#my brain is SO tired i truly have no idea what i'm saying here ibsen anon i apologize lol

[septembersghost]

Ibsen anon here! First of all, I’m glad you even gave a damn about my nerd bullshit ramblings, let alone knew what I was on about, so it was amazing to read your answer. I have a whole lot more to talk about in terms of the parralels of the break up scene.

I managed to find a transcript of Doll’s House online and it turns out there are even more similarities between the play’s ending and BCS. In both scenes, the husband character begins by angrily responding to some semi related issue only to be totally blown away by the revelation that the wife wishes to break off the relationship. There’s a period of increasingly desperate bargaining as the husband refuses to take the wife’s threat seriously and blames the discord on other matters.

Jimmy: “we’ll never come back to this house again”; Helmer: “now is the time for education!”

The conversation becomes increasingly personal as both parties admit that while there is love between them (the exception being how Nora describes Helmer as you point out) it isn’t healthy or productive, hence the wife feels morally obliged to leave. In the end, she does, leaving the husband alone to absorb the shock.

The more I think about it, the more Better Call Saul does read kind of like an Ibsen play. It’s a naturalistic, character driven story where most of the powerful moments are told by dialogue. The original conflict gives way to something far more morally grey and devastating. The best the viewer can hope for is a bitter sweet end.

oh i love nerdy ramblings and finding connections in other stories and allusions across time and media!!! even if i hadn't been somewhat familiar with what you meant, i'd still have appreciated you sharing and finding the parallel! you explained this so well.

this is an aside, but since you mention that it's a naturalistic, character driven story (and i agree!), one thing i'll say is that i relish how they earn their few operatic moments. brba leaned a bit more into that by nature of its western roots and its action styling, whereas bcs is much more noir, but i was talking to a friend about this after 6x08 - lalo and howard being buried in the lab could easily sound goofy on paper. lalo bleeding out and getting an iconic Villain's Last Laugh could play silly. yet both worked, and the shot of that hole in the ground was completely gutting. it achieved what they wanted it to, adding a ghoulish pall over the lab that churns out life destroying poison. it was always a tomb. gus walking out of the room in casa tranquila and straightening his tie with half his face blown off was a moment like that too, where it's allowing itself a stroke of melodrama, but it works and is an indelible, horrifying image.

jimmy and kim's story mostly existing apart from the cartel storyline lent it a particularly grounded reality, especially since we spent a lot of time with them in moments of closeness and in step-by-step thought processes and personal transitions. the something stupid montage works so beautifully not only because we know them well, but because it tells an entire story through the visuals of their days, and being that familiar with their thought processes and emotional responses and relationship to one another makes them feel very real. that's why i think their dynamic affected and touched so many of us even though it didn't follow the story beats some audience members expect from a romance. it wasn't about epic moments with swelling violins, or overt sex (not that there's anything wrong with those things! but it's more what we're conditioned to expect, to be told is love, and it was refreshing to be given this beautiful, heartbreaking story that was crafted so honestly and broke that mold). it was two people finding missing pieces that fit together and building a life as best they thought they could, until they couldn't. it doesn't make their love not real, it doesn't even end it. breaking up when you hate each other is painful and biting, but breaking up when you love each other so enormously that it can barely be expressed, knowing you're ruinous anyway, knowing that love runs so deep you'd literally die and kill for each other and that breaks you? THAT'S Romantic tragedy, baby!

sorry this is so off-topic, too many thoughts in my head

anyway, yes, there has always been an unvarnished honesty and very personal intimacy that we've experienced with jimmy and kim.

i think a thing to consider is kim leaving is only a pyrrhic victory for her. she's not escaping the relationship as much as she's escaping her own skin. while she does feel it's a moral obligation, she does act out of integrity and awareness, she's also imploding. even her conviction they're okay on their own is proven remarkably wrong. so hopefully we still get to a place of her reconciling and self-actualizing. she's such a meaningful female character that i want to hope they won't deny her that. there's no chance for nora ever coming back through the door, and we wouldn't want that for her. his pathetic desire that she might change her mind and come back is more about possession of a wife than it is love. kim and jimmy are a compelling contrast to that idea (since their whole relationship was anything but patriarchal, really!). her walking back into frame wouldn't be a diminishment of her or a denial of her strength, it would be an assertion of sorts, a reconciliation of who she is. bittersweetness can exist with poignancy and power, i think. going with the days of wine and roses theme, they've now hit the rock bottom of their addiction and the unavoidable split, but it concludes with the barest glimmer of hope, and sometimes that's all you need. "you better give up on me." "not yet."