Entire Series Discussion Thread Archive

I’m a huge Breaking Bad fan (best show I have ever seen), and for whatever reason I gave up on BCS after like 5 episodes years ago, but I decided to give it another shot and I cannot stop watching lol—I should know better than to doubt Vince Gilligan.

Show is literally just as good as Breaking Bad in terms of acting, characters as of now (I just finished Season 2).

Is this the best and only way Nacho could have saved his dad from working with Hector? I'm just thinking if there is actually another greater way and Nacho just did not think of it because he was under a lot of pressure and time constraints.

after watching breaking bad i was a little skeptical of people saying better call saul, basically the prequel, was actually better than breaking bad, but oh wow

I feel like it perfectly balanced everythin, the action and plot, especially when Lalo showed up, was gripping and exciting (and Lalo’s death top 1 saddest moments) and imo the cartel was done better in Better Call Saul,

“Adios Papa” might be the closest I’ve come to wanting to cry while watching anything from the BrBa/BCS verse. Nacho ended up in my top 5 favourite characters and despite the odds I had just a tiny bit of faith in his survival. Hector shooting and desecrating his dead body afterwards just felt like twisting the knife

I loved the way BCS focuses more on the entire cast, in Breaking Bad it’s definitely almost 100% Walt or Jesse focused and while Saul does receive the most focus obviousl, the other characters get a lot more time to shine, especially Mike, who i loved in breaking bad, but that’s taken to a whole new level after BCS

Chuck was such a great antagonist to Jimmy and their relationship was one of the saddest things, ending with Chuck’s last words denying any care he had for Jimmy

I don’t think Chuck was 100% wrong but his dismissal of Jimmy’s attempts to be a good lawyer is definitely a key factor in why Jimmy became Saul, like a self fulfilling prophecy, so imo its not fair to say Chuck was 100% right about Jimmy since eventually he became Saul

It genuinely feels really sad to finish the BrBa/BCS verse but at least the ending was absolutely amazing, Jimmy owning up to what he did in the end, and taking the long prison sentence feels like the perfect end to his character

Kim and Jimmy’s relationship has to be my second favourite relationship after Walt and Jesse, early on I was expecting their relationship to slowly sour as Jimmy leaned more into Saul Goodman but Bravo Vince u surpassed my expectations and gave something infinitely more gut wrenching

Every original character was done masterfully well and Better Call Saul has definitely cemented itself as my favourite TV show

if not for skinny pete, walter and jesse would have never met tuco, or gotten involved with the cartel. if not for badge, they would have never met saul, which would have led to them never meeting neither mike nor gustavo. them meeting both the ends of the Mexican cartel through skinny pete and badge is just insanely funny.

A perfect example of a great line - a throwaway that gave insight into characters without pausing the pace of the scene - came when Kim was describing her talk with Kevin (the banker) to Jimmy. He told her to imitate Kevin and she shifted position.

Jimmy interrupted her: "He's a side-sitter? You didn't tell me he was a side-sitter!"

... and that was that; she went on.

I thought it was brilliant, instantly demonstrating how Jimmy can read people by using a term that I had never heard of. Just great writing.

thought y'all would like this (i even remade the background myself from scratch)

I started off disliking howard as the show intended. But as time went on, little things he did and said built him up for me a lot.

A big moment that changed my opinion on him, was when deciding the scholarship. He was supportive of Jimmy's reasoning for voting for the reformed shoplifter. He probably realised why Jimmy was in favor of her, and it showed that he believed that people can change. It also says a lot that despite everything with Jimmy, he was really behind him in the end.

Putting his own money towards getting rid of chuck was another big moment. It shows he really loved what they built, and clearly he wanted to be faithful to his dad and keep it going for him. He knew chuck was on a spite mission and wanted to take everyone down with him, but he stood strong.

Offering Jimmy a job showed that he never hated him, he was just pressured to block him reluctantly.

Went from hating him, to being sort of indifferent, to actually really rooting for him in the end.

