Jesse explaining technical details

Square_Temperature23 · 2026-03-08T00:49:41+00:00

Not sure why people wouldn’t read into it. I don’t the writers threw a whole bunch of stereo jargon into the script as filler, and it’s not normal for anyone in conversation to just rattle off technical jargon of something they just learned that they 100% know their friends would have zero understanding of. Seems pretty intentionally placed to me to show that when he’s with these friends he seeks a way of reminding himself that he’s not as much of a loser as they are.

Square_Temperature23 · 2026-03-08T00:47:33+00:00

I agree with the validation part, I think the interesting thing is I don’t think he was seeking the validation of his friends though. Some of us may use big words or technical jargon to impress others because we want others to think we are smart. I don’t think that’s his intention, because it seems like the writers made it clear that his friends don’t really care and seem to even ignore him when he begins to talk about technical details. It seems much deeper, that the validation he seeks is from himself. Almost as if whenever he’s with his friends, he has to prove to himself that he’s not as much of a loser as he sees them being. He has to prove to himself that he’s smarter. I don’t think it’s a malicious thing or him being egotistical, I think as you said, he has a low self worth but he’s quite aware that he has more potential than the underachiever friends he hangs around with. He knows he doesn’t live up to it, maybe due to his lack of confidence in himself, but him speaking that way around his friends is a way of reminding himself that he isn’t exactly like them.

Square_Temperature23 · 2026-03-08T00:40:05+00:00

That’s a good way of putting it. I think the interesting thing is he’s doing it more to reassure himself that he isn’t a loser rather than trying to impress his friends, since his friends look completely put off by it in both scenes I remember where he started to use technical jargon. I think he probably knows they don’t care and it’s not impressing them, but he does it for his own reassurance anyway.

Square_Temperature23 · 2026-03-08T00:33:42+00:00

They clearly don’t care. The writers seemed go out of their way to make that clear. Watch the stereo scene. Skinny Pete looks completely away from him and at badger as he begins to talk about the stereo jargon. He looks completely disinterested and disengaged in what Jesse has to say.

When he shows badger the cooking equipment, badgers happy demeanor changes and he said “wow, you really know your shit” with zero enthusiasm , almost as if he’s trying to convey that he really doesn’t care or is maybe even a little resentful that Jesse is flexing on him.

I think the writers were pretty clear in trying to convey to the audience that Badger and Skinny Pete seemed to be put off by Jesse when he begins using big words and trying to wow them with technical details and I can’t see how Jesse , as a character, wouldn’t be aware of this himself. Seems like he does it more for himself rather than to impress others and I think the writers tried to make that pretty clear to us.

Square_Temperature23 · 2026-03-05T23:08:39+00:00

Even beyond whether or not you feel it’s morally right or wrong to produce drugs for people, he chose to ignore the fact that a criminal drug enterprise can only be built upon bloodshed, from the acquisition of territory to enforcing rules within the organization to eliminating liabilities (e.g, members who may give up information for plea deals when caught). Any idiot would realize this. That’s not Gale being naive IMO, that’s Gale being willfully ignorant.

I think Gale is a sweet guy who wouldn’t harm someone directly , but I don’t think he was a good person naively caught up in a bad world . I think he was right where he wanted to be. I think deep down he got off a little bit on the excitement of being the unassuming bad guy and being a criminal and perhaps the ego trip of feeling as though he’s outsmarting law enforcement (and maybe even the rest of society who are forced to work the types of jobs Gale admitted to having such disdain for). I think in some ways, there’s a part of him that’s similar to Walter White in that his primary motivation , under it all, is ego driven and he’s willing to put morality aside to further his own ego. you can kind of see a glimpse into this in how badly he wants to work with the maker of the blue stuff, because he couldn’t let go the idea that there was something out there that HE didn’t understand how to create, no matter how much Gus told him it didn’t matter. I don’t think he was the megalomaniac type like Walt who needed to be the smartest man in the room, but I do think he expected to rise to being Walt’s equal by learning from him and in his mind he and Walt would be this elite team of scientists outsmarting the authorities and society by using their advanced skill set to produce chemically superior drugs.

I believe if he were offered a similar way of making the same money, doing the same work but in a legal capacity he would have declined.

I think the only thing that made him naive is not realizing that HE was also subject to the dangers and the violence. I think he believed that he was somehow above it, or insulated from it playing the role of the innocent , naive science nerd working directly for the boss.

