I think they made a translation call, because the wordplay just doesn't work in German. The english version - as far as I could understand, was "'s all good man", obviously sounding like Saul Goodman.
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Better Call Saul - Season 4 - Mondays on AMC
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Andrea's death is weird because it retroactively makes it so that Gus had a solution to his Walt problem that even he wasn't cruel enough to consider. Gus absolutely could have done the same thing Todd does to Jesse, and it would have worked. He could have even done it with Walt using Skylar too. But Gus wasn't cruel enough to think of it.
I don't know how much Andrea counts as fridging. She's a pretty minor character and the show had already killed off a shitload of minor characters. Also, fridging is generally used to develop characters. Like in the dumbass hypothetical that Kim dying would turn Jimmy into Saul. That'd be fridging. Andrea's death doesn't change Jesse's character much. He's already terribly sad and tragic at that point. It just adds stakes, it makes it so that if he doesn't stay Todd's slave, an innocent child gets murdered.
Except he did consider and threatened to kill Walt's entire family (even going as far as to threaten his newborn daughter) once he was finally at the point where Jesse could run the superlab on his own. The only real difference is that Gus doesn't bring family up until he's at his breaking point, whereas the Nazis don't give any shits about your loved ones until you cross them.
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No, it's definitely fridging. It doesn't have to 'change' a character, it just has to be done solely to move a story arc forward. It's offensiveness comes from the reduction of a character into a mere plot device.
And even if it was like you say, it does change Jesse's character. The reason she dies is because he is defiant against the Nazi's. He tried to escape, then claimed that he would refuse to cook for them and they could just kill him. In response, they kill Andrea and then promise to kill Brock. This breaks him and he is afterwards completely subservient to them. It's his final character development until Walt comes back, months later, to free him.
So, it's very much fridging either way.
Andrea is 100% fridging. Tragic death of a female character to upset the male character.
It doesn't matter if the character is minor or not. The term was invented to describe a character who died in a comic literally an issue after being introduced.
As far as it being done "well" or not-- the original critique was that female characters were less characters than plot elements to motivate male characters. It's not like a single incident of it by itself would be all that problematic, but rather the frequency with which it happens. I haven't really thought about BrBa from that perspective, but it seems that there's incidental death for the sake of moving things forward that's not gender-oriented, and there are female characters that have plenty of depth and agency (still a fan of Skyler as a foil/check on Walt, fuck the haters).
It doesn't matter if the character is minor or not. The term was invented to describe a character who died in a comic literally an issue after being introduced.
As far as it being done "well" or not-- the original critique was that female characters were less characters than plot elements to motivate male characters. It's not like a single incident of it by itself would be all that problematic, but rather the frequency with which it happens. I haven't really thought about BrBa from that perspective, but it seems that there's incidental death for the sake of moving things forward that's not gender-oriented, and there are female characters that have plenty of depth and agency (still a fan of Skyler as a foil/check on Walt, fuck the haters).
Yeah, it sounded like they'd be shipped back to Germany and that's that.
The question then becomes who will Gus bring in to finish the job?
"Fridging" seems like pointless meta-criticism when the real issue is a lack of female lead characters in stories. As you said "the frequency with which it happens" but that really has more to do with male leads than anything being so dominant; if we had more female lead characters we'd see more husabnds and boyfriends being killed off.
You're right in that it's more of a symptom than the problem by itself. And even the original observation was tied to comics, and how female characters aren't just killed, but also depowered or otherwise written off-- turning girls off comics.
It's like the Bechdel Test-- it's meant to illuminate a trend, more than some hard-and-fast guideline to include (Bechdel) or avoid (fridging).
And it got Gail Simone a job in comics, so I'm all good with it.
This isn't necessarily true. I read plenty of female led stories and rarely do they have a "kill boyfriend to set off journey".
It's like saying if we had more farm girl characters, it would lead to "The prince is trapped in a castle and now she has to save him" type storylines. It doesn't really work that way.
Fridging is not a gender neutral trope and is the end result of cultural views of women as emotional centers for men. Just having more female led characters might increase its frequency, but it wouldn't reflect its usage the way its been done with men. To do that, you'd need hundreds of generations of the social roles of men and women reversed where men are seen as the emotional vessels for otherwise stoic women.
I do agree that there is a limit of its value as criticism because if a person close to a character dies it usually should set off some kind of plot or something. But it's not really a meta criticism.
