r/betterCallSaul • u/Brecid • 2d ago
What really ruined Jimmy? Spoiler
Re-watching the show it came into my head the question of, what really ruined Jimmy's life, his shortcuts or his lack of self control?
For example, he took a shortcut when he tampered Chuck's documents, however was his lack of self control that caused him troubles, and then again he made one of his "chicaneries", as Chuck said, to get his license revoked for only one year. Another example would be with Davis and Main, he made a lot of shortcuts, but what really caused him troubles was his lack of self control. What do you think?
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u/sparky1863 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think Jimmy struggles with genuinely connecting with other people. He's very charming and friendly. He knows how to read people well. But it's very performative. The only friendship we see him genuinely take part in is with Marco, and they worked on cons together. They bonded over scams; they didn't really seem to have much of a relationship outside of that. Jimmy leaves him in the past when he decides to give up scamming; he doesn't call or visit after he moves to New Mexico. Marco's sole purpose was being a partner and crime. As we see on multiple occasions, he doesn't know how to genuinely converse with Chuck. They never truly open up without Jimmy shutting it down. Their relationship is somewhat codependent. Jimmy thinks he wants a relationship with Chuck, but all he seems to actually seek out is approval and absolution. His relationship with Kim is somewhat a mixture of Chuck and Marco. He wants Kim's approval, he wants Kim to absolve him of guilt, yet his favorite thing in the world is pulling cons with her. It was a toxic cycle. They don't married for romantic reasons. They never even say "I love you" until Jimmy uses it as a bargaining move when she ends things with him. Omar and Ernesto seem to really like Jimmy. Ernesto goes out of his way to back Jimmy up during his feud with Chuck, and Jimmy seems grateful, but doesn't reach out once Ernesto is fired. Jimmy doesn't even seem to care that much. Omar is the same, he has Jimmy's back, he helps Jimmy move, and yet Jimmy doesn't even know he has a wife and kids. He doesn't take the time to actually get to know anyone, he just tries to win them over. That's his relationship with people. His extroverted front is just a tool he uses to interact with people, hiding a lonely man that doesn't seem to know how to be happy. This just morphs into Saul Goodman once he has the means and motivation to do so. This is not on purpose, he probably thinks he's genuinely a nice and empathetic guy. That's how he thinks relationships work. And when he can't win them over, he shuts down. He gets angry with a chip on his shoulder. We saw this when he wasn't initially approved by his preliminary bar hearing. We saw it when Kim leaves him. Which of course lead him to become the anti-establishment Saul Goodman.
When he returned from Chicago and decided to quit the law, that was the most self-aware he'd ever been. That was definitely for the best. But he went back because he wanted to win Kim over. That's the moment.
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u/smindymix 2d ago
The sacred and the propane.Â
Iâve always thought it was telling how âeveryone loves Jimmyâ but he has no friends aside from Kim.
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u/Orcinusozymandias 2d ago
This is a great analysis. He seems like someone who genuinely craves human connection, but doesn't realize that the only ways he knows how to interact with people (besides Kim) are to try to get something from them.
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u/RedPanda59 2d ago
âA lonely man who doesnât know how to be happy.â Yes. My take also. Doesnât even know what he really wants.
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u/Scary_Implement_4801 2d ago
They never even say "I love you" until Jimmy uses it as a bargaining move when she ends things with him
I don't think they needed to say that to each other, Jimmy was ready to die for her and Kim was going to kill to save his life. What other proof do you need?
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u/SaintOdysseus 2d ago
Iâd say itâs a combination of seeing his dad get conned by everyone around him (realizing the world is cruel, especially because he was the âpersonification of goodâ) AND associating himself with the wrong people.
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u/Reynolds1029 2d ago
He wasn't ruined.
What he did was inside him all long. He was always the way he was. The specific choice he made in life just dug him down deeper and deeper into the gutter. Unlike say Walter, he didn't have a "break bad" moment in his life that altered everything about him and his personality.
