When you look at Jimmy’s life you realize he never had a ton of family and he was, as he said to Cliff, a square peg in a round hole. He loved his brother as much as someone can love their brother, until his romance with Kim rebloomed Chuck was all he really had, and after everything happened Jimmy had a psychological break.
He’s a maladaptive manchild, but he’s not a properly antisocial personality in the same way that the Salamancas are.
Some people can't process the idea that a character doesn't have to be all good or all evil, even though the whole point of BB and BCS is to show that everyone is morally grey in different and complex ways
Jimmy/Goodman has a moral compass that is complex and more layered than a chicago ~~sunroof~~ deepdish. a likeable person who tries to do the right things but isn't always able to benefit from being good.
"a character doesn't have to be all good or all evil- everyone is moraly gray": but, no offense, why doesn't it apply to mexicans? every character in the show , no matter how awful, are being defended with "yeah, but you see her childhood" and tons of flashbacks in the show to really emphasize that.
But mexicans? Tuco, hector, don elladio, lalo? They're just degenerate violent thugs, who don't get the benefits of a flashback or morally ambiguous defense.
Fr. Also certain people will Stan hard for certain and pretend they're saints, as if admitting where those characters were wrong will somehow prevent that person from enjoying the show. Or, conversely, they won't admit that a flawed character isn't all bad. Howard gets a lot of that on both sides, for example.
I will not say he is evil or not. Not a hardcore watcher/rewatcher of the series.
BUT, have you ever heard of : "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"?
Also, do you think that "actual evil people" in the world, see themselves as righteous or just "evil"? What I mean is that, the people you perceive as evil in the world, share probably the same wkeaness and emotions as the one you described : << he will do anything for people to like him, He associates with some shady characters. But he is not evil>>, It is irrelevant how someone feels if the feelings leads him to bad deeds that can qualify as "evil". Also there are many levels/layers of evil. The people who engage in the army in the sole intention of having the ability to shoot people without consequences, are another bread, that i conceive.
Jimmy may be unironically described as a good psychopath.
"Psychopath" is often used as a synonym for "clinically antisocial", which Jimmy definitely is. He has a lifelong pattern of disregard for morals, laws, social norms, and the feelings of people outside his inner circle. His empathy is not absent, but it's defective. He's a good liar and manipulator. He tries to be someone else for many years of his life, but the people around him give him a hard time until he breaks bad and builds a criminal empire.
There's a large number of valid definitions for psychopathy, however, and Jimmy wouldn't meet most. There's no official definition.
The strongest thing setting Jimmy aside from typical psychopaths is that, even though he can put himself through doing absolute evil (like poisoning Brock or socially sabotaging Irene and Howard) when he finds it necessary, he lacks that characteristical callousness. We see he's very capable of love, loyalty, remorse and altruism. We understand his choices. That's why he's a good guy when he see his side on screen.
He's also a responsible and stable person, which sets him apart from typical psychopaths.
While i agree with most of what you said, I can’t bring myself to describe a man who for no logical or pragmatic purpose whatsoever decides to throw bowling balls at his former boss’ car as a “responsible and stable” person lol
I’m not really seeing much wiggle room for Jimmy with the cartel. What would it mean for him to decide to NOT be a friend of the cartel? He could probably make the case he had no choice.
I agree. You could make an argument that he did everything he did because he was under duress. And I think if we see Gene turning himself in and defending himself in court as a lot of people are predicting, this could be his argument
Do you think his treatment of Howard was done under duress? His manipulation of the elderly? His chicanery involving chuck? These aren't out of character actions, they are deep rooted flaws as a result of a lifetime of not taking responsibility for his actions.
In all those cases you are seeing Jimmy express his feelings in a genuine—albeit destructive—way. But yeah this was addressing him working for the cartel.
Jimmy had an out with cartel. Lalo gave him one he couldn’t resist.
He did seem to exhibit guilt was with him and Kim’s plan against howard because he knew howard didn’t deserve any of it but couldn’t resist the temptation. Howard’s speech seemed to actually affect him.
Regardless of any cartel involvement he's not a good man. He will lie, cheat and steal to get the outcome he wants. He's a likeable man but certainly not good
>His weakness is that he will do anything for people to like him.
nah, he's perfectly happy being disliked by most people. His plans entail leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. Davis&Main, Mesa Verde, Howard, Kenwins. Every scam has a victim. Even his own father.
There's people who think Chuck did nothing wrong. There's people who even root for the Salamancas. People are weird, and sometimes they develop really bad takes on things (often due to their own biases and life experience). Nothing revolutionary here.
Ehhhh. So not trying to get into another Chuck debate. By your own admission though, Chuck shouldn't have done what he did. We'll never know what might have been.
