How Jimmy McGill Manipulated Everyone (Better Call Saul)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 พ.ค. 2024
- This video essay analyzes Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman's psychological strategies to manipulate characters in Better Call Saul. Better Call Saul was written by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould and is owned by Sony Pictures Television. This video explores persuasion tactics, sales techniques and breaks down every step of Jimmy's scams throughout the series.
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Timestamps:
0:00 Jimmy the Manipulator
1:18 First Impressions
3:36 Forming a Connection
6:40 Persuasion
9:19 Advertising
11:18 Distracting Cards
14:26 The Scams
22:20 Sabotage
#bettercallsaul #jimmymcgill #saulgoodman - บันเทิง
More than anyone else, he manipulated himself into believing his own lies that ultimately resulted in his downfall
Top comment!
Bro really was the master of self sabotage and compartmentalization
I disagree, I think the only thing that kept him able to stay one-step ahead is that he doesn't really by his own lies, at the end of the day the only thing he really believes is that he hates himself.
That's not what happened at all fuck you talking about
@@phartferd5738I 100% agree
Mike is the only one who never got scammed or corrupted by Jimmy.
Walter too, it's not everyday you can outsmart two protagonists.
@@TKsh1 I mean he did save himself in the desert pretty easily, doesn't really count as a scam though, just his wits
mike is just a real one gotta be my favorite character from all of breaking bad and bcs
@@TKsh1actually Walter did got manipulated by Jimmy into working together tho
He lied to Mike about where Jesse was hiding in brba after killing gale
He once convinced someone that he was Kevin Costner.
He once convinced someone about Squat Cobbler.
@@winterhaydnwhat do you mean convinced? It’s a very real hobby with many enjoyers
he was yesterday
And it worked, because he believed it
Because *he* believed it
He eventually manipulated himself into believing he didn’t care about any of the things that happened to/hurt him (Kim/Chuck/Howard, etc.)
Part of Jimmy McGill's tragedy is the waste of potential. Imagine what great things he could have accomplished with those people skills if his motives hadn't been so self-centered, if he instead had used his talents to inspire people.
So true! He enjoyed too much the thrill he got when he scammed/ took advantage of people. He could have done great things, had he used his persuasion tactics for a good cause.
This is also in part because of Chuck's fault in looking at Jimmy as nothing more than a sleazy person. Too bad Jimmy didn't tried to improve either and refused Howard's opportunities.
@@TKsh1 Indeed. Season 1 Jimmy worked incredibly hard to live up to Chuck's standards. Had he supported Jimmy, things would have turned out very differently. Unfortunately, his ego and need to feel superior to him played a significant part in creating Saul.
This applies to the real world. The talents everyone is born with can either be used for the good of others or for yourself. You can either use them to make good influence or cause destruction. The skills you possess are powerful, but the impact depends on what you use them for.
The turning point is when he realises chuck had been sabotaging his opportunity to join hhm, it was so devastating to him that he conflated taking the straight and narrow path to needing to appease chuck, therefore becoming a full fledged con artist
I feel like if jimmy looked up to Howard instead of Chuck he would have turned out differently
Vince Gilligan sure knows how to weave it all together. Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad are both so brilliant that everything else has fallen short by comparison. Thank you for the video. Great job.
Try The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, or Mad Men if you want shows of BB/BCS quality.
Succession also has terrific writing, but while the ending was good and made complete sense for the characters, didn’t feel as cathartic as the endings of better call Saul or breaking bad
Bravo Vince 👏 lol
actually, Peter Gould is more responsible for BCS
BCS is average at best
Two of the last, great TV dramas
Howard tried to help him get into a well-respected law firm TWICE and Jimmy blew those chances both times.
Jimmy realized too late that he just couldn’t blame every bad thing that happened to him on Chuck. He had to hold himself accountable for his own failures as well.
Stop leaving comments dude your embarassing us
Yeah. Everyone always says Chuck caused Jimmy to become Saul by denying him a job at HHM. But there's no reason to think that would have ended any differently than his job at D&M.
Chuck definitely gave Jimmy a nudge on his path. But lots of people have asshole relatives, they don't all turn into scammers or end up working for drug lords.
