S06.E09: Fun and Games

[Irlandesa]

8 hours ago, Colorado David said:

Agreed. Even if they are both gay, it doesn't mean something has to happen. I talk to my gay and straight friends like Gus talked - it's not flirtatious, it's being friendly and open. I think more is being read into that talk than was intended. Just my opinion.

As others have said, scenes on this show usually indicate something about the character.  Those of us who watch might not agree on what it shows but there's usually something there.

For this scene, if they just wanted to show a casual conversation about wine, they could have had Gus have it with the female bartender.  They didn't.  David hovered in the background with customers and then was revealed in a way.

There's a reason Gus told him to call him "Gustavo" and to continue talking when David asked if he should stop talking.

But most importantly, in my mind, is there's a reason they had David tell a story that felt like Joey from Friends' guaranteed-to-get laid -backpacking story.

8 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

The fact that they were married indicates that she cared about him, imo.

I agree.  There's a lot we don't know about the marriage but it seems like Cheryl was done with it and Howard hoped they could find their way back together.  Sometimes in that situation, civil indifference is a way to set a boundary even if she still cared for him. 

Cheryl not saying 'thank you' for the coffee isn't proof she didn't care or never cared.  It's not equivalent to what Kim and Jimmy did.  And she can still have feelings for him even if she doesn't want to be married to him any longer.  Heck, she might even feel guilt and Kim's story just exacerbated that guilt even though Howard was actually in a decent place before he died. 

Howard shared his belief with Jimmy that Chuck committed and some viewers
thought he was deliberately cruel.  I was not one of those people.  He only knew what he knew and thought he was responsible.  He didn't know just how far Jimmy had gone.

Kim, on the other hand, was being cruel.  Unlike Howard in the first scenario, she knew her culpability and intentionally tried to foist it of onto Cheryl. 

8 hours ago, PeterPirate said:

I still think the sommelier gave Gus the brush-off.  

"I'm saving a bottle for a special occasion."
"I would love to hear about it when you have that occasion."  

I think that was trying to nudge the door open.  Gus says it's a really special wine for a special occasion.  It'd be largely presumptuous for David to say "I'd like to be there for that big moment and share the wine."  Instead, he says he'd like to hear about it.  The silence after that moment felt like he was waiting for Gus to invite him or at least imply that maybe he'd be around to participate. 

[sistermagpie]

5 minutes ago, Irlandesa said:

But most importantly, in my mind, is there's a reason they had David tell a story that felt like Joey from Friends' guaranteed-to-get laid -backpacking story.

9 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

OMG, I knew it reminded me of something and that's exactly it. LOL.

[Eulipian 5k]

7 hours ago, monagatuna said:

there is now a mystery filling the Howard-shaped hole in her life. Not only is he dead, officially, he's presumed dead. She doesn't even have anything to bury.

So much this. 3 people in this episode are feeling this; Cheryl, Hector, and Nacho’s Papi. Mike remembered his group sessions and tried to bring closure to Nacho’s dad.(r/there was an attempt to)

Also: Cheryl has to face a suicide with the wedding ring left as a message to her. Brutal. 

Edited July 21, 2022 by Eulipian 5k
Hwd sleeps with the fishes

[Eulipian 5k]

11 minutes ago, Eulipian 5k said:

So much this. 3 people in this episode are feeling this; Cheryl, Hector, and Nacho’s Papi. Mike remembered his group sessions and tried to bring closure to Nacho’s dad.(r/there was an attempt to)

[MrWhyt]

54 minutes ago, Irlandesa said:

And she can still have feelings for him even if she doesn't want to be married to him any longer. 

yeah people can still have feelings for each other even if they realize they shouldn't be in a relationship, for example: Kim and Jimmy in this very episode.

[PeterPirate]

50 minutes ago, Irlandesa said:

I think that was trying to nudge the door open.  Gus says it's a really special wine for a special occasion.  It'd be largely presumptuous for David to say "I'd like to be there for that big moment and share the wine."  Instead, he says he'd like to hear about it.  The silence after that moment felt like he was waiting for Gus to invite him or at least imply that maybe he'd be around to participate. 

True.  David wasn't a woman sitting at the bar that Gus was trying to pick up.  He was an employee and Gus was a very high-end client.  

I suppose Gus' next line could have been "As it happens, I have just returned from a very successful business trip and am ready to open the Côte-Rôtie.  Would you care to join me?"  I'm pretty sure that line--plus a few million dollars in the bank--would have worked for me.   

[qtpye]

19 hours ago, Emma Snyder said:

For someone who wasn't a particularly major character, I was fascinated by Paige and her friendship with Kim as well. Glad to see I'm not the only one 🙂

I liked the low-key friendship between Paige and Kim. I assumed they were friends from law school but I do not know if that was confirmed.  

It is the closest thing we see to her having a friend outside of Jimmy.

I also liked Paige's haircut even though that is shallow.

[ShadowFacts]

8 hours ago, gallimaufry said:

One thing that does disappoint me a little in the time jump is that, unless I've missed it, we never see the very first "Better Call Saul!" which seems like a really big moment to skip on a show called "Better Call Saul" that even gives a backstory scene to Hector's bell.  This is always the problem with these kind of flash-forwards and while this probably worked better than many examples of the technique, I'm not sure the shock of the abrupt cut was ultimately better than one of their ever-brilliant mega-montages.

