S05.E06: Wexler v. Goodman

[ShadowFacts]

32 minutes ago, JudyObscure said:

 I also don't believe those two ladies would be that good at acting their parts and remembering their lines.  I would have believed it more if they had paused and looked at each other or giggled a few times.

It's probably just me, but my ears flinched a little when Kevin's father said Mesa Verde was the place to "grow your money."  I think he would have said something like increase your money, it just sounded very 2020 to me.

Kim or her mother should have thought of at least putting the cello in the car.

I thought for a second that Kim was going to put that cello in the car and then walk.  Either it goes to her doubting her mother getting home without a wreck, or her stubbornness.  I'm hoping three miles was hyperbole, because a kid at night, walking that far, really bad parenting and maybe a police officer or someone she knew picked her up.

[Irlandesa]

9 hours ago, Bannon said:

Not really funny when one of the marks is Kim, even if does get 200k to an old woman who was ripped off by Kevin's dad decades earlier.

We don't know that she was ripped off.  I guess it depends if the logo is actually from the photograph or if it's inspired by the photograph.  If it's the actual photograph, then there probably is a case if Kevin can't find documentation that his father bought the copyright as well.  If it's just inspired by the photograph, Jimmy has less of a case.  Him winning would depend a whole lot on Mesa Verde's defense being unable to find a similar image of a man on a horse or of it being unique.  I'm betting they could find similar images.

5 hours ago, Lonesome Rhodes said:

I appreciated the lack of joy expressed by Odenkirk as he was overseeing his prank of Howard and the bonus of Cliff being there to witness it.  It's a kind of hell when the drug of choice stops working for an addict.  This was a great depiction of such, imo.  I am less sanguine as to the misplaced hatred and transference by Goodman on to Howard.  Here, too, a nut job.

Yeah.  I felt the prank juvenile but I thought the little look of dissatisfaction immediately after was a nice touch. 

2 hours ago, PeterPirate said:

I suppose we've seen the last of Brenda's dad, but it was good to see Cliff again.  Although I don't think it would take more than 10 seconds for Howard to figure out who sent the two women to prank him.  If he was on the ball, he would take a picture of them, get their names, and look for their court records to find Saul was their attorney.  And for that matter, why was Howard meeting with Cliff? 

Cliff might be able to shed some light too.  He's had experience with Jimmy's little shenanigans for no particular reason if Howard can convince him that someone is pranking him.

Quote

Although--and I might be in the minority here--I think Jimmy in this episode was the opposite of Kim's mom.  He went the extra mile to get her out of a tough situation with Rich (even though she didn't appreciate it at first).

Getting her out of a touch situation with Rich would have been settling.  What he did was much riskier.

 

[ShadowFacts]

1 hour ago, Dev F said:

Spousal privilege. Any private communications between them for the duration of their marriage would be protected from disclosure. If Kim can't trust that Jimmy won't involve her in something shady again, it's the only other way to ensure that she won't have to lie under oath for him. It's basically the saddest possible reason for two people to get married.

It also means it doesn't apply to the shenanigans that just happened with Mesa Verde, only things that will happen in their future if they marry.  I don't like to think that Kim is already that criminally inclined that's she's mapping out how to skate out of crime and ethical violations to come.  Was her on the fly thought process you lie all the time, you backstabbed me, I can't trust you let's split and go our separate ways OR hey let's throw in and immunize ourselves from whatever crazy shit we do from now on?  That's messed up, and I can still see her stepping back from it.  She changes her mind, like she did with first she's in, then she's out of Jimmy's anti-Mesa Verde commercial.  She's had a fair amount of dignity thus far, I don't want to see her lose all of it.

[PeterPirate]

42 minutes ago, Irlandesa said:

We don't know that she was ripped off.  I guess it depends if the logo is actually from the photograph or if it's inspired by the photograph.  If it's the actual photograph, then there probably is a case if Kevin can't find documentation that his father bought the copyright as well.  If it's just inspired by the photograph, Jimmy has less of a case.  Him winning would depend a whole lot on Mesa Verde's defense being unable to find a similar image of a man on a horse or of it being unique.  I'm betting they could find similar images.

Legally, I don't think the photographer had a case.  There is no way to claim a copyright over a photo of a man on a horse, especially since Mesa Verde is only using an image that looks like the photograph.  For that matter, if the photographer started to profit off that image, then the man in the photograph could just as easily sue her. 

That said, brand management is important, and Kevin did slip up when he admitted that he owned the photo.  So Kevin should go big, pay Ms. Bitsui (and the man) major dollars for the use of the photo, and then plaster Mesa Verde branches with framed posters of it.  The website Yahoo! did essentially the same thing when it paid Wylie Gustafson to a record a new yodel and do other things for the company.    

https://thehustle.co/the-yodeler-who-sued-yahoo/

42 minutes ago, Irlandesa said:

Getting her out of a touch situation with Rich would have been settling.  What he did was much riskier.

Except that--seemingly--Rich no longer believes that Kim was involved in getting Jimmy on the Acker case.  Jimmy was protecting Kim, despite the methods he used in doing so.  

Gaaaaaa.  I'm turning into a Jimmy fan.  Now I hate myself and everything I stand for. 

Edited March 24, 2020 by PeterPirate

[Bannon]

I still don't think Gus has completely closed the sale with Mike, in terms of Mike agreeing to be Chief of Staff for Fring Meth, Inc., and it makes me wonder what will. I suspect the fate of Nacho and his father will play a role, as will his relationship with Kaylee and her mom.

[Bannon]

Yeah, whatever problems Kim has,as a result of the Mesa Verde/Ackers transaction, are really purely on Kim. Sending Jimmy to Ackers was entirely unethical and irrationally self destructive. It doesn't excuse Jimmy going Full Saul, but Kim is tragically doing this to herself.

