Analyzing Evil: Jimmy "Saul Goodman" McGill From Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul

[Music] hello everyone and welcome to the 95th episode of analyzing evil featuring jimmy mcgill the man of many names from better call saul and breaking bad a smooth talking con man who got a little too big for his shoes jimmy mcgill is a man who constantly flirts with evil one whose push and pull relationship with a legitimate and illegitimate worlds slowly but surely destroys the lives of nearly everyone he comes in contact with including himself now i know that jimmy is nowhere near as evil as the heavy hitters in either of these series but before you type up a storm decrying me for attaching jimmy's name to an episode of analyzing evil please stay your fingers and bear with me for a while before you give it your best as while jimmy isn't the devil incarnate he's no saint either and i encourage you to stick with me until the end before you make your final judgments on his character with that in mind in this video we'll be exploring the life of jimmy mcgill from beginning to end utilizing all the information we're given about him in both better call saul and breaking bad to determine exactly how much evil we can attribute to this smooth-talking criminal lawyer now without further ado let's begin james jimmy mcgill was born on november 12 1960 to charles and ruth mcgill in cicero illinois a suburb of chicago the younger brother of charles mcgill jr while growing up in cicero jimmy would work at his family's corner store helping his father clean stock and tend to the register performing the run-of-the-mill duties that you'd expect a child to be assigned when contributing to their family's business however the innocent child helper that jimmy was would change one fateful day when a con artist came into the store looking to con his father out of a quick buck a scam that young jimmy's keen eye immediately saw for what it was when his father retreated to the back of the store to obtain the items he would need to help this stranger fix his supposedly broken down vehicle jimmy was given the chance to call this man's bluff after he pulled out a clip full of money to buy two cartons of cigarettes when he had just so graciously been given money by jimmy's father to aid in his supposed distress rather than crying out and alerting his dad in this situation jimmy instead chose to simply stare at this man as he gave him a lesson that would forever alter the course of jimmy's life here we see this man explain that there are wolves and sheep in the world and he advises jimmy to be a wolf advice which the young jimmy took to heart as we can see when he chooses not to tell his father the truth of what just happened in their store the first manifestation of slip and jimmy from this point on jimmy would use this advice to full effect by slowly embezzling close to fourteen thousand dollars from his family store something that his brother chuck discovered one summer when he was balancing his family's books a slow loss that chuck the younger claimed caused their store to go out of business however jimmy blamed the store's closure on their father's generosity and considering how much spite chuck has for jimmy it might actually be a mixture of the two as their father does seem to have been quite the generous man which while not being a bad thing does tend to hamper one's ability to stay in business if they're willing to give it away for free however this could also be the first verifiable instance of jimmy resorting to his preferred coping mechanism denial and feigned ignorance as jimmy does remark to his friend marco after they break into his family's store when he returns to cicero later in life that the reason his father lost the store was because he was soft and a bad businessman which completely ignores the role jimmy played in this scenario regardless of what truly caused the store to close hampering your family's livelihood is a terrible thing to do and the path that jimmy was set upon by this stranger surely caused a heap of misery for his family no matter whether or not it was a significant contributor to the closure of their store not long after the store's closure chuck senior would unfortunately pass away from what would appear to be a broken heart and from here on out jimmy would begin to more fully develop his wolfside embracing the role of slip and jimmy the teenage scam artist who would take advantage of people's negligence during the winter months by slipping on ice on their property thereby forcing them into providing him with compensation lest he call the police which while not being the worst thing a person could do is certainly not good either as defrauding people out of their hard-earned money is quite the insidious thing to do in this endeavor he was aided by a fellow practitioner of the art of the scam marco pasternak a man who would help elevate jimmy from a simple personal injury scam artist to a glorified con man and i'm sure that was a welcome change of pace considering taking to the streets with his companion to weasel money out of every room they could find with all manner of elaborate schemes is preferable to hurting yourself to make a living this was jimmy's life for a number of years and it was a successful one at that however all of it would come crashing down when he felt the need to drunkenly take his anger out on chet a man who both had an affair with his first wife and owed jimmy money and he did so by giving him what is known as a chicago sunroof which is when you defecate into someone's car through their sunroof and while this might be