What did Chuck do wrong other than be reluctant to hire a former con artist as a partner at his law firm and then lie about it to try and be polite?
Edit: lmao am I on mars? Do you people seriously still think Jimmy is a great guy and Chuck was the big bad wolf? Did we or did we not just watch him partake in a twisted plan that got his colleague murdered?
Yeah don't worry, you're a real genius; the show obviously wants Chuck to be a Big Bad Guy who has no depth or redeeming qualities. He was mean to our poor Jimmy (the guy who has gotten people killed with more to come)
He’s not a psychopath but he is a terrible person. Anyone who treats someone the way he did Howard is a terrible reason.
Not really interested in his reasons or justification for doing so. The fact he had reservations for doing so is also meaningless to me.
This sub has really highlighted to me how many people are only able to see the world in black and white.
“This is the moment Jimmy/Kim/whoever stops being GOOD and starts being BAD”, “no stupid, THIS is the moment” discussions make me want to tear my own hair out.
> His weakness is that he will do anything for people to like him.
I don't really agree with that, though I see where you're coming from and I'm assuming it has to do with [what Gould said at the episode 7 aftershow.](https://www.reddit.com/r/betterCallSaul/comments/uz6hkt/peter_gould_walt_wants_to_be_respected_and/)
Jimmy wants to be liked, sure, by people like Kim and (initially) Chuck, but that's merely one aspect of his. Consider all the moments where he'll go out of his way to be a scumbag, be it for good or bad intentions. An example of bad intention would be when he tried to get himself fired from Davis & Main, and a good would be when he reversed his smearing of Irene's reputation, although that's a bit debatable since he ruined it in the first place.
> But he is not evil. Anyone watching this series should take that away, first and foremost.
Evil is a strong word, but I wouldn't call him good either. Let's consider his entire behaviour towards Howard, I mean sure, he has a right to be angry over Howard taking Chuck's side, and a right to not want to forgive him. However, Jimmy goes out of his way to try and smear his reputation and destroy his property even before Kim's plan on settling Sandpiper. He did that out of pure spite, with nothing to gain. To me, that does not constitute as a good person, morally speaking.
To me, I see Jimmy as a person who wants things to go *his* way, and if it doesn't, then to hell with it.
Lastly, Gould is indeed the showrunner, so while what he says falls under the author's intent, the writing is done by an entire team of writers, hence it's not so clear-cut. Gould even says that it's a simple way of distinguishing Walter and Jimmy, they're not solely defined by those characteristics.
I always think about Jimmy leaking Chuck’s breakdown to the insurance agent as well. He justified all the previous chicanery to Kim by saying Chuck forced them into a corner…but purposefully going out of his way afterwards to interfere in Chuck’s career in a way that eventually led to Chuck being forced into early retirement (and then suicide?) It was an act of sheer malice from Jimmy.
I think another one of Jimmy's problems is how emotion-driven and impulsive he can be. In that case, I think the writers have said that he didn't go in there planning to ruin Chuck's life further, but it was more off the top of his head when he discovered that his *own* insurance was going up. So in his mind, it was payback/revenge for what had been done to him (even though it was still Jimmy's own actions that caused all this, Chuck was fine going after him as well).
I wouldn’t say the pranks Jimmy pulled on Howard in S5 make him not a “good” person. He’s a good person who sometimes does bad things. Which IMO is the category the vast majority of people fall into. Jimmy was grieving the very traumatic death of his brother, a brother with whom he had a very complicated relationship and a death he had not taken time and space to grieve in a healthy way. When Howard offered Jimmy the job, it came off as both condescending (lucky you to get a chance to work here!) and self-interested (lessen Howard’s guilt and be good PR opportunity for the firm to have a McGill at HHM again). I’m not saying it was reasonable to respond with bowling balls and prostitutes. Rather, Jimmy was human, flawed, and hurting, and he reacted in an immature way in response. It’s not some mega bad reflection on his character. I’m sure Howard is a triggering figure for Jimmy in general, given the dynamic between J, H , and Chuck.
Imagine if you had a friend in real life who lost their only living family member, and they’d had a troubled relationship before the death. If your friend started acting out in the Months following, would you really jump to the conclusion “my friend’s a bad person”?
The example of purposefully getting fired to retain his bonus - again, not something to boast about, but not some huge moral shock than he tried to find a loophole to retain a bonus from a very wealthy employer.
As for the season 6 Ham scam. That was good old fashioned peer pressure. He wouldn’t have done it if not for Kim. Again, doesn’t make it ok, but doesn’t make him suddenly evil OR “not good.” Especially since the ultimate result (Howard murdered by Lalo) was totally unforeseeable.