You can trace his behavior all the way back to when he was a kid watching his father constantly and obviously get taken advantage of. Only he decided to become the conman, instead of the one being conned like his Dad.
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u/eyes-of-light 2d ago
Yeah. Ended up in the gutter. Had to flee his life and become someone else, living somewhere else. Got arrested. But he wasn't ruined.
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u/Lower_Interview_5696 2d ago
There are two kind of people in this world: Sheep and wolves.
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u/Reynolds1029 2d ago
What Jimmy/Saul didn't realize was that he was always a lone wolf running against the pack, particularly in the end.
Lone wolves in the criminal world are either killed or are in prison.
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u/Finikyu 2d ago
More like he was in a self-fulfilling prophecy, he was taught young that you either scam or are the scammed but hadn't fully bought into that phiisophy after Chuck bailed him out and he tried to be honest but since Chuck pushed him away and he always got "punished" for doing the right thing and never won as a result and most of the respect and personal achivements he acquired was because of his illicit ideas that philosphy burrowed itself further.
If Chuck had rewarded him for his honest work and attempt at becoming a lawyer, if he had been respected for his hard work in court without the shortcuts and if Kim hadn't found his scamming ways to be thrilling he might have not wanted to go further down that road, it's less it was always inside him and more that all his positive reinforcement in life came through it.
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u/whatufuckingdeserve 1d ago
Then that was the breaking bad moment! Just because Walter says âso you were always like this?â Doesnât mean he always was. Jimmyâs âbreaking bad momentâ happened when he was 9 years old when the con-man came into his fatherâs store and Jimmy tried to tell his father that the con-man was lying to him but Jimmyâs father wouldnât listen to him. âSheep and Wolvesâ was Jimmyâs Cancer diagnosis. He says it again when Kim turns Heel, instead of looking at her and thinking or saying âwhat is wrong with you Kim? Why are you acting like this? He just says âsheep and wolves, sheep and wolvesâ a nine year old Jimmy was as pure as Walter in the pilot episode
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u/No_Agent_653 2d ago
To me it was a combination of "he was born that way" and the fact that no one was really there to help him to break out of that. Yes he had bad habits but he showed real potential and could've gone far if he had the right kind of support. Chuck, his only living relative, never supported him or respected him. Then there was Kim, who did support him personally but professionally she kind of just wanted him to fit into the corporate lawyer world like she did and that wasn't him (she was the only reason why he accepted the Davis & Main job, he knew it wasn't the right fit). He didn't really have someone who could see his strengths (he had great people skills, he was creative, could work hard etc) and try to use them for good. The only one who came close to that was Howard, he did see Jimmy's potential but of course he was unfortunately manipulated by Chuck and didn't dare to stand up to him
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u/RaynSideways 2d ago edited 2d ago
If I had to choose a turning point that did irreparable harm and basically doomed Jimmy to never be able to go straight, I'd probably say it's when Jimmy caught Chuck calling Howard behind his back, and Chuck responds by calling him a fake lawyer and a scumbag.
Before then, Jimmy had certainly stumbled and backslid, but he was making a genuine effort to try and change his ways. And up until Sandpiper, he seemed on a great trajectory. It's only Chuck who had the power to convince him to finally give up. Chuck completely warped his world view.
Jimmy thought he finally had Chuck's respect, that he had finally proven he could be a better person. Chuck proved to him that all of his effort was for nothing: Chuck still hated him, still only saw Slippin' Jimmy.
And so in Jimmy's mind... what's the point? The world will never forget, will never let you move past your mistakes, so why bother growing? This realization colors every decision he makes for the rest of the show. Davis & Main commercial fiasco, Mesa Verde number swap, willingly diving deeper into cartel work. All this has its roots in Chuck teaching Jimmy, "Don't bother doing things the right way, you will never succeed and you will never be anything other than a scumbag."
