Charles “Chuck” McGill Origin – Sad & Bitter Lawyer & Older Brother Whose Jealousy Made Saul Goodman

and slipping jimmy i can handle just fine but slipping jimmy with a law degree is like a chimp with a machine gun charles chuck mcgill origins sad and bitter lawyer and older brother whose jealousy created saul goodman explored if we are to believe most tv depictions of lawyers they're suave intelligent individuals with more than a few vices and skeletons in their closets but their natural charisma and never give up attitude and brief moments of redemption keep us interested in them long enough for the producers to squeeze nine seasons out of them you do what i do because you're funny and you can make people laugh i committed my life to this but this is better call saul we're talking about so it only makes sense that the most brilliant legal mind that the show ends up featuring is also one so frighteningly fragile that it makes you question if insane geniuses really are good for this world after all at the start of the series no one would have been able to guess that jimmy mcgill's housebound brother would end up becoming the reason he turns into saul goodman but as season 6 draws closer to its end it has only become clearer and clearer that charles mcgill is equally as responsible for creating saul goodman as his brother is you have to know on some level i know you know i'm right you know but how does chuck corner jimmy into breaking bad why does he behave the way he does with his own flesh and blood and are there any real life inspirations that have gone into his character stay with us till the end of this video to find out this is chuck mcgill's origins explored before we go into our explanation we have a very small request if you like our content please support us by subscribing to our channel this is a small click for you but for us it means a lot thank you let's begin god help him inexplicably vouched for you with cliff maine you made cliff and his partners look like schmucks shall i go on he is your typical tortured genius until he isn't chuck mcgill's introduction to better call saul when we first met chuck we were surprised that there was someone the man we knew as saul goodman would be willing to go so far to help out partially because you know it's saul but also because we never knew he had a brother no i'm going to beat this you know i'm going to get better yeah sure in breaking bad the only reference to jimmy's past life that we get is a throwaway line during his first meeting with walter where we learned that his real name is mcgill a fellow potato eater my real name is mcgill yeah the jew thing i just do for the homeboys so when we first meet chuck it's surprising that not only is jimmy taking care of someone selflessly he's playing by their rules the entire time something we know saul goodman is simply averse to doing seriously the guy who practically encouraged junior to drink and drive is concerned someone's cooler is starting to look like a worm stew because of all the rotting bacon inside of it again really there's no other way i know that you don't want to hear it but you've got can you guys tell things used to be different yet and speaking of the cooler that's our cue for discussing one of the main reasons for jimmy's nanny-esque duties his brother suffers from electromagnetic hypersensitivity ehs is a condition that supposedly renders one incapable of being in the presence of strong electromagnetic fields due to a reaction that it elicits which can only be described as allergic to combat his illness chuck has removed every electrical appliance from his own home and prefers to use gas lamps to light it up he even has an elaborate entry ritual whereby he makes people leave their electronic devices in the mailbox and ground themselves before entering his home right away you can tell that jimmy really cares about his brother if him grabbing different newspapers from different newsstands and scooping out ice for motels for his disabled elder brother weren't enough to give that away then jimmy's trip to hhm in uno should have certainly conveyed his concern for chuck he fought chuck's name partner for his rightful share of the money and kicked a trash can out of commission when he couldn't get it done at this point howard hamlin appears like the biggest corporate jerk in the world and chuck seems to be aloof to all the things that he is doing behind his back at hhm when jimmy comes back home to tell him he should buy out his share from hhm because it's hard for him to make enough money for the both of them on a public defender's fee chuck calmly tells his brother that howard has commissioned a new weekly stipend for him alleviating his financial woes a stipend there's going to be one every week 857 dollars from hamline hamlin mcgill and oh while jimmy has added he should also change his practicing name because howard thinks it would essentially tarnish hhm's reputation if jimmy were to keep working under the name mcgill jimmy is understandably pissed at howard and it looks like chuck who is enjoying post-retirement crossword solving is afraid to piss off the guy who basically holds his legacy in his hands well technically chuck is on an extended sabbatical and the payments were howard's way of keeping him in hhm but jimmy repeatedly claims that his brother is done with being a lawyer he clearly thinks that his brother should just cash in his reputation and retire in peace but it would soon become clear that none of jimmy's concerns would ever have a positive effect on anything because when jimmy rolls up to