Really appreciate the writers making Ackers such an A-hole. It is much more illumimating of Kim's psychology, and lazier writing would have made Ackers a good guy, stimulating a sympathetic response from Kim.

[ShadowFacts]

3 minutes ago, Bannon said:

I still don't think Gus has completely closed the sale with Mike, in terms of Mike agreeing to be Chief of Staff for Fring Meth, Inc., and it makes me wonder what will. I suspect the fate of Nacho and his father will play a role, as will his relationship with Kaylee and her mom.

Interesting, are you thinking that once Lalo is dealt with, Mike will broker some sort of protection deal with Gus that gets Nacho and his father out of danger?  That would help both Nacho and Mike, and get Gus his trusted security chief all the way in.

[Bannon]

2 minutes ago, ShadowFacts said:

Interesting, are you thinking that once Lalo is dealt with, Mike will broker some sort of protection deal with Gus that gets Nacho and his father out of danger?  That would help both Nacho and Mike, and get Gus his trusted security chief all the way in.

It's logical, although it goes against the grain of the BCS and BB universe of no happy endings, and it requires a looser end than Gus would normally tolerate. These are good writers, though, so it isn't an insurmountable task. I'm curious as to how they.resolve these issues, which again is a compliment to the writers. The characters resemble real people to me.

[Bannon]

When should Tuco get out of prison? I think his chaotic spice needs to be added back to this dish, before the BCS epoch ends, and the BB epoch begins.

[Dev F]

12 minutes ago, PeterPirate said:

Legally, I don't think the photographer had a case.  There is no way to claim a copyright over a photo of a man on a horse, especially since Mesa Verde is only using an image that looks like the photograph.

That's not true. All photographs are covered by copyright law, and anyone who produced a painting, logo, etc. based on a particular photograph has created what's called a derivative work. Now, some derivative works are legal under "fair use" laws, because they comment on or recontextualize the work in a meaningful way, but ripping off the exact composition of someone's photograph for your corporate branding would almost certainly not qualify, especially since "commercial" use is held to a much stricter standard than "editorial" use.

The difficulty in this kind of infringement case would be in proving the work was derivative. It's possible that Kevin's dad never saw the original photo, and the similarities are just coincidental. But Kevin openly admitted that the logo was based on the photo, so that argument is out the window. That's why Kim was so insistent that Kevin stop talking -- she knew that he was about to ruin their main avenue of defense.

Quote

For that matter, if the photographer started to profit off that image, then the man in the photograph could just as easily sue her. 

That's also not accurate. Copyright inheres to the artist, not the subject. Model releases are prudent to avoid claims of defamation, invasion of privacy, misrepresentation, etc., but the photographer is absolutely permitted to profit from her art.

What's more, Bitsui is a professional photographer, so presumably she knows the ins and outs of intellectual property law better than Kevin "We bought a copy of the photo, therefore we own the copyright" Wachtel.

[Spartan Girl]

To all the haters that thought Kim was the "corrected version" of Skyler White, all I can say is: how do ya like Skyler White now?!

Being addicted to a toxic relationship wasn't one of her shortcomings. The only reason she stayed with Walt was for self-preservation. Sure she got seduced by crime life (or at least the money) for a hot second, but once she knew what Walt was she didn't waste time trying to save him.

[Ohwell]

What I don't understand is why Saul continues to have a bug up his ass about Howard.  Why can't he just let things be?  Why continue to be a shitbird?  

My hope when this series ends is that he's stays in Omaha living a miserable life.  Or he goes to Belize.

 

[ShadowFacts]

19 minutes ago, Dev F said:

That's not true. All photographs are covered by copyright law, and anyone who produced a painting, logo, etc. based on a particular photograph has created what's called a derivative work. Now, some derivative works are legal under "fair use" laws, because they comment on or recontextualize the work in a meaningful way, but ripping off the exact composition of someone's photograph for your corporate branding would almost certainly not qualify, especially since "commercial" use is held to a much stricter standard than "editorial" use.

The difficulty in this kind of infringement case would be in proving the work was derivative. It's possible that Kevin's dad never saw the original photo, and the similarities are just coincidental. But Kevin openly admitted that the logo was based on the photo, so that argument is out the window. That's why Kim was so insistent that Kevin stop talking -- she knew that he was about to ruin their main avenue of defense.

That's also not accurate. Copyright inheres to the artist, not the subject. Model releases are prudent to avoid claims of defamation, invasion of privacy, misrepresentation, etc., but the photographer is absolutely permitted to profit from her art.

What's more, Bitsui is a professional photographer, so presumably she knows the ins and outs of intellectual property law better than Kevin "We bought a copy of the photo, therefore we own the copyright" Wachtel.

If so, how does this just surface as an issue now, when the original was first used as a logo was decades ago?

[PeterPirate]

I don't think Lalo will forget that he was arrested shortly after dropping Nacho off.  

 

7 minutes ago, Dev F said:

That's not true. All photographs are covered by copyright law, and anyone who produced a painting, logo, etc. based on a particular photograph has created what's called a derivative work. Now, some derivative works are legal under "fair use" laws, because they comment on or recontextualize the work in a meaningful way, but ripping off the exact composition of someone's photograph for your corporate branding would almost certainly not qualify, especially since "commercial" use is held to a much stricter standard than "editorial" use.

The difficulty in this kind of infringement case would be in proving the work was derivative. It's possible that Kevin's dad never saw the original photo, and the similarities are just coincidental. But Kevin openly admitted that the logo was based on the photo, so that argument is out the window. That's why Kim was so insistent that Kevin stop talking -- she knew that he was about to ruin their main avenue of defense.

I should have been more precise in my previous post.  I meant to say there was no way the photographer could copyright the concept of a man on a horse next to cactus.  Obviously, Mesa Verde could not use the actual photograph without the photographer's agreement.  