I agree, flashing forward to that particular scene didn't do much for me. We will all have bits of the story we would rather see or rather they skip. I did not need to see the fairly lengthy bar scene to know that Gus would never have any semblance of a fulfilling relationship--everything about him screams that. It doesn't make me see another dimension of him or feel any kind of way that I don't already.

[scenario]

8 minutes ago, ShadowFacts said:

I agree, flashing forward to that particular scene didn't do much for me. We will all have bits of the story we would rather see or rather they skip. I did not need to see the fairly lengthy bar scene to know that Gus would never have any semblance of a fulfilling relationship--everything about him screams that. It doesn't make me see another dimension of him or feel any kind of way that I don't already.

If you took away every scene that some people weren't interested in you wouldn't have a show. Some people weren't interested in the Jimmy and Kim story line at all. Some people weren't interested in the cartel stuff at all, they came for Saul. But if you removed both what do you have left?

BCS is in many ways a classic tragedy. All the characters suffer. The Gus scene was to show that even though Gus was rich and powerful, his life was empty. People cared about his money but there's no one on earth who cared about him. 

[ShadowFacts]

4 minutes ago, scenario said:

If you took away every scene that some people weren't interested in you wouldn't have a show. Some people weren't interested in the Jimmy and Kim story line at all. Some people weren't interested in the cartel stuff at all, they came for Saul. But if you removed both what do you have left?

BCS is in many ways a classic tragedy. All the characters suffer. The Gus scene was to show that even though Gus was rich and powerful, his life was empty. People cared about his money but there's no one on earth who cared about him. 

I agree, that is what I meant by everyone has parts they'd prefer to see or to not see and it's different for everyone. I have always been less interested in the cartel, yet appreciated Nacho's story quite a bit. Ditto Mike's back story earlier in the seasons. Gus and everything about him is less compelling for having seen his demeanor in BB, and I get from his BCS behavior and now recently his "home" that he can't have human closeness. But I suppose I do derive something from the bar scene inasmuch as someone who started out torturing animals and now kills humans doesn't get my sympathy if he can't have meaningful or even just enjoyable human interaction. That's what centering his life around violent crime and revenge has earned him. So the scene served that purpose but for me it dragged on.

[Chaos Theory]

34 minutes ago, ShadowFacts said:

I agree, that is what I meant by everyone has parts they'd prefer to see or to not see and it's different for everyone. I have always been less interested in the cartel, yet appreciated Nacho's story quite a bit. Ditto Mike's back story earlier in the seasons. Gus and everything about him is less compelling for having seen his demeanor in BB, and I get from his BCS behavior and now recently his "home" that he can't have human closeness. But I suppose I do derive something from the bar scene inasmuch as someone who started out torturing animals and now kills humans doesn't get my sympathy if he can't have meaningful or even just enjoyable human interaction. That's what centering his life around violent crime and revenge has earned him. So the scene served that purpose but for me it dragged on.

What I got from that scene is that Gus had his “chances” to chose another path.   That is the whole point of a tragedy and what makes them tragic.   Jimmy and Kim did actually love each other.  While Kim brought out the better qualities in Jimmy, Jimmy brought out the worst qualities in Kim.  With Kim not being there Jimmy became what an empty shell of a lawyer who didn’t care about anyone or anything.       Gus was so consumed with revenge that he didn’t see he had a friend in Mike and walked away from a possible relationship that might have made him happy.   The lab wasn’t built yet.  He could have walked away at that point and just run his restaurant and lived a happy life.   But then he would have had to have forgotten his revenge for what happened to Max.   And that is the tragedy for him.

Edited July 21, 2022 by Chaos Theory

[Milburn Stone]

Correct me if I'm wrong (and you will), but the lie to the widow was the first time Jimmy or Kim scammed a person who totally didn't deserve it. You could define the line Kim crossed in terms of that. 

[Starchild]

I suppose it depends on your perspective. For me it's more nuanced, a matter of degree. For example, Howard may have done something to incur Kim's wrath, so not 100% innocent in her eyes, but what they did to him, even before his murder, was something he didn't deserve.

[peeayebee]

10 hours ago, Eulipian 5k said:

So much this. 3 people in this episode are feeling this; Cheryl, Hector, and Nacho’s Papi.

Good point. I didn't think about this. Each one's loved one just disappeared from their lives.

I keep thinking about Howard and Cheryl. We can only speculate what their marriage was like, as well as what their separation was like. We know that Howard was a pretty meticulous guy, though in his photos at the memorial (actually Patrick Fabian's personal photos) we see that he can cut loose. And Cheryl likewise seemed very precise, very controlled. Maybe this similarity brought them together. Perhaps Howard's cracking over Chuck's death is what led to his and Cheryl's separation. She couldn't abide that he couldn't get it together. He went to therapy, but she's not a talking-about-your-feelings kind of person.

Then all the stuff with Jimmy harassing him was taking its toll. Again, Cheryl is the kind of person who would say, "Stop complaining and fix it," and Howard did tell her that he would fix it.

I don't think from that kitchen scene that Cheryl didn't love Howard anymore. She probably wanted their lives to go back to what they were before, with Howard not showing what she considered weakness. 