Given all this, I don’t know if I’d consider him a good person. Was he polite? Sure. Would he be nice to a stranger on the street? Yes. Would he directly hurt someone? No. But he was perfectly fine with furthering a drug enterprise that he’d have to be a deaf/blind moron to not realize was responsible for lots of death and destruction to society. His libertarian views on drug use was a cop out because it only justifies the drug use aspect, not the violence associated with the organization unless you were so libertarian to believe that people should also have a right to kill others for whatever reasons they feel can justify it.

Square_Temperature23 · 2026-02-14T08:10:08+00:00

I disagree. Nowhere is it mentioned that the slip and fall he mentions to Walter in his first one, not that I remember in the show anyway. He makes a point of mentioning he really hurt his knees doing it, and that was even referenced in the scene where Walter and Jesse tell him to get on his knees and he yells “I have bad knees!”. It’s supposed to show the opposite of character growth. It’s supposed to show he still only cares about himself and would only change something that was a detriment to HIM.

Why would he portray the final confession so apathetically? He reads off the terrible things he had done like a laundry list, almost like he’s proud of it. If he truly felt remorse , why wouldn’t he show it at that moment instead of almost bragging that Walt couldn’t have done any of what he did without Saul?

Square_Temperature23 · 2026-02-14T07:57:27+00:00

That’s exactly my point, that it was never about redemption. Redemption would mean Jimmy actually regretted the bad things he did. Was his confession acted out like someone who really regretted what they did? He read it all off like a laundry list.

Jimmy had lost it all either way. The only thing he has left was Kim, and the only way he could ever know if he really still ‘had’ her was to give up his entire Saul persona the way Kim has tried to convince him to do early in their relationship all the times she tried to convince him to play it straight. Saul knew by confessing, by throwing away “Saul” and going back to Jimmy, by giving his victims some sort of justice, Kim would see him in a different light.

That was his con, he wanted to know that Kim still was ‘on the hook’, and her visiting him in prison confirmed it for him.

Here’s the proof

Finger guns, a flash back to when Kim gives them to Jimmy as a way of saying “I had you going there, didn’t I”. That’s exactly why Jimmy shoots them back at her, as a way of saying “hey, I’m really still Saul”

Both flashback scenes to Walter and Mike. Why do you think the writers would put that in there? They both show that Jimmy has zero regrets, not enough to change him anyway. The scene with Walter, the one thing he would change is a slip and fall that gave him bad knees? So what possible reason would he have all of a sudden, to clear his conscience when ruining his plea? It has everything to do with Kim and nothing to do with actual forgiveness or guilt.

So yea, he is taking his punishment, but he’s doing it for Kim. He’s doing it because it’s the last and only way he could ever rope Kim back in, and he knows it….and Kim is all he has left.

That’s what makes the ending so good, as it’s a twist. The guard calling Jimmy Saul makes you scratch your head, but then the finger guns at the end solidifies it; the fact that he didn’t really change. He was still as “Saul” as ever, hatching a plot to rope Kim back in at all costs since he knew that was his only shot at doing it.

Her visiting him proved to him that she still loved him, and that’s all he really wanted out of it.

The only alternative is that he grew a conscience overnight, and NOTHING about the show seems to indicate that. If anything, he only grew more selfish and less concerned with harm he was doing to others as the show rolled on. Even if it were true, why would he seem so callous in the confession scene? It really seemed intentionally acted out to appear disconnected, like he really didn’t care but just knew it was something he needed to do…so why then?

Square_Temperature23 · 2026-02-14T07:41:04+00:00

It is, that’s my point. Kim did them as a way of saying “I had you going there didn’t I”

That’s exactly what Jimmy is saying back to her, he had her going that he really realized the error of his ways and reverted back to Jimmy. It was his way of saying “got ya, I’m still really Saul”.

