Bannon

It's an interesting choice the writers have to make here, or to leave ambiguous. I know lot of people have been impatient with the Chuck character, but I've always found him interesting.

Yeah,it'll take some careful writing to get the characters where they need to be. It won't be credible for Jimmy to be left with nothing, it seems to me. He has to be forced to let HHM have it without a fight, and that'll mean he'll get something (maybe enough for a long term lease for office space in a strip mall, and a local t.v. ad campaign!), but no where near what is rightly his. Hopefully, the writers are smart enough to contrast Jimmy's reaction to such an event, as opposed to making it similar to, a certain brilliant chemist's reaction to losing a fortune.

So far, Jimmy and Chuck have found two people involved in stealing 46K from a dozen or so individuals, who likely were selected for their vulnerability. The reason why Sandpiper's lawyers are very nervous is that these kind of scams, especially once they involve two or more people, tend to expand until they, inevitably, are discovered. Inevitable can take a while, however. Bernie Madoff was putting forth patently ridiculous statements, to be examined by experts in the field, for decades, before the jig was up. Hell, even after an expert notified the SEC that Madoff's statements were mathematically impossible to not be fraudulent, the scam continued for years. Picking out a couple hundred isolated and vulnerable old people to overcharge? That's nothing.

RICO can be used in a private civil suit as well, and when it is, damages are automatically trebled. Legal counsel can take such a case on a contingeny basis.

Yeah, my guess is Howard finds out by morning that Chuck suddenly used a couple hundred bucks worth of copying, out of the blue, without ever being in the office, looks into what has been copied, and finds out that Jimmy has ucovered a slam dunk case, thanks to Jimmy's dumpster diving, and Chucks acumen at putting together shredded (thankfully, not cross-cut!) documents, worth several million in contingency fees. From there, Howard uses the pretext of HHM's and Chuck's involvement to leave Jimmy out in the cold.

The shame of it is that if Howard had enough brains to outweigh his snobbishness, he'd reaize that Jimmy in a goldmine. The guy started to specialize in elder law a few weeks ago, and has already proven adept at ingratiating himself with prospective clients, and it is a client base that is widely victimized by billing scams where the potential legal awards are huge. Hell, send Jimmy on a traveling bingo tour across the country, to nursing homes owned by large corporations, and he'd be sure to find some Medicare fraud scam that could pay a law firm a hundred million!

I just thought of how writing Chuck out of the story, which seem fairly inevitable, has to be done carefully. Chuck is correct that 20 million to settle may be pretty generous of Jimmy and Chuck. A very brief investigation has already uncovered a criminal conspiracy involving at least two managers, and the destruction of evidence, involving interstate commerce, and 46 k in fraudulently obtained money. If the plaintiffs expand to dozens of individuals, the damages could easily get past 10 million in economic losses alone, before any enhancements or punitive damages. 20 million, while cutting your legal fees to a minimum, may be a very, very, good deal. Assuming that HHM eventually (and inevitably, it seems to me) screws Jimmy out what would be fair to pay him, even factoring how HHM's input was also critical, a huge legal fee paid to HHM would also enrich Chuck. If Chuck dies at some point, then Chuck might leave a lot of money to the eventual Saul, which doesn't make sense for the show, or he has to have a will which mosty leaves Jimmy in the cold, which doesn't work dramatically, at least for me. Saul eventually has to have some large regret for whatever befalls Chuck. I think this needs to go in the direction of HHM getting the better of Chuck as well, leading to Chuck's demise or institutionalization. This is gonna be very, very, sad, I'm sad to say, and I can't wait to see it. Sigh.

And if Sandpiper's law firm has any competence whatsoever, they know what deep feces the client is in, and the client, of course, are the owners of the firm, which may not be knowingly involved in this conspiracy. I think Gilligan and Co. are good enough writers to know that it really can't be credibly written at this point that Sandpiper escapes liability; the drama lies in how HHM screws Jimmy out of the 25-35% of a gigantic settlement that inevitably would be paid, even if only after a period of time.

