The other reason I found this episode compelling is because of some early head nods to issues I've mentioned in earlier reviews, that is, issues around the narrative Jimmy has built for himself in his head. In back-to-back scenes, Mrs. Ketterman tells Jimmy "You're the kind of lawyer guilty people have." and Jimmy says to Mike "You assume that criminals are gonna be smarter than they are." The first is great because I think it's a pretty spot-on assessment of the way Jimmy comes across, and because of Jimmy's obvious surprise and his unusual difficulty in coming up with a response. It's clear he doesn't see himself that way, and I immediately began to wonder if he was going to have the self-control and the self-awareness to attempt to change. The question is almost immediately answered in this episode. Yes, he is going to try to change. Trying to copy the HHM brand and the publicity stunt both seem like attempts to appear more upscale lawyer and less ambulance-chaser. But no, he is going to fail, he is who he is, and the character flaws and general approach to doing things that Mrs. Ketterman sees will continue to emerge. This is shown most convincingly in the way he still goes after HHM, the way a kind of cheap, immediate vengeance still dominates his mind when what he really needs is the wisdom to exact his revenge by becoming successful and pursuing a life well lived.
I really appreciated the second line because, though Jimmy wasn't aware of it when he said it, it was obviously also directed at himself. And this feeds back into Jimmy's whole inability to see himself for what he is, an ability necessary for true change and for building the kind of successful, stable life that Jimmy wants for himself but which we know, from where he ends up, that he will fail to achieve. I don't know how much more development we'll get of this idea that Jimmy can't see himself clearly, but I'm personally kind of fascinated by it. If you've read a good bit of my writing, I'm sure it won't surprise you to learn that I'm super self-aware, self-aware to a fault, to a point of dwelling too much on things I've done wrong and on my shortcomings. So it's always fascinating to me to see someone who is also obviously intelligent like Jimmy, but very much lacking in self-awareness. Also, and I doubt we'll ever get much of this, but it makes me even more interested to learn how Jimmy sees himself, to get a sense of how much he might know or not know that his schemes and his loquaciousness are going to perpetually cause him trouble. To know how well he handles, for instance, uncertainty, how well he anticipates and prepares himself for the range of outcomes his actions might produce.
The other big scene I wanted to devote some time to is the conversation between Kim and Jimmy in the nail salon. I personally found this scene frustrating. I didn't get Jimmy's angle, why he was making things personal. With the money he's come into, he has a chance to kind of start over, to start a new career unharried by an immediate need for money, to build his own distinct brand. It was interesting to me that he told Kim that she could work anywhere, but that he can't see himself clearly enough to know the same is true of him, to see that this is his opportunity. I wasn't happy that he avoids Kim's question about why he's pursuing a path of vengeance and trying to provoke HHM, and that she doesn't press him on it. And this entire conversation was, to me, emblematic of the problems with television. If this was real life, if Kim truly cares about Jimmy, this conversation would have been hours, it could have been a real opportunity for both of them actually to try to persuade the other to pursue a different course, to learn about each other and themselves. But because this is television, you have to distill that whole soul-searching conversation into three minutes, and there's no opportunity for Kim to hold Jimmy to the fire, to pin him down and get him to think about, to tell her why he's pursuing this path.
Now, I'm sufficiently self-aware to know that these are my preferences, that I'm describing the kind of show I want to watch, that I would want to write, the kind of conversation I would try to have if I were either of their friends. I know that the world is wide enough that there are people for whom the conversation I'm suggesting they might have would be totally vain and frustrating, and that Kim might know that and just avoid the difficulty and the pain. I get that, I get that anytime I criticize the show there will be people out there who love the very things I dislike. I hope that anyone who's reading this, even if they disagree with a good portion of the things I say, is getting something out of this, another perspective, a new angle on things they might not have picked up on, a deeper dive into issues they wouldn't think about if they just consumed the show and forget about it.