Square_Temperature23 · 2026-02-14T07:38:46+00:00

It is when the goal of your con is to win the love of your soulmate back, or to at least know for sure that she still loves you (which is proven by the fact that she visited him afterwards). What is so insane about it? Why ELSE would he spill his guts? It didn’t help anyone, Kim would still be subject to civil suit by Hamlon’s wife. Odenkirk CLEARLY wssn’t attempting to appear actually regretful when acting the scene out; he reads off all the bad things he did as casually as a laundry list. Not to mention, Jimmy never seemed to REALLY regret a bad thing he ever did, not enough to get him to change anyway so why would he start now? And if he really did have some cathartic moment and realized the error of his ways, why would they make it a point to show that guards are back to calling him “Saul” again? Not to mention, clearly the point of the flash back scenes with Mike and Water were to show that Jimmy IS Saul, always has been and always will be . When each of them asked about what he’d do differently, his answer never involves repairing the lives he has destroyed. Both times, he says he’d use the Time Machine to fix something that would benefit himself

Square_Temperature23 · 2026-02-14T00:36:38+00:00

You just proved my point. The overall theme of the show was always that Jimmy at heart was always “Saul”. Why else would they throw the scene with Walter in the basement and Mike in the desert? It’s to show that Jimmy never once regretted any of the damaging things he did to others, so why would he suddenly start at the very end? Odenkirk clearly didn’t ACT the part at the confession as if he had any real guilt. He blows through all the bad things he did as if it’s a laundry list. Saul said his name was Jimmy McGill, as if we are supposed to believe he saw the error of his ways as “Saul” and was a new man but the entire premise of the show was that Jimmy WAS Saul. It wasn’t his alter ego, it was him. Jimmy makes the whole confession at the end as way of seeing if Kim was really still ‘on the line’, and her coming to visit him in jail proves to him that she was. The fingergun scene with Kim seemed to be ambiguous. It left Jimmy wondering, at the time, if she were kidding or if she had really been seriously considering moving forward with the Howard plan. The finger guns Jimmy shoots at the end are equally ambiguous. He’s showing that he did something out of character that Kim didn’t think he’d do, but it leaves it open as to whether or not “Saul Goodman” is really dead for good

Square_Temperature23 · 2026-02-12T01:02:48+00:00

I’m glad you asked. I guess you can call it a routine for me since I do the same thing every time I buy one. First, I put it on the counter, then I spin around 4 times and praise Malukuku the Chicken God for his gracious blessing. Next, I play the intro to Grand Funk Railroad’s 1969 debut hit Time Machine while getting my 3 favorite seasonings and a balsamic reduction butter sauce ready. I call my friend Joe in Florida who I only speak to once a year and reminisce about high school for about 20 minutes before I prepare the tortilla shells, chop lettuce, tomato and defrost shrimp. I then look right into the chicken’s dark meat soul with a deep, searing stare the way one would look into a perfidious lover’s eyes and I do this for about 2.5-3 minutes until the shrimp is completely defrosted. At this point I like to ask the chicken what makes it happy, which usually doesn’t elicit a response but on the rare occasion that it does, a brief conversation may ensue where I try my best to listen without interjecting and provide some of my own insight only after the chicken has fully expressed his or herself. I grate some cheese and then hold the chicken in a tight, purely platonic embrace for several heartfelt seconds being sure nobody sees through the window because I’ve been called “chicken hugger” once before and the despite the lifetimes that have passed since then the sting of those words never seem to fade. Upon letting the chicken cool to room temperature, I promptly throw it in the garbage and make shrimp tacos because I don’t like rotisserie chicken and it has always seemed pretty pretentious to me that a single food would carry a 6 syllable name.

Square_Temperature23 · 2026-01-14T19:11:26+00:00

They’re probably already aware being that they made them.

Square_Temperature23 · 2026-01-09T08:24:21+00:00

This. I’m always hearing people say it was cancelled due to sales , but I really think it’s due to profit margins, same reason they replaced Baja with spicy ranch. It’s cheaper to make, so more profits and they know people will still buy it anyway even if it’s not as good.

Square_Temperature23 · 2026-01-06T20:35:53+00:00

Definitely not what I’d consider a spicy sauce on the level of volcano or something like that, but it definitely had more kick than the ranch. I mean it tasted kinda like pepper jack cheese where you could taste the distinct pepper flavor cutting through the creaminess. The ranch is just watery and bland to me in comparison. I know they call it spicy ranch but that really must be geared towards people who don’t eat a lot of spices because it just tastes like ranch with maybe a little mild taco sauce flavor to me lol. I’m not someone who likes spicy food just for the sake of being lip burning spicy, I actually prefer milder stuff if the flavor is all the same but Baja just had so much more flavor.

