Bagleiter: Friend or Foe?

I find him hard to trust mainly because I dislike Tom Buchanan (his character in The Great Gatsby) :) but I believe he's looking out for the kids.

I do think he called the Glasses after Ruby's visit, but I think he did this to try to smooth over any possible misunderstandings between Ruby and them. Maybe even to warn them that they aren't operating in a vacuum. Remember, even Ruby herself isn't sure about whether to trust them at that point. Terry freaked her out by driving crazily and then reaching across her to fasten the seatbelt, and then she was shocked by Erin's apparent drug stupor, but at this point she's not completely sure they're shady. It's more like she wants plausible explanations from an objective source.

So, yeah, he called the Glasses, but not to cause her trouble. And then he also called the social worker, so I'd say he's a friend.

I get the idea the social worker wasn't convinced by the Glasses, but could not say anything/report them as everything looked fine. She probably spoke to Begleiter privately and said she had doubts, and so he decided to just show up unannounced and see how things looked.

:)

He was definitely bad. MR Glass I bet offered him a cut in the 4mil, so that was why he was helping him. But by the end, I think he was actually starting to worry about the kids (but a little too freaking late!).

Everything you do in life will be insignificant, but it's important that you do it

My take is this:

Bagleiter was a good guy, but also wanted to tread carefully and not jump to any conclusions. It's possible that he also was a friend to the Glasses and didn't want to think ill of them.
He probably told himself Ruby was overreacting or misinterpreting what was going on in the house. He was probably genuinely concerned that her suspicions were unfounded and would cause problems for both her, Rhett and the Glass couple.

I believe that after she came to his office he did call the social service, and at the same time he called Terry. I think he in his mind thought to himself it would be best if a social worker stopped by just to 'confirm' that nothing out of order was going on in the house. He probably told Terry what Ruby had said and also informed him he felt compelled to call the social services for good measures.
That is why Terry and his wife were able to prepare for the visit, even though supposedly only were given a 15 minute notice. How else could they have managed to give them separate rooms, hide all the narcotics and put an insuline bottle in the bathroom cupboard that quickly.

Remember, Bagleiter was the one that disclosed the last piece of info Ruby needed to conclude Terry was behind her parents car accident. He was unable to reply to her e-mail because Terry shut her e-mail account down, but later on the phone he tells her the BMW her parents were driving that night belonged to Terry's car company. He could have withheld that information if he truly was on Terry's side.

In the end when Ruby was watching Bagleiter talk to Terry, I thought she said 'HE thought he was helping us".
So my understanding is Bagleiter really thought he was being objective and fair to them all and a little biased towards believing Terry and his wife were innocent.
My conclusion is that Bagleiter wasn't a bad guy. There was nothing in it for him, he didn't know anything about Terry's money problems. Keep in mind he actually told Ruby how much money their parents had left them. That was also part of the clues as to what the Glass couple was up to. He could have easily kept his mouth shut about it.

Well, I watched it once, and she didn't say "I thought he was trying to help us" she said "he thought he was helping us". It's spelled out perfectly clearly, he says that he had told the glass family about Ruby's troubles because he trusted them despite ruby's fears and knew that if she fcked it up they would have nowhere to go. Nonetheless he alerted social services to check them out just to be on the safe side, without telling Terry, and it was the social worker who failed to do her job and gave them a pass, not because she was shady but because she was incompetent. I think none of the threads discuss this because it's not at all ambiguous. Baglieter freezes the account when the bank tells him about Terry's requests for money for an extension and lying about the refunded school tuition fees.

What if a squirrel wants a sausage?

If you really did watch this movie 3 times, how did you miss that she said "HE thought he was helping us".

in the end though Bagleiter wasn't a bad guy, just a total idiot. Also I'm pretty sure he was breaking the law when he informed Glass about the upcoming inspection because he was breaking Attorney-client privilege. Not to mention that the only way those kids would have become wards of the state was if their uncle refused to take them in, which from this movie they made it quite clear that would not happen. So all his worry was for nothing and if he actually had half a brain he would have known that.

If he really cared about the kids he would have taken Rubys claims very seriously and would not have informed Mr Glass about any of this. Also like I pointed out before he was breaking the law in telling Mr Glass anyway.

What makes this question hard is that it's Bruce Dern, and Bruce Dern always plays a calculating weasel. Much like Mr. Burns, when he tries to be good, he's even more evil.

He thought he was doing the right thing, but he stupidly got suckered in by Terry's scheme.




================

4) You ever seen Superman $#$# his pants? Case closed.