I liked this episode less than the first, but it was still very well done.
There was, however, one exchange that really stood out for me, and I want to talk about that first. It starts the moment that Jimmy, after securing his freedom from Tuco, turns to negotiate for the freedom of his accomplices. That turning, in and of itself, is a nice moment, a nice revealing of Jimmy's character, but the dialogue between them, the back-and-forth as they were negotiating, struck me as brilliant in terms of the values that were discussed. For reasons related to my writing (and Candidate Spectrum), I've been thinking about civilization a lot recently. Conflicting values had already been set up when Tuco mentioned he wanted respect, and Nacho pointed out that Jimmy had been respecting him and shouldn't die. In their negotiation, a flood of additional values emerge: a desire for justice for a wrong done, Jimmy's use of the boys' mother in making appeals for mercy and for pity, the concept of proportionality in law.
On a first pass, the tension between these values is interesting because of how they play out in the context of the scene. The punishment that they ultimately agree to has a certain logic to it, a certain fitting irony, you can almost feel it coming from the very start of the negotiation. But in many ways, it's completely illogical. There's no proportionality in it, no justice, it includes a tremendous amount of physical pain, loss of livelihood, medical expenses, that is in no way reflective of the crime that Jimmy and his accomplices intended to commit, not to mention the one they actually committed. But something that isn't supposed to be a part of a judicial proceeding, the balance of power, the leverage, lies so much on Tuco's side, that the negotiated outcome is so much better than them dying, and Jimmy has no choice but to accept.
And this kind of leads me to the first thing that bothers me about the episode, the glorification of violence. Sure, as their legs are broken, we can watch Jimmy's expression, we can imagine the range of emotions he's feeling as he saves their lives at the cost of their snapping legs. But the joy Tuco takes in breaking the boys' legs ought to be an ugly thing to witness, instead of having a sense of justice about it. In my eyes, the cinematography, just how well the scene is shot, the angle of Tuco jumping down, the sounds, the screams, it all glorifies his actions. And the viewer is already primed to associate with Tuco. We've seen these boys be utter morons in trying to hard-sell their injuries miles away from where they purportedly occurred, in their almost ludicrously ugly behavior, in trying to intimidate a little old lady, and calling her a biznatch. We don't see their mother, if they have one, their suffering, whatever might have driven them to these crimes of idiocy, but we do see Tuco's grandmother, her distress, his deep commitment to her. These all contribute to the framing of Tuco as the sympathetic character, to the framing of this scene as a just result. And maybe it's all necessary, maybe the scene doesn't work any other way, but it bothers me that in order for us as a society to be entertained, we have to be so glib with violence, we have to be led into sympathizing with criminals in this manner.
And I want to stay with these themes of justice, of getting what you deserve, of proportionality, because I think they indicate what else this show could be other than a celebration of Jimmy's slide into criminality. We know who Jimmy becomes, we know where this series is going, but I feel like there's a better show, a more interesting, uplifting, revelatory show lurking in the premise. Jimmy's obviously talented. This negotiation with Tuco, the montage of court scenes later, proves that. We're also shown, somewhat selectively, that he has both a troubled past and a desire to put that past behind him. I anticipate we're going to witness a lot more of Jimmy's backstory, and I expect it to be dark. But there's a parallel between the story of the skateboarders and Jimmy's story.
Jimmy's been wronged. He has the talent to be a big-time lawyer, but he hasn't gotten the opportunity. Is it the fault of HHM and other big law firms, the failing of all the people who ought to have taught him, including Chuck, to be an effective mentor, the system, his family, his own faults combined with not having been given a second chance? In so many ways it doesn't matter. The systems that govern our lives know so little about justice, proportionality, respect, mercy, about who's deserving of what. The show I want to see doesn't glorify criminals and violence and trace the floundering moral path that leads a man to a degenerate life as the lawyer of said criminals. The show I want to see depicts the same man, depicts Jimmy as we see him in this episode, on a long struggle to fight back against and illuminate the flaws in the system that has put him where he is. It reveals the ways that the balance of power and the leverage in our actual court system favors the rich, the privileged, the HHM's of the world and their clients. It paints a path, at least for one man, out of the morass and towards justice. As crisp and compelling as a show like Better Call Saul is, I believe the show I'm proposing could be just as compelling, just as entertaining, but with a message that points us toward the light instead of toward the darkness.
There's one other thing that really struck me in this episode that's very subtle but I want to bring to everyone's attention. That is, the role of confirmation bias. The first time it comes up is very obvious. Tuco believes Jimmy is with law enforcement, and tortures him until Jimmy affirms his belief. Then he walks away, satisfied that he's correct, that the narrative he's building for his life has been validated. The second time it comes up is more subtle. When Chuck first finds Jimmy on his couch, there seems to be a twinge in his arm. The twinge leads him to look for a cause, and he finds and discards Jimmy's cellphone. Both characters' false worldviews are validated. They see what they want to see, both in a way that prevents them from engaging with reality as it truly exists.
I think this is something almost everyone does. We have a story of our lives, a narrative we build for ourselves, we trap ourselves in. Tuco and Chuck aren't the only ones to succumb to this tendency in the show, Jimmy is very obviously struggling with the narrative both he and others have constructed for him, you can almost see him slowly being reeled back in. I'll be very interested to see if this theme was accidental in this episode, or if it gets picked back up again. As an artist, the idea that certain kinds of shows and books and stories are entertaining and engaging, and others are too dry or philosophical, is very relevant to me. I think we, as a society, have also built a narrative for ourselves, a narrative the people who decide which shows get made, which books get published, all too often reinforce. But I want to encourage everyone, myself included, to understand that it is possible to break the narratives that ensnare us. It is possible to become something that even we ourselves might not believe we can be.
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