I'll end with a couple miscellaneous comments. I found it both shocking and refreshing that the Kettlemens are so unapologetic about the money they've stolen. I think as far as a show like Better Call Saul has a message, it's this, that people are selfish jerks who will do anything to gratify their most pressing impulses and have little compunction at having done so. I think there's a certain truth to that, that a large part of society operates that way, but I've rarely experienced it. My work atmospheres have generally been populated by competent, mostly self-controlled people who are able to work as a team towards some large goal. Well, at least until upper management pops their heads in. I didn't have a problem with Jimmy accepting their bribe, but I'm also aware, as I write this, that the show once again used this trick of setting up a character (here Jimmy) as sympathetic by contrasting them with someone less sympathetic. Finally, I don't get Jimmy's relationship with Chuck. Based on what we've seen, if someone treated me as Chuck treats Jimmy, given what Jimmy is doing for him, I would not want to subject myself to the hassle. I imagine at some point we'll get some insight into Jimmy's inner view of the relationship, I gather he's looking for approval, trying to get respect and an I-told-you-so by showing he can be the responsible one.
Monday, August 10, 2020
Better Call Saul: Nacho
I have to say, this episode didn't work for me, and I have to wonder if I would have reacted the same way to it were I not committing myself to watching it closely, with a fresh mind and a notepad, ready to write up my thoughts afterward.
I'd describe the show's arc as Jimmy does some questionable things, ends up in trouble, through a combination of coincidence, wits, desperation, and determination, solves a mystery, proves the cops wrong, potentially saves his own skin, and blows open the case against the Kettlemans. And I think that arc, especially with the nice tidy ending, could be really satisfying to a casual viewer. But as someone watching the show critically, it fell flat for me. My wife and I, having watched all the original and Next Generation Strek Trek episodes together, are now watching Star Trek: Enterprise. The writing's always been a little uneven, but we're now in the third season, and the writing is noticeably worse. By about five minutes into literally every episode in the third season, we've rolled our eyes at each other multiple times while questioning aloud why the characters are doing particular things that don't make sense and obviously are going to cause them problems. A show requires a sort of benefit of the doubt, a suspension of disbelief, in order to work, and this episode lost mine.
Now, don't get me wrong, Better Call Saul is absolutely much better written than "Enterprise". I do like the complexity and the kind of real-world grit of characters like Jimmy and Mike. I like how the show prods you to think along with the characters, trying to answer questions like what is Jimmy doing, how is he going to get out of this, should he tell Kim everything he knows about Nacho, where did the Kettlemans really go? But there are too many odd decisions or coincidences in this show, and by the end I was no longer willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.
To start, I didn't understand what Jimmy was doing in calling Kim and the Kettlemans, whether he was trying to warn them or play them and why he thought, if he was trying to warn them, things would not backfire. Then there were the multiple phone messages he left for Nacho which, while I understand he was nervous and hunting for a way out, just seemed to me over-the-top asking for trouble. There's the whole interaction with Mike, which has never made any sense to me. Why is he always short on stickers, hasn't he learned yet, why not just pay the extra money, why make a big fuss that will obviously make things worse, why, in this episode, does he have pocket change to make who-knows-how-many pay phone calls, but doesn't have enough cash to pay nine dollars in parking fees? I understand Jimmy's impulsiveness, his impatience, his desperation in this particular episode, I understand there's a certain humor at work here, but it's always struck me as a bit contrived. Still, I consider all this relatively minor. When Jimmy makes the desperate and/or foolish decision to look for the Kettlemans himself by walking randomly, with no tracking skills, for what, given the progression of lighting from later afternoon to evening, must be hours, and manages to find them, that's when the show really lost me. Things didn't get any better when the Kettlemans just happen to leave the backpack with all the cash near the door to their tent, and it's the bag Jimmy just happens to grab and start pulling on.
