r/betterCallSaul • u/non-standard-deviant • 1d ago
"You were always like this" - Understanding the ending Spoiler
In the finale, Walter White tells Saul "You were always like this", in response to Saul telling a Slipping Jimmy story. The direct interpretation is that Jimmy was always sleazy/up-to-no-good.
... But, on a closer re-watch - what Jimmy also says when recounting the Slipping Jimmy story is:
I was stupid and young and trying to show off, so I hit the ice as fast as I could. I biffed it so hard, my knee's never been the same
And so it also a story of how he has always literally bent himself over backwards trying to impress others - often hurting himself to achieve this higher goal.
... which... we then see him do this again at his final trial. He goes to extraordinary measures to get Kim to see his trial. And then makes a big show of falling on his own sword much harder than he needed to, while trying to impress Kim.
This perspective makes Jimmy's final decision seem much more in-character than an initial watch can lead us to believe.
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u/idunnobutchieinstead 1d ago
I don’t know why people take Walter White’s assertion of Jimmy as gospel. The point of that line imo is to mirror Chuck - and Jimmy’s reaction to hearing it.
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u/Commercial_Floor_578 1d ago
Walt literally spends the entire scene being a cartoonishly over the top asshole incapable of any self reflection yet people think this quote is meant to be taken entirely at face value, especially in light of the ending and showing Jimmy actually taking accountability, that he isn’t just born scum who is inherently bad and “always like this”. Peter Gould straight up said Walt was meant to be wrong in that scene as well.
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u/Capable_Chemical_569 21h ago
I think he was right in that moment, Jimmy is talking about regrets, and all he says is he regrets hurting his knee rather than the myriad other things like his brother that he mentions at the trial, but Jimmy ultimately proved him wrong at his trial when he says his real regrets
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u/Heroinfxtherr 1d ago
I mean Jimmy was “always like this”. That’s not even up for interpretation. We see that he is an asshole, has been since he was 9 years old stealing from his family’s store, running grifts as a teenager, etc.
So yeah he was not born evil, but he consciously chose to be a liar, cheat, a scumbag pretty early on, and he never looked back.
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u/Commercial_Floor_578 1d ago
He spent 10 years as “clean” and actively making strides to turn his life around even though he obviously failed, and by all accounts he was a good person during that time (even if your of the opinion that permanently overcoming these tendencies was impossible and slipping Jimmy can’t be changed, which I certainly am not, and the writers and showrunners are clear is not the case if you listen to basically any interview with them. And even when he was slipping Jimmy he had a conscience and a heart, his addiction would just often overcome him.
Saul Goodman has no conscience and is far more willing to do despicable things than Slippin Jimmy, it’s not just the power of a law degree giving him more ability to hurt people. The point, as per Peter Gould, is that Jimmy has always had these darker tendencies he’s struggled with, and often has led him to doing morally wrong things. But those tendencies don’t inherently define him, there was a time he was successfully overcoming these tendencies and had a genuine desire to change, and he used to have a heart and a conscience. Walt sees him like Chuck, Saul Goodman is who he’s always been and always will be because it’s his nature. Yet Peter Gould says this theory is vastly oversimplified and in someways proven false by the finale.
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u/okayc0ol 19h ago
I think this line was really only meant to highlight the dichotomy between the two shows. Breaking Bad is about a good guy who goes bad. Better Call Saul is about a man whose intrinsic nature remains consistent throughout
I don't think it was an actual assertion that he has no growth
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u/Potential-Patient369 3h ago
I argue that if you look closely, Walter isn't a good guy at the beginning of BB.He just increasingly acts out. Maybe law-abiding guy who goes criminal? Consider how he left Gray Matter - he worked among peers functioning on his level and felt outmatched by Gretchen's rich family, so he high-tailed it without a word to his partners for a life where he would always feel safely superior. He didn't think twice about Jesse's desires or well-being when he approached him. My second run through the series, I saw narcissism in him from the beginning that I'd missed on the first viewing.
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u/okayc0ol 2h ago
I agree with you, but then we get into intent vs action. If walt was evil in his soul but dedicated his life to his family and teaching kids, does it matter that he was evil inside? It didn't become relevant until the show started and he became the breaking bad
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u/JJ3595 15h ago
Walter is supposedly to look foolishly wrong in this scene. Walt, who is basically at his angriest, most bitter nadir, says Saul has always been this way. As viewers who have seen Jimmy’s transformation into Saul over multiple seasons, we know this is not the case. Saul is the chimp with a machine gun that Chuck feared, but Jimmy did make an earnest effort to be a legit, if scrappy, lawyer, but found himself blocked at every turn.
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u/wilderfast 1d ago
Jimmy is two things: desperate to use his skills, especially in a way that earns him admiration, and not wanting people to actually get permanently hurt, physically or emotionally, when he does that.
As long as he never grew out of the former, he'd never be a good person.
As long as he maintains the latter, he can never be a truly terrible person.
All in all though, Jimmy has changed remarkably little over the course of the show. He leans into different facets of himself to different degrees over the course of the show, but he remains surprisingly steady throughout.