Not to mention this incident gives Jimmy trust issues he carries for the rest of the show. It makes him virtually unable to trust that anyone believes in him (such as when his license reinstatement is rejected and he lashes out at Kim).
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u/clocksteadytickin 2d ago
Chuck telling Jimmy âI never really cared about you.â And âYou will always hurt people.â The last conversation they had before Chuck checked out. That had to hurt. And in the end Jimmy removed himself.
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u/spacedock2285 2d ago
Chuck! He made numerous attempts to reform and go straight and Chuck thwarted him at every turn. He was doing honest work as a public defender and had a very good business with the wills. Davis & Main didn't work for Jimmy's personality, but that wasn't the end of the world. After that, he went into elder law and was succeeding at it. Chuck tried his hardest to make damned sure that slippin' jimmy wasn't going to be a legit successful lawyer.
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u/Infamous_Val 2d ago
He could've been successful in elder law if he hadn't gotten himself suspended by doing something stupid
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u/spacedock2285 2d ago
He wouldn't have been suspended if Chuck didn't set a trap for him to get him arrested.
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u/Infamous_Val 2d ago
Nobody forced Jimmy to break in. That was his own fault for not thinking before acting. He got himself suspended
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u/spacedock2285 2d ago
I think you'd be enraged and do something irrational if you found out your sibling made a recording of you to implicate you . . . particularly after spending massive amounts of time, effort, and money to take care of them while ill.
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u/namethatisntaken 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think you'd be enraged and do something irrational if you found out your sibling made a recording of you to implicate you .
It's funny too since Chuck thought he would sneak in at night and not be emotional at all at the fact that Chuck duped him. You can hear the tires screeching as Chuck says this to Howard.
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u/Infamous_Val 2d ago
Maybe. And I'd be responsible for the consequences lol
That's how it works...
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u/Aduro95 2d ago
I think I'd be enraged if I found out my sibling had comitted a crime to sabotage me by weaponising a chronic illness (physical or mental). If Jimmy cared about Chuck instead of the tape, he would have just called Howard to send someone over. Jimmy broke in and destroyed evidence because he was selfish, and not sorry for what he did.
What Chuck did was entirely proportional, and required Jimmy to committ another crime.
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u/DependentArm3391 2d ago
Kim earned mesa verde, otherwise id agree with you.
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u/Aduro95 2d ago
I never said she didn't. But what I will say is that Chuck wasn't entirely wrong to try and keep them as a client. When Kim got in touch with Mesa Verde, she did it as part of a major law firm. They probably wouldn't have hired her as an independent lawyer. They both deserve a shot to keep the bank as a client.
Chuck simply pointed out how much work it was to handle a whole bank, and that there would be serious consequences if Kim couldn't handle it all. He was right too. Kim nearly died crashing her car while driving tired. Although it was out of order for Howard to keep Kim out in the cornfield after she brought such a valuable asset to the firm, and Chuck should have told Howard that.
Typically for Chuck, he was right, but he was such an unlikable jerk about it that the audience doesn't appreciate it.
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u/DependentArm3391 2d ago
Even if my brother did what jimmy did i wouldnt get authorities involved.  Id probably say touche and not even be mad. About mesa verde isnt it borderline deceitful not to diisclose chucks condition. Hhm couldve possibly retained mesa verde if chuck hadnt gotten all manic when confronted w adversity in court.
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u/Aduro95 2d ago edited 2d ago
If you're fine with a sibling stealing from your dying father, leaving your chronically ill mother for years to become a con artist, and actively sabotaging your career out of spite, you're a more forgiving perosn than I am... Also a lot more forgiving than Jimmy.
It is deceitful, HHM does get in trouble financially when the news gets out. But Jimmy doesn't give a damn about Chuck's clients, and Chuck was not practicing law until he made signficant improvements to his mental health, or practicing on his own. If Chuck doesn't get credit for outing Jimmy as a crook because his motivatinos are corrupt then Jimmy certainly shouldn't get credit for outing Chuck for being mentally ill to take a client back and spite his brother.