 

7 minutes ago, Dev F said:

That's also not accurate. Copyright inheres to the artist, not the subject. Model releases are prudent to avoid claims of defamation, invasion of privacy, misrepresentation, etc., but the photographer is absolutely permitted to profit from her art.

What's more, Bitsui is a professional photographer, so presumably she knows the ins and outs of intellectual property law better than Kevin "We bought a copy of the photo, therefore we own the copyright" Wachtel.

That presumes that Bitsui obtained a release from the man on the horse.  Presumably, someone operating at that level would also be aware that a regional bank was using her photo for its logo, and would have gone after them long ago. 

I'm not a lawyer, but if I found out that someone was profiting off a picture of me without my consent, I would go after my cut.  Prices for toilet paper are going up, after all.  

[TVFan17]

I think that more time has possibly passed on the show than we realize.  Bob Odenkirk said (before this season started), as did someone else working on the show (I forget who it was), that we are closing in on the start of the Breaking Bad timeline.  The gap of time is rapidly narrowing.  If I am not mistaken, I think Bob O. said he thought we were about one year away (I hope I am remembering it correctly, but I might not be!), and he said to check with Gilligan/Gould for more exact info. 

So I don't know if Breaking Bad's start is quite as far away as it seems it should be anymore.  However, I do think we will see another time jump, either towards the end of this season or at beginning of next season, to close that gap completely and bring us right into the middle of the BB timeline and then zoom right to the post-BB timeline, with Gene.

 

I caught the "Bitsui" thing -- mainly because I had just been looking at Jeremiah's name on the screen in the opening credits, and the name was stuck in my head.  I was surprised and amused to hear it mentioned later in the episode.

 

It was good to see Detective Tim from Breaking Bad again.  I wondered if he was going to appear on Better Call Saul at all, and it seemed like it was a good time for him to finally show up.

 

When the prostitutes appeared in the scene with Saul at the courthouse, I fully expected one of them to be Wendy from Breaking Bad.  I wonder if the actress who played Wendy was not available to appear, or perhaps she looks too different now to pull it off... because that seems like a missed opportunity.

 

If Lalo ends up in jail for a lengthy period of time, I will find that to be anticlimactic.  Of course we will probably see him force Saul into helping him get out, though.  We can assume that Lalo is still going to die sometime before the end of Season 4 of Breaking Bad anyway (based on what Gus says to Hector about the Salamanca name dying with Hector or whatever it was).  But the show has been building up the tension surrounding Nacho working with Gus and the Salamancas at the same time, and trying to keep Lalo from finding out -- it has to be leading up to Lalo or some other random Salamanca discovering what Nacho has been up to and trying to kill Nacho and his dad.  I mean, why even bring Lalo on the show if he is just going to end up behind bars and out of everyone's hair?  There has to be a payoff with this Lalo character and Nacho, even if another Salamanca family member (like the Cousins) is the one to step in and deal with it.

That said, though -- I still hope Mike will somehow be able to help Nacho and his dad get away.  Seeing that I don't envision any way for Nacho to make it out of this series alive, I am holding out hope that his innocent dad will live.

I don't like what Saul is doing to Howard with these pranks.  I feel that this is going to backfire somehow.  Either Howard is going to snap and do something drastic and out of character to lash out at Saul, which could end up taking a really bad turn even if Howard doesn't intend for it to, or Saul is going to pull another prank that goes too far and causes major problems (someone getting injured or killed, etc).  It feels as though these pranks are leading up to something that won't be good.

 

I mentioned Nebraska in my earlier post.  So now that they have made a point of showing us that Kim was in Nebraska at some stage of her childhood, and we know that Saul/Gene ends up in Nebraska post-Breaking Bad, I wonder if Gene will escape his Cinnabon life without Ed's help, and seek out Kim, or Kim's mom (is Kim's mom still alive??).  That seems like it would make more sense than Kim just conveniently walking into the same mall where Gene works and seeing him from afar.  Somehow that Nebraska tie-in between Kim/Kim's mom and Gene/Cinnabon is going to pay off -- maybe not until the final season.

 

I just rolled my eyes when Kim said they should split up or get married.  I mean... yes, I can see how they can use being married to their advantage in a legal way, within the realm of the law, but I just thought it was a silly thing to say.  I will have to hear Kim actually explain why she suggested it to see if it sounds like a good plan as she breaks it down.  But I think she should run for the hills and stay away from Saul. 

And yet... we know from the Breaking Bad timeline that Saul has had at least a couple of wives (because of a comment he makes about one of the wives and his stepfather).  When did these marriages occur?  Were they all in his Saul days, or did he marry anyone back in his early Jimmy days that we just didn't know about?  It looks like Kim is probably going to end up being one of the 'lucky' brides, though.

[Bannon]

9 minutes ago, Ohwell said:

What I don't understand is why Saul continues to have a bug up his ass about Howard.  Why can't he just let things be?  Why continue to be a shitbird?  

My hope when this series ends is that he's stays in Omaha living a miserable life.  Or he goes to Belize.

 

My theory, as either Ellaria Sand or No Dorothy Parker put forth first in this forum, is that Jimmy is mostly just transferring his rage at Chuck over to Howard, because Howard's still around, and Chuck's gone.

[Dev F]

4 minutes ago, ShadowFacts said:

If so, how does this just surface as an issue now, when the original was first used as a logo was decades ago?

I assume because the artist had no idea she'd been ripped off. Even if she'd seen the logo and thought it looked familiar, it wasn't until Kim saw the original photo in Kevin's home that someone had direct evidence that it was a derivative work.

2 minutes ago, PeterPirate said:

I'm not a lawyer, but if I found out that someone was profiting off a picture of me without my consent, I would go after my cut.  Prices for toilet paper are going up, after all.  

