(no subject)

[proximoception]

Better Call Saul musings - to a great degree recapping previous ones:



Trying to see if I can remember the sequence of Jimmy's major "slips," which are a frequent, though not the exclusive, organizing principle of the show - with episode cut-offs often coming at the point where the slip's consequences have become alarming and before he's able to undo the damage done ... often enough by committing his next slip.

1.1-1.2

Slip: he sets up a fake car accident to gain access to new clients. (A crime.)
Consequence: his partners con the wrong woman and are almost killed by Tuco.
Unslip: he saves their lives by talking him into breaking their legs. (Another crime? Not turning in Tuco et al. is.)

1.2-1.3

Slip: he unthinkingly tells Nacho about the clients' existence while trying to save his own skin.
Consequence: he needs to save them from Nacho while not being killed by him.
Unslip: he makes an anonymous call, getting Nacho arrested, but to keep him out of jail then finds the clients to prove he never kidnapped them. (Not telling the police about Nacho is a crime, prior to his becoming a client.)

1.3-1.4

Slip: he takes a bribe from his guilty clients to not turn them in. (A crime.)
Consequence: he'll go down with the bribers, as they stupidly refuse to pay their money back.
Unslip: he gives it back on their behalf, with money of his own to make up for what they've spent. (Having Mike break in to resteal the money, a crime.)

Later in 1:

Slip: he trolls Hamlin with a tv ad modeled on his firm's image. (An infraction.)
Consequence: he's stopped from doing this by a judge.
Unslip: none?

Slip: he fakes an act of heroism in a tv ad. (A crime?)
Consequence: it gets into a newspaper Chuck subscribes to.
Unslip: he steals Chuck's newspaper. (A crime.)

Slip: he mistakenly assumes Chuck will not realize he has stolen a newspaper.
Consequence: Chuck finds the newspaper and is hospitalized.
Unslip: Jimmy gets Chuck out of the hospital.

Slip: he helps Mike steal a police officer's notepad by spilling coffee. (A crime.)
Consequence: they realize it was them.
Unslip: claims it was a misunderstanding? (Lying to police = a crime.)

1.10

Slip: he goes to Chicago and cons a bunch of greedy people.
Consequence: his friend dies, though this is possibly unrelated.
Unslip: he goes back to lawyering, if that counts.

2.1

Slip: he hits a switch one isn't supposed to.
Consequence: ???
Unslip: None.

Rest of Season 2 and start of 3:

Slip: he releases an unclassy ad without permission.
Consequence: his bosses want to fire him; Kim is demoted.
Unslip: the ad's success gave him his second chance; he helps Kim steal a client (see below).

Slip: he annoys and grosses out everyone at Davis and Main. (Fashion crimes?)
Consequence: he is fired, as hoped, but also feels kind of guilty.
Unslip: apologizing to Davis and paying for his desk; partnering with Kim, in a sense.

Slip: he changes the dates on one of Chuck's Mesa Verde papers. (A crime.)
Consequence: Chuck realizes it was him and finds the copy place he used.
Unslip: he pays the copy guy to lie and say he was never there. (A crime.)

Slip: See last unslip.
Consequence: Chuck has an event and hits his head.
Unslip: He comes forward to help despite this exposing his guilt to Chuck.

Slip: He lets Ernesto lie for him about his being at the shop.
Consequence: Chuck pretends to think he was himself at fault and retires.
Unslip: Jimmy confesses the forgery to get Chuck to go back to work.

Slip: the confession was taped by Chuck.
Consequence: Jimmy assumes he will try to use it.
Unslip: he breaks into Chuck's house to destroy the tape. (Crimes.)

Slip: see last unslip.
Consequence: He is seen by Chuck and two planted witnesses.
Unslip: in court, he makes the confession seem like humoring a brother obsessed with destroying him. (A lie to a panel of "judges," albeit (as presented) an implied one, so presumably an infraction?)

Slip: see last unslip.
Consequence: his brother's career, all that was left of his life, is ruined.
Unslip: doubtful.

Meaning that last is the end of the roller coaster and one assumes the start of a new one. He undid every negative consequence of his previous actions, with the exception of hitting the switch, but can't undo this one. You could say Chuck drove him to it by treating what was on one level fair but illegal (his stealing back Chuck's client in the exact way Chuck had stolen Kim's - by falsely suggesting lawyerly inadequacy) as though it were an evil. Still, we too would tend to judge that a non-tv-protagonist falsifying documents for the purpose of just deserts should not practice as a lawyer, so destroying Chuck to prevent his effecting what is likely right must be a true wrong, whatever Chuck's owns wrongs amount to. The show's tricked us into casuistry, at least in our sympathies. Or we can at least say: BY winning a zero sum game between two necessary components of ethics Jimmy has become unethical. And/or: Chuck and Jimmy's own nature have conspired to drive him to become what Chuck had somewhat unfairly assumed he had always been.

