#like chuck is essentially howards fathers friend and business partner and howard is trying to fi his fathers role in the firm

[saulbaby]

Howard is chucks Jesse send tweet

#i really didnt feel this vibe originally when i watched it #but chuck is awful to everybody #and hea manipulating howard so much like #howard is reprimanding kim for aomething that jimmy did and chucks just staring at him #like chuck is essentially howards fathers friend and business partner and howard is trying to fi his fathers role in the firm #howard respects chuck SO MUCH and chuck knows that and hes been using that to like #belittle and sabotage his brother so he wouldnt have to #i dont think he cares about howard either i dont think chuck is a character that values personal connections very much #i think he wishes he does #but hes much more dedicated to concepts and ideas #like the law as a whole or how he tries to live like a classy rich guy while all his windows are covered in foil #like how he tells jimmy that everybody deserves a vigorous defense but then almost leaves jimmy without one in cicero bc of his grudge #and he has high standards for how jimmy has to treat people but doesnt really meet those himself #just bc hes manipulating and hurting fewer people less obviously #i think the mcgill boys have. a lot more in common than they think they do #but those commonalities are so differently directed fhat they cant even see it #jimmy sees social structures as a suggestion and his relationships as whats always most important and he schemes to accomodate that #chuck cares more about social structures and his relationship and schemes to keep them safe from jimmy #i like chuck more at the end of these tags than i did when i started #but still #i dont like the way hes hurting my sweet jimmy #like howar is our villain who did nothing wrong n i think chuck is the real villain who we still sympathize a lot with bc hes so vulnerable

[kiraalexander]

a dispute me and a friend can't seem to agree on, but i wanted to know your opinion: should have kim never bothered with jimmy, or should she had to put her foot down and made a better effort at communicating?

Hoo boy anon, this question has been weighing on me with the last episode (5x3) and the insider podcast to 5x2, which I just listened to the morning after I watched 5x3.

But I want to rephrase your question a little bit and ask: would Kim’s life have been better without Jimmy in it? and my answer is no.

Spoilers for season 5 up to 5x3 and the insider podcast 5x2 below.

The Kim we’ve gotten to know during the course of BCS is a very closed-off, tightly-wound person, who moves through the world with a deep sense of wariness, or caution, or suspicion, and we’ve only gotten tiny clues to why she’s so closed off as the series has progressed. 

She has no close friends other than Jimmy - she’s even distant with Ernie when he calls her, and you never see her socializing with her fellow associates. When she makes her cold calls during 2x5, she’s constantly reminding her targets who she is and where she’s met them, usually at an ABA mixer or other professional networking event.

Her professional relationships are few and far between, and have become extremely transactional as the show progresses. Howard is, of course, an absolute nightmare who uses petty office politics to oust Kim to the cornfield whenever she inconveniences him. But even Rich and Kevin are only friendly to Kim when she’s of use to them - either building Kevin’s dream of an expanded Mesa Verde, or “keeping the lights on” by focusing on paying clients. This is, by the way, after Kim has explicitly offered to build Schweikart’s banking practice in exchange for the kind of resources needed to allow her a pro bono practice. 

Finally there’s Paige, where there was a chance at real friendship. Kim even admitted to Paige her hesitations about taking down Chuck, something she couldn’t do with Jimmy. But Paige turned cool when Kim didn’t demonstrate that she’d be at Mesa Verde’s beck and call, showing Kim that while they can be friendly, they can’t be friends. (This is not, by the way, Paige’s fault - Kim fucked up by her evasiveness to Paige when Paige had the legitimate expectation that Kim had no other professional obligations. Despite this, Kim’s instinct is to shut the relationship down once Paige’s amicability proved to be transactional.)

