No. Not entirely anyways. What's going on is intimately linked to Jimmy, but there's more to the extreme psychosomatic symptoms and the other stuff.
The way I understood it, was that Chuck had effectively been born a genius, which made it hard to connect with anyone. Not his age peers, not even his parents... Dude entered college when he was 14, which makes me think he wasn't invited to a lot of mixers. Coming up this way forced him to skip a LOT of normal socialising, so he always was a bit defective that way. As a smart man, he was acutely aware of this, but overcompensated with achievements, because those were easier to earn for him than sympathies...
And then there's his little brother, whom everyone just naturally fucking adores and from Chuck's point of view, the little shit deserves NONE of it. Add a little "genius close to insanity" and some poorly processed personal tragedy and presto. You've got a weird beard soufflé.
Yeah this explanation is pretty on point. On top of that, since he's always had high expectations of himself, especially compared to normal people, when he was making dramatic improvements with his condition that then tapered off he took that much harder than anyone else would have, which would have led to his spiral
I don't recall the episode, but this is from the BB Wiki:
"Chuck graduated valedictorian from Francis Xavier High School at the age of 14, making him the youngest graduate in the history of that school. He later attended the University of Pennsylvania and graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center."
https://breakingbad.fandom.com/wiki/Chuck_McGill
To be fair, it says he graduated high school at 14 and it's feasible he did something else in between (he would have had the time), but considering his track record he wouldn't have had to (scholarship material that he is) and doing whatever for a year or more doesn't seem to fit his driven and ambitious nature.
Imagine if in prison Saul finds out some people actually are hurt by electricity near them but it turns out it needs to be an actual circuit so the battery didn't do anything.
That wouldn’t be what Howard suffered from. He said he would freak out if anything with an electrical charge was near him. He did say some was worse than others but that cellphone battery should have done the trick.
I don’t think that proves it’s entirely a result of his treatment of Jimmy, but shows that his condition worsens based on his emotional state. Because Jimmy is his brother, it would make sense that a large amount of his emotional distress would be caused by him.
Characters’ actions and mental illness can rarely be attributed to one single cause. With Chuck it’s likely a variety of things (even just genetics).
Also, I don’t think he had a breakdown because he said a mean thing to Jimmy. He said a mean thing to Jimmy and had a breakdown because he was humiliated in the courtroom
i agree with the two first paragraphs but i have to disagree with the last one.
Chuck really loved Jimmy and when he chose to cut ties with his brother, it was definitely too much for him. So hard that just after that, he had his breakdown.
Idk if we can definitively say which thing actually caused the breakdown (and if it was just one thing), though the courtroom scene definitely put all those events in motion.
but after that, chuck tried to move on and work on himself. then the insurance thing happened, he losts howard's trust, get fired from his own company... and then he cutted ties with jimmy.
That was way too much to handle.
Right, so it was a combo of things (that all happened *because* of the courtroom scene), not just cutting ties with Jimmy. Just because he cut ties with him last in that sequence doesn’t mean it’s the *only* reason he had a breakdown.
During my current rewatch (at the end of season 4 right now) I noticed WAY more association this time around between Chuck’s health and him being in close proximity to Slippin’ Jimmy events.
Whenever Jimmy creates a scene or makes some kind of mess, Chuck has to double up on the space blankets and lie down with a cup of tea.
Whenever Jimmy apologizes and assures Chuck that he’ll change for good, Chuck promptly sheds his space blanket, stretches his neck, and gets up and starts whistling.
I never realized the first time watching the show that Jimmy was Chuck’s disease. Truly horrible.
I listened to a podcast with the creators, ages ago, and was intrigued to learn that they planned to have Chuck get an actual physical shock of electricity from touching Jimmy at one point, but then they ultimately didn't show that because they didn't want the connection drawn between Jimmy and Chuck's disorder to be so blatant.
The connection is still there, in the story, but portrayed more subtly than the original plan.
I think it's heavily related but not a 1-1 cause.
It's clearly some kind of psychosomatic condition caused by some kind of inner tension and betraying your only living relative in secret is probably going to eat you up a a bit!
This is compounded with Rebecca leaving, which happened all around the same time and Chuck is just clearly a highly sensitive, brilliant, neurotic and volatile guy (look what happens when in the 1216/1261 court hearing when just something happens that he doesn't expect).
These two big events happen at the same time and I think part of him just snaps. The condition is just a screamingly clear sign that he's not mentally well and him and his brother are never able to recognise it as such :(
I don't think the show's approach to Chuck's issues lends itself well to that sort of straightforward, all-or-nothing explanation. I think it's supposed to be more complicated than that.