Again, though, models are not by default entitled to a share of an artist's profits. Copyright in a work is considered to belong to the person who fixes it in permanent form. If you're, say, a professional model, you can of course negotiate a share of the rights in exchange for contributing your image, but absent a superseding agreement to that effect, the model would have no basis to complain.

[luna1122]

As soon as Kim began telling Jimmy, with a catch in her voice, that they needed to end this, I knew she was going to say "or we could get married'. I even said the words aloud with her.

What I don't know is why.

The spousal privilege thing seems like such a cliché, I want that to NOT be the reason.

Saul talked about ex wives in Breaking Bad, but you can't really believe a word out of Saul's mouth, so I don't take that as any kind of canon.

I feel really bad for Howard.

The casting of young Kim and her mom were spot-on. And I also was like: okay, walk, Kim, but put the damn cello in the car first.

Edited March 24, 2020 by luna1122

[Starchild]

Kim's desperation as she tried to get Kevin out of the room was palpable. I find it difficult to believe that Rich, who so far has shown himself to be a pretty shrewd judge of character, didn't pick up on that and figure out that she had prior knowledge of what Saul was going to do.

[Ellaria]

2 hours ago, Bannon said:

My theory, as either Ellaria Sand or No Dorothy Parker put forth first in this forum, is that Jimmy is mostly just transferring his rage at Chuck over to Howard, because Howard's still around, and Chuck's gone.

It was NOT my theory but I agree with it. Jimmy is filled with rage, perhaps at Chuck, perhaps at life in general. Odenkirk is so charismatic that he gives us reasons to excuse Jimmy's behavior. (Although, I am starting to run out of those reasons.) Jimmy is a petulant, crass opportunist. 

2 hours ago, PeterPirate said:

I should have been more precise in my previous post.  I meant to say there was no way the photographer could copyright the concept of a man on a horse next to cactus.  Obviously, Mesa Verde could not use the actual photograph without the photographer's agreement.  

Correct - you cannot copyright that concept. 

2 hours ago, luna1122 said:

As soon as Kim began telling Jimmy, with a catch in her voice, that they needed to end this, I knew she was going to say "or we could get married'. I even said the words aloud with her.

What I don't know is why.

The spousal privilege thing seems like such a cliché, I want that to NOT be the reason...

...I feel really bad for Howard.

I'm with you about spousal priviledge. That's going to be what it comes down to?  We are to accept that this is what Kim wants: a relationship with a man that undermines her professional reptuation and shows no respect for her. 

I feel bad for Howard, too. Yes, he can be an entitled, arrogant prick. Yes, the hookers in the restaurant were amusing. However, I am hoping to see Howard get some measure of revenge.

Edited March 24, 2020 by Ellaria Sand

[Ed-]

11 minutes ago, luna1122 said:

As soon as Kim began telling Jimmy, with a catch in her voice, that they needed to end this, I knew she was going to say "or we could get married'. I even said the words aloud with her.

What I don't know is why.

The spousal privilege thing seems like such a cliché, I want that to NOT be the reason.

As I recall, Jimmy and Kim have been running scams together since the beginning. Kim herself wanted to scam Mesa Verde with the video, but pulled the plug at the last moment. I now think there is a fair deal of hypocrisy with Kim, perhaps with a hint of an inferiority complex. I think that if Kim had proceeded with the original plan, and the result was successful, Kim and Jimmy would have celebrated, and the marriage proposal would have been much more lighthearted.

Saul is a natural scammer since childhood (e.g. his dad's cash register). From Kim's childhood scene I can only gather the doubt about her loved one. Whether to ride with a potential criminal or go alone? She went alone once, maybe she was inherently wrong? Maybe if she agreed to ride with her mom and stayed in Nebraska, life would have been better, free of mailroom, Schweikert, and Saul, and all that is unfair? So, almost paradoxially, maybe she has to choose to go with Saul, which to her (maybe subconsciously) now seems like a better plan than going forward without him. If we look at the Wexler & McGill logo and imagine it to be a stock market, then life on the "M" side, while having its ups and downs, is still better than life on the "W" side. The tragedy is that Kim and Jimmy fail to see the far right of the graph.

[Bannon]

15 minutes ago, Ellaria Sand said:

It was NOT my theory but I agree with it. Jimmy is filled with rage, perhaps at Chuck, perhaps at life in general. Odenkirk is so charismatic that he gives us reasons to excuse Jimmy's behavior. (Although, I am starting to run out of those reasons.) Jimmy is a petulant, crass opportunist. 

Correct - you cannot copyright that concept. 

I'm with you about spousal priviledge. That's going to be what it comes down to?  We are to accept that this is what Kim wants: a relationship with a man that undermines her professional reptuation and shows no respect for her. 

I feel bad for Howard, too. Yes, he can be an entitled, arrogant prick. Yes, the hookers in the restaurant was amusing. However, I am hoping to see Howard get some measure of revenge.

Like I said last week, Howard"s the one prominent character in this story right now who is trying to be a  better human being, with perhaps the exception of Nacho. I'm really interested as to whether the writers will punish them for it. 

[MrWhyt]

1 hour ago, TVFan17 said:

And yet... we know from the Breaking Bad timeline that Saul has had at least a couple of wives

Saul says he's had a couple of wives.

Edited March 24, 2020 by MrWhyt

[Blakeston]

We've known for a long time that Kim grew up in Nebraska. She brought it up in an earlier season.

Re: Olivia Bitsui, I can easily see her being unaware that Mesa Verde's logo was based on her photograph. She may have taken lots of photos of men on horses. And it's not as if Mesa Verde is using the actual photograph - just a shape from it.