Another reason I found this episode frustrating is that I want access to at least some of Jimmy's internal monologue, the narrative he's building for himself. The show goes to great lengths, especially when he's calling to warn the Kettlemans, to show his indecision, to show how hard he's wrestling with himself over the course of action he's taking. But we have no idea why he's wrestling with himself, what his concerns are we don't even, even during the calls to Kim and to the Kettlemans, we don't even really know what he's trying to accomplish. I personally thought he was still trying to play them somehow. I understand the show is trying to build suspense, to arouse in the viewer a desire to see how things turn out and what's really going on, and I'm sure that works for a lot of people. But when a show withholds important information that a character obviously has access to, I recognize that as an artifice employed by the writers, and it frustrates me, it shows the seems in the presentation. I personally would find the show more meaningful, more engaging, more revelatory of Jimmy's character, if we found out what he was thinking, which demons he was wrestling with, how much doubt he harbored over the wisdom of his path, what he thought his chances of success were, what his ultimate plan is, or if he even has one.
I think the show itself senses this deficiency. When he hangs up from talking to Kim, he mumbles "I'm no hero." At the time, I took it as additional evidence that he was trying to play them somehow, but in hindsight I think it's intended to show his regret from trying to scam Mrs. Kettleman/Tucos' grandmother. Either way, that utterance indicates to me that the writers realized that Jimmy had to make some kind of comment on his internal mental state, that they couldn't just leave everything to showing us his actions. His regret needed to be vocalized. I just don't think they went far enough. There's so much meat in this part of the story that's left on the bone, so much opportunity to complicate Jimmy's narrative and his character that's wasted.
The last thing I want to comment on is the opening scene between younger Chuck and younger Jimmy. I certainly thought it was cool to see the younger Jimmy, but again, that scene didn't work well for me because so little information was conveyed. We already knew Jimmy had a troubled past, and that's all we really learn. I also found it really confusing when Jimmy appeared sincerely (to my eyes) to want to turn over a new leaf, and it just made Chuck mad at him. This was another case where if we had more markers of internal mental state, both from Jimmy and from Chuck, it would give us a lot more insight into their characters, make the scene easier to understand, enrich some of the later interactions, and help us understand why Jimmy in the present seems in such danger of falling off the narrow path, especially with his family offering so little support.
Monday, July 27, 2020
Better Call Saul: Mijo
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.
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.
Sunday, July 19, 2020
Better Call Saul: Uno
Overall, I liked this episode a good bit. The opening sequence showing an older Jimmy hiding and then reliving the glory days gets you into the dreariness of his later existence, the sense of dread of what might happen, the nostalgia for better days. The pull-away in the scene when he's kicking a trash can after leaving HHM to show the woman smoking outside is a beautiful piece of cinematography. The build-up and tension before the skateboarders take a hit for Jimmy is very well done. And the twist of it being a different person driving, going to a place where unexpected things are going to happen is a nice way to illustrate how maybe Jimmy isn't quite as bright as he thinks he is and whatever his intentions, things aren't going to work out as he wants.
The first episode showcases a lot of the things I liked about Breaking Bad. The writing, the cinematography, the acting, everything is top-notch. The tension, sense of mystery, and story-telling are as good as it gets on television. I love the Saul character himself, his irreverence, his energy, the head-ticks and hand motions and subtle mouth movements that really fit the character and are consistent scene-to-scene, episode-to-episode.
Having cataloged the good, I want to talk a bit about the things that I found troublesome. The Better Call Saul-style of show does a magnificent job of immersing you in a character's world visually, of conveying possible mental states through images, but it almost universally ignores those mental states. I think that's a shame. For instance, as the older Jimmy is watching his old commercials, what is he really thinking? The viewer can impute thoughts to Jimmy, but I firmly believe that asking us viewers to do that misses a huge opportunity. His feelings must be very complicated, much more complicated than we could imagine. Does he miss those days because he thought he was serving justice, because they were exciting, because he was full of optimism and hope for the future? What regrets does he have, does he realize how corny he sounds, how shady, what does he think he might have done to avoid ending up a Cinnabon peon of unknown address?
These moments, for me, continually come up throughout the episode. When he's kicking the garbage can, we can certainly feel his frustration, his rage, but we know so little about why he's angry. Does he suspect he's being played, that HHM might well have spoken with Chuck, does he really think that he might accomplish whatever it is he's up to? Speaking of which, why exactly does he not cash the twenty-six thousand? There's no evidence that doing so would end the payments, in fact, he's expressly told more would be forthcoming.
