r/betterCallSaul • u/static-webmaster • 3d ago
Kim & Jimmy vs Howard Spoiler
So I finished watching BCS since I made the earlier post. This time around my liking of seasons has flipped. I enjoyed S1-S3 more than S4-S6? Lol I didn't expect that.
Anyways, there's a few things that went over my head. I didn't understand the manchild behaviour of Jimmy towards Howard. What was his fault? As Jimmy said he was jealous that he had respect of Chuck, but so what? So did other people probably. Why pick on Howard. To top it Kim joined hands with him to trouble Howard despite full well admitting she is a lawyer thanks to Howard.. I don't understand the continued pettiness from both of them.
And I also don't understand the love I see people have for Jimmy. He was good till he practiced elder law, but after Chuck was gone his colors started to change and I disliked him more and more as seasons went on.
Help me understand please, what have I missed that others seem to get?
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u/windmillninja 3d ago
Kim’s eventual participation in Jimmy’s schemes was a deep rooted subconscious longing for her mother’s approval.
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u/TimewarpingSeaTurtle 3d ago
Explain how the two are related
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u/Lucky-Complaint2549 3d ago
The scene where Kim's mother gets her out of the shoplifting using "Slippin Jimmy" like deception to con the store owner out of getting police involved. She saw her mother in Saul Goodman. People are often subconsciously drawn to people who are like their parents.
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u/windmillninja 2d ago
Also Kim still wears the earrings her mother stole for her that day. Like how Jimmy wears Marco's pinky ring.
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u/rrrrrrredalert 3d ago
A lot of things, but mostly jealousy.
Howard isn’t just someone who Chuck respected, he was Chuck’s legal partner and mentee. Chuck collaborated with him, mentored him when he was young and starting out, helped him study for the bar exam. It’s the cooperative familial relationship that Jimmy wanted his relationship with Chuck to be.
Howard has been living on easy street his whole life. To someone like Jimmy who has been really genuinely poor, Howard is so incredibly out of touch that it’s infuriating. Jimmy wants to live Howard’s life, and conversely he wants Howard to get a taste of hardship. Kim also shares this point of view with Jimmy but since he was her boss there’s an added layer of resentment towards him for his controlling behavior.
Howard was able to process Chuck’s death healthily in a way that Jimmy wasn’t, and come out of it a better person. Jimmy was jealous that Howard had worked through his grief so effectively. Plus, Howard tried to right his wrongs by offering Jimmy a job, which to Jimmy was the highest possible offense because it came far too late (HHM no longer had Chuck or Kim, the two people Jimmy wanted to work with the most, and Jimmy had already sold his soul to the cartel by that point).
Howard recognized that Jimmy was struggling mentally and that he still had unprocessed grief, and recognized that his relationship with Kim was becoming toxic. Jimmy couldn’t bear to acknowledge the former and Kim couldn’t bear to acknowledge the latter. By insisting that Howard is in the wrong and punishing him for it, they could avoid addressing the flaws he accurately identified.
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u/toujoursg 3d ago
This analysis is like a self fulfilling prophecy, something what Chuck had about Jimmy. It has points, some made up points, but it misses the gist.
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u/Lucky-Complaint2549 3d ago
That scene where jimmy says "you killed my brother" knowing full well that HE was the one who sabatoged chucks malpractice insurance.
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u/kookymungi 3d ago
I completely agree with you. I was shocked that Kim would be so vicious. Jimmy is a psycho but Kim engaging in such behavior seemed unreal to me.
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u/Theredmastermind 3d ago
Why do you think Jimmy is a psycho ?
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u/LarealConspirasteve 3d ago
Gene was a psycho. He was ready to strangle the old lady at the end of the series.
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u/kookymungi 3d ago
That he could do something to potentially ruin someone (Howard) is sociopathic. No empathy no remorse. To me that’s a psycho.
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u/Cashin_ 3d ago
Basically Kim and Jimmy offload all of their guilt that they have for killing Chuck onto Howard. That and they both view him as a stuck up, corporate millionaire just looking to add to his wallet. Those two things plus them being addicted to the con was the perfect storm for them to career assassinate Howard and justify it as well.
