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Saul Goodman and the Subtle Art of Choosing Yourself
How self-doubt and societal expectations keep us from living the lives we want.
There’s a great scene in the last episode of Season 1 of Better Call Saul when Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) drives up to Mike (Jonathan Banks), who works at a parking gate by the court, and asks, “Did I dream it or did we have $1.6M in cash? We could have split it 50/50, and nobody would know!”
He is referring to a job they did recently when Jimmy decided to steal money from his (guilty) clients to pressure them into giving it back to the DA.
Mike replies, in his usual tired manner of a man who had lived through too much to be answering such trivial questions, “I remember you saying something about doing the right thing.”
And Jimmy, who was fed up with being good — i.e., something he was not and someone his brother, Chuck, wanted him to be — said, “Well, I know what stopped me. And it’s never stopping me again!”
We then see Jimmy driving into the distance in his beat-up shitcan of a car, humming “Smoke On the Water.”
DUM. Dum dum dum DUM DUM. DUM. Dum dum dum DUM DUM.
His gaze is stuck forward, his fingers are tapping the steering wheel, and we feel he is finally determined to make…