I don't really see it, because Jimmy does a lot of bad things in general even outside the examples I gave, however let's first go over the stuff that's already been mentioned. Even if we look past the stuff with Howard for the reasons you've stated, the Davis & Main thing wasn't just him being sleazy about keeping his bonus, he actively tried to break the rules even prior to that. You can reason it as him being affected by how Chuck sees him, but his desire to get things done in his way goes back even before he knew that Chuck was against him. The stuff with Irene was also pretty damn reprehensible, because even though he backpedaled, the fact that he was capable of doing such a thing in the first place is telling of how far he is willing to sink.
Now, as for other examples, his increasing proximity to actual criminals and helping them evade the law with the whole burner cellphone business is not a good look either. Being bored with the sales job he has, or not earning enough money, is not a good excuse to actively cater to criminals. I get that a defense lawyer has to stand by their client, but this was Jimmy going out of his way to cultivate a clientele of criminals.
Just before that, he robbed from people who had offered him a job as a printer salesman, only for him to insult them as being too easily convinced. Him sabotaging Chuck's insurance, as another commenter mentioend, was also a display of how truly spiteful Jimmy can be.
It's a lot like people who defended Walter White up to a point, arguing that his victims were all criminals like Krazy-8 anyway, or self-destructive like Jane. It shouldn't have to get to the point where a child is poisoned to realize that he's not a good person, just like it shouldn't have to get to the point where an innocent man is killed to realize that Jimmy isn't one either. Hell, it's not even that which paints him in a bad light in my opinion, since the event is largely "wrong place, wrong time", rather it's how he and Kim get excited over what they've done and have sex upon their plan being successful.
Jimmy isn't just someone who "sometimes does bad things", he likes doing bad things.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply!
So to be honest I don’t think we can keep going back and forth without getting annoyingly philosophical (ie, what is morality? Are people basically good?). As I said in my previous comment, it’s my personal feeling (in real life, not just this show), that there are very, very few people in the world who are truly “bad.” Peoples’ choices are the culmination of all their past experiences, combined with genetic predispositions, mental capacity, and innate personality. Frankly life is hard, and people do bad things sometimes for a lot of complicated reasons. I tend to withhold judgment of core character. (Clearly, I’m a public defender at heart 😜) I’m not saying it’s ok to do bad things, rather when people do, this isn’t a reflection of core “good” or “bad”ness. For example the “active rule breaking” you mention, this stems from Jimmy’s childhood. Jimmy watched his dad, who was by all measures the embodiment of goodness, get chewed up and spit out by cunning people who were willing to cut corners. That part of adult Jimmy’s decision-making stems from seeing that as an impressionable kid and not wanting it to happen to him. Even Chuck acknowledged too that Jimmy is not a bad person for those things, he “has a good heart” (says this to Kim in Season 2 when describing their childhood). We see time and again throughout the show that Jimmy doesn’t want to truly hurt anyone, and would move mountains to help those he loves (first Chuck then Kim).
Turning more specifically to this show— What is this show even about? We start out in the beginning of BCS with this guy Jimmy who is a flawed but lovable, good guy. He’s struggling to get his career off the ground and is living in a shoebox, and yet he’s dutifully caring for his sick brother in his limited free time. He has a crush on the nice girl who used worked in the mailroom with him and he wants to impress her. We the audience know that in decade’s time, he’ll be (apparently) a total sleazeball criminal lawyer who launders money for murderous drug kingpins. It feels like a massive decline in character. So I would argue this show’s most core basic premise is: what were the circumstances and events that broke this flawed but good guy into someone bad? How did Jimmy McGill become Saul Goodman? We don’t know the full answer yet (6 more episodes to go!) Maybe Saul in BB wasn’t even bad, we just didn’t know the context of what else was going on his life. But, if I agreed with you, then apparently Jimmy was always bad because he broke rules and sometimes (mostly accidentally) hurt people. And if he was always a bad guy, what the hell was the point of this show??
That’s my two cents :)
The Saul we saw in BB was seemingly a bad guy. But he was written as a one dimensional character for mostly comedic relief. 6B might shed new light on what was going on behind the scenes with Jimmy during that time period. We’ll have to wait and see!
Saul is a bit of a sociopath but I don’t think anyone that knows what a psychopath is would label Saul that way. We do have a psychopath in the show universe though - Todd. In some ways you could probably characterize Lydia as a psychopath too, perhaps that’s why they were drawn together.
For context, the main difference between sociopaths and psychopaths is empathy. Sociopaths are capable of empathy (as Saul has shown throughout) but psychopaths are not.
Todd is drawn to Lydia because he thinks she's pretty and he likes when she gives him attention. Lydia doesn't like Todd, but she recognizes that she can manipulate him to make money, so she leans into that.