The show's been careful to set up the close replication of the wrongs done by one brother by the other, but on different sides of the line of legality:

Jimmy steals a newspaper, Chuck steals (then compensates for) the same newspaper issue.

Chuck steals a client from Kim by trickery not technically lies, Jimmy steals the client back for Kim by actual forgery.

Jimmy bribes the copy clerk to lie, Chuck uses trickery not technically lies to manipulate Ernesto. (Less clear of a parallel out of context.)

Chuck lies to his wife about whether an address had been switched so that she'll think him sane enough to come back to, Jimmy switches addresses in his forgery to make Chuck seem less sane than he is.

Chuck tricks Jimmy into telling everyone the truth about who he really is, and Jimmy does the same thing to Chuck on the stand - just with the help of a reverse pick-pocketing. (Technically legal but crime-esque and performed by a criminal.)

Chuck blocks Jimmy from an otherwise deserved spot at Davis and Main based on what his madness might make him do there, and much later Jimmy does the exact same thing to him.

But of course also: Chuck saves Jimmy from the consequences of his slip-madness, Jimmy shields Chuck from consequences of his delusory electromagnetism allergy.

The phase-progress of the Chuck and Jimmy part of the show is roughly this, with each number representing pretty much a half-season: 1. Jimmy's corner-cutting crimes get him into trouble that he laboriously solves with further crimes, preventing his really getting anywhere, while Chuck's aversion to electricity keeps him from working at all, 2. with Chuck's help, Jimmy manages to do well at lawyering, sans actual crimes, while with Jimmy's Chuck is able to return to work, 3. with Kim's help, Jimmy manages to avoid actual crimes while lawyering but breaks various lawyering rules, while Chuck tries to stop this by punishing Kim, 4. Chuck's realization that he can stop Jimmy by hurting Kim's new solo career leads to rapidly escalating competition over Mesa Verde, bringing Jimmy back into crime, 5. Chuck attempts to legally destroy Jimmy's career, causing Kim and Jimmy to fight back using no-holds-barred but technically legal tactics to destroy Chuck's first.

(By technical legality I mean amenable to employing all those tricky ways that a lawyer can defend someone who is guilty without actually lying. Chuck uses the same tactics but never to defend someone who has committed a crime, thus is true to both the letter and spirit of the law itself, since it's supposed to nab criminals and protect the rest of us. I should find better terms, but anyway the main lawyers break down as follows: 1. Chuck follows the letter and spirit of the law, 2. Kim uses the letter of the law to do good regardless of its spirit, 3. Hamlin uses the letter of the law without especial regard for good or evil, 4. Jimmy violates the letter of the law in order to do good, 5. the Law and Order guy uses the letter of the law to do (or anyway defend the doers of) evil, 6. Saul violates the letter and the spirit of the law in order to do (or defend the doers of) evil. There's one more possible position: 7. violating the letter of the law without regard for good or evil - which Jimmy has fallen into in a few switch-hitting moments, and may be his next phase. Note that via his different phases Jimmy has a monopoly on the law-violating lawyer possibilities. This gives him, thus the show, some dynamism, but also avoids the implausibility of multiple law-breaking/"criminal" lawyers. I imagine I've observed before how oddly closely this scheme resembles the Dungeons and Dragons alignment system, of all things? You could probably toss Jimmy into the "Neutral" (i.e. not committed to rules or rulebreaking, thus capable of both as needed) rather than "Chaotic" row, for all of his phases, but I can't yet tell if the criminals (who one would imagine are flat out un-Lawful, though not particularly given to chaos, excepting crazy Tuco) fit the scheme. Mike, at least in his initial phase, would be the good version of Unlawful, Nacho the neutral (because neither ruling out nor enjoying doing harm to the non-evil), and the Tuco family the evil. But Mike abides by quite a few rules, too, and will of course be running into difficulties doing good and avoiding doing harm - in fact, the whole show, as well as Breaking Bad, are pretty much about the difficulties of doing good to and/or avoiding harming others while breaking (or rigorously upholding) the law. Meaning even if the same Venn's being used the role-playing game alignment system is implicitly being criticized. Though what does Gus do to this scheme? Maybe he's another casuistical figure: in the name of destroying someone entirely evil he will commit any lesser evil? Becoming the monster he beholds in the process, like a criminal vsrsion of Hank? Or is his need for revenge, because based on a particular, personal loss, and not actually directed against the evil in Hector but instead the person of Hector, neither moral nor selfish in a Kohlbergian sense? Makes one wonder if Vince Gilligan feels any shared-name loyalty to Carol Gilligan and her "ethic of care" (which has pretty much been debunked for its incoherence, but does open up the issue of some people being valued over others - e.g. Walt's selling meth, thus harming strangers, to benefit his family rather than his dead self - which seems very relevant to some of what Mike's been saying (implying if someone's "in the game" it's ok to kill them and if not then not) and to where he ends up (loyal to his family and to those working with or under him)).

Comments

[grashupfer.livejournal.com]

You should publish some of your TV writing. I don't know where you do that, but you should.