S05.E10: Something Unforgiveable

[PeterPirate]

Random thoughts.

I think Kim was only halfway-pretending with her "gotcha" moment with Jimmy.  She knew Jimmy thought what she was talking about was ridiculous, but she was too overcome with the feeling of power of being able to take down Howard.  

I'm disappointed that Lalo used a machine gun to shoot the hit team in the tunnel.  He should have had some phosgene grenades ready to throw down into it.  

Jimmy wanted to leave the hotel, and Kim wanted to stay.  Their roles have reversed.  "When I left you I was but the learner.  Now I am the master."

Juan Bolsa certainly, and Don Eladio likely, will know it was Gus who was responsible for the attack on the Salamanca compound.  Nacho may become an important part of the cartel.  

Lalo's survival reminds me of the last line of The Two Towers:  "Frodo was alive but taken by the enemy."  

Edited April 21, 2020 by PeterPirate

[sistermagpie]

3 minutes ago, ByTor said:

I thought is was too at 1st, and I still would have thought it had she not been so gleeful about taking Howard down.

I think those two things go together, though. Her laugh can be meant to hint at the craziness underneath in the moment. Later on she's settled on what she thinks her reaction should be. If Howard hadn't confronted her that day she probably never would have made a plan like this. But as it was, he put a target on himself by doing that and he wound up being the target for whatever emotions she was feeling about the past few weeks.

[ByTor]

15 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

I think those two things go together, though. Her laugh can be meant to hint at the craziness underneath in the moment. Later on she's settled on what she thinks her reaction should be. If Howard hadn't confronted her that day she probably never would have made a plan like this. But as it was, he put a target on himself by doing that and he wound up being the target for whatever emotions she was feeling about the past few weeks.

That could be, especially because I think RS is quite talented & her acting being "off" wouldn't make sense.

[Prower]

I love Kim and how she turned out. Is she a good person, wanting to destroy a mans life because he lightly crossed her and to get money out of the situation? No, certainly not, but that is why I love her. It makes her an interesting character. Somebody who should probabbly be in jail in real life, but is great to watch on TV. Just like a walter white.

And I find it just delicious that Howard thinks Jimmy is the bad influence here and that he is corrupting that pure innocent woman, who just couldn't be bad, because women just can't be bad (or some patronizing bullshit like that), when it becomes increasingly more obvious that Kim is the worse one of the two.

I don't think it would have ever occured to Jimmy to actually ruin Howard's life. He played a few relatively harmless pranks and that was it for him. He felt that was retribution enough. But Kim was perfectly willing to go a lot further. If anything, she is the corrupting influence now.

 

That Lalo still isn't dead, I'm not a fan of. He's tiring to me and I would like him off my screen sooner rather than later. we know wher all this Cartel stuff is going and the journey isn't that interesting to me.

 

18 hours ago, Bryce Lynch said:

Kim's hatred for Howard seems to have come out of nowhere.  Her character has become tedious to me.  The whole "ruin Howard to tank the Sandpiper care" plot seems idiotic.  

The last interraction we saw between the two, Kim tore him a new one. I think it became pretty clear at that point that she hated him.

18 hours ago, Bryce Lynch said:

Does Kim really think Steph from S&C and the guy from HHM will want to leave their promising careers at prestigious firms to defend lowlifes at her $#i+hole firm.

Does she think everyone is as foolish and pretentious as she is?

I mean it might look good on their CVs to have worked for the little guy for a few years. Studies show your pay rises much faster when you change jobs often than when you stay at one company forever.

So if the pay is good (and it seems like Kim wants to pay well), why not work for her for a few years?

Edited April 21, 2020 by Prower

[Prower]

17 hours ago, Lonesome Rhodes said:

I liked the symmetry of Lalo's Lyle (the teen who was killed) and the depth of his loss over the Senora, who could represent for him what Gus' Chilean buddy who can not be avenged properly nor fully.  Of all the arcs, I most anticipate the Gus/Lalo dynamic.

I think the typical designation is "boyfriend", not "buddy".

  

14 hours ago, qtpye said:

Some good insight about Kim.

I still think Kim is the "Mrs. Goodman", Saul mentions from time to time. I thought that before they actually got married and them tying the knot, just reinforced it.

So all the speculation of what happened to her seem a bit surperflous to me. I think, yes, she actually is just in the background in BB. And maybe next season we'll see a few scenes with her that take place during the BB timeline, as next season is supposed to overlap.

Edited April 21, 2020 by Prower

[ahmerali]

1 hour ago, ShadowFacts said:

I thought something like that, too, I thought Lalo did not trust him after what Kim said, and he was setting him up.  He either gets himself killed that way, or reports the call to Lalo and passes the loyalty test.  I do want to know who made the call though, and did I see it wrong or did he have no cell service again immediately after the call?

 

 

Mike and Fring were discussing this during their conversation - Fring referred to the lack of service near Lalo's home as a 'technical problem'. Clearly the would-be assassins created a makeshift cell tower so the call could go through/

[Ahmad essam]

I think that nacho will be lalo's next target after lalo dealt with the assassination attempt and forced the injured assassin to report that the operation was successful and this will help him launch a sudden attack 

[ahmerali]

1 hour ago, ByTor said:

The only thing that's clear to me is that Kevin was in the right, the old guy wasn't, so I really don't see how Kevin is so bad.  I would agree if he screwed people out of their land over some unclear technicality, but that's not what happened.  Super-lawyer Kim should have known that.