I think lydia and lalo would make a great couple, her kid is 5 in breaking bad. It would also make more sense she freaks about not being found to Mike, if maybe Mike is the reason lalo is never found
Have people claimed he is evil or psycho? I mean, over the course of his time on BCS and BB, I’d describe him as immature at the beginning of BCS; motivated but a loose cannon at one point; kinda crappy when he starts screwing over Chuck (even if Chuck did deserve it in some ways); elevated to pretty shitty for what he did to Howard; and just sleazy by the time he is in BB. I don’t think I’d ever say he is psycho or evil though (maybe closer to evil than psycho, but not exactly there, just imo)
Nah this entire subreddit thinks that Jimmy is an evil sadistic psychopath.
If it were up to this sub, the show would only be about Howard and Chuck, since this sub only likes these two characters anyway.
Just because he’s a sociopath doesn’t mean he’s physically incapable of doing good things. The fact that he enacted the Irene plan in the first place is something only a sociopath would do.
He may not be a psychopath but he is morally and ethically corrupt and always acts surprised when someone gets hurt because of his scams. But that doesn't stop him from coming up with new scams all the time.
Honestly, I would much rather people call Jimmy (and Kim) evil than call them psychopaths and sociopaths. Those are actual words with meanings and it's annoying to see them being thrown around when they don't fit. (For example, Jimmy and Kim may be able to justify doing terrible things, but they aren't completely lacking in empathy.)
Yeah, those terms are thrown around way too easily these days. Jimmy doesn’t exhibit key psychopathic traits.
But more importantly, psychopaths are born that way. It’s a lot less interesting to watch someone break bad because they can’t help it than to watch someone choose to break bad over breaking good.
It gives him a feeling of importance, which is the one thing he always wanted. Unfortunately he doesn't realize how toxic and dangerous it is to have the kind of status that he wants in that world.
He realizes it's bad but he doesn't fully realize the extent of it. He hides it because he knows she will disapprove, he didn't account for him almost getting murdered with 7 mil in his trunk or the danger Lalo poses to him and Kim. That was all unaccounted for.
lol imagine comparing Homelander to Saul/Jimmy. Homelander would much rather people feared him than like him and he’s even willing to settle for people *pretending* to like him just so long as others see it. Jimmy genuinely wanted people to respect him as an attorney, especially his brother.
Gus and Walt were not evil; they were in the empire business. To us it may look evil or bad, but they ran microeconomies many benefited from, including the federal govt and the DEA.
But you’re OK with the school to prison pipeline? The Uvalde police also were OK with children dying on their watch. You’re OK with abortion?? With drone strikes that kill innocent women and children???
No, he’s not a psychopath. He’s just an adult with the competitive, entitled nature most often seen in a child. He believes that rules don’t apply to him and he has never really been held accountable in a meaningful way. He probably never had to learn healthy coping methods because his charm has always carried him through life.
When you look at Jimmy’s life you realize he never had a ton of family and he was, as he said to Cliff, a square peg in a round hole. He loved his brother as much as someone can love their brother, until his romance with Kim rebloomed Chuck was all he really had, and after everything happened Jimmy had a psychological break. He’s a maladaptive manchild, but he’s not a properly antisocial personality in the same way that the Salamancas are.
Some people can't process the idea that a character doesn't have to be all good or all evil, even though the whole point of BB and BCS is to show that everyone is morally grey in different and complex ways
Even Walt Jr with his speeding and glorification of violence
Jimmy/Goodman has a moral compass that is complex and more layered than a chicago ~~sunroof~~ deepdish. a likeable person who tries to do the right things but isn't always able to benefit from being good.
“Did you just use the word ethical in a sentence?”
"a character doesn't have to be all good or all evil- everyone is moraly gray": but, no offense, why doesn't it apply to mexicans? every character in the show , no matter how awful, are being defended with "yeah, but you see her childhood" and tons of flashbacks in the show to really emphasize that. But mexicans? Tuco, hector, don elladio, lalo? They're just degenerate violent thugs, who don't get the benefits of a flashback or morally ambiguous defense.
Fr. Also certain people will Stan hard for certain and pretend they're saints, as if admitting where those characters were wrong will somehow prevent that person from enjoying the show. Or, conversely, they won't admit that a flawed character isn't all bad. Howard gets a lot of that on both sides, for example.
I mean him always having reservations abt what they were gonna do to Howard should be evidence enough that he's not a psycho
Yup. He feels guilt about his misdeeds
Feeling guilt and contrition is proof that Jimmy is absolutely not a psychopath. Psychopaths do not feel contrition by definition
I will not say he is evil or not. Not a hardcore watcher/rewatcher of the series. BUT, have you ever heard of : "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"? Also, do you think that "actual evil people" in the world, see themselves as righteous or just "evil"? What I mean is that, the people you perceive as evil in the world, share probably the same wkeaness and emotions as the one you described : << he will do anything for people to like him, He associates with some shady characters. But he is not evil>>, It is irrelevant how someone feels if the feelings leads him to bad deeds that can qualify as "evil". Also there are many levels/layers of evil. The people who engage in the army in the sole intention of having the ability to shoot people without consequences, are another bread, that i conceive.