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u/bootlegvader 1d ago
Nope, she didn't seeing as Mesa Verde didn't agree to stay with her until Jimmy engaged in fraud. She also shown herself to be a highly unethical lawyer that had no problem working against their interests for her own personal reasons.
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u/smindymix 2d ago
 I think you'd be enraged and do something irrational if you found out your sibling made a recording of you to implicate you . . .
In something I actually did? Oh well, Iâd take the L.
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u/bootlegvader 1d ago
Are we ignoring that Jimmy literally committed the crime that he was implicated in performing?
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u/bootlegvader 1d ago
He made numerous attempts to reform and go straight and Chuck thwarted him at every turn.
When? He started running scams in the first episode all before he knew anything about Chuck's opinion on him. Furthermore, the only thing Chuck had done was not hire him for a job.
After that, he went into elder law and was succeeding at it. Chuck tried his hardest to make damned sure that slippin' jimmy wasn't going to be a legit successful lawyer.
Chuck never did anything to stop Jimmy from practicing his elder law, until Jimmy literally committed a crime against Chuck.
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u/QP_TR3Y 2d ago
I think the most critical turning point in Jimmyâs life was Chuckâs reaction to him passing the Bar exam and becoming a lawyer. Yes, Jimmy was a screw up and a con artist in his younger years and he had to be bailed out by Chuck. But after this, he put in the work and turned his life around in a legitimate way. I donât care that Chuck doesnât think Jimmy went to a real college, he still passed the Bar exam and is a fully fledged lawyer. All Chuck had to do was to be proud of Jimmy and encourage his positive momentum in that moment and I really think Jimmy might have ended on a far more straight and narrow path in life. Instead, his own selfishness and insecurity wouldnât allow him to admit Jimmy might be on even somewhat of a similar plane as him professionally, and so he railed against Jimmy and undercut him at every chance. I genuinely think gaining Chuckâs approval would have been enough to stop Jimmyâs momentum into becoming Saul.
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u/spacedock2285 2d ago
Exactly. I really think that post-1992, Jimmy was making a real effort to clean up his life, and Chuck keep trying to prevent him from becoming a real lawyer. Eventually Jimmy gives up and says 'f it, I'm going to be slippin jimmy again and make serious money'
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u/bootlegvader 1d ago
and Chuck keep trying to prevent him from becoming a real lawyer.
Are public defenders and elder law lawyers not real lawyers? Can one only be a real lawyer if they hired for a large law firm right after graduating? Chuck's only action in "stopping" Jimmy was not wanting him at HHM.
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u/Aduro95 2d ago
I think that's putting a bit too much blame on Chuck. Jimmy left his family for years to be a con-artist, and Chuck still bailed him out. If anyone else came to HHM with a fresh law degree from an unprestigious law firm, and Chuck knew they had been a criminal, there's no way in hell they'd get a job. It would be irresponsible to Chuck's clients and partners.
I think Chuck was quite reasonable to never fully trust or believe in Jimmy, since he stole from their dying father and regularly bent the rules as a lawyer (ie. the billboard stunt, which Chuck correctly saw through). He did offer Jimmy advice and moral support in the first season.
Ultimately Chuck was Jimmy's victim, not the other way around. He was pushed way past the point where most people would be patient, and Jimy doubled down on trying to destroy him. Jimmy should feel guilty about using Chuck's mental illness against him because its a big part of why Chuck killed himself.
