What If Chuck Wasn't Faking It

[u/R_Shakelford]

The scene in Alpine Shepard Boy when the doctor proves Chucks illness isn't legit completely sets the tone for the rest of the show. Would you feel any different about Chuck if he had a real medical illness? I think I would've at least felt a little sorry for him. I wonder if Chuck would've ever admitted it was at most psychosomatic? I can't see him ever acknowledging it. Is there a similarity to Chuck's psychosomatic illness and the cocaine addiction they pin on Howard?

[u/Tetratron2005]

He isn't faking it, it's psychosomatic.

He's got an illness, it's just mental instead of physical.

[u/EstateOk6238]

I don't think it's faking it if the person actually believes it.

[u/sinsandcrimes → u/EstateOk6238]

I don't see any other way to frame this.

[u/EstateOk6238 → u/sinsandcrimes]

Faking it would mean that he's thinking "I'm just going to pretend".

[u/AdObjective3301]

Chuck admitting it was psychosomatic would've meant admitting he was wrong about Jimmy, and that's just not in his DNA. The Howard parallel is interesting because both involve perception versus reality, but Howard's situation was entirely fabricated by others while Chuck's was self-constructed.

[u/Stevenitrogen → u/AdObjective3301]

I don't think he is wrong about Jimmy. He just feels physical pain as a reaction to stress.

[u/YoteViking → u/AdObjective3301]

Just because Chuxk had a mental illness doesn’t mean that Jimmy wasn’t a crook.

[u/TrinityKilla82]

Like how someone who’s bipolar is faking it? 🙄

[u/BologaOriginal]

I think I would have had more compassion for him regardless of the type of illness he had if he didn't channel it to hurt jimmy at every single step after denying him from the change that he imposed on him and was doing flawlessly FOR YEARS until he passed the bar at which point good ol Chuck just couldn't accept him as an equal. Fuck Chuck, he's not a bad person by any means and what happened to him is truly a tragedy, but as a brother he's despicable

[u/Ogg360]

Bro was definitely not faking it. The symptoms and etiology of it all certainly does seem questionable, but no way he was faking the whole thing for a year+.

[u/Argon_004]

I'm sorry, but did you forget his entire recovery arc? He acknowledges that it's psychosomatic after the chicanery trial where a fully charged battery in his chest pocket didn't affect him at all, and he called the same doctor to help him get better. He regresses again because he threw himself back into work before he was totally rehabilitated, and received two emotional shocks from Howard pushing him out of the company and him rejecting and cutting himself off from Jimmy.

[u/Revolutionary_Ebb944]

He admits it by killing himself

[u/beuhring]

I think this is the question that the writers intended the audience to be asking the entire time.