[SimplexFish]

1 hour ago, Milburn Stone said:

Correct me if I'm wrong (and you will), but the lie to the widow was the first time Jimmy or Kim scammed a person who totally didn't deserve it. You could define the line Kim crossed in terms of that. 

Well for just one, how about the man in the bar where they screwed him into buying that crazy expensive bottle of Zafiro Anejo Tequila and even took a big check (never cashed) from him for the fake business investment?  What did he do to deserve their BS scam?

[TheOtherOne]

On 7/19/2022 at 5:58 PM, Bannon said:

Kim had all sorts of choices. She could go to the Feds, and tell everything she knows, which is quite a bit, in return for witness protection (especially since she doesn't want to practice law anyways). The Feds don't know Lalo is dead; they'd see her eyewitness account of Lalo murdering Howard as being extremely valuable. She could tell them of a house where she was ordered to travel to, to kill someone who answered the door. That blows the cover that Gus has constructed as charitable businessman; why does a drug capo want the person who answers the door killed? Who is this Mike Ehrmantraut? Kim still has plenty of opportunity to do what is right. She just doesn't want to.

This is a bit belated...but no. None of this was in any way an option for her. A woman who is willing to attempt to kill a complete stranger to save her husband's life isn't going to turn around and betray him to save her soul.

Coming clean makes her a better person and a bad wife. Staying silent (and lying to Cheryl to save Jimmy) makes her a bad person and a good wife. I have no doubt which the fandom of this show and its predecessor would consider the worse sin.

I kept coming back to this because of the comments about how cruel she was to Cheryl. Again, she was willing to kill someone to save him. Being mean to someone to save him? Pffft. That's nothing. Cheryl got off easy.

[Bannon]

Just now, TheOtherOne said:

This is a bit belated...but no. None of this was in any way an option for her. A woman who is willing to attempt to kill a complete stranger to save her husband's life isn't going to turn around and betray him to save her soul.

Coming clean makes her a better person and a bad wife. Staying silent (and lying to Cheryl to save Jimmy) makes her a bad person and a good wife. I have no doubt which the fandom of this show and its predecessor would consider the worse sin.

I kept coming back to this because of the comments about how cruel she was to Cheryl. Again, she was willing to kill someone to save him. Being mean to someone to save him? Pffft. That's nothing. Cheryl got off easy.

Yes, in other words, Kim, like so many in this universe, deliberately chooses to be a shitty human being.

[scenario]

16 minutes ago, Bannon said:

Yes, in other words, Kim, like so many in this universe, deliberately chooses to be a shitty human being.

When someone is trained from childhood to be a certain way, how much of their behavior is choice and how much of it is learned? It is very difficult to stop toxic behaviors when they've been drilled into you since early childhood. 

Both Kim and Jimmy were pushed towards being grifters young. When Jimmy made a real effort to change that lasted years Chuck told him that you are a criminal and can't change no matter how hard you try. 

The Salamanca's were raised with violence since they were children. They were taught that what they were doing was good. 

[PeterPirate]

Kim is a criminal.  And as Mike told Pryce, that doesn't necessarily mean she is a bad human being.  

Edited July 21, 2022 by PeterPirate
Added "necessarily".

[Penman61]

11 minutes ago, PeterPirate said:

Kim is a criminal. 

I don't know if we have any criminal lawyers here, but if there are any criminal lawyers, I'd be interested in knowing what actual crimes Kim has committed to date.

(ETA: I agree with what I quoted; I'm assuming she has committed them, I'd just like to hear them enumerated by experts.) 

Edited July 21, 2022 by Penman61

[Adiba]

7 minutes ago, Penman61 said:

I don't know if we have any criminal lawyers here, but if there are any criminal lawyers, I'd be interested in knowing what actual crimes Kim has committed to date.

(ETA: I agree with what I quoted; I'm assuming she has committed them, I'd just like to hear them enumerated by experts.) 

Not a lawyer, but for starters, isn’t pointing a loaded gun at someone with intent to kill assault?

[ShadowFacts]

1 hour ago, Chaos Theory said:

The lab wasn’t built yet.  He could have walked away at that point and just run his restaurant and lived a happy life.   But then he would have had to have forgotten his revenge for what happened to Max.   And that is the tragedy for him.

Maybe he was regretful in the moment, but that he could have walked away seems doubtful to me. We have seen what happens when people try to leave. I don't think he could just revert to Chicken Man status. He is too entrenched with meth production and with Madrigal.  Disappearing would be the only option and maybe he has the means to do that better than Nacho, but he's too recognizable from his business in New Mexico, to be successful for long.  See also Jimmy/Saul.

1 minute ago, PeterPirate said:

Kim is a criminal.  And as Mike told Pryce, that doesn't mean she is a bad human being.  

But she pretty much is a bad human being. Good humans don't do what she did to Howard, who paid for the legal education of a mail room employee. For fun.  She recognizes that and is punishing herself accordingly.

5 minutes ago, Penman61 said:

I don't know if we have any criminal lawyers here, but if there are any criminal lawyers, I'd be interested in knowing what actual crimes Kim has committed to date.