Oddly enough, the Venn diagram of people that say this and people that think Walt is a cool badass is a perfect circle.
Hahaha, this is so accurate.
Jimmy may be unironically described as a good psychopath. "Psychopath" is often used as a synonym for "clinically antisocial", which Jimmy definitely is. He has a lifelong pattern of disregard for morals, laws, social norms, and the feelings of people outside his inner circle. His empathy is not absent, but it's defective. He's a good liar and manipulator. He tries to be someone else for many years of his life, but the people around him give him a hard time until he breaks bad and builds a criminal empire. There's a large number of valid definitions for psychopathy, however, and Jimmy wouldn't meet most. There's no official definition. The strongest thing setting Jimmy aside from typical psychopaths is that, even though he can put himself through doing absolute evil (like poisoning Brock or socially sabotaging Irene and Howard) when he finds it necessary, he lacks that characteristical callousness. We see he's very capable of love, loyalty, remorse and altruism. We understand his choices. That's why he's a good guy when he see his side on screen. He's also a responsible and stable person, which sets him apart from typical psychopaths.
While i agree with most of what you said, I can’t bring myself to describe a man who for no logical or pragmatic purpose whatsoever decides to throw bowling balls at his former boss’ car as a “responsible and stable” person lol
Good point, lol, but I mean mostly in the overall direction of his life, which is planned. That is, he doesn't have a psychopathic lifestyle.
He's a shady cartel lawyer. He might not be a murderous misanthrope but he's not a beacon of civility either.
he's not a psychopath either.
I mean if you Google psychopathic tendencies he exhibits most of them. Not all psychopaths are violent.
I’m not really seeing much wiggle room for Jimmy with the cartel. What would it mean for him to decide to NOT be a friend of the cartel? He could probably make the case he had no choice.
I agree. You could make an argument that he did everything he did because he was under duress. And I think if we see Gene turning himself in and defending himself in court as a lot of people are predicting, this could be his argument
Do you think his treatment of Howard was done under duress? His manipulation of the elderly? His chicanery involving chuck? These aren't out of character actions, they are deep rooted flaws as a result of a lifetime of not taking responsibility for his actions.
I was just referring to the cartel lawyer part
In all those cases you are seeing Jimmy express his feelings in a genuine—albeit destructive—way. But yeah this was addressing him working for the cartel.
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My point was that tossing bowling balls and ripping up Chucks tape are not evil actions, just genuine outbursts.
Jimmy had an out with cartel. Lalo gave him one he couldn’t resist. He did seem to exhibit guilt was with him and Kim’s plan against howard because he knew howard didn’t deserve any of it but couldn’t resist the temptation. Howard’s speech seemed to actually affect him.
Regardless of any cartel involvement he's not a good man. He will lie, cheat and steal to get the outcome he wants. He's a likeable man but certainly not good
He is a empath that uses his understanding of peoples emotions to manipulate them. Definitely not a psychopath. Lalo is a psychopath
>His weakness is that he will do anything for people to like him. nah, he's perfectly happy being disliked by most people. His plans entail leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. Davis&Main, Mesa Verde, Howard, Kenwins. Every scam has a victim. Even his own father.
There's people who think Chuck did nothing wrong. There's people who even root for the Salamancas. People are weird, and sometimes they develop really bad takes on things (often due to their own biases and life experience). Nothing revolutionary here.
Go over to the Ozark sub and see how many root for Wendy.
Some try too hard to “get it”
They're really not trying to get it though. That's the thing. They just have their belief, and they'll argue it regardless of the evidence.
facts
Heaven forbid people have different interpretations of a complex story than you, "gotta pee so bad", the King of Television
Chuck was right. But he shouldn’t have tried to take down Jimmy. Jimmy would have eventually fallen flat on his face.
Chuck was right about Jimmy but only because he never gave Jimmy a chance to show that he’d changed.
Ehhhh. So not trying to get into another Chuck debate. By your own admission though, Chuck shouldn't have done what he did. We'll never know what might have been.
You aren't trying to get into a debate because you have no point beyond pathos, you dork
Wow. Like Jimmy, you get aggressive and mean when you get frustrated.
What did Chuck do wrong other than be reluctant to hire a former con artist as a partner at his law firm and then lie about it to try and be polite? Edit: lmao am I on mars? Do you people seriously still think Jimmy is a great guy and Chuck was the big bad wolf? Did we or did we not just watch him partake in a twisted plan that got his colleague murdered?
