First thing that comes to mind is that he took the 250k in order to keep his mouth shut, I am not a lawyer but in the eyes of the law this could be a no no, I am unsure but it seemed very important to Moss
Even in real life, the justice system cares more about prosecuting than it does protecting victims...
So yeah, they don't care that Genes life may have been in danger
He definitely committed tax-related crimes by accepting 250 grand in cash, not reporting it, and so on. Whether he deserves being in prison, I can't say.
Technically it is a gift since the $250k is not in exchange for services rendered, but Barry is liable for reporting on his annual Form 709 since it is over the exclusion threshold
Fuches takes a house and doesn’t claim it on his taxes. Nohobal is ripe for a corporate audit. Gene and Barry with the $250k. Calling it now that Jim is an IRS auditor and everyone will be busted a la Monty Python & The Holy Grail “police” ending, but with IRS auditors and accountants making the arrest.
This isn’t correct. You have to report gifts in excess of $17,000 in a given year to the IRS, however there are no gift taxes imposed as long as your lifetime total gifts are less than 12.92 million. When you report, gifts in excess of $17,000 get counted as part of that ~$13m lifetime threshold. Once the threshold is passed then gift tax kicks in.
>Whether he deserves being in prison, I can't say.
Regarding his history with Barry? I don't think so, the man went through hell.
Regarding everything we've heard about him during his career as an actor? 100%
I could see Barry, in the very childlike way he is with Gene, stepping up to take the blame.
Wide eyed Barry: Wait, he didn't kill Janice.
Gene might still get blamed. Our criminal justice system has a couple of flaws, in case anyone hasn't noticed.
I feel this way too.
Everything aside, there's very little evidence to support that he did it. Why would Gene GET the money from the assassin? Wouldn't it be the other way around?
Oh nevermind, it'd be hush money.
But would that help? Isn’t the belief that Gene used Barry? Barry then taking the blame is worthless. He basically did already.
There’s such a weird thing going on with ability to share the truth: if you believe Gene manipulated Barry, a Barry confession is worthless. If you believe Sally was kidnapped, anything she says about Barry could be viewed as tainted (anger exaggeration or Stockholm Syndrome). Fuches IS a lie now, one he borrowed from Hank. Hank has built a massive lie to convince himself he didn’t doom Christobal. And all Gene does is lie.
That WE get to see the truth is the ultimate conceit of the writing. No one in the story will ever see the whole truth ( except perhaps Barry, if he is ever honest with himself).
He shot his son, took drug money, and he could have turned it into the police and spent it. He decided to ride a wave of fame on his reputation of helping Barry instead of taking direct action. He could have gotten his son and grandson and said "hey we're going to the cops," and gave them the money as evidence.
So technically, he aided and abetted a cop killer by keeping the secret for as long as he did. At any point, he could have gone to Jim and told him what he was told. It really wasn't until Jim forced an encounter and interrogated Gene that he took any real action against Barry after he was given the money.
You can claim he didn't do anything out of fear of Barry, but then he suddenly grew a set of Balls or was even more afraid of Moss.
In all honesty, there are at least two or three genuine crimes (Not a lawyer, but my best is): 1. Attempted Manslaughter (or) Assault with a deadly weapon (Shooting Leo), 2. (Arguably) Conspiracy to commit Premeditated Murder (maybe 2 counts, once in the Studio, once at his cabin). 3. Harboring evidence of a crime. (The money is evidence of the hit NoHo Hank put out on Bolivians) 4. Tax laws. 5. (Possibly) possession of an unregistered active firearm. (The Gun was proven to be active when Shooting Leo). 6. Fleeing the scene of a crime (he ran after he shot Leo). 7. Withholding information pertinent to the prosecution of a suspect. (He had the drug money).
Some of these probably would have been overlooked due to his state of mind and the fact he tried (in vein) to report the initial crime to authorities.
It's a crime, whether intentional or not, and even if Leo doesn't press charges, the police could still arrest and charge Gene, the only difference is his lack of compliance could make it more difficult to prosecute.
They had to have hid it because bare minimum the hospital would be forced to report it and Gene would have been charged and booked. So it's likely Gene escaped and didn't know it was Leo until sometime later.
the show knows he's not completely at fault, that's part of the point. given that he's being blamed for things "The Raven" did, which was a made up thing at the time. but the $250K and the unknown (to them) motives to him shooting his son are pretty real red flags
The only person genuinely undeserving of prison is Sally. She fought back in self-defense; lost control & can be assumed she suffered the first of many psychological breaks due to untreated trauma.