My criminal law courses are in the distant past, but she recently attempted at least conspiracy to commit homicide, but there is no proof and if there was prosecution, she would have a good coercion defense. She was also involved in drugging Howard with whatever caused his reactions before the Sandpiper settlement meeting. I cannot remember any Mesa Verde details, but she might have been party to some crime there. Participating in taking steps toward a crime leave a person open to conspiracy charges.

[Eulipian 5k]

5 minutes ago, ShadowFacts said:

21 hours ago, scenario said:

Kim and Jimmy are like two reformed drug addicts living together.

Yes! Jack Lemmon & Lee Remick in The Days of Wine & Roses. (Gus not invited, 😉)

"if there was prosecution, she would have a good coercion defense."

Kim couldn't alert the police because there is a dead body that's connected to them, (Lalo doesn't know Howard) and a post-it notes roadmap of all they did to him.

[PeterPirate]

7 minutes ago, ShadowFacts said:

But she pretty much is a bad human being. Good humans don't do what she did to Howard, who paid for the legal education of a mail room employee. For fun.  She recognizes that and is punishing herself accordingly.

My criminal law courses are in the distant past, but she recently attempted at least conspiracy to commit homicide, but there is no proof and if there was prosecution, she would have a good coercion defense. She was also involved in drugging Howard with whatever caused his reactions before the Sandpiper settlement meeting. I cannot remember any Mesa Verde details, but she might have been party to some crime there. Participating in taking steps toward a crime leave a person open to conspiracy charges.

It all depends on how one looks at things.  For myself, Kim was at her core a "good" person in that she wanted to be Atticus Finch.  She just chose a bad person for a mate and that led her into a life of crime.  In my opinion her first crime was visiting Lalo in lockup and joining a conspiracy to help a murderer escape justice.  What she did to Howard was her way of avoiding the fact that she was a criminal.  

[Eulipian 5k]

What Kim remembered at the Memorial; 3 instances:

1. She went to the Estate settlement in Jimmy's place, and launched into Howard, completely misunderstanding HHM's motives with way, way, off conclusions of spitefulness- all in defense of Jimmy
2. Howard told her of Jimmy's (pre D-Day) antics and she launched into Howard as her defense of Jimmy.
3. Seeing the effect of the scam on Cheryl she launched into Howard's memory in order to defend a floundering Jimmy.

She finally remembered Howard's last words to her "but you ... and this is the life you've chosen.."

I noticed Jimmy introducing himself to Cheryl, they'd never met? that says something.

The two of them, in their black suits at HHM, were the ghostly spectre of death, just like Lalo appeared as a spectre of death in Jimmy's apartment.

Edited July 21, 2022 by Eulipian 5k

[Bannon]

1 hour ago, scenario said:

When someone is trained from childhood to be a certain way, how much of their behavior is choice and how much of it is learned? It is very difficult to stop toxic behaviors when they've been drilled into you since early childhood. 

Both Kim and Jimmy were pushed towards being grifters young. When Jimmy made a real effort to change that lasted years Chuck told him that you are a criminal and can't change no matter how hard you try. 

The Salamanca's were raised with violence since they were children. They were taught that what they were doing was good. 

Every discussion of ethics ultimately is reduced to whether free will exists or not. Nobody can empirically answer that question with confidence, but what can be empirically established is that humans respond to incentives, and a society in whuch it is agreed that there is no free will would have awful incentives, with awful outcomes. Sure, external stimuli affect human behavior, but two individuals can receive the exact stimuli, and behave entirely differently, with an entirely different ethical component, in response. Organizing society as if indivuduals have agency, choose their behaviors, and thus can ethically be made to experience the consequences of those choices, pròduces an incentive structure that serves society in a far better manner.

[Eulipian 5k]

1 hour ago, scenario said:

Both Kim and Jimmy were pushed towards being grifters young.

Chuck saw Jimmy chose to "grift" their father, he was "born that way"; no one made him into the person Chuck hated.

[scenario]

3 minutes ago, Bannon said:

Every discussion of ethics ultimately is reduced to whether free will exists or not. Nobody can empirically answer that question with confidence, but what can be empirically established is that humans respond to incentives, and a society in whuch it is agreed that there is no free will would have awful incentives, with awful outcomes. Sure, external stimuli affect human behavior, but two individuals can receive the exact stimuli, and behave entirely differently, with an entirely different ethical component, in response. Organizing society as if indivuduals have agency, choose their behaviors, and thus can ethically be made to experience the consequences of those choices, pròduces an incentive structure that serves society in a far better manner.

That's not free will. Everyone can change. But what is the cost and are you willing to pay it?

The cost for Kim to leave the life was high. She had to leave the man she loved and she ended up feeling she had to quit her career and start over. 

It's easy to tell someone else to burn down everything you've worked for to do the right thing but its not easy to do. 

[Milburn Stone]

2 hours ago, SimplexFish said:

Well for just one, how about the man in the bar where they screwed him into buying that crazy expensive bottle of Zafiro Anejo Tequila and even took a big check (never cashed) from him for the fake business investment?  What did he do to deserve their BS scam?

He was kind of an a-hole. I remember thinking he deserved some kind of "punishment" just for being a jerk. Maybe not that punishment, but suffice it to say my heart didn't go out to him.

