So we finally learn what happened to Kim during and post Breaking Bad. Like Walt, Jesse, and Jimmy, she ends up stuck in purgatory. Walt was alone without his family in Granite State. Jesse was a meth cook slave. Jimmy was living out the rest of his life as a schnook in Omaha. And Kim was living an utterly boring life with a job outside of being a lawyer and infinitely below her talent level.
Speaking of Jesse, HOLY SHIT. What a scene with Kim! Kim got Combo off the hook for a juvenile crime? Maybe his life turns out differently if he has to face the consequences of his actions earlier. Same goes for Emilio. Anything had to be better than dying of chemical asphyxiation in a rolling meth lab.
I have a feeling Kim comes back next week when Jimmy gets caught. I guess he spurred her on to confess to Howard’s wife. Kinda fucked up that there’s no physical evidence and all possible witnesses are dead with the exception of Jimmy.
I'm glad that Carol Burnett ultimately was written to be more than just hotshot casting. They gave her something more substantial than just being a clueless old lady.
Since we never got a scene in Breaking Bad with Jesse and Walt Jr., it's nice we got one with him and Kim.
Nice to know Kim defended Combo for the Baby Jesus nativity scene incident.
What a stupid way to waste a character like Lalo and have it come down to this. I was saying Saul was better than Breaking Bad but this was before Lalo's death. I take that back lol
Some old granny is going to take help take down one of the best characters of all-time?
Should be Lalo vs Saul mano-a-mano right now. Kind of a dud.
All told, its going out with a whimper. And in annoying B&W.
All told, its going out with a whimper. And in annoying B&W.
Yep. Sad. I was digging into seasons 3-6 but this last half has just been a bore.
All told, its going out with a whimper. And in annoying B&W.
It wasn’t a ‘change of heart’ - i think it’s possible that the enciting thing in that cal was Kim learning that Mike Ehrmentraut is, in fact, dead. He just sort of up and disappeared, and Jimmy is one of only a few people left alive privvy to that information. With that news sort of clearing, along with Jimmy’s call juxtaposed against her ‘Yep’ life, was the final straw for her.
The Lalo stuff was great, but this show has always been a character study of Jimmy and Kim and their relationship at its core.
I think Jimmy being found out by a Youtubing grandma speaks to a larger truth about our time - in that through the interconnectedness of the internet and technology it’s nearly impossible fot anyone to ‘disappear’, and though we’re granted the illusion of anonymity on the internet it frequently works quite in the opposite. The world catches up - slowy, but it does - to reveal what people would hide.
He could've just Paulie Walnuts her right there and have been on his way.
Bring back Huell and have him need to use Saul's bathroom and that would've been 100x funnier.
The finale should be pretty predictable too- Like many others, I think it’s pretty obvious Jimmy goes to prison….not sure what happens to Kim. She seems to want to suffer consequences for her bad choices too, so she may want to spend some time in the slammer too. Not sure though…if Jimmy doesn’t testify against her they have no evidence to convict her unless she testifies against herself, which of course, she doesn’t have to do. Jimmy may not want to, which is what I’m thinking. So, if pressed, I would say NO PRISON TIME FOR KIM, ONLY JIMMY.
Yeah but Gus getting blown up at a fucking nursing home was certainly an iconic scene and it's still talked about to this day.
Saul running out of some old lady's house? Oh, the memories.
Every character on BBI universe has their downfall caused by their own choices… greed, ego, revenge, powerlust, etc. The normally methodical Gus allowed his desire for revenge against Hector Salamanca to overwhelm the same spidey sense that made him long game Lalo with the gun at the lab site. Greed and love of the scam will be Jimmy’s downfall for the second time. Kim’s love of the scam and anger with Howard over him criticizing her being with Jimmy eventually led to Howard’s death and Kim leaving everything she loved.
Saul Goodman was a shady lawyer wanted for money laundering. Damn good search engine that picks up con man in connection with Saul. I didn't expect Gene to kill Momma, but he's been acting out of character for a while. Of course, Gene was way off character from Saul, which I guess was intentional, but the actions of the post Lalo arc seem contrived and off base.
Why did Jeff crash the car? Couldn't he have just driven away? Did he drink some of the laced water?
The finale is set up well, but it took an unnecessarily long time getting here. Haven't felt the magic since Howard died, and that includes the Lalo-Gus showdown episode. Most of it is filler tying up loose ends that really don't need to be tied up, doing stuff that really doesn't need to be done, milking a few more episodes out of a show that should have ended already.