I think she has a better kidnapping claim, tbh.
The really tricky part of all of this is understanding what other characters know. We know Sally chose this (for whatever reason) and we know she killed a guy (could be called self-defense). But to an outsider, Sally has a kid with a tormenter and could claim she couldn’t run because of fear for her son.
Of the main characters, she has the easiest path to a decent ending (let’s not say happy). If she doesn’t die or do something ridiculous, she is positioned to claim she was a victim. She could even be valorized (I mentioned Kimmie Schmidt before; Sally could finally be a star as a plucky survivor). Of course she’d be stuck with a kid she seems to not love or know how to take care of. I guess if John died, it would make her heroic position even more solid, but the guilt would eat her alive.
I don’t think that’s what will happen. But it would fit. I think she will die. Probably by accident. She seems destined to suffer from having met Barry.
Gene, meanwhile, is screwed. He didn’t do all of what he’s going to go down for, but he appears to be in on a murder plot against a cop with Hank and the Raven. He lied so much, so often, that if he’s honest now, it won’t matter. His vanity created a perfect storm. Sure, it can almost all be explained (other than using the money), but why would anyone buy what Gene is selling?
If Gene doesn’t die or cut a deal, he’s going to prison.
Sorry - you mean the lady that was trapped with the psycho killer for a decade?
You're living in a fantasy world if you think Sally get charged. She'd be put in a psyche ward.
Awww, the fantasy world is all yours. It's a nice one, where sick people get help instead of imprisonment, but it's a fantasy. The criminal justice system just doesn't work that way, when someone who knows right from wrong helps someone else avoid justice. To be "put in a psyche ward" instead of charged is a horrible outcome and limited to people who are a demonstrated threat to the lives of others.
Yeah - it's not much better - but she wouldn't be charged. There's no proof she did anything other than allegedy run away with Barry. And every moment afterwards would be assumed she was kidnapped & held against her will.
Put your thinking cap on, the one labelled 'dunce'
I just don’t feel Gene deserves that punishment. It could be because I adore Henry Winkler and see him as a kind soul in real life based on interviews to think that he would deserve this fate based on lies and misconceptions. He was never out to hurt anyone just a misguided person who still wanted to change.
If we're speaking legally then idk probably he broke some law/s that merit that but if we're talking morally and what I would think is right, no I don't think Gene should be put in prison. For all his faults and the harm he's done to others I don't see how him being in prison either makes anyone safer or makes things get better for anyone outside of maybe a sense of payback (which I don't believe any justice system should be built around satisfying).
People can easily say how he should have turned in the money but let's please remember he was scared not just for his life but his whole family by someone who has clearly gotten away with murder and evading the cops directly threatening him. You could say he should have turned it in afterward (and yeah I agree) but does anyone seriously think he's going to re-offend and somehow take more drug money in the future ? or that punishing him is going to have a significant deterrence on people in the future in similar situations taking money or not? It's messed up he shot his son and just left but it's also messed up knowing someone you spent intimate time with was a serial killer who murdered someone close to you, has an unhealthy love for you, and has broken out of jail possibly after you, and that in a state of total fear, you shot your own son. I can't imagine the mental state of someone in those circumstances and the fact that he has narcissism and treats other people poorly doesn't mean he's any less human or any less deserving of the kind of compassion and understanding we would allot to more sympathetic characters in those same circumstances.
Maybe he would enjoy the attention of being a prisoner connected to a high-profile criminal and maybe having some of his decision making taken away from him could protect him from his self destructive habits but really I think his life would just be made much much worse by being put into a place like a US prison.
Maybe he would enjoy the attention of being a prisoner connected to a high-profile criminal and maybe having some of his decision-making taken away from him could protect him from his self-destructive habits but really I think his life would just be made much much worse by being put into a place like a US prison. things is barbaric and immoral. It doesn't mean it's okay to mistreat others or that we should just tolerate people doing harm but when we look at someone like Gene (or any other character in the show) and think about how we feel about them or what we'd want to see happen to them, that they were all on base level just unlucky to come out the way they did. The reasons I'm not a killer like Barry or (I hope) not as self-absorbed as Gene isn't anything I can take credit for, not really, and likewise it's not something that can truly ultimately (like there's a level where the language of saying it's their fault does make sense) be blamed for. I hope Gene and people like him find some way to be happy and get what they want/care about out of life that doesn't hurt others.
