ShadowFacts

Ah, so his final Gene scams might have had Jimmy origins. Full circle.

He's a big prevaricator. He thought that would resonate with the skateboarders.

I can't recall what was all in the plea, but if only white collar type offenses, then that's an excessive sentence, if only because sentence lengths in multiple counts are very often set to run concurrently. On that basis I would be OK with an earlier release. However, since I saw him drug people which can lead to tragic consequences, and know he learned nothing from Howard's death in that regard, he needs to be locked up for significant years. What he nearly did to last scam victim and Marion, has shown that innocent people are at risk from him, his acceptance of responsibility for his pre-Omaha behavior in his courtroom oration notwithstanding. He's not convicted of any of that but being locked up for other offenses ends up serving several purposes.

I agree, that's not even allowed at the jail in the county where I live. I also posted earlier that I doubt the inmates would be running the kitchen freely, there is too much prospect for mayhem to break out. No smoking, either. Lots of dramatic license here. Yes, the way he was wrapping the cord around his hands doesn't suggest tying up to me. Further, he was very close to cracking the skull of his final drugged victim, if the guy hadn't fallen back asleep.

Yes. I can believe she hoped she could use the card as a piece of ID and the assumption would be she was his lawyer and they would get a better visitation set-up. What is more unlikely to me is that smoking would be allowed at all. I think that was banned a long time ago, not sure when this scene is set. They wanted to do the smoking bookend so we can suspend disbelief on this I guess. Earlier in the thread someone mentioned how Gene looked running away in his Elmer Fudd hat with his shoe box. That got me to thinking, I know we've seen Gene looking through his shoe box before, but did we see him have one in his childhood scenes? I can't remember. It would be kind of a sweet callback. But really, Gene, could you have at least put your diamonds in a sealed baggie inside the band aid box? And had a phone ready? Especially after Jeffy ID'ed him, he should have been a little more prepared. He could set up a fake store in the snow and use a stopwatch before the mall thefts, but not have at least a small backpack ready? (Nitpicking now, and always.)

Her brown hair was straight when we first saw her in Florida. By the time she comes to visit Jimmy in prison, it was structured into a kind of curly style. Not the old curly pony, but not plain and relaxed. It may signify something, but I don't know what. She's making some changes. I don't see her in a prison romance with her ex, but who knows.

I think it's good to remember that Gene was trying to run away and use his diamonds to get another shot at hiding, but he was caught in a dumpster. I only saw three believable potential endings, and I didn't need to see him killed, didn't want to see him get away again, and was happy seeing him in prison. The plotting to get there, though, was not that satisfying to me, unless it was at least partially meant to lampoon criminal justice. Then it worked better. I don't view his oration in open court as anything a scheming Saul would do, nor was it necessary for Kim. He could have said it all privately to her, or written it. He's laying himself bare, as Jimmy, I get that, I like him taking responsibility for what he did to Chuck especially, but opening himself up to the mega sentence, not necessary. It's over the top. That's just me, it's all personal preference. My take on her not returning the gesture is that last time she used it was signalling her intent to ruin Howard's reputation, and she will never use it again because of how that worked out. She's turning in her weapons. Then why didn't they indicate that in some way? It undercuts what they wrote. Amen. And he was coming off a near-fatal heart attack. What a feat.

Jimmy's twist is different from these other two you mention. There are recidivists who are comfortable in prison because the outside world is too tough, but Jimmy thrived in whatever world he was in, as he said to his co-counsel, he was going to come out on top like he always did. That was before the 86 year sentence. Walt was never going to see a prison sentence, he was going to die first. I don't think either example is groundwork for what Jimmy did. We may like to think he's going to have an okay time in federal prison, honing his baking skills and advising inmates. He's still locked up. He's not on top anymore. But I don't see a hyperbolic gesture of decency and love. That would have been something like never scamming and nearly strangling Marion and just going ahead with vacuum cleaner man. He got a sad ending and it was deserved. I don't see a grand gesture, I also don't see a great love story, I see a mixed bag of unhealthy selfish behaviors that hurt a lot of people which has now come to an end.