[ShadowFacts]

1 hour ago, TVFan17 said:

I just rolled my eyes when Kim said they should split up or get married.  I mean... yes, I can see how they can use being married to their advantage in a legal way, within the realm of the law, but I just thought it was a silly thing to say.  I will have to hear Kim actually explain why she suggested it to see if it sounds like a good plan as she breaks it down.  But I think she should run for the hills and stay away from Saul. 

She is absolutely out of her mind to stay with him.  She just committed huge malpractice in her conspiring with Jimmy.  She is the one who spotted the copyright issue and schemed with him to make the presentation.  It is costing her client millions that they would not have been out if she had not started the ball rolling.  Provable?  No idea, there was that snippet where Jimmy says nobody will find out which may come back to bite them.

1 hour ago, Bannon said:

My theory, as either Ellaria Sand or No Dorothy Parker put forth first in this forum, is that Jimmy is mostly just transferring his rage at Chuck over to Howard, because Howard's still around, and Chuck's gone.

I also see him trying unsuccessfully to exorcise some guilt.  It was Jimmy who started the cascade of events that led to Chuck's end when he dropped a dime on the malpractice insurer.  He remembers what Chuck wrote about him in his will.  He knows what a miserable human he is. 

[gallimaufry]

This was a fantastic episode -- difficult to watch in some ways but mesmerising.  I think the key thing is that the balance of all the key players was right.  Lots of Mike doing what he does best.  Lots of Jimmy AND Saul.  Plenty of Kim.  A good dash of Nacho and Howard.  Not too much of Gus and Mike.  (Although I do find it strange how Giancarlo Esposito is in every episode but almost always just for one scene).

Firstly, Howard... I just don't know where this plot with Jimmy trying to prank him is going but I hope we get past it soon.  Howard had a great character arc last year out of maybe seven or eight scenes all year.  This year, he's similarly underused but the scenes aren't adding up to much.  I do feel like Jimmy is going to accept his offer although goodness knows where that will end up.

Nacho... absolutely perfect scene.  I love the Nacho/Mike relationship.  I feel like the end of this is going to be that Mike betrays Gus to save Nacho but continues working for Gus as a kind of pay-off -- Gus would see that as a more than acceptable bargain.

Mike... again, it's a joy watching him do this procedural stuff.  I like the hint that he will help Nacho and also that his method of bringing down Lalo isn't anything extravagant but simply letting justice be done.  And, of course, it's got to lead to Jimmy and Lalo being pitted against Mike and Gus which is going to be... explosive.

Jimmy... I kind of get his play.  It was what Kim wanted, it just was in a way that made her look even worse professionally.  I loved the moment where he really cared for the hookers... and then made them complicit in a scam.  Odenkirk is playing so many different layers here and to see the swirling between Jimmy and Saul is incredible.  And the boardroom scene was amazing, perfect, vintage Saul -- takes me back to Jesse buying his aunt's house.  This is where the character is at his most brilliant.

And that leaves Kim... Oh boy.

First of all, I LOVE that we got a Kim flashback.  It was too short and about three seasons too late but I hope we get more.  Still, it bookended it enough to make some sense of what we ended up seeing.  I also loved how she tried to pull the plug and seemingly had come to her senses, plus her scenes with Rich (who is one of the most awesome characters in this whole thing right now) were gold. 

I want to highlight a couple of posts which I think are spot on:

14 hours ago, scenario said:

It seems like Kim's pattern was set young. She learned young to love people who were totally untrustworthy and to some extent abusive. The only person you can ever trust is yourself. She wouldn't know what to do with a truly warm, loving and supportive boyfriend. She'd just always be waiting for him to betray her. She expects it. She trusts Saul because she can't trust him. 

Is. 

Jimmy's gone. 

The bookend point is perfectly made, as is this:

5 minutes ago, Ed- said:

From Kim's childhood scene I can only gather the doubt about her loved one. Whether to ride with a potential criminal or go alone? She went alone once, maybe she was inherently wrong? Maybe if she agreed to ride with her mom and stayed in Nebraska, life would have been better, free of mailroom, Schweikert, and Saul, and all that is unfair? So, almost paradoxially, maybe she has to choose to go with Saul, which to her (maybe subconsciously) now seems like a better plan than going forward without him.

I think this helps make sense of it for me (and I love the quality of analysis from the site).

I didn't expect the proposal until about twenty seconds before because of the plausible deniability thing.  But it's classic Kim.

I also think it's very significant that the threat Kim's mother posed was drink driving.  Kim's workaholism was what led to the sharp decline in her dedication to Mesa Verde.  Her instincts to go back to work in 310 when Viola managed to move some appointments -- the instincts she blocked by going to Blockbuster -- was her rejecting the temptation to be like her mother and insist it's just one drink.  I don't think this seemingly irrational hatred for Mesa Verde is because Kevin is a rich jerk -- that's the world Kim has always existed in.  It's because she's running from just another kind of addiction and the thing she needs most is control.

I always assumed she would have a wild past like Slipping Jimmy but clearly that's not the case.  She has never acted out, never taken a risk because the consequences are too great.  But Jimmy is showing her a world where there are no consequences -- not really.  He's a magic man.  All his scams work, or so it seems.  The scam in 501 worked.  The whole thing with taking down Kevin worked perfectly.  And married, they don't have to worry about testifying against each other so she gets to retain the control that she desperately needs.

It's kind of horrific to watch but also amazingly brilliant.

And yes, Rhea Seehorn needs all the Emmys, basically ever.  Just back up a truck and pour them over her fence.

[Atlanta]

The casting for young Kim and MamaKim were perfect. Thankfully, cellos aren't heavy at all (my daughter played it and it's very light). 

How did Howard get out of the hooker confrontation? As someone else said, too bad one of them wasn't Wendy. Jimmy/Saul needs to leave him alone.

Don't marry him!!!

[Blakeston]

I think part of the significance of the Kim flashback is that Kim had no problem rebelling against authority (in this case, her mother).