You forget that Howard played an active role in ensuring that Jimmy never moved up in his career at H&M. While yes I think your argument is still a little valid, had Chuck gotten over his ego and accepted that Jimmy would make a good addition to the law firm Jimmy could have easily been a different person. Because Chuck refused to let him move up the only behavior of Jimmy's that really got rewarded was his scammy corner cutting behavior not his genuine attempt to try and move up the company ladder and that is thanks mainly to Chuck.
@sheperinogaming1986 You're*
Meaning you are. As in you are embarrassing.
Also who are you talking to? Nont made valid and accurate points across the board
@@calebs4755 Why would Jimmy's career at HHM have gone any differently than his career at D&M?
babe wake up, new Just an Observation BB/BCS analysis just dropped
Is that an eyeless green cat or a cyclops green cat in your profile picture?
@@Winter-Alpha-Omega Eyeless.
Jimmy is arguably a better manipulator than Walter. Walter literally sought ideas and advice for Jimmy for ideas how to better protect his criminal activity. And Jimmy is the one who brought up the idea for Walter to use Hector to kill Gus.
I think ur right early on, but Id argue by the end of breaking bad walter white becomes the better manipulator. Hes the guy pulling the strings and hes even got jimmy under his thumb
@@pewdiepiesubbot8672 i dont think "Work for me or i will harm you" is manipulation
@@unclekarl5219 Id argue threats and blackmail are forms of manipulation. Even ignoring that though hes able to manipulate people like Jesse and Hank into doing/giving him what he wants very well
I don't recall Saul ever suggesting that Walt should use Hector to kill Gus.
All I recall is Saul relaying to Walter what Jesse told him which revealed to Walt that Hector and Gus were enemies. Jesse gave the crucial information that Saul merely repeated to Walter who came up with the plan.
First of all, it Was Jimmy's idea to help Walt further and better protect his criminal activities. Second, It was Walters idea to visit Hector in the end of Face Off he just got the idea from Jesse when he tells him about not long before Jesse and Gus visited Hector to taunt him about what had happened prior in Mexico.
Damn even after he nearly killed marion i still felt kinda bad for him
I don’t know if he woulda
@@roddydykes7053Jimmy ain’t a killer but he is capable of violence, relate back to when he assaulted finger with finger.
He didn't nearly kill anyone. Just threatened Marion.
@lancenwokeji6349 while Jimmy/Saul never pulled the trigger, his manipulation directly caused the deaths of Chuck and Howard. Not to mention many of the deaths in Breaking Bad and likely others as Saul didn't seem bothered by the suggestion of murder to Walt (recommended murder of Badger, Hank and Jesse)
@@brettbrooks5511 also his Job is literally keeping dangerous criminals out on the streets so who knows how many people died as a result of him getting murderers let back out to commit even more crimes.
The writing and acting on this show was just off the charts spectacular. It's criminal that it so few of the awards it was nominated for.
F the awards lad it did deserve more but f em. The best show of all time (the wire) didn’t receive a single one and a top fifteen show I’ve ever watched in bcs also didn’t receive one. Those shows have zero credibility and can’t be taken seriously
On a sidenote, his British accent and all his "characters" in general always gave me a chuckle. His Louisiana twang was just so over the top I half expected the DA to catch it and ruin the scheme. If Jimmy had just used his unique gift and talents for something more constructive, a career in media advertising perhaps, I feel like he could've been really successful. As he said in Breaking Bad he's a humanities guy. He's creative, witty, eloquent, and as much as Chuck refuses to acknowledge it, very intelligent. Being a criminal lawyer is Jimmy's bad ending. Maybe working in media as an artist/producer/writer/what have you could have been his good ending. We see that he clearly has the talent for it. Such a great character. Such a bittersweet, tragic end.
What British accent?
@@HaggardPillockHDidiot
if anything, this could be applied to walter white as well. He was obviously very smart and could have gone into the route of being a traditional scientist and being very successful, elliot literally offers him a job at gray matter. But I feel like both of them choose this life because they liked it, with walter it was confirmed. If Jimmy didnt like scamming and scheming he wouldnt have done it so much in his younger years where there wasn't much need to, it was just something he liked to do.
@@HaggardPillockHD In season 1 of BCS he pretends to be his own secretary taking the calls of "James Morgan McGill, Esquire" to imply that he's a hotshot lawyer and has important clientele. He does his best impression of a British woman, which is pretty bad but funny lol
Everything would have been fine if he just picked different clients. I agree, working in television is a great idea, but still as a lawyer as he was excellent at it.