the only place he can feel safe after drinking himself silly following the stunts tuko pulled with the skateboarding twins chuck immediately cast suspicions on his actions having found his cell phone in his pocket and a medical bill for two broken legs we don't immediately realize why chuck cares so much about jimmy's whereabouts but when he wakes up and realizes chuck has seen the bill jimmy panics and swears to chuck that he isn't slipping back into his old habits i'm not backsliding this isn't slipping jimmy fine and we find out in season 1 episode 3 exactly why his old habits are relevant to chuck in a flashback from 1992 we see that jimmy who was still known as slipping jimmy at this point managed to get himself into a legal problem that could have him potentially registered as a sex offender google what a chicago sunroof is at your own peril realizing the trouble his con man antics had gotten him into he called his mob and got her to convince his big shot lawyer brother to bail him out when chuck arrived at the prison facility jimmy switched on the same mode that he would see him live and breathe as saul goodman in breaking bad but his brother cut the crap right down the middle and told jimmy if he wanted to prevent being labeled as a sex offender he would have to play by chuck's rules that means he gives up his life on crime in cesaro their hometown moves to albuquerque with chuck and gets a job in a mail room of his law firm hamlin hamlet and mcgill jimmy agrees to move to abq with his elder brother and spends the next 10 years making an honest man out of himself at the start of bitter call saul it's clear that he is struggling with remaining honest the scam he tried to pull on the kettlemans makes it evident enough but he is doing this best when jimmy comes across the sandpiper case he is elated to the point he brings it home for chuck to go through and it actually feels like the two brothers are working together for a couple of episodes and i'm gonna have to take up with howard and the other partners uh you know it's not my decision alone jimmy tries to rekindle chuck's love for the law in the hope that it will get him to step out of the house for a change he's only trying to help his brother but when chuck betrays jimmy and gives the case to hhm behind his back it becomes clear that everything we had seen so far from him was an elaborate lie in season 1 episode 9 when jimmy shows up at chuck's home seemingly lamenting his loss of the sandpiper account to hhm instead of standing up for his brother chuck simply states that perhaps it's for the best he then goes on to say the very things that he had earlier claimed came from howard's mouth and when jimmy asked him why he didn't threaten leaving hhm when they cut him out the ugly truth comes spilling from chuck's conscious mind he doesn't really think jimmy is a lawyer university of america samoa for christ's sake chuck ridicules jimmy's procurement of a law degree through an online course and says he's still the same person he was in cicero and that slipping jimmy with law degree is a chimp with a machine gun showing us just how deep-stated and visceral chuck's hatred for his brother is and as the flashbacks continue we find out why he hates jimmy so it like a cheap pair much slippers and then reap all the rewards i thought you were proud of me the model son who was never loved how chuck mcgill's childhood trauma shaped his relationship with jimmy through further flashbacks and exposition provided by chuck himself we find out his history was one mired with the burden of being the voice of the law chuck's given name is charles lindbergh mcgill jr he was named after his own father and was a model student growing up by the age of 14 he had graduated from his school becoming the youngest valedictorian in francis xavier high's history he went on to attend the university of pennsylvania and eventually graduated magna laude from georgetown university law center making him one of the most academically distinguished characters in the series behind only walter white who actually won a nobel prize for his chemistry research but much like the protagonist of vince gilligan's last tv production chuck two suffered from a critical personality flaw and that was that he couldn't take being emasculated at any step of the way if you'll recall chuck was the one who bailed jimmy out of his predicament in chicago well that should have also indicated to you that chuck used to practice criminal law at one point in his career and according to every account we hear from every other lawyer in the series he was excellent at what he did i don't think that's gonna play really but it's a good opening salvo for us wait us in the cnbc mockumentary american greed james mcgill bill oakley one of the pd's jimmy works alongside in the earlier seasons of better call saul claims that chuck mcgill was like a god around these parts because chuck was actually an exceptional lawyer chuck mcgill was a god around these parts he was like the second coming of clarence darrow and then he fought and won the precedent setting case of state versus gonzalez and his legal reputation alone helped hhm reach the status it had by the time the series began but chuck also became so engrossed in his work that he ended up becoming a gatekeeper for the law which as you know isn't exactly the best look for someone who is trying to come off as 100 professional and this became all too evident in his treatment of jimmy because turns out chuck had always resented his younger brother he was a nationally recognized lawyer who was