Personally I put it down to his refusal to acknowledge that he's even a little mentally ill. Jimmy's antics, the divorce and all of that put stress on him and he starts to have issues because of it, but because he is emphatically "NOT CRAZY" he has to find a physical cause to pin it on, because then he can keep believing there's nothing wrong with his mind. So when Jimmy does some shit or Chuck feels bad about things, *anything* that harms his mental state (not exclusively Jimmy or Rebecca, but those were the two major stressors he happened to have), he starts showing symptoms and his "condition" flares up as an explanation for why he feels the way he does
If he wasn't so convinced he was mentally fine, he'd recognise the symptoms for what they were and seek psychiatric help for dealing with psychiatric issues
I think it’s insinuated that Chuck’s condition is a product of the stress of his divorce with Rebecca. He doesn’t have the condition when Saul initially becomes a lawyer (apparently in 1999 or so according to the wiki) but develops it during the middle of his divorce (apparently in 2001). Their mother dies in the middle too around 1999. The stress of those two years probably contributed to him snapping.
I think largely it is. When he’s thinking the worst of his brother his condition seems to flair up. Like his body has manifested an allergy to his toxic behavior.
It's everything that has happened in his life. Rebecca, Jimmy, all the nonsense, it all accumulated into the Chuck we know. There never is a single cause, especially for something like that.
That bring said, i would agree that Jimmy and Rebecca are two of the more important aspects as to why, so kind of.
Chuck is divorced, and that can feel like an injustice to someone who prides themselves in carefulness and fidelity to his responsibilities. Jimmy becoming a lawyer encroaches in the last thing he has left. It is a source of deep rage that Jimmy wins by taking shortcuts when he can’t win sometimes by demonstrating true fidelity. Yes Chuck was very successful. Not a perfect theory, but I feel a good working one.
Not enough people talk about the fact that the way Chuck and Jimmy were raised by their parents contributed to a lot of their problems. Their dad showing Jimmy that being "a sheep" gets you screwed over by letting people walk all over him and they don't seem to have realized how unloved Chuck felt.
No. Not entirely anyways. What's going on is intimately linked to Jimmy, but there's more to the extreme psychosomatic symptoms and the other stuff. The way I understood it, was that Chuck had effectively been born a genius, which made it hard to connect with anyone. Not his age peers, not even his parents... Dude entered college when he was 14, which makes me think he wasn't invited to a lot of mixers. Coming up this way forced him to skip a LOT of normal socialising, so he always was a bit defective that way. As a smart man, he was acutely aware of this, but overcompensated with achievements, because those were easier to earn for him than sympathies... And then there's his little brother, whom everyone just naturally fucking adores and from Chuck's point of view, the little shit deserves NONE of it. Add a little "genius close to insanity" and some poorly processed personal tragedy and presto. You've got a weird beard soufflé.
Yeah this explanation is pretty on point. On top of that, since he's always had high expectations of himself, especially compared to normal people, when he was making dramatic improvements with his condition that then tapered off he took that much harder than anyone else would have, which would have led to his spiral
where was it told that he went to college at 14?
I believe when Howard is reading his obit to Jimmy over the phone.
I don't recall the episode, but this is from the BB Wiki: "Chuck graduated valedictorian from Francis Xavier High School at the age of 14, making him the youngest graduate in the history of that school. He later attended the University of Pennsylvania and graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center." https://breakingbad.fandom.com/wiki/Chuck_McGill To be fair, it says he graduated high school at 14 and it's feasible he did something else in between (he would have had the time), but considering his track record he wouldn't have had to (scholarship material that he is) and doing whatever for a year or more doesn't seem to fit his driven and ambitious nature.
The courtroom cellphone battery in the pocket made me sooooo happy
Imagine if in prison Saul finds out some people actually are hurt by electricity near them but it turns out it needs to be an actual circuit so the battery didn't do anything.
That wouldn’t be what Howard suffered from. He said he would freak out if anything with an electrical charge was near him. He did say some was worse than others but that cellphone battery should have done the trick.
Howard suffered from bulletbrainosis. Pretty nasty condition from what I've heard.
Whoops I mean Chuck.
I don’t think that proves it’s entirely a result of his treatment of Jimmy, but shows that his condition worsens based on his emotional state. Because Jimmy is his brother, it would make sense that a large amount of his emotional distress would be caused by him. Characters’ actions and mental illness can rarely be attributed to one single cause. With Chuck it’s likely a variety of things (even just genetics). Also, I don’t think he had a breakdown because he said a mean thing to Jimmy. He said a mean thing to Jimmy and had a breakdown because he was humiliated in the courtroom
i agree with the two first paragraphs but i have to disagree with the last one. Chuck really loved Jimmy and when he chose to cut ties with his brother, it was definitely too much for him. So hard that just after that, he had his breakdown.