Jimmy was a great story teller even after being gene he cant escape from being himself
“I know you.. I know what you were, what you are! People don’t change!”
Better Call Saul somehow ended up being _BETTER_ than Breaking Bad, which I don't think anybody was expecting to happen when the show began, even Vince Gilligan. But this video actually shows a huge part of why it was so compelling. It does all these things with every line in every scene and never even calls attention to them and goes "look how smart we are for writing this" like many other shows do. Quality is just imbued in every part of the show. Every single line is carefully considered, and has a good reason for existing, there's nothing throwaway, no fat whatsoever, only meat.
You don't even notice how smart it's being until the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th etc time you watch it and you spot new things, or watch a great video like this that goes into one specific trend or character trait. And this aspect of the show and of Jimmy's character is really only a small part of what Better Call Saul is even about, there's hundreds of things just as important and they're all treated with absolute care just like this part is. The show has no lows, there aren't any episodes which even could be deemed a throwaway episode (like even Breaking Bad had a couple episodes that people call filler episodes, although I have to say I disagree, I think every episode of BB has a good reason for being just like in BCS, but people say things like the catching a fly episode are fillers, but I've never heard anyone say the same about any episode of BCS).
And of course BCS has (eventually) all the same stuff about drugs and the cartel and murder that BB does, with most of the same characters too like Mike and Gus and Hector and Don Eladio and Tuco etc. But it's the lawyer aspect of it that really shines, the part of it which, again, BB fans weren't expecting to love as much as the cartel stuff. But in many ways, Chuck is the most fun antagonist to watch within the whole universe of BB/BCS. And the scenes about law and procedure are the ones I rewatch clips of on TH-cam most, like when Chuck gets the address of the new bank wrong while in court, which is one of the most compelling scenes in the whole show, and it's just some guys talking in a room.
God damn you now I'm gonna have to watch BCS all over again, for I think something like the 7th time now. It only gets better the more times I watch it. But now I'll pay even more attention to this aspect of it, Jimmy's way with words, his con artistry. You've got me hooked onto the idea of watching it all again. But that's no bad thing.
to be honest, its hard to even get upset at jimmy for a lot of his simpler monetary scams because most are against entitled well off assholes, id do the same thing if i had the confidence and skills. if he didnt continuously spiral out of control id respect the grind
Yeah it’s only his large scale scams against Chuck and (ESPECIALLY) Howard that are actually scummy imo.
Honestly the main takeaway here is that Jimmy gives us a masterclass on how to pass a job interview 🙌
Possibly the best show I every watched
Definitely a masterpiece show the best all time for me is the wire. If you haven’t watched definitely check it out
@@raymondsims7042 thanks I will consider that
Thx TH-cam for the recommendation
i like the way you say "Sinister"
Gotta say man, your videos are well-written and concise. Thanks for uploading good content 👍🏼
I've got nothing to comment except; great video! May the algorithm bless you
I swear to God I thought there was gonna be a SquareSpace ad in the beginning when you talked about how brands represent themselves
I went into this video thinking. ok if this does nothing but tell me what I already know I'm shutting it off. However, I couldn't turn it off, very good!
The number of "video essays" that are just a plot recap is genuinely infuriating
Found your channel a few weeks back, really enjoy your content. Very informative and insightful way of looking at this shows/movies.
Love your videos man, keep it up! Jimmy McGill is the most fascinating character to me
Apologies for being late to the party! Such an amazing series, and the arc of Jimmy/Saul/Gene is one of the greatest character arcs ever written. Thanks for covering, as always, and such a great commentary from you! Thank you again!
Great video, great script, great analysis, great editing. Cheers
Fantastic video! Loved the script, narration, editing, the whole megillah :)
@12:47 Your warm, calm, academic voice describing Boston Crème Splat or Full Moon Moon-pie, or whatever the hell they call it west of the Mississippi, is everything. ❤ (Love all your stuff, btw. Great deep dives of well-executed shows.)
Like GUS and WALT who hide behind their Persona of Commanding and Manipulative Leaders, while Jimmy relishes it as sleezy salesman
Or enjoys it even -- like TYRION LANNISTER with his power, but still truing to do good among the BAD for STARKS those we like
and CHIYA PASAL ILLMATIC and nostalgia
Thanks for sharing. Very interesting.
love this continued better call saul content
This series of videos is awesome
I need an indepth analysis about the main characters of Sons of Anarchy 😍
unbelievable show as well well as observation
great vid brother
I enjoyed your video, well done ❤
Great video as always.