named partner in one of the biggest law firms of the southwest he was dedicated to his parents and looked after them way more than jimmy did to say the least and he was the son who had always overachieved for parents who came from truly humble beginnings so when jimmy got all the love and affection of his parents despite his criminal tendencies it drove chuck to resent his brother till the very end it wasn't always this way in a flashback from season 3 episode 10 we see that when they were children charles mcgill jr actually loved his brother he would read the adventures of mabel to him in an outdoor tent under lamplight in their youth and that becomes one of the only positive memories that the brothers have of each other but jealousy and lack of affection are poisonous and charles mcgill's soul was thoroughly venomized by the time he got his brother out of jail chuck was the good son he was the one who helped his father get his books in order when he was going to go bankrupt he was the one who discovered that jimmy had been embezzling money from their own store and alerted his parents to his malpractice and he was the one who stayed in their mother's side in their final moments while jimmy was out trying to find something to eat but his father refused to believe jimmy could have done something like this the store closed down after he failed to recoup the losses and passed away for which chuck blames jimmy and at her deathbed mrs mcgill didn't care about which son was wrong and which was right she only wanted to see jimmy so this is it then i'm sorry this was the final straw that broke chuck and his dislike for his brother became a permanent part of his personality he allowed jimmy to continue working for hhm at the mail room because he had struck that deal with him before their mother's passing but after she left this earth he held back her final words from jimmy because she asked for him instead of the son who was in front of her and jimmy would never learn his own mom's last request and even after taking jimmy to albuquerque and personally overseeing his transformation chuck could never really accept the fact that his brother now shared the same profession as him because in chuck's mind he is the golden standard of law he claims on multiple occasions that the law is sacred and should not be manipulated and what he says is usually the final word on said topic why sake an online course what a joke i worked my ass off to get where i am he worked hard to get to his position but jimmy simply finished an online course to get his degree which is a joke in chuck's mind because distance learning wasn't as normalized back then as it is today he simply cannot let go of the idea that his brother can be more than slip and jimmy and it drives a wedge between them that is so huge that even jimmy can probably feel it whenever he goes to drop off chuck's supplies in season 1 when jimmy brings chuck the sandpiper case there is a moment where chuck is genuinely proud of his brother he later tells kim that it was great to have chuck not hate him for 10 minutes because that is what he wants the approval of his brother if chuck had only shown jimmy the empathy he frankly deserved from his elder brother then things could have ended in a very different manner instead when he found out about jimmy's law correspondence he sabotaged a career for him with hhm whilst feigning support even going as far as vouching for jimmy with the bar and attending his after-party as well though chuck initially wants to leave he is persuaded by jimmy to perform a duet which he turns into a solo showing us just how deep his jealousy runs and the destruction of any hope reconciliation between the brothers came right about when chuck's ehs symptoms started showing up [Music] it got to the point he couldn't even hide it from his then wife rebecca and he enlisted jimmy's help in preparing the house for a romantic dinner but when rebecca ended up gelling with jimmy way more than she ever had with chuck that's when his ehs became severe enough to render him housebound and jimmy his semi-permanent manservant when howard hamlin learns exactly how much work jimmy puts into taking care of chuck he is amazed but chuck himself has never shown his own brother that level of appreciation so after disparaging jimmy for even thinking of putting his own name next to hhm's because of his con man past chuck ends up winning the battle jimmy gives sandpiper over to hhm and seemingly agrees with his brother's assessment of himself but when he drops the bomb that he has also delegated chuck's care to hhm the latter's expression turns from defiant victory to a terrible sense of dread because he realizes that this means he can no longer control jimmy as he wants so far he had been able to deflect the truth to howard but now that he can't anymore he has a slight breakdown and rushes after his brother to keep him with himself but when he fails to do that the war between the mcgill brothers begins in earnest and one of the biggest reasons chuck ends up gaining an upper hand through it is his medical condition let's talk about that condition for a bit now shall we electromagnetic hypersensitivity how chuck's condition represents his hatred towards jimmy and his control freak status so electromagnetic hypersensitivity is not a real thing at least not a confirmed real thing it is what psychologists would call a psychosomatic disorder what does that mean in simple words it is a mental condition that manifests itself as a physical symptom so for instance if you are extremely stressed out you might