a hilarious way to get back at someone who wronged you unfortunately for jimmy chet's kids were sitting in the back seat of his car and chet had connections with the local prosecutors which ended up landing jimmy in jail on the charges of property damage assault and potential sexual misconduct luckily for jimmy he had an ace up his sleeve in the form of his brother chuck one of the greatest legal minds in the country a man whose influence proved to be far greater than chet's chuck managed to get the charges against jimmy dropped on the condition that he turned his life around by coming with him back to albuquerque where chuck would provide him with a legitimate job and the chance to escape the hole that he dug for himself by living the life of a con man so jimmy took chuck up on his offer and over the course of 10 years jimmy would work tirelessly to prove to his brother that he wasn't a lost cause and that he could truly change finally doing so by putting himself through law school and acing the bar exam to become a lawyer now this is the undulating current that is the life of jimmy mcgill as at this point we've learned that jimmy began on a high note as your average middle american kid prior to his lesson about wolves and sheep from a stranger and then after reaching a low point with the chicago sunroof we find jimmy slowly climbing back up to a level of respect that he might have had had he not been exposed to the life of a con artist unfortunately though jimmy's life remains one of undulation and will continue to ride the wave that is jimmy's life as we discuss his time as jimmy mcgill but now that we've briefed ourselves on his backstory let's discuss jimmy's family relationships as they've had great effect on what kind of man jimmy becomes starting with his parents we don't know too much about them but in accordance with his father's generous spirit and his mother's apparent view that jimmy was the greatest gift she had ever received it would be reasonable to assume that jimmy was baby to a certain extent and received preferential treatment when he was a child which might explain how he was so easily able to embezzle thousands of dollars from his family's business without anyone aside from his brother batting an eye i imagine that this ensured that whenever the young jimmy did anything wrong all he had to do was bat his eyes and apologize to get his parents to forgive him for what he did which i'm sure served as one of several points of contention between jimmy and his brother a relationship that we'll move on to discuss now now while they were kids chuck and jimmy seemed to have a generally good relationship as we see in a few flashbacks and chuck appears to have cared for jimmy quite a bit when he was younger however because of jimmy's position as mom and dad's favorite over time chuck became jealous and began to resent his brother for being the favorite even when he could have been considered the bad child while chuck who was kind intelligent and devoted to his mother and father was passed over in favor of his troublemaking brother judging by the scene were given where jimmy and chuck are sitting beside their dying mother in the hospital it would seem that this designation as the second son was so detrimental to chuck's psyche that he was even unwilling to impart upon jimmy the knowledge that with her dying breath their mother asked for jimmy a moment that injured chuck's already fragile ego because his mother didn't even realize that he was in the room when she passed however as i've already mentioned this was not the first or last time that chuck would gain fuel for the fire that was as quiet and eventually not so quiet resentment of his younger brother and one of the best examples were given of this feeling chuck holds within him is a subtle one the assistance he gives to jimmy when he's in trouble for giving chet his chicago sunroof here we learned that chuck didn't come back to cicero to save his younger brother of his own volition but he did so at the behest of his mother who i'm sure sang the same tired song that chuck had been hearing his entire life that being how poor innocent jimmy had gotten himself in trouble again and how he's a sweet boy who didn't mean any harm and he really needs his brother to look out for him once again chuck being the respectable good-natured man he is does not enjoy in the slightest his brother's constant troublemaking even more so when you factor in his belief that it was jimmy's embezzling that killed their father but even though chuck might hold quite the negative opinion of his younger brother jimmy is the exact opposite as he has always looked up to chuck as a positive force in his life that he only wishes he could emulate at the smallest level so while jimmy has never had the same inclination towards finding a respectable career path like his brother he's always been caught between who he is and his desire to impress his brother and gain his approval which invariably causes the two to be in a push and pull relationship where chuck feels obligated to look after his brother because of his parents love for him while jimmy feels ashamed and guilty for his criminal activity which causes him to constantly seek approval from a man whose mind has already been set on condemning him as a worthless parasite that he's been saddled with till the end of his days and because jimmy actually genuinely loves his brother he's also willing to sacrifice his own time to take care of chuck once he develops his hypersensitivity to electromagnetism now that isn't to say that at certain points chuck doesn't try to develop a