[Bannon]

44 minutes ago, ShadowFacts said:

Maybe he was regretful in the moment, but that he could have walked away seems doubtful to me. We have seen what happens when people try to leave. I don't think he could just revert to Chicken Man status. He is too entrenched with meth production and with Madrigal.  Disappearing would be the only option and maybe he has the means to do that better than Nacho, but he's too recognizable from his business in New Mexico, to be successful for long.  See also Jimmy/Saul.

But she pretty much is a bad human being. Good humans don't do what she did to Howard, who paid for the legal education of a mail room employee. For fun.  She recognizes that and is punishing herself accordingly.

My criminal law courses are in the distant past, but she recently attempted at least conspiracy to commit homicide, but there is no proof and if there was prosecution, she would have a good coercion defense. She was also involved in drugging Howard with whatever caused his reactions before the Sandpiper settlement meeting. I cannot remember any Mesa Verde details, but she might have been party to some crime there. Participating in taking steps toward a crime leave a person open to conspiracy charges.

I'm not an expert, but I'd be shocked if her behavior with regard to Mesa Verde didn't constitute criminal fraud/deprivation of honest services, and because it entailed Mesa Verde's operations in multiple states, it likely rose to a Federal offense

Beyond legality, I think it's been a little undrerappreciated how ethically awful her Mesa Verde behavior was. It's good writing to make Mesa Verde Kevin a somewhat tediously pompous ass, because it supplies an easy rationalization to Kim, but, no, blatantly cheating someone isn't less terrible if the cheated is a tedious pompous ass.

[Bannon]

12 minutes ago, scenario said:

That's not free will. Everyone can change. But what is the cost and are you willing to pay it?

The cost for Kim to leave the life was high. She had to leave the man she loved and she ended up feeling she had to quit her career and start over. 

It's easy to tell someone else to burn down everything you've worked for to do the right thing but its not easy to do. 

Never said or implied it was easy. The fact remains that some people choose, sometimes without 2nd thought, to do the hard thing, and some of them have had disadvantages every bit as significant as Kim's or Jimmy's.

[scenario]

Just now, Eulipian 5k said:

Chuck saw Jimmy chose to "grift" their father, he was "born that way"; no one made him into the person Chuck hated.

I do not believe that people are born criminals. They are trained to be criminals. Jimmy chose to grift his father because his father was a terrible businessman who fell prey to every grifter he came across. "My babies hungry." "Take some milk and pay me back later." But he never bothered to keep track of who owned him what and never asked for the money back. His father would have gone out of business with or without Jimmy. 

Whenever Jimmy did a scam his mother loved it and praised him for it. "That's Jimmy, Isn't he a hoot." The scams were harmless at first. Talking two women into dating him at the same time. But once he met Marco, he became an actual criminal. But he was still his mom and dad's favorite. 

Everyone he met when he was a kid rewarded him for being a smooth talking grifter. Then he hit rock bottom and moved to New Mexico to change his ways. He worked in Chucks law office for years without committing any crimes. He worked full time and studied at night to become a lawyer. What happens when he tells Chuck. "You're a criminal. You can't change."

If people you respect tell you over and over and over that you are a bad person and can't change, it sinks in. That's why self esteem is so important. If you tell a child that they are worthless over and over again, they believe it.

Kim went through the same thing with her mother. Her mother systematically taught her to be a criminal. She broke away and was doing well until she got involved with Jimmy. She was working very hard but had no one in her life to share her life with until Jimmy. But Jimmy brought out the worst in her. She got worse and worse and rationalized it all because she was having too much fun. 

Finally, she realized that she had gone way too far and blew up her entire life to get out.

Jimmy has been told by his brother he's no good his entire life. All of the people he respects hate him now (for good reason). The only person he really cares about has left him. His reputation will follow him wherever he goes if he remains a lawyer. His only way out is to blow it all up like Kim did. So he has a choice of taking the money and being a rich and lonely person or blowing everything up and starting over in middle age. He'll have a nice nest egg but nothing else. 

It's easy to say "Just do the right thing and walk away from everything you care about." It's much more difficult to do.  

[monagatuna]

55 minutes ago, ShadowFacts said:

My criminal law courses are in the distant past, but she recently attempted at least conspiracy to commit homicide, but there is no proof and if there was prosecution, she would have a good coercion defense. She was also involved in drugging Howard with whatever caused his reactions before the Sandpiper settlement meeting. I cannot remember any Mesa Verde details, but she might have been party to some crime there. Participating in taking steps toward a crime leave a person open to conspiracy charges.

Same--I'm not a criminal lawyer and I don't practice in NM or on the federal level, so it really depends on local laws or if they would escalate to federal, but I'm thinking accessory after the fact (murder of Howard), evidence tampering (Howard again), accessory to commit grand theft (Howard's car/keys), planting evidence (again, she didn't do it herself but was in on the plan), harassment, stalking...I'm sure there are more. Just because she didn't physically do these acts herself doesn't mean she can't be charged with those crimes. She pretty much masterminded the entire thing.