Well.... http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/16/nursing-home-trust-fund-thefts/2967925/ ....this brief story identifies several people who stole in excess of 100K from patients in nursing homes. If a single bookeeper can steal 350k, then the idea of a criminal conspiracy which steals millions is not terribly far-fteched. An excerpt... "Lee Martin knew exactly how to cover her tracks. Like many nursing homes, Vicksburg Convalescent keeps trust funds in a single account. A resident's money is deposited there — everything from Social Security and pension checks to money sent by guardians and relatives — and the resident can tap the account to pay for care and incidentals. And like many nursing homes, a single person — Martin — managed all aspects of the trust account. When residents or their guardians needed to pay for something, Martin issued checks and recorded the receipts. When residents had bills from the nursing home, Martin transferred the funds. When the books needed to be reconciled, Martin took care of that, too. "Her main job was just to handle the resident trust accounts; she knew how everything worked," says Brown, administrator of the home, which has consistently gotten high ratings for resident care. "She'd been here a long time, the ideal employee. I trusted her totally." Martin began billing personal purchases to the trust funds in 2010, disguising her receipts as resident expenses and taking reimbursement checks, court records show. She also skimmed money that was to be drawn from residents' funds to pay for their care at the nursing home. Efforts to reach Martin for comment were unsuccessful, including a request made with her lawyer. Investigators found that Martin's thefts went on for nearly a year, victimizing residents at both Vicksburg Convalescent and its sister facility, Shady Lawn Health and Rehabilitation, where she also managed trust funds. She issued herself dozens of checks, ranging from just over $100 to upward of $3,000. Martin targeted residents who paid for their own care or used Medicare. (Residents on Medicaid, the public insurance program for the poor and disabled, carry smaller trust funds.) And she chose residents who "didn't have family (monitoring their finances) or who maybe had a little dementia," Brown says. "She did a really good job of hiding what she was doing.""

I continue to believe that this series, no matter how long it lasts, wll be about the price of remorse, whereas BB was about the cost of pride. Jimmy really isn't prideful, unlike Walt, and, I hope the writers are consistent about this. HHM is going to get involved in this legal action, and Jimmy will want to get paid, of course, but he really doesn't crave the validation from the likes of Hamlin in the manner that Walt craved validation by any number of people, to his and others eventual ruin.Mike pretty obviously will be driven to his eventual ruin by trying to make up for past acts that he skewers himsef for. In reall life, it would be a one in a million instance that a senior faciities company was going to this length to steal from its residents, and was not also engaged in Medicare fraud as well, and once that chum was tossed in the water, with the prospect of Federal whistle blower awards, the evidence would come pouring out. Now, they really don't want to turn this show into a legal procedural, so I don't expect them to take this approach to the story arc, but this would be a pretty tough case to beat at this point. I think the most believable way to write this is for HHM to bigfoot Jimmy, while tossing him a few bones, while something terrible happens to Chuck.

I wonder if Yost and Co. ever kicked around writing a part for Ian McShane, not as an antagonist for Raylan (which woud have triggered way too many comparisons with the last time McShane and Olyphant shared screen time) but as a wholly sympathetic character working with Raylan? Eh, it likely would have been a bad idea as well. The Bullock/Swearingen relationship was so memorable that it might have been distracting to see the two actors working off each other in a different fashion, no matter the quality of writing and acting.

It would have been a real shift in Leonard's style of storytelling, to have the central protagonist killed off. I've read dozens of his books, and I can't remember him doing it, but there are some books I haven't read, or I could be misremembering.

Unless Elmore Leonard spoke with Yost and the writers about having Raylan killed off prior to Leonard passing away, I don't think they would take that approach. I could be completely wrong about this, of course, but it just seems to me vaguely wrong to kill off the central character in several Leonard novels without the creator's input.