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I think it's somewhere in the middle. Plenty of men die in stories to set other men into action as well (like Uncle Ben or Bucky) but more often women, and it's usually that character deaths motivate men, not women. Revenge or grief-inspired-action is portrayed as a male thing.
So I was reductionistic to say it's just a symptom of a lack of female leads, but I think it *is* a symptom of a cluster of sexism in media, including the way men are portrayed and including the preponderance of male leads.
So I was reductionistic to say it's just a symptom of a lack of female leads, but I think it *is* a symptom of a cluster of sexism in media, including the way men are portrayed and including the preponderance of male leads.
Yeah, I find that to be more acceptable a position on it.
It is worth mentioning that it's also a matter of characterization. Women are often just written as "the women in male characters life", while men tend to serve some purpose. Like, Uncle Ben teaches peter important life philosophy. Or, men tend to be brought back, like Bucky.
It's be better if we knew more about Andrea than "She was Jesse's girlfriend". Like, what did we really know about her? She was a recovering addict like Jesse but otherwise just wanted to raise her kid.
I felt I knew less about her than Jane, who also died and caused Jesse grief but died as part of the narrative that was happening. I wouldn't call Jane's death fridging because she died as an active agent in the story.
Well I meant in the type of stories that spawned this trope; female characters are almost devoid of lead status in stories where there's any heroism involved (almost entirely devoid of any anti-hero type characterisations for instance where I'd say this trope is almost most common.)
As it currently stands the rare female lead is generally designed to fit a different archtype and that seems to be the real root of the problem; my point being that for these types of characters a loved one dying is a reasonable plot... so criticising them seems counterproductive to the real issue: we need more stoic / vengeful / heroic / anti-hero women in stories.
Basically there's nothing wrong with Andrea dying as a motivator for Jesse IMO; people's lives being destroyed because of him is sort of the entire point of his story.
Asides:
* Yeah, I thought about Jane but she's as much agent/antagonist as anything. And when I thought about people who died for plot furtherance in BrBa, I considered Gale and the kid in the desert as well. BrBa is pretty brutal to characters whose actions aren't essential to the plot.
* I listed Bucky because it took him 40 years (from the establishment of his death) to actually come back. So he counted as dead.
* Yeah, I thought about Jane but she's as much agent/antagonist as anything. And when I thought about people who died for plot furtherance in BrBa, I considered Gale and the kid in the desert as well. BrBa is pretty brutal to characters whose actions aren't essential to the plot.
* I listed Bucky because it took him 40 years (from the establishment of his death) to actually come back. So he counted as dead.
Andrea's role is simple for me
"You don't need Walt in your life, Jesse."
She was one of the biggest threat for Walt, he like to manipulate, guilt trip, or playing Jesse around and he follow like a fool.
^
My mistake, It's Jane lol
Back to BCS, I don't know you guys background in life, but for me, even now I have a comfortable and happy life, my mother words still echo in my ears almost everyday I thought about her.
"You will never go far, people like you will never go to anywhere in life, you will never achieve anything."
F you, mom.
F you too, Chuck.
"You don't need Walt in your life, Jesse."
She was one of the biggest threat for Walt, he like to manipulate, guilt trip, or playing Jesse around and he follow like a fool.
^
My mistake, It's Jane lol
Back to BCS, I don't know you guys background in life, but for me, even now I have a comfortable and happy life, my mother words still echo in my ears almost everyday I thought about her.
"You will never go far, people like you will never go to anywhere in life, you will never achieve anything."
F you, mom.
F you too, Chuck.
This trope doesn't really just exist in edgy-darklord type stories, it occurs pretty often. It's just at it's most gruesome in those kinds of stories, but basically, it isn't very different from "Save the Damsel in distress!" The point is that the fundamental problem that the trope comes from is the idea that women are treated as the emotional vulnerable point of mens lives, but not full characters themselves. They're just tools to help characterize men, which is a dehumanizing way of treating them. That can happen in children stories as much as any dark story.
Which doesn't automatically make it an invalid trope to use, which is what you seem to be arguing against. I never said it was invalid and have been arguing from the start that Andrea could arguably be considered a good instance of fridging.
It's just that humanistic writing will, by it's nature, characterize people in specific ways. The problem with Andrea is that she just wasn't characterized in any particular way. She was just Jesse's next girlfriend. Which is what makes her different from, as we've been talking about, Jane, who had a lot of characterization and agency in the story.