What bothers me is that he leased the land knowing the owner had the right to take it back, but then felt like he was entitled to keep it. I do not get how Kim saw someone with a sense of entitlement like that as a rootable underdog, especially since he was wrong.  

 

I think maybe a better way of looking at Kim' new 'vision' is this - I just want to do the right thing and help people, that's why I became a lawyer. They told me that doing things the legal way was the right way. But all of these better-off people like Kevin, Howard, and Chuck use the law to their own benefit - just because it's legal to get this guy off the property doesn't make it 'right'. You know who's right? Jimmy. All these people who look down on you and just use your skills to get what they want, you have to use whatever weapons you have at your disposal - including the law - to do right by people, not to mention getting what you want and you deserve.

[ByTor]

1 minute ago, ahmerali said:

I think maybe a better way of looking at Kim' new 'vision' is this - I just want to do the right thing and help people, that's why I became a lawyer. They told me that doing things the legal way was the right way. But all of these better-off people like Kevin, Howard, and Chuck use the law to their own benefit - just because it's legal to get this guy off the property doesn't make it 'right'. You know who's right? Jimmy. All these people who look down on you and just use your skills to get what they want, you have to use whatever weapons you have at your disposal - including the law - to do right by people, not to mention getting what you want and you deserve.

I agree, I think this is most likely exactly what Kim's thought process was.

[nuraman00]

Good thing for Don Eladio that he's not in the US?

 

https://money.cnn.com/2014/09/22/autos/ferrari-recall/index.html

Why is this episode called what it is called?  Is that line mentioned during the episode?  If not, then what exactly is it referring to?

[nuraman00]

1 hour ago, Prower said:

I don't think it would have ever occured to Jimmy to actually ruin Howard's life. He played a few relatively harmless pranks and that was it for him.

I don't think the hooker prank is harmless.

 

Word could get around, and he would lose clients.  Maybe the board would then act on this.

[Prower]

7 minutes ago, nuraman00 said:

I don't think the hooker prank is harmless.

Word could get around, and he would lose clients.  Maybe the board would then act on this.

Eh, I think it's pretty harmless. Even if  "word got out", would anybody blieve it of Howard? He's way too boring and even if he did hire escorts, they would probably be higher class than that. And even if anybody believed it, would anybody care? Even more unlikely.

Edited April 21, 2020 by Prower

[Dev F]

3 hours ago, Gobi said:

If those guys were pros, there would be a code word or phrase that they would phone back to let their boss know that it worked, or didn't.

Yep. More specifically, they'd have a duress code they could use to convey that they're being forced to say the mission succeeded when it didn't. The handler would congratulate the commando and tell him to return to base or whatever, and Lalo would have no way of knowing the commando had passed along a fail code.

[Gobi]

22 minutes ago, nuraman00 said:

Good thing for Don Eladio that he's not in the US?

 

https://money.cnn.com/2014/09/22/autos/ferrari-recall/index.html

Why is this episode called what it is called?  Is that line mentioned during the episode?  If not, then what exactly is it referring to?

Jimmy said it to Kim when talking about what she wanted to do to Howard. He said it was “something unforgivable”.

[shapeshifter]

4 hours ago, Ellaria Sand said:

I fear the worst for Nacho. As best as we can tell, he is alone somewhere around Chihuahua. Unless he finds the car/transportation that assassins were using, he may be wandering in the desert without reliable cell service...and Lalo is coming after him. My guess is that there is something or someone out there to help him.

Mike? Nah. Tuco?

WRT Kim’s motivations:  BCS and BrBa are 2 shows for which I not only don’t feel the need to fanwank, but for which it feels sacrilegious to do so. And I do love to spin theories for character motivations. 
So I am basing Kim’s motivations on what we’ve seen and heard, especially this season, and I think her issues are with landowners, especially when they wield the power of their acquired wealth to make others miserable, even though their goal may be to multiply their own wealth rather than oppressing others.  That they tend to be men is just an artifact of economics. 
 

I enjoy that in the finale we revisit Lalo’s Spider-Man-like skills that we observed in his desert jump onto the car; this time we see he has Spidey Sense too. It also seems stylistically fitting that Lalo embodies the series’ only elements of Magical Realism since Latin American author and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Gabriel García Márquez, is for many the definitive name in the genre.

 

 

[ShadowFacts]

1 hour ago, ahmerali said:

Mike and Fring were discussing this during their conversation - Fring referred to the lack of service near Lalo's home as a 'technical problem'. Clearly the would-be assassins created a makeshift cell tower so the call could go through/

Did the assassins use a phone or was it a walkie?  I noticed the initial Salamanca guard had a walkie. 

[scenario]

If you look around the web, its easy to find people with a very black and white view of the world. People in this group are automatically bad and people in that group are automatically good. What would the chances of a conviction be a hundred years ago in the deep south of the U.S. if a white person was accused of killing a black person with an all white jury? In that time and place, the majority of white people believed that black people are all bad.