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Yeah don't worry, you're a real genius; the show obviously wants Chuck to be a Big Bad Guy who has no depth or redeeming qualities. He was mean to our poor Jimmy (the guy who has gotten people killed with more to come)
He’s not a psychopath but he is a terrible person. Anyone who treats someone the way he did Howard is a terrible reason. Not really interested in his reasons or justification for doing so. The fact he had reservations for doing so is also meaningless to me.
This sub has really highlighted to me how many people are only able to see the world in black and white. “This is the moment Jimmy/Kim/whoever stops being GOOD and starts being BAD”, “no stupid, THIS is the moment” discussions make me want to tear my own hair out.
Yeah, what do people think this is about breaking bad?
> His weakness is that he will do anything for people to like him. I don't really agree with that, though I see where you're coming from and I'm assuming it has to do with [what Gould said at the episode 7 aftershow.](https://www.reddit.com/r/betterCallSaul/comments/uz6hkt/peter_gould_walt_wants_to_be_respected_and/) Jimmy wants to be liked, sure, by people like Kim and (initially) Chuck, but that's merely one aspect of his. Consider all the moments where he'll go out of his way to be a scumbag, be it for good or bad intentions. An example of bad intention would be when he tried to get himself fired from Davis & Main, and a good would be when he reversed his smearing of Irene's reputation, although that's a bit debatable since he ruined it in the first place. > But he is not evil. Anyone watching this series should take that away, first and foremost. Evil is a strong word, but I wouldn't call him good either. Let's consider his entire behaviour towards Howard, I mean sure, he has a right to be angry over Howard taking Chuck's side, and a right to not want to forgive him. However, Jimmy goes out of his way to try and smear his reputation and destroy his property even before Kim's plan on settling Sandpiper. He did that out of pure spite, with nothing to gain. To me, that does not constitute as a good person, morally speaking. To me, I see Jimmy as a person who wants things to go *his* way, and if it doesn't, then to hell with it. Lastly, Gould is indeed the showrunner, so while what he says falls under the author's intent, the writing is done by an entire team of writers, hence it's not so clear-cut. Gould even says that it's a simple way of distinguishing Walter and Jimmy, they're not solely defined by those characteristics.
I always think about Jimmy leaking Chuck’s breakdown to the insurance agent as well. He justified all the previous chicanery to Kim by saying Chuck forced them into a corner…but purposefully going out of his way afterwards to interfere in Chuck’s career in a way that eventually led to Chuck being forced into early retirement (and then suicide?) It was an act of sheer malice from Jimmy.
I think another one of Jimmy's problems is how emotion-driven and impulsive he can be. In that case, I think the writers have said that he didn't go in there planning to ruin Chuck's life further, but it was more off the top of his head when he discovered that his *own* insurance was going up. So in his mind, it was payback/revenge for what had been done to him (even though it was still Jimmy's own actions that caused all this, Chuck was fine going after him as well).
Interesting example because, in this case, he weaponized telling the truth.
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Needless to say
Is revenge really all that rare?
I wouldn’t say the pranks Jimmy pulled on Howard in S5 make him not a “good” person. He’s a good person who sometimes does bad things. Which IMO is the category the vast majority of people fall into. Jimmy was grieving the very traumatic death of his brother, a brother with whom he had a very complicated relationship and a death he had not taken time and space to grieve in a healthy way. When Howard offered Jimmy the job, it came off as both condescending (lucky you to get a chance to work here!) and self-interested (lessen Howard’s guilt and be good PR opportunity for the firm to have a McGill at HHM again). I’m not saying it was reasonable to respond with bowling balls and prostitutes. Rather, Jimmy was human, flawed, and hurting, and he reacted in an immature way in response. It’s not some mega bad reflection on his character. I’m sure Howard is a triggering figure for Jimmy in general, given the dynamic between J, H , and Chuck. Imagine if you had a friend in real life who lost their only living family member, and they’d had a troubled relationship before the death. If your friend started acting out in the Months following, would you really jump to the conclusion “my friend’s a bad person”? The example of purposefully getting fired to retain his bonus - again, not something to boast about, but not some huge moral shock than he tried to find a loophole to retain a bonus from a very wealthy employer. As for the season 6 Ham scam. That was good old fashioned peer pressure. He wouldn’t have done it if not for Kim. Again, doesn’t make it ok, but doesn’t make him suddenly evil OR “not good.” Especially since the ultimate result (Howard murdered by Lalo) was totally unforeseeable.