What a great thing to wake up too. More breaking bad universe content !🎉
wow, great. Ive learned so much. now will try to put that knowledge into practice, thanks 🤪
Brilliant stuff ❤
There is a fine line between manipulation and persuasion for the sake of smooth sailing for all parties involved. For anyone good at these techniques, if you're a decent person, you'll often wonder which side of that line you are on. If you're not a decent person, the line blurs. If you're a terrible person, the line doesn't exist.
And to think that a lot of pain would be evicted if only Jimmy answered his true calling at Advertising
Great stuff!
such a good video. makes me realize just how smart jimmy is
Love it. Coercion missing, though.
This is such a banger
Great video
What I love so much about Vince Gilligan’s stories is his dedication to upholding the permanence of his characters’ actions. There is no going back, nobody comes back to life, no one goes back to normal. Walter and Jimmy ruin people’s lives and there is no redemption for them, just acceptance. Damn great storytelling.
Jimmy was a GENIUS
I love these vids, you should do something to do with a side character next time! ❤
great analysis
He manipulated everyone except Francesca his receptionist lol...well, and Mike.
No one ever gives her flowers! Thanks for mentioning her. She was straight, Thug. I loved her. How I imagined I'd be if I worked for Saul. Unmoved by any of those cons.
im a simple girl i see a BB or BCS video i click
Same but a dude
I love girls
@@Yashiro205 📸💥🤨
@@Yashiro205 and girls love you! Just as a friend at first. XD
@@sdfvmbshdbgsdbv same but both
The Howard scheme was so brilliant
Brilliant and devastating
It was pretty mindblowing!
12:19 Jimmy was looking for his missing dog, not a cat.
Great video as always, are we going to get another one with Kim Wexler Manipulation or are you going to do another character?
good video!
a very fantastic video
Jimmy literally seems to be a genius.
He's emotionally intelligent, but uses that in a manipulative way
Nice video
a video on Park Yeon Jin from the glory would be nice
Thought you were moving into a sponsorship with the talk of awareness of scams
I want to rewatch the whole series, now.
This is chilling, jimmy is kind of a serial killer.
This is one we have been waiting for!!
Do Saltburn next for the oscars hype
I’ll be doing Poor Things soon
@@JustanObservation Even better, im watching that tonight on my flight
@@JustanObservationI love Poor things
Always stay one step behind, but have long arms
Love your videos! It's clear that you are getting better as well. Much love and keep up the great work!
That thumbnail is all the evidence needed to award Bob Odenkirk the role of G-Man in a Half-Life movie.
Greatest show of all time
09:17 I just love that there's a guy dead asleep in the jury box! LOL, 3rd in from the left on the top row. Hilarious!
EDIT: I do realize that this is a still shot from the episode, but its obvious that he's asleep and not caught on a blink.
Long live slippin' Jimmy
The biggest tragedy is that he even believed his own lies
Petition to have Vince Gilligan redo Game of Thrones seasons 6 through 8
Right up until Kim manipulated Jimmy into going after Howard. Jimmy had decided he was fine waiting for Sandpiper, but Kim said the Sandpiper money from going after Howard would help her start her pro bono practice. Jimmy only agreed to go hard after Howard because he thought it would help Kim.
They wrote some good scenes for sure!
One thing that is great about this show is, we, the audience, tend to take the side of the scammers (Jimmy and Marco, for instance), because we can relate to being conned by salesmen and stock brokers, which are some of Jimmy's targets. All the while, we, the audience, are the ones also being manipulated. That's one of the joys of this show, in my opinion. It causes the audience to reflect on themselves.
Absolutely love the video and I wish to see more analysis of the show's characters in the future. Digressing a bit though, I'll never understand how people just give the whole credit to Gilligan everytime, even among the fans. He did an amazing job with BB but wasn't heavily involved at all in writing nor directing BCS, of which he wrote only four episodes. Gilligan's actual personal project has been El Camino, which kills every tipe of nuance in Jesse's character and in the BB-era writing style as a whole. On the opposite side, Peter Gould's constant supervision of writers such as Thomas Schnautz ("Plan and Execution"), Gennifer Hutchison ("Lantern"), Gordon Smith ("Chicanery") and everyone else involved allowed that universe to expand organically and to develop such complex personalities like Jimmy's.
how el camino kill all the nuances of jesse's character?