better relationship with his brother as we do get a flashback of chuck reading a story to jimmy when they were younger and another flashback to after jimmy passes the bar where chuck accompanies him along with others from the hhm office to a karaoke bar to celebrate his brother's success and here we get to see not just chuck enjoying himself with his brother but actually taking care of him when he's drunk and sleeping with him in his bed to make sure he's okay throughout the night which along with his continued contact with his brother throughout his life and despite what chuck says later on about his feelings towards jimmy would indicate that chuck does care for his brother beneath the animosity he's built up towards him and with the information that we've covered here we can now segue into our discussion of the next high point in jimmy's life and how quickly that high plummeted to a low that being the moment just after he discovered that he passed the new mexico bar exam jimmy up to this point had been working in the mail room at hhm and upon the discovery of his ascension to lawyer his elation is met with the same joy from his co-workers who promptly throw him a party in the mailroom to reward him for his efforts this moment of extraordinary happiness is quickly shattered however when howard hamlin comes to join the party bringing with him the news that jimmy would not become one of the lucky few to be counted amongst the ranks of the lawyers working at hhm informing him that the partners could not come to a definite agreement regarding jimmy's employment as a lawyer at their firm blaming howard for this jimmy vows to go his own way in spite of the odds stacked against him with his paltry experience and subpar degree from an online university claiming that he'll prove himself to be a fine lawyer whose talents are far beyond what men like howard hamlin could ever hope to have so while jimmy in this moment is indeed at the highest point he's ever been regarding his future he's also reached a low in that he's now the proud owner of a law office in a broom closet within a nail salon a lawyer that wears the cheapest suits imaginable and drives a broken down suzuki esteem but still at this point in time jimmy is a respectable member of society who's well on his way to turning his life around and proving to his brother that he's a changed man and though it's not as glamorous a life as he'd like it to be for some time after he's rejected by howard hamlin jimmy endeavors as a public defender trying to establish a name for himself in the legal world the slow path to recognition that given enough time might have given jimmy the luxury and respect that he'd always dreamed of however the life of a respectable man is one that jimmy would constantly struggle with as temptation to return to his slip in jimmy ways was always present in one form or another and we get to see one such temptation present itself after jimmy had a rough day of the courthouse and lost two potential clients to his lackluster public reputation here two wannabe conmen cal and lars lindholm attempt to run their scam on him by running a similar scam that jimmy himself used to run when he was known as slip and jimmy initially jimmy simply calls their bluff and chases them off but after visiting chuck and being reminded of the dire financial straits both he and his brother are in jimmy decides that it's time to return to his old slip in jimmy ways as is often the case with criminal endeavors this doesn't go exactly as planned and jimmy almost finds himself dead in a ditch in the middle of the desert but thankfully the greatest talent that jimmy has his ability to convince others to do what he wants no matter the odds stacked against him only makes it so he and his two companions escape with a few mangled limbs but even so he's opened up a whole can of worms by falling into this situation as after hearing about jimmy and the twins plot nacho decides to rip off the kettleman's himself a plan that nacho initially attempts to get jimmy in on but is one that jimmy realizes is a situation that could very well end in the kettleman's being harmed or worse so thankfully he doesn't involve himself too much in this endeavor but from this point on a domino effect occurs wherein jimmy begins trying to go his own way through all manner of trickery and deceit like when he bought a billboard to advertise his expertise with an image of himself dressed like howard hamlin beside an identical logo to the one used by hhm with the bribe money he'd been given from the kettlemans after he discovered their hideout and he even manufactured fake heroism by paying one of the men working on removing the billboard once he loses a suit against howard to put himself in a dangerous situation so jimmy can rescue him in front of the media but the icing on top of this is the effect this ordeal had on chuck as jimmy tried to hide this situation from him by depriving him of his newspaper which caused chuck to exit his home and suffer the effects of a supposed condition and get himself in trouble with the law though how much sympathy there is to be had for chuck here might be little to none considering how his character develops over time now although these actions are quite shady this does bring jimmy the opportunity to do a significant amount of good while lining his own pockets and hopefully earning him a seat at the table at hhm at the same time the revelation of the misdeeds of the sandpiper nursing home company taking this information to his brother and then to howard jimmy's moment of triumph is quickly swept from under him when