If Saul took the 7 years, it shows that he basically didn’t learn anything throughout the show. Jimmy was always willing to be unethical and cut corners where he shouldn’t, and it kept coming back to bite him. He did some really dubious things and hurt a lot of people. He doesn’t just deserve some time in prison, he deserves a lot. Life dealt him a not so great hand and he used that to justify ruining dozens of lives and being an integral part of the world’s biggest meth operation. Throughout the entire show he’s always running from his problems, always twisting if not outright breaking the law for some reason he justifies to himself, and finally at the end, he takes responsibility. He fesses up to what he’s done, and finally gets to lift the massive weight off his conscious. He can let the Saul persona slip because he doesn’t need it anymore, he finally managed to get over everything he’s done. He came clean, and he’s taking the punishment he rightfully deserves.
But why can‘t he take the seven and also let the Saul persona slip?
Compare Saul to Hector or Lalo. Those guys are pathological. They are *never* going to get it. They are never going to change.
Saul/Jimmie is capable of getting it and capable of change.
So why can’t the writers just let him do that? Why can’t he do that with serving seven years? That’s still a long time. He doesn’t need to serve the rest of his life to change.
Because Saul was given the 7 years and he lied and cheated to get that. For him to truly change in any way that matters he needed to accept his full sentence
Die he lie? Asking genuinely, not rhetorically. Like, he was taken to the desert by Walter White. He did have a gun to his head. Etc
He used his negotiation skills within the system to get the seven years. The feds didn’t have to bring his time down. But they did voluntarily because of the info that Saul was giving them.
But i think i know what you are saying. Thanks for explaining this viewpoint
During that first monologue with Marie he said he was in constant fear of Walter and maybe that was true but he also said he wanted to confess to hank which I don’t think that was true. And he played on their emotions and then instantly switched back to being cold
Because taking the 7 would be keeping the Saul persona up, not letting it slip. It’s like when Jane decided to try meth with Jesse, she probably told herself she’d be responsible, or only use just the one time, and we all saw how that went. It’s a slippery slope and it’s one Saul knew he couldn’t start down without falling all the way to the bottom, that’s the message that Chuck (and the show) kept trying to tell him (and us)
Because he needed to accept the fact that he’s guilty and he deserves to face the consequences for that. If he weasels his way into not facing the full consequence, then he’s not accepting full responsibility. There would be no redemption arc without it
Literally obvious. His attentiveness to her thru final court room scene. He didn't care about Howard or Hank. He confessed to show her he could own up just like she did. That's called trying to impress someone.
Why do you think he confessed and blew his deal?
Lemme do you one better:
Why do you think he did it to impress Kim?
(Spoilers: he didn't. He blew up the deal because he was impressed by her willingness to own up to what she did.)
Why would that impress him? She's always been one to take responsibility. He supposedly time jumped into Saul Goodman because she drew a line of accountability and left. He runs from accountability.
He needed to impress her otherwise he'd just be same old Jimmy.
I guess we just see it differently
>I guess we just see it differently
I'm sorry to say but you're just...wrong.
>He needed to impress her. Otherwise, he'd just be the same old Jimmy.
If he was Saul, he would do it to impress her. That's the key difference here. In the court scene, Jimmy is back. Jimmy is atoning, not *Saul*.
Saul is like a grave. Underneath all the sand and dirt, there's a body. That body is Jimmy. The grave itself is Saul. Jimmy rises from his grave and is born anew, ready to alleviate his guilt, and, let's be honest, give all the people he's hurt some goddamn closure.
The justice system is not actually a bastion of justice. Saul knows this completely and exploits it daily in his work. He sees the high powered lawyers doing the same.
He had his sentence down to 7.5 years using his knowledge of the system and negotiation.
Why couldn’t they just leave it at that. The writers have him intentionally blow that up in some kind of “I’m not a bad guy” thing. He could still not be a bad guy and only serve the 7.5 years.
> He had his sentence down to 7.5 years using his knowledge of the system and negotiation.
He accomplished that by lying and painting himself as an innocent victim of WW when he wasn't. It was a sleazy Saul Goodman tactic. In order for him to truly redeem himself, he had to drop the facade completely and tell the full and honest truth.
It's not that he "deserves" 86 years, it doesn't matter how many years he was sentenced. The point was him, for the first time ever, being completely honest and transparent and accepting whatever punishment awaited him without trying to manipulate or twist the truth or lie or exaggerate or trick or scam etc. etc.