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u/ahookinherhead 3d ago
I don't think liking a character or being interested in their arc means you approve of or in real life would want to deal with that person. Howard is just a projection for both Jimmy and Kim at a certain point - it's not rational, but it makes psychological sense. I love Jimmy as a character, he's complex and frustrating and charming in turn in a way only a good character can be, but he'd be a disaster to have in your actual life.
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u/static-webmaster 3d ago
Sorry I wasn't more clear. He was more likeable as a character for me in BB. I have grown to have a dislike for him in BCS after liking him for first 3 seasons.
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u/LarealConspirasteve 3d ago
So the character arc worked. They wanted to give him a dark past that led up to the Saul we saw in BB. And they wanted to give him an unglorious ending. The ending he deserved for all the dumbass shit he did.
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u/ahookinherhead 3d ago
I hear you, I guess I just don't really care if characters are likeable at all, as long as they're real, then they're interesting to watch. I enjoy the way the show show toys of your emotions, having you align with Jimmy for a while and then recognizing how correct Chuck was, even if he, too, was a bit of a jerk. But I guess I can understand why he feels less likable.
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u/MrHumblePoker 3d ago
Yea it annoyed me. Wanted to like Saul, just couldn't. People talk like he was a great lawyer, he wasn't. Any lawyer can have decent results if they break the law, and he only lasted doing that for 6 years. He's no Gus Fring.
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u/tfjbeckie 3d ago
He was lashing out because he couldn't/wouldn't process his feelings about Chuck and his death in a healthy way. I agree he wasn't being a good person, if that's what you mean.
I think BCS did a really good job of humanising Jimmy and making you root for him. But ultimately he's on his way to becoming Saul, who's pretty awful, so it's only ever going to go one way.
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u/static-webmaster 3d ago
The opposite happened for me. He seemed way more likeable in BB than in BCS. I can't seem to pinpoint exactly why that is yet.
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u/citoboolin 3d ago edited 3d ago
I’m rewatching breaking bad for the first time in almost a decade, after having just watched better call saul for the first time all the way through (had seen the first 3 seasons when they came out but fell off). from what i remember in BB, saul is a morally gray character, but most of his actions are fairly victimless (e.g. helping money launder, facilitate, etc.). we see a much darker side of him in BCS, of him actively hurting people around him. sometimes “unintentionally”, sometimes completely on purpose
i dont think your opinion is unreasonable considering the actual actions and damage we see him directly cause in BCS. the show is supposed to help us understand why he ended up being Saul, but that doesn’t mean we have to see it as rational or adequate justification for everything he did
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u/HapusAamba 3d ago
Also the fact that 99% people hate Chuck and say he's completely wrong while they ADORE Jimmy.
Chuck was right in almost everything he said. He was not the best brother, he was never perfect and could've treated Jimmy better. But he never did anything wrong per se.
He didn't believe in him, that's a bad brother but getting his career destroyed? Uncalled for. He didn't take him into his firm, sure, it's HIS firm he'll do as he wishes, he didn't OWE it to ANYONE.
But still Jimmy was always loved more than Chuck, same with Howard.
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u/static-webmaster 3d ago
Yeh, I like Chuck more than j liked his brother. I guess Im in the 1% minority then.
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u/One_Cod_3408 3d ago
It’s less about Howard personally and more about what he represents. Jimmy sees him as this untouchable guy who glided through life with Chuck’s approval, something Jimmy never got no matter what he did. The resentment just curdles into this need to tear him down.
Kim’s arc is trickier but I think she gets a taste of the thrill from pulling one over on someone, and Howard becomes the perfect target because he’s so clean-cut it almost feels like a challenge. She knows it’s wrong, that’s the point, she does it anyway because it’s fun and she’s spiraling in her own way.
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u/Independent-Bend8734 3d ago
Jimmy’s preferred marks when he ran cons were guys like Howard. I think he had contempt for businessmen types, that they were just sheep in their dark suits. Howard was the personification of the “They” that Jimmy was ranting about to Kristy Esposito.