howard tells him that despite the enormous case that jimmy has brought to hhm he still isn't worthy of being a member of their firm but he is worthy of their money an offer which he hotly refuses due to his outrage however from this scenario jimmy unfortunately defines the truth of the matter that being that it's not howard serving as a roadblock to his membership at hhm but his own brother in a heated exchange at chuck's home chuck finally tells jimmy the truth that he blocked his employment at his firm because he doesn't believe that jimmy is a real lawyer but a man who has no respect for the institution he holds more holy than any other the law and that he doesn't even deserve to breathe the same air as real lawyers like himself and howard this was obviously a crushing moment for jimmy and after hosting a bingo event at sandpiper the following day jimmy suffers an immense amount of distress as he constantly draws the letter b from the pool a pointed reminder of how the bee relation in his life his brother had betrayed him more than he ever could have imagined at a low point once again jimmy decides that this life of straight roads and constant struggle to prove himself to his brother isn't worth it and is a betrayal of who he truly is slip in jimmy the smooth-talking con artist who lived the merry life of drunken debauchery with his good friend marco pasternak in cicero illinois heading back home jimmy once again returns to his nefarious ways and has the time of his life operating in his comfort zone and sticking it to his brother in his own way however on the last night of his stay in cicero marco unfortunately succumbs to whatever illness he had been displaying since jimmy's return stating to jimmy with his dying breath that that was the best day of his life the heartbreaking loss of a man that could be said to have been jimmy's chosen brother a loss of one brother to go along with the virtual loss of another as he plays with the pinky ring of his lost friend outside the church where his funeral is being held jimmy receives a call from kim notifying him that he's been presented with a job offer from davis in maine and that he needs to return immediately to have a meeting with them an offer which he accepts now this is the second time that we see jimmy's way of coping with loss in action which again is to stuff it down and replace it with something else as when kim asks him if he got whatever it is he needed to get out of his system gone jimmy simply replies yep all gone he chooses here to hide the tragedy he just experienced rather than express his feelings in this moment though in his own way he does honor his friend by continuing to operate in the spirit of scamming with his ring always on his finger however that still isn't really dealing with one's traumas in a healthy way however it should be noted that jimmy does express his emotions and bursts of anger at several points in this series which is a knee-jerk reaction to his pain that also serves as an incredibly unhealthy way to deal with his emotions after returning from cicero jimmy was now poised to enter a new high point in his never-ending cycle of undulation however once he met with cliff maine the ring on his finger reminded him of who he truly was and after a polite declination of the position he leaves the courthouse to breathe life into slipping jimmy once again vowing to mike as he makes his escape that he'll never take the high road again like he did when he stayed true to his promise to give the kettlemans their money back after helping them through their legal troubles this is essentially the beginning of the end for jimmy mcgill and the beginning of the beginning of saul goodman as from here jimmy proceeds to entangle himself in all manner of duplicitous situations scamming people with kim taking on the davis and main job and ruining his position purposefully once he again feels out of place working for a legitimate business and of course sabotaging his brother's work on the mesa verde case a case that kim had worked hard to obtain one that chuck and howard stole from her which began yet another domino effect wherein jimmy found himself mired in a battle with his brother as he tried to discover the truth of jimmy sabotage of his work a war that's penultimate battle would involve the hospitalization of chuck following his tussle with lance at the copy store and the instigation of a legal battle between jimmy and chuck when chuck secretly recorded jimmy confessing his falsification of chuck's documents regarding the mesa verde case the following struggle with chuck would end in the revelation of his condition being entirely a figment of his imagination and the subsequent effort on chuck's part to discredit jimmy in every way that he possibly could ended with jimmy's suspension from practicing law for a year in the meantime jimmy would labor to build an advertisement business due to his success with his ad campaign at davis and maine a field which he also struggled to find his footing in aside from getting back at chuck by humiliating him though jimmy was presented with the opportunity to harm him further when he was granted a meeting with the company who provided him with his malpractice insurance a meeting where he was able to successfully get his brother's insurance taken away by mentioning his cognitive issues but despite all this jimmy still loved chuck as the brother he had looked up to his entire life and he attempts to make amends with chuck one final time at his home however chuck is still as spiteful vindictive and jealous as he ever was and in this final exchange he claims