Ten years prior to the events of "Better Call Saul", Chuck defended his younger brother Jimmy after Jimmy defecated through the sunroof of a romantic rival's BMW, unaware the man's children were in the backseat.
AMC's "Better Call Saul" has no shortage of hair-raising plot twists. One of the most dramatic of them all comes in the final episode of Season 3, when Jimmy McGill's (Bob Odenkirk) older brother, Chuck (Michael McKean), dies after deliberately setting his house on fire.
Chuck also resented jimmy because of his likeability. Jimmy's big mistake was trying to win his brother's respect. People with big egos and great intellect, often look down on others they deem unworthy.
Chuck had baited Jimmy into breaking and entering his house in order to destroy the audio tape of Jimmy incriminating himself—creating the pretense for Jimmy's criminal prosecution.
One of the subplots of the show follows Chuck's obsessive compulsive order (OCD), a mental illness where people suffer from intrusive thoughts and compulsions.
Jimmy learns in that scene that it was Jimmy's act of spilling the beans to the insurance carrier that lead to Chuck's death. Jimmy now knows he was the responsible one - and that Howard mistakenly blames himself.
The character's name is Chuck, and he's convinced he has a condition called electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS). “For reasons unknown, my nervous system has become sensitized to certain frequencies of electromagnetic radiation,” Chuck tells his doctor after a spell that puts him in the hospital.
Jimmy discovers that Chuck secretly used Howard to get him off the case—the same way Chuck used Howard to block Jimmy from becoming an attorney at HHM. Jimmy confronts Chuck, who tells Jimmy that he doesn't consider him a "real lawyer" since he is still the same "Slippin' Jimmy" from Cicero.
Jimmy wound up with a suspended law license, but exacted revenge by exposing Chuck's illness as a mental one, which led to the malpractice rates on HHM to skyrocket, which led Chuck's partner Howard (Patrick Fabian) to try to nudge him into retirement, which led Chuck — who had been working dutifully toward recovery — ...
He picks up the phone and answers it. Ernesto tells Kim Wexler he heard Jimmy's taped confession. Kim tells Jimmy that Chuck taped him. She realizes Chuck cannot use the confession in court and suggests that Jimmy wait for Chuck to make the first move so they can determine his intent, but Jimmy angrily drives away.
"Chicanery" is the fifth episode of the third season of the AMC television series Better Call Saul, the spinoff series of Breaking Bad.
By effectively using his condition as a weapon against his brother, Chuck betrays all of the trust that Jimmy had placed in him and starts down a much darker path to destroy jimmy's career as a lawyer.
Because Howard blames himself for kicking Chuck out of the firm after the issue with the malpractice insurance, Jimmy is more than happy to let Howard shoulder the blame as he can let himself believe that Howard's decision to dismiss Chuck from the firm was what caused Chuck to kill himself.
Rebecca appears sporadically throughout Better Call Saul, particularly to settle Chuck's estate after his death, but there is no clear reason offered as to why she and Chuck got a divorce. The biggest glimpse into Chuck and Rebecca's relationship came in Better Call Saul season 2, in a flashback set in 1992.
Chuck might've been proud of his brother then, but his final words to Jimmy were "you've never mattered all that much to me." This stinging farewell supersedes whatever niceties might've been written in Chuck's posthumous letter.
As he finds himself on the other side of the law, he develops a new persona: the criminal lawyer Saul Goodman. Identity change is often catalyzed by trauma — in his case, coming to terms with his losses. He is the last McGill left and his unique skill sets cannot be monetized in the legitimate world.
As the truck pulls away, Mike fires at the sneaker holding the cocaine, which causes the powder to spill onto the back of the truck. At the border crossing, drug-sniffing dogs discover the cocaine, and the drivers are taken into custody. Jimmy McGill is arrested for breaking into Chuck McGill's house.
Zachary Levi has indicated that by the beginning of Season Three, two characters will have discovered Chuck's secret life. In "Chuck Versus the Colonel", Chuck reveals his work as a spy to Captain Awesome, but implores him to keep it secret.
Charles Lindbergh "Chuck" McGill, Jr.
In Better Call Saul, he serves as the main antagonist of Season 1, one of the two main antagonists (alongside Hector Salamanca) of Seasons 2 and 3, the posthumous main antagonist of Season 4, and a posthumous antagonist in Seasons 5 and 6.
Desperate for Chuck to stop behaving erratically, Jimmy confesses to tampering with the Mesa Verde documents and bribing the copy store clerk to keep quiet.
A look into the mysterious—and controversial—condition that may explain Chuck's space blanket. UPDATE, 3/3: On Monday night's episode of Better Call Saul, "Alpine Shepherd Boy," Chuck confirms that he indeed does suffer from electromagnetic hypersensitivity.
Chuck was born in Cicero, Illinois, United States and is the eldest son of Ruth and Charles McGill Sr. He is the older brother of fellow lawyer and titular character Jimmy McGill ("Saul Goodman").
A turned-off battery doesn't have any electric flow. So even if somebody really were sensitive to electric fields, the battery itself wouldn't be a problem. Chuck thought that they were a problem, which makes no physical sense, but is entirely realistic as a depiction of mental illness.
And by the way, she wants to set the record straight: “Kim did not write Chuck's letter.” Saul's writers confirmed to her that Jimmy's late brother really did write the letter Jimmy received after his death. It wasn't her character's invention, as some fans have theorized.
Better Call Saul's Gene-centric episode "Nippy" proves that Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) still feels guilty about the death of his brother Chuck (Michael McKean). Chuck took his own life in Better Call Saul season 3, episode 10 "Lantern" after Jimmy had publicly ruined his reputation in court.