I understand the sense of mystery that the show is trying to build, I'm conscious of the way my mind is being engaged and challenged to fill in details, and I admit to taking a certain pleasure in that process. But ultimately, I find that process a bit empty. I believe that in avoiding filling in the complications, subtleties, and nuances that access to an interior monologue might provide, the writers miss an opportunity to say something truly interesting about the character of Jimmy, the details of his life, the state of our world. I think in aiming for the low-hanging fruit of pulling us into Jimmy's world, making us feel as if we inhabit it with Jimmy, they rob us of the chance to really get to know Jimmy as a person in all his complexity, his moral nuances, the strength of his emotion, whatever doubt and conflict he must feel. In my opinion, this is the essence of why books always end up being better than movies, because you have more access to a character's mental states, and that's where the really interesting work gets done. I think it's a shame that a show as well-done as Better Call Saul settles into familiar cinematic story-telling techniques rather than really innovating.
There are a number of other more nit-picky holes that bothered me on watching this episode. To start, why did he not plead his initial case in the morgue out? He clearly had no chance to win, and going to trial was far more time-intensive. I'm also not thrilled with the level of coincidence involved in the twist that ends the show, that is, a different person driving a car almost indistinguishable from the target car with the same start to the license plate at the same time and on the same road, making the same turn, as the target. And while the idiocy involved is amusing, I'm also think it's a little sloppy that the twist relies on the boys being so stupid as to jump up after getting the supposed injury on tape and follow the car to try to complete their scam when they've got a lawyer on their side.
Finally, there are two big, important questions that go unaddressed because we're not given any access to any character's internal state. The first revolves around Chuck. Why is he having such trouble facing the end? Why is he in so deep with conspiracy theories? Can he not see how much grief he's causing Jimmy? Why does Jimmy, even granting that he wants to indulge a dying brother, not try harder to have an honest discussion about both where Chuck and Jimmy are headed? Naturally, I don't know where the show will take this relationship, but there are so many potentially interesting paths to pursue here about end-of-life care, about narratives we build for ourselves to avoid unpleasantness that end up trapping us, about motivations to avoid the truth, about the nature of friendship. I'm sad that all these fascinating avenues will get sacrificed to tell a purportedly more compelling story.
And those questions also tie into Jimmy. I'm sure, more than the questions around Chuck, the show will develop some of these themes. Even so, in the first episode I'd like to know more about whether or not Jimmy views himself as a good guy or a bad guy, as an opportunist, a hack, an incompetent, a smooth operator? I find his motivations baffling. His actions, like being reluctant to take money from Chuck, and his seemingly sincere attempts to do well for his morgue clients, are portrayed in a positive light, but his interactions with HHM and his attempts to ensnare the Kettlemans seem more like a huckster trying to make a quick buck. While I understand that a character pursuing a more staid career would have much less entertainment value, it's a big hole in the character to not understand why Jimmy isn't using the resources that Chuck might provide along with his own hustle and intelligence to establish a more legitimate and respectable career.
The first episode showcases a lot of the things I liked about Breaking Bad. The writing, the cinematography, the acting, everything is top-notch. The tension, sense of mystery, and story-telling are as good as it gets on television. I love the Saul character himself, his irreverence, his energy, the head-ticks and hand motions and subtle mouth movements that really fit the character and are consistent scene-to-scene, episode-to-episode.
Having cataloged the good, I want to talk a bit about the things that I found troublesome. The Better Call Saul-style of show does a magnificent job of immersing you in a character's world visually, of conveying possible mental states through images, but it almost universally ignores those mental states. I think that's a shame. For instance, as the older Jimmy is watching his old commercials, what is he really thinking? The viewer can impute thoughts to Jimmy, but I firmly believe that asking us viewers to do that misses a huge opportunity. His feelings must be very complicated, much more complicated than we could imagine. Does he miss those days because he thought he was serving justice, because they were exciting, because he was full of optimism and hope for the future? What regrets does he have, does he realize how corny he sounds, how shady, what does he think he might have done to avoid ending up a Cinnabon peon of unknown address?