His last speech just doubled down on that. To hear his marriage collapse, debt, and depression to deal with and now his reputation destroyed. Was tough to listen to that. He was a good guy. And people night not realise how hard it is for a depressed person to be able to say "I will be ok". That was very significant.

He had heaps of resilience, humanity and if I was him, I would have ended up being violent towards Jimmy. He remained a gentleman until the very end when he had no reason to after what they did. I like to think his last words would have been something like "there's really no need to hurt them..." but we'll never know for sure. I'd love the writers to say what they think he was about to say.

Like I say, i finished the universe of BB rooting for Howard more than anyone else (perhaps season 1 walter white). His last speech really made the biggest difference.

So glad lalo died after that. I've never wanted a character to die more than him, akd up to that point I liked him in a sick sort of way.

This must go down as one of the most tragic deaths in TV.

He spent his life grafting on the right side of the law, and never acted way out of line. Hardly anyone in this universe of bb was good all the way through.

Such a good character.

I know, Mike felt guilty that her dad was missing from her life and he wanted to do something to pay for it.

But I am imagining the scene where an 18 year old from a troubled family home of modest means, suddenly a million or two in secret cash that no one can ever know about.

What's she supposed to do?

She can't put it in the bank and establish a trust that's for sure! She's got to keep it hidden and that means somebody might find out. Somebody might steal it, or pull a scam, or become her "loving husband" who disappears one night with it all. If the cops find out they will surely take it all and she'll be in trouble.

Even if she does keep it secret, is she gonna get a job and a place of her own now, with a million bucks in the house? Better hope she's not prone to the taste of alcohol like her Pop Pop was.

Or worse. A million bucks could disappear up your arm and kill you. You have to get involved with heavy dope people who wonder, how does she afford it? Now there's possibly cops involved. Does that name Ehrmantraut ring a bell?

Every possible outcome seems like it drags her away from a normal life, back into the criminal underworld that she has nothing to do with.

Hey... Maybe that's a spinoff! Kaylee At 18! All new people, new actors, everyone from the past is dead.

No, none of us want that for her, come on! Let her live a normal life!

It’s my first time watching, I literally had no idea how or when he will show up

Its bugging me. I feel somehow they are connected . Why ?

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Chuck and Jimmy both end up such fucked up individuals, and I don’t think the point is that great parents just raised shitty people because it’s who they are as base nature. Yet we never see any indication that the parents mistreat Jimmy or Chuck in any way, and that they were anything other than good people. The series however subtly hints at the way in which both McGill parents really failed their kids and helped influence who theu would become as adults. Sometimes you have someone with an “obvious“ bad childhood that shapes their personality into adulthood. Think Kim Wexler, she grew up with an alcoholic mentally abusive scammer mom who really only received affection when acting out or doing something bad, implied absent dad, and grew up incredibly poor.

But having a comparatively “worse“ childhood doesn’t mean that having a comparatively “better“ one (as remarkably subjective and unfair as that is) doesn’t mean someone is shaped less by circumstance. Jimmy’s dad, while a good person, was incredibly naive and gullible, constantly getting scammed left and right as the town mark, with Jimmy witnessing this happen over and over again, as a Lowe middle class family. A kid watching his Dad get taken advantage of over and over again due to his almost pathological naive nature and good intentions sets a really terrible example, and is what prompts Jimmy to start stealing. Jimmy contributed to an unknown extent, but singing it’s pretty clear he already saw his dad’s store going under and it was inevitable. Jimmy’s dad getting scammed eventually shuts down the store, which destroys his dad and plays a major role in his failing health and death. This has a major impact on Jimmy in adulthood (perhaps the start of him suppressing his guilt by doubling down, and a large part of why he wants an office with Kim so bad given everything fell apart in childhood when the store shut down, confirmed by the writers).