that he never really cared all too much for jimmy refusing to acknowledge his role in their predicament and instead casting his brother to the wayside as if he were nothing but a nuisance that he was forced to deal with his entire life now as we all know chuck chooses to kill himself following this altercation and though jimmy is partially responsible for chuck's death how responsible he is is up for debate when you consider that all the events leading up to chuck's suicide involve jimmy in one way or another it's easy to place the blame on him for pushing his brother over the edge and jimmy acknowledges this in their final encounter however as jimmy points out chuck is as much to blame for the battle between them as jimmy is as chuck wasn't exactly a saint far from it in fact his deep-seated jealousy of jimmy combined with his distaste for the man he had become made it so chuck was sabotaging jimmy at every turn and had chuck not been actively trying to undermine his brother's life while he half-heartedly attempted to improve it the problems between the two would have been non-existent yes for quite some time jimmy was a scumbag but that doesn't excuse the fact that chuck was a poor sibling who couldn't even bring himself to assist his brother when he was trying to better his life because he believed that jimmy never would or could truly change and the fact that chuck labels jimmy as a person who destroys everything he touches certainly doesn't help either so yes jimmy was heavily involved in the events leading up to chuck's death but when it comes down to it chuck is the architect of his own misery and i think it would be wrong to state that jimmy was solely or even majorly responsible for his brother's suicide as none of the things that he did to chuck would have ever happened if chuck hadn't instigated them in the first place though whether or not jimmy knows that is also up for debate just like with marco jimmy doesn't deal with chuck's death in a healthy way at all completely ignoring the pain i'm sure he was feeling here in favor of pretending as if nothing at all is wrong even going so far as to display overt happiness at his brother's passing this happiness isn't solely a front as i'm sure jimmy was relieved to be rid of such a dampener on his life especially when you consider how chuck claimed that he essentially never loved jimmy in their final encounter but as i've said already jimmy genuinely loved and admired his brother and his masking of his emotions here are just that a mask one that he uses to his benefit when he's having his reinstatement hearing a moment that seems to be a final genuine acknowledgement of his emotions regarding his brother but one that even jimmy has fooled himself into believing was simply another scheme chuck's death seems to have been the excuse jimmy was looking for to immerse himself more in the saul goodman persona as even prior to his hearing jimmy had begun selling phones on the street to people desperately in need of burner phones that he acquired from his position at cc mobile and we even get to see slip and saul goodman jimmy playing the criminal game in a very effective way when he gets back at the young men who ripped him off intimidating them in brutal fashion with huel at his side to send a message to any other would-be opposition to his street business but after he's been reinstated to the new mexico bar jimmy is almost exclusively operating as saul goodman attorney to the stars now there have been a multitude of different crimes that jimmy has committed that we've already discussed as well as a few more minor ones that i haven't mentioned and while they aren't exactly harmless in that the majority of them involve defrauding people of their money or sabotaging his enemies even his involvement in his brother's suicide pales in comparison to the greatest mistake jimmy ever made getting involved with the salamancas and at this time in his life specifically lalo salamanca obviously he already suffered personal danger at the hands of tuko but saul's willingness to acquiesce to the demands of lalo salamanca put him and his wife through hell first by forcing him into assisting them in springing crazy eight from police custody then when he endured a traumatic experience whilst as retaining the money lalo needed for his bail and finally his role in the death of howard hamlin now howard like chuck was no saint and he and jimmy both had legitimate grievances with one another that left them both justified in their distaste of the other however jimmy took it to a whole new level when he first laid chuck's suicide on howard's shoulders and even more so when he began to harass him for offering him a pity position at hhm and then to top it off framing him as an abusive pervert and drug addict in order to obtain his sandpiper money in a speedier manner and though howard is a self-righteous pretentious d-bag he didn't really deserve to be treated in this way and after beating howard down into utter submission he decides to rightfully confront jimmy at his home where unfortunately lurked lalo salamanca who promptly shot howard in the head to make a point to jimmy and kim jimmy didn't pull the trigger of the gun that killed howard hamlin but this is a classic case of the collateral damage that can occur when someone engages in criminal or reprehensible activity as if jimmy had never entertained the salamancas or acted the way he did towards howard howard would have never been in a situation where he could be shot by lalo salamanca but there's another person who can also be held responsible here kim jimmy's longtime enabler