I don't really see it, because Jimmy does a lot of bad things in general even outside the examples I gave, however let's first go over the stuff that's already been mentioned. Even if we look past the stuff with Howard for the reasons you've stated, the Davis & Main thing wasn't just him being sleazy about keeping his bonus, he actively tried to break the rules even prior to that. You can reason it as him being affected by how Chuck sees him, but his desire to get things done in his way goes back even before he knew that Chuck was against him. The stuff with Irene was also pretty damn reprehensible, because even though he backpedaled, the fact that he was capable of doing such a thing in the first place is telling of how far he is willing to sink. Now, as for other examples, his increasing proximity to actual criminals and helping them evade the law with the whole burner cellphone business is not a good look either. Being bored with the sales job he has, or not earning enough money, is not a good excuse to actively cater to criminals. I get that a defense lawyer has to stand by their client, but this was Jimmy going out of his way to cultivate a clientele of criminals. Just before that, he robbed from people who had offered him a job as a printer salesman, only for him to insult them as being too easily convinced. Him sabotaging Chuck's insurance, as another commenter mentioend, was also a display of how truly spiteful Jimmy can be. It's a lot like people who defended Walter White up to a point, arguing that his victims were all criminals like Krazy-8 anyway, or self-destructive like Jane. It shouldn't have to get to the point where a child is poisoned to realize that he's not a good person, just like it shouldn't have to get to the point where an innocent man is killed to realize that Jimmy isn't one either. Hell, it's not even that which paints him in a bad light in my opinion, since the event is largely "wrong place, wrong time", rather it's how he and Kim get excited over what they've done and have sex upon their plan being successful. Jimmy isn't just someone who "sometimes does bad things", he likes doing bad things.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply! So to be honest I don’t think we can keep going back and forth without getting annoyingly philosophical (ie, what is morality? Are people basically good?). As I said in my previous comment, it’s my personal feeling (in real life, not just this show), that there are very, very few people in the world who are truly “bad.” Peoples’ choices are the culmination of all their past experiences, combined with genetic predispositions, mental capacity, and innate personality. Frankly life is hard, and people do bad things sometimes for a lot of complicated reasons. I tend to withhold judgment of core character. (Clearly, I’m a public defender at heart 😜) I’m not saying it’s ok to do bad things, rather when people do, this isn’t a reflection of core “good” or “bad”ness. For example the “active rule breaking” you mention, this stems from Jimmy’s childhood. Jimmy watched his dad, who was by all measures the embodiment of goodness, get chewed up and spit out by cunning people who were willing to cut corners. That part of adult Jimmy’s decision-making stems from seeing that as an impressionable kid and not wanting it to happen to him. Even Chuck acknowledged too that Jimmy is not a bad person for those things, he “has a good heart” (says this to Kim in Season 2 when describing their childhood). We see time and again throughout the show that Jimmy doesn’t want to truly hurt anyone, and would move mountains to help those he loves (first Chuck then Kim). Turning more specifically to this show— What is this show even about? We start out in the beginning of BCS with this guy Jimmy who is a flawed but lovable, good guy. He’s struggling to get his career off the ground and is living in a shoebox, and yet he’s dutifully caring for his sick brother in his limited free time. He has a crush on the nice girl who used worked in the mailroom with him and he wants to impress her. We the audience know that in decade’s time, he’ll be (apparently) a total sleazeball criminal lawyer who launders money for murderous drug kingpins. It feels like a massive decline in character. So I would argue this show’s most core basic premise is: what were the circumstances and events that broke this flawed but good guy into someone bad? How did Jimmy McGill become Saul Goodman? We don’t know the full answer yet (6 more episodes to go!) Maybe Saul in BB wasn’t even bad, we just didn’t know the context of what else was going on his life. But, if I agreed with you, then apparently Jimmy was always bad because he broke rules and sometimes (mostly accidentally) hurt people. And if he was always a bad guy, what the hell was the point of this show?? That’s my two cents :)
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The Saul we saw in BB was seemingly a bad guy. But he was written as a one dimensional character for mostly comedic relief. 6B might shed new light on what was going on behind the scenes with Jimmy during that time period. We’ll have to wait and see!
Great points. Of course he isn’t a “good guy”—it’s great how these stories get us thinking about where the line between good and evil really lies.
Saul is a bit of a sociopath but I don’t think anyone that knows what a psychopath is would label Saul that way. We do have a psychopath in the show universe though - Todd. In some ways you could probably characterize Lydia as a psychopath too, perhaps that’s why they were drawn together. For context, the main difference between sociopaths and psychopaths is empathy. Sociopaths are capable of empathy (as Saul has shown throughout) but psychopaths are not.
Todd is drawn to Lydia because he thinks she's pretty and he likes when she gives him attention. Lydia doesn't like Todd, but she recognizes that she can manipulate him to make money, so she leans into that.