feel like your shoulders are getting heavier or your head is hurting away more than a regular headache that is a psychosomatic symptom and experts consider ehs itself as a somatic condition which means that it is purely psychological there are no confirmed symptoms for the condition and the idea that electromagnetic waves can cause allergic reactions in such a small part of the global population is outlandish as it is so you can understand that ehs is not exactly a real disease it's something that chuck's mind created in order to process the stress of losing his wife and that of managing his con man brother's redemption arc his jealousy towards jimmy and his incapability to keep rebecca around crashed into this massive condition that led to chuck literally ripping out every electronic appliance in his home and resorting to pre-electricity living conditions there is a scene early on in better call saul where chuck ends up getting tased by some cops who think his home is a drug den because of all the pride out electronics thrown across the place this happens after chuck discovers jimmy conned his way into getting more clients by staging a publicity stunt and he is taken to the emergency room there his consulting doctor tells jimmy that the ehs is in chuck's mind to illustrate her point she activates chuck's electronically powered bed and he has no response to it jimmy has probably known this for a while he even looks dejected when the bed moving doesn't elicit a response from chuck as if his worst fears were being confirmed but he refuses the doctor's suggestion of having chuck institutionalized because he knows his brother and how he would react and besides chuck only ever had his brain in the first place if jimmy takes that away from him what will he have left so the ehs becomes a way of gauging just how chuck copes with his own emotions whenever he is under stress the symptoms skyrocket but when he is productively occupied like working on the sandpiper case with jimmy his conditions practically vanish on multiple occasions across better call saul chuck has used electrical appliances when they either served his ends or were needed to prove his point it's only when his emotions start going haywire that his skin starts itching like crazy and he needs a space blanket to comfort himself the ehs is a large part of why he sympathized with chuck when we first met him but as the series continued it became clear to us that it would also end up becoming his downfall and that is exactly what happened when chuck dialed up his vendetta with jimmy to a 20. there's a lantern on top of newspapers you call this normal i call them adaptations mcgill versus mcgill the brilliant legal mind versus the brilliant illegal mind ensues after jimmy gives hhm the sandpiper case he is approached by davis and maine who are partnering with the firm to handle a class action lawsuit with a partner track job though he initially rejects it jimmy ends up taking the job thanks to kim and chuck is shocked to learn of this development he questions howard if he painted a full and honest picture to cliff maine of slip and jimmy and howard says he did but he also didn't stand in the way of jimmy getting hired which has obviously irked chuck to the point where he starts showing up to meetings where he previously wasn't even interested in practicing law anymore chuck questioned jimmy's methods of procuring clients from sandpiper alleging solicitation but jimmy is able to salvage the meeting and protect his job so chuck takes an alternative route and starts involving himself with kim's career he has her reinstated to her previous position after howard demoted her to doc review aka the cornfields and tells her a story about their childhood hoping to sway her opinion of jimmy and win her to his side but he underestimates kim's loyalty to jimmy and this decision backfires on hhm because the reason chuck reinstated kim was that she had gotten their firm mesa verde a wealthy bank with expensive legal requirements that could really elevate hhm to national prominence and when she started making moves to retain them for her solo practice he actively sabotaged her reputation by subtly implying she wasn't good enough for the job which convinced the higher-ups of mesa verde to side with hhm instead chuck personally attended to the mesa verde filings and when jimmy broke in and doctored them to get back at chuck he realized immediately what had happened upon being informed of his mistake because in his own mind chuck never makes mistakes like the one that ended up being revealed at the courthouse and his instant reaction is jimmy sabotaged me he is right of course but he could have just as easily also forgotten about the numbers this mistake is enough for ms verde to take their business to kim and chuck having realized what happened devises a plan after a failed visit to the copy store where jimmy doctored the documents chuck ends up in the hospital again where he realizes he had never called jimmy himself and yet he was the one who called the ambulance though ernesto covers for jimmy because he can see just how fixated chuck is in his vendetta charles mcgill does not buy it and resolves to glean the truth out of jimmy using his own tactics he fakes having a complete mental breakdown by putting up space blankets all around his house and goats jimmy into confessing about doctoring the files knowing that his brother's sentimentality will cause him to slip then he gets howard in on the gambit and devises a master plan to get jimmy disbarred from practicing law ever again because