For me, one of the easiest ways to contrast it is how Batman Begins characterized Thomas Wayne in comparison to most other Batman adapations: Thomas taught Bruce morals, he expressed affection for his wife, he was a practicing doctor, he was emotionally aware of his sons fright in the theater, etc. Batman Begins gave us some sense of who Batman's father was as a person. In most other Batman adaptations, we don't have any sense of who Thomas Wayne was besides Bruce's father. In contrast, even the Batman Begin's Martha Wayne lacks characterization, like most other Martha Wayne's to come before or after her (Yes, even Martha "WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME" Wayne). All you can say about Martha Wayne is that she's Batman's mom.
The thing that bugs me is that Andrea simply wasn't done justice in terms of characterization like most other characters, but was used as such a crucial emotional point for Jesse. And part of me feels that's realistic: There are people like Andrea out there that really just want to raise their kid and not do anything crazy, despite being in crazinesses proximity. But as a storytelling mechanic, it's hard to argue that it isn't a completely typical example of fridging. And it might be an acceptable example in the context of Breaking Bad itself, since the show does characterize other women and give them agency in different ways. And maybe that makes it alright because, as it's been pointed out, it's main problem is it's prevalence in other media, not BB specifically. But it is a typical example of the exact thing that other, lesser shows do.
I guess it's just hard to reconcile it as something that's broadly known as a sorta bad thing while it remains such an effective emotional gutpunch in the story it's in.
The most I can say is that I just wish Andrea had been able to be more to the audience before she was killed off.
Regarding Jane, that's fine, as long as she does have that agency and characterization. That's the important part. Gale, meanwhile, it's wierd to argue if he had agency in the story, but he DEFINITELY had characterization. He's one of the most unique characters in the entirety of either series, being a joyful, happy nerd that made drugs because chemistry is his passion in a way that eclipses even Walt's drive for the science. It's not a perfect fit, because he wasn't the emotional dependent of anyone in the series despite being an emotional person himself, but him being killed is something that fit because Gale wasn't just anyone. He was a very unique, very specific person in the world of BB, and that's enough.
Lastly, the kid...well, we got a tiny bit of characterization: He liked insects, since he boxed up that spider. But at the same time, Kids are the one type of person I would argue can be written as emotional vulnerable points without characterization. I mean, preferably, you wnat them to be characterized, like anyone else. But kids are valued by default to most people just as part of a natural instinct to protect the young. The essential problem with treating characters as emotional plot devices is that it robs them of humanity. Except, kids aren't complete people, so it's okay. Women are though, so it's not.
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Just seems like Kim was trying to jedi mind trick Jimmy into becoming the person she wanted him to be. She thought it actually worked after the interview but at the last second she realises he's completely gone and now she will need to re-evaluate the entire relationship.
As others have noted, I do find it bizarre that she was A-ok with Jimmy selling fake grief at his brother's grave site, but then surprised when he plays up the drama for the court. Also, she knew he spent thousands of dollars on a library for Chuck, just so word could get around he did so, with the ultimate goal of being reinstated as a lawyer. Don't get me wrong, I still feel bad for Kim, but she should've seen it coming. She was complicit throughout the entire affair.
I've been trying to understand Gus and his motives for being in the drug game. He has the chicken shop, clearly it's going well with multiple locations. He must be making bank from it. Why is he in the drug trade? The flashbacks in BB we saw with his partner, he was explaining to Don Eladio that they could make a great product and he has the distribution networks. But why even enter?
That's why I've been saying that Kim's behaviour hasn't been that believable to me this season so it makes more sense to me that she's been putting on a facade in some vain hope that Jimmy could come to the realisation he cares about Chuck by himself.
You guys are reading it wrong
She's not surprised at him faking she's surprised how genuine his faking sounded
When she heard it she fell for it herself and thought Jimmy was being genuine. She lives with him and his faking was so good it tricked her
She realized she can't tell the real Jimmy from Slippin Jimmy, and that's because well there is no Jimmy. Only Saul.
She's not surprised at him faking she's surprised how genuine his faking sounded
When she heard it she fell for it herself and thought Jimmy was being genuine. She lives with him and his faking was so good it tricked her
She realized she can't tell the real Jimmy from Slippin Jimmy, and that's because well there is no Jimmy. Only Saul.