Far and away the easiest thing for her to do would have been to get in the car - or at least put the cello in the car. But she wasn't having it, no matter how many times her mother ordered her in. And to this day, she feels the need to stick it to authority figures, even at great cost to herself.

She also saw straight through her mother's lying about only having one drink. And she can see through Saul's lies, too - even as she stays with him.

[TVFan17]

1 hour ago, MrWhyt said:

Saul says he's had a couple of wives.

My comment (to which you replied) was "And yet... we know from the Breaking Bad timeline that Saul has had at least a couple of wives (because of a comment he makes about one of the wives and his stepfather)."

The reason I said "at least a couple of wives" was that the wife Saul referenced (in "Breaking Bad") was his second, wasn't she?  Didn't he say that it was the second wife who was with his stepfather, or am I imagining that?   (Or did he say "...my last wife..."?)

Anyway, if my memory of the "second wife" comment is correct, then it implies that he has had at least a couple of wives by the time he makes that comment, but we don't know if there were/are any other wives after #2, do we?  He never got into any details about his wives other than to make the comment about the one with the stepfather.  I was assuming there was no more than a couple of wives (I was surprised that there was more than one wife!), but I don't know if that was ever actually specified.

Edited March 24, 2020 by TVFan17

[MrWhyt]

3 minutes ago, TVFan17 said:

Anyway, if my memory of the "second wife" comment is correct, then it implies that he has had at least a couple of wives by the time he makes that comment,

the reason why I italicized says is that you can't be sure Saul is telling the truth about the number of wives, the existence of a stepfather, the color of the sky.

[TVFan17]

6 minutes ago, MrWhyt said:

the reason why I italicized says is that you can't be sure Saul is telling the truth about the number of wives, the existence of a stepfather, the color of the sky.

I'm going to assume for the moment that he was telling the truth about being married.  That would have been a stupid and unnecessary thing to lie about at the moment he said it in Breaking Bad.  He could have just said that his wife -- not his second wife or last wife or whoever -- was with his stepfather and gotten the same point across.

Anyway, it's neither here nor there, and it was a small point in my much larger post with multiple comments about multiple things.  My main point was -- Saul has been married by the time we see him make the comment in BB, and it looks like Kim is potentially about to be his bride.

Edited March 24, 2020 by TVFan17

[PeterPirate]

Saul said he had two ex-wives, but we never saw them.  My own take is that, at the time, it was written as if it was true-- just like his comment that he once got a woman to believe he was Kevin Costner.  However, in the new world of BCS, the ex-wives thing needs to be retconned as something Saul just said in order to persuade Walt to go a particular way.  

Personally, I hope Jimmy and Kim get married.  They belong together.  

[MrWhyt]

42 minutes ago, TVFan17 said:

 That would have been a stupid and unnecessary thing to lie about at the moment he said it in Breaking Bad. 

have you met Breaking Bad era Saul Goodman? He's the scorpion in the tale of the scorpion and the frog, he lies cause it's what he does. To steal a line about someone else "He'd lie about what time of day it was just for practice".

Edited March 24, 2020 by MrWhyt

[shapeshifter]

2 hours ago, Ohwell said:

What I don't understand is why Saul continues to have a bug up his ass about Howard.  Why can't he just let things be?  Why continue to be a shitbird?  

While I too watch Saul's "pranks" (and felonies) against Howard with great consternation (not amused), I do see them as consistent with Slippin' Jimmy's behavior from the earlier seasons, and also his more devious B&E plot against Chuck.

2 hours ago, TVFan17 said:

I don't like what Saul is doing to Howard with these pranks.  I feel that this is going to backfire somehow.  Either Howard is going to snap and do something drastic and out of character to lash out at Saul, which could end up taking a really bad turn even if Howard doesn't intend for it to, or ...

Huh. Maybe that is Saul's goal (to have Howard snap and retaliate and get in trouble). 

 

 

2 hours ago, TVFan17 said:

So now that they have made a point of showing us that Kim was in Nebraska at some stage of her childhood, and we know that Saul/Gene ends up in Nebraska post-Breaking Bad,

Did Saul in BrBa  get to choose Nebraska as his place to live under the new Gene identity? 

 

 

 

 

[PeterPirate]

Quote

Everything I know about social engineering I learned from Mike Dave Clark.

It's too bad Mike Dave took eight books instead of five.

[Dev F]

58 minutes ago, MrWhyt said:

have you met Breaking Bad era Saul Goodman? He's the scorpion in the tale of the scorpion and the frog, he lies cause it's what he does. To steal a line about someone else "He'd lie about the time of day it was just for practice".

Except he doesn't make a particular habit of lying, certainly not to his clients. He's actually introduced as someone who's fairly careless with the truth; in his very first episode, he gets his clients mixed up and starts yammering to Badger about some other perp's alleged offenses, and he tells Walt that his real name is McGill within a couple minutes of meeting him.

I certainly don't see an angle that would necessitate him lying to Walt about his own past to convince him that it's a "cruel world" and he needs to "grow up" and accept that the people you love will betray you. Indeed, I'd argue that Saul is especially unlikely to be lying about something so simple yet emotionally charged, because it means he's forgoing the razzle-dazzle and distraction he usually uses to mislead and conceal.

And on a writing level, that exchange is probably the most meaningful bit of Breaking Bad backstory we ever got, since it suggests that his wife's betrayal was a key event in his transformation from sweet, caring Jimmy to bitter, cynical Saul. I've always been holding out hope that there was a way for the BCS writers to pay it off -- maybe not absolutely literally, but enough to preserve its essential truth.