ultimately that is what he really wants chuck has ernesto accidentally listen to jimmy's confession and then swears him to silence knowing full well that ernesto wouldn't be able to keep it in when jimmy shows up at chuck's home in an eared state and stages a break-in chuck informs his own brother that he will be pressing charges and that he hopes jimmy would learn from this incident but it's clear that jimmy that this war has been one-sided for way too long and he coldly tells his brother that his ehs will be the reason he will die alone before parting ways with him chuck goes about the rest of his appearances enforcing his ethics and disdain for his brother's nefarious ways to any way willing to enter his home but on the day that jimmy's hearing is held chuck realizes that he actually was wrong all this time not about jimmy but about himself and that is what causes the actual antagonist of jimmy's life to completely fall apart never to be pieced together again let's get back to your house every surface covered in tin foil nothing crazy about that huh the chicanery that broke charles mcgill right before jimmy's disbarment hearing chuck and howard meet at the sight of the deed inspecting it to make sure it adheres to chuck's visiting protocols howard expresses concern over chuck's deeply personal vendetta with jimmy and wonder out loud if there can't be any other way but chuck simply tells him let justice be done though the fault a latin maxim that arose during the earliest days of the practice of law little did he know that the heavens he was referring to here would end up being he himself during the hearing chuck maintains a competent demeanor and answers all of jimmy's questions with nonchalance and more than a twinge of smug intellectual superiority he is confident that his underhanded tactics have worked in his favor after all he is jimmy's elder brother it only makes sense in chuck's mind that he would be better than jimmy even at this but chuck ends up painting himself into a corner with his ehs explanation and from then on things escalate rather quickly jimmy using one of his old antics manages to plant a fully charged cell phone battery on chuck thanks to huel babano he then prevents an argument that is framed entirely around chuck's mental illness and provides the court with evidence supporting the same pictures he had mike take when he was posing as a handyman jimmy then proceeded to have chuck clearly established that he felt no signs of ehs whilst delivering his testimony before revealing that chuck had a battery in his bresco pocket the entire time this rattles chuck completely and he launches an angry terrain in the courtroom which exposes not only his true agenda but the extent of his mental illness after denouncing jimmy chicanery chuck looks to the jury of the hearing with a desperate plea to remove his brother from the bar association but he's met with stunned eyes from all over the room in one fell swoop jimmy not only managed to completely avoid getting disbarred he also exposed chuck for the control scumbag he has always been ashamed of his scheme falling through chuck then tries to muscle hhm to keeping him on by sending them a lawsuit but howard hamlin forces him out of the firm by buying out his share making chuck a complete failure both professionally and personally chuck goes to a therapist after this and laments that if his ehs is truly a mental condition then what has he done but it's too late for him to try to fix anything when jimmy shows up to try to make amends with chuck he is shocked to find his brother living in the midst of electricity jimmy apologizes but chuck cuts him short and asks him to save the pity act he tells jimmy he can't help himself from hurting others and he even says that jimmy never really mattered all that much to him which takes away any hope of redemption or reconciliation for the mcgill brothers chuck's final moments are spent in complete madness as he tears his home's walls down looking for an electrical source that has kept his meter running and when he fails he just kicks his gas lamps over and commits suicide by self-immolation and thus chuck mcgill's own chicanery got him in the end had he left his personal vendetta with jimmy to one side and truly worked with his brother to make him a better person he probably would be alive today instead he is going to be remembered for the contributions he made to the legal community alone chuck mcgill went from a respected lawyer to a vengeance-obsessed shell of a man and his character is perhaps the best portrayal of what relying purely on your intellect for your existence can do to your life and as if the psychology lessons vincent company gave us through him weren't enough clearly everything he says and does in the show are obscure intellectual references that mere mortals aren't going to be able to comprehend still we gave it a crack and we think you'll like what we found real-life inspirations behind chuck mcgill's character let's start with his name charles lindbergh mcgill jr shared his first and middle name with the famed pilot charles lindbergh whose exploits in an aircraft revolutionized commercial aviation at the start of the 20th century chuck's naming directly follows the pattern of naming that the lindbergh family adopted as he is named after his own father just like the real life charles lindbergh was and to be fair to the man he did live up to his namesake's legacy carving out a sizeable reputation based on his own exploits as a lawyer but it would be more accurate to call chuck a parallel to charles lindbergh's