Recap / Better Call Saul S3 E5: "Chicanery"

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Season 3, Episode 5:

Chicanery

Written by Gordon Smith

Directed by Daniel Sackheim

Air date: May 8th, 2017

Jimmy's latest case has gone to trial... and it's personal.

"Now, he claims that he lied to me to get me to tell the truth. And I’m telling you I lied to my brother to make him feel better. Which of us you believe depends on how we all understand the mind of Charles McGill."

— Jimmy McGill

Shortly after the onset of his EHS, Chuck attempts to reconcile with Rebecca with an "impromptu" gas-cooked candlelit dinner, with Jimmy on hand to add to the alibi (and caution him about the possible harm that keeping his secret may bring). Everything goes smoothly until Rebecca takes a call from her conductor, driving Chuck to slap the phone out of her hand. She angrily calls a cab as Jimmy and Chuck argue over whether or not to reveal his condition.

Presently, Jimmy brings a goldfish to Dr. Caldera to get in contact with someone with a "light touch." Caldera asks if they will need to fit into a tight space.

Kim uses the genial mood after a successful New Mexico Banking Board hearing to tell Kevin and Paige about Chuck's allegations. Kevin is particularly insulted: nothing worse than a man who won't owe up to his mistakes, he sneers. Kim assures a more skeptical Paige that Mesa Verde will not suffer any backlash.

Chuck and Howard visit the courtroom where Jimmy's trial will be set to see how Chuck's EHS will respond; they'll be able to turn off everything but the exit signs, so Chuck decides to testify in person. Howard protests: his and the private investigator's testimonies should be enough. When Chuck insists, Howard admits that he's concerned about HHM's reputation, as their blind eye towards Chuck keeping documents at his house has raised security concerns. Chuck chides him for putting the firm above the proper process of the law: "Let justice be done, though the heavens fall," he smugly concludes.

Kim's opening statement claims that the real story behind the trial is of the feud between the McGill brothers. Howard gives his testimony of Jimmy's break-in. Under cross-examination, Howard tries to claim that Chuck shut Jimmy out of HHM to avoid the appearance of nepotism, but Kim forces him to admit that the other Hamlin in HHM is his father. Jimmy can't dwell on this victory: he asks to review his notes in order to stall for time when he's told "Flight's delayed."

While Chuck tries out different testimonies ("I love my brother, but Ted Kaczynski's brother loved him, too..."), the confession tape is played at the trial. The committee orders everyone present to place their watches and cell phones in a bin to be taken out of the courtroom; Jimmy claims that he left his cell in the car. Howard drives Chuck to his reserved parking space, bumping into someone on his way to the courtroom. The man is revealed to be Huell, who gives Chuck a smug glance behind his back.

Chuck is sworn in and gives his account of Jimmy's breaking and entering. The prosecution questions him about his intentions: although some exaggeration of his condition was necessary, he claims that he had his full faculties and does not hate his brother. The law is just too important for Jimmy to use as he pleases.

He is stunned to see Rebecca enter the courtroom and warmly greet Jimmy, prompting him to ask for a recess. Rebecca asks Chuck why he never came forward with his condition, and clarifies that Jimmy asked her to come in support for him. In response, Chuck bluntly tells her that Jimmy flew her in to unsettle him, and asks her to stay so that she can see "what's what."

Elsewhere, Kim tells Jimmy that Rebecca will hate him for what he's going to do to Chuck. Jimmy agrees.

Jimmy cross-examines Chuck, using the photos Mike took of his house's interior to put his supposed mental stability in question at the time the tape was made. Chuck claims that his hysterical state was all "play-acting", and that the situation the photos present is necessary under his EHS. Jimmy pounces, having Chuck testify about the specifics of his condition: in particular, how close an electrical object needs to be to affect him. Chuck slyly asks him if Jimmy has something in his pocket. Jimmy pulls out his cell phone, taking Chuck to task over his inability to detect it.

However, Chuck asks if he can take the phone: sure enough, the battery has been removed. He berates a mortified Jimmy for thinking his condition is some psychosis as the committee makes it clear that they won't be indulging Jimmy anymore. "What do I have to do to prove it to you?" Chuck magnanimously asks.

"I don't know, Chuck... Could you reach into your breast pocket and tell me what's there?"

