show that Yes He Is Faking and yet Yes It Is Real. There are so so so many dichotomies represented with the character that I just found him fascinating

I mean when you look at it from a certain angle, Chuck's sensitivity to electricity was just one big meticulously-maintained scam pulled to convince everyone (including himself) that he wasn't mentally ill.

what was Chuck wrong about?

I don't think Chuck's EHS was at all a scam, I think it was likely a psychological defensive response to the traumatic experience of his separation from Rebecca

Or even more: it was an extension of his constant need to retain as much control as possible over people around him. After he was forced to realize that "other humans have free will and you can't force them to do what you want all the time" (Rebecca leaving him), he developed this EHS as a method of attempting to exert control over Jimmy, Howard, Ernest, to try and force people into caring for him and doing his bidding. The fact that he was constantly insisting that people ground themselves before they enter his house? The fact that he admitted to playing up his symptoms to effect a confession by Jimmy? Affected symptoms, as psychosomatic illnesses go, are truly felt by the individual affecting them. Chuck believed he had EHS! His EHS was so painful that [spoiler]! This is what was so interesting about Chuck imo, he literally was faking it but also feeling it at the same time

^quality post^

I really miss this show

anyone know when the next season starts? Have they said how many seasons they expect to make?

They usually start each season 14 months later than the previous, so October is your best vague guess right now. Gould has said they're closer to the start of Breaking Bad than to the start of BCS, but would consider picking up with Gene once they run out of prequel.

That would be neat. Out of the (few) characters that survived Breaking Bad, Saul was the only one whose fate I wondered about

I completely forgot BCS isnt finished yet haha.

Chuck was an incredible character, yes. The first half of the most recent season felt very directionless without him.

Kim was my favorite character early on, but a lot of the meandering the last season or two has had to do with the Jimmy/Kim relationship. So in the end, I'll go with Chuck too as the show's greatest creation. I don't think I've ever encountered a character like him anywhere else. His condition was maybe a little gimmicky--or at least they twisted it into a thousand shapes as the situation warranted--but the Chuck/Jimmy relationship, their deep animosity (hatred, really) mixed with love and protectiveness and worship, was riveting.

update: no new eps until 2020.

Sounds like it's driven by cast members with commitments elsewhere:

http://theplaylist.net/amc-better-call-saul-season-5-2020-20190405/?fbclid=IwAR10afGkHuYJr495KPzkVcQH8ZWmsi7Rj-zYE5MVjDGkJYq0Dyxp2Sh6atM

That reminds me that the most interesting thing awaiting--"Well, we know clearly the end was already written before the beginning began"--is how and where BCS segues into BB. I actually thought they were ready for that at the end of season 1, when Jimmy drove away from parking-lot Mike (humming "Smoke on the Water") saying he'd never get bogged down doing the right thing again. But he goes on to cycle through that epiphany like six more times.

Noooo we’ll all be dead by 2020 wtf

So is the Jesse show gonna wind up dropping before the next season of BCS now or what

Is it a show? Thought it was just a movie

Which of the BCS cast are in other shows/movie commitments I wonder?

Season 5 starts shooting this week. Rhea Seehorn was on Veep tonight, which shot last year.

I assumed that "talent needs" referred to Gould, btw, rather than eg Patrick Fabian.

just caught up to the final episode, that last scene with Mike & Werner definitely slipped into the Breaking Bad world - felt a bit like *that* scene with Gale

the whole thing with Kai (the only German worker who gets named) felt like a big fakeout, though - he doesn't do anything!!

Well, yeah. Mike (and the audience) expected so much for him to be the rogue element that he failed until too late to realize that the real problem was right under his nose.

It is interesting to note how tonally dissimilar the two shows were when BCS started (compare, for instance, Tuco's appearances in the first season of each) and the extent to which that gap has slowly closed.

I figured it wouldn't go the obvious route (Kai's not paying attention...Kai knocked over the support beam...Kai gets kicked out of the strip joint...hey, Kai can oversee the work while I'm gone!) but to not have his character do anything was kind of bizarre. I thought they'd do something clever with him.

still...really great ending. heart broke a bit for Kim at the end - dunno if it was about being tricked by Jimmy's big courtroom speech or if she started to realize just how manipulative he really is.