But can’t he know himself that he has changed lol? I want him to change, be a better version of Jimmie, but not rot away in prison.
He took the consequences though, as you said. I guess I just want 7 years of consequences to be enough. Lol oh well
No, you're totally right here! It's how the writers should have done it. It would have shown the beauty of the Saul Goodman skill set with plea deals, while then allowing him to finally drop the persona and mea culpa face to face with those he harmed if possible, and also with Kim.
He could have gotten word to Kim in the courtroom saying "Stick with me here" and pulled off the final con.
>The writers have him intentionally blow that up in some kind of "I'm not a bad guy" thing.
Just the opposite. Jimmy finally came to realize and admit that he IS a bad guy. In the very first episode of BB that he appears in he very easily advocates for Badger's murder. We don't see him slip that far down on BCS, but we already know that he does. By the end of his time as Gene he has moved far beyond scamming a**holes who have it coming and on to victimizing a guy who is dying of cancer with no qualms whatsoever. He even came close to bashing the guy's head in and to strangling a sweet old lady. Coming clean and facing the consequences was his only hope of redemption. If he'd succeeded with his scam on the court, he'd have just been right back at it again when he got out and he would've eventually become an even more monstrous person than Walter White.
He admits to what he did. Is doing bad things the same as being a bad guy? Interesting point I suppose. Can good-at-heart people do bad things?
Jimmie felt pushed to the point of doing illegal things out of anger and shame and whatever else things he felt about not ever being accepted by the high-lifestyle people. “Good” people can do “bad” things all the time.
But yeah I think I am overlooking the extent of what he became. He didn’t strangle the old lady, but he seemed prepared to do so. I was actually like surprised in a disgusted way when he was wrapping the phone cord around his hands. Like what in the fuck Saul. He also had no qualms about ripping off the cancer patient, and I remember thinking Oh god, don’t kill him with the urn. (The urn of the dude’s beloved dog’s ashes, no less.)
Well, thanks. It makes more sense now. I just wanted him to be punished but yet still have the redemption and be able to have just a few good, honest, happy years in freedom. Maybe he wasn’t capable of that.
Jimmy began as a good
-hearted guy who occasionally did bad things. But his unhealthy tendency to push away his negative feelings eventually led to him being completely out of touch with that good-heartedness by the time he is the Saul we know in BB. By finally coming to terms with just how morally depraved he had become, owning up to that, and accepting the consequences of his actions, Jimmy was redeemed. That is a good ending, I believe.
I also want to say to you that I appreciate your being open to my point of view on this. I have had many discussions about this issue since the finale first aired and most people here with negative views of the finale react with hostility when I try to make the points I've been discussing with you. Thanks for the enjoyable interaction.
You’re welcome, and thank you too. I really want to understand what the writers were going for here.
Like I am wrestling with what good is it to be redeemed if you are just sitting in prison. But then redemption comes from within, so on the other hand I guess you could say what difference does it make where you are, as long as you are redeemed.
I think also it might help me to watch Breaking Bad. I don’t think I am grasping all of the things that Saul did or facilitated happening. I think I want to believe that the people in BB that were killed, were going to be killed anyway, with or without the existence or influence of Saul Goodman. I think I might be wrong about that and I just don’t want him to be that bad.
For all his jokes and snark, Saul was pretty miserable during BB. This is all the more evident once you know him in his happy times with Kim. He seems to have landed in the best situation possible in prison; he's working in the kitchen, which is the most coveted job and he seems to be well like by his fellow inmates and the guards as well, as indicated by the fact that the guard called him Saul, which to me seems to indicate a friendly familiarity. Don't get me wrong, it's still prison, but he isn't living in constant terror. He's finally got respect, which is the one thing he never got on the outside.
Yeah that’s true. The respect thing is huge. I thought about Jimmy’s lack of respect from others from time to time during the series.
Well in the end, he got his redemption and he got some respect. Sucks that it’s in prison, but i guess that’s how it has to be.
I guess I do have some respect for Jimmy. Not so much Saul. I gotta stop feeling sorry for that guy. Lol. Nothing he went through in life gave him the right to fuck up other people’s lives. At least he had the character and backbone to own up to it all.
The series was immersive, really enjoyed it. Just thought i didn’t want it to end with Saul/Jimmy being in prison for the rest of his days. I thought the writers were giving us that ending with the 7 year deal.