Kim is a radical that believes that all rich people are bad and all poor people are good. If a poor person commits a crime it is somehow the fault of the rich people. She's at the extreme edge now. 

That radical idea was always there but hanging out with Jimmy and then a near death experience brought it all out. The moment she stepped over to the dark side was when she asked Jimmy to marry her. But at that point she was still trying to keep a foot on both sides of the fence. Working for people she hated really bothered her. She finally had to quit to keep sane. But then she and Jimmy had a near death experience and that hatred of rich people came to the surface big time. 

[Milburn Stone]

19 hours ago, Ellaria Sand said:

Although Rhea Seehorn was quite convincing, I’m also not into her turn to the dark side.

Yeah. Even as recently as a week ago, we were still going "OMG, I hope nothing too terrible happens to Kim!" Now, it's like, "Whatever she gets, she deserves worse."

A major source of suspense has been removed.

[MrWhyt]

27 minutes ago, ShadowFacts said:

Did the assassins use a phone or was it a walkie?  I noticed the initial Salamanca guard had a walkie. 

it was a phone, they called Nacho on his cell

[JudyObscure]

7 hours ago, Tikichick said:

For me it seems Kim's change in attitude has been ongoing.  She's become more and more disturbed about how the haves keep on keeping on, whether or not they've earned it or are deserving; while the have nots simply cannot ever move up.

I think you may be right and it seems so childish and simplistic.  Kim herself is a have-not who made it to the top -- with help from Howard and his firm.  Yes, she was put on a dull assignment for awhile, but she wasn't fired, she still had a great  job with a big law firm and went even higher with Mesa Verde.  I can't imagine that she would be happy with pro-bono work over the long term either, for every desperate single mother who was stealing baby formula, there's going to be a dozen men who burglarized some little old lady's house for spending money.  

[ShadowFacts]

13 minutes ago, MrWhyt said:

it was a phone, they called Nacho on his cell

I meant between the killers -- did they communicate with each other via phone or walkie talkie?  I thought there was some communication after Lalo went through the tunnel, maybe I'm confused.

[MrWhyt]

1 minute ago, ShadowFacts said:

I meant between the killers -- did they communicate with each other via phone or walkie talkie?  I thought there was some communication after Lalo went through the tunnel, maybe I'm confused.

the final guy had a sat phone, but there wasn't any sort of radio/phone communication between them during the assault.

[Pooky]

8 hours ago, Tikichick said:

Notably the ponytail wasn't its usual self when she got ready and headed to the courthouse.  I found that significant.

Yes, I noticed it too. Kim always seemed quite tightly wound up to me but now its like she has relaxed and showing her true self. The facade is over and she come out guns blazing 

[Irlandesa]

2 hours ago, Prower said:

And I find it just delicious that Howard thinks Jimmy is the bad influence here and that he is corrupting that pure innocent woman, who just couldn't be bad, because women just can't be bad (or some patronizing bullshit like that), when it becomes increasingly more obvious that Kim is the worse one of the two.

I don't think it's a gendered "women can't be bad" thing.  From my perspective, I've felt Kim has been "off" all season ever since she betrayed her client* in the early episodes.  Seeing where it led to, I have a sneaking suspicion it was put there to lead to the Acker situation more than a "this feels like a logical evolution of the Kim character."

So if I, as someone who has seen every beat of Kim's story, was still surprised by what she did in the premiere, I don't blame Howard for not conceiving of it.  This was a woman working in the mail room that he believed in so much he essentially sponsored her law school education. He supervised her work and saw her work ethic and legal ethics. He saw how dedicated she was to banking law (and I don't remember her having pro bono dreams until later). He saw how hard she worked for Mesa Verde and leveraged her work for them into a prestigious position at S&C.  

The one time she got in trouble with him was over her blind spot for Jimmy but while she continues to defend Jimmy, he must have noticed that she was also careful to deliberately not set up a law practice with him when she left. Still, many of her more nonsensical moments have been related to Jimmy.

Someone mentioned above they were surprised Kevin and Paige never got suspicious that Kim was working against them but I think the same thing happened with them regarding Kim that made Howard jump to the conclusions he did.  (And in some ways, makes Kim keep her unrelenting belief in Jimmy.) People really have faith in their ability to judge people and it takes a lot, often a direct personal hit, before people are willing to admit they misjudged someone.

And Jimmy is 100% a bad influence on her.  Would the character we met who has had qualms with almost every unethical or strange thing Jimmy has done betray her clients the way she has done this season without Jimmy being there to egg her on?  I don't think so.

*The irony is she doesn't see what a hypocrite she is.  She's a well off, well educated woman who lied to her client "for their own good" instead of letting them make the choice about a deal for themselves.  She can rail at Howard for her perception of him but nothing he did comes as close to being as condescending and patronizing as she was to her clientwhen he refused to take the deal.

 That said, I don't think Kim is worse than Jimmy...yet.  If she actually goes through with her plan, then maybe, but Jimmy actually did start destroying the social life of one of his clients in an attempt to bring about a settlement faster. 

 

[Quilt Fairy]

13 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

Kim is a hard person to read.  Did she really want to go after Howard that hard or was she trying to see how far Jimmy was willing to go?  In other words, was she testing Jimmy to see if he had any level of humanity left in him at all?  Was Jimmy going to pull Kim back from doing something truly awful or was Jimmy into it?   I am hoping that is what Kim was trying to find out, that she was just testing Jimmy.