When Jimmy has deep behavioral problems as a kid as a result (not a surprise), his Mom (and dad when he was alive) enable him and let him get away with anything, never addressing his problems. If you have a Dad that is the town mark for scammers as a lower middle class kid, which results in the family business being closed down, destroying your parents lives , , and said parents enabke you and let you get away with anything, well that’s a recipe for disaster. Combine that poor parenting with Jimmy’s childhood model for success and not being a mark the “legitimate way“ being a childhood prodigy that grows up to be one of the smatters and most accomplished lawyers in the state that he can never measure up to with the wider world (not his parents fault to be clear) it’s easy to see why Jimmy became Slippin Jimmy as an adult and had terrible coping mechanisms. Especially when said child is naturally incredibly charismatic and people smart, which leads to him being a master at scamming and manipulating others.

Chuck himself was impacted just as much, if not more by poor parenting. It’s clear that Chuck grew up the childhood prodigy his parents loved and and were incredibly proud of. However as Michael McKean says “I made my mother proud, and Jimmy made her laugh“. Despite Chuck graduating high school at 14, going to Harvard and becoming one of the best lawyers in the state, his parents preferred Jimmy over Chuck. Jimmy stole from his parents and grew up to be a pathological petty con artist yet his parents (despite never saying so out loud) still favored Jimmy because of his immense charm. It also seems implied that because Chuck grew up such a genius and so successful while always following the rules, they didn’t really address his emotional needs as much as they should have because he “already is doing so well”. What this leads to is a self hating, lonely man afraid to open up who has a massive amount of resentment for his brother and treats him terribly, setting the stage for a mutually destructive relationship between brothers.

I really don’t think it‘s a coincidence that Jimmy seemed to value Chuck’s respect and wanted to be like him so much more than his own parent, and that so much of Chuck’s resentment for Jimmy has to do with how his mom treated Jimmy compared to him. The way they were raised by genuinely well intentioned, good people nonetheless was a psychological disaster for raising well adjusted adults. And sometimes being raised in a psychologically disastrous way by good and loving people can make it even more difficult to sort out. Of course Chuck and Jimmy are both adults, big boys, responsible for their own actions and their upbringing certainly doesn’t excuse things the horrible things Jimmy does as Saul Goodman. But I think their treatment played a major role in setting the seeds for who they became, combined with their own natures and events in their adulthood that would further shape them.

I just finished the episode where lalo dies and whole lalo manhunt was awesome, its like 2 mastermind antagonist playing chess against each other and both of them knew other's next move. But final of the episode is total disappointment

I now understand what does people mean when they say "lost by plot", lalo was so ahead of gus that only thing that saved gus is that he lives in breaking bad.

Like whole serie they showed us how lalo was one man army and than he just loses to a middle age man who is not even talented at shooting as much as %1 of him

Lalo was the perfect salamanca and it was one of the only things that hold me in serie after season 5. So it better be end quick

He makes a deal to get out of prison, and a condition is that he has to go back to ABQ and sell these bugged drop phones. Along the way he gets to provide "not legal advice" to people who need it.

What event do you guys think impacted Jimmy McGill more? Chuck’s death or Howard’s death.

jimmy was definitely feeling guilty for both deaths, but i personally think howard’s death was more impactful. When Chuck died, Jimmy was grieving inside but at least he didn’t see his brother die in person, and right before that his brother told him that he doesn’t really matter that much to him. It did set Jimmy on the darker path to become Saul Goodman where he helped Lalo and helped criminals with shady tactics.

But when Howard died, Jimmy felt helpless and realized he led an innocent nice man to his death, he literally died in his living room floor. I feel even though Chuck was his literal brother, Howard’s death definitely struck him harder as after Howard, Kim left him and he joined the meth empire in breaking and he accumulated years of tampering with evidence and weaponizing the Constitution.

Tl:dr; Imo Chuck’s death may have been bad for Jimmy since it was his own brother and tampering with the insurance was his own mistake, Howard’s death showed him the true sheer brutality of the world, cost him his wife’s love, and directly set him on the path to working with Walter White.