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Comment count is 22
Bort - 2015-04-01

Not even the best Mike scene this episode, but definitely more action-packed than sitting in a minivan and telling the other guy he's now a criminal (words that were meant for himself as much as the other guy).

I say Chuck's E-M sensitivity is his guilt manifesting itself -- either as a subconscious solution to the problem of how he can continue practicing law despite that thing he's been doing, or a misinterpretation of why being at HH&M would make him feel physically ill.


infinite zest - 2015-04-01

Yeah it's pretty obvious to me that Chuck's faking schizophrenic behavior, and James is the only one who will believe him that something's actually wrong. Like most schizophrenics outside interactions have some sort of trigger: there used to be someone in my apartment complex who wouldn't want to walk to the store alone because President Obama was going to try and rape her. On a 3 block walk to the store, from all the way across the country. But she could do it if another person was there to protect her. Everybody thought it was for show. But I observed similar patterns when she knew/thought nobody was looking (I mean I wasn't spying on her, but crawling around in the dumpster alone at 4 in the morning looking for your uterus isn't necessarily something that goes unnoticed.) So from where I'm at in the show, Chuck remained just fine when the electronic bed was turned on, and again when he didn't think Jimmy would know how much he had/has been recovering. The drop of the papers at the end of the episode seemed incredibly fake to me, but is something that Jimmy would totally buy, since it's totally a stunt he'd pull if he got caught. Like if the billboard thing comes back around to haunt him he'd wiggle his way out. I just assume it runs in the family.


infinite zest - 2015-04-01

(PS I haven't watched this episode yet, but it's downloading so..)


EvilHomer - 2015-04-01

I think you're missing the point of Chuck, IZ. It's not that he's "faking", it's that the illness he has is psychosomatic. He's got some sort of stress-related agoraphobia; it's still too early in the show's narrative to tell what exactly caused Chuck to "go crazy", but I think it's fairly obvious that it's going to turn out to be related to his work at HH&M.

That scene in the previous episode where he's suddenly "OK" - it wasn't him forgetting to fake for Jimmy, I think it was Chuck getting so wrapped up in a case which was *meaningful* to him, that it finally got off his mind off the illness he believes he has. Chuck's shocked reaction at the end wasn't because Jimmy caught him outside, Chuck's shocked reaction was because HE suddenly realized HE was outside.

Also, I don't think Jimmy believes Chuck, at least, not in the sense that Jimmy believes Chuck has an honest-to-god undiagnosable medical condition (the way he chided the doctor for turning on the electronic bed shows that Jimmy is aware of the psychosomatic nature of Chuck's condiiton). It's not that Jimmy thinks electro-magnetic waves have a genuine physical effect on Chuck. Jimmy just doesn't care. Or rather, he cares about *Chuck*, and he knows that *Chuck* believes in the condition, so... fuck it. Jimmy's going along with disease-story because he wants to support Chuck, and he knows that if he isn't there for his older brother, nobody else will be.


EvilHomer - 2015-04-01

... although Chuck is, well. Nevermind.


BELOW YE LINE, SPOILERS ABOUND
---------------------------------------------





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When did the rest of y'all figure it out? I worked it out about halfway through the episode, when Hammelin stressed "... and the Partners" a couple times.


EvilHomer - 2015-04-01

Bort's Guilt theory is a pretty good one, though. I wouldn't be surprised if Chuck's agoraphobia and his guilty conscience were linked.

He is NOT the one who knocks.


Bort - 2015-04-01

Not faking, IZ. There is something wrong with Chuck, the problem just isn't E-M waves. I think his mind has been wrestling with the dilemma of "how can I in good conscience continue practicing law while I'm also SPOILER", and since his brain could justify neither quitting nor NOT quitting, it engineered a solution that broke the deadlock by forcing Chuck to stop practicing law.

The other possibility is that stress was eating away at Chuck, especially when he was at HHM, because he was constantly surrounded by reminders of SPOILER. So he'd go home and feel at least some relief. Next morning he goes into work and feels worse, and then better after he leaves. The conclusion he came to was that it was something in the HHM environment, and when he further realized that the symptoms almost completely went away when he was separated from all the means by which he can practice law (computers / phones / etc), he concluded that it was sensitivity to those devices.


infinite zest - 2015-04-01

Yeah, after I wrote that (and watched the latest episode just now) I wanted to add that it's "faked" in that it's psychosomatic. When I was going through a divorce a couple of years ago I made myself very claustrophobic, like I knew I'd run into one of her friends just by stepping outside, so I avoided certain blocks, stores and bars like they were hot lava at first. And even after 5 years I still would rather not walk down those streets, even though nobody's probably there or cares, and if I do I wait until it's dark and have my hoodie up. So it's not like the world's going to end if I DO have to do it, but it's engrained enough in my brain that I'd feel discomfort. In my case it was triggered by the fact that people would see me as the "bad guy" even though I did nothing wrong. If it was explained yet what the source of Chuck's EM allergy is, I must've missed it, but it's kind of the same sort of thing.

