Better Call Saul -- Episode 6x11 "Breaking Bad" -- Discussion Thread

AMC ^ | 8-1-22

[silent_jonny]

I’m guessing Jeff isn’t done.

[silent_jonny]

The old gas station, where Hank first saw the Winnebago.

[silent_jonny]

Skylar got her deal. Traded Hank and Gomie’s burial site with the Feds for a lighter sentence.

[silent_jonny]

Confirmed: Kim is alive in the Gene time.

[TomServo]

Yup

[silent_jonny]

Kim is in Florida ... or was.

Jimmy talks with someone at Kim's last known employer--maybe Kim herself?--who apparently doesn't tell him wants to hear.

[Eric Blair 2084]

That’s not really the point. Yes she is really alive. She just couldn’t take the nonsense anymore. So she broke up Jimmy

[silent_jonny]

Carol’s feelings were hurt. She enjoys Gene’s company.

[Secret Agent Man]

I never thought she died.

Saul would have been devastated.

She is tied into the Ice Station Zebra holding company.

[Secret Agent Man]

Thats not true, by her own statements from a couple episodes ago.

She likes being with Jimmy and doing cons and such. She said that them together, they take stuff too far. And it brings out a side of her she doesn’t like. Her explanation of not telling him about Lalo being alive because she wanted to keep doing the crap they were doing to Howard because she was having too much fun.

[MayflowerMadam]

It looks like this will be Jimmy’s new identity.

[americas.best.days...]

Where’d everyone go?

[MayflowerMadam]

I was wondering the same thing!

[silent_jonny]

Where’d everyone go?

Sorry about that. Yesterday was a long day and I was exhausted. I kept watching the show, but I didn't feel like typing anymore.

Great episode! This was the perfect way to blend the past with the present. Couldn't have guessed where they would've gone with the story after last week's episode, which felt like a finale--and I think it was, but a finale for the Saul Goodman character.

The title sequences are illustrating this by stopping on the old VHS footage, showing a blue screen, then recording new.

Now there is only Gene, and he's breaking bad (and breaking n' entering!) as the leader of his own crew.

But the crew is already imploding. Jeff is weak. Ricky is too moral. Gene's morals--or was it the fear of being caught?--seemed to have died after that phone call to Florida. And Jeff's mom is getting suspicious of everyone.

I'm understanding why Carol Burnett came out of retirement to play Jeff's mom. It's more than a cute cameo. It's a real character, who will probably become a huge factor is how this all plays out.

Only 2 episodes left!

[dead]

Every episode is a brilliant little movie. Of Jimmy, Saul and Gene - Gene is the biggest dick. There are no redeeming qualities left in him.

He thought about having pity on the victim with cancer, but then couldn't muster it up. And the Carol Burnette character is going to get destroyed somehow. Or maybe destroy Gene.

[silent_jonny]

Of Jimmy, Saul and Gene - Gene is the biggest dick. There are no redeeming qualities left in him.

Yep. Whatever he learned during that phone call to Florida seems to have burned off anything likeable about Gene.

About that call, apparently in the German dub of the episode, in between all the traffic noise, you can hear part of Gene's side of the conversation.

A German fan translated the audio back into English:

“You have no idea what I did or didn’t do, okay? Why don’t YOU stand up, you don’t have to consider me, I can only be hanged ONCE. Okay, listen, Kim, why are we even talking about this. We’re both too smart…”

Source

IF that translation is accurate--and that's a big if, because the audio wasn't meant to be heard, and no one knows what was said when the trucks were driving by--then Kim had nearly the same reaction to Gene's phone call that Walter Jr. had to Walt's final call on Breaking Bad:

Something may have been lost in translation, because "Why don’t YOU stand up, you don’t have to consider me ..." doesn't make a lot of sense.

Stand up for what? Kim was just as bad as Jimmy/Saul before Breaking Bad.

Maybe her new life was turned upside down (ruined?) by the Feds because she's the estranged wife of Saul Goodman, and she resents him for it.

From the same article:

This call had potentially terrible ramifications for Saul, who proceeded to revert back to his old ways after smashing up the phone booth. This is clarified by the show’s writer Thomas Schnauz, who said in a new interview with Hollywood Reporter:

“He’s doing this because something about that phone call brought up a lot of pain and hurt. And as we know from the past — and all that went down with Howard Hamlin, and Kim hiding the truth about Lalo and the reasons why she did it, and the breakup that happened — it all caused a lot of pain that pushed him into going full Saul Goodman.”

[MayflowerMadam]

“Whatever he learned during that phone call to Florida seems to have burned off anything likeable about Gene.”

Actually, I think that ship sailed in the prior episode. He was a goofball penny-ante crooked lawyer, but not a mean SOB.

He moved to being evil setting up Jeffy and the other guy, and using the Carol Burnett character, taking advantage of her. The “Nippy” episode is when I hated Gene / Jimmy / Saul

[Eric Blair 2084]

That’s very true. You’re right. When he tried to quit the law She tried to talk him out of it But he pulled the scam with the $50 shots of tequila on the financial advisor. She loved it. When Howard was Crashing and burning at the Sandpiper case because of their scam, they were having sex. She gets off on it. It might go back to her mother and the earring story.

I think the final straw was when she lied to Howards estranged wife about his Coke use. She couldn’t do it anymore

[Secret Agent Man]

Yup.

One thing I couldn’t get til I watched it twice and thought back to BB was why he started up again. Nothing to do with Kim. It had everything to do with him being p1ssed the feds got everything he had earned. For all he had done he wasn’t going to be left living a plain shnook fake life and job, AND also lose all he had worked for. They do stupid stuff again because of ego and pride. After all they are still the same person, just living a phony life. They are still who they are.

[Eric Blair 2084]

Yep. Like most politicians. It’s in their nature to be power-hungry control freaks. It is what it is. They are what they are.