Nonplussed, Chuck reaches into his suit jacket... and quickly drops the object inside onto the floor. It's the phone's battery, fully charged. Jimmy demands that Chuck put it on the record and points out Huell, who will testify (he is on the witness list) that he planted the battery on Chuck an hour and 43 minutes ago, throwing Chuck's entire testimony into question. His humiliation in front of his peers and ex-wife switches to anger when the prosecution compares his condition to schizophrenia:

"I AM NOT CRAZY!"

Chuck goes on a bitter and unhinged rant in front of a stunned courtroom, begging the court to punish Jimmy over past misdeeds: engineering a rescue with an infringing billboard to draw business, doctoring the Mesa Verde files and then bribing a clerk to lie about his involvement, doing a "Chicago Sunroof", and most of all, swiping from the till of his parents' store. "Stealing them blind! And HE gets to be a LAWYER!? What a sick joke! I should have stopped him when I had the chance!" Turning to the committee, he implores, "And you, you have to stop him! You..." He trails off when he finally realizes he has revealed his true colors to the courtroom, and sheepishly apologizes for "losing his train of thought". Jimmy ends his cross-examination as Chuck notices the exit sign, buzzing with harmful electricity.

This episode contains examples of the following tropes:

• Accuse the Witness: Played With. Jimmy doesn't deny breaking in, destroying the tape, or even being the one on the recording, but instead tries to argue against the context of the event, saying he was simply fooled by a loved one into believing they were spiraling. He makes sure to paint Chuck as being in the wrong for manipulating him into a false confession to submit as evidence once he's called to the stand.
• Ad Hominem: Jimmy's defense relies on showing that Chuck antagonized him for years and that his condition is a mental illness, thereby destroying Chuck's credibility and the prosecution's case along with it.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • Kim delivers a demolishing one on Howard when he testifies Chuck blocked Jimmy from being hired by HHM (Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill) to avoid accusations of nepotism: "Who's the other Hamlin?"
  • Howard also tries to use one afterward by saying he'll be happy to talk about Jimmy's job at Davis and Main which makes Kim change the subject.
  • Chuck, revelling in having (apparently) seen through Jimmy's attempt to trick him on the stand, sanctimoniously asks Jimmy what he has to do to convince him to accept that his EMS is real: "I don't know, Chuck. Could you reach into your breast pocket?"
• Artistic License – Law: Since Jimmy claims on the tape that he altered the Mesa Verde documents for Kim's sake, that makes her a material witness, in which case representing Jimmy in his disbarment hearing is a massive ethics violation and would never be permitted.
• Backfire on the Witness Stand: Played with. Howard advises Chuck not to testify at the hearing, as they have enough evidence to get Jimmy's license revoked without it. Chuck insists on going anyway, both for his Control Freak tendencies and desire to end Jimmy's law career personally. It backfires in a breathtaking fashion when Jimmy tricks Chuck into his explosive Motive Rant on the stand, which damages Chuck's credibility and ends up getting Jimmy briefly suspended instead of fully revoked.
• Bad Liar: Chuck's not too bad at deception, but he elected to get Jimmy to help him hide his (supposed) illness from his ex-wife, knowing his brother is much better when it comes to pulling off bigger lies. They manage to keep the ruse going until Rebecca has to take a phone call, which upsets Chuck enough to physically force the phone away from them. When Rebecca questions this, Chuck can only come up with the excuse that "it's rude to talk on the phone when you have company".
• Batman Gambit: Plays out over almost the entirety of the episode. First, Kim leads Chuck into thinking he has the upper hand when she moves to contest the confession tape and is shot down. Then, Jimmy hires Huell to secretly plant a cell phone battery in Chuck's pocket. He then secretly has Chuck dig his own grave when he has him describe his electromagnetic sensitivity in detail — claiming that his body will physically detect any electronic device, including a battery — before revealing Chuck is carrying the battery, proving that all of Chuck's claims about his condition were either pathological lying or signs of mental illness. Chuck then goes into an enraged tirade against Jimmy in public, basically destroying any credibility as a witness and the prosecution's case with it.
• Berserk Button: Though he had been flustered already by Jimmy bringing Rebecca to court, it's the prosecutor's implication that he might be schizophrenic which triggers Chuck's final and most damaging tantrum during Jimmy's cross-examination.
