How Jimmy McGill Manipulated Everyone (Better Call Saul)

This video essay analyzes Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman's psychological strategies to manipulate characters in Better Call Saul. Better Call Saul was written by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould and is owned by Sony Pictures Television. This video explores persuasion tactics, sales techniques and breaks down every step of Jimmy's scams throughout the series.

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Music Used:
Woodshedder by Quincas Moreira
Habanera by Bizet
High Noon by Tracktribe
Blue Dream by Cheel
Cancun by Topher Mohr and Alex Elena
Strut Funk by Dougie Wood
The Truth by Anno Domini Beats
The Loner by DJ Williams
Cumbia City by An Jone
&
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
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Timestamps:
0:00 Jimmy the Manipulator
1:18 First Impressions
3:36 Forming a Connection
6:40 Persuasion
9:19 Advertising
11:18 Distracting Cards
14:26 The Scams
22:20 Sabotage

#bettercallsaul #jimmymcgill #saulgoodman

[AtulSingh-kbxd]

More than anyone else, he manipulated himself into believing his own lies that ultimately resulted in his downfall

[darrinsmith]

He once convinced someone that he was Kevin Costner.

[nont]

Mike is the only one who never got scammed or corrupted by Jimmy.

[JacobC]

He eventually manipulated himself into believing he didn’t care about any of the things that happened to/hurt him (Kim/Chuck/Howard, etc.)

[kjetilhansen]

Part of Jimmy McGill's tragedy is the waste of potential. Imagine what great things he could have accomplished with those people skills if his motives hadn't been so self-centered, if he instead had used his talents to inspire people.

[twitch.]

What I love so much about Vince Gilligan’s stories is his dedication to upholding the permanence of his characters’ actions. There is no going back, nobody comes back to life, no one goes back to normal. Walter and Jimmy ruin people’s lives and there is no redemption for them, just acceptance. Damn great storytelling.

[jamorant]

I feel like if jimmy looked up to Howard instead of Chuck he would have turned out differently

[ragingsilence]

Vince Gilligan sure knows how to weave it all together. Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad are both so brilliant that everything else has fallen short by comparison. Thank you for the video. Great job.

[petermj]

Jimmy is arguably a better manipulator than Walter. Walter literally sought ideas and advice for Jimmy for ideas how to better protect his criminal activity. And Jimmy is the one who brought up the idea for Walter to use Hector to kill Gus.

[artbykoa]

Jimmy's Redemption: So brilliant how even in the end, he conned his jail sentence down, but because of Kim, he finally took responsibility and voluntarily remained in jail. Beautifully tragic, tear-jerker ending to a phenomenal series.

[blakebakedacake]

to be honest, its hard to even get upset at jimmy for a lot of his simpler monetary scams because most are against entitled well off assholes, id do the same thing if i had the confidence and skills. if he didnt continuously spiral out of control id respect the grind

[CosmicPhilosopher]

The writing and acting on this show was just off the charts spectacular. It's criminal that it so few of the awards it was nominated for.

[ole]

I swear to God I thought there was gonna be a SquareSpace ad in the beginning when you talked about how brands represent themselves

[ladymilliejean]

babe wake up, new Just an Observation BB/BCS analysis just dropped

[nont]

Howard tried to help him get into a well-respected law firm TWICE and Jimmy blew those chances both times.

Jimmy realized too late that he just couldn’t blame every bad thing that happened to him on Chuck. He had to hold himself accountable for his own failures as well.

[nocoture]

Damn even after he nearly killed marion i still felt kinda bad for him

[sarajevo_]

Gotta say man, your videos are well-written and concise. Thanks for uploading good content 👍🏼

[redgrizzly]

On a sidenote, his British accent and all his "characters" in general always gave me a chuckle. His Louisiana twang was just so over the top I half expected the DA to catch it and ruin the scheme. If Jimmy had just used his unique gift and talents for something more constructive, a career in media advertising perhaps, I feel like he could've been really successful. As he said in Breaking Bad he's a humanities guy. He's creative, witty, eloquent, and as much as Chuck refuses to acknowledge it, very intelligent. Being a criminal lawyer is Jimmy's bad ending. Maybe working in media as an artist/producer/writer/what have you could have been his good ending. We see that he clearly has the talent for it. Such a great character. Such a bittersweet, tragic end.

[no_one_of_that_name_here]

I've got nothing to comment except; great video! May the algorithm bless you

[amado]

One thing that is great about this show is, we, the audience, tend to take the side of the scammers (Jimmy and Marco, for instance), because we can relate to being conned by salesmen and stock brokers, which are some of Jimmy's targets. All the while, we, the audience, are the ones also being manipulated. That's one of the joys of this show, in my opinion. It causes the audience to reflect on themselves.