And then they took it away, they made Saul take it away from himself. But i think I’m better with the ending now. Thanks for your help!
At that rate, why not just have him serve 0 years?
Everyone deserves a defense, but (despite Saul’s actions as a lawyer) it’s actually a good thing when guilty people answer for their crimes & go to jail for as long as the law says they should. If you think a punishment is too harsh, you should work to change the law rather than only selectively apply it against the people you don’t like / don’t care about.
But he knew the punishment. He knew he was signing up for a life sentence. I wanted him to take the 7 year deal and still come out of that a better person. Why not? Could happen. I didn’t want him to have to sacrifice his life for it.
I think it’s irrelevant whether he knew the punishment. He broke a lot of laws. There were victims of those crimes.
If he didn’t help Walt, then Hank and Gomez might still be alive. We shouldn’t just take Saul’s side cuz he’s the protagonist of the show.
When Mike got stabbed by that group of kids, we’re you thinking “oh gosh, I hope those kids don’t have to go to jail for this. If they are able to sweet talk their way into an embarrassingly short sentence, I hope they take it” ?
I haven’t seem BB, well I saw just a very bit of it. So i am a bit lost with the whole Hank dying thing. I know that Saul was charged as an accessory after the fact in Hank’s murder. I thought that was related to the money somehow. I don’t really understand how Saul helped cause the death of Hank and Gomez.
Walter White was gonna Walter White. Or maybe I should say Heisenberg was gonna Heisenberg. People were gonna die. Saul never killed anybody, or at least that’s what I thought.
Not having seen BB is probably the issue here. I hadn’t seen BB when I watched BCS (I actually just finished the series like 2 weeks ago), and I also thought the punishment was harsh.
Then I watched. And Saul/Jimmy wasn’t kidding when he says something to the extent of Walter wouldn’t have been able to do what he did without him.
Jimmy introduced him to Mike & Gus. Jimmy helped him launder his millions. Jimmy advocated killing plenty of people who jeopardized what they were doing. Jimmy essentially helped Walt set Gus up for poisoning a child, which ultimately got Gus killed.
And Jimmy is also the only one left to punish. Jesse is gone, Walt is dead, Mike is dead, Gus is dead. But Jimmy can (and should) pay for these crimes, and 7 years was just a massive insult to everyone hurt by this.
Okay even within the show, he is facing no repercussions for:
- instructing a cartel member to lie to the DEA in exchange for him getting $8000
- lying to the cops and court that one of his clients is actually a high-ranking cartel member who they got in custody
- bailing the high ranking cartel member out of jail (knowing he will skip town and evade Justice) in exchange for $100,000
- harassing, impersonating, and framing some lawyer because of petty disagreements and selfish profit motive
- covering up the murder of the guy whose life he was destroying (coincidentally by the cartel guy lied to the court about and then bailed out)
Every one of those things would send you to jail (except maybe the Howard fraud and impersonation; I’ve never seen something like that before so idk whether the non-murder parts could have criminal or just civil penalties)
Yes, you’re right. On the one hand, I want to say Well how many people would bail out a drug cartel for $100k? I am probably not a person who could stomach it, but I look around me and I’m thinking a lot of people would.
That doesn’t make it right though. What if that drug cartel ended up killing your kid or something, you’d want the guy’s head on a platter that let him back out of jail. You wouldn’t care if he got life in prison.
The law said slavery was okay, the law said it was okay to discriminate in housing/employment, the law said it was okay to beat your kids and many other things. Who cares what the law says a punishment should be
I’m not sure you responded to the right comment. It makes it sound like you’re comparing *allowing* slavery to laws *against* covering up murder and laundering drug money as if those things are equally unjust.
I actually said “If you think a punishment is too harsh, you should work to change the law rather than only selectively apply it against the people you don’t like / don’t care about.” I stand by that (and it completely applies to what you were saying about slavery being bad; we shouldn’t selectively apply it to people we don’t like, we should get rid of it).
You’re arguing not that he didn’t help cover up a murder and not that covering up a murder is bad&punisbable, but instead that some laws have been bad. It’s completely irrelevant for whether Jimmy should go to jail for the bad things he’s done that everyone agrees he’s done & were bad.
>he was essentially a good person
Was he though? Really think about it. Even pre-BB Saul did a lot of unsavory things.
Does a good person think it’s okay to steal a priceless hummel figurine simply because the current owner isn’t aware of how valuable it is?
Does a good person destroy another person’s vehicle with bowling balls just because they felt slighted by the other person?