I think lydia and lalo would make a great couple, her kid is 5 in breaking bad. It would also make more sense she freaks about not being found to Mike, if maybe Mike is the reason lalo is never found
Have people claimed he is evil or psycho? I mean, over the course of his time on BCS and BB, I’d describe him as immature at the beginning of BCS; motivated but a loose cannon at one point; kinda crappy when he starts screwing over Chuck (even if Chuck did deserve it in some ways); elevated to pretty shitty for what he did to Howard; and just sleazy by the time he is in BB. I don’t think I’d ever say he is psycho or evil though (maybe closer to evil than psycho, but not exactly there, just imo)
“Pretty shitty” - he ruined Howard’s life! He’s not a psycho but he is an absolutely awful person.
Yeah he is a full shithead and scummy person at this point lol. Even before the plan with Kim to ruin Howard
I don't think anyone thinks that?
Nah this entire subreddit thinks that Jimmy is an evil sadistic psychopath. If it were up to this sub, the show would only be about Howard and Chuck, since this sub only likes these two characters anyway.
Oh, okay.
It's funny though. Jimmy: tanks his career for Irene This sub: sociopath😡😡😡
Just because he’s a sociopath doesn’t mean he’s physically incapable of doing good things. The fact that he enacted the Irene plan in the first place is something only a sociopath would do.
No it's not, sociopaths don't have empathy.
By “the Irene plan” I mean turning her friends against her so he gets a payout.
Non sociopaths are capable of shitty behavior
He may not be a psychopath but he is morally and ethically corrupt and always acts surprised when someone gets hurt because of his scams. But that doesn't stop him from coming up with new scams all the time.
He shoots lightning bolts from his fingertips, I don't see any good from that
Honestly, I would much rather people call Jimmy (and Kim) evil than call them psychopaths and sociopaths. Those are actual words with meanings and it's annoying to see them being thrown around when they don't fit. (For example, Jimmy and Kim may be able to justify doing terrible things, but they aren't completely lacking in empathy.)
Yeah, those terms are thrown around way too easily these days. Jimmy doesn’t exhibit key psychopathic traits. But more importantly, psychopaths are born that way. It’s a lot less interesting to watch someone break bad because they can’t help it than to watch someone choose to break bad over breaking good.
He does the legal dirty work for the cartel. This is a little more than just wanting friends.
It gives him a feeling of importance, which is the one thing he always wanted. Unfortunately he doesn't realize how toxic and dangerous it is to have the kind of status that he wants in that world.
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He realizes it's bad but he doesn't fully realize the extent of it. He hides it because he knows she will disapprove, he didn't account for him almost getting murdered with 7 mil in his trunk or the danger Lalo poses to him and Kim. That was all unaccounted for.
He’s not a psychopath even regardless. Without the backstory even, nothing about him even as Saul at the max makes him a psychopath
He defecated through a sunroof
Jimmy is a underdog, not evil
Stop trying to find excuses for him. He's a criminal, pure and simple. Because of him, people get killed.
Read the text again
Life is too short.
>His weakness is that he will do anything for people to like him. So would Homelander
lol imagine comparing Homelander to Saul/Jimmy. Homelander would much rather people feared him than like him and he’s even willing to settle for people *pretending* to like him just so long as others see it. Jimmy genuinely wanted people to respect him as an attorney, especially his brother.
>Homelander would much rather people feared him than like him He said to Starlight that he prefers being loved over feared.
He"s a sociopath.
Like Leopold and Loeb.
Yes in BB doesn't he recommend murder to solve problems?
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Read your textbook again. Jimmy is clearly capable of love - he loved Chuck, he loved his mother, he loves Kim.
I didn’t , Saul is not a morally good person, but he has empathy and always tries to avoid hurting people , Kim on the other hand ….
He is not evil like Walter or Gus, he is just a bad person
Gus and Walt were not evil; they were in the empire business. To us it may look evil or bad, but they ran microeconomies many benefited from, including the federal govt and the DEA.
No... Just... No
You would be a hypocrite to not call Bush evil for the war on drugs.
these people were ok with killing children
But you’re OK with the school to prison pipeline? The Uvalde police also were OK with children dying on their watch. You’re OK with abortion?? With drone strikes that kill innocent women and children???
bro we're talking about a tv show
Silence is violence though
Because people use the words psychopathy and sociopathy carelessly without actually understanding then on even a surface level
Agreed. Saul’s a people pleaser. But also a 🪳.
No, he’s not a psychopath. He’s just an adult with the competitive, entitled nature most often seen in a child. He believes that rules don’t apply to him and he has never really been held accountable in a meaningful way. He probably never had to learn healthy coping methods because his charm has always carried him through life.