The first thing I said upon learning their name, out loud, was “wait can I switch sides”

Yep. Better call Saul understands the central question of “what is a criminal? What is a bad person? Are they the same thing?” And explores it better in single episodes than breaking bad does in its entire runtime I loved the guy who steals pills to sell to Nacho. Felt like a parody of breaking bad

The punisher is actually pretty rad when he’s a meditation on the cycle of violence, the futility of revenge, and the lack of closure it brings It’s only when people think he’s just a badass who kills criminals the cops can’t because of red tape that he’s the shittiest character in marvel canon

Hah I was already typing out basically the same sentiment

When bad things happen to Walt it’s like hearing your shitty family member got their car impounded, again, because they keep parking it illegally Whereas Saul is like a kid who’s trying his best to hang out with a better crowd but keeps slipping up and getting busted smoking weed or tagging

As much as I enjoyed breaking bad I have to agree Jimmy/Saul is a better person and a more interesting character than Walter and so I feel like the end of his arc was just more interesting They’re both flawed guys who keep digging their own graves but Saul is about 1000x more sympathetic

The message that people who do awful things and are part of awful systems are people first is an important one both for combating the impulse to dehumanize the other and for achieving a proper understanding of how things get to the point where people can do and accept these systemic crimes

In real life people like that can do real harm, and I think a valid criticism of the film would be that it pulls the punch on what that ignorance can really do in real life and focuses on the humanity of people who do and believe awful things Not an awful theme, but borders uncomfortably on apologia

Like, we see that Forrest himself is not racist- he’s doesn’t have a personal reason to be and doesn’t have the facilities to be convinced He did grow up in a place steeped in racism and did his best to be a good person with what he had in a complex society with a complex history he doesn’t grasp

What is being conveyed by that choice? In the novel it might be as clear as you say, I have not read it but I think I provided a valid reading of the place his namesake takes up in the film narrator’s mind-he doesn’t understand the names relevance any more than the rest of the events he experienced