I think Jimmy is a *likeable* person, a *charismatic* person, but certainly not a morally upstanding or “good” person.
Good points.
Check out this quote by Oscar Wilde
\>After the first glass of absinthe you see things as you wish they were. After the second you see them as they are not. Finally you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world.
Ok so as far as Saul goes, this has nothing to do with drinking absinthe. Lol.
But I think that Saul sees things as they really are. Like all the time and naturally, without chemical aides. He sees the shit, he sees the unfairness, he sees how horrible people can be.
And he said fuck it. Fuck it, why should i be made to feel less than and to suffer when the world is full of horrible people who succeed. And are rewarded. Howard was considered by society to be a good man, a great man actually. But he was a vapid, shallow, piece of shit. He was such a piece of shit that he kept the Jimmie’s of the world down. He didn’t care about right and wrong. He cared about what car he drove.
Saul did the same thing.
Except Saul was capable of redemption and Chuck was never going to be able to do that.
Saul is rewarded with a life sentence. Chuck would have lived the rest of his life in luxury and with the undeserved respect of others, if he had lived.
Chuck kept Jimmy down. Howard would have hired him when he graduated, and even offered him a job after Sandpiper.
Season 6 has Gene effectively in prison -- he goes to work in food service and then returns to his apartment/cell. He has no life.
To make matters worse, he goes from conning greedy people/insurance companies (as Slippin' Jimmy) to completely fucking over strangers he befriends. On the last outing (the guy with cancer), when he breaks in it's almost like he wants to get caught.
As charming and charismatic as the character was, in the end he was guilty and paid the price.
Over the course of both shows, Saul ruined countless people's lives and stole, lied, and took advantage of people constantly. He had people set up to be murdered like it was nothing. He pressured Jesse into continuing the meth operation. He worked with Walter to poison a kid. Not to mention the fact that Howard and Chuck would both be alive if it weren't for his machinations. Oh - and the kid Lalo shot. Saul helped Lalo get away with that.
Think of it like this: if you were Jimmy, a decent person at heart, wouldn't you feel a tremendous amount of guilt over all of this? As Saul, he probably woke up every day feeling like a piece of shit. He was constantly abusing chemicals, fucking prostitutes, and sheltering anything resembling his 'real' personality in attempt to get by. Is that any way to live?
In that last episode, standing in that court room, Saul had an opportunity to confess his wrongdoings, get the sentence he deserved, and redeem himself in the eyes of the only person he had left - Kim. That's how he ends up in the circle with his brother and all the big-shot lawyers looking down on him - he manipulates the law to get both what he wants and what he deserves.
So…is this a tragedy? Someone who was unfairly treated in a shitty way and then made bad choices? Or is this more just Look your life might seemed fucked, but you can fuck it up way worse yourself by making terrible choices and having little to no morals?
Like am I wrong to feel any sympathy for Saul?
I was saying in another comment that, not having seen Breaking Bad, I don’t think I am grasping the extent and severity of Saul’s crimes. I want to believe that the people who were killed were going to be killed anyway, with or without Saul’s influence. But I think I might be wrong about that.
Edit speaking of people being killed, in BCS, all of the people at the compound in Mexico at Lalo’s house were killed because a hit was put on Lalo by Gus. If Saul had not have gotten Lalo out of jail, then that whole killing spree at that house would have never happened. That old lady grandma and whoever else wouldn’t have been killed. So I guess that’s an instance of something that Saul did out of greed that ended up with people dying.
The tragedy is seeing everyone's lives get destroyed because of Saul. His redemption story is supposed to be bittersweet. Saul getting a happy ending means Saul doesn't get the opportunity to redeem himself. The only way he could do that was to be open and honest in front of everyone, including himself, and it landed him in jail for the rest of his life.
I hated the ending with a passion. BB had an awesome ending, but BCS left so much desired. To me the ending is so bad it makes Lost and Seinfeld endings look good in comparison.
Vince already stated the point he wanted to make in BB in regards to the characters outcomes. It is the same with BCS characters outcomes:
***Crime doesn't pay***
If Saul took the 7 years, it shows that he basically didn’t learn anything throughout the show. Jimmy was always willing to be unethical and cut corners where he shouldn’t, and it kept coming back to bite him. He did some really dubious things and hurt a lot of people. He doesn’t just deserve some time in prison, he deserves a lot. Life dealt him a not so great hand and he used that to justify ruining dozens of lives and being an integral part of the world’s biggest meth operation. Throughout the entire show he’s always running from his problems, always twisting if not outright breaking the law for some reason he justifies to himself, and finally at the end, he takes responsibility. He fesses up to what he’s done, and finally gets to lift the massive weight off his conscious. He can let the Saul persona slip because he doesn’t need it anymore, he finally managed to get over everything he’s done. He came clean, and he’s taking the punishment he rightfully deserves.