These moments, for me, continually come up throughout the episode. When he's kicking the garbage can, we can certainly feel his frustration, his rage, but we know so little about why he's angry. Does he suspect he's being played, that HHM might well have spoken with Chuck, does he really think that he might accomplish whatever it is he's up to? Speaking of which, why exactly does he not cash the twenty-six thousand? There's no evidence that doing so would end the payments, in fact, he's expressly told more would be forthcoming.
I understand the sense of mystery that the show is trying to build, I'm conscious of the way my mind is being engaged and challenged to fill in details, and I admit to taking a certain pleasure in that process. But ultimately, I find that process a bit empty. I believe that in avoiding filling in the complications, subtleties, and nuances that access to an interior monologue might provide, the writers miss an opportunity to say something truly interesting about the character of Jimmy, the details of his life, the state of our world. I think in aiming for the low-hanging fruit of pulling us into Jimmy's world, making us feel as if we inhabit it with Jimmy, they rob us of the chance to really get to know Jimmy as a person in all his complexity, his moral nuances, the strength of his emotion, whatever doubt and conflict he must feel. In my opinion, this is the essence of why books always end up being better than movies, because you have more access to a character's mental states, and that's where the really interesting work gets done. I think it's a shame that a show as well-done as Better Call Saul settles into familiar cinematic story-telling techniques rather than really innovating.
There are a number of other more nit-picky holes that bothered me on watching this episode. To start, why did he not plead his initial case in the morgue out? He clearly had no chance to win, and going to trial was far more time-intensive. I'm also not thrilled with the level of coincidence involved in the twist that ends the show, that is, a different person driving a car almost indistinguishable from the target car with the same start to the license plate at the same time and on the same road, making the same turn, as the target. And while the idiocy involved is amusing, I'm also think it's a little sloppy that the twist relies on the boys being so stupid as to jump up after getting the supposed injury on tape and follow the car to try to complete their scam when they've got a lawyer on their side.
Finally, there are two big, important questions that go unaddressed because we're not given any access to any character's internal state. The first revolves around Chuck. Why is he having such trouble facing the end? Why is he in so deep with conspiracy theories? Can he not see how much grief he's causing Jimmy? Why does Jimmy, even granting that he wants to indulge a dying brother, not try harder to have an honest discussion about both where Chuck and Jimmy are headed? Naturally, I don't know where the show will take this relationship, but there are so many potentially interesting paths to pursue here about end-of-life care, about narratives we build for ourselves to avoid unpleasantness that end up trapping us, about motivations to avoid the truth, about the nature of friendship. I'm sad that all these fascinating avenues will get sacrificed to tell a purportedly more compelling story.
And those questions also tie into Jimmy. I'm sure, more than the questions around Chuck, the show will develop some of these themes. Even so, in the first episode I'd like to know more about whether or not Jimmy views himself as a good guy or a bad guy, as an opportunist, a hack, an incompetent, a smooth operator? I find his motivations baffling. His actions, like being reluctant to take money from Chuck, and his seemingly sincere attempts to do well for his morgue clients, are portrayed in a positive light, but his interactions with HHM and his attempts to ensnare the Kettlemans seem more like a huckster trying to make a quick buck. While I understand that a character pursuing a more staid career would have much less entertainment value, it's a big hole in the character to not understand why Jimmy isn't using the resources that Chuck might provide along with his own hustle and intelligence to establish a more legitimate and respectable career.
Better Call Saul Kickoff
This is the grand launch of the review section of my website. The general idea is to regularly post content on something that I think my visitors might be interested in, and might want to read my thoughts on. I intend to post new content before 9am eastern every Monday.
I'm going to start by watching The AMC show "Better Call Saul", nominated in 2017 and 2019 for the Outstanding Drama Series Emmy, and posting my thoughts. I'm picking "Better Call Saul" both because it's received a good amount of critical acclaim, and because, while I expect to enjoy it, I anticipate my views will deviate from the consensus in illuminating ways.
