One of the most memorable scenes from Better Call Saul is Chuck McGill’s breakdown during his bar association hearing. Even those who aren’t familiar with Saul Goodman’s origin series or Breaking Bad know this famous scene. Chuck’s unbroken rant has since become a beloved meme and one of the franchise’s most quoted moments.
However, there’s just one thing about Chuck’s speech that bugs even Better Call Saul’s biggest fans. Near the scene’s end, Chuck says that his brother, Jimmy McGill (later Saul Goodman), was “stealing” from their parents’ blind when they were younger. This odd phrasing may sound like a mistake, but it’s anything but. In fact, Chuck’s apparent flub is one of Better Call Saul’s smartest bits of characterization.
Chuck McGill Accurately Described Jimmy McGill During His Rant in “Chicanery”
People use the idiom “robbing them blind” to describe a master thief or trickster whose victims didn’t even realize they’d been robbed. But in the Better Call Saul episode “Chicanery” (Season 3, Episode 5), Chuck says “stealing them blind” when he tried (but ultimately failed) to warn people that Jimmy was an untrustworthy person the bar shouldn’t even acknowledge.
Chuck McGill says, “You think this is something – you think this is bad? This, this chicanery? He’s done worse. That billboard. Are you telling me a man just happens to fall like that? No, he orchestrated it! Jimmy! He defecated through a sunroof, and I saved him! I shouldn’t have, I took him into my own firm! What was I thinking? He’ll never change. He’ll never change! Ever since he was nine, always the same. Couldn’t keep his hands out of the cash drawer. ‘But not our Jimmy, couldn’t be precious Jimmy!’ Stealing them blind! And he gets to be a lawyer? What a sick joke! I should have stopped him when I had the chance. And you — you have to stop him…”
To pretty much anyone, Chuck didn’t say anything wrong about Jimmy McGill since “robbing” and “stealing” are practically synonyms. Both describe the act of illegally taking someone else’s property for oneself. At worst, Chuck’s wording just sounded off. But in the eyes of the law, the two words actually describe two very different circumstances.
Legally speaking, “robbing” refers to taking someone’s property by force and violence. “Stealing,” on the other hand, refers to taking someone’s property without their permission or knowledge. This is why stealing (or “theft”) often results in a light prison sentence, while those convicted of robbery get a heavier punishment.
As rude and condescending as he was to his younger brother, Chuck accurately and fairly described Jimmy by accusing him of “stealing [their parents] blind” rather than “robbing them blind.” This was because, from a legal standpoint, Jimmy never robbed anyone. As the con artist Slipping Jimmy, the criminal lawyer Saul Goodman, and finally the Cinnabon manager Gene Takavic, Jimmy never intentionally used violence.
Either he was too squeamish at the sight of blood, or he was shrewd enough not to get himself directly involved in something illegal. If Jimmy needed someone roughed up, he simply hired someone like Mike Ehrmantraut or Huell Babineaux to do it for him.
Instead, Jimmy abused the legal system’s loopholes and verbally wormed his way around his marks to steal their money or get whatever it was he needed. To Jimmy, this was the best way he could use his previous experience as a con artist and his mastery of the law. Jimmy stole so much this way that he amassed a vast fortune and evaded any legal repercussions for years, but he also earned everyone’s disgust and ire by the series’ end.
As another standout Better Call Saul character, Bill Oakley, coldly told Jimmy in “Hit and Run” (Season 6, Episode 4), “I understand advocating for your client. Deep in my heart, I get it. But you scammed the court. You scammed the judge, and for what? To get a murdering cartel psychopath back out on the street? It’s just… wrong.”
Chuck McGill’s Words Highlight That He’s a Great Lawyer and a Terrible Person
Given how Better Call Saul is a legal drama, it goes without saying that spoken and written words are integral. In the legal profession, lawyers have to carefully and precisely choose the words they use. The wrong term or a vague definition can and will break even the most well-prepared cases.
No one knows this better than Chuck, especially since he takes great pride in being one of the most accomplished lawyers in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Chuck even saw himself as a noble protector of the law.