Then there’s family. The creators have pointed out on the podcast that Kim has no personal or family photos in her apartment. Further, Kim has mentioned only four family members (or in one case a group of family members) over the course of the show: 1) her grandmother who died tragically; 2) her scumbag cousins who stole her grandmother’s prescriptions and savings; 3) her father who loves Ice Station Zebra; and 4) her mother, who dragged her from place to place to stay ahead of landlords. Kim only feels positive feelings of sorrow for her grandmother’s death, and love for the movies her father loved, indicating that movies are likely the only way she and her father related to each other - especially since he apparently wasn’t around when she was “little” to assist her mother in her multiple moves. (#relatable)

Given all of these relationships, I’d say that Kim has very good reason to move through the world suspicious of what other people want her for. 

Kim has, essentially, no one, except for Jimmy, the only person who loves her without a separate agenda. And I say separate agenda because Jimmy does have an agenda. He wants Kim to respect him, admire him, and become his partner in both their professional and personal lives, but he doesn’t try to coerce or force her in either of those spheres. Sure, he tries to tempt her with real estate (and oh man would I have loved to see them get down in one of those dentist chairs before they moved them out), and tries to impress her with his legal and business acumen. But when she tells him that she wants to do something else, he never puts the screws to her like… Paige, and Rich, and Kevin, and especially Howard have all done.

And then we need to consider what Kim’s life would be like without Jimmy. When we first see her, she’s in debt to HHM and Howard’s holding it over her head by treating her worse than we’ve seen him treat any other employee. She has a two-year-plan of becoming partner, an empty apartment… and that’s it. Kim is all work and no play, and over the course of the show, Jimmy has showed her that she can play. Her revelation about her childhood meant that Kim has had precious little ability to play, and I find it likely that she’s only just learned what play means through Jimmy’s influence. It’s more than a personal, physical or romantic relationship; Kim’s sole source of non-work related joy is Jimmy, whether that’s healthy or not. To say that Kim should never have bothered with Jimmy is to say that Kim might never have learned to play and experience joy, and that’s utterly tragic! He’s given her a facet of life that she never otherwise would have seen, and I posit that, to progress this far, she needed that facet, that outlet and that experience.

That said, we know that Jimmy is toxic to Kim, and that he is only going to get worse for her as the series progresses. As we’ve seen, Jimmy is compartmentalizing his feelings from his actions following Chuck’s death. While Kim tried to help him break down his barriers, he’s resisted to the point of becoming Saul. Should Kim have insisted that Jimmy see a therapist and talk to her? Sure, I think so. But what we know of her character means that her wariness and her suspicion of the world at large - informed by her childhood as well as adult trauma - are preventing her from taking that huge step that would lead to friction between herself and her only intimate, non-transactional relationship. Part of her is, I think, frightened of fully opening up to Jimmy, and the heartbreak that would potentially ensue if he doesn’t recover from his moral calcification. But maybe her fear is also of the intimacy that would occur if Jimmy followed her advice. Their shared trauma could be overwhelming to both of them, if they’re not fully prepared to shoulder it, and right now, neither of them is prepared.

As it is, Jimmy has not only shut himself down, but he’s corroding Kim’s sense of morality, as we’ve seen with Mesa Verde and with Huell and with Bobby and Lois. He’s teaching her to put her toes over the line and enjoy it, because it’s the only form of play she’s ever experienced.

Kim’s personal sense of morality has, so far, prevented her from going fully over the line, and I’m very worried about what’s in store for her in the upcoming episodes. I’ll even go so far as to predict that the “Wexler v. McGill” in ep. 6 is a scam they both cook up, and whether it ends up badly for her… who can say. 

So, anon, I guess my answer is to you: I don’t think Kim should never have bothered with Jimmy, because he’s essential to her as a person, an embodiment of the joy and pleasure life can bring, and her own emotional growth from her traumatic childhood. And while I think it would have been a good idea for Kim to have made more of an effort at communicating with him, she’s not emotionally prepared to do so in her current state. And where that takes us through Season 5 and beyond… I only wish her the best, as the best character on my teevee and in my heart.

#bcs #bcs season 5 #bcs 5x3 #insider podcast 5x2 #bcs spoilers #spoilers #kim wexler #jimmy mcgill #kira's asks #another novel nobody asked for #bcs meta