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Apr. 20th, 2017 02:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
proximoceptionBetter Call Saul 3.1 & 2
Sugar: Recall that their father ("he was ... good") was introduced to us as running a candy store in Chuck's anecdote, even if it seemed more like a corner store in the later Jimmy flashback. Saul's job as Cinnabon manager involves routines from which he can't deviate, as everything is automated, he's responsible for everything, and he can't invite scrutiny. He doesn't necessarily care about sugar but he does care about "sugar" - getting away with stuff, cutting Gordian knots, annoying the straitlaced, tricking the selfish. The whole world is Cinnabon, in the sense that it's his candy store, it's a shelf full of opportunities tempting him right there in front of his face, and he can't let himself taste any of it. He leaves the store to eat his sandwich so as to get away from it - but he of course does not. He can't help helping the kid - thus rooting for his earliest and most essential self. Presumably he's so rattled he doesn't finish his lunch, hence faints, but metaphorically the sugar is what did it, hence his pssing out while eyeing that giant glob of icing on his spoon. He falls with it on his face. The graffiti event was tiny but not isolated. He will not last at Cinnabon, as a guard and processor and regulator of Simpsonian sugar, as this is simply not who he is.
Good: The father was too good to live, but the two versions of good he produced (one choosing rules over immediate consequences where they clash, one choosing immediate consequences over rules) are not. But they can never get along. In the eyes of the first, the second breaks rules so must be curtailed and never trusted. The second knows the first is necessary in principle, but never in the event. Which is, bizarrely, completely true - your reason for following a specific law should never be the law itself, but only a) your agreement with whatever reasoning was once behind it and b) your fear of the consequences of not doing so. Your reason for following ALL the laws is that if you don't every law weakens - for you, for those aware of what you've gotten away with. So Jimmy needs to make sure Chuck stays sane. When he doesn't is when Jimmy has gone too far, by breaking a law too big or too often or too openly. Chuck, on the other hand, needs Jimmy to actually do anything, since even the best rules have gaps in their "goodness" coverage, become outdated, are exploited etc. An eye for the consequences can lead the right rules to be adhered to at the right time - while the wrong are ignored - like with the evil retirement home chain. So Chuck shoots himself in the foot when he acts against Jimmy, who shoots himself in the foot when he thwarts Chuck. But neither has much more than an abstract sense of the value of the other's definition of what's right. (Said all this before, but I like talking it through.)
Mabel: More sugar. Saul recalls the transgressive sweet-seeking of a character in a favorite story, presumably read to him to teach him a lesson by Chuck (who instead recalls the to-Jimmy-irrelevant detail of the author's name). Jimmy does not bother to recall what happens to Mabel at the hands of the King of the Brownies (chosen over dwarves et al. because also a sweet). Why the name Mabel, though, I wonder? Because it's close to maple? Seems kind of lame if so. Between this and Sugartown, the keynote of the season is Jimmy finally being unable to help himself, despite being warned and his own best efforts. Without Chuck (the law) and then without Kim (the technical law) he becomes Saul, one assumes.
Kim: She follows the letter of the law - even in her personal life - despite consequentialist sympathies, so her relationship with Jimmy is a test of whether the two approaches can be held together. The adventures of the wall mural suggest not. For one thing, people like her drive him crazy even though he's decided he needs their approval (hence "thank you for your service"). When she asks him if he's mad in 3.2 he is in fact mad. They're not just having Oscar and Felix problems. Re. repainted mural, note that Jimmy angrily gives up on his brother's rolling method at the bottom right of the downward stockmarket trajectory. He's close to the endpoint of where he can stay together with Kim. Which will be interesting, because it's hard to say what his arc would then be. Selfish but harmless rulebreaking to outright harmful? Doesn't seem like the most interesting of slippery slopes at this point (plus it was pretty much Walt's), but doubtless they'll find something more (or else) to do with that stage of the show. Or just elide it - a fast forward to sequelhood seems logical at some point, unless they're feeling bold enough to go Stoppard with Breaking Bad.