It was perfectly in-character for a lawyer as dedicated to the letter of the law as Chuck to not mix up “stealing” with “robbing.” It also spoke to Chuck’s expertise that, even in the heat of a highly emotional and irrational rant, he didn’t confuse one crime with the other. Knowing Chuck, he probably wouldn’t have forgiven himself if he ever mixed up theft with robbery, even when he was under so much stress.
But, more importantly, Chuck’s very specific choice of words in this Better Call Saul episode and the way he said them perfectly reflected his personality and his near-total lack of humanity.
Chuck was such a near-perfect lawyer that he saw everyone around him only as a witness, a suspect, or a pawn to lecture and boss. He never missed a chance to show off his knowledge and throw his weight around. Case in point, his bar hearing in “Chicanery.” He also believed that there were only those who obeyed the law and those who broke it. There was no in-between.
Chuck’s superiority complex and fealty to the letter of the law rather than its spirit ensured that he never showed an ounce of pity or compassion towards any lawbreaker, regardless of how big or small their offense was. This was why he was so remorseless towards Jimmy, and why he wanted to be as precise as legally possible when he tried to ruin him in court.
Chuck McGill Is Right About Jimmy McGill, But Only Because He Made It Happen
According to Chuck, he hates Jimmy because he was a born criminal. For reasons that elude Chuck, Jimmy McGill has always been a thief and a con artist. This was why Chuck likened Jimmy becoming a lawyer to “… a chimp with a machine gun.” Nothing solidified Chuck’s simplistic worldview and contempt for his brother more than Jimmy’s return to crime even after Chuck so graciously got him out of prison when they were younger. Since Jimmy was the series’s star, it seemed as if Chuck was going to be proven wrong at some point.
However, the ultimate tragedy of Better Call Saul was that Chuck was actually right about Jimmy, but only because he created a self-fulfilling prophecy. Chuck never let Jimmy turn his life around because he believed that Jimmy was incapable of doing so. To the law-abiding Chuck, Jimmy was forever his idiotic baby brother and a lawbreaking delinquent.
It was Chuck’s self-imposed duty to keep the law sacred by keeping Jimmy away from it. This was why, in his final court appearance before his suicide, Chuck still tried to bring Jimmy down by using the right legal language rather than resorting to easy expletives and insults. What’s more, Chuck went out of his way to sabotage Jimmy and turn his friends against him.
In a way, Chuck was the better con artist and liar of the McGill brothers. None of this justifies Jimmy’s own acts of subterfuge and criminality, but Chuck’s actions recontextualize them.
Now, it’s hard not to see everything illegal that Jimmy did as a form of retaliation against Chuck’s cruelty, hypocrisy, and, finally, his memory. Saul’s entire persona could be seen as a final insult against Chuck, since Saul was a mockery of the kinds of people who were expected to uphold the law and use it for justice.
Had Chuck reined his ego in for a bit and given Jimmy a fair chance, none of the ensuing tragedies in Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad would’ve ever happened. Jimmy gave Chuck more chances than he ever deserved, only to be insulted and demeaned at every turn. All anyone associated with the “McGill” name was the sleazy and corrupt lawyer who aided the drug cartels and the kingpin Heisenberg, instead of the upstanding officer of the court Chuck envisioned himself to be.
- Release Date
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2015 – 2022-00-00
- Showrunner
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Peter Gould
- Directors
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Vince Gilligan, Thomas Schnauz, Peter Gould, Michael Morris, Adam Bernstein, Colin Bucksey, John Shiban, Michelle MacLaren, Daniel Sackheim, Jim McKay, Minkie Spiro, Terry McDonough, Larysa Kondracki, Melissa Bernstein, Gordon Smith, Andrew Stanton, Bronwen Hughes, Giancarlo Esposito, Keith Gordon, Michael Slovis, Nicole Kassell, Norberto Barba, Rhea Seehorn, Scott Winant
- Writers
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Ann Cherkis, Marion Dayre, Ariel Levine, Jonathan Glatzer
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Bob Odenkirk
Jimmy McGill
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Jonathan Banks
Mike Ehrmantraut