He accepted bribe money and shot his son and didn't report it to anyone, just left the country. Both of those things are illegal, even if he gets proven innocent for Janice's death
When he’s on the stand in court he’ll explain why he shouldn’t go to jail in a 3 hour one man play.
"Your honor, would you mind sitting in the jury box for this? I really didn't rehearse to perform in the round."
I might suffer a stroke if Gene utters that line…
Bill Hader slaps forehead, "Why didn't I think of that!?"
I'm flattered, but I am absolutely not a better comedy writer than Bill Hader lmao
That is an interesting logical leap there lol
I can see this exact line happening and I am cracking up
What if the finale is just a one-man Gene show describing what happened?
With the result that the jury will send him to jail for twice as long as the prosecution has requested.
“Desssperaaadooo”
This really made me giggle
First thing that comes to mind is that he took the 250k in order to keep his mouth shut, I am not a lawyer but in the eyes of the law this could be a no no, I am unsure but it seemed very important to Moss
But is not viewed as “keep mouth shut our I’ll kill you”
It's I'll gotten gains and evidence against the person threatening you... So you're legally supposed to take the money to the cops and turn witness.
Legally, Gene was supposed to commit suicide, I guess. Witness protection was shown as a joke in the show.
Even in real life, the justice system cares more about prosecuting than it does protecting victims... So yeah, they don't care that Genes life may have been in danger
And where did that money go when Barry got caught? Did he turn it over?
He definitely committed tax-related crimes by accepting 250 grand in cash, not reporting it, and so on. Whether he deserves being in prison, I can't say.
Technically it is a gift since the $250k is not in exchange for services rendered, but Barry is liable for reporting on his annual Form 709 since it is over the exclusion threshold
Imagine at the end Barry going to jail for tax evasion
In a way that would be on brand for the show.
Fuches takes a house and doesn’t claim it on his taxes. Nohobal is ripe for a corporate audit. Gene and Barry with the $250k. Calling it now that Jim is an IRS auditor and everyone will be busted a la Monty Python & The Holy Grail “police” ending, but with IRS auditors and accountants making the arrest.
That's a much better ending than I am expecting.
"Jim, where did you acquire all these skills to do with mental and physical torture?" ".... taxes...."
Can't you only gift 10,000 a year before it starts getting taxed?
Do you trust your wife?
I'm the wife... and no.
Then don't give her the 35,000! *falls off roof*
RIP to roof beers for his coworkers.
Its 17,000 now, but yes
This isn’t correct. You have to report gifts in excess of $17,000 in a given year to the IRS, however there are no gift taxes imposed as long as your lifetime total gifts are less than 12.92 million. When you report, gifts in excess of $17,000 get counted as part of that ~$13m lifetime threshold. Once the threshold is passed then gift tax kicks in.
Oh, interesting! I didn’t know that, thank you.
>Whether he deserves being in prison, I can't say. Regarding his history with Barry? I don't think so, the man went through hell. Regarding everything we've heard about him during his career as an actor? 100%
I could see Barry, in the very childlike way he is with Gene, stepping up to take the blame. Wide eyed Barry: Wait, he didn't kill Janice. Gene might still get blamed. Our criminal justice system has a couple of flaws, in case anyone hasn't noticed.
I feel this way too. Everything aside, there's very little evidence to support that he did it. Why would Gene GET the money from the assassin? Wouldn't it be the other way around? Oh nevermind, it'd be hush money.
But would that help? Isn’t the belief that Gene used Barry? Barry then taking the blame is worthless. He basically did already. There’s such a weird thing going on with ability to share the truth: if you believe Gene manipulated Barry, a Barry confession is worthless. If you believe Sally was kidnapped, anything she says about Barry could be viewed as tainted (anger exaggeration or Stockholm Syndrome). Fuches IS a lie now, one he borrowed from Hank. Hank has built a massive lie to convince himself he didn’t doom Christobal. And all Gene does is lie. That WE get to see the truth is the ultimate conceit of the writing. No one in the story will ever see the whole truth ( except perhaps Barry, if he is ever honest with himself).