  Chuck: [very loudly] I AM NOT CRAZY!
• Blatant Lies: When Kim cross-examines Howard, Howard says Jimmy wasn't hired so that the firm could avoid any appearance of nepotism.
  Kim: "Nepotism?" Your firm is called Hamlin, Hamlin and McGill, right? Who's the other Hamlin?
  Howard: ...My father.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Though not an outright villain, Chuck insists upon going to the witness stand himself to ensure Jimmy's disbarment. Howard tries to talk him out of it to bring less risk to the case, especially since the private investigator is capable of accomplishing this, but Chuck is too invested in his vendetta to listen.
• Bottle Episode: The first one in this universe since "Fly" aired way back in 2010. Save for the flashback opening, the animal clinic scene, and brief scenes of Chuck in his house and Jimmy and Kim in her apartment, the entire episode takes place in the confines of the Albuquerque courthouse, and almost all inside the courtroom where Jimmy's hearing is being held. The only difference from "Fly" is that this one has both main characters and guest stars.
• Break the Haughty: Chuck is practically dripping with sanctimoniousness and condescending smugness in this episode, no less than when he (believes that he) is demolishing Jimmy's attempts to break him on the stand... right up until Jimmy asks him to reach into his breast pocket. At which point Chuck discovers the fully charged phone battery that has been planted on him and which proves that his electromagnetic sensitivity is all in his head, and everything falls apart for him.
• The Bus Came Back: Huell Babineaux is provided by the shady vet to Jimmy when he needs a skilled pickpocket (or in this case, putpocket).
• Butterfly of Doom:
  • Chuck could have gotten what he wanted and gotten Jimmy disbarred... had it not been for his pettiness driving him to testify on the stand. Howard tried to assure him that they could've accomplished the same thing with the private investigator, but Chuck insisted.
  • Chuck was willing to deny the battery reveal and probably had a small but still persistent chance to keep his word as reliable... until the prosecutor uses schizophrenia as a comparable example to Chuck's condition when responding to Jimmy's trick. Chuck takes it as implying he's being seen as schizophrenic or more, prompting him to lash out.
  • On a larger scale, Chuck's failure to get Jimmy disbarred (which should have been trivial to accomplish given how many advantages Chuck had going into the hearing) has massive repercussions for the rest of the show and Breaking Bad. Jimmy being disbarred would have meant no Saul Goodman, meaning no cartel lawyer that ends up getting Howard killed and no 'criminal' lawyer that enables Heisenberg years later. Furthermore, Howard wouldn't have had to force Chuck out of HHM, meaning no suicide, and no chain of events that leads to HHM basically being destroyed.
• Call-Back: Jimmy knows Chuck had already been unknowingly exposed to an electrical device and shown no reaction to it in by Doctor Cruz, who activated Chuck's hospital bed while he was distracted.
• Call-Forward:
  • In the flashback, during Chuck's lie to Rebecca about why his power is out, he claims that it was due to the numbers of his address being mistakenly transposed with someone else's by the power companies, recalling the 1261-to-1216 transposition Jimmy later pulled on the Mesa Verde documents.
  • When Jimmy is cross-examining Chuck by questioning his decision to not tell Rebecca about his illness, he asks, "if you had — I dunno — lung cancer, would you have told Rebecca then?"
  • Huell does a bump-and-snatch to plant the battery in Chuck's pocket, just like he'll employ on Jesse as part of Walt's plan to poison Brock.
  • Chuck's rant about what kind of danger Jimmy would be. While Chuck's completely oblivious to his part in it, the audience knows he's right.
• Cassandra Truth: All of Chuck's assertions during his rant against Jimmy are true. The court may even believe some of them, but he still looks unhinged and his claims, taken together with his phony EHS and his hatred of Jimmy, come across as delusional paranoia.
• Chewbacca Defense: Jimmy Invokes this by suddenly recounting and emphasizing Chuck's relationship with Rebecca and the circumstances behind their eventual divorce. The prosecution objects since this obviously has nothing to do with the hearing, Chuck answers anyway, and Jimmy uses Chuck's dismissing of it to segue into Jimmy's real target of Chuck's supposed illness.
• Cliffhanger: The outcome of Jimmy's hearing isn't in this episode, it ending right after Chuck's harangue.
• Continuity Nod: After the battery plot is revealed, Chuck unleashes a scathing rant about his brother, recalling many of the schemes and antics that Jimmy had done up until this point. Besides doubling down on the numbers being swapped and adding that the copy shop's employee was bribed, he swears that Jimmy deliberately planned the billboard incident as a publicity stunt, regrets how he bailed him out after Jimmy got arrested for defecating through a sunroof, and recounts how their parents never believed him when he accused Jimmy of stealing money from their father's business.