Honestly, that's part of how I managed to guess the ending of this episode once I heard it featured a twist that would "change everything." I've always assumed that Kim was going to end up being Jimmy's second wife, and that she'd ultimately betray him -- maybe not by literally sleeping with his stepfather but by going behind his back with one of Jimmy's replacement father figures. I assumed for years that it would be Chuck, but now it could just as easily be Howard, especially given the latter's incongruously supportive attitude, which Jimmy is basically responding to with "Screw you, you're not my dad!"

Edited March 24, 2020 by Dev F

[Atlanta]

DevF, Isn't Howard married? The character wears a wedding band. Or maybe he's widowed and still wears it?

[sistermagpie]

1 hour ago, MrWhyt said:

have you met Breaking Bad era Saul Goodman? He's the scorpion in the tale of the scorpion and the frog, he lies cause it's what he does. To steal a line about someone else "He'd lie about what time of day it was just for practice".

To me the quote just implies a very different person than Jimmy was/Saul is so far. It just seems like such a specific type of person they were trying to put across in that line that wasn't the way they went.

Of course, Jimmy could marry Kim, get his heartbroken, then marry some girl in Vegas he just met that he doesn't care gets with his stepfather, but since we know they hadn't come up with who Chuck was at the time of BB and Chuck is imo the most important influence on Jimmy's life, they could make that line a throwaway lie without it seeming wrong to me at all. There's been talk on this thread, for instance, about Jimmy taking out his anger at Chuck on Howard and he could have a reason we just don't know about for that particular lie. Jimmy's a liar who is truthful about plenty of surprising things; he's a truthful person who lies all the time. It's not really about whether he's generally honest or deceitful, but about what different truths mean to him.

Edited March 24, 2020 by sistermagpie

[JudyObscure]

3 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

To all the haters that thought Kim was the "corrected version" of Skyler White, all I can say is: how do ya like Skyler White now?!

Being addicted to a toxic relationship wasn't one of her shortcomings. The only reason she stayed with Walt was for self-preservation. Sure she got seduced by crime life (or at least the money) for a hot second, but once she knew what Walt was she didn't waste time trying to save him.

I will always like Kim a hundred times better than Skyler.  Skyler was a dominating control freak from the very first episode when she called her husband to the table and then snapped his head off for hesitating one second while he listened to the end of a spot on the news.  She continued to control him, overriding his opinion on everything from asking for help from his worst enemy, to deciding Walter's cancer treatment for him, to taking back the car Walter gave his son -- they could have explained that as a non-returnable  gift from someone online. 

Walter once said that Skyler had not let him have his own way about a single thing in all the years they'd been married and she didn't disagree.  I think one reason he broke-bad was that it was so wonderfully enjoyable to feel like a man again.  Sklyer started hating Walter, not for becoming a criminal, but for doing something without her permission. 

[Irlandesa]

1 hour ago, Atlanta said:

DevF, Isn't Howard married? The character wears a wedding band. Or maybe he's widowed and still wears it?

He wears a wedding band but we know very little about his home life other than he has a nice home. 

I thought betraying Jimmy might have been going back to work for Howard but since she works at another prestigious law firm, that speculation is out for me.  I don't think  Jimmy would fee betrayed by that. 

But seeing how he is acting towards Howard when Howard only offered something nice, the offense that Kim does could actually be small potatoes but aggrandized by Jimmy in his mind.  Maybe just leaving him after saying she wanted to be with him.

[Pike Ludwell]

One of these days they should have one of these millenials recognize the name Dave Clark, just for a laugh. 

[Adiba]

Oh Kim, please don’t marry Jimmy/Saul! 
Notwithstanding all of the self-destructive things Kim has done so far, marrying him would be the worst thing ever.

The flashback did give me some insight to Kim’s behavior, but I wanted more. I have the feeling something else happens with her mother that perhaps we will see. Kim was always stubborn, it seems and has her own sense of “ justice.”

Does anyone else think eventually Howard is going to wind up sitting alone repeating “serenity now” to himself?

Also, the restaurant scene called to mind a scene from Beverly Hills Cop.

[scenario]

I've changed my personal backstory with Kim.

She's the daughter of an alcoholic. She had to be the responsible one. I have images of her at 12 years old dragging her mother out of bed so she wouldn't be late for work and getting fired again. She sick of it but it's her lot in life to always be responsible.

She was always an overachiever to compensate. She's the type that does her best to bury her emotions. All business all the time. But she can't always bury her emotions. Sometimes it just rises up and she can't stop it. We saw that last week. 

When she met Jimmy, she was attracted to him because he was able to let it go. He worked hard but he didn't stress over things like she did. And I can see her losing it with him, venting and yelling at him for no reason because she just reached her limit and he just shrugged it off. She feels safe to be herself with him. She doesn't have to pretend to be perfect all the time. She can let her hair down and be herself and he will still care for her. 

Now she's reached a point of decision. The logical thing is to let him go. He's toxic. But he's also a point of stability in her life. She can only really enjoy life when she's with him. She can let go of her responsibilities once in a while and be someone else when she's with him. She knows that if she loses it and is really mean to him, he can take it. She can relax because she feels comfortable around him on a personal level. 

At this point, she either has to leave him or go all in. But she doesn't want to let him go because he's her one emotional rock. 

 

[nutella fitzgerald]

I do wish the child in the cold open had been credited to the role “Lil Kim”.

[Ailianna]

10 hours ago, Dev F said:

Spousal privilege. Any private communications between them for the duration of their marriage would be protected from disclosure. If Kim can't trust that Jimmy won't involve her in something shady again, it's the only other way to ensure that she won't have to lie under oath for him. It's basically the saddest possible reason for two people to get married.

 

10 hours ago, GreekGeek said:

Spousal privilege was my first thought too. I expected it to come up at some point, but the biggest surprise was that the "proposal" came from Kim rather than Jimmy.