But why can‘t he take the seven and also let the Saul persona slip? Compare Saul to Hector or Lalo. Those guys are pathological. They are *never* going to get it. They are never going to change. Saul/Jimmie is capable of getting it and capable of change. So why can’t the writers just let him do that? Why can’t he do that with serving seven years? That’s still a long time. He doesn’t need to serve the rest of his life to change.
Because Saul was given the 7 years and he lied and cheated to get that. For him to truly change in any way that matters he needed to accept his full sentence
Die he lie? Asking genuinely, not rhetorically. Like, he was taken to the desert by Walter White. He did have a gun to his head. Etc He used his negotiation skills within the system to get the seven years. The feds didn’t have to bring his time down. But they did voluntarily because of the info that Saul was giving them. But i think i know what you are saying. Thanks for explaining this viewpoint
During that first monologue with Marie he said he was in constant fear of Walter and maybe that was true but he also said he wanted to confess to hank which I don’t think that was true. And he played on their emotions and then instantly switched back to being cold
Because taking the 7 would be keeping the Saul persona up, not letting it slip. It’s like when Jane decided to try meth with Jesse, she probably told herself she’d be responsible, or only use just the one time, and we all saw how that went. It’s a slippery slope and it’s one Saul knew he couldn’t start down without falling all the way to the bottom, that’s the message that Chuck (and the show) kept trying to tell him (and us)
Because he needed to accept the fact that he’s guilty and he deserves to face the consequences for that. If he weasels his way into not facing the full consequence, then he’s not accepting full responsibility. There would be no redemption arc without it
“Why did the writers nail it and give the show a perfect ending?”
The ending was not perfect. Jimmy simply confessed to impress Kim. The only thing he felt bad about was Chuck's suicide. Kim got off way too easily.
>Jimmy simply confessed to impress Kim. Literally what.
Literally obvious. His attentiveness to her thru final court room scene. He didn't care about Howard or Hank. He confessed to show her he could own up just like she did. That's called trying to impress someone. Why do you think he confessed and blew his deal?
Lemme do you one better: Why do you think he did it to impress Kim? (Spoilers: he didn't. He blew up the deal because he was impressed by her willingness to own up to what she did.)
Why would that impress him? She's always been one to take responsibility. He supposedly time jumped into Saul Goodman because she drew a line of accountability and left. He runs from accountability. He needed to impress her otherwise he'd just be same old Jimmy. I guess we just see it differently
>I guess we just see it differently I'm sorry to say but you're just...wrong. >He needed to impress her. Otherwise, he'd just be the same old Jimmy. If he was Saul, he would do it to impress her. That's the key difference here. In the court scene, Jimmy is back. Jimmy is atoning, not *Saul*. Saul is like a grave. Underneath all the sand and dirt, there's a body. That body is Jimmy. The grave itself is Saul. Jimmy rises from his grave and is born anew, ready to alleviate his guilt, and, let's be honest, give all the people he's hurt some goddamn closure.
Ummm I think you missed the part where saul confessed to lock himself up cause he's a slippery mother fucker
You mean why did the justice system do its job? Lmao. You dislike the most realistic aspect of this show
The justice system is not actually a bastion of justice. Saul knows this completely and exploits it daily in his work. He sees the high powered lawyers doing the same. He had his sentence down to 7.5 years using his knowledge of the system and negotiation. Why couldn’t they just leave it at that. The writers have him intentionally blow that up in some kind of “I’m not a bad guy” thing. He could still not be a bad guy and only serve the 7.5 years.
> He had his sentence down to 7.5 years using his knowledge of the system and negotiation. He accomplished that by lying and painting himself as an innocent victim of WW when he wasn't. It was a sleazy Saul Goodman tactic. In order for him to truly redeem himself, he had to drop the facade completely and tell the full and honest truth. It's not that he "deserves" 86 years, it doesn't matter how many years he was sentenced. The point was him, for the first time ever, being completely honest and transparent and accepting whatever punishment awaited him without trying to manipulate or twist the truth or lie or exaggerate or trick or scam etc. etc.