Kim has been going along with Jimmy's deceptions but still believed that there was a Jimmy left to save and that she was part of his team. She then realized that he doesn't have any real good left in him and that he's been faking to her not just the legal community. They grew apart over many months and the last few cons felt like them trying to get back what they had, only to realize that they are two different people going in different directions.
There is a fundamental difference between how Jimmy lives the con game and how Kim plays it.
Like Jimmy pointed out, Kim does these things with Jimmy for the thrill factor and then opts out of it whenever she wants to be a legitimate lawyer. The game part of the "con game" is more pronounced to her than the con part. Jimmy, however, views it more as a way of life.
The last conversation that Jimmy and Kim had about it was after they tricked the old lady with the Mesa Verde building plans and that was the most illuminating. Jimmy talks about how he is looking forward to working together to pull off schemes like the Heull thing, but Kim says that they should only do that for good causes. Jimmy lightly mocks her changing idea of good, pointing out that the scheme they just pulled was so a corperate banker could get 13% more building space, which has no real moral justification. Which Kim doesn't really have an answer for, so Jimmy just backs off and doesn't piss her off.
But this shows that Kim thinks she can con people and still also be the good, righteous person that she idealizes herself as. I would say that Jimmy has no such delusions, but it's more that his delusion is that he thinks that the entire world operates as a con and that morality doesn't truly exist.
And the courtroom aftermath is these two world views coming crashing down. Kim doesn't mind the idea of conning the committee to get Jimmy reinstated per se, but she does think there is...or that there should be....a core moral, sincerity within people, which is what she thinks Jimmy was showing. But he wasn't because for him there isn't.
Like Jimmy pointed out, Kim does these things with Jimmy for the thrill factor and then opts out of it whenever she wants to be a legitimate lawyer. The game part of the "con game" is more pronounced to her than the con part. Jimmy, however, views it more as a way of life.
The last conversation that Jimmy and Kim had about it was after they tricked the old lady with the Mesa Verde building plans and that was the most illuminating. Jimmy talks about how he is looking forward to working together to pull off schemes like the Heull thing, but Kim says that they should only do that for good causes. Jimmy lightly mocks her changing idea of good, pointing out that the scheme they just pulled was so a corperate banker could get 13% more building space, which has no real moral justification. Which Kim doesn't really have an answer for, so Jimmy just backs off and doesn't piss her off.
But this shows that Kim thinks she can con people and still also be the good, righteous person that she idealizes herself as. I would say that Jimmy has no such delusions, but it's more that his delusion is that he thinks that the entire world operates as a con and that morality doesn't truly exist.
And the courtroom aftermath is these two world views coming crashing down. Kim doesn't mind the idea of conning the committee to get Jimmy reinstated per se, but she does think there is...or that there should be....a core moral, sincerity within people, which is what she thinks Jimmy was showing. But he wasn't because for him there isn't.
I think you're over analyzing that part, I think he knows the difference between morality and especially the law. His brother was the most honest and to the point person he knew, Jimmy just wasn't good at what Chuck was good at. Jimmy just plays to his strengths which happens to be manipulation, being a people person, and lying at all costs.
He just wants to win at all costs. Conning is what he excels at. He cares about people still, when he heard about the old lady's death dude was shook.
Jimmy/Saul is super interesting, like if you look at everything he's done. It isn't the actions of a good person at all, but he still has a humanistic side to him, he just puts it in the backseat for his own selfish reasons of wanting to win.
Jimmy is capable of empathy (and that aspect of his character is potentially the most analysis-worthy thing about his character), but that's not really the same thing as not having a con-game world view.
It's not merely that Jimmy is good at lying or that being a people person or all that. Think about how he talked to that Ms. Esposito. What he told her was that the competition for legitimacy is a lie. That they tell you that they will give you a real chance, but in actuality, they only see you as the mistake you made. What would you call that, telling a person that they have an actual chance and having them work for that chance to your benefit, when in actuality they have no chance at all and they just wasted they're time so they could profit you in some way?
What do you call encouraging your brother when you won't ever actually accept his efforts? What do you telling your employee to get more calls when you're just going to chew him out when he does?