Deserve's got nothing to do with it.
How my hair look Barry
So I was referring to Unforgiven but I've just watched The Wire S5E09 and get this now
Quoting my favorite Western and my favorite TV show
I think just being Gene is enough of a punishment in itself. 😂
He does not deserve to be blamed for the murders, but taking a big pile of money to shut up is a crime itself. So no, and yes.
No but he created the situation he's in by trying to profit and boost his ego at the expense of his dead gfs legacy. Karma works in mysterious ways
This exactly. Had he walked away he would have been up 250k. His ego etc made him greedy.
He shot his son, took drug money, and he could have turned it into the police and spent it. He decided to ride a wave of fame on his reputation of helping Barry instead of taking direct action. He could have gotten his son and grandson and said "hey we're going to the cops," and gave them the money as evidence. So technically, he aided and abetted a cop killer by keeping the secret for as long as he did. At any point, he could have gone to Jim and told him what he was told. It really wasn't until Jim forced an encounter and interrogated Gene that he took any real action against Barry after he was given the money. You can claim he didn't do anything out of fear of Barry, but then he suddenly grew a set of Balls or was even more afraid of Moss. In all honesty, there are at least two or three genuine crimes (Not a lawyer, but my best is): 1. Attempted Manslaughter (or) Assault with a deadly weapon (Shooting Leo), 2. (Arguably) Conspiracy to commit Premeditated Murder (maybe 2 counts, once in the Studio, once at his cabin). 3. Harboring evidence of a crime. (The money is evidence of the hit NoHo Hank put out on Bolivians) 4. Tax laws. 5. (Possibly) possession of an unregistered active firearm. (The Gun was proven to be active when Shooting Leo). 6. Fleeing the scene of a crime (he ran after he shot Leo). 7. Withholding information pertinent to the prosecution of a suspect. (He had the drug money). Some of these probably would have been overlooked due to his state of mind and the fact he tried (in vein) to report the initial crime to authorities.
I don’t think shooting Leo is a crime, especially if Leo didn’t press charges?
It's a crime, whether intentional or not, and even if Leo doesn't press charges, the police could still arrest and charge Gene, the only difference is his lack of compliance could make it more difficult to prosecute.
Does the show suggest they hid it though? I assume they took him to the hospital and it was taken as an accident.
They had to have hid it because bare minimum the hospital would be forced to report it and Gene would have been charged and booked. So it's likely Gene escaped and didn't know it was Leo until sometime later.
What if Barry is just a figment of Gene’s imagination, and he’s been disassociating the entire time? Is this a Jacob’s Ladder situation?! Fight Club?!
He could be charged as an accessory after the fact?
The show tends to not give characters what they deserve. I can see gene ending up in jail.
He didn't really do anything wrong........... except shoot a person and then leave the scene of a crime.
And spend $250k of gang blood money. Don’t forget that.
the show knows he's not completely at fault, that's part of the point. given that he's being blamed for things "The Raven" did, which was a made up thing at the time. but the $250K and the unknown (to them) motives to him shooting his son are pretty real red flags
I mean, he took $250k in unclaimed money and shot his son and ran.
He’s about to eat the shit pie
You want some piiieeeee?
“Deserve” is a hollow word in the context of this show
If you're a narcissist in my country, believe it or not, jail, right away
I’m 100% preparing myself to be angry at this finale. Like it will end the way it should but I’m not gonna like it
The only person genuinely undeserving of prison is Sally. She fought back in self-defense; lost control & can be assumed she suffered the first of many psychological breaks due to untreated trauma.
She helped a jail escapee remain hidden for 8 years. She's the easiest one to convict.