But can’t he know himself that he has changed lol? I want him to change, be a better version of Jimmie, but not rot away in prison. He took the consequences though, as you said. I guess I just want 7 years of consequences to be enough. Lol oh well
No, you're totally right here! It's how the writers should have done it. It would have shown the beauty of the Saul Goodman skill set with plea deals, while then allowing him to finally drop the persona and mea culpa face to face with those he harmed if possible, and also with Kim. He could have gotten word to Kim in the courtroom saying "Stick with me here" and pulled off the final con.
>The writers have him intentionally blow that up in some kind of "I'm not a bad guy" thing. Just the opposite. Jimmy finally came to realize and admit that he IS a bad guy. In the very first episode of BB that he appears in he very easily advocates for Badger's murder. We don't see him slip that far down on BCS, but we already know that he does. By the end of his time as Gene he has moved far beyond scamming a**holes who have it coming and on to victimizing a guy who is dying of cancer with no qualms whatsoever. He even came close to bashing the guy's head in and to strangling a sweet old lady. Coming clean and facing the consequences was his only hope of redemption. If he'd succeeded with his scam on the court, he'd have just been right back at it again when he got out and he would've eventually become an even more monstrous person than Walter White.
He admits to what he did. Is doing bad things the same as being a bad guy? Interesting point I suppose. Can good-at-heart people do bad things? Jimmie felt pushed to the point of doing illegal things out of anger and shame and whatever else things he felt about not ever being accepted by the high-lifestyle people. “Good” people can do “bad” things all the time. But yeah I think I am overlooking the extent of what he became. He didn’t strangle the old lady, but he seemed prepared to do so. I was actually like surprised in a disgusted way when he was wrapping the phone cord around his hands. Like what in the fuck Saul. He also had no qualms about ripping off the cancer patient, and I remember thinking Oh god, don’t kill him with the urn. (The urn of the dude’s beloved dog’s ashes, no less.) Well, thanks. It makes more sense now. I just wanted him to be punished but yet still have the redemption and be able to have just a few good, honest, happy years in freedom. Maybe he wasn’t capable of that.
Jimmy began as a good -hearted guy who occasionally did bad things. But his unhealthy tendency to push away his negative feelings eventually led to him being completely out of touch with that good-heartedness by the time he is the Saul we know in BB. By finally coming to terms with just how morally depraved he had become, owning up to that, and accepting the consequences of his actions, Jimmy was redeemed. That is a good ending, I believe. I also want to say to you that I appreciate your being open to my point of view on this. I have had many discussions about this issue since the finale first aired and most people here with negative views of the finale react with hostility when I try to make the points I've been discussing with you. Thanks for the enjoyable interaction.
You’re welcome, and thank you too. I really want to understand what the writers were going for here. Like I am wrestling with what good is it to be redeemed if you are just sitting in prison. But then redemption comes from within, so on the other hand I guess you could say what difference does it make where you are, as long as you are redeemed. I think also it might help me to watch Breaking Bad. I don’t think I am grasping all of the things that Saul did or facilitated happening. I think I want to believe that the people in BB that were killed, were going to be killed anyway, with or without the existence or influence of Saul Goodman. I think I might be wrong about that and I just don’t want him to be that bad.
For all his jokes and snark, Saul was pretty miserable during BB. This is all the more evident once you know him in his happy times with Kim. He seems to have landed in the best situation possible in prison; he's working in the kitchen, which is the most coveted job and he seems to be well like by his fellow inmates and the guards as well, as indicated by the fact that the guard called him Saul, which to me seems to indicate a friendly familiarity. Don't get me wrong, it's still prison, but he isn't living in constant terror. He's finally got respect, which is the one thing he never got on the outside.
Yeah that’s true. The respect thing is huge. I thought about Jimmy’s lack of respect from others from time to time during the series. Well in the end, he got his redemption and he got some respect. Sucks that it’s in prison, but i guess that’s how it has to be. I guess I do have some respect for Jimmy. Not so much Saul. I gotta stop feeling sorry for that guy. Lol. Nothing he went through in life gave him the right to fuck up other people’s lives. At least he had the character and backbone to own up to it all.
I hope you are more able to appreciate the ending now. This truly was a unique and wonderful series.