This is what I thought was happening, at least initially.  But the more it went on, the more Kim was into it, and I began to doubt my first impression.  I hope I'm wrong. 

[LittleIggy]

10 hours ago, mrspidey said:

Remember when he put her in the "doghouse" for like a thousand years? And how he didn't even let her out after she got him Mesa Verde? Kim sure does. 

So? Not a reason to destroy a person’s livelihood.

[ahmerali]

40 minutes ago, LittleIggy said:

So? Not a reason to destroy a person’s livelihood.

Well...turn that around.

Chuck put a real damper on Jimmy's livelihood. No respect for the amount of work and effort he put in, he's a chimp with a machine gun.

Howard's lack of appreciation for Kim's efforts in landing Mesa Verde is sort of the same thing. No respect for the amount of work or effort. She's still not 'worthy'.

I'm not saying any of these things, including Kim's vision of bringing Howard down, are 'right', I don't think anyone is. I think what everyone is feeling is that Kim finally seems to see that you make your own justice in this world. "You don't decide what's right, I decide what's right."

[TVFan17]

I liked the episode, although I agree with the sentiment that there was something that felt a wee bit rushed about Kim's jump into wanting to ruin Howard.  I kept wondering if AMC had neglected to air an episode somewhere along the line that would have shown more of Kim working herself into a frenzy about how awful Howard is.  Yes, yes, I know Kim has been heading in that general direction for a while, and, yes, I know she has reasons to resent Howard.  I am aware of all of that.  However, it just didn't feel organic to me somehow, that she would jump from not liking Howard and resenting him, to wanting to ruin him and excuse/pass it off as no big deal -- just because she was feeling bold and ballsy after telling off Lalo, and because Howard dared to tell her about what a jackass Jimmy had been.   Plus, that bowling ball incident could have resulted in an innocent bystander being harmed or killed, and Kim seemed unconcerned by that notion.

I just didn't quite buy into Kim going from how she was behaving an episode or two before to suddenly wanting to destroy Howard's career, on top of condoning what her immature, petty husband did to Howard.  It seemed like a dramatic jump when I would have expected it to take a little more time.  I think Kim would have gotten to the point of wanting to stick it to Howard eventually, but, to me, it felt like the writers were speeding up her moment of truly breaking bad because they know they have a lot of other ground to cover in Season 6 and they wanted to move that element of her story line along at a faster pace than they might have if this were, say, Season 3.  But when even her Howard-hating, prank-pulling husband has to tell her that she is going too far and that Howard doesn't deserve what she wants to do to him, you know there is a problem.

 

 

The moment I had been waiting for this season -- which was Lalo putting 2 + 2 together and figuring out that Nacho was up to some shenanigans on the side -- finally arrived.  That whole nighttime sequence at the house, with Nacho trying to open the gate, was so tense.  Lalo is a smart guy (with a diabolical grin and ninja-esque moves), and all he had to do was glance over at the glasses that he told Nacho to bring out and realize who it was that put the oil in the pan on the stove. 

We know how Lalo gets when he thinks someone is merely lying to him or not telling him the full story, but if he thinks that someone was involved in a plan to assassinate him, it won't be pretty when he tracks that person down.  Plus... he's got two menacing Cousins who have developed a fondness for axe murders by the time we meet them in Breaking Bad, so I would not be shocked at all if the Cousins take their axe and set out to find Nacho.

And now... where is Nacho going?  He ran off into the dark of night.  Will he try to steal a car and get away (temporarily), or is he just going to run and run until Lalo hunts him down in the desert and kills him on the spot?  Or... will Nacho make it back to Mike and/or Saul, at which point one or both of them comes up with a plan to help Nacho get out of town before Lalo gets to him?

In other words.. is Nacho about to hop on a one-way flight to "Belize," or is he going to suddenly realize he is in need of a good, sturdy vacuum cleaner?  (And yes, I know that Robert Forster is dead, but he filmed his Better Call Saul scenes during the production of El Camino, so we might see him again if Nacho or Kim have sudden vacuum needs.)

Who is going to finally get rid of Lalo?  This guy just seems indestructible.  Will Nacho get to be the one who kills him?  Will Gus have the pleasure of doing it, even though he didn't want to kill him outside of Mexico?  Will Mike have to step in and kill Lalo to save Nacho (or to save Gus)?  Or will there be a surprise and Kim suddenly kills Lalo if she thinks he is about to harm Jimmy/Saul?  Perhaps Lalo will let people think he is dead and then sneak up on his enemies when they least expect it.

And who are these biker gangs Nacho referred to when talking to Don Eladio?  Are we going to have to see those buffoons from Todd's Uncle Jack's gang again?  They're not really "bikers," per se, but Nacho could still cross paths with them before he goes to Belize or buys a vacuum.

 

I guess these questions and more will be answered sometime between now and 2022.  So... it's not a long wait at all, really. 😉 😒

 

[PeterPirate]

I don't know, folks.  Kim's behavior makes sense to me because I think she is going nuts.  I think she has been traveling down this path ever since the letter in Something Beautiful when she realized she was partially responsible for Chuck's death.  Having Jimmy become a friend of the cartel and then go missing for over a day and then come home with a bullet in his travel mug just accelerated the process.  