kim is an interesting woman as throughout this series she constantly flirts with jimmy's criminal tendencies off and on we see her repulsed and intrigued by his behavior but ultimately she's more intrigued than repulsed and you might be able to excuse her behavior as being the result of jimmy's manipulation however there are several times throughout this series where jimmy is actually the one who tries to turn his life around and stop defrauding others but kim encourages him to keep going and this is the case with their final plot against howard as kim was goading jimmy the entire way and she's just as culpable here as jimmy is kim has been a pretty good influence on jimmy throughout their time together and she was there to encourage him to do his best in everything that he endeavored to accomplish but when those labors involve the criminal you reap what you sow and after suffering the loss of howard in such a horrific way as a result of her own actions kim realizes the terrible pair that her and jimmy make a pair that will always relapse into deplorable behavior in order to get what they want jimmy however doesn't see it this way at all and following the loss of both howard and kim instead of taking a long hard look at the life he's lived thus far he chooses to double down and fully embrace his new saul goodman persona getting his hands on the little black book owned by dr caldera jimmy proceeds to build a legal criminal empire over the coming years making for himself a lavish and tacky dwelling in an expansive mansion that he purchased with his sandpiper money and the proceeds from his half-illicit business saul has set up quite the life for himself in the wake of his past life's destruction this is another great example of jimmy giving in to his unhealthy coping mechanism as in true jimmy fashion he's completely ignored all the wrong he's done and the trauma he's experienced in favor of burying himself in another world and while being able to move on from the negatives in your life is an admirable trait to have it becomes less admirable when you learn nothing from those negatives and choose to pad them with even more negatives a great example of this is how he treats kim when she comes to serve him divorce papers here we see him acting incredibly nonchalant towards the woman who helped him build his life in albuquerque his one true friend and lover who was by his side during some of the most trying periods in his life basically ignoring her as she fills out the divorce paperwork and admonishing her for not wanting to take her share of the sandpiper money afterwards telling her to have a nice life as he once again ignores her presence a total callous dedication to his new life without so much as a thought given to the old and now we have a handle on the real evil that comes from jimmy's willingness to engage in criminal behavior collateral damage as although he's definitely committed his fair share of lesser evil acts himself the real problem with saul is his willingness to assist others in committing evil acts far greater than he himself could have ever conceived which now brings us to his time serving his lawyer to walter white now at this point in time jimmy mcgill is essentially a thing of the past and saul goodman reigns supreme bus benches billboards late night tv ads the bombastic and sleaze ridden persona that is saul goodman is everywhere and has become the permanent face of jimmy mcgill and owing to his endeavor to provide legal counsel to those less reputable members of society we now find a man who while still providing a certain amount of representation for innocent people is now known as the lawyer who defends the guilty and helps them get away with their crimes this is what brings saul in contact with walt through jesse who as we see and better call saul was already intimately familiar with his business model taken out to the desert under the cover of night and made to stare at what might be a new grave in the middle of nowhere for him to rest in to replace the one tuko would have dug for him years earlier saul enters into a business agreement with walt and jesse despite the circumstances he's faced with a common theme for our criminal lawyer from this point on saul assists walt in taking his meth business to the next level helping them with a moderate amount of legal trouble like the defense of badger but he more so acts as a conduit between walt and the illegitimate world setting up the money laundering scheme through the donation website created by walt jr orchestrating the wiretap on walt's house to keep tabs on skyler having francesca call hank to get him off walt and jesse's trail and setting up the false environmental report on bogdan to pressure him into selling the whites his car wash but there are a few things that saul helped walt accomplish that go above and beyond a bit of scheming and plotting the first of those things being his involvement in the injury of ted now obviously no one intended for ted to be injured here intimidated yes but otherwise unharmed but the fact does remain that ted suffered a serious injury because of both walt and saul's influence and though this occurrence is about 10 percent saul's fault it's still worth mentioning as being one of the ways in which his involvement in various situations intentionally or unintentionally causes harm to others the second is his willingness to assist in the poisoning of brock to get jesse to turn against gus again saul's involvement here is rather minimal as all he did was instruct huel to lift the rice and cigarette off of jessie so walt could do the rest of the