I will be cross-posting all reviews to my blog in case people want a more traditional, subscription-based site. Part of the idea of doing reviews is that I could never quite get a regular schedule of posts going for my blog. In large part, that was because whenever I started to write something, it was often related to things I wanted to write fiction about, and it interfered with my fiction writing. With these reviews, I hope to generate content where I can express my views and aesthetics without interfering with my fiction productivity.
I'm going to start by watching The AMC show "Better Call Saul", nominated in 2017 and 2019 for the Outstanding Drama Series Emmy, and posting my thoughts. I'm picking "Better Call Saul" both because it's received a good amount of critical acclaim, and because, while I expect to enjoy it, I anticipate my views will deviate from the consensus in illuminating ways.
I will be cross-posting all reviews to my blog in case people want a more traditional, subscription-based site. Part of the idea of doing reviews is that I could never quite get a regular schedule of posts going for my blog. In large part, that was because whenever I started to write something, it was often related to things I wanted to write fiction about, and it interfered with my fiction writing. With these reviews, I hope to generate content where I can express my views and aesthetics without interfering with my fiction productivity.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
The Power of the Gatekeepers
I'm going to be writing a series of posts that are loosely connected to show, I hope, the subtle ways in which seemingly unrelated events and trends in our society combine in destructive ways. I believe that to truly move forward as a society, we need thinkers, citizens, and leaders who can see this interconnectedness. Any of these posts will be accessible from the following table:
Table of Contents
- The Smallness of our Extremism
- The Power of the Gatekeepers
- Blockbusters and Gatekeepers
- On the Importance of Literature and the Humanities
- Back to Dunning-Kruger
The Power of the Gatekeepers
The media, or more properly, the companies that own the media, function as Gatekeepers in our society. In many ways, they decide the issues that are presented to us, discussed, bandied about. It's a complicated relationship, as there are ways in which the media is simply chasing market share, and that if people are tired, say, of hearing about Ross Perot, Ross Perot will fade from our national dialogue. But while we as information-consumers also exercise significant responsibility, the Gatekeepers of our major media outlets have far more influence in what facts are presented to us, who gets coverage, how long any particular issue stays in the limelight, and the overall tone of coverage.
The power of Gatekeepers is illustrated in this Chronicle article:
Even when not wielding his blue pencil, Stalin's editorial zeal was all-consuming. He excised people—indeed whole peoples—out of the manuscript of worldly existence, had them vanished from photographs and lexicons, changed their words and the meanings of their words, edited conversations as they happened, backing his interlocutors into more desirable (to him) formulations. "The Poles have been visiting here," he told the former Comintern chief Georgi Dimitrov in 1948. "I ask them: What do you think of Dimitrov's statement? They say: A good thing. And I tell them that it isn't a good thing. Then they reply that they, too, think it isn't a good thing."
All editors, wrote the cultural historian Jacques Barzun, "show a common bias: ... what the editor would prefer is preferable." Being an author is well and good, and Stalin wrote several books—the word "author" does after all share a root with the word "authority"—but he knew that editing was a higher power. Naimark argues that editing is as much a part of Stalinist ideology as anything he said or wrote. This insight warrants amplification. Under Stalinism, anyone could speak or write, but since Stalin was the supreme gatekeeper of the censorship hierarchy and the gulag system, the power to edit was power itself.
I want to offer a couple of illustrations of how the tone our Gatekeepers set can warp issues that are in the national spotlight. Probably the easiest to digest, since I mentioned it in my last post, is how the media covers taxation. Imagine how public perception and discourse would change if every time an article or broadcast mentioned the dispute over, say, the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, it also mentioned that the top personal tax rate in the 1950's was 91%, and that many corporations pay a corporate tax rate of 0% due to loopholes and company-specific exemptions. How many people have ever heard a media outlet point out that, in addition to being unpatriotic, large companies that pay very low corporate tax rates make it harder for small businesses, who pay rates 20-30% higher, to survive and prosper?