 

9 hours ago, ShadowFacts said:

It also means it doesn't apply to the shenanigans that just happened with Mesa Verde, only things that will happen in their future if they marry.  I don't like to think that Kim is already that criminally inclined that's she's mapping out how to skate out of crime and ethical violations to come.  

 

6 hours ago, gallimaufry said:

I didn't expect the proposal until about twenty seconds before because of the plausible deniability thing.  But it's classic Kim.

Although most people, especially those with law degrees from Dick Wolf Law School (no offense, I got my medical degree the same way!), think that married people can't testify against each other, that is categorically not true.  If it were, a lot of domestic violence cases couldn't even be charged.  What it means is that a spouse can't repeat what the other spouse said, if it was done within the marital relationship.  To protect communication between married people.  But anything that is witnessed, or anything that involves a third person present during the conversation, is no protected.  Scamming together is definitely not something that would be covered by the privilege, and Kim would know that. I'm pretty sure that G/G would know that before making any plots revolve around that highly popular but entirely wrong TV myth.

[scrb]

What was the point of the flashback if adult Kim does the opposite of teen Kim?

In the flashback she turns on her mother, not willing to put up with her bullshit.

So the adult Kim says in the face of Jimmy’s bullshit, “we can go separate ways or we can get married.”

 

So I'm listening to the podcast and Gould and the writer of the episode says maybe Kim and mother had an irreparable break after this incident and the adult Kim doesn't want to repeat that.

 

Edited March 25, 2020 by scrb

[scenario]

1 hour ago, Ailianna said:

 

 

 

Although most people, especially those with law degrees from Dick Wolf Law School (no offense, I got my medical degree the same way!), think that married people can't testify against each other, that is categorically not true.  If it were, a lot of domestic violence cases couldn't even be charged.  What it means is that a spouse can't repeat what the other spouse said, if it was done within the marital relationship.  To protect communication between married people.  But anything that is witnessed, or anything that involves a third person present during the conversation, is no protected.  Scamming together is definitely not something that would be covered by the privilege, and Kim would know that. I'm pretty sure that G/G would know that before making any plots revolve around that highly popular but entirely wrong TV myth.

Spousal privilege stops the government from asking either spouse about conversations between the spouses. So if Jimmy tells Kim his plans, Jimmy could invoke spousal privilege to prevent her from speaking. It does not apply in cases of spousal or child abuse. It also doesn't apply to anything a third party overheard. 

It doesn't protect them from anything that a spouse does. So if Kim saw Jimmy with a bowling ball the court could subpoena her and ask about it. But if Jimmy told her that he was going to use it to break in a windshield, that conversation would be covered. 

[Clanstarling]

23 hours ago, Dev F said:

Loved the flashback teaser. Some eerily accurate casting on Baby Kim and her mom.

It was indeed.

22 hours ago, scenario said:

Don't remember many details. It was a while ago real time. 

Toward the end of the last season. Not quite as long ago for me, as we always need to rewatch before the new season.

16 hours ago, Lonesome Rhodes said:

I appreciated the lack of joy expressed by Odenkirk as he was overseeing his prank of Howard and the bonus of Cliff being there to witness it.  It's a kind of hell when the drug of choice stops working for an addict.  This was a great depiction of such, imo.  I am less sanguine as to the misplaced hatred and transference by Goodman on to Howard.  Here, too, a nut job.

Good observation. I don't like what he's doing to Howard, but then, I'm not liking much of what Saul's doing.

11 hours ago, JudyObscure said:

 I also don't believe those two ladies would be that good at acting their parts and remembering their lines.  I would have believed it more if they had paused and looked at each other or giggled a few times.

I don't know - their job requires a certain ability to act. 😉

9 hours ago, TVFan17 said:

And yet... we know from the Breaking Bad timeline that Saul has had at least a couple of wives (because of a comment he makes about one of the wives and his stepfather).  When did these marriages occur?  Were they all in his Saul days, or did he marry anyone back in his early Jimmy days that we just didn't know about?  It looks like Kim is probably going to end up being one of the 'lucky' brides, though.

I may be misremembering, but it seems to me that Jimmy mentioned a wife in the first season of BCS. I'm not sure who he was talking to, but it had to do with why he performed the Chicago Sunroof that got him arrested. Something about the guy sleeping with his wife.

At the end, my husband and I were just saying "What?!, What?!" over and over again. It was pretty fun to get totally surprised like that. Especially since the breakup fight was so very true to life.

Edited March 25, 2020 by Clanstarling

[TVFan17]

27 minutes ago, Clanstarling said:

😉

I may be misremembering, but it seems to me that Jimmy mentioned a wife in the first season of BCS. I'm not sure who he was talking to, but it had to do with why he performed the Chicago Sunroof that got him arrested. Something about the guy sleeping with his wife.

At the end, my husband and I were just saying "What?!, What?!" over and over again. It was pretty fun to get totally surprised like that. Especially since the breakup fight was so very true to life.

 

I think you're absolutely right.  In my mind, I was trying to remember the details of the Chicago Sunroof incident (it seems like that was referenced 10 years ago at this point!), but, now that you mention it, I think I remember that it did involve a cheating wife, maybe?  I guess we can assume that she was wife #1 -- the first, but not last, wife he had -- IF Saul was being honest in Breaking Bad when he referred to a second wife.  If he only had one wife, then I guess the one you mentioned was it. I don't think she could have been wife #2. 

At this point, who knows?  But it looks like Kim could possibly end up as another wife.

Edited March 25, 2020 by TVFan17

[Eulipian 5k]

Kim’s exasperating “proposal “ might be her realizing she can’t be a corporate law firm lawyer and be with Jimmy. She could marry him and be another type of lawyer. She knows he’ll love her and support her whatever she does.
Wexler & Goodman, Criminal Law & Cri-mi-nal Law

Edited March 25, 2020 by Eulipian 5k