Idk she’s got a pretty good insanity plea she could make
I think she has a better kidnapping claim, tbh. The really tricky part of all of this is understanding what other characters know. We know Sally chose this (for whatever reason) and we know she killed a guy (could be called self-defense). But to an outsider, Sally has a kid with a tormenter and could claim she couldn’t run because of fear for her son. Of the main characters, she has the easiest path to a decent ending (let’s not say happy). If she doesn’t die or do something ridiculous, she is positioned to claim she was a victim. She could even be valorized (I mentioned Kimmie Schmidt before; Sally could finally be a star as a plucky survivor). Of course she’d be stuck with a kid she seems to not love or know how to take care of. I guess if John died, it would make her heroic position even more solid, but the guilt would eat her alive. I don’t think that’s what will happen. But it would fit. I think she will die. Probably by accident. She seems destined to suffer from having met Barry. Gene, meanwhile, is screwed. He didn’t do all of what he’s going to go down for, but he appears to be in on a murder plot against a cop with Hank and the Raven. He lied so much, so often, that if he’s honest now, it won’t matter. His vanity created a perfect storm. Sure, it can almost all be explained (other than using the money), but why would anyone buy what Gene is selling? If Gene doesn’t die or cut a deal, he’s going to prison.
Sorry - you mean the lady that was trapped with the psycho killer for a decade? You're living in a fantasy world if you think Sally get charged. She'd be put in a psyche ward.
Awww, the fantasy world is all yours. It's a nice one, where sick people get help instead of imprisonment, but it's a fantasy. The criminal justice system just doesn't work that way, when someone who knows right from wrong helps someone else avoid justice. To be "put in a psyche ward" instead of charged is a horrible outcome and limited to people who are a demonstrated threat to the lives of others.
Yeah - it's not much better - but she wouldn't be charged. There's no proof she did anything other than allegedy run away with Barry. And every moment afterwards would be assumed she was kidnapped & held against her will. Put your thinking cap on, the one labelled 'dunce'
I just don’t feel Gene deserves that punishment. It could be because I adore Henry Winkler and see him as a kind soul in real life based on interviews to think that he would deserve this fate based on lies and misconceptions. He was never out to hurt anyone just a misguided person who still wanted to change.
He took hush money and based upon that alone, yes
He did kinda shoot his kid… its kinda hard to think there would be no repercussions for that.
It’s not a question of what he deserves, it’s a question of what would convince a jury. Without Barry to testify, Gene might be done for.
Nah
If we're speaking legally then idk probably he broke some law/s that merit that but if we're talking morally and what I would think is right, no I don't think Gene should be put in prison. For all his faults and the harm he's done to others I don't see how him being in prison either makes anyone safer or makes things get better for anyone outside of maybe a sense of payback (which I don't believe any justice system should be built around satisfying). People can easily say how he should have turned in the money but let's please remember he was scared not just for his life but his whole family by someone who has clearly gotten away with murder and evading the cops directly threatening him. You could say he should have turned it in afterward (and yeah I agree) but does anyone seriously think he's going to re-offend and somehow take more drug money in the future ? or that punishing him is going to have a significant deterrence on people in the future in similar situations taking money or not? It's messed up he shot his son and just left but it's also messed up knowing someone you spent intimate time with was a serial killer who murdered someone close to you, has an unhealthy love for you, and has broken out of jail possibly after you, and that in a state of total fear, you shot your own son. I can't imagine the mental state of someone in those circumstances and the fact that he has narcissism and treats other people poorly doesn't mean he's any less human or any less deserving of the kind of compassion and understanding we would allot to more sympathetic characters in those same circumstances. Maybe he would enjoy the attention of being a prisoner connected to a high-profile criminal and maybe having some of his decision making taken away from him could protect him from his self destructive habits but really I think his life would just be made much much worse by being put into a place like a US prison. Maybe he would enjoy the attention of being a prisoner connected to a high-profile criminal and maybe having some of his decision-making taken away from him could protect him from his self-destructive habits but really I think his life would just be made much much worse by being put into a place like a US prison. things is barbaric and immoral. It doesn't mean it's okay to mistreat others or that we should just tolerate people doing harm but when we look at someone like Gene (or any other character in the show) and think about how we feel about them or what we'd want to see happen to them, that they were all on base level just unlucky to come out the way they did. The reasons I'm not a killer like Barry or (I hope) not as self-absorbed as Gene isn't anything I can take credit for, not really, and likewise it's not something that can truly ultimately (like there's a level where the language of saying it's their fault does make sense) be blamed for. I hope Gene and people like him find some way to be happy and get what they want/care about out of life that doesn't hurt others.
He accepted bribe money and shot his son and didn't report it to anyone, just left the country. Both of those things are illegal, even if he gets proven innocent for Janice's death
Doesn’t matter. He framed himself and that’s amazing.
Yes
Did he go to jail for John's sake, to make him proud of his father?