I believe non-violent criminals don't belong in prison for long periods of time, other types of justice can protect society as well or better. Jimmy was different from today's headline-maker by being party to homicide after the fact, wasn't he? Also, I do believe Jimmy, if he had been tried at the state level in Nebraska and he either came clean on his own or was implicated by Jeffy or Buddy, deserved prison time for that kind of offense--drugging people is pretty heinous. But there is no question, disparate sentencing is one of the worst parts of our justice system.

That is a poetic take that I just don't feel. Does he deserve a violent end? Maybe. He did choose to try to end his Salamanca association by thinking his medication trick would kill Hector, so maybe an eye for an eye in the cartel world. I don't accept that Nacho could know his father would be safe. He couldn't. In fact, we don't, since Nacho didn't exist in BB. Hector went crazy desecrating Nacho's body, who's to say he didn't continue at some point in the future to torment Mr. Varga or worse. Mike had no authority over what Salamancas did, I think his reassurance to Nacho about that was for him to maybe die a little less hellishly. Nacho was caught, he was either going to be tortured and killed, or kill himself first, he did not have a choice to accept or not accept his violent end. I see no peace there. As much as Jesse did suffer under the neo Nazis, and gave a confession to the DEA, and anguished over Drew Sharpe and other children, I can't get past that he shot Gale. That was awful.

Agreed that his own choices dictated his end. He couldn't just leave the cartel once Gus figured out what he had done to Hector, it was too late by then, so running to another country with dad and identity change was a desperation move. My reply was about the thought that Nacho found peace at the end because it doesn't look very peaceful to me to know his life is ending and he really has no guarantee there won't be retaliation against his father after he's dead. Mike likes to protect innocents but he's not in charge.

I can never see Nacho's end as bringing him peace. He tried until the end to get his father to go to Canada with him but he refused. He "accepted" his consequences because there was no other way, and chose suicide to spare himself torture. If it had been possible I have no doubt he would have taken the route of going with his father as far away as he could. His choice to try and kill Hector, be busted by Fring and all that came from that sealed his doom. His father is apparently safe but he had no assurance of that except whatever Mike said. I think trying to rewrite his destiny would have been preferable to what actually happened.

I think convincing Kim and unburdening his conscience are inextricably linked. Saul would not ever assert that what be did to Chuck was a crime, that was stunning. In doing that he was not just Jimmy, he was Jimmy laying himself bare.

My favorite moment was our defendant standing up and identifying as James McGill, followed by his aside that what be did to Chuck was a crime. Whatever resulted with Kim was secondary to me. Some of the portrayal of what is presumably a maximum security federal prison was unrealistic. Even at the county jail I'm familiar with, the inmates have a pre approved list of visitors. Kim might have been on it at Jimmy's request, and she might have pulled out her bar card as one form of ID, leading the personnel to make an assumption that got them more privacy. Or she may have intended to mislead. I know minimum and medium security prisons have inmates working all kinds of jobs but maybe not realistic here that they are operating a large kitchen where they even bake their own bread. Kind of a set up for security problems. But I overlook it because it's in service of paralleling with Gene/Cinnabon and allows us to see he's liked by the population. Just about everything about the plea negotiations, sentencing and disposition is an indictment of our system. To go from 7 to nearly 70 years is freakishly stupid. That the lead prosecutor suddenly buckles at the thought of ruining his track record when the possibility of a hung jury always exists tipped the scale too far in Jimmy's favor for me to buy. These little nitpicks didn't impact my satisfaction with the ending which I thought was appropriately sad and really the only thing short of death that would make sense to me.

I have a vague memory of some flashback of her listening to Chuck talk about something, and she looked starstruck, while she was still in the mailroom days. I think she had admiration for his brilliance and thought she would like to be like him. She has a flat affect in general, is fairly stoic, hard to read. The only times she looks like she enjoys anything very much is when pulling off something and especially after a scam, she is turned on.