• Damage Control:
  • Howard has already shown his eagerness to protect HHM, having taken Jimmy to court previously over the billboard in the first season. By the end of the hearing, he also has an apparently delusional partner to deal with, one who has already cost them one client and has just gone on record ranting about his own brother. He also has the confidence of his other clients to deal with, now that document security concerns may come into the open over the Mesa Verde incident — and he actually tries to talk Chuck out of testifying out of concern for all of this.
  • And the prosecution at the bar hearing: when Alley realizes Chuck is either delusional or lying, he tries to object on the grounds that while Chuck very well may have a mental illness, it is a non-issue. Unfortunately, one of Chuck's berserk buttons is the implication that his disease is all in his head — and then the prosecutor pushes that button even harder by mentioning schizophrenia, and the damage control goes badly wrong.
• Death Glare: Howard shoots this to Chuck after he destroys his credibility and the case by going on a rant in the witness box, despite his utmost warning.
• Digging Yourself Deeper:
  • Said almost word for word by Jimmy when he's skeptical of Chuck's plan to deceive Rebecca with the lie of the electricity being out, and says that bigger lies are harder to get out of.
  • The above foreshadows how Chuck ends up dismantling his own argument and reputation when on the witness stand. Jimmy makes him double down on the existence of his illness, to the point where he'll confidently explain how it apparently works in full detail. The more Chuck adds to it, the worse he'll look when he finally takes the hidden battery out of his suit.
• Disc-One Final Dungeon: The bar hearing has been built up as the climax of Season 3's storyline. Yet it takes place in the middle of the season with five more episodes to go after this. It ends with Chuck's mental illness being exposed and his subsequent meltdown destroying his reputation. From this moment on, Chuck ceases to be a threat to Jimmy.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Chuck asks for a recess when he notices that Rebecca arrives so that he can speak to her. He becomes rejecting, even mocking, when Rebecca offers her help and support after having learned about his condition courtesy of Jimmy.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Chuck gets more than a little tunnel-visioned and lacking in perspective in his obsessive need to be the one to bring down Jimmy's law career, but even he realises while preparing statements to deliver on the stand that making a comparison between Jimmy and Ted Kaczynski — aka the actual Unabomber — is over the top and taking things ridiculously far.
  • Jimmy clearly takes no satisfaction in his gambit to expose how fragile Chuck's mental health is before the disbarment panel paying off.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Chuck's rant goes on for a while before eventually realizing what he had just said.
• Extreme Close-Up: Played for drama. As Chuck breaks down and begins to get more bitter and vocal, the frame pushes further and further in — not only showing his mounting anger, but emphasizing that he's so caught up in the rant that he's losing his sense of decorum and alienating the committee. By the time the shot ends, it's just him, furious and close to tears, while the courtroom has become less and less visible; when he turns to beseech them, the next shot shows all three either confused, disturbed, or unable to make eye contact.
• Face Palm: Rebecca gives one at the end of Chuck's courtroom rant, clearly heartbroken to see what her ex-husband has become.
• Friend to All Living Things: While the vet is tied in to Albuquerque's criminal underworld, he takes the welfare of animals very seriously. Jimmy buys a goldfish solely as a cover to visit him, and gets berated for not taking care of it.
  "That's a living creature, not a piece of furniture!"
• Foregone Conclusion: Chuck's obviously not going to get Jimmy disbarred since we know he's still in business as Saul Goodman, and his rant ruins any chances at it, with Jimmy instead getting the one-year suspension that Chuck wanted to avoid. Plus, there was no coming back from how insane that rant made Chuck out to be.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Jimmy, in the flashback to the disastrous candlelit dinner with Rebecca, advises Chuck not to lie to conceal his EHS, as the bigger the lie, the harder it is to sort out. Oh, but how that comes back to bite Chuck where it hurts most.
  • When Jimmy asks the shady vet to hook him up with a skilled pickpocket, the vet asks if said pickpocket would need to fit into a small space, hinting that Huell will be making a comeback.
