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mobby_6kl posted:What do you mean by Chuck sabotaged Jimmy? By not wanting to hire him as an attorney in his own company? He was under no obligation to do so, and in fact it was absolutely the correct decision, although he should've made that clear. It's not really the correct decision. Or at least, it isn't presented as such. Jimmy is shown to be a good, hard worker at HHM. Hamlin is open to hiring him. There is some degree of surprise from people that he isn't hired. The person responsible for Jimmy not being hired has extra-professional reasons to be against it, and is also insane. Chuck doesn't "fail to make it clear". He has very negative beliefs about Jimmy and is willing to take pretty hostile measures to ensure he gets his way, but at the same time does not want to openly acknowledge to his brother how he feels about him as a person. We can infer that his refusal to acknowledge it is because, deep down, he knows it looks terrible and is rooted in resentment. khwarezm posted:The Davis and Main thing is important, and I think it shows, whatever about his actions, that Chuck has a point. Jimmy simply cannot help himself even in the best environment. He can't do the proper, by the book lawyer stuff even when its clearly the best path forward, he will always press the switch. He didn't want that job, and should have never taken it. He took it after suffering a pretty bad betrayal. It's also a stretch to say he can't do 'proper, by the book lawyer stuff'. His issue at Davis & Main wasn't related to the law. He did something that is bad professionally, but is by no means any kind of moral failure or real problem. I would say the show intentionally makes Davis & Main look ridiculous, and makes the issue that gets Jimmy in trouble be something so trivial, precisely so that you don't come away thinking that he's just some kind of broken individual who can't ever behave. Pedro De Heredia fucked around with this message at 08:21 on May 21, 2017 |
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May 21, 2017 08:14
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The entire cartel part of the show is not very well done. It's not very well conceived, and it's not very well executed. Mike's involvement in it from the beginning (helping get rid of Tuco) has no real stakes for him.Then Hector becomes involved, but he is not well developed or interesting as a character at all. Then Mike's involvement ends up hinging on a nameless good samaritan being killed. It "builds" to Mike trying to kill Hector (from afar) and not doing so. Partly stopped by Gus. Then Gus shows up. He has a 'conflict' with Hector which amounts to little more than a couple of fits here and there. Very few stakes for anyone. Then the whole situation is 'resolved' in a largely tension-less scene where Nacho is going to 'kill' Hector (at no point is it believable that this might happen), and then it doesn't happen but instead there is a mild discussion and Hector gets a bit angry and finally has his heart attack. Mike is nowhere to be seen in any of this. It's not just not very well done when you compare it to Breaking Bad, which was a much more gripping show. When a random person gets killed on that show (the kid), you actually see it, so it has a real effect on you. Here you don't see it. It doesn't tell you anything about anyone. It is literally just a plot device. When there is a conflict between characters, it seems to have real stakes. When someone is about to do something like try to kill a person, you're genuinely worried about what might happen or how it might resolve itself. There is a tension because of this. Here, Mike goes off to kill Hector... with a sniper rifle from a million miles away. Whoo. Nacho is closer, but it is not conveyed in a way that you believe he might get caught or might get in real trouble. It's just... there. This part of the show (which is half), I'm confident to say does not work at all unless you've seen Breaking Bad, because this show itself has not done anywhere near enough to define these characters well enough to make any of this poo poo matter. This is a problem of the concept of the show, because they're trying to make a show which is half about a lawyer (with necessarily lower stakes), and the other half about a bunch of criminals and drug dealers. I suspect that, in order to keep balance, they've tried to underplay the criminal element and lower the stakes there, but the problem is they've lowered them to nonexistence. They've completely botched giving the characters a motivation that audiences can share. Pedro De Heredia fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Jun 26, 2017 |
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Jun 26, 2017 03:00
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Nail Rat posted:How in the world would seeing the Good Samaritan shot have told you anything new about who anyone is? We know what the Salamancas are, and if we didn't, the fact they killed that guy tells us. Maybe that's why they should have plotted this in a completely different way, if it wasn't going to tell us anything new. When Todd kills the kid in the Breaking Bad episode, it's impactful for a number of reasons, one of which is that until now, we did not knowTodd was capable of doing something like that. It's a big deal. It causes a real dilemma. The show has also established Jesse's relationship with kids enough that it's meaningful. (It's also a little manipulative, but whatever). quote:The real dramatic beat in that sequence of events is Mike's anger/remorse at being told the guy was killed. That would have LESS dramatic impact if you saw it happen and then you saw him being told about it. We all knew what was going to happen to the guy anyhow, but when it's confirmed, we get to see Mike's reaction straight away. I am aware that is the dramatic beat. I know what they're trying to do. I am saying that, in the long run, it does not work. It does not work because we know nothing about this person. He means nothing to the audience. It doesn't traumatize Mike. It doesn't change him. It doesn't even really endanger him. It is just a plot device. It's only function is to keep 'things' happening. It only works as a narrative drive, but the work is not done to make it work dramatically.
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Jun 26, 2017 20:37
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BiggerBoat posted:I disagree with most of this post in general but I think the "lack of stakes" largely stems from the fact that we know certain characters live and die and also already know where they wind up. This is not really true for a number of reasons. First, Breaking Bad already showed that you can scare the poo poo out of audiences even when they know that there is no real chance that some of these characters will die. Everyone knows Walt isn't going to just die, and for the most part, neither is Jesse. What creates the tension is putting a character in a situation where the audience realizes that any way out of it is going to cost the character very dearly. Second, the show successfully wrings tension out of Jimmy's story, even though we know where he'll end up. Because there are dramatic arcs (sometimes botched) and there are clear conflicts, between characters who have personalities, points of views, arguments to make, etc. There are four well defined characters in that storyline, it all works well. Third, it's true that we know where the characters wind up. But what we didn't know, until the show, was where they started. And that's the problem with the cartel story, they decided to start some of these characters in weird places. The Mike we see on this show is a kind of bad guy, but with a code. The Mike on Breaking Bad is... a kind of bad guy, but with a code. They're not that different. They decided to make a prequel version of Mike that gives them almost no room to actually give him an arc. It's utterly bizarre. They seem to be doing basically the same with Gus. The entire Mike side of the story would have been infinitely better if they made his backstory (the whole thing with him killing his son's killers) his actual story. It's bizarre too because that kind of thing is like, the perfect story for these writers, but they just relegated it to a single episode of backstory. Just insane.
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Jun 26, 2017 20:45
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BiggerBoat posted:His plot seemed pretty well explained and I enjoy the character a lot. I find his arc transformative in as much as it shows him beginning as an officer of the law to a person that has to operate outside of it, as criminal, and learning to use all the dirty tricks he learned and the contacts he'd made as a police officer. No it doesn't. What are you talking about? He begins the show as a corrupt former cop who has just committed cold-blooded murder.
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Jun 27, 2017 01:41
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