@@cclmnz6850 By having him kill a bunch of people without remorse during the parody of a mexican standoff. Not to mention it all happened due to some momentary dementia from Ed the disappearer who was ready to blow a fat bag of cash for something like 3k. The flashbacks were a nice but unnecessary addition
@@ACIDOLATTlCO without remorse ?
It is clearly shown in the movie that killing does not leave him indifferent.
Plus, the fact that he learned to toughen up isn't entirely unrealistic.
Despite everything, jesse keeps his sensitivity.
I remember that I really liked in the movie that we were shown Jesse's reaction when he learned Walter's death.
Despite the fact that walt hurt him a lot, jesse seemed extremely distraught as if he had lost a part of himself.
This adds nuance to Jesse's character as well as his relationship with Walt.
@@cclmnz6850 In Breaking Bad, Jesse spent two seasons trying to get over the idea of being a murderer and was still devastated by it before getting kidnapped and enslaved, outing Walt and incriminating himself. Sure the guys were assholes compared to Gale and Jane, but the remorse shown is not remotely comparable to how we saw Jesse develop as a character. The sensibility he shows by letting the bug climb on his hand right before murdering a group of people always felt to me like cheap fan service, especially since it's followed by him walking away in a glorious Terminator-style from an exploding building which he himself set on fire. So much for sensibility.
I don't remember him feeling deeply moved by Walt's death, but if that was the case it would be the icing on a pretty sour cake, considered how he was the reason why he got tortured for a year. Jesse was ready to pull the trigger on him in the finale and didn't do so only to prove him that he wouldn't be manipulated any longer. Having him moved by his sociopath partner's death only a few days later makes no sense
@@ACIDOLATTlCO The fact that he's affected by Walt's death makes complete sense
This is often how abusive relationships work.
As I just said, Walt did him a lot of harm but we can't deny that Jesse cares about him.
Howards sabotage reminds me of what happens to celebrities after speaking out. Gossip, drug accusations, and im sure they bother u somehow to the point of paranoia so that it just adds credibility to their narrative of “theyre taking drugs and going crazy”
Honestly howard should’ve just offered the girls some money to tell him who sent them 24:07
If he had been alone, he might have, but being with Clifford made him so embarrassed and rattled he couldn't think straight.
another thing howard could have done was say that he had been in his therapy session when cliff supposedly saw his car while at lunch with kim - he had an alibi and a witness!
@@banditq8991Hindsight is always 20/20. Remember Jimmy gave him a fake private investigator, Howard thought he was in control when this was going on. Between the retirement home case and this its easy to understand why Jimmy wasn't his top priority when he thought he had someone on it.
Honestly thought the opening song was Hey Baby from No Doubt
Gus’s actor has a new show on AMC staring next month (apr 2024), hoping it will be another great drama.
12:29 wasn't it a dog he was looking for?
I have a fair question, could you observe F is for Family? It seems you rarely do animations, I get that, but the show is an underrated gem, in my opinion the show is grounded when it comes to a Family. The Responsibility and pressures of Parents who gave up happiness and there dreams to provide for there Families and the growing pains of children as they grow up, changing and why those changes happened, losing innocences and discovering identity.
At least, it's my opinion on what the show is, I wanna know what you think the show is.
time to rewatch
GOAT show
“Do you remember 19?” Is not an instruction. That would be the equivalent of “do you want to step right up?”
Jimmy was pretty damned honest actually
interesting vid
My top ten TV show of all time ❤
I feel that Tai Lopez is the modern day Saul Goodman. Just a feeling.
That’s insulting to Saul Goodman
I’m a simple man. I see a Heinsenverse video analysis, I click
0:50 - Uhhhh that's a bingo!
Incredible vid. Concise. Well constructed. Great work.
what about the desert tuco scene? For me that was the best of jimmy being a manipulator
DG still putting out quality content❤
I've realized that I've kind of use the guise of cluelessness in order to get what I want in certain situations. Never in a blatant scammer way, but like small cons here and there for insignificant things
cheers
23:19 Authors Of Pain
greatv❤
I thought I've already seen this