But I also think that Kim's crazyness may turn out to be her salvation in the long run.  A true sociopath would not evince the turmoil that she has, nor would they take on pro bono work in an ultimately futile effort to rub out that dark spot.  

[shapeshifter]

Another perspective on Kim’s actions:   
Kim essentially tells Jimmy: Okay. You want to play for high stakes? I’ll see your bowling balls and raise you Howard’s balls. Forget about cartels. This is real money. No more bullet holes.

[ShadowFacts]

49 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

Another perspective on Kim’s actions:   
Kim essentially tells Jimmy: Okay. You want to play for high stakes? I’ll see your bowling balls and raise you Howard’s balls. Forget about cartels. This is real money. No more bullet holes.

That is interesting -- instead of using her words to persuade Jimmy to stay away from cartel business.  She has been steely and silent about her reasons for doing things in the past, so it fits with that aspect of her character.  Whatever her motivations, I don't much like having Jimmy and Kim be two peas in a pod going forward.  That's out of balance for one thing, but also boring.  If they go that route, they're going to need a good foil.  I don't want to see them succeed in ruining Howard and they go on their merry way.  Maybe Mr. deGuzman returns and needs help from his team.  Once a friend of the cartel, always a friend of the cartel.

[Clanstarling]

On 4/20/2020 at 7:28 PM, ShadowFacts said:

I don't know Kim anymore.  She doesn't even look the same.  I guess that's some feat of acting and writing, but I'm not into it.

That, and she's literally let her hair down.

On 4/20/2020 at 7:43 PM, SoMuchTV said:

I sort of thought that was supposed to be what gave Saul the inspiration for his strip mall firm in BB - sticking up for the little guy (at least according to his bus bench ads). Did anyone else get that from it?

I did.

On 4/20/2020 at 7:46 PM, Blakeston said:

If she makes it appear that Howard committed some sort of huge ethical violation, that could easily destroy the Sandpiper residents' case before a settlement takes place. But I doubt she cares that much.

 

The ethical violation doesn't have to involve the Sandpiper case.

On 4/20/2020 at 7:52 PM, Adiba said:

Aw jeez, I hope the writers aren’t going to give Kim the full-on Daenerys Targaryen  (Game of Thrones) treatment. The “scorched earth “ comment from Jimmy made me think of it. Her hatred of Howard seemed excessive and didn’t entirely fit with her character from previous episodes, imo.

Although I was startled, I think it does. Howard treated her miserably when she worked for him, punished her often. She buttoned that up and took it, even though she didn't deserve it. There were lots of incidents where Howard wasn't exactly on her side - or Jimmy's - he was, after all, the fall guy for Chuck when it came to all things Jimmy.  And now Howard has the audacity (in her mind) to question her choice of partner. We can see he meant it reasonably well, but I think her history with him makes her see it as condescending.  Given the trauma of the incident with Lalo (just the night before), she channeled her fear into anger, and he set himself up to be the target.

[Milburn Stone]

It occurs to me that even though I joined the chorus of complaints about Kim's turn for the worse, I think I can see why G&G made her take that turn. It was because they cared for the viewers. Basically, if they had continued to make us identify with her, it would be an act of cruelty to subject us to enduring a horrible fate for her. And they're not cruel to the viewers. I don't believe (at least I can't recall) a character in either show who was so central to the show being forced to suffer a fate they didn't in some way deserve. Yes, innocent people have died or suffered fates worse than death, but not any character who was as central as Kim and as relatively free of sin as Kim. G&G had to ratchet up her sin to make her fate acceptable.

Edited April 22, 2020 by Milburn Stone

[Tikichick]

15 hours ago, JudyObscure said:

I think you may be right and it seems so childish and simplistic.  Kim herself is a have-not who made it to the top -- with help from Howard and his firm.  Yes, she was put on a dull assignment for awhile, but she wasn't fired, she still had a great  job with a big law firm and went even higher with Mesa Verde.  I can't imagine that she would be happy with pro-bono work over the long term either, for every desperate single mother who was stealing baby formula, there's going to be a dozen men who burglarized some little old lady's house for spending money.  

I think Kim's apparently difficult upbringing, her determined and very hardworking approach to getting herself out of her bad circumstances and get herself "somewhere good"  have to be constantly part of the lens when looking at Kim.  She never lets herself forget it.

What happened when she got to where she worked like a dog to belong?   She meets a guy she winds up really caring about.   He's trying to change his life too, get to the good place with a lot of hard work.  She watches him get inexplicably blocked by power.  Initially she assumes that's Howard's doing, eventually she discovers with Jimmy and all of us that it's been Chuck all along.  Chuck who went out of his way repeatedly to be seen as Jimmy's benefactor and loving brother -- despite Jimmy's unworthiness.   All the while Jimmy had been genuine in his love for his brother and accepted his brother's attitude as just, and took care of Chuck when Chuck was in need.  Then she watches the power players move in to commandeer the big score with Sandpiper, something that only existed because of Jimmy's brains and efforts.  Jimmy tries to step up and play the game under the rules at Davis and Main, which is always prefaced as a gift he's being generously given.  He finds their game confining and unsatisfying and flips over the table and takes his ball and goes home.   Power steps in strongly to punish Kim for her piece in that mess.