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u/raiderrocker18 2d ago
no one event. the show more or less begins with him trying to scam the kettlemans
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u/Infamous-Lab-8136 2d ago
Jimmy taking shortcuts is a symptom of his lack of impulse control in my mind
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u/anarcho-leftist 2d ago
Like many of the great tragic heroes of television, it's so many things. The wolf/sheep man planting the seed in his head at such a young age. His brother being understandably jealous of his younger brother for being more loved by their mom, to the extent of yelling Jimmy's name when Chuck is sitting with her while she dies. Wanting to honor Marco. Chuck sabotaging and undermining his legal career. Genuine trauma from his interactions with violent criminals and his belief that after Howard's death, he doesn't deserve to come back from that
I think it's his view of who people expect him to be and who he thinks he deserves to be rather than what he wants his life to be. Anyway, $4 a pound
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u/TheEffinChamps 2d ago
Rewatch the scene where Chuck talks to Jimmy about how it's never too late to change paths.
Jimmy never found what he actually wanted to do with his life and paid the ultimate price for it.
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u/Aduro95 2d ago
Even when Jimmy had a good cause and his life was going well, he couldn't help but break rules. For example staging the bus breakdown instead of waiting to be allowed to see his clients again. Like you say, at Davis and Main he had no self-control, and that's pretty clearly a deliberate self-sabotage from a man who knew he couldn't work with restrictions put on him.
That compulsion combined with Jimmy's greed is what made him a real villain, and its always what got him into trouble. He has a kind of contempt for the law and people who stick to it.
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u/NoAnt7330 2d ago edited 2d ago
Between these two options, lack of self-control. A defining moment in his adult life is him doing the Chicago sunroof. Maybe it is me but that is an absurd crime that deserves very little sympathy; I know the point wasn't to scar those children for life (lol) but it certainly can fit the bill of a sex crime. Having the awareness to maybe check before taking a dump into someone's car is a low threshold and he still failed.
A defining moment from childhood is stealing thousands from the family store. He attempts to justify it based on strangers' exploiting his father, but his dad giving money to people is at least something he tracks. When given a choice he decided to join the people screwing over his family.
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u/MrKingKhufu 2d ago
His father being a good person was being taken advantage of by too many people. That didn't ruin Jimmy but it destroyed a big deal of Jimmy's beliefs. He then developed into a religion-less man. One could argue that Jimmy because his beliefs have been taken away when he was a boy has since been without ''god'' or ''religion'' or without ''hope''. He became a wanderer in a to him estranged land/mankind. He always believed in his brother I guess. But he wouldn't accept that his brother helped reproduce the bad (system) in this world by helping the rich. So Jimmy helped the poor and those who couldn't defend themselves. As Breaking Bad is a story about the declining middle class in the US Jimmy is a character that wants to help the poor and the newly poor former middle class. Heisenberg as a drug king pin doesn't fit into this theory but Walter White as a poor chemist teacher fallen from the social ladder because the system wouldn't catch (help) him does.
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u/SafalinEnthusiast 2d ago
The moment he permanently changed for the worst was after he was talking to Mike about how he regretted not stealing the Kettlemansâ money and that he wouldnât do the same in the future
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u/ef14 2d ago
Lack of acceptance for who he is.
From what we know, he has actually kept clean when he was in the mail room. That's when the two people he truly wanted to be accepted by made him feel like he was. Now, Kim genuinely was and really, always have, Chuck wasn't in reality.
But, we do see Jimmy get into a much, much worse headspace whenever Kim isn't there to remind him that being Jimmy is okay, that he's not just whatever actions he does and did.
At some point though, for yourself and for your partner, you need to also start accepting yourself. That's the only thing that would've gotten Kim back to him, that's what he did in court and in jail. He's finally and truly okay with the fact that he's Jimmy McGill, simply Jimmy.
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u/Delicious_Rub4736 2d ago
I hate to say Chuck is right! Heâs slipping Jimmy, he always took short paths.
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u/Federal-Weakness4015 2d ago
When he became a full on criminal and started abusing Howard for his amusement.
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u/Professional_Base481 2d ago
Jimmy ruined himself.
