Warning: This article contains spoilers through this week's episode of Better Call Saul.

Better Call Saul has only one episode left in its first season, and its main characters are at psychological turning points. Jimmy has just discovered his brother's betrayal, Chuck has taken baby steps to getting back to work, and Mike is dipping his toes into Albuquerque's criminal underworld.

How will their dynamics change as Jimmy McGill makes strides toward becoming Saul Goodman? We spoke with Dr. Paul R. Puri, a psychiatrist and TV writer based in Los Angeles, to parse through Chuck's recovery, Jimmy's new path, and Mike's theory of the criminal mind.

Over the season, we've seen Chuck leave the confines of his home and become more independent. Is this a realistic portrayal of recovery?

I would say that it is. There are a lot of factors that anticipation plays in the worsening of [his condition]. When he isn't paying attention to it, he actually is not as symptomatic, or not symptomatic at all. When he actually exposes himself to it and stays with it, the symptoms are not as bad. That's very consistent with what that's believed to be, which is something that we now call a somatic symptom disorder, which has characteristics very much like an anxiety disorder where avoidance and anticipation play big roles.

We see that Chuck focuses on work, and that helped him feel better. Is it about the distraction, or is it about him turning a new page in his personality?

There are different lenses to view Chuck. One of which is the DSM, which doesn't really speak to how things get better. And then there are different schools of psychotherapy. When he's in different roles, he can sort of tap into higher-functioning skills or aspects of himself. And so when he goes into work mode, when he gets engaged in it, he's tapping into a version of himself that's not afraid or living in fear or anything like that.

Why did Chuck lie to Jimmy for so long while also depending on him?

It's interesting. They have a complex relationship and it seems that, just from what we have seen, Chuck to a degree views Jimmy as dangerous, and himself as a little bit of a guardian, the older brother, the one who needs to keep him out of trouble. And so that doesn't necessarily lead to him viewing him as a peer.

There's also, for him, that's probably a little of what we might call a fixed role. Sometimes people get into these one-up, one-down relationships. They sort of get stuck that way, and they won't allow for the roles to reverse ever, and they won't allow for someone to gain respect. Chuck seems to keep Jimmy in the one-down position of, "You're someone that's a risk, you're someone who needs to be taken care of, you'll never take care of yourself in a responsible way." That has manifested now to the point where, basically, he neglects the evidence that Jimmy is doing better, and he ignores that in order to maintain his relationship.

It seemed like Chuck's ego really got in the way.

I think that's a big part of it. He would view it as a threat for this guy who has been basically a con artist before to now be an equal partner in something that he built. That would be a tremendous threat to him.

There's the counterpoint, though, [because] Chuck depends on Jimmy for his own functioning in terms of the day to day while he's "sick," and whether this does something for helping to maintain the relationship or keeps Jimmy close. There are all kinds of wild hypotheses that could be developed, such as that the sickness is actually a way to keep Jimmy close. Some of what we might call psychosomatic or psychogenic illnesses actually are believed in certain therapy schools to serve a purpose for the person. Sometimes it's escape from work, sometimes it's to play the sick role and get someone else to take care of them. This is an acceptable way for Chuck to be taken care of, which doesn't require him to lessen his standing as a lawyer. That's all hypothetical based on what little we know.

Jimmy is a pretty optimistic person in general. What do you think is the future for Jimmy after this?

I think that he will bounce back, but it won't be in the same way. For a while he's been trying to earn Chuck's respect. Now he's going to sort of reject Chuck in general, and almost throw the baby out with the bathwater. He will bounce back in terms of doing what he wants to do, but it won't be with a goal of being respectable in Chuck's eyes. We've seen that through the season, even when he talks about elder law, you can see him sort of testing Chuck a bit to see if Chuck will respect that, and when he does, he seems to feel some relief or some benefit from that.

How will his relationship with Chuck evolve from here?

If this was a real-life scenario, when Jimmy leaves, assuming that the hypothesis we talked about earlier is real, Chuck's symptoms would get much worse. It would get worse for the purpose of pulling Jimmy back in. If that doesn't succeed, then it may shift into something else. That will depend on what Jimmy does in that equation, and if he stays engaged in one way or another. I don't know that there is no way they can reconcile, because it seems like they've had a close connection for a long time.

Let's touch on Hamlin for a second. His extreme loyalty to Chuck and to the company led him to keep Jimmy in the dark about getting hired for years. How can people make a decision like that and stick to it?

These are guesses, because we have such a little window into him, into what's really going on behind the scenes with this character. Chuck is older, obviously, than him, so that very much could be a fatherly relationship and him looking for approval in that way. It may also be that Chuck has convinced him this is good for the power structure or the firm itself. We rationalize things to justify whatever behaviors we have to do for other reasons.

On that same topic, I want to move on to Mike. Mike has a speech, which I think reflects the main theme of Better Call Saul, in which he talks about being a good criminal, or a bad good guy. It's all about living by your own moral code. Is this a way people rationalize bad behavior?

There is a moral development system, and the second to the top is sort of believing in the system that exists. The one above that is seeing through the system and being able to see what the truth is and what the pros and the cons of it are. Chuck believes the law is sacred. Mike doesn't. Mike has seen how people bend the law and how it's abused. Those are showing different levels of moral development between the two of them. Mike believes that, because he has really seen those experiences. He seemingly makes conscientious choices about his use of violence. In the same way that Walter White does, he justifies his use of violence of what he believes a higher end, as opposed to violence for violence purposes, which is what a bad guy might do.

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