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This article contains spoilers on the You better call Saul Season 4 finale.
AMC You better call Saul is a show that challenges any succinct description. This is, of course, a prequel to breaking Bad which traces the transformation of troubled public defender Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) into the flamboyant criminal accomplice and the traveling linguistic joke Saul Goodman. It's a classic tragedy with dark comic elements – or maybe a dark comedy with tragic elements. It is both a criminal tragedy that tracks down dynastic conflicts in the drug trade and the philosophical inquiry into what makes a person good or bad. Sometimes, even if not as often as you think, it even looks like a real group of lawyers. And the heart of every law show is a moving oratory.
The sad finale of Monday's season 4 featured three touching speeches by Jimmy. Each one pushed his character forward, thus sealing his long-awaited transformation into amoral Saul. Most importantly, as a culmination of a season that at first seemed aimless but had a thematic resonance in its second half, the monologues and the episode they anchored doubled violent indictments against the American justice system and against the people who held the power.
Jimmy spent several episodes absorbing the aftermath of his brother Chuck's suicide (Michael McKean) at the end of season 3, to take into account the fact that the McGill elder had sapped his career stealthily but still made legal, and was seeking to recover his attorney's license helped to get suspended. Last week, a meticulously prepared Jimmy pleaded his case before the bar of the State of New Mexico, but his muffled leaders rejected his appeal because he had not shown enough respect for his distinguished brother. In the final, he and his very faithful girlfriend Kim (Rhea Seehorn) strive to demonstrate Jimmy's admiration for a brother who never really wanted him to succeed.
As part of this charade, Jimmy joins a panel of former Chuck colleagues to evaluate a handful of students for a college scholarship established in Chuck 's name. Every child they meet is more accomplished than the last one. But when the board votes, Jimmy is the only member who supports a girl who talked about her volunteer work with seniors. The woman next to him rejects his candidate as a "shoplifter," referring to an incident in his second year in high school. Jimmy clearly sees a part of himself in the girl and pleads in his favor: "Maybe someone who has had problems, someone who does not have a perfect locker – you know, who made mistakes and who suffered the consequences – maybe something that others do not do. "
It is overwhelming, but not surprising, when lawyers vote once again against the acquisition of this scholarship. Jimmy is so upset by the rejection that he is suing the girl for telling him the bad news and a sincere encouragement speech.
"They hang these things in front of you, they tell you that you have a chance, but I'm sorry, it's a lie," he says. "You made a mistake and they never forget it. As far as they are concerned, your mistake is just who you are and that's all you are. "
Gatekeepers can protect her with slight praise, he tells her, but they will never welcome them among them. It does not matter, says Jimmy. She will cut the corners, break the rules and overtake them one day. She will make them suffer from having underestimated her.
In these scenes, Jimmy quickly synthesizes all he has learned in recent years: from Chuck, the Bar Association, his brief tenure at the prestigious Davis & Main law firm, and now from the research council . People like these, who worship achievements and project images of perfection, will never give way to well-intentioned outsiders who have worked hard to overcome their troubled past. This realization has obvious implications for Jimmy's career: he will never be associated with a company like Chuck, because it's people like Chuck who have forced him to find another path to success, placing him indeed forever in his life as a little criminal that he was in his life. 20s. No wonder he finds himself in his parked car, screaming, crying and clapping his fists.
The establishment that wants to exclude Jimmy and his candidate is not a professional elite, however; they are powerful lawyers. These are some of the most influential people in a justice system who are supposed to believe in rehabilitation and redemption, repayment of their debt to society and their return to the country. Yet for them, a teenager and a scammer have been scarred for life. If even lawyers who defend this system can not really believe in second chances, then of course, people whose permanent records are tainted by youthful mistakes are struggling to make a living and (like the criminals who are currently campaigning for the vote in Florida) have access to their fundamental rights as citizens. Like Jimmy, they have been excluded from institutions where they have earned the right to return – and thus do all that is necessary to survive outside these institutions. By showing us the preordained moral loss of an individual, You better call Saul spent season 4 showing how a hypocritical criminal justice system can trap a whole class of people for life.
Jimmy's latest speech confirms his transformation into a career criminal. Giving an additional opportunity to persuade the New Mexico State Bar to return his license, he publishes a magnificent monologue on the following theme: he will never be as good, intelligent or moral as Chuck, but he wants to pass his life to try it. This is what all those who judge Jimmy have always wanted, to see him admit that he is inferior. And he fools them all; the speech is not sincere. "Have you seen those suckers?", He shouts at Kim as they come out triumphant from the audience, not knowing that she too had thought that he was talking with the heart. In spite of their extralegal adventures, this reaction marks her, another successful lawyer, as part of the establishment, Jimmy will have to be smarter to survive.
In the last moments of the season, while he's going away without it to register a new practice under the name of Saul Goodman – symbolically rejecting the last name he's just promised to pursue – the camera moves back to show the physical space opening between him and him. and Kim. After years of searching for legitimacy and surrounding himself with people who smell of it, he finally gave up. As he resurfaces in breaking Bad, Jimmy disappeared under the greasy and smiling exterior of Saul, a man cold enough to facilitate Walter White's violent crimes. Knowing what catalyzed Jimmy's transition sheds new light on both events: Walt may have been born a sociopath, but Saul Goodman is nothing more than a typical product of the American justice system.
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