You’re gonna do whatever it takes!
Do you hear me?
You are not gonna play by the rules.
You’re gonna go your own way.
You’re gonna do what they won’t do.
You’re gonna be smart, you are gonna cut corners, and you are gonna win.
Remember, the winner takes it all.
I gotta go get my bus.
The Chicago Sunroof incident forever changed the life of Jimmy McGill.
Jimmy was potentially facing serious criminal charges until Chuck swooped in for the rescue,
on the condition that Jimmy clean up his act.
Jimmy said farewell to Marco, and Chuck got Jimmy a job at HHM in the mailroom where he
would meet Kim Wexler.
The stage was set for what would ultimately become the two biggest betrayals in Jimmy’s
life.
While working in the mailroom Jimmy felt indebted to Chuck who had literally saved him.
When Wexler went through law school and later became a lawyer, Jimmy admired her and followed
her lead in secret.
At this point in the story, Jimmy was working hard to make his brother proud.
Jimmy was trying to carve a path down a good choice road.
So his driving motivation here was to make Chuck proud, and at the same time maybe it
would impress Kim, too.
After all, Jimmy always seemed fond of her.
After Jimmy finally passed the bar, Chuck vouched for his brother, but Chuck was secretly
disgusted by the whole thing.
Chuck deliberately blocked Jimmy from getting a job at HHM, all the while using Howard as
a proxy, making it appear as if Howard was the real villain.
Jimmy struggled making it as a lawyer, where his Slippin’ Jimmy ways often resurfaced.
But when Jimmy discovered that the Sandpiper residents were being overcharged, he shared
this information with Chuck.
Jimmy was never happier than when it appeared he and his brother were going to work the
case together as a brotherly team.
Chuck knew the workload was too much for the two of them, but Jimmy didn’t.
And he was overjoyed with his mistaken belief that him and Chuck would battle together.
In his mind, this was the culmination of his good choice road.
Except, it was nothing of the sort.
Jimmy would soon learn of Chuck’s betrayal, that Howard was merely a pawn for Chuck.
This led Jimmy back to his roots, where he reunited with Marco for a last hoorah, before
Marco died during their last scam together.
Jimmy’s battle with Chuck continued, and Kim Wexler was stuck in the middle as her
and HHM battled for Mesa Verde.
All of this unfolded as Jimmy and Kim’s relationship blossomed.
Jimmy’s desire to please Chuck and make him proud kind of de facto shifted to Kim.
Now Kim was the one Jimmy primarily sought to please and make proud.
As their relationship grew, Jimmy introduced her, or rather reintroduced her to the con.
And Kim liked it!
It turned her on and made her feel alive.
Jimmy and Chuck continued their sibling feud, Kim was often right in the middle of it, Jimmy
committed fraud and used Chuck’s illness against him, and this ultimately led to Chuck
taking his own life.
Fast forward to Kim’s designs to ruin Howard.
Prior to that, the worst thing Jimmy ever did was his meanspirited ploy where he turned
Irene’s friends against her.
Irene trusted Jimmy, and he ruined one of the only good things she had going, her friendships!
Irene was left sad and miserable and lonely, and Jimmy ultimately realized he had taken
things too far, so he set up another scheme to counter-balance his actions, which ruined
his own reputation in the process, effectively ending his career in elder law.
But the scheme to ruin Howard was even worse, and it involved car theft, fraud, and drugging
Howard, among other things.
Right from the very beginning Jimmy was reluctant to ruin Howard.
Jimmy thought it was a bad idea.
When Kim brought it up the second time, Jimmy again clearly and visibly expressed his reluctance
to ruin Howard.
But Jimmy found Kim’s charms irresistible, and he would do anything to please her and
make her proud.
So Jimmy masterfully played along, as Kim orchestrated the blueprint to take Howard
down.
Even when she discovered Lalo was still alive, while already knowing Jimmy was reluctant
to ruin Howard, Kim lied by omission, knowing that this information would end the con.
Even when their plans were nearly thwarted by an arm injury, and Jimmy wanted to call
it off, Kim insisted, and they succeeded.
Howard’s good name was ruined.
Kim was mighty turned on, and of course, Kim’s lie of omission resulted in Howard getting
murdered by Lalo.
After the immediate aftermath of Howard’s murder, Kim breaks up with Goodman, and she
confesses her lie, that she met with Mike, she knew Lalo lived, and she knew if she told
Jimmy that he would call off the Howard scam.
When Jimmy was betrayed by Chuck, he went on a scheming bender with Marco and returned
to his Slippin’ Jimmy roots.
But after Kim revealed her betrayal, it literally put him on the fast track to becoming the
shady underhanded criminal scumbag lawyer known as Saul Goodman.
Now after his recent phone call with Kim, which came after the rush of his first con
in months, Goodman seemingly quadrupled down on his scummy ways.
It’s to the point now where he’s being outright reckless, almost as if he wants to
see exactly how far he can push before inevitably being stopped.
It’s still not entirely clear what happened on the phone call with Kim, but Jimmy is acting
in a way not unlike an alcoholic drowning his sorrows.
Jimmy’s coping mechanism is about living the hustle and the accompanying rush.
It almost acts as a distraction from dealing with the harsh and painful realities of his
past.
When Jimmy tried to take a good choice road and make Chuck proud, it backfired and bit
him in the ass.
Jimmy wanted to be a part of something with his brother, and his brother was disgusted
by the idea that he was a lawyer.
Then with the Howard scam, Jimmy tried to persuade Kim that their best bet was to leave
Howard alone, again embracing a good choice road.