dirty work but even with walt likely assuring him that no harm would come to brock the fact that saul is willing to involve himself in the poisoning of a child in order to keep the walter white cash cow mooing is a testament to how far he's willing to go in order to ensure a life of luxury for himself at the expense of others but by far the worst thing saul ever did was get involved with walter white as none of the things i've mentioned so far would have happened if he wasn't willing to not just enable walt but to encourage him into becoming the ruthless drug lord he eventually becomes initially saul helps walt accomplish what he needs to accomplish making enough money to keep his family provided for after his passing but once saul saw the enormous potential for walt's product to become a dominant force in the illegal drug trade and thus an extraordinary source of money for everyone involved saul goes from complicit skeevy lawyer to a bonafide cheerleader whose aim is to pressure walt into continuing to cook for his own sake because of this distinction you can essentially claim that saul is in one way or another responsible for every crime walt commits and he says as much during his trial in the final episode of better call saul stating that without him there never would have been a walter white and there's a lot of truth to that statement as though walt still would have come in contact with the malevolent force that kick-started his meth career gustavo fring saul can be credited with instigating that relationship as well a meeting that would send walt further down the road of evil and even after gus is gone and walt has become the sole narcotic power in albuquerque saul sticks by him and further assists him in building his criminal empire though by this point saul wasn't exactly operating of his own free will here as walt had become so massive and so terrifying that saul had become quite afraid of going against walt and rightfully so and once walt's operation imploded what was saul's reward for his role in the creation of the walter white drug empire the utter destruction of his life after walt was found out by hank saul was aware that it was only a matter of time before the authorities linked him back to walt and knowing that he chooses to follow his compatriot into a proverbial hell by surrendering his previous life in favor of assuming an entirely new one to evade the authorities a fall from the heights of flash and glory that was saul goodman to the mediocrity that is cinnabon manager gene takovic steeped in regrets and self-loathing gene eaks out his meagre existence simply for the sake of existing laboring at his store only to return home at night and drink himself numb in front of his tv occasionally revisiting his previous life by reminiscing while watching his old commercials not only is this an incredibly unfulfilling and misery laid in existence but gene is constantly looking over his shoulder for anyone who might remember the face of the legendary saul goodman lawyer to the criminal and member of the fbi's most wanted list but what's important here is the fact that jimmy is never able to shed who he truly is and when he's found out by jeff he offers to give him a crash course in criminality to get him off his back which of course ends up being his reintroduction into the criminal lifestyle from here it's a quick descent back into scamming as after jimmy learns from francesca that all of his assets have been seized by the government even the hidden ones he figures he now has nothing to lose and begins robbing people's homes with his cohorts after applying them with copious amounts of liquor even going so far as to rob a man who he knows has cancer and nearly knocking him out with an urn once he wakes up while he's at his home this ends rather quickly though once jeff is arrested and gene attempts to assure his mother marion that the process for bailing someone out in omaha is not like the one in albuquerque where marion states that jeff served time previously a comment from gene that sparked suspicion in marion one that leads her to searching for any trace of gene on the internet using the laptop he had gifted her which of course leads her to exposing gene as saul goodman and now gene takovic has once again become saul goodman not just with his actions prior to his capture but after the fact as he defends himself as only saul goodman can taking down the life sentence and then some that he was facing to a measly seven years a pittance considering the amount of time he was facing however saul was undone by none other than jimmy mcgill the man he had always been that was buried beneath years of denial and misdeeds a man who couldn't bear to betray the only woman he had ever loved to save his own skin finally coming to terms with who he is and what he's done by accepting his regrets as an unfortunate truth of his existence regrets that no matter how he might have tried to run from them we're always waiting to overtake him in the end and at this rather noble end who was jimmy saul goodman gene takovic mcgill he was a bombastic tenacious cunning charismatic and charming man one whose talents in the arts of negotiation and persuasion made it so that he was more than capable of selling water to a fish or in his case conning the uncountable coercing the uncoercible and outsmarting those who on the surface seem to be far more intelligent than he but that's the thing about jimmy mcgill his intelligence is beyond what most people ever gave him credit for and jimmy is much to blame for that because of his parents coddling and his unfortunate attachment to