[Chaos Theory]

IT is possible to be a good person who does bad things.   Its the whole "hanging out with a bad crowd" thing   How much agency  does a person have in this case?  Kim did bad things while married to Jimmy and was aware they were bad things and it was HER CHOICE to do them.  Heck she had a chance to take that other job and she turned around to fix the con against Howard.    I am certain that if Howard hadn't been shot in FRONT OF THEM by Lalo in THEIR APARTMENT Kim would have continued on like they had planned as the public defender of the needy while Jimmy played a version of Saul Goodman.  How close to the version we saw in Breaking bad is hard to predict.      But Howard getting murdered in front of them was the fork in the road for Kim.   She did what she had to do to make sure they themselves didn't get murdered but that was the point where Kim just couldn't do it anymore.   That is where she chose a path to regain what conscience she had left.    I don't need to see her in the Breaking Bad universe but it would be interesting to see in the Gene universe.  Maybe have her walk past "Gene" in the distance and having him consider calling out to her but after everything he did in BOTH SHOWS finally letting her go.

Edited July 21, 2022 by Chaos Theory

[scenario]

1 minute ago, Bannon said:

Never said or implied it was easy. The fact remains that some people choose, sometimes without 2nd thought, to do the hard thing, and some of them have had disadvantages every bit as significant as Kim's or Jimmy's.

What I don't like about that way of thinking is that it can lead to some dark places. To make an over the top example, a ship sinks and 2000 people die and 1 person lives, do you say that the 2000 people didn't have to die if they tried harder? Why should we spend money making boat's safer. It's the people who died fault they died. They could have chosen to take the same path the one survivor did. They made bad choices. 

Yes some people choose the hard way. Most people don't. And most of the people who choose the easy way have a good honest life. They never had to make tough choices. They never had to overcome obstacles. It's easy to say that someone should through their whole life away to do the right thing. It's more difficult to do. 

I do not think Jimmy chose the right path. But I understand why someone might choose to go down the path he's been pushed towards his whole life when it led to a great deal of money. 

[Bannon]

10 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

He was kind of an a-hole. I remember thinking he deserved some kind of "punishment" just for being a jerk. Maybe not that punishment, but suffice it to say my heart didn't go out to him.

He was more than an A-hole. Jimmy overheard him blatantly bragging about cheating his clients by churning their accounts; that's how Jimmy knew how to play him.

The brilliance in this writing is how, over several years, it has shown how making cheap moral rationalizations can, over time, start small, and then grow into something hugely monstrous. Jimmy starts with cheating greedy, dishonest, A-holes he meets in bars, for relatively small stakes. Saul will end up participating in schemes that destroy thousands of innocent lives, including a young boy on a bicycle.

[Bannon]

9 minutes ago, scenario said:

I do not believe that people are born criminals. They are trained to be criminals. Jimmy chose to grift his father because his father was a terrible businessman who fell prey to every grifter he came across. "My babies hungry." "Take some milk and pay me back later." But he never bothered to keep track of who owned him what and never asked for the money back. His father would have gone out of business with or without Jimmy. 

Whenever Jimmy did a scam his mother loved it and praised him for it. "That's Jimmy, Isn't he a hoot." The scams were harmless at first. Talking two women into dating him at the same time. But once he met Marco, he became an actual criminal. But he was still his mom and dad's favorite. 

Everyone he met when he was a kid rewarded him for being a smooth talking grifter. Then he hit rock bottom and moved to New Mexico to change his ways. He worked in Chucks law office for years without committing any crimes. He worked full time and studied at night to become a lawyer. What happens when he tells Chuck. "You're a criminal. You can't change."

If people you respect tell you over and over and over that you are a bad person and can't change, it sinks in. That's why self esteem is so important. If you tell a child that they are worthless over and over again, they believe it.

Kim went through the same thing with her mother. Her mother systematically taught her to be a criminal. She broke away and was doing well until she got involved with Jimmy. She was working very hard but had no one in her life to share her life with until Jimmy. But Jimmy brought out the worst in her. She got worse and worse and rationalized it all because she was having too much fun. 

Finally, she realized that she had gone way too far and blew up her entire life to get out.

Jimmy has been told by his brother he's no good his entire life. All of the people he respects hate him now (for good reason). The only person he really cares about has left him. His reputation will follow him wherever he goes if he remains a lawyer. His only way out is to blow it all up like Kim did. So he has a choice of taking the money and being a rich and lonely person or blowing everything up and starting over in middle age. He'll have a nice nest egg but nothing else. 

It's easy to say "Just do the right thing and walk away from everything you care about." It's much more difficult to do.  

To be an ethical person will nearly always entail being asked to do very difficult things.  Everyone fails at some point. Some rise to the challenge more consistently than others.

[Bannon]

5 minutes ago, scenario said:

What I don't like about that way of thinking is that it can lead to some dark places. To make an over the top example, a ship sinks and 2000 people die and 1 person lives, do you say that the 2000 people didn't have to die if they tried harder? Why should we spend money making boat's safer. It's the people who died fault they died. They could have chosen to take the same path the one survivor did. They made bad choices. 

Yes some people choose the hard way. Most people don't. And most of the people who choose the easy way have a good honest life. They never had to make tough choices. They never had to overcome obstacles. It's easy to say that someone should through their whole life away to do the right thing. It's more difficult to do. 

I do not think Jimmy chose the right path. But I understand why someone might choose to go down the path he's been pushed towards his whole life when it led to a great deal of money. 