I did like Carol Burnett being the one to out Jimmy/Saul/Gene, although that was very predictable IMO, between showing her learning how to use YouTube and seeing Gene with her son out by the garage late at night
Not sure how Kim’s story wraps, except it appears they both end up back in Albuquerque
The really issue is, there aren’t any story lines I’m that invested in anymore. Everyone from the BB universe is now gone in this future timeline. Chuck, Howard, Nacho all gone from the pre-BB storyline. I love Saul, but honestly don’t really care if he ends up in jail or not at this point
I agree that once they settled the great Gus/Lalo conflict, the show’s fizzled
Maybe the finale will surprise us, we’ll see
Bring back Bill Burr!!
But, how does one watch 6 seasons of a show, and not care how the main character ends up?
But, how does one watch 6 seasons of a show, and not care how the main character ends up?
Ozark turned this trick in 4/5 seasons, so credit to Gilligan for pushing the envelope.
Alot of people were loved the whole Jimmy/Kim thing and were hoping for a happy ending. Wellllll.....dont think thats happening.
But, how does one watch 6 seasons of a show, and not care how the main character ends up?
OK maybe saying “don’t care” isn’t quite right…really just that I’ve loved Saul all along, but the second half of this season has kind of dulled how much I care about him. I’m of course curious to see how they write it to the finish. maybe he’ll pull off one last scam to go out his own way. Perhaps somehow saving Kim in the end to redeem himself
I don't see Kim as a sympathetic character. Even if Jimmy is bad, she doesn't become good. She's the cause of her own misfortunes. Any blame of Jimmy on that score is misguided. She turned away from an interview to win funding for doing good to return and make sure Howard went down.
me too. Can't wait til the damn series ends.
I don't see Kim as a sympathetic character. Even if Jimmy is bad, she doesn't become good. She's the cause of her own misfortunes. Any blame of Jimmy on that score is misguided. She turned away from an interview to win funding for doing good to return and make sure Howard went down.
Good analysis. I agree with her having a negative effect on Jimmy.
Nice to know Kim defended Combo for the Baby Jesus nativity scene incident.
Very true. But Crazy 8 looked the same as the BB days!
When the full Gene episodes rolled out I was excited - but - as has been pointed out - they didnt do enough Gene over the years to invest us when we needed investing.
So - one of my favorite shows of all time has disappointed over the last 3 weeks but Im still a huge fan and cant wait to see how Vince and Co. wrap this all up.
What a useless pile of shit that was.
Let's reinforce the same ending. Jesse got away and then 6 years later ... Jesse got away.
No, the schedule was locked in probably over a year before the final episodes started shooting.
It's technically possible they had more physical stuff planned for Odenkirk in the homestretch (or more scenes and longer hours), and perhaps scaled that back after the heart attack, but it was always going to be 13 episodes.
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exploring the Gene character but then when Bob Odenkirk had his heart attack they had to cut it back some?
No, the schedule was locked in probably over a year before the final episodes started shooting.
It's technically possible they had more physical stuff planned for Odenkirk in the homestretch (or more scenes and longer hours), and perhaps scaled that back after the heart attack, but it was always going to be 13 episodes.
Which is why in episode 9 Saul actually looks younger then in prior episodes.
I thought the same thing, his voice was really jarring to me in that scene.
What a useless pile of shit that was.
Let's reinforce the same ending. Jesse got away and then 6 years later ... Jesse got away.
El Camino was terrible
That’s how I see it, although seems almost too predictable. Maybe he’ll own up to all his scams and shenanigans over the years, with Kim, Chuck, Howard, Walt and Jesse, Mike and Gus, etc
+1 Except, I don't see redemption as fade-out for the series. I think the last scene will be Saul pulling a scam while he's in prison (the leopard doesn't change his spots after all).
I don't see Kim as a sympathetic character. Even if Jimmy is bad, she doesn't become good. She's the cause of her own misfortunes. Any blame of Jimmy on that score is misguided. She turned away from an interview to win funding for doing good to return and make sure Howard went down.
I disagree. Jimmy’s entire life was framed by grifting, we have no evidence Kim was involved in anything until she met him. And after leaving Jimmy, she tries to atone for her mistakes.
Going after Howard was Jimmy’s idea, he was doing it, albeit in a petty, small manner, before Kim knew anything about it. She did push Jimmy to continue the fraud that led to Howard’s death, but even that plan was Jimmy’s.