To Jimmy, everything is a congame. You tell a person that things are one way, but they're actually another, and if you get them to believe that it's the lie, you profit. Jimmy doesn't view what he does to be truly different from what elite lawyers like Chuck or HHM or Davis and Main, and you can see him get upset and uncomfortable whenever his integrity is called into question, frustrated that people would call him out on his lies and cons.
That's how he views the world and every time he acts, he demonstrates that. And none of this is to say he's wholly incapable of empathy, but it does mean he doesn't process it like a normal person. But being capable of empathy doesn't mean he doesn't dehumanize people as marks while having a worldview that everything is a congame.
I'd say it's with Howard as it is with other people, that Jimmy will be honest and helpful to you if he's not trying to work an angle. You see this later with Saul in BB. He's a helpful person when you let him be.
I read this on the wiki.
However, Gus has been shown to genuinely care about people, noticeably Max Arciniega (the other "hermano" of the Los Pollos Hermanos brand name), who Gus took off the streets of Santiago, put through school, cared for and was interested in developing his potential. The humanity of Gus' personality played an integral role in his development, especially the very deep relationship with Max, which has been interpreted by some viewers – and even Giancarlo Esposito himself – as possibly homosexual. The loss of Max is partially what turned Gus into a ruthless villain, who is not above anything when it comes to avenging Max's death, including the murder of children (like Tomas Cantillo) and the gradual killing of Hector Salamanca's entire family. However, the loss of Max is also what cultivated Gus' desire to create a new "family" by empowering his illicit meth empire, as well as the chicken restaurants. Vince Gilligan has stated that he decided against the show officially confirming or denying whether or not Max and Gus were, in fact, lovers; however, he also said that they "probably were lovers."
http://breakingbad.wikia.com/wiki/Gustavo_Fring
Well one reason is that he seems to want revenge for Max but he would probably still be in the trade if Walt didn't kill him after his revenge was achieved.
Honestly? The answer is the same as Walt. Money, power and enjoyment. Walt talked about he was in the "empire business" in season 5A when Jesse called him on how he said he only needed 737k when he started, Walt just couldn't turn his back on what he feels is a business that he can excel in and empowers him. And on top of that, more generally speaking people always want more money.
Gus explains that he was impoverished as a child and that drove him to being an entrepteneur and that's generally where his drive to get rich came from.
His chicken restaurants were always a front for drugs; that's likely where he got the money to make the chain what it was in the first place, so it's hard to say how successful he'd be without the drug money. Once he approached the Juarez cartel his future was set in stone; he either work with them or he'd probably be killed.. so no matter how much success his business eventually had in America it's not like he had much choice. But he also told stories about being fairly ruthless as a child, and it's presumed he was high up in the currupt / violent Chilean military.. so he's just kind of a ruthless money hungry guy.
I just found out the actor that plays Gus has a girlfriend in my town. I could bump into him :O
I wonder where Madrigal figures into all of this. Is it just as simple as Lydia doing his money laundering and taking a cut?
It goes higher. We see the CEO of the fast food division kill himself in BB after Fring's operation is exposed.
Let's also keep in mind that Pollos is somehow affiliated with Madrigal already. Gus may have built Pollos up and sold it. or they may have bankrolled him in the first place. I've always been curious how that relationship worked and who was driving what.
I assumed he used Pollos to front first and then found a willing criminal partner inside Madrigal who entered into to some above-board relationship with Pollos while establishing a criminal off-the-books arrangement as well.
EDIT: Wrote this before the last two posts came through. I guess we're all wondering the same.
When Lydia brought Mike on board at Gus' request, she had said she had never done anything like that before.
The cartel killed the love of his life and it broke him. Ultimately every action from there on out is for revenge.
Yeah, or a license-holder in other markets or something. Clearly by the time of BB they are deeply tied together.
I really didn't like Mike subplot this season, it was too slow and the german guy's motivation for fleeing was really dumb . Lalo's introduction was too late and he didn't really add anything special to the season. They completely forgot about Nacho, which I hated. Everything about Kim/Jimmy was spot on though and it makes the show worth watching. Howard also got really little screen time.
This just reminded me of Walt's call to her after slipping her the ricin. Most baller shit ever.
An ex-coworker of mine went to a restaurant in Albuquerque. Inside he saw a guy waiting to be seated who looked like Giancarlo Esposito. He approached the guy, and asked him if he had ever been told he looked like Gus from Breaking Bad. What he didn't realize was it actually was Giancarlo Esposito.
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