  • When Chuck becomes aware of Jimmy bringing in Rebecca as a surprise witness, Chuck sardonically snarks that his younger brother only did so in order to get him to go on an unhinged breakdown ala Perry Mason. Guess what happens at the very end of the episode?
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Chuck's intent all along with the confession tape was to boot Jimmy from the legal profession. He thinks that he's about to succeed by forcing Jimmy to take a deal where he avoids jail time in exchange for letting himself be disbarred. But during the hearing, Jimmy manages to turn the tables on Chuck through an elaborate Batman Gambit which eventually sends Chuck into an enraged Motive Rant that inadvertently lends credence to Jimmy's side of the story and ruins his reputation with his ex-wife, his law partner, and his colleagues.
  • Even more so with his decision to testify. If Chuck took Howard's advice and didn't testify, Jimmy would not have been able to pull off the ploy with the battery, which would not have led to Chuck's rant, which would have led to the committee ruling in Chuck's favor. But Chuck was too eager to personally put an end to Jimmy's career, allowing Jimmy to play him until he self-destructed.
• Hypocritical Humor: Kim cross-examines Howard by asking him why HHM didn't make Jimmy an associate in spite of his grit and determination.
  Howard Hamlin: The partners decided it would be best to avoid the appearance of nepotism. We felt hiring Jimmy might damage morale.
  Kim Wexler: Nepotism. Your firm is Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill, right? Who's the other Hamlin?
  Howard Hamlin: ...My father.
• Immediate Self-Contradiction: Howard tries to excuse HHM not giving Jimmy a chance to work with them by claiming it would risk accusations of nepotism. Kim then asks why the firm is named after two "Hamlin"s. Howard concedes, remembering how the firm was founded in the first place.
• Internal Reveal: Jimmy and Kim expose Chuck's illness as psychosomatic, and by extension, show his decaying mental health for all to see.
• Irony: During his rant against Jimmy at the end, Chuck brings up him switching the address numbers and declares "1216! One after Magna Carta, as if I could ever make such a mistake!" ...However, 1216 is the erroneous number, with 1261 being the correct Mesa Verde address number. So Chuck's rant actually exonerated Jimmy even more than was made apparent, proving that Chuck can feasibly make such a minuscule error due to his mental state.
• Jerkass: How do we describe Chuck's behavior? Well, let's take a look:
  • The flashback at the beginning is just after the EHS psychosis started when Chuck invites his ex-wife over for dinner — making up a lie about how the electricity has been cut off (bonus points for it being put down to an address number transposition a la Mesa Verde). Rebecca then has to take a call and Chuck tries to hide his anxiety at this. When he can't get away from her (he runs to the kitchen and she follows to get some paper to note something down), he snatches the phone out of her hand and throws it away from him. She calls him out on this, and what does he do? He berates her for being rude enough to take a cell phone call while in other people's company. He doesn't want her to know about the EHS. And he has totally rejected Jimmy's suggestion that he just tell her the truth.
  • Also, while practicing for his bout on the stand, he compared Jimmy to Ted Kaczynski, the fucking Unabomber. Even Chuck himself scoffs at the idea after saying it out loud, realizing how hyperbolically sanctimonious it sounds.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Both sides of the case are right. Jimmy is guilty of everything Chuck accuses him of and should probably be disbarred for it. On the other hand, Chuck is in serious denial about his mental problems, and is willing to lie and manipulate to keep Jimmy from practicing law. Without Jimmy or Howard looking after him, Chuck could pose a real danger to himself and others.
• Kansas City Shuffle: Jimmy and Kim's strategy is based on allowing Chuck to guess at what their strategy is and try to defuse it. When Rebecca enters the room, Chuck refuses to let it get to him, snarking that he won't be intimidated by Perry Mason tactics. When Jimmy hands his phone to Chuck, Chuck immediately checks to see if the battery is missing; his smug attitude on finding that it is shows that he thinks he's beaten Jimmy's dirty trick. Jimmy reveals the real dirty trick mere seconds later.
• Loophole Abuse: Jimmy takes advantage of every bit of leeway the Bar agrees to, and he even manages to bring in Huell's planted battery by putting him on the witness list in advance.
• Meaningful Echo: "You got me, Chuck. Dead to rights."
• Motive Rant: Jimmy's plays before the bar hearing cause Chuck to make a series of these, eventually leading to his legendary meltdown after Jimmy reveals the battery gambit.