But his desire to be a part of something with Kim overruled his judgment.
With both of these betrayals, Jimmy was trying to take a good choice road, and he was also
looking to have a memorable bond with loved ones.
The good choice road ultimately did him no good, and the desire to have a lasting bond
with Chuck and Kim led to painful betrayals.
It’s as if Jimmy said screw that!
I may as well march my way down a bad choice road, marching to the beat of my own drum,
and that’s the only way to truly get ahead.
The game is inherently stacked, and Chuck and Kim both made Jimmy feel like a sucker.
Jimmy hated that.
From his childhood lesson he learned about wolves and sheep, he never wanted to be a
sucker like his old man.
But Chuck and Kim, the only two people we’ve ever known him to truly love - they both played
him, they both used him, and they both manipulated him.
And before those betrayals, you get the sense that Jimmy would have done anything he could
have reasonably done for either of them.
For me the scene that best depicts Saul Goodman’s outlook on life, especially following the
betrayal of Kim - Goodman basically spells it all out in his conversation with Kristy
Esposito, the young woman who didn't get the scholarship, in large part because she was
defined by a shoplifting incident from her past.
It’s unclear whether Kristy ever heeded to Goodman’s advice, but he certainly followed
his own example here.
Indeed, Goodman would become the living embodiment of that unsolicited advice he offered.
Saul was feeling sorry for himself at that moment, and he was feeling sorry for himself
after Chuck betrayed him, and again even more so after Kim betrayed him.
While in the role of a lone wolf, Goodman is generally more of an opportunist with predatory
inclinations.
Based on what we know of him, this is almost always the case when he isn’t teamed up.
But the one lone exception where we don’t have a lot of information is during his long
stint in the mail room where he took courses from the University of American Samoa.
We know he was driven by a desire to make Chuck proud, and perhaps to help impress Kim.
Did he cut any corners back then?
Or is this a period in his life where Jimmy acted properly, and he put in the hard work
and dedication?
I do wonder if we won’t see a flashback to that period, and whether the audio teaser
that sounds like Kim being sworn in isn’t a flashback to when she originally became
a lawyer.
As we wind down the final stretch, it feels like Goodman is undoubtedly irredeemable.
Even if he decided to voluntarily turn himself in at this point, it remains unclear that
Goodman has any real path to redemption.
Will Marion prove pivotal in his inevitable downfall?
Will Kim again betray Saul and crush him once again?
Is there a potential path to redemption?
Whatever happens, whether Goodman continues down the bad choice road, or whether he does
find some degree of redemption down a good choice road, whatever choices he makes we
know the end of the road is right around the corner.
And with just 2 episodes remaining, I for one am very fired-up to see how it all plays
out.
But one way or another, I suspect I’m less than 2 weeks away from yelling DOWN GOES GOODMAN!
DOWN GOES GOODMAN!
IT’S OVA!
Thank you very much for watching everyone, I hope you enjoyed, and have a wonderful night!
Pollos Hermanos, Pollos Hermanos, delicious chicken grilled or fried.
Pollos Hermanos, Pollos Hermanos.
Hey you gotta tell Howard to add another “M” to the firm, because it will make it more
symmetrical.
Uh-huh.
And people love symmetricality.
I can’t argue with that.
Yeah.
We’re not talking about a bar trick here.
We’re talking about scorched earth.
At the end of it he might never be able to practice law again.
We’re working together on this?
That’s up to you Jimmy.
We are not taking in any new associates into the firm.
Bullshit!
New associates?
When someone walks in with a case like this you beg them to be partner!
I was thinking about our first move on the Howard front.
We’re doing that?
I thought we were, aren’t we?
Howard, I don’t know what to say.
I am very disappointed.
I really think you should reconsider.
I’m sorry, but no.
Most likely he’ll never reach out.
He’s got bigger fish to fry.
But in the thousand to one chance that he does.
“B” as in, uhh, “B” as in betrayal.
He has a good heart.
It’s just, he can’t help himself, and everyone’s left picking up the pieces.
Why are you telling me this and not him?
Because I think you’re made of sterner stuff.
“B” as in, “B” as in brother.
Brother.
You’re not a real lawyer!
University of American Samoa for Chrissake?
An online course!
What a joke!
I love you.
I love you, too.
But so what.
Stealing them blind!
And he gets to be a lawyer?
What a sick joke!
I should have stopped him when I had the chance!
Mike Ehrmantraut had guys watching both of us, watching for Lalo.
Mike told you that Lalo was alive?
I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but the truth is you’ve never mattered all that
much to me.
I was having too much fun!
Your name came up.
She asked if you were alive.
She asked about me.
Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding
Pollos Hermanos, Pollos Hermanos, delicious chicken grilled or fried.
Pollos Hermanos, Pollos Hermanos.
You know Quasimodo predicted all of this.
What is this?
That my friends is Albuquerque's public enemy #1.
You’re gonna do whatever it takes!
Do you hear me?
You are not gonna play by the rules.
You’re gonna go your own way.
You’re gonna do what they won’t do.
You’re gonna be smart, you are gonna cut corners, and you are gonna win.
We’re done when I say we’re done.
No man!
I can’t do that.
I can’t.
I get it.
You’ll get over it.
We can ust let this one go.
It’s not your call.
It’s not over until…
You know, forget it.
You’re fired.
Just go!
Just give me the camera and go!
Fine.
Good!
Go, we don’t need you.
It’s over.
You don’t matter all that much to them.
So what?
So what.
Screw them!
Remember, the winner takes it all!
You’re done!
You are done!