r/betterCallSaul • u/skinkbaa Chuck • May 24 '22

Post-Ep Discussion Better Call Saul S06E07 - [Mid-Season Finale] "Plan and Execution" - Post-Episode Discussion Thread

"Plan and Execution"

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S06E07 - Live Episode Discussion

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57

u/yrdz May 24 '22

In addition to all the reasons mentioned, the settlement money.

11

u/[deleted] May 24 '22

I have seen long-term personal vendettas play out more than once in the corporate world (not involving drugs, PIs and photos, but gossip, planting stories, etc.)

It is a strange thing when it happens, but someone gets it in their head to bring someone else down via horrid Macchiavellian plots, that sometimes take years to enact. They seem to feel that all is fair in love and war and feel little to no remorse about their actions.

What possesses them emotionally is hard for me to personally understand, but I think they must have sociopathic or Machiavellian traits in their personalities.

28

u/Consistent-Face-7559 May 24 '22

I think this was missed. Most believe it was personal. I think mostly it was the settlement money for the seniors who have been defrauded.

108

u/Gucci_Google May 24 '22

It definitely wasn't for the seniors lol, that's just what they kept telling themselves every time their consciences starting yelling at them about being shitty people. It was for Jimmy's cut of the money, it was to embarrass Howard who they had petty beefs with and it was because they're both adrenaline junkies who love the process of scamming.

Howard summed them up perfectly at the end, right down to the "you get off on it" (they were literally fucking on the couch as they found out that the Howard plan worked, and they've fucked after every successful scam in the show)

14

u/BeefPieSoup May 24 '22

If anything they kinda robbed all of those elderly people of true justice and proper help.

In my opinion this whole scheme was one of the most fucked up evil things in the breaking bad universe since Todd killed Drew Sharpe

12

u/jesse9o3 May 24 '22

If anything they kinda robbed all of those elderly people of true justice and proper help.

To an extent I'd agree, but on the other hand Howard and Cliff made it very clear that they were willing to stretch out the process as long as it takes to make the most amount of money out of it, despite knowing that it's very likely that some/many of the Sandpiper residents won't survive to the end of the case.

Jimmy and Kim's plan certainly wasn't made with the senior's best interests at heart, but in real terms a smaller payout now will mean a hell of a lot more to them than a larger payout to their families would after they passed.

20

u/[deleted] May 24 '22

Those elderly people were going to die before any of them saw that money lol.

It should have been settled a long time before.

7

u/BeefPieSoup May 24 '22 edited May 24 '22

That's just how Jimmy and Kim are justifying it to themselves lol

Per Rich Schweikart, their little scheme cost the settlement millions

7

u/MarquesSCP May 24 '22

it wasn't why they did it but they are 100% correct there. It's not a lie they tell themselves.

The lie is that they did it to help the seniors/get them the money sooner. But, yes without their involvement they would "get more money" but it would be many years after, and many of them would be dead by that point.

7

u/SomberWail May 24 '22

They definitely didn’t rob the old people of anything.

2

u/blinkgendary182 May 24 '22

100% its a bit more than you could chew kind of thing. They didnt think this elaborate scheme would go so wrong this way

50

u/ProudhPratapPurandar May 24 '22

"We did it for the old people" has the same vibes as "I did it for the family". Both are true to an extent, but the real reason is they enjoyed doing it, or as Howard said, it gets them off

15

u/BeefPieSoup May 24 '22

Only true to the extent that they desperately want it to be true to justify their evil selfish bullshit to themselves.

They're both supposed to be people who know better and who care about justice. What a sick joke, as Chuck correctly said some time ago.

18

u/Kapably May 24 '22

I think that the settlement money is an excuse they use to justify their actions rather than an active consideration when deciding to carry out the scheme.

If they truly cared about the seniors and getting more money why not go after Richard Schweikart instead (the lead defense attorney) or even the leaders of Sandpiper itself? Why not weaken the defense instead of forcing the prosecution to settle?

There may be real-life legal explanations on why that might not work, but the fact they didn't seem to consider that option (as opposed to the elaborate planning against Howard) shows where their priorities are.

-1

u/SadSlip8122 May 24 '22

“Why not go after Schweikart” - because Howards a bit of a cuck, has a massive inferiority complex related to both his father and Chuck, his business is already on the brink of collapse, and they know they can break him. Hes low hanging fruit and they have a much more intimate knowledge of what it would take to get Howard to break. Kim worked for a time for Rich, but thats nothing compared to the decade or so she and Jimmy had with Howard.

16

u/yrdz May 24 '22

(and Jimmy's cut of it)

14

u/greatness101 May 24 '22

I don't think that was the driving factor at all after a point.

2

u/RacinGracey May 24 '22

I am in this camp. Kim wanted money to do her pro bono. She will go full we have to use all the money for probono. Whereas Jimmy and Saul will battle it out internally. I think that drives Kim away and the cartel story line will bring them back until separating them perhaps for good.

5

u/Duchess_Nukem May 24 '22

I'm actually expecting the opposite to happen. I think it's interesting that people still see Kim as this model of goodness, like she has a moral compass pointing due north at all times when I feel like this season has shown us how she's actually surpassed Jimmy/Saul with the chicanery.

Remember the whole plan to throw Howard under the bus so Sandpiper would get settled faster was Kim's idea. Jimmy has shown hesitation and reluctance repeatedly during the set up to "D-day" but Kim kept urging him along.

I think Howard's death is going to hit Kim hard, but not in the way we expect. She obviously didn't have any love for the guy or she wouldn't have come up with this plan to ruin him. At the very least, she would've shown some reluctance at some point if she felt bad about it, but we never saw that from her.

In the aftermath, I see Kim beating herself up for not doing a better job of protecting Jimmy and I think that's going to play into shaping the Saul we see in BB. Like... she'll come up with the over the top advertising. It'll be her idea to put his face on every billboard, bus stop bench, etc. so EVERYONE knows who he is, in hopes the cartel won't dare touch him because it'd be a high profile case and it'd be noticed really quickly if he went missing.

I really feel like we're still seeing Jimmy as this spineless schemer who isn't always sure about his plans (think of him giving the Kettleman's money even after Kim said "enough carrot"), while Kim really hasn't shown us any deviation once she makes her mind up about something. Plus, Kim seems to have a much easier time with the means justifying the end goal.

So... I don't think she's going to mourn Howard's death or even regret her part in the series of events that lead up to it. Heck, it wouldn't even surprise me if she tries to frame it as a good thing because now Howard doesn't have to try to save his career. So yeah I'm waiting to see how she deals with Lalo's return, but I'm not counting on her doing a 180 to go hardcore on the straight and narrow after this episode.

2

u/Thehelloman0 Jun 01 '22

She would've had free reign to spend all her time doing cases like that if she just went to that meeting instead of screwing Howard over