the seedier elements of society jimmy was put in a position where he could do no wrong in the eyes of his close relations which allowed his darker tendencies to grow unchecked until they became an integral part of his person and though a person's actions are their own it's easy to see how the lack's attitude of his parents towards his behavior shaped jimmy into the man he eventually came to be had it not been for the grudging support of chuck jimmy would have become a career criminal who likely would have been in and out of prison for the entirety of his life but because of his relationship with his more respectable brother jimmy was given the ability to make something more of himself and he certainly did but all these elements that both influenced and made up jimmy mcgill contributed to the ebb and flow of jimmy's life that sent him careening towards a path of self-destruction as he brought countless others down with him again if jimmy had stayed the course of slip and jimmy back in cicero his life would have followed a similar course but with the caveat that he would have likely caused far less harm than he did as saul goodman the suicide of his brother the indoctrination of kim into his lifestyle the death of howard hamlin his many other lesser crimes and of course his role in facilitating all the misdeeds of walter white would have never happened and although all of these things are not completely jimmy's fault the fact remains that he played a big role in creating them chuck is as much to blame for his suicide as jimmy is kim is an adult who made her own choices to engage in criminal behavior the ordeal with howard well jimmy was mostly to blame for that one but though walter's rise to power was partially orchestrated by him walt would have still found another way to accomplish his nefarious goals if he hadn't met jimmy regardless jimmy still played his part and although jimmy isn't directly responsible for much of the evil that he contributed to creating just because you don't pull the trigger yourself doesn't mean you can't be held responsible for enabling the man who did and because he was willing to ignore the suffering of others in favor of his own success he caused an enormous amount of misery for who knows how many people over the course of his nefarious career but here's the thing jimmy mcgill wasn't necessarily an evil person rather he was a man who was susceptible to the allure of one of the most powerful forces of evil in our world greed everything that jimmy mcgill does throughout both of these series is fueled by greed and this is best exemplified by the exchange we're given between mike and him when they're making their way out of the mexican desert here mike and jimmy talk about what they would do if they could go back in time mike explains that he would return to the day he took his first bribe undoing all the evil that had come from his willingness to entertain it a heartwarming admonition of the regret he has for the life he's lived but jimmy he states that he would go back in time to may 10 1965 the day warren buffett took over at berkshire hathaway investing his half of the money left over from building the time machine in berkshire and when mike replies by saying that's it money jimmy replies in turn of course what else and again here we get to see jimmy refusing to acknowledge his pain and the pain he's caused others when mike asks him at the end of this exchange if there's nothing he would change choosing to ignore the matter as he had everything else that had caused him pain in his life so yes as we see many times throughout this series jimmy was actually quite the good man but over time through hardship and adversity he became jaded cynical and ever more drawn to the darker aspects of himself as he refused to learn from his mistakes and deal with his traumas further pushing him towards the part of him that could not resist the temptations of greed was jimmy a bad person no he wasn't i don't believe he ever set out to intentionally cause anyone misery say for maybe on a petty level he was simply a good man who was coddled treated poorly and made terrible decisions that were a result of everything that we've discussed so far as well as the blinders placed upon him by his greed but sometimes all it takes for good men to do bad things is to convince themselves that what they're doing is harmless that all their misdeeds are nothing but an avenue for them to get ahead in a world that tries to keep you down and while jimmy mcgill himself might not be evil much of the actions he took were undoubtedly rooted in it actions that ultimately resulted in the destruction of everything he once was and everything he could have been thank you all for tuning in to this episode of analyzing evil and i hope you've enjoyed what are your thoughts on jimmy did i miss anything let me know down below and leave a suggestion for a villain you'd like to see featured while you're at it if you like this video hit that thumbs up button and make sure to subscribe if you haven't already a big thank you to all of my subscribers and to my patrons and a most vile thank you to those whose names you're seeing on screen now [Music] join the channel's discord server and reddit to interact with myself and the community and follow me on the social media platforms listed below to keep up with the channel and of course don't 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Channel: The Vile Eye

Views: 823,999

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Id: bJTmk8YyWbQ

Length: 39min 34sec (2374 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 19 2022