New Mexico recently had a huge wildfire from a US Forest Service prescribed burn. The state is prone to them so they try to be proactive and this one got way out of control. If Jimmy dies in a fire, I mean, what an echo of Chuck's death. There has been a lot of fire imagery in recent episodes, fire in Lalo's kitchen, around Don Eladio's pool, Mike burning up evidence . . .

I don't think there's any evidence, but there is an implication to me at least, that when Marion said let's break out the schnapps that that's what they do when he comes over, so he must have been over a few times. I have a close relative like that, who has been lying for decades for reasons and for no reason at all, so that we can never take what they say at face value. They forget previous b.s. they've said. Makes for uneasy relationships, sad way to live. I don't either. It's been so good, I will miss it, and talking about it. I got away from commenting about anything for a long time during the pandemic, but came back here relatively recently and have enjoyed you all.

Once his suspension was over and he had the successful reinstatement hearing, he's essentially cleared of what he did. Some reinstatements include restrictions or the need for supervision for a time, but apparently not the case here. His bar membership may be as James M. McGill dba Saul Goodman. Or it just may be James M. McGill, and that is how he signs court filings and other documents. Saul Goodman is the name of his business, same as HHM was.

Thanks, those are the definitions that came up when I searched. Still, the former seems like a non sequitur because I don't get the connection between Native American tribes smoking together and Jewish lawyers, and the latter must be a regional thing I have never heard.

I never at the time and still do not know what "pipe-hitting" means, and the first few google results don't help me. I get the tribe, just not the pipe-hitting. I am in need of enlightenment.

I think he was caught in this particular lie about bail differences because he was careless and overconfident. Forgot a lie he told. I think he couldn't go through with strangling Marion for possibly multiple reasons. He may have been reminded of his own mother, who he fleeced and she still loved him. That may have been more powerfully in his subconscious than the Sandpiper elders. And there was no point, the jig was up, her computer history was there, Jeffy and Buddy knew who he was. He was ready just a short time before to crack open the head of his drugging victim if he hadn't passed back out, so I'm not ready to give him a passing grade on figuring out his identity/basic humanity. Not just yet, that still may happen. I think he is more a cornered animal than anything else, with a strong undercurrent of self-loathing and self-destruction.

He's not honest as a default. He has been lying for fun and profit for years. Now he's gotten caught in one by Marion which may end him. He was only doing business as Saul Goodman, was still known around the legal community as Jimmy, Chuck's brother. He schmoozes people, looks for commonalities, like ethnicity, when it might benefit him.

Me, too. I never believed that line was the literal truth. He was a bullshit artist from the jump in BB, and that was some bullshit. He honed his art in BCS with the elders, even if it was tinged with sincerity.

I can buy that, even though to me they both look older (maybe they should with all they've done). The previous mention of them being in their thirties didn't make sense to me. And thanks for the timeline research.

I think Kim did turn those words inward to some degree when she split from him, telling him they were harmful together. She probably doesn't put herself on par with Chuck, though. At one point weren't they going to use their powers for good? She is responsible for straying far from that, and she had the time of her life as she said to Jimmy before leaving. Both she and Chuck fed the worst part of him, but he has always had free will and his choices are his, she is not the one who made him the way he is, nor was Chuck. He started young, he had numerous chances to go straight. I'm also reminded that Chuck was not uniformly awful to him, he seemed to care about him as a young kid, reading to him, he took him in to his prestigious law firm knowing he could end up embarrassing him, he saw that he got to bed after celebrating his passing the bar at the karaoke place, encouraged his elder law practice, wrote that he was proud of him in the letter that went along with his will. Jimmy got the last word with Chuck by humiliating him professionally and causing his departure from HHM via the malpractice insurance. He's become Saul and Gene on his own and maybe in the end we get to see him get back to the best of Jimmy in some way.