I'm sure the US Attorney is barking to Rachel's boss in D.C., and the D.C. boss is in turn barking at Rachel, about all the resources devoted without desired results, and management has thought from the start that Raylan doesn't push Eva hard enough, even if Raylan isn't sleeping with her again. Bureaucracies are the same everywhere, even when individual managers are competent. Sh*t always rolls downhill.

It was a nice touch that Boyd told Carl to save himself, after handing Boyd the rock hammer, and then Boyd was so menacing when he next saw Eva. The writers and Goggins have done a nice job, from the beginning of season 1, of showing that Boyd has his twisted admirable qualities, while never losing sight of the fact that, at his core, he is never far away from being despicable.

Down at Marriott Worldwide Headquarters, the bean counters must be saying "Why are our guests in Lexington the biggest slobs on the planet? Look at the housekeeping costs!!!!" It would be a nice shout back for Loretta to poison Boon. Hope it happens. What would be great is that, after all these violent criminals go through all their machinations to corner the cannabis cultivation in Harlan County, in anticipation of legalization, that, in the final episode, Phillip Morris and U.S. Tobacco announce they are transitioning into weed, and with their economies of scale, nobody can really compete with them, rendering the Great Harlan Ganja Play irrelevant. It would be like one of my favorite scenes from "The Sopranos" where Pauly and another made guy try to sell protection to a local Starbucks outlet, and the incredulous 19 year old manager patiently explains to them how ridiculous and pointless their criminal endeavor is.

Ma Kettle is a sociopath. She'll rationalize anything, and the only reason she isn't violent is because she knows being violent greatly decreases the odds of not being punished. Nothing got her attention until Jimmy told her that attempting to implicate Jimmy would result in her going to prison as well, along with her husband. To Pa Kettle, that woud be the worst disaster,because their kids might end up with strangers. I bet that is a seondary concern to Ma; she just can't handle the thought of herself being held responsible for her behavior.

I gotta say that this aspect of the show makes me wistful. These are two people with some good qualities who obviously have affection for one another, and significant areas of compatibility, and we know, barring some major stuff that wouldn't make any sense, that they don't end up enjoying each other's company. The world's a damned tragic place, even in the minor stuff that a guy in a trench coat once said doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

Agreed. A guy who does bingo parlor performances at nursing homes may be a good many things, noble or mendacious, but lazy ain't one of 'em.

By placing the money on the toy truck, Mike fooled Ma and Pa Kettle into thinking that the kids had found the money under the bathroom cabinet (kids are liable to find anything hidden down low), and started using C-Notes as toys. Hence Ma Kettle calling the kids into the living room, as Mike watches from back at the wall, sitting them down and delivers a lecture, complete with shaking of the wad of money, at the children. Yeah, the litte kettles would deny, deny, deny, but we've already seen what a good listener Ma is (not). Odenkirk was beyond good in this episode. He desperately wants to have a legitimate career, and a real life with Kim, personally and professionally. He knows other people can pull off that sort of thing all the time, and he is as intelligent as they are, if not more, and really, as ethical as many of them. He isn't prideful, in need of acclaim, on the lookout for all perceived insults, which will enrage him, like a certain high school chemistry teacher. He just wants his brother to know he's not a crook, and he wants to be around Kim. That's it. It just kills him that these very normal things that normal people enjoy all the time remain just outside of his reach Mike gained more respect for Jimmy/Saul in this episode than he will ever have for that certain high school chemistry teacher.