Kim's disciplined determination to get herself to the "good place" gets grittier and she eventually lands Mesa Verde.   Power tries to maneuver her to the side and co opt this big score, but Jimmy intervenes and triggers a chain reaction that winds up with Kim landing the prize.  She discovers the "good place" she's been striving to get all these years isn't so much about doing much she actually finds good, aside from accumulating more and more wealth by people who couldn't spend all they already have in ten lifetimes.   Her past makes her sensitive to and unable to forget how hard it is to be caught in situations where having nothing means the odds are seriously stacked against you ever having the ability to ever crawl anywhere near the "good place" where you can enjoy some bits and pieces of good stuff.  Does she really want to spend her time and her talents enabling the wealthy and powerful to just keep acquiring more simply for the sake of acquisition, with no willingness to make even the slightest concession for others who have virtually nothing in comparison?

All of it fuels her desire to use her time and talents to help those she thinks need a chance to start their attempt at crawling towards the "good place".  Unfortunately she knows it won't pay the bills.  Enter Howard stage right, making unwittingly triggering comments that are meant with genuine consideration for her.  Kim's beyond disgusted by Kevin's refusal to arbitrarily even consider altering his plans for the new branch  by either situating it slightly differently on the land at issue, allowing the old guy to live out his days in the home he loves, or move to the different site.   Either option is virtually neutral to the impact on Kevin.  Don't care, I want what I want when I want it, everybody else doesn't matter.  Howard was part of Chuck's ugly attempt to keep Jimmy from succeeding.  Suddenly she can balance the scales a bit and come up with a way to access a revenue stream to enable her to pay the bills while helping those she thinks deserve a chance to start their crawl to the "good place".

Sure, a lot of people who need pro bono legal assistance don't deserve the chance to start over.  Kim's discussion with the guy from the public defender's office was essentially about  how she can cherrypick the cases she wants.  I don't think she intends helping people she doesn't think deserve it

 

 

Edited April 22, 2020 by Tikichick

[Tikichick]

49 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

It occurs to me that even though I joined the chorus of complaints about Kim's turn for the worse, I think I can see why G&G made her take that turn. It was because they cared for the viewers. Basically, if they had continued to make us identify with her, it would be an act of cruelty to subject us to enduring a horrible fate for her. And they're not cruel. I don't believe (at least I can't recall) a character in either show who was so central to the show being forced to suffer a fate they didn't in some way deserve. Yes, innocent people have died or suffered fates worse than death, but not any character who was as central as Kim and as relatively free of sin as Kim. G&G had to ratchet up her sin to make her fate acceptable.

How about Hank?   Yeah, there was a lot of unpleasant bluster to get through to see the caring, do anything for his family guy underneath all that very offputting stuff, but for me Hank didn't deserve his fate.

[Tikichick]

19 hours ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

Kim and Jimmy no longer brushing their teeth together was a bad sign.

Interesting turn of events to see Jimmy talking Kim out of a scheme. A life-altering scheme at that. Kim just did one of the biggest heel turns in the history of BB/BCS.

 

You are absolutely right, the toothbrushing has been just as much a constant as the ponytail, and the absence is significant.

Both of those things are shining a  whitehot spotlight on Kim's drastic turn and we're supposed to be shaken. 

[Milburn Stone]

33 minutes ago, Tikichick said:

How about Hank?   Yeah, there was a lot of unpleasant bluster to get through to see the caring, do anything for his family guy underneath all that very offputting stuff, but for me Hank didn't deserve his fate.

I don't think we're supposed to discuss specifics of BB here, but I thought of Hank, and that's why I wrote as central to the show as Kim. Hank was not as central to the show as Kim is to BCS.

[Tikichick]

16 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Mike? Nah. Tuco?

WRT Kim’s motivations:  BCS and BrBa are 2 shows for which I not only don’t feel the need to fanwank, but for which it feels sacrilegious to do so. And I do love to spin theories for character motivations. 
So I am basing Kim’s motivations on what we’ve seen and heard, especially this season, and I think her issues are with landowners, especially when they wield the power of their acquired wealth to make others miserable, even though their goal may be to multiply their own wealth rather than oppressing others.  That they tend to be men is just an artifact of economics. 
 

I enjoy that in the finale we revisit Lalo’s Spider-Man-like skills that we observed in his desert jump onto the car; this time we see he has Spidey Sense too. It also seems stylistically fitting that Lalo embodies the series’ only elements of Magical Realism since Latin American author and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Gabriel García Márquez, is for many the definitive name in the genre.

 

 

Tuco is still in prison.   Tuco is a Salamanca, so I don't think he'll be amenable to helping Nacho with anything that wouldn't wind up with Nacho meeting his fate in the desert.    

[Blakeston]

1 hour ago, Clanstarling said:

The ethical violation doesn't have to involve the Sandpiper case.

In order for Kim and Jimmy's plan to work, the ethical violation has to affect Sandpiper substantially - otherwise there wouldn't be an incentive for the firms representing the Sandpiper clients to settle immediately.