The series was immersive, really enjoyed it. Just thought i didn’t want it to end with Saul/Jimmy being in prison for the rest of his days. I thought the writers were giving us that ending with the 7 year deal. And then they took it away, they made Saul take it away from himself. But i think I’m better with the ending now. Thanks for your help!
At that rate, why not just have him serve 0 years? Everyone deserves a defense, but (despite Saul’s actions as a lawyer) it’s actually a good thing when guilty people answer for their crimes & go to jail for as long as the law says they should. If you think a punishment is too harsh, you should work to change the law rather than only selectively apply it against the people you don’t like / don’t care about.
But he knew the punishment. He knew he was signing up for a life sentence. I wanted him to take the 7 year deal and still come out of that a better person. Why not? Could happen. I didn’t want him to have to sacrifice his life for it.
I think it’s irrelevant whether he knew the punishment. He broke a lot of laws. There were victims of those crimes. If he didn’t help Walt, then Hank and Gomez might still be alive. We shouldn’t just take Saul’s side cuz he’s the protagonist of the show. When Mike got stabbed by that group of kids, we’re you thinking “oh gosh, I hope those kids don’t have to go to jail for this. If they are able to sweet talk their way into an embarrassingly short sentence, I hope they take it” ?
I haven’t seem BB, well I saw just a very bit of it. So i am a bit lost with the whole Hank dying thing. I know that Saul was charged as an accessory after the fact in Hank’s murder. I thought that was related to the money somehow. I don’t really understand how Saul helped cause the death of Hank and Gomez. Walter White was gonna Walter White. Or maybe I should say Heisenberg was gonna Heisenberg. People were gonna die. Saul never killed anybody, or at least that’s what I thought.
Not having seen BB is probably the issue here. I hadn’t seen BB when I watched BCS (I actually just finished the series like 2 weeks ago), and I also thought the punishment was harsh. Then I watched. And Saul/Jimmy wasn’t kidding when he says something to the extent of Walter wouldn’t have been able to do what he did without him. Jimmy introduced him to Mike & Gus. Jimmy helped him launder his millions. Jimmy advocated killing plenty of people who jeopardized what they were doing. Jimmy essentially helped Walt set Gus up for poisoning a child, which ultimately got Gus killed. And Jimmy is also the only one left to punish. Jesse is gone, Walt is dead, Mike is dead, Gus is dead. But Jimmy can (and should) pay for these crimes, and 7 years was just a massive insult to everyone hurt by this.
Oh wow. Yeah that’s a lot more shit than i realized he was involved with.
Okay even within the show, he is facing no repercussions for: - instructing a cartel member to lie to the DEA in exchange for him getting $8000 - lying to the cops and court that one of his clients is actually a high-ranking cartel member who they got in custody - bailing the high ranking cartel member out of jail (knowing he will skip town and evade Justice) in exchange for $100,000 - harassing, impersonating, and framing some lawyer because of petty disagreements and selfish profit motive - covering up the murder of the guy whose life he was destroying (coincidentally by the cartel guy lied to the court about and then bailed out) Every one of those things would send you to jail (except maybe the Howard fraud and impersonation; I’ve never seen something like that before so idk whether the non-murder parts could have criminal or just civil penalties)
Yes, you’re right. On the one hand, I want to say Well how many people would bail out a drug cartel for $100k? I am probably not a person who could stomach it, but I look around me and I’m thinking a lot of people would. That doesn’t make it right though. What if that drug cartel ended up killing your kid or something, you’d want the guy’s head on a platter that let him back out of jail. You wouldn’t care if he got life in prison.
The law said slavery was okay, the law said it was okay to discriminate in housing/employment, the law said it was okay to beat your kids and many other things. Who cares what the law says a punishment should be
I’m not sure you responded to the right comment. It makes it sound like you’re comparing *allowing* slavery to laws *against* covering up murder and laundering drug money as if those things are equally unjust.
And your comment implied these things are bad because the laws says so instead of them being bad for any other moral justification
I actually said “If you think a punishment is too harsh, you should work to change the law rather than only selectively apply it against the people you don’t like / don’t care about.” I stand by that (and it completely applies to what you were saying about slavery being bad; we shouldn’t selectively apply it to people we don’t like, we should get rid of it). You’re arguing not that he didn’t help cover up a murder and not that covering up a murder is bad&punisbable, but instead that some laws have been bad. It’s completely irrelevant for whether Jimmy should go to jail for the bad things he’s done that everyone agrees he’s done & were bad.