Mike: It's becoming clearer that Blue is the color of those who police the rules on this show (including most lawyers and doctors as well as cops), Yellow the color of rules themselves, Red the color of breakers of them. Jimmy's car is mostly yellow because even he mostly follows the rules (though never upholds them, so is never blue), but because he will sometimes break them has that red door (like his childhood nightlight's red beak - a provider of light where the law can't reach? - that Chuck assumed would burn the whole house down someday). Mike is shown in a blue light when he's copping. At the end of 3.1 his two red taillights merge, suggesting he and Gus are about to meet. His car in 3.2 has a red interior but not a red outside, fitting how Mike has left the law for crime but taken the law-following mindset with him, and is now trying to be a principled criminal. As with Saul's attempt to be an unprincipled-but-good lawyer this is going to prove a doomed quest. In Breaking Bad, however many years later, Mike has compartmentalized his rule-keeping under the aegis of loyalty to Gus (whose restaurant is reintroduced with shots stixking exclusively to its red-painted portions), his granddaughter and his comrades (c.f. his loyalty to Jesse). That doesn't work either because of Walt: criminals being criminals, your code of loyalty will soon find you loyal to the disloyal. But back here he's still trying to actually be good within the underworld, hence the attempts to keep the insane Tuco imprisoned forever and assassinate his evil uncle. He's a drug dealer cop. In Breaking Bad he's terrifying until you realize he keeps not actually trying to kill Walt and Jesse. He can't do it, is why. They're on his team. If you're not he's fine murdering you, but if you are he never can. So this season will partly be about Gus somehow convincing him to reduce the scope of his goodness.
Sugar: Recall that their father ("he was ... good") was introduced to us as running a candy store in Chuck's anecdote, even if it seemed more like a corner store in the later Jimmy flashback. Saul's job as Cinnabon manager involves routines from which he can't deviate, as everything is automated, he's responsible for everything, and he can't invite scrutiny. He doesn't necessarily care about sugar but he does care about "sugar" - getting away with stuff, cutting Gordian knots, annoying the straitlaced, tricking the selfish. The whole world is Cinnabon, in the sense that it's his candy store, it's a shelf full of opportunities tempting him right there in front of his face, and he can't let himself taste any of it. He leaves the store to eat his sandwich so as to get away from it - but he of course does not. He can't help helping the kid - thus rooting for his earliest and most essential self. Presumably he's so rattled he doesn't finish his lunch, hence faints, but metaphorically the sugar is what did it, hence his pssing out while eyeing that giant glob of icing on his spoon. He falls with it on his face. The graffiti event was tiny but not isolated. He will not last at Cinnabon, as a guard and processor and regulator of Simpsonian sugar, as this is simply not who he is.
Good: The father was too good to live, but the two versions of good he produced (one choosing rules over immediate consequences where they clash, one choosing immediate consequences over rules) are not. But they can never get along. In the eyes of the first, the second breaks rules so must be curtailed and never trusted. The second knows the first is necessary in principle, but never in the event. Which is, bizarrely, completely true - your reason for following a specific law should never be the law itself, but only a) your agreement with whatever reasoning was once behind it and b) your fear of the consequences of not doing so. Your reason for following ALL the laws is that if you don't every law weakens - for you, for those aware of what you've gotten away with. So Jimmy needs to make sure Chuck stays sane. When he doesn't is when Jimmy has gone too far, by breaking a law too big or too often or too openly. Chuck, on the other hand, needs Jimmy to actually do anything, since even the best rules have gaps in their "goodness" coverage, become outdated, are exploited etc. An eye for the consequences can lead the right rules to be adhered to at the right time - while the wrong are ignored - like with the evil retirement home chain. So Chuck shoots himself in the foot when he acts against Jimmy, who shoots himself in the foot when he thwarts Chuck. But neither has much more than an abstract sense of the value of the other's definition of what's right. (Said all this before, but I like talking it through.)
Mabel: More sugar. Saul recalls the transgressive sweet-seeking of a character in a favorite story, presumably read to him to teach him a lesson by Chuck (who instead recalls the to-Jimmy-irrelevant detail of the author's name). Jimmy does not bother to recall what happens to Mabel at the hands of the King of the Brownies (chosen over dwarves et al. because also a sweet). Why the name Mabel, though, I wonder? Because it's close to maple? Seems kind of lame if so. Between this and Sugartown, the keynote of the season is Jimmy finally being unable to help himself, despite being warned and his own best efforts. Without Chuck (the law) and then without Kim (the technical law) he becomes Saul, one assumes.