• Never My Fault: During Chuck's meltdown, he still maintains that the Mesa Verde address was the erroneous 1216 instead of 1261. He may be right that Jimmy switched the numbers, but it's also made clear that he can't even consider the possibility that he made a mistake. He also tries to blame Rebecca for talking on the phone offending him instead of admitting his condition.
• Not Helping Your Case: Chuck's infamous rant. After his mental health is challenged with the battery ploy, the prosecution moves to counter it, and due to some unfortunate wording, Chuck explodes on the stand and angrily rebukes Jimmy with wild accusations irrelevant to the current situation. He even ignores the prosecution trying to stop him from continuing. Not only does it further argue to the whole room that his mental illness is a serious detriment to his case against Jimmy, but it also proves that he lied about not hating his brother, calling his motives into question.
• Oh, Crap!: The expression that appears on Chuck's face when he turns to the judges, sees the horrified and embarrassed looks they're giving him, and realizes what he's been saying.
• Only Sane Man: Howard tries to convince Chuck that he'll be more of a liability toward his case and might ruin his health.
• Parental Favoritism: Chuck's rant accidentally reveals that this is at the root of his hatred of Jimmy.
  Chuck: He'll never change! Ever since he was nine, always the same! Couldn't keep his hands out of the cash drawer! [sarcastically] But not our Jimmy! Couldn't be precious Jimmy! [almost weeping with rage] STEALING THEM BLIND! AND HE GETS TO BE A LAWYER?! What a sick joke! I should have stopped him when I had the chance!
• The Perry Mason Method: Chuck recognizes Jimmy and Kim as trying to do this, even referencing it by name. He explains their intention to introduce various things they know would wear him down until he lashes out on the witness stand, before declaring his intention to Defy this. Unfortunately for him, their real ploy accomplishes a variation of this: by proving his condition as fake and making him confess to his deep-seated contention against Jimmy, his testimony and claims are called into question, allowing Jimmy to avoid a harsh punishment like disbarment.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Jimmy has probably beaten disbarment, but at the cost of his brother's professional reputation and every last bit of family Jimmy has; he and Kim even note that Rebecca will hate him after this. Notably, no one in the main cast looks particularly happy after Chuck's breakdown.
• The Reveal: We find out, indirectly, what Mike got from Chuck's address book in the previous episode — Rebecca's contact information.
• Rule of Symbolism: At the very end, Chuck looks up at a red buzzing exit sign. The sign which couldn't be turned off due to the law he says he holds sacred. After the rant which ended some seconds earlier, this may refer to his legal career from this point on.
• Sanity Has Advantages: A less violent example than the norm. Jimmy is under no illusions that he's smarter than Chuck, or a better lawyer than Chuck, or that the judges in the case are likely to be more sympathetic to him than to Chuck. What he does have is full knowledge that Chuck's symptoms are genuinely all a product of mental illness, something which Chuck's pride won't allow him to consider, and a willingness to exploit that knowledge and cause Chuck to have a humiliating breakdown in court.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Rebecca during the opening flashback decides she doesn't want to stick around for the rest of dinner after Chuck tore her cellphone out of her hand and blamed her for having bad manners.
• Shout-Out:
  • Realizing Jimmy and Kim want to pester him into an emotional breakdown on the stand, Chuck snidely points it out as something straight from Perry Mason's playbook.
  • Chuck's breakdown on the stand is very similar to Captain Queeg's. It should be noted that the main lead of the previous show used Humphrey Bogart as an influence for his performance.
  • Jimmy and Kim's use of Rebecca to make Chuck break down on the stand is similar to The Godfather Part II. In that film, Michael Corleone had Frank Pentangeli's brother flown in from Italy to sit in on the Senate hearings Frank was testifying at. The very presence of Pentangeli's brother made Frank abruptly recant incriminating information he had on Michael out of fear of shaming his family's reputation. Similarly, Rebecca's very presence leads to Chuck's breakdown.