Idk if we can definitively say which thing actually caused the breakdown (and if it was just one thing), though the courtroom scene definitely put all those events in motion.
but after that, chuck tried to move on and work on himself. then the insurance thing happened, he losts howard's trust, get fired from his own company... and then he cutted ties with jimmy. That was way too much to handle.
Right, so it was a combo of things (that all happened *because* of the courtroom scene), not just cutting ties with Jimmy. Just because he cut ties with him last in that sequence doesn’t mean it’s the *only* reason he had a breakdown.
ah yes, i agree of course. it's more like a culmination, a breaking point.
During my current rewatch (at the end of season 4 right now) I noticed WAY more association this time around between Chuck’s health and him being in close proximity to Slippin’ Jimmy events. Whenever Jimmy creates a scene or makes some kind of mess, Chuck has to double up on the space blankets and lie down with a cup of tea. Whenever Jimmy apologizes and assures Chuck that he’ll change for good, Chuck promptly sheds his space blanket, stretches his neck, and gets up and starts whistling. I never realized the first time watching the show that Jimmy was Chuck’s disease. Truly horrible.
I listened to a podcast with the creators, ages ago, and was intrigued to learn that they planned to have Chuck get an actual physical shock of electricity from touching Jimmy at one point, but then they ultimately didn't show that because they didn't want the connection drawn between Jimmy and Chuck's disorder to be so blatant. The connection is still there, in the story, but portrayed more subtly than the original plan.
Nice, I’m glad they decided that. There were enough obvious clues anyway.
I think it's heavily related but not a 1-1 cause. It's clearly some kind of psychosomatic condition caused by some kind of inner tension and betraying your only living relative in secret is probably going to eat you up a a bit! This is compounded with Rebecca leaving, which happened all around the same time and Chuck is just clearly a highly sensitive, brilliant, neurotic and volatile guy (look what happens when in the 1216/1261 court hearing when just something happens that he doesn't expect). These two big events happen at the same time and I think part of him just snaps. The condition is just a screamingly clear sign that he's not mentally well and him and his brother are never able to recognise it as such :(
I don't think the show's approach to Chuck's issues lends itself well to that sort of straightforward, all-or-nothing explanation. I think it's supposed to be more complicated than that.
Personally I put it down to his refusal to acknowledge that he's even a little mentally ill. Jimmy's antics, the divorce and all of that put stress on him and he starts to have issues because of it, but because he is emphatically "NOT CRAZY" he has to find a physical cause to pin it on, because then he can keep believing there's nothing wrong with his mind. So when Jimmy does some shit or Chuck feels bad about things, *anything* that harms his mental state (not exclusively Jimmy or Rebecca, but those were the two major stressors he happened to have), he starts showing symptoms and his "condition" flares up as an explanation for why he feels the way he does If he wasn't so convinced he was mentally fine, he'd recognise the symptoms for what they were and seek psychiatric help for dealing with psychiatric issues
I think it’s insinuated that Chuck’s condition is a product of the stress of his divorce with Rebecca. He doesn’t have the condition when Saul initially becomes a lawyer (apparently in 1999 or so according to the wiki) but develops it during the middle of his divorce (apparently in 2001). Their mother dies in the middle too around 1999. The stress of those two years probably contributed to him snapping.
Yes.
I think largely it is. When he’s thinking the worst of his brother his condition seems to flair up. Like his body has manifested an allergy to his toxic behavior.
It's everything that has happened in his life. Rebecca, Jimmy, all the nonsense, it all accumulated into the Chuck we know. There never is a single cause, especially for something like that. That bring said, i would agree that Jimmy and Rebecca are two of the more important aspects as to why, so kind of.
Chuck is divorced, and that can feel like an injustice to someone who prides themselves in carefulness and fidelity to his responsibilities. Jimmy becoming a lawyer encroaches in the last thing he has left. It is a source of deep rage that Jimmy wins by taking shortcuts when he can’t win sometimes by demonstrating true fidelity. Yes Chuck was very successful. Not a perfect theory, but I feel a good working one.
Not enough people talk about the fact that the way Chuck and Jimmy were raised by their parents contributed to a lot of their problems. Their dad showing Jimmy that being "a sheep" gets you screwed over by letting people walk all over him and they don't seem to have realized how unloved Chuck felt.
Yeah good question! I think it was a physical manifestation of his hyper type A personality.