Kim: She follows the letter of the law - even in her personal life - despite consequentialist sympathies, so her relationship with Jimmy is a test of whether the two approaches can be held together. The adventures of the wall mural suggest not. For one thing, people like her drive him crazy even though he's decided he needs their approval (hence "thank you for your service"). When she asks him if he's mad in 3.2 he is in fact mad. They're not just having Oscar and Felix problems. Re. repainted mural, note that Jimmy angrily gives up on his brother's rolling method at the bottom right of the downward stockmarket trajectory. He's close to the endpoint of where he can stay together with Kim. Which will be interesting, because it's hard to say what his arc would then be. Selfish but harmless rulebreaking to outright harmful? Doesn't seem like the most interesting of slippery slopes at this point (plus it was pretty much Walt's), but doubtless they'll find something more (or else) to do with that stage of the show. Or just elide it - a fast forward to sequelhood seems logical at some point, unless they're feeling bold enough to go Stoppard with Breaking Bad.
Mike: It's becoming clearer that Blue is the color of those who police the rules on this show (including most lawyers and doctors as well as cops), Yellow the color of rules themselves, Red the color of breakers of them. Jimmy's car is mostly yellow because even he mostly follows the rules (though never upholds them, so is never blue), but because he will sometimes break them has that red door (like his childhood nightlight's red beak - a provider of light where the law can't reach? - that Chuck assumed would burn the whole house down someday). Mike is shown in a blue light when he's copping. At the end of 3.1 his two red taillights merge, suggesting he and Gus are about to meet. His car in 3.2 has a red interior but not a red outside, fitting how Mike has left the law for crime but taken the law-following mindset with him, and is now trying to be a principled criminal. As with Saul's attempt to be an unprincipled-but-good lawyer this is going to prove a doomed quest. In Breaking Bad, however many years later, Mike has compartmentalized his rule-keeping under the aegis of loyalty to Gus (whose restaurant is reintroduced with shots stixking exclusively to its red-painted portions), his granddaughter and his comrades (c.f. his loyalty to Jesse). That doesn't work either because of Walt: criminals being criminals, your code of loyalty will soon find you loyal to the disloyal. But back here he's still trying to actually be good within the underworld, hence the attempts to keep the insane Tuco imprisoned forever and assassinate his evil uncle. He's a drug dealer cop. In Breaking Bad he's terrifying until you realize he keeps not actually trying to kill Walt and Jesse. He can't do it, is why. They're on his team. If you're not he's fine murdering you, but if you are he never can. So this season will partly be about Gus somehow convincing him to reduce the scope of his goodness.
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no subject
Date: 2017-04-20 08:33 pm (UTC)I noticed the yellow car side by side in a shot with Gus' yellow shirt. What did you make of that?
no subject
Date: 2017-04-20 09:16 pm (UTC)Thing I wonder is whether they did any of this color stuff on BB. Never noticed it if so. But the Saul and Pollo logos date from then, surely?
I thing Kim's often pale blue - a gentler version of the law. Hamlin's Hamlindigo - esp. in his trespassing scene. A little red because modern defense attorneys of that sort adhere rigorously to the law largely for the purpose of hiding how a client is breaking it.
no subject
Date: 2017-04-20 09:46 pm (UTC)I think there must be some in BB though I've never looked for it. I've never read much BB criticism but I have seen people online making fun of BB criticism that does that sort of analysis.
no subject
Date: 2017-04-20 10:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-04-20 11:00 pm (UTC)Whenever I go looking online for something I love I find people making fun of it.
no subject
Date: 2017-04-20 11:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-04-20 11:53 pm (UTC)Kim makes Ernesto break the confidence he thinks he is supposed to keep. Is she right to? Obviously Chuck wants Ernesto to convey the existence of the tape to Jimmy so Ernesto is the first domino to fall into the trap. But if Kim had been more of a straight arrow Chuck's plan wouldn't have worked, right?
no subject
Date: 2017-04-21 12:23 am (UTC)I didn't take the Ernesto thing as a Moral Moment, just as your domino. "What the hell are you talking about" is a defensible response to someone who comes to you distraught about what could happen to someone else but worried that they'll get in trouble for saying just what. And for all we know she took a dollar from him...
Objects aren't rules, so the colours are just on things associated with them - e.g. yellow paint on a curb or at Mike's booth. Gus is trying to look like the manager of a legitimate enterprise - one following the rules. Mike processes the red first because he's followed a trail of criminals there, then the yellow as he realizes what sort of head criminal he's dealing with.