Being asked to make ethical choices in no way resembles being able to physically survive swimming in the open sea. I am truly puzzled by this analogy.

[scenario]

2 minutes ago, Chaos Theory said:

IT is possible to be a good person who does bad things.   Its the whole "hanging out with a bad crowd" thing   How much agency does does a person have in this case?  Kim did bad things while married to Jimmy and was aware they were bad things and it was HER CHOICE to do them.  Heck she had a chance to take that other job and she turned around to fix the con against Howard.    I am certain that if Howard hadn't been shot in FRONT OF THEM by Lalo in THEIR APARTMENT Kim would have continued on like they had planned as the public defender of the needy while Jimmy played a version of Saul Goodman.  How close to the version we saw in Breaking bad is hard to predict.      But Howard getting murdered in front of them was the fork in the road for Kim.   She did what she had to do to make sure they themselves didn't get murdered but that was the point where Kim just couldn't do it anymore.   That is where she chose a path to regain what conscience she had left.    I don't need to see her in the Breaking Bad universe but it would be interesting to see in the Gene universe.  Maybe have her walk past "Gene" in the distance and having him consider calling out to him but in after everything he did in BOTH SHOWS finally letting her go.

And it was an alcoholics choice to keep drinking. And a drug addicts choose to keep taking drugs. And smokers choose to keep smoking. And a person raised in a toxic religions choose to remain in that religion. 

Most people have a really good ability to lie to themselves. To justify their own awful behavior. People do awful things and tell themselves it was the moral thing to do all the time. Slavery existed in the U.S. because people believed it was the right thing to do. It's awful easy for a person to tell themselves lies to justify their behavior. 

That doesn't make it right but it is understandable. I understand why Jimmy and Kim did what they did. They were both pushed into the life and rewarded for doing it.

It's easy to say that they should have taken the hard path. It's much harder to do. Kim was strong enough and motivated enough to take the hard path eventually. Jimmy was not. The rewards for taking the easy path were too great. 

[wendyg]

5 hours ago, scenario said:

BCS is in many ways a classic tragedy. All the characters suffer. The Gus scene was to show that even though Gus was rich and powerful, his life was empty. People cared about his money but there's no one on earth who cared about him. 

Classical tragedy is what Gilligan does - BB is very much about a man with a tragic flaw.

One thing that's interesting about Gus is that he isn't really driven by money the way the others are. Mike wants it for Kaylee; Jimmy first to live the easy life, then to feel good about himself. But what really drives Gus is the desire for revenge and power. They all struggle to spend the money they make - but Gus doesn't even really have anything to spend it on other than his security posse.

[TheOtherOne]

1 minute ago, Bannon said:

If I misinterpreted them, it is only due to an assumption, which I prefer to not make, that Kim is a person who lacks agency. That assumption would make the entire story rather less interesting.

The edit I was working on probably wouldn't help with that, because my question was going to be: if all the options available to you are shitty, how much are you choosing to be shitty? Lying to the widow to cover for your husband? A shitty thing to do. Letting your husband twist in the wind and be found out when you could speak up and save him (for a situation that started with something you did)? A shitty thing to do. Coming clean and implicating him and endangering his life? A shitty thing to do.

I actually think that makes it more rather than less interesting. It's a complex situation where there is no good answer. I know you proposed the one you think is right, and if her actions would have no negative effect on anyone else, maybe it would be. But I think plenty would feel that betraying one's spouse by going to the authorities to make themselves feel better is also a shitty thing to do.

Honestly, I think attempting to dismiss her as a shitty person (your term) makes the story a lot less interesting and reduces much of her complexity. If she's just a shitty person doing shitty things...that's not interesting. ShadowFacts proposes that she's a bad human being who recognizes that and is punishing herself accordingly, but would a bad human being punish herself? Human beings are flawed. Human beings make bad or wrong choices. Maybe she's not a good person or a shitty person. Maybe she's just...a person?

[Bannon]

7 minutes ago, scenario said:

What I don't like about that way of thinking is that it can lead to some dark places. To make an over the top example, a ship sinks and 2000 people die and 1 person lives, do you say that the 2000 people didn't have to die if they tried harder? Why should we spend money making boat's safer. It's the people who died fault they died. They could have chosen to take the same path the one survivor did. They made bad choices. 

Yes some people choose the hard way. Most people don't. And most of the people who choose the easy way have a good honest life. They never had to make tough choices. They never had to overcome obstacles. It's easy to say that someone should through their whole life away to do the right thing. It's more difficult to do. 

I do not think Jimmy chose the right path. But I understand why someone might choose to go down the path he's been pushed towards his whole life when it led to a great deal of money. 

Sure, I understand why Jimmy chose his path, and I've said several times that different stimuli, most importantly in the form of a truly supportive brother, might have resulted in rather different behaviors from Jimmy. In the end, however, we are only left with what Jimmy did choose, and the undeniable fact that many people, when faced with circumstances every bit as unfavorable as Jimmy's, made ethically superior choices.

[Bannon]

2 minutes ago, TheOtherOne said:

The edit I was working on probably wouldn't help with that, because my question was going to be: if all the options available to you are shitty, how much are you choosing to be shitty? Lying to the widow to cover for your husband? A shitty thing to do. Letting your husband twist in the wind and be found out when you could speak up and save him (for a situation that started with something you did)? A shitty thing to do. Coming clean and implicating him and endangering his life? A shitty thing to do.