  • Jimmy's cross-examination of Chuck also has a lot of similarities to the "Code Red" cross-examination of Colonel Jessup in A Few Good Men. A witness or two apparently stand ready in the background to validate the defense theory. Jessup gets teased with a lot of questions on matters that may be considered peripheral to the allegations themselves. The prosecutor objects to a lot of McAffey's questions, and the judge orders McAffey to stay on point several times. McAffey at one point shows reluctance to take the cross-examination further than he already has. Jessup challenges McAffey with a question of whether he has anything more to cross-examine on. McAffey pins Jessup down on his previous testimony to set up the trap at the end. And McAffey provokes Jessup into revealing his true motivations for ordering the "Code Red". And Jessup explodes with rage after realizing he took the bait.
• Surprise Witness: Rebecca is seemingly built up to be one after the effort Jimmy and Kim go through to make sure she attends the hearing, but she isn't called to testify and only ends up being a small part of the greater ruse. Played straight with their real (soon-to-be) witness—Huell Babineaux.
• Swapped Roles:
  • Jimmy knows that Chuck doesn't want to seem unhinged because of his illness, so he goes along with the lie about having no electricity when Rebecca comes for dinner. In true slippin' Jimmy fashion, Jimmy makes light of the situation and purposefully suggests going to a restaurant to make it seem more believable, to which Chuck replies that it's simple enough to cook at home. Chuck has no doubt arranged this with Jimmy and is thankful for Jimmy's ability to deceive people.
  • Additionally, here it's Jimmy suggesting that they just tell the truth, and Chuck insisting on the deception.
    Jimmy: Chuck, are you sure this is the right play? I mean, in my experience, the bigger the lie, the harder it can be to dig out.
    Chuck: I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
• Taking You with Me: Jimmy's Batman Gambit involving Chuck operates with this as the end result. Jimmy is likely to be disbarred at worst, and does end up with his law license suspended for a year in the next episode, but Chuck's ensuing breakdown marks the beginning of the end for his own law career.
• Tempting Fate:
  • Before the hearing, Howard offers Chuck the chance to leave the testimony to him and Dave Brightbill (the PI). Chuck refuses, and when Howard points out that the reputation of HHM (document security over the Mesa Verde case) is at stake, Chuck says some things are more important. Guess how that turns out?
    Chuck: "Let justice be done, though the heavens fall."
  • Not to mention Chuck telling Rebecca, after she turns up at the bar hearing, that he wanted her to see 'what's what'. She certainly does see what is what.
• This Is Gonna Suck: The look on Howard's face immediately after Chuck yells he's not crazy. Howard knows then and there this isn't going to end well (and it doesn't).
• This Is Reality: After dismantling Jimmy's intention to make him break and confess with Rebecca's presence, Chuck smugly comments that he's sorry to say they aren't in an episode of Perry Mason. It's just another sign of how much he underestimates his conman brother.
• Title Drop: Courtesy of Chuck's tirade.
  Chuck: You think this is something — you think this is bad? This, this chicanery? He's done worse!
• Trailers Always Lie: The trailer where Kevin and Paige at Mesa Verde are being told by Kim that Chuck is raising allegations that Jimmy doctored Mesa Verde documents and Kevin looks very stern at the end? Is he going to dismiss Kim? No, if there's one thing he can't stand, it's a man (Chuck) who won't own up to his mistakes — and he's perfectly happy to keep her as outside counsel.
• Unconventional Courtroom Tactics:
  • Jimmy and Kim bring miscellaneous tangents up for the sake of whittling away at Chuck's pride and insecurities. The prosecution objects to each tangent's degree of relevance, while the bar association later tell Jimmy to move it along.
  • Jimmy and Kim stall for time when they hear that Rebecca's flight was delayed, since her presence plays a role in their underhanded plan.
  • Jimmy feigns an attempt to expose Chuck's delusion in EHS, smuggling his phone in to use as a prop. This is topped off with Huell brought in as a Surprise Witness, after having planted the real prop on Chuck, risking the crime of battery.
• Unwitting Pawn: Rebecca, who Jimmy lures to the hearing under false pretenses in order to rattle his brother.
• Villainous Breakdown: Depending on how villainous you find Chuck. He responds poorly to having his EHS exposed as purely a product of his mind during Jimmy's cross-examination, resulting in losing his cool and ranting before the entire court about how his brother is irredeemable and how he should have stopped him when he had the chance.
• Visual Pun: Chuck having someone bump into him and slip something in his pocket could actually make him a victim of battery.
• Wham Episode: Although it has been revealed previously to a few characters (and the audience), the fact that Chuck suffers from mental illness is now fully revealed, not only publicly, but also to Chuck himself.
• Wham Line: "Could you reach into your breast pocket?"

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