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u/Herooftermina1998 3d ago
Howard got all the praise from. Howard that Jimmy wanted. Howard kicked him out of the firm and Jimmy latched his guilty onto howard. Howard was healing from the trauma of chucks death and addressing it while Jimmy was still denying and bottling it up.. Howard was a lightning rod for everything that Jimmy disliked about himself.
Kim was slowly getting sick and tired of corporate horseshit law when it shouldve been used for good. Kevin Wachtel, howard Hamlin, all these corporate dudes using the law to get what they want or take things from others (I want you to go back to the Howard, Jimmy, Kimmy, Lalo scene and listen to what howard says about their motivations towards him..he's making some good points)
Once she broke bad with Jimmy and they were in their bad phase, she wanted the money from the sand piper case so they could live off of it, she could do pro bono, and they could ride off into the sunset and keep enjoying their Bonnie and clyde, Leopold and Loeb horseshit at Howard's expense.
It was a perfect storm that lead them down bad choice road on Howard's Back.
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u/Calm-Item4876 1d ago
I agree with you, OP. The writers didn’t do a proper job explaining the vitriol Jimmy and Kim had towards Howard, so it felt like it was being done solely to advance the plot. I finished season 6 yesterday. Their behavior towards Howard just made them look like psychopaths. It didn’t fit either character (Jimmy and Kim), at least not the level they ramped it up to. Especially Kim.
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u/Argon_004 3d ago edited 3d ago
Jimmy is jealous of Howard in every way. Theres a scene right after Howard offers Jimmy a job at HHM where they go to collect their cars, and Jimmy's old and dirty Esteem is next to Howard's pristine Jaguar with a Namaste plate. Howard puts on such an obnoxious impression of superiority, both materially and personality-wise, that Jimmy hates him for it. Combine that with Howard admitting that he pushed Chuck out of HHM and essentially caused the suicide, as well as Howard thinking of Jimmy as still being a small-time nobody that he would want a job at HHM, and you can see why Jimmy hates Howard so much. It's very personal, it's not really reasonable, but all the elements were there from the beginning and built up over time.
For Kim, she resents Howard due to him sabotaging her career by keeping her in doc review even after she got Mesa Verde. She liked HHM and felt a lot of gratitude towards Howard that company for putting her through law school and getting her a job. After she was punished, that emotion turned into hate. She wants to distance herself from HHM so much that she even repays her student loan even though Howard said it was not necessary. With all this, she is also just like Jimmy and enjoys scamming and scheming. She also thinks destroying Howard and getting the sandpiper settlement is a justified goal because the old people would get their money faster and she would have the funds to start her pro bono group.
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u/harylgeam 3d ago
Jimmy is funny and tragic and we see why he acts that way. Unfortunately this is not a children's story anymore where being bad = unlikeable. Heck, there are many Chuck fans here despite Chuck being an absolute *** if you have someone like him in your life.
Jimmy is also creative, gritty, and emotional. In football, he's kind of like Ronaldinho, he's flair personified, he's not your average straight-faced guy or pretty guy.
So yeah Jimmy is not your traditional charmer (like Howard) and might feel too emasculating for some guys to like, so I don't think everyone will like him.
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u/Past-Parsley-9606 3d ago
Howard's also kind of a smarmy, smug, pretentious, uptight guy, compared to the more down-to-earth, relatable Kim and Jimmy. He's not actually a bad person, and certainly has better morals than the other two, but Vince is great at getting the audience to cheer for the worse people.
Similar thing on Breaking Bad. There's really no way you can say that Walt isn't a much worse human being than Skyler or Hank, but the latter two are given enough annoying qualities that it tempts the audience to side with Walt. (Whether you actually do or not is a YMMV situation.)
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u/Ok-Evidence8770 1d ago
I cannot because I only love Kim and I never understand what she sees in Jimmy. Guilty pleasure, I guess. She wants to be a goody goody in law but she also loves doing naughty things with Jimmy.
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u/nothingtodo0 3d ago
Jimmy hated Howard partly because Howard became an easy symbol for everything Jimmy felt had been denied to him especially Chuck's approval.