I actually think that makes it more rather than less interesting. It's a complex situation where there is no good answer. I know you proposed the one you think is right, and if her actions would have no negative effect on anyone else, maybe it would be. But I think plenty would feel that betraying one's spouse by going to the authorities to make themselves feel better is also a shitty thing to do.

Honestly, I think attempting to dismiss her as a shitty person (your term) makes the story a lot less interesting and reduces much of her complexity. If she's just a shitty person doing shitty things...that's not interesting. ShadowFacts proposes that she's a bad human being who recognizes that and is punishing herself accordingly, but would a bad human being punish herself? Human beings are flawed. Human beings make bad or wrong choices. Maybe she's not a good person or a shitty person. Maybe she's just...a person?

Now you are misinterpteting me. The sentence "x is a shitty person" is not synonymous with "x has chosen to be a shitty person". If you are contending that there is a real conumdrum, as to which is ethically worse, inflicting huge pain on Cheryl, or forcing yourself and your husband Saul Goodman to be held accountable for your deliberately hideous behavior, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

[scenario]

Just now, Bannon said:

Sure, I understand why Jimmy chose his path, and I've said several times that different stimuli, most importantly in the form of a truly supportive brother, might have resulted in rather different behaviors from Jimmy. In the end, however, we are only left with what Jimmy did choose, and the undeniable fact that many people, when faced with circumstances every bit as unfavorable as Jimmy's, made ethically superior choices.

I think that many, many people, maybe even most would make the same choices that Jimmy made in the same situation. 

People rarely rise above. The people who overcomes all obstacles to do the right thing are few and far between. They are the stories some people tell so they can pretend they are better than they are. Politicians use this sort of thing all the time. They pick the one person in a million who rises from great poverty and no education as a justification to keep an unfair system in place. Why should we help those million starving poor people? Look, look over there. There's that one person who rose above the poverty. Why couldn't they all have done that?

99.9% of the time, someone in Jimmy's situation isn't going to stop until he's slapped down by life. 

[Bannon]

4 minutes ago, scenario said:

99.9% of the time, someone in Jimmy's situation isn't going to stop until he's slapped down by life. 

I know you confidently believe this. I'll humbly suggest that the evidence which would lend support to that confidence is more sparse than you think.

Edited July 21, 2022 by Bannon

[scenario]

3 minutes ago, Bannon said:

Now you are misinterpteting me. The sentence "x is a shitty person" is not synonymous with "x has chosen to be a shitty person". If you are contending that there is a real conumdrum, as to which is ethically worse, inflicting huge pain on Cheryl, or forcing yourself and your husband Saul Goodman to be held accountable for your deliberately hideous behavior, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Which is worse. Telling a lie. Or sending you and your spouse to prison and losing your way of making a living? 

Lots and lots of people chose to keep the good life. 

The American lifestyle is not sustainable long term. We are using up irreplaceable resources. It will all eventually collapse and our children or our grandchildren will pay the price. Do we do the moral thing and give up luxuries like automobiles or do we take the easy path and keep driving? 

[Bannon]

1 minute ago, scenario said:

Which is worse. Telling a lie. Or sending you and your spouse to prison and losing your way of making a living? 

Lots and lots of people chose to keep the good life. 

The American lifestyle is not sustainable long term. We are using up irreplaceable resources. It will all eventually collapse and our children or our grandchildren will pay the price. Do we do the moral thing and give up luxuries like automobiles or do we take the easy path and keep driving? 

If you and your spouse have done what Kim and Saul have done, it's not even close. Turning yourself in is the only ethical choice.

I'll avoid a debate in this forum about your assertions pertaining to the economic activity of the citizens of the United States.

[scenario]

2 minutes ago, Bannon said:

If you and your spouse have done what Kim and Saul have done, it's not even close. Turning yourself in is the only ethical choice.

I'll avoid a debate in this forum about your assertions pertaining to the economic activity of the citizens of the United States.

People are very very good at justifying immoral behavior in themselves and people they respect. What one person considers immoral, others consider moral. 

In general, if people are rewarded for immoral behavior, they will justify it and keep doing it until they are stopped. Why stop if you don't believe what you were doing was immoral? 

[Bannon]

2 minutes ago, scenario said:

People are very very good at justifying immoral behavior in themselves and people they respect. What one person considers immoral, others consider moral. 

In general, if people are rewarded for immoral behavior, they will justify it and keep doing it until they are stopped. Why stop if you don't believe what you were doing was immoral? 

Yes, this is why moral debates are important; to illuminate, via reason, false moral assertions which are primarily motivated by self interest.

[SimplexFish]

This explains episode 9's time jump

https://screenrant.com/better-call-saul-season-6-episode-9-timejump-length/amp/

This explains is Gus gay? 

https://screenrant.com/gus-fring-gay-better-call-saul-breaking-bad-confirmed/?_gl=1*t5nl7s*_ga*cnluQ1dxY2Rad05RbWUtTG5na2FXWjVvcjdoVkZ1dHcwd1ZtRXV5ZG5CbGFUeEtYczhydkVySEZYRndhX0JqUA..