Better Call Saul Season 1 Finale: How Chuck's Betrayal Sends Jimmy Back Toward Slippin' Jimmy

We're continuing with Better Call Saul, season 1 episodes 9 and 10, and the finale left us upset with one person above all: Jimmy's brother. Jimmy was doing so well and could have been a phenomenal lawyer, and the verdict was blunt: "This is what created a monster."

For a first season, the ending itself wasn't that sad. The expectation is that it will get worse as we get further into the show. Still, it was hard to see all of that change him.

Chuck's "not a real lawyer" verdict is what broke Jimmy

We're both so mad at his brother. Jimmy was working so hard to make sure he didn't lean back into his scamming ways. He went out and got a job, and his brother tells him he's not a real lawyer. If you get really bad criminals off, you're a good lawyer, because that's hard to do.

The ego side of it is a little bit understandable. Working as an actor and an artist in LA, you sometimes feel like you've worked so hard for so long, and then somebody else shows up and gets the keys to the kingdom handed to them while barely trying. So you might look down on the fact that Jimmy got his degree from American Samoa, but ultimately he still put in the work, maybe not as much as his brother did, but he still put it in.

The answer, we think, would have been to put him to work at the firm, give him a pile of grunt work and make him earn his dues on the partner track. If he's a bad lawyer, that would prove it, and you could say goodbye. Instead it came down to pettiness. We agreed that being betrayed by a sibling, by your own blood, is the worst type of betrayal.

Santa Fe could have kept Jimmy on track

To a certain point, if Jimmy had taken the job up in Santa Fe, he'd still be okay. He wouldn't be frosting Cinnabon right now, and he wouldn't be hiding because everything burned to the ground. He'd have been working for a legitimate law firm.

He would have already made partner, "guaranteed because he's that good." His clients love him. He literally had the world in the palm of his hands, and he threw it away because of his brother.

Mike's code of honor is how he gets his dignity back

It was good to see the way Mike answered his question in these episodes, because it shows loyalty and where he stands: he was hired to do a job, he did it, and that's it. We've always known he's very solid, very black and white and to the point. If the deal is half, he takes half. He follows a strict code of honor.

That ties back to what he told the man he helped on a deal for the first time: whether you're a good criminal or a bad one, what makes you a good person is doing what's asked of you and sticking to your word. It's Mike's whole approach, and it's the same thing he did once he started working with Walt, making sure the people he promised money for their silence got paid.

It reads as his way of making up for all his wrongs, using that code to hold on to some self respect. He's honest, he's not pretending to be something he's not, and he's giving himself some dignity back. That's very respectable.

The Saul transformation has been subtle, and we're enjoying that

There was an expectation of some kind of lead in, a hint that Jimmy had changed his name to Saul or something that showed how it all started. Instead it's been really subtle and really slow over the course of this season, and we're both enjoying that.

He was already loved from Breaking Bad, and it didn't seem possible to fall in love with him even more. It's even prompted a little bit of anger at Walt's wife, for how she treated him when he had her best interest at heart and was still coming through.

Jimmy's good work with the elderly makes the tragedy hurt

The show has done a really good job of painting Jimmy as a sympathetic character we're rooting for, while we fully know the tragedy coming and the kind of lawyer he becomes. In Breaking Bad, at least initially, he comes across as scummy and slimy. So the tragedy is seeing him now, wanting to do the right thing. He's great with the old folks, he's looking out for them, and he found a class action case that is hopefully going to put money back in the hands of so many elders who were getting scammed. Those people get taken advantage of so much, and they're such an at risk demographic.

His brother was the only person keeping him on the straight and narrow. "His hero just destroyed him." Early on, Jimmy was trying so hard to do things the legitimate way and never getting a win. It's even more irritating that his brother was, in the end, right, only because he sent him down that road.

Jimmy would have put all of his Slippin' Jimmy days behind him if his brother had believed he could. When the one person you idolize crushes you and you realize they don't believe in you or aren't proud of you, it does something to you, and a lot of times that's where people's downfalls start. You think: I only did it to make you proud, so why bother?

Marco and the pull of old habits

Chuck soured all of Jimmy's success and took away the pride he had in it. He falls straight back on Slippin' Jimmy, then loses his partner Marco, and that's what pushes him to decide life's too short. It's like what Marco was saying, more or less: he didn't need the money, he needed this. It made him feel alive.

We see it as the same as any addiction. You need a support structure, an external or internal reason to stay clean, because it can be a really slippery slope back to old habits, especially if you torpedo someone's sense of self worth by telling them they're not a real lawyer.

We were expecting some sort of sabotage, maybe someone Jimmy had conned coming back to wreck things, and we were wrong. It's him making the active choice. Kind of like Walt, who was offered all that money by the people he saw as screwing him over and decided to do it himself. If he'd taken it, Hank would have been alive, Saul would still be practicing law, and Jesse never would have lost a year of his life or a girlfriend who was good for him.

A slow burn that had us rooting for the brothers

We love that this season was a slow burn, a steady drip feed of how Jimmy becomes the person we know. It's hard not to be hooked and engaged in how these characters progress. As much as we want the final card that says Better Call Saul, getting there too fast would ruin the build.

It's also upsetting that the show had viewers rooting for the brothers, tearing up and "sobbing on the inside" over the teamwork and the brotherhood, and then ripped it apart.

Hamlin's turn still isn't enough to win us over

Talk about a heel turn. Hamlin appeared to be a champ, taking the bad rap and all of Jimmy's hate to shield Chuck. His banter in this episode was really likable, and it was good to see him reach the point of not wanting to keep being the bad guy.

Neither of us fully likes him yet, though. He still needs to redeem himself a little more, maybe go to bat more for Jimmy. It's nice that he's advocating for Jimmy for the Santa Fe position, but it will take more for a full turnaround, and we know this show is really good at doing that.

Do you think Jimmy would have stayed on the straight and narrow if Chuck had believed in him?