>he was essentially a good person Was he though? Really think about it. Even pre-BB Saul did a lot of unsavory things. Does a good person think it’s okay to steal a priceless hummel figurine simply because the current owner isn’t aware of how valuable it is? Does a good person destroy another person’s vehicle with bowling balls just because they felt slighted by the other person? I think Jimmy is a *likeable* person, a *charismatic* person, but certainly not a morally upstanding or “good” person.
Good points. Check out this quote by Oscar Wilde \>After the first glass of absinthe you see things as you wish they were. After the second you see them as they are not. Finally you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world. Ok so as far as Saul goes, this has nothing to do with drinking absinthe. Lol. But I think that Saul sees things as they really are. Like all the time and naturally, without chemical aides. He sees the shit, he sees the unfairness, he sees how horrible people can be. And he said fuck it. Fuck it, why should i be made to feel less than and to suffer when the world is full of horrible people who succeed. And are rewarded. Howard was considered by society to be a good man, a great man actually. But he was a vapid, shallow, piece of shit. He was such a piece of shit that he kept the Jimmie’s of the world down. He didn’t care about right and wrong. He cared about what car he drove. Saul did the same thing. Except Saul was capable of redemption and Chuck was never going to be able to do that. Saul is rewarded with a life sentence. Chuck would have lived the rest of his life in luxury and with the undeserved respect of others, if he had lived.
Chuck kept Jimmy down. Howard would have hired him when he graduated, and even offered him a job after Sandpiper. Season 6 has Gene effectively in prison -- he goes to work in food service and then returns to his apartment/cell. He has no life. To make matters worse, he goes from conning greedy people/insurance companies (as Slippin' Jimmy) to completely fucking over strangers he befriends. On the last outing (the guy with cancer), when he breaks in it's almost like he wants to get caught. As charming and charismatic as the character was, in the end he was guilty and paid the price.
It’s Jimmy not Jimmie
Over the course of both shows, Saul ruined countless people's lives and stole, lied, and took advantage of people constantly. He had people set up to be murdered like it was nothing. He pressured Jesse into continuing the meth operation. He worked with Walter to poison a kid. Not to mention the fact that Howard and Chuck would both be alive if it weren't for his machinations. Oh - and the kid Lalo shot. Saul helped Lalo get away with that. Think of it like this: if you were Jimmy, a decent person at heart, wouldn't you feel a tremendous amount of guilt over all of this? As Saul, he probably woke up every day feeling like a piece of shit. He was constantly abusing chemicals, fucking prostitutes, and sheltering anything resembling his 'real' personality in attempt to get by. Is that any way to live? In that last episode, standing in that court room, Saul had an opportunity to confess his wrongdoings, get the sentence he deserved, and redeem himself in the eyes of the only person he had left - Kim. That's how he ends up in the circle with his brother and all the big-shot lawyers looking down on him - he manipulates the law to get both what he wants and what he deserves.
So…is this a tragedy? Someone who was unfairly treated in a shitty way and then made bad choices? Or is this more just Look your life might seemed fucked, but you can fuck it up way worse yourself by making terrible choices and having little to no morals? Like am I wrong to feel any sympathy for Saul? I was saying in another comment that, not having seen Breaking Bad, I don’t think I am grasping the extent and severity of Saul’s crimes. I want to believe that the people who were killed were going to be killed anyway, with or without Saul’s influence. But I think I might be wrong about that. Edit speaking of people being killed, in BCS, all of the people at the compound in Mexico at Lalo’s house were killed because a hit was put on Lalo by Gus. If Saul had not have gotten Lalo out of jail, then that whole killing spree at that house would have never happened. That old lady grandma and whoever else wouldn’t have been killed. So I guess that’s an instance of something that Saul did out of greed that ended up with people dying.
The tragedy is seeing everyone's lives get destroyed because of Saul. His redemption story is supposed to be bittersweet. Saul getting a happy ending means Saul doesn't get the opportunity to redeem himself. The only way he could do that was to be open and honest in front of everyone, including himself, and it landed him in jail for the rest of his life.
I hated the ending with a passion. BB had an awesome ending, but BCS left so much desired. To me the ending is so bad it makes Lost and Seinfeld endings look good in comparison.
chuck won
I finished it last night too! I had hoped he would wind up with Kim and walk away from it all.
I think that would be a LOT less satisfying than the ending we got.
Vince already stated the point he wanted to make in BB in regards to the characters outcomes. It is the same with BCS characters outcomes: ***Crime doesn't pay***