And if Howard's ethical violation is something that will endanger Sandpiper if word gets out, then there's got to be a risk that word will get out and damage the case badly.

18 hours ago, Prower said:

And I find it just delicious that Howard thinks Jimmy is the bad influence here and that he is corrupting that pure innocent woman, who just couldn't be bad, because women just can't be bad (or some patronizing bullshit like that), when it becomes increasingly more obvious that Kim is the worse one of the two.

When Howard made the assumption that Jimmy influenced the decision, i don't think the assumption was based on sexism. i think it was because the Kim he knew wouldn't throw away an opportunity like that. 

[peeayebee]

16 hours ago, MrWhyt said:

the final guy had a sat phone, but there wasn't any sort of radio/phone communication between them during the assault.

I thought after the guy standing over the open bathtub was shot, one of his cohorts was trying to talk to him on their radio or walkie-talkie.

Also, if cell reception was bad, as Gus said, then how did they call Nacho on his cell?

[ahmerali]

5 hours ago, TVFan17 said:

I just didn't quite buy into Kim going from how she was behaving an episode or two before to suddenly wanting to destroy Howard's career, on top of condoning what her immature, petty husband did to Howard.  It seemed like a dramatic jump when I would have expected it to take a little more time.  I think Kim would have gotten to the point of wanting to stick it to Howard eventually, but, to me, it felt like the writers were speeding up her moment of truly breaking bad because they know they have a lot of other ground to cover in Season 6 and they wanted to move that element of her story line along at a faster pace than they might have if this were, say, Season 3.  But when even her Howard-hating, prank-pulling husband has to tell her that she is going too far and that Howard doesn't deserve what she wants to do to him, you know there is a problem.

We know how Lalo gets when he thinks someone is merely lying to him or not telling him the full story, but if he thinks that someone was involved in a plan to assassinate him, it won't be pretty when he tracks that person down.  Plus... he's got two menacing Cousins who have developed a fondness for axe murders by the time we meet them in Breaking Bad, so I would not be shocked at all if the Cousins take their axe and set out to find Nacho.

The thing I see here is that Kim, unlike Jimmy, isn't thinking about taking 'half-measures' and messing with Howard the way Jimmy did - she is MESSING with Howard, and trying to benefit herself in the process. What did Jimmy's pranks gain him, other than a bit of self-satisfaction? Nothing. Kim seems the bigger picture. I think by the time BB rolls around, Saul will have a learned a lot from her.

Nacho had a car, he brought Lalo down to Mexico in it. I figure after heading out the back door, he went to car and bolted. He obviously figured that these guys would get the job done and if I were him I wouldn't want to be anywhere near the cartel or the Cousins. Back to the USA, posthaste. Lalo will be on the warpath for him and Gus, no doubt, but as I said earlier I think he will do it solo.

 

[Adiba]

3 hours ago, ShadowFacts said:

That is interesting -- instead of using her words to persuade Jimmy to stay away from cartel business.  She has been steely and silent about her reasons for doing things in the past, so it fits with that aspect of her character.  Whatever her motivations, I don't much like having Jimmy and Kim be two peas in a pod going forward.  That's out of balance for one thing, but also boring.  If they go that route, they're going to need a good foil.  I don't want to see them succeed in ruining Howard and they go on their merry way.  Maybe Mr. deGuzman returns and needs help from his team.  Once a friend of the cartel, always a friend of the cartel.

I agree, I don’t want Jimmy and Kim to be two peas in a pod, either because that would be boring. I’d rather have her play a Jimminy Cricket to his Pinocchio than have Bonnie and Clyde ( or Giselle and Saul). 
Kim’s turn seemed excessive to me because she had other, toned-down reactions in the past to Howard. Ruining someone’s career and possibly his life to do pro-bono work funded with ill-gotten gains is not something I saw in Kim’s character.

[ahmerali]

11 minutes ago, peeayebee said:

I thought after the guy standing over the open bathtub was shot, one of his cohorts was trying to talk to him on their radio or walkie-talkie.

Also, if cell reception was bad, as Gus said, then how did they call Nacho on his cell?

Makeshift cell tower. Listen carefully to Gus's conversation with Mike. Gus has set a plan in motion, and he will not let it go bad because of a 'technical problem'. Technical problems are designed to be resolved with technology. 🙂

[Tikichick]

13 minutes ago, ahmerali said:

Makeshift cell tower. Listen carefully to Gus's conversation with Mike. Gus has set a plan in motion, and he will not let it go bad because of a 'technical problem'. Technical problems are designed to be resolved with technology. 🙂

I'm wondering if Lalo finds the technical solution before he catches up with Nacho or after?

[ahmerali]

35 minutes ago, Tikichick said:

I'm wondering if Lalo finds the technical solution before he catches up with Nacho or after?

I'm quite sure they dismantled it after making the call. That's neither here nor there though. Nacho's absence during the assassin attack is more than enough evidence of his involvement - unless he leaves a dead body behind, he was in on it.