Another issue that the media slants with the tone of it's coverage is illegal immigration. I don't want to get into whether or not they should be granted amnesty for breaking our immigration laws, but I do want to affirm that I think breaking the law is a serious matter that requires some sort of punishment. But there are segments of our society that castigate immigrants as the root of many evils, and the media does more to encourage this perception than to correct it. In my experience, illegal immigrants are hard workers who often willing to do jobs that Americans won't, like picking strawberries as described in this CBS report. They often put up with conditions which would outrage American workers. And many times companies specifically seek them out, hire them illegally, and treat them poorly to keep costs down. I know in many communities in the wider New York City metro area there are street corners where immigrants gather where you can go, point to a couple young men, and have them climb in your truck and do whatever work you have for them for a day's (cash) pay. Imagine how perceptions might change if every time immigrants are portrayed as leeches on our social safety net who steal jobs from American workers, it is also mentioned that many of the jobs they take are jobs no Americans are willing to do, or jobs in which American bosses are specifically exploiting them to keep the prices the rest of us pay down.
To me the most powerful way Gatekeepers manipulate our society has to do with third-part politicians. I'd say the typical attitude I encounter when I discuss politicians with people I know is that they're all crooks, and we ought to throw the lot of them out. Yet these same people are always dismayed at the concept of actually voting for a third-party candidate, you know, of actually throwing them all out. The media absolutely encourages this view that voting for a third-party candidate is throwing your vote away. In truth, if every person who didn't vote, voted for a third party candidate, that candidate would win. In a landslide. As an example, in 2012, roughly 66 million people voted for President Obama and roughly 61 million people voted for Mitt Romney. The leading third party got over 1 million votes. Meanwhile, 93 million eligible citizens did not cast ballots.
The power to throw the bums out is in our hands, but due to a large degree to the way we've been trained to think by the Gatekeepers, we just never use it. That is the power of the Gatekeepers. Media companies that donate millions and millions of dollars to the two major political parties lead us to think that we have to vote for one of those two parties. I wonder why.
Monday, October 14, 2013
The Smallness of our Extremism
I'm going to be writing a series of posts that are loosely connected to show, I hope, the subtle ways in which seemingly unrelated events and trends in our society combine in destructive ways. I believe that to truly move forward as a society, we need thinkers, citizens, and leaders who can see this interconnectedness. Any of these posts will be accessible from the following table:
Table of Contents
- The Smallness of our Extremism
- The Power of the Gatekeepers
- Blockbusters and Gatekeepers
- On the Importance of Literature and the Humanities
- Back to Dunning-Kruger
The Smallness of our Extremism
At the time of this post, the US government is shut down and negotiations are underway to reopen it. Currently, it seems that for shutting down the government and threatening the credit-worthiness of US debts, the Republicans will get a temporary waiver of a tax on medical devices. That's right, millions of lives were disrupted and a great deal of uncertainty was generated in the business world all so that a few companies could get a (temporary) special tax break that essentially amounts to pork spending.
But this is just a single example of how the ridiculously tiny differences between our two political parties are getting blown entirely out of proportion. As many know, the shutdown began in the first place because Republicans want to force the Democrats to not implement a health care plan that is essentially identical to the one their last Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, implemented in Massachusetts when he was governor there. Another example involves tax rates. The top tax bracket on personal income for the entirety of the 1950's was 91%. But now the two parties, Republicans in particular, are acting like it's the end of the free world because the top federal rate is 39.6% instead of 35%. Yes, there's talk of revolution over a less than five percent different in the top income bracket.
It will become apparent if you read this blog, that I don't fit easily within either political party. I generally find them both to be wrong about things more often than they are right, and, up until a few years ago, I found the wrongness fairly evenly divided between them. The range of political policies they represent is ridiculously narrow. Could you imagine someone advocating a 90% tax rate today? Could you imagine someone advocating a 23% tax rate on the top income bracket? By the way, that is the actual average paid by the top 0.1% of earners in 2010 as reported in the ultra-liberal magazine Forbes (/sarcasm). How about we have a national corporate tax level of 0% since, as CBS reports, many Fortune 500 companies already pay 0%?
These would be policies worth fighting over. Not worth shutting down a government and threatening a world economic crisis for, but definitely worth getting mad about. But given the smallness of the differences between the positions of the two current parties, the extremism currently on display is unwarranted, childish, and embarrassing.
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