Blaming Kim reeks of the same misogyny from Breaking Bad, when so many fans blamed Skyler, despite Walter being a murderous drug kingpin long before she knew. Not every female character is Lady MacBeth.
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Jimmy is arrested in Omaha and extradited back to Albuquerque to face the music there. Confronted with Kim’s affidavit, he has the chance to blame it all on her, but takes the blame himself, bringing a small piece of redemption for his life as a grifter.
+1 Except, I don't see redemption as fade-out for the series. I think the last scene will be Saul pulling a scam while he's in prison (the leopard doesn't change his spots after all).
Good call, that would be fitting!
My question as well.
NO WAY, NO HOW
I disagree. Jimmy’s entire life was framed by grifting, we have no evidence Kim was involved in anything until she met him. And after leaving Jimmy, she tries to atone for her mistakes.
Going after Howard was Jimmy’s idea, he was doing it, albeit in a petty, small manner, before Kim knew anything about it. She did push Jimmy to continue the fraud that led to Howard’s death, but even that plan was Jimmy’s.
Blaming Kim reeks of the same misogyny from Breaking Bad, when so many fans blamed Skyler, despite Walter being a murderous drug kingpin long before she knew. Not every female character is Lady MacBeth.
You don’t recall the opening scene of an episode with Kim as a teenager and she’s in the mall security office because she allegedly stole something? (I don’t recall what she had supposedly stolen.) Her mother came in and claimed that it wasn’t stolen and the guard let Kim go. Then when they left the mall, we find out that it was a scam to steal and they got away with it. While Kim has turned her life around to a certain extent, she’s no innocent bystander. There’s a reason “Giselle St. Claire” exists. She likes the scams. She was the main driver behind the Howard scam, not Jimmy. I don’t think it was a coincidence that the show mentioned her getting Combo off scot free for something he clearly did. While Kim means well, she’s not that far from Jimmy.
The Skylar comparison doesn’t work either because despite her faults/actions, Kim is still mostly beloved by fans. Skylar never was. IMO, she was an annoying pain in the ass. I know Walt was impossible to deal with, but that doesn’t mean Skylar wasn’t a pain in the ass too with a propensity for thinking she knew everything or was the moral center of the universe.
She whole heartedly enjoyed cons with Jimmy.
She had it within her the whole time, but suppressed it until Jimmy. Jimmy was hesitant to show her cons, but she insisted, and then enjoyed it. Twas her idea to turn to the dark side, not him dragging her to it.
IMO, she had no right to blame Jimmy for her flaws. She should have owned up to her inability to control herself around him. Sure, leaving him would still have crushed him, and I wouldn't expect her to stay just to avoid that. It is unfair to blame his reaction to her leaving on him. But, I think she was far worse for him than him to her while they were together. She encouraged him to up his game and then left when he did. For that she deserves some blame.
Ultimately, though, regardless of whether she was to blame for Jimmy turning into full fledged Saul, I have no sympathy for her as a person. So she feels bad. So she assuaged her guilty conscience by defending the poor (until she couldn't even bring herself to do that any more). She still played a major role in Howard's death.
Gene on the other hand engineered a minor money making scam in Omaha but that wasn't good enough. He breaks into this guy's house, he may have been about to kill him and he was definitely about to kill Carol Burnett. It wasn't a twinge of guilt that prevented him, it was the realization that he didn't know how long it would take to choke an old lady out with a phone cord. To make sure we don't like him, we also saw him steal the guy's dog's ashes.
Gene on the other hand engineered a minor money making scam in Omaha but that wasn't good enough. He breaks into this guy's house, he may have been about to kill him and he was definitely about to kill Carol Burnett. It wasn't a twinge of guilt that prevented him, it was the realization that he didn't know how long it would take to choke an old lady out with a phone cord. To make sure we don't like him, we also saw him steal the guy's dog's ashes.
I have the exact opposite feelings about both characters. Both were anti-heroes to an extent, but it's clear that the writing has gone to far greater lengths to "explain" why Jimmy is the way he is, in efforts to humanize him. Walt never got that treatment. Ultimately, we learned that he didn't start cooking meth to set his family up financially. He did it for having one last shot at a legacy that he would've had, had he not given up his stake in Grey Matter Technologies decades earlier. The guy we met in that first episode was a vain, embittered asshole on the wrong side of his life - it just took us a few years to figure it out.