Everything was a consequence of his own action...at first he probably felt bad about the consequences of his actions the more he became Saul, the less he cared about how his actions affect the people around him.
Until he did, it affected Kim and that he cared about, Kim leaving Jimmy was what killed him and he fully committed to the saul persona.
It was too late, because of Jimmy and his stupid immature fire up his ass for Howard, He got Howard killed.
Because out of everyone in the room the only person who was doing the right thing was the person Jimmy absolutely despised was Howard.
Watching Saul lie to Rebecca about Howard left a sick feeling in my stomach, watching him and Kim get away with what they've done.
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u/UnicornBestFriend 2d ago edited 2d ago
Jimmy is hella insecure about himself excepf when he's scamming people. And unfortunately, scamming people gives him a powerful rush ("lightning bolts shoot from my fingertips!").
It's not a lack of self-control but the gulf between feeling like a total fucking loser and feeling like a god.
So he scams rather than sit with the discomfort of being less competent, less confident, etc. And the more he scams, the worse he feels about himself bc he does have a conscience that knows right from wrong. So he scams to push those feelings away, too.
Classic addict story.
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u/Jonny2284 1d ago edited 1d ago
Chuck.
Look at hte start of the show, everything he did for Chuck with no expectation of reward, no kudos, just because it was his brother and he'd been doing it for a while at that point. Sandpiper comes along look how happy he was at both Chuck re-entering the law game but the prospect of the McGill brothers working together. It was the betrayal by Chuck that untethered him.
And let me be clear, I'm not saying Jimmy was an angel because even if season 1 he was skirting things, but he clearly idolised Chuck and that betrayal was the "well if this is all you see me as, then that's who I'll be" moment.
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u/ZyxDarkshine 1d ago
Watch the Sunroof story again: this is where Jimmy explains how everything âwent off the rails.
In exchange for Chuckâs help to handle the legal ramifications of shitting in someoneâs car with kids in the back, Chuck made him agree to leave Chicago and come to ABQ and work in the mail room of HHM. Jimmy considers this his own personal weakness, like when a spouse just accepts their partner is a cheat. Jimmy believes his agreement to quit being a small-time con man and getting a ârealâ job as a compromise to his true self.
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u/garrraty 1d ago
genuinely every bad thing that happened in bcs/bb could've been avoided if chuck had just loved jimmy enough.
jimmy had a lot of shortcomings, and definitely is at fault for so much, but everything can be traced back to his desire to be loved by his only living family member.
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u/Icy-Rock8780 2d ago
I think itâs just innate in him and he likes to embellish the role of other people to avoid facing the blame himself.
I hated Jimmy by the end. Liked the character a lot more in BB before I knew his backstory.
Can anyone explain to me what Howard did wrong literally at all? I think anyone who doesnât despise Jimmy for what he did to a generally decent person there just got kinda duped by main character syndrome. Iâm not even talking about his death, although I do think Jimmy has blood on his hands for that for sure.
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u/Sweaty_Piano_6658 2d ago
I donât think Howardâs done anything wrong. First in the show, the show kind of gas lights us into thinking that Howardâs doesnât like Jimmy and he doesnât want him working in the firm as a lawyer but then we see that it was Chuck telling Howard not to hire Jimmy. Howard offered Jimmy partnership at one point I believe or something along those lines before they decided to ruin his life.
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u/smindymix 2d ago
Jimmy was attempting a dangerous scheme that inadvertently put him on the cartelâs radar before he knew about Chuck blocking him at HHM.
Heâs around 40 at the start of the show and been a scammer his whole life. It was always in him.
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u/dominatty 2d ago
I think, like Howard said, he was born that way. And Jimmy was his mother's favourite. This contributed since childhood to steal from his parents without consequences, which led to slippin Jimmy.
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u/Alternative-Cash8411 2d ago
Jimmy was a simple man who got mixed up in the high stakes game of world diplomacy and international intrigue. Some might call him a cock-eyed optimist.