Well, the problem I've had with the way Stan is written is that he is WAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY too naive for a guy who was undercover with violent neo-nazis for years. Stan should be an extraordinary con man, and it is really, really, really, hard to con an extraordinary con man. Nina should have had no shot. Extraordinary con men are aslo coldly manipulative, and Stan really should not be all that broken up about his marriage failing; angry about loss of control (with con artists it is always about control) with regard to his kids, yes. Extremely, persistently, melancholy about his wife? No. Stan really has been written as too nice a person, despite his delving into murder with the killing of the Russian last season. The Stan we see is not the Stan of the backstory, and it's aways been a problem. Emmerich can obviously direct well, so it leads me to believe that the issue lies with the writers alone. Martha's clearly a goner. For dramatic purposes, it's time, although the actor is one of the best on the show, perhaps THE best. The only question is whether it happens early in the episode, or later, and whether she points the revolver at Phlark first, or wether she uses it to shoot herself. Pretty unusual for a woman to commit suicide by that method, especially one insecure about her appearance, as I perceive Martha to be, so I think it would be pretty clunky writing to go that route. I hope they don't take it. Then again, it's going to be really hard to to credibly keep Stan and John-Boy (oops, that's a 70s reference!) on the show, if Martha is discovered dead or disappears, after that bug has been uncovered. That's the sort of fiasco that ends careers for anyone within a few feet of the jackpot. The FNG would be the only one not either cashiered, or transferred to an Indian Reservation in North Dakota, since he found the bug, and hasn't been around too long. I'm actually curious as to how they write their way through this, and I hope it is a pleasant surprise.

Yeah, I wasn't saying that Mike didn't have wholly criminally professional reasons to take action against Walt. It's more than that, however; Mike really, really, dislikes Walt personally, even when he partners with him after Walt's murder of Gus. Mike can't have any respect for a guy who is willing to put his family at risk for little more than ego gratification. He doesn't understand it at all, and in fact, that is why he doesn't forsee the possibility of Walt coming back at him to shoot him, in what amounts to little more than a hissy fit. By the way, I agree that it would be a mistake to take this show wholly in the direction of Mike's dark world.

To follow on, I think the reason why Mike has so little patience for Walter in the future, is that Mike can't fathom why Walter is driven to go to the ends that Walter pursues. MIke, it's clear now, tortures himself daily with the knowledge that he "broke" his son for no gain, with his son murdered anyways . To Mike, Walter serving his pride, taking huge risks, not to provide for his family (think about how Walter's target profit for leaving the meth business spiraled ever upward), but to make up for the insults Walter perceived he had been made to suffer, from parties past and present, is grotesque and disgusting. Mike would suffer a million fold insults for a 2nd chance to have been a better father, and Walter has the chance to simply get his wife and son adequate cash to provide for themselves after Walter's death, but that isn't enough for Walter. Walter needs the affirmation of others, or at least their restraint in disrespecting Walter. This enrages Mike.

I really think Gilligan is attempting something quite remarkable, and so far, it looks like he is going to pull it off. To me, BB was a multi-year exploration of the cost of pride, how very smart people, and some not so smart, get so obssessed with protecting the image they have of themselves in their head, that they destroy what the tell themselves they love most. It succeeded, and then some. More than ever, it appears to me that BCS is going to be an exploration of the price of remorse, how the attempt to erase what can't be erased, the past, in all the chronic pain the past can summon, only leads to more pain. It's heartbreaking, and I can't wait to explore it again next week.

Well, again, people obviously differ, but as far as real life people who've lived that life, I'd suggest some of the interviews that the real life FBI Agent Joe Pistone (Donnie Brasco), who posed as a Bonnano crime family member for 6 years, has given over the years. Yes, the undercover operatives do grow fond of the criminals they are conning. It actually helps to do so, becaiuse it makes the con more credible, but ultimately somebody who lives that life has very, very, strong sentimentality governor; when it is throat-slittin' time , the throats get slit. I could see a straight arrow FBI type, who has never really worked in the undercover environment, either as the undercover agent, or running such agent, also new to counterintelligence, falling for Nina's honeytrap, but not one with Stan's background. A better way to put it is that an FBI Agent who spent years undercover simply isn't going to be the straight arrow type; the straight arrow type can't convincingly play the role. As another example, a guy who has that background, who ends up going to est, in an attempt to win back his wife, for instance, is going to try to con the est organizers, and very likely succeed.. A guy like Stan should nearly reflexively be triyng to run a con on nearly everyone, because somebody with a different personaity type wouldn't have the resume he has. In any case, I won't post about it any more, because I don't mean to beat it into the ground, but I just think the character is poory conceived, written, directed, and possibly acted as well.