By comparison, Jimmy is a much more tragic figure. His efforts to become a lawyer may have been misguided, but they were sincere, and his brother threw cold water on it. His girlfriend/wife, herself a damaged person owing to a fucked up childhood (that again, the writers saw fit to show us), progressively pushed him into overly ambitious schemes that eventually wound up getting people killed. Her leaving him accelerated his transition into Saul Goodman, and her essentially rejecting him again over the phone years later is what launches his final string of scams that seem guaranteed to end his time on the run. He may have threatened to kill Marion because he was psychologically broken and desperate, but cold-blooded murder was never part of his DNA.
By comparison, Jimmy is a much more tragic figure. His efforts to become a lawyer may have been misguided, but they were sincere, and his brother threw cold water on it. His girlfriend/wife, herself a damaged person owing to a fucked up childhood (that again, the writers saw fit to show us), progressively pushed him into overly ambitious schemes that eventually wound up getting people killed. Her leaving him accelerated his transition into Saul Goodman, and her essentially rejecting him again over the phone years later is what launches his final string of scams that seem guaranteed to end his time on the run. He may have threatened to kill Marion because he was psychologically broken and desperate, but cold-blooded murder was never part of his DNA.
This is a great take... makes perfect sense. +1
Given the time they take building up characters with lengthy character arcs and slow plots, I think it's too much too soon - even if a lot of time has elapsed in "real time" it's too much on screen too soon and runs contrary to the entire show to this point.
I do not buy Kim suddenly growing a conscience. Especially after showing her life in Florida which reminded me of Henry Hill in witness protection - I would have expected more the opposite. The best part was the dude banging her "yep, yep" lol.
And Gilligan is a master at sequencing, but all the flashbacks/forwards are annoying.
Also agree on Jesse's voice. WTF? He was a grown man in Breaking Bad, is it normal for grown men's voices to change as adults or did he have COVID or some other ailment while filming his scenes?
Given the time they take building up characters with lengthy character arcs and slow plots, I think it's too much too soon - even if a lot of time has elapsed in "real time" it's too much on screen too soon and runs contrary to the entire show to this point.
I do not buy Kim suddenly growing a conscience. Especially after showing her life in Florida which reminded me of Henry Hill in witness protection - I would have expected more the opposite. The best part was the dude banging her "yep, yep" lol.
And Gilligan is a master at sequencing, but all the flashbacks/forwards are annoying.
Also agree on Jesse's voice. WTF? He was a grown man in Breaking Bad, is it normal for grown men's voices to change as adults or did he have COVID or some other ailment while filming his scenes?
Agree about Kim, more great acting and directing. From her awful haircut to frumpy clothes to expressionless bored look living with some dull schmuck, you could see the foreshadowing that she would have some kind of break. They even showed her brushing her teeth solo, while they regularly used to show her and Jimmy brushing their teeth together
Jimmys call triggered it, but I was admittedly surprised she went with a full confession. The scene with Howard’s wife was really good
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on this was DVR'd, had to watch it twice to make sure I didn't miss anything.
Given the time they take building up characters with lengthy character arcs and slow plots, I think it's too much too soon - even if a lot of time has elapsed in "real time" it's too much on screen too soon and runs contrary to the entire show to this point.
I do not buy Kim suddenly growing a conscience. Especially after showing her life in Florida which reminded me of Henry Hill in witness protection - I would have expected more the opposite. The best part was the dude banging her "yep, yep" lol.
And Gilligan is a master at sequencing, but all the flashbacks/forwards are annoying.
Also agree on Jesse's voice. WTF? He was a grown man in Breaking Bad, is it normal for grown men's voices to change as adults or did he have COVID or some other ailment while filming his scenes?
Agree about Kim, more great acting and directing. From her awful haircut to frumpy clothes to expressionless bored look living with some dull schmuck, you could see the foreshadowing that she would have some kind of break. They even showed her brushing her teeth solo, while they regularly used to show her and Jimmy brushing their teeth together
Jimmys call triggered it, but I was admittedly surprised she went with a full confession. The scene with Howard’s wife was really good
I think Kim always blamed herself in some respect for Saul becoming what he eventually became. Their argument on the phone seems to have brought that fact home for her - Jimmy's not wrong in suggesting that Kim is a hypocrite for running from her mistakes while suggesting that he turn himself in. For better or worse, Jimmy and Kim were always the only two people who could really spin the other's head around.
Apart from being 14 years older than when we first saw Jesse in Breaking Bad, I think Aaron Paul used to smoke cigarettes. He gave it up years ago, probably after the show ended, but it might have had its effect.