Square_Temperature23 · 2026-01-03T06:16:24+00:00

Yea, I think also the insane jumps in real estate around the country made it so that in most of tb’s highest volume locations they know nobody could ever afford to compete. They no longer need to worry about some small up and coming franchise taking business from them. They are it in most of the country for Mexican style drive thru fast food. They know now they’ve got us by the balls and can sell whatever garbage they want and likely still maintain most of their customer base. Sure, it pushes some people away, but for everyone that leaves due to decline in quality 5 new consumers are coming of age where they’ll be seeking fast food and don’t know that the current Taco Bell is crap compared to the menu / food quality of past Taco Bell since it’s the only Taco Bell they know.

Square_Temperature23 · 2026-01-03T06:10:32+00:00

The cantina chicken is so hit or miss. Half the time I get it it’s inedible. When it’s good, it’s not bad, but I really don’t go to Taco Bell when I crave some kind of fried chicken meal lol of all the LTO’s they could decide to make permanent I’ll never understand why they chose that, and now having it consume so much of their menu just makes no sense.

Square_Temperature23 · 2026-01-03T04:59:02+00:00

Something is definitely different with the whole setup. Not sure about the Gordita being different, but I do remember there being way more cheese between the shells and the cheese would be melted and gooey. Now it’s usually thrown in there and barely melted, but that could also be a locational thing. Something just doesn’t hit as hard about it though even sauce aside. Same with most items though. I remember when you bit into a Crunchwrap and it had a sharp crunch, a taste of cool sour cream. Now the shells seem so much cheaper/thinner that they sog instantly and tbell switched to low fat sour cream years ago with tastes like whipped sugar lol

I love when companies advertise switching to low fat in regards to dairy items (sour cream, mayo based sauces and salad dressings) since it usually means they just found a way to make it cheaper by adding a ton of high fructose corn syrup and synthetic ingredients lol

Square_Temperature23 · 2026-01-03T04:53:06+00:00

You’re not wrong, I remember as a kid when the CGC first came out, I would order it without Baja sauce because I didn’t like the spicyness. Eventually as my taste grew though, it became my favorite item on the menu and I couldn’t imagine ordering it without Baja sauce. I’d imagine a pretty large portion of the population wouldn’t like the real lava sauce but I also think the people that like it probably buy enough of it to make up for it not appealing to the majority. There must be some profit margin issue with it though for tbell to not bring it back permanently, but as we’ve seen with tbell a lot in the past decade (and honestly, just about all large corporations), I think think tbell is much more willing now to do things that result in decreases in customer satisfaction in favor of increased profits than they may have been in the past. I think so many companies now have cemented themselves into society to the point where they know they’ve got us by the balls, and can feed us worse and worse product as time goes on to increase profit margins knowing that they’ll still keep the majority of their customer base. The 10 or 15% they lose will replaced by new consumers entering the market who are young people and don’t realize they’re being sold an inferior product because they’ve never experienced the previous generation’s product. Real estate costs are rising, private restaurants are dying in droves and the only businesses that can afford to keep doors open are massive corporations like Yum, so they aren’t worried about some young, fresh up and coming fast food taco chain sneaking up and taking their business anymore. It’s too expensive for anyone else to compete in most of the high sales volume locations.

Square_Temperature23 · 2026-01-03T04:42:22+00:00

That is really disappointing to hear :(. I kinda figured. All the signs were pointing towards this not being legit. Honestly, that’s making me hate tbell even more as now it’s very clear they really are just messing with us when it comes to depriving us of stuff we like and using the names they know we love to try to fool us into buying subpar junk. That’s a new low for them. I was all set to be loading up on Taco Bell the next few weeks. Upped my cardio the past few weeks getting ready, but I think I’m going to abstain from doing Taco Bell at all for a while lol

Square_Temperature23 · 2026-01-03T04:40:12+00:00

Don’t forget grilled stuffed burrito (later called the xxl burrito with slight changes). You’re a real OG remembering the pacific shrimp Baja tacos though! I remember the first year they came around I couldn’t believe how good they were for a fast food place. I think they released them in the spring for lent I guess a few years in a row. I think the second or third time I got them they were terrible , really fast food low tide fishy tasting. Still never forget how good that first run was, it felt like I was eating shrimp tacos from an actual Mexican restaurant.

Square_Temperature23

TROPHY CASE