[ShadowFacts]

59 minutes ago, ahmerali said:

Makeshift cell tower. Listen carefully to Gus's conversation with Mike. Gus has set a plan in motion, and he will not let it go bad because of a 'technical problem'. Technical problems are designed to be resolved with technology. 🙂

I was initially asking about what the killers had for communication because I was trying to figure how Nacho got warned, then immediately had no cell again.  If it was a satellite phone they used as was indicated by MrWhyt, then I guess that answers it.  You apparently don't need a makeshift tower if you have a satellite phone, which are designed for use in places with no cell network.  If I understand correctly.  That makes sense to me now that he could have received that call and then immediately his phone was useless again. 

[MrWhyt]

2 hours ago, peeayebee said:

I thought after the guy standing over the open bathtub was shot, one of his cohorts was trying to talk to him on their radio or walkie-talkie.

Also, if cell reception was bad, as Gus said, then how did they call Nacho on his cell?

might have missed that, guess I'll have to rewatch. As for cell reception as Gus said it's a technical problem, they are ways to boost cell reception.

[Sam Spayaid]

On 4/20/2020 at 11:29 PM, SunnyBeBe said:

why not just shoot when he was sitting outside in the chair.

My thoughts exactly. The set up was perfect! Late, nobody is around. But that would have been way too easy wouldn't it? <Sigh>

[SunnyBeBe]

For amusement and also kinda by accident, I watched Season one, episode one of BCS last night.  Man.......

[DangerousMinds]

4 hours ago, Tikichick said:

I think Kim's apparently difficult upbringing, her determined and very hardworking approach to getting herself out of her bad circumstances and get herself "somewhere good"  have to be constantly part of the lens when looking at Kim.  She never lets herself forget it.

What happened when she got to where she worked like a dog to belong?   She meets a guy she winds up really caring about.   He's trying to change his life too, get to the good place with a lot of hard work.  She watches him get inexplicably blocked by power.  Initially she assumes that's Howard's doing, eventually she discovers with Jimmy and all of us that it's been Chuck all along.  Chuck who went out of his way repeatedly to be seen as Jimmy's benefactor and loving brother -- despite Jimmy's unworthiness.   All the while Jimmy had been genuine in his love for his brother and accepted his brother's attitude as just, and took care of Chuck when Chuck was in need.  Then she watches the power players move in to commandeer the big score with Sandpiper, something that only existed because of Jimmy's brains and efforts.  Jimmy tries to step up and play the game under the rules at Davis and Main, which is always prefaced as a gift he's being generously given.  He finds their game confining and unsatisfying and flips over the table and takes his ball and goes home.   Power steps in strongly to punish Kim for her piece in that mess.

Kim's disciplined determination to get herself to the "good place" gets grittier and she eventually lands Mesa Verde.   Power tries to maneuver her to the side and co opt this big score, but Jimmy intervenes and triggers a chain reaction that winds up with Kim landing the prize.  She discovers the "good place" she's been striving to get all these years isn't so much about doing much she actually finds good, aside from accumulating more and more wealth by people who couldn't spend all they already have in ten lifetimes.   Her past makes her sensitive to and unable to forget how hard it is to be caught in situations where having nothing means the odds are seriously stacked against you ever having the ability to ever crawl anywhere near the "good place" where you can enjoy some bits and pieces of good stuff.  Does she really want to spend her time and her talents enabling the wealthy and powerful to just keep acquiring more simply for the sake of acquisition, with no willingness to make even the slightest concession for others who have virtually nothing in comparison?

All of it fuels her desire to use her time and talents to help those she thinks need a chance to start their attempt at crawling towards the "good place".  Unfortunately she knows it won't pay the bills.  Enter Howard stage right, making unwittingly triggering comments that are meant with genuine consideration for her.  Kim's beyond disgusted by Kevin's refusal to arbitrarily even consider altering his plans for the new branch  by either situating it slightly differently on the land at issue, allowing the old guy to live out his days in the home he loves, or move to the different site.   Either option is virtually neutral to the impact on Kevin.  Don't care, I want what I want when I want it, everybody else doesn't matter.  Howard was part of Chuck's ugly attempt to keep Jimmy from succeeding.  Suddenly she can balance the scales a bit and come up with a way to access a revenue stream to enable her to pay the bills while helping those she thinks deserve a chance to start their crawl to the "good place".

Sure, a lot of people who need pro bono legal assistance don't deserve the chance to start over.  Kim's discussion with the guy from the public defender's office was essentially about  how she can cherrypick the cases she wants.  I don't think she intends helping people she doesn't think deserve it

 

 

Thank you! I agree with everything you wrote and said it all more articulately than I could ever hope to. 

yes, many of the poor who get public defenders are guilty, but so are the rich. However, they can afford an entire team of defense lawyers (OJ Simpson, anyone?) to play games with the jury. The poor deserve a chance , too. 
 

 

Just now, DangerousMinds said:

Thank you! I agree with everything you wrote and you said it all more articulately than I could ever hope to. 

yes, many of the poor who get public defenders are guilty, but so are the rich. However, they can afford an entire team of defense lawyers (OJ Simpson, anyone?) to play games with the jury. The poor deserve a chance , too. 
 

 

 

4 hours ago, Tikichick said:

How about Hank?   Yeah, there was a lot of unpleasant bluster to get through to see the caring, do anything for his family guy underneath all that very offputting stuff, but for me Hank didn't deserve his fate.

Does anyone truly think Hank deserved his fate? He became probably my favorite character on TV EVER.