As for Chuck, I'd rather create a separate thread at the bottom for discussions of the latest episode, but what the fuck?


infinite zest - 2015-04-01

(oh. we overlapped) :)


infinite zest - 2015-04-01

I was wondering that too actually. His lecture about how a University of Phoenix Law Degree isn't really becoming a lawyer and everything (I didn't know you could get/pass the bar online) implies an old-school mentality towards the profession, kind of like how old school mathematicians hate advancements in calculator technology because a teenager can solve an algorithm in minutes that took them hours if not days. My dad, who is a Lawyer, passed the bar in the early 70s and every time he heard me bitch about having to type up cover letters and e-mail them all day he'd give me the "10 miles in the snow" lecture about having to send out paper documents to firms all over the country. 30 years later he's still kind of getting used to blackberries and e-mail and "paperless" offices and shit and hates it. He's kind of in "senioritis" mode now, close to retirement so he doesn't really care, but I could see such changes pushing someone over the edge, especially as head of a firm.


infinite zest - 2015-04-01

Honestly I thought Hamlin and Jimmy hated each other because of something with Kim. The kiss in the flashback implies more than a friendship in the past, and interactions between her in 2002 with Jimmy and Hamlin both remind me of post-coital interactions: Jimmy and Kim act the way they do around each other like people who loved each other once, and Hamlin and Kim act the way they do around each other like people who fucked a couple of times.

What I don't get is Hamlin's "over the hill" sort of mentality in the earlier episodes towards Chuck. Plenty of law firms keep their senior partner's name on the marquee well after they've retired, and usually after they die, but they wouldn't let them return to work if they were suffering from dementia or any other psychological condition. And even in the previous episode, Chuck's silence in the preliminary hearing at his house was not the Chuck of old that Hamlin describes.


infinite zest - 2015-04-01

Or, if I really want to psychoanalyze it, I suppose the mailroom was the perfect place for his brother: it's working within the legal system doing a task that needed to be done. I assume that law offices still receive plenty of paper mail, but most correspondences are done via e-mail these days, so a whole core mailroom staff has probably been reduced to one secretary. And remember what Mike said to our Oxycontin friend: he's now a criminal, even if he doesn't do it again. So in Chuck's mind, Jimmy fits that role and he can once again consider him his brother. The absence of the middleman (i.e. the mailroom staff) could've implied the absence of his brother.. I dunno.


Bort - 2015-04-01

Chuck said that the law is sacred; I'm taking that as a close to literal pronouncement, where the law is to be treated with the utmost of respect. Chuck doesn't believe Jimmy is capable of showing the law the respect it deserves. I think Chuck wants what's best for Jimmy, but Jimmy fucking the law is not an acceptable outcome in Chuck's eyes.

In the individual case of Sandpiper, Chuck seems to be legitimately proud of how Jimmy's handling himself, but Chuck doesn't expect that to be Jimmy's attitude overall. And, given what we know of Saul Goodman, Chuck just might be right.


EvilHomer - 2015-04-01

Well, yeah, that's what makes Saul a tragic hero. His fatal flaw is that he's too human to make a respectable lawyer.


jangbones - 2015-04-01

blah blah blah this show is fucking great blah blah

it really is tho


StanleyPain - 2015-04-01

Hah, this tripped me out so much. This is the EXACT corner of this parking garage where I parked for the ABQ Comic Expo a few months ago.


infinite zest - 2015-04-02

I don't watch the show, but it's the same thing for me and Grimm. They used my old block for a lot of the filming and you can see my old house. People put random things in their windowsills to see if they'd show up, but they never did.


EvilHomer - 2015-04-01

Mike vs Gmork.

The best part about this whole scene, for me, is that I have a friend named Trevor, and he is exactly like this guy.


chumbucket - 2015-04-01

I guess maybe I should start watching this show.


infinite zest - 2015-04-01

Spoilers above, but yeah you should. The first season ends next monday so I'd recommend binging like I did with True Detective. As far as Vince Gilligan stuff goes, X-Files will still be my favorite, but I like it more than what I've seen of Breaking Bad (mostly the later ones.)


chumbucket - 2015-04-02

True Detective has been on my list of "something I need to see" for a very long time. It took me a while to cut into Breaking Bad but once I did i was completely hooked and enjoyed it thoroughly.
I did rewatch all of XFiles a few years ago and really liked coming back to it but I recall thinking Chris Carter always had something greater with Millennium but the show just never really lived up to that hoped potential.


TheOtherCapnS - 2015-04-02

Given his explanation later in the episode, that is what is known as "masterful"


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