While there are vast degrees of difference between the situations and the infractions involved, that scene seems to parallel the one on BB when Jesse overhears Walt singing a jaunty tune after they'd just finished disposing of the body of a child.

The main difference being that it’s quite likely Jimmy is conning himself as much as anyone, consciously developing a shell rather than admit to hurting, whereas Walter by that point genuinely didn’t give a shit

Oh yeah. The parallel is more in the reactions of Jesse and Kim to these dudes who are more fucked up than they realized (or than they allowed themselves to realize).

http://www.cinemablend.com/television/2477588/better-call-sauls-bob-odenkirk-knows-when-kim-goes-away-itll-be-the-end-of-jimmy

2020? Season 6? Both those sound like a sure way to lose whatever momentum/interest remains. On the other hand, that would all be rendered moot if they came back really strong.

Financial backing of television seasons is kinda like the structure of family feud - nothing really matters because the final round is triple bonus anyway

Also this series is not really going for “momentum” lol

I’m just worried someone will croak before they finish it

That's why I put momentum/interest--I simply meant that if you stay away long enough, people lose interest. They went 2015/16/17/18; I thought they'd resume this fall.

no you didn't!

update: no new eps until 2020.

― blokes you can't rust (sic), Saturday, April 6, 2019 7:28 AM (four months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Sounds like it's driven by cast members with commitments elsewhere:

http://theplaylist.net/amc-better-call-saul-season-5-2020-20190405/?fbclid=IwAR10afGkHuYJr495KPzkVcQH8ZWmsi7Rj-zYE5MVjDGkJYq0Dyxp2Sh6atMVjNE10nsTxUhLWe495XCmxIpDU8MJzfv7Ew-mLR5ZIwQTxWLd0Qlkc2Fu6ngZZƃu9nℲᄅɔʞlQ0p˥Mx┴QʍIZϛɹ˥ɯ-ʍƎㄥʌɟzſW8∩pdIxɯƆXϛ6ㄣǝM˥ɥ∩x┴su0ƖƎNɾΛMƃh9aℲᄅɔʞyD0c˥Zk┴DʍVMϛɹ˥ɯ-ʍƎㄥʌɟmſJ8∩cqVkɯƆKϛ6ㄣǝZ˥ɥ∩k┴fh0ƖƎAɾΛ

― clemenza, Sunday, April 7, 2019 4:38 AM (four months ago)

Financial backing of television seasons is kinda like the structure of family feud - nothing really matters because the final round is triple bonus anyway

even if Better Call Saul ended up doing nine seasons to get to 88 episodes, AMC's not going to be selling it stripped to local FTA stations 13 years after it launched

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbNCUfL56b8

via the Atlantic

NOBODY (AUGUST 14)
Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul) is currently filming a John Wick–esque action film about a man who is sucked into a mob war against a vengeful drug lord? Nobody is written by Derek Kolstad, who scripted every entry in the Wick series; Odenkirk is playing a character called “Hutch Mansell.”

Couldn't possibly be more out of character than the lovable dad in Little Women.

Season 6 ordered and will be final one

Better Call Saul will end with season 6 https://t.co/YtFOICyTqp pic.twitter.com/6o5l7350TR

— Den Of Geek UK (@denofgeek) January 17, 2020

Good to hear, will stop me having morbid concerns about banks maybe snuffing it before they can finish

(Although if they end up spending a lot of time in the gene years he won’t be in it anyway

“

We have a trailer:

https://youtu.be/qLbdg4WM8qc

Avert yr eyes if you would prefer to not be SPOILERized re: the BB character making their BCS debut.

Looks great. Have no recollection of where they left off, so I'll have to rewatch the previous season (or at least a few episodes).

content glut has scrambled my ability to remember what was happening in even my favorite few shows

Mike oversaw the guys building a meth bunker and then killed the one German guy that tried to get away
Nacho got co-opted by Gus
Jimmy ran some cellphone scams and managed to get reinstated to the bar

honestly couldn't care less about the Nacho/Gus storyline and wish the show was 90% Jimmy w/occasional Mike content