father solely because both men served as lawyers at some point in their lives charles lindbergh senior was in fact one of the key federal administrators of his day with a background in law and politics and was at one time even touted for a senate run so you can see how despite being named for a commercial aviator he ended up mirroring the career of lindbergh's father now that we have the name out of the way let's talk about where charles grew up cicero illinois will seem like any other city like chicago to you at the first glance especially if better call saul is the first place you heard of it but the place actually has legal history dripping from this name itself cicero was one of the greatest roman statesmen and lawyers that the ancient roman republic knew his actions as a lawyer not only constitute what can be considered to be the first pieces of legal literature but they effectively helped shaped world history the first triumvirate caesar's rise to power his eventual downfall and the wrath of mark anthony cicero lived and argued through them all in death he is remembered as one of the world's first and arguably no significant lawyers ever which makes it even more ironic that jimmy came out of a city named after cicero but not chuck in fact it is possible that the discovery of his city's namesake is what spurred him into becoming a lawyer because we know that chuck is nothing if not a history buff and history also held the answer to chuck's fate because just like the author of the adventures of mabel harry thurston peck chuck too commits suicide one of his more obscure classical references comes when he calls jimmy svengali which for anyone who knows should illustrate just how lowly a view he has of his own brother a svengali is a person who mesmerizes or convinces another person to do their evil bidding he originated as a character in george du marier's 1894 novel trilby but his name has since gone on to become a universal symbol for the phrase bad influence if you actually read the story of trilby you'll understand that what chuck says here isn't just a reference to a century-old storybook villain svengali was created to appear as the nadir of evil in all facets of the world and by comparing his own brother to such a person we can now understand that there was no hope for reconciliation ever and the last real-life inspiration for chuck that we would like to discuss with you is clarence darrow now legal aspirants who are watching this video and there are only two of you know who this man is already but for the rest of you we'll just introduce daryl as the godfather of lawyers in the u.s during his time as an active lawyer he fought several high-profile cases which were often dubbed as trials of the century by the media and included daryl making some rather sketched out arguments in defense of his clients famously he was able to get leopold and loeb's death sentence reduced to two life sentences a case we referenced in our howard hamlin origins video which you should also watch but the thing is daryl is heavyweight in legal history you could even call him the hulk hogan of the law and in american greed james mcgill bill oakley directly compares chuck to darrow which shows just how respected he remained in the eyes of the mainstream media but unlike daryl we know everything about charles mcgill and we are not sure if he deserves the pedestal people put him on in fact howard hamlin sums it up best for us when he meets a new intern at the hhm head office howard shows him a trick for opening soda cans that chuck taught him he calls chuck the best legal mind he ever knew to which the intern replies that he wants someone to talk about him that way howard simply tells him that maybe there are more important things in life indicating that while he does not dispute chuck's genius no amount of brains could undo the damage he did in his last few days chuck mcgill's story is a real life warning for us the viewer don't let your success turn into hubris and deal with your personal issues as transparently as possible you never know someday your own brother might try to outrun your entire life brown wood black mat marvelous verdict brilliant vulnerable articulate malevolent stoic evil there are a lot of adjectives that we can use to describe charles mcgill but the ultimate term we are going to use here is when he was a deeply flawed human yes chuck had a multitude of issues for which he should have sought help asap but he was also the only person who accurately predicted that jimmy acquiring a law degree would end up making a mockery out of the law even though he himself pushed him there he is a terrifying concoction of complexities strong yet fragile righteous yet underhanded exceptional yet exceptionally plain we could keep going for days but the main thing is that he is a catalyst for jimmy's transition into embracing saul goodman with open arms where he previously only used the identity to scam people in cicero after everything chuck did to him jimmy made saul his life and the only person who could have stopped that from happening was good old charles lindbergh mcgill jr it's just a shame that his pride jealousy and ego came before his own brother so much pain could have been avoided otherwise and if you like our content don't forget to leave a like and subscribe to us if you haven't already have a good one and be safe thanks everyone [Music] you

Channel: Marvelous Videos

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Id: 3ezGmo1-JcA

Length: 33min 17sec (1997 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 13 2022