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OT: Movies/TV Shows

LeafOfFaith said:
I did think that. But I think the whole point of the series is that the good guy got crushed out of him by life and others. But then out of nowhere, he comes back, and just in time to do something that made zero sense and helped no one.
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The three flashback scenes were instructive. They all set up the fact that Jimmy was irredeemably bad. Not that he was a good guy, but that he was bad right from the start as Slippin' Jimmy before anyone crushed the life out of him. They were leading us that way the whole episode...and then flipped it at the end. Despite what he said in the flashbacks, he DID have regrets about stuff other than just money. He did regret what he did to his brother. he did regret losing kim. Just like you suspected. And in the end he chooses to have some redemption, without any other benefit to himself.
 
LeafOfFaith said:
That “only issue” is the whole ending. I’m good with where he ends up, but really disappointed in how he ends up there, and that’s kinda everything for me at least.
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It’s not the whole ending, at least not for me. There was a lot of build-up to him ending up in that courtroom, most of which I liked. And whether his 180 happened or not, the series was going to end up with him in jail.

So, that one part doesn’t entirely ruin the ending for me, even if I didn’t love it.
 
zeke said:
The three flashback scenes were instructive. They all set up the fact that Jimmy was irredeemably bad. Not that he was a good guy, but that he was bad right from the start as Slippin' Jimmy before anyone crushed the life out of him. They were leading us that way the whole episode...and then flipped it at the end. Despite what he said in the flashbacks, he DID have regrets about stuff other than just money. He did regret what he did to his brother. he did regret losing kim. Just like you suspected. And in the end he chooses to have some redemption, without any other benefit to himself.
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Interesting perspective.

And I guess it does make sense that Chuck, Mike & Walt all got bullshit answers from him to the “time machine/regrets” thought experiment, but the one person he finally dropped the mask for was Kim.
 
But I would have been totally on board with Saul getting out with 7yrs time and not redeeming himself with Kim. It would have worked too. But unsatisfying for different reasons.

They couldn't have made it all happy - he couldn't have got away with minimal time AND get Kim's love back too, I don't think.

heck they could have gone super dark and had him in jail for life and no redemption, too. that might have even rung truest.
 
This did make me wanna watching Breaking Bad again though. Mother fucker, it's too long. Probably won't do it. But I'm tempted.
 
I was thinking of watching BB but have to be honest even in the flashbacks Walt and Jessie still didn't ring true for me.
 
zeke said:
I was thinking of watching BB but have to be honest even in the flashbacks Walt and Jessie still didn't ring true for me.
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Watch the damn series. Same creator. It's still fabulous although I prefer BCS but only slightly.
 
zeke said:
I was thinking of watching BB but have to be honest even in the flashbacks Walt and Jessie still didn't ring true for me.
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If there was one complaint I had about Better Call Saul, it's that I didn't feel like Jesse and Walt were very good in their roles. Granted, it has been awhile since they played those characters so I don't necessarily blame them.. But I felt like there was some over-acting and some things done or said that weren't necessarily true to their characters. It has been awhile since I watched too, so maybe I'm wrong there.
 
LeafGm said:
Interesting perspective.

And I guess it does make sense that Chuck, Mike & Walt all got bullshit answers from him to the “time machine/regrets” thought experiment, but the one person he finally dropped the mask for was Kim.
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That doesn't make sense. He didn't give them bullshit answers. Those were his real answers because after Mike says "it's only about the money for you?" or whatever, Saul ignores him and says let's go. And then when Walt says "so you've always been this way", he doesn't dispute it and just eats it. He never had any regret. He ripped off a guy with cancer just before this last episode and fired the henchman who questioned the morality of it, executed the plan by himself, and was willing to smash the guy over the head and maybe kill him to escape, before the guy luckily nodded off and cleared the way. The Saul that came out of Gene was more rotten than ever, because the Saul that came out of Jimmy did have limits, and Gene's Saul had zero. So, it's supposed to be believable that after everything, this clear progression to being worse and worse, that somehow dingdong Jimmy's back just in time to force the judge to give him way worse a sentence that he just finished squeezing out of them in the plea deal? The Jimmy that we knew never would've never done something like that himself. This was some Jimmy on nice guy stupid pills that came out of nowhere to throw his life away for literally no reason. If I were Odenkirk, I wouldn't have agreed to go along with that. It just wasn't the character at all, and certainly not at that stage of his life.
 
Preston said:
If there was one complaint I had about Better Call Saul, it's that I didn't feel like Jesse and Walt were very good in their roles. Granted, it has been awhile since they played those characters so I don't necessarily blame them.. But I felt like there was some over-acting and some things done or said that weren't necessarily true to their characters. It has been awhile since I watched too, so maybe I'm wrong there.
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Their cameos were pointless. The first one was what, a comedy shtick? The second one was fine, but ultimately had no impact on anything.
 
LeafOfFaith said:
Their cameos were pointless. The first one was what, a comedy shtick? The second one was fine, but ultimately had no impact on anything.
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Yeah it felt like a cheap effort to shoehorn them in more than anything. Which is understandable. It's what the fans wanted. I could have done without it, though. They weren't very good or interesting and it actually made me want to re-watch Breaking Bad even less.
 
Maybe their cameos weren't representative but even in these brief scenes it just reinforced to me how much better the characters on Saul are.
 
Jesse, I agree. I thought he was highly overrated on Breaking Bad. Walt? Eh. Debatable. His character development and the depth in his character was comparable to Saul's IMO. I just think he really really sucked in the Saul show and it was not representative of much IMO.

But Kim was far and away better than any secondary character in BB. She was phenomenal as Saul's "Jesse".
 
zeke said:
You literally started this discussion saying Jimmy was a good guy deep down.
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I did, and I still think that, but it got stomped out of him. First by life when he stupidly took a dump in that car with the kid in it and got a prison sentence out of it. Then when he works his ass off in the mailroom and gets his law degree in his spare time only to have his own brother block him off from a respectable job and start of a new career. Then when he successfully gets that class action all by himself and Chuck forces Howard to hand it over and kick him off the case. Then when Kim pushes him to crazy lengths just to destroy Howard for absolutely no reason other than her itch to see him suffer (as Howard himself said before he died, though he attributed it to both of them). Then when Kim leaves him after all that he did for her. And several other instances where finally there was no good left and he was left alone and untethered. He goes into hiding as Gene, but even then can't get Saul out of his system and starts ripping off people again, and no victim is an inappropriate victim.

Then he gets caught and hears Kim sold him out along with herself, and after negotiating what most would consider still a long prison term (7 fucking years is a long time), he finds Jimmy again and puts on a show in court to get 86 years to destroy himself and do nothing for Kim other than let her witness the dramatics? Come on.

Jimmy got worse and worse with each episode. It should've ended with him doing something really, really bad and getting himself finally too deep in over his head (or even just the meh stuff they actually did in the final episodes) and winding up in jail or dead, despite his best efforts to get out of it. Not him sabotaging himself on purpose, for no reason, and throwing the rest of his life away.
 
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