This scene is pretty much like the prototypical scene between some arsehole and his girlfriend, after he’s beaten her, and then he buys her some flowers as a token of his love or something because he totally didn’t mean it in a bad way or anything. And she goes along because somehow there’s this conditioning that prevents her from getting angry at a guy who gives her flowers, especially because she *wants* him to mean it.
And he thinks that if she goes along that means everything’s forgotten and it’s all fine now. And so he learns that he can balance abuse with symbolic acts. And so he continues doing that …

This scene is very similar to that, except JJ completely understands the dynamic, and he uses it deliberately. And Joel is of course not in love with JJ, but he desperately *wants* him to be a civilized human, so he will happily accept the gesture.

Like a janitor noticing a guy eating messily and then asks them politely to stop messing, to which they respond by throwing the rest of their food all over. Okay. You start cleaning that. Then the dude gets their buddies involved and they start making a mess. You tell them to stop and when they don’t you even slap one of them for good measure for being such punks. That gets them going even more and they trash the place all over, then call your manager and tell them that the whole place is a pigsty and when they tried to get you to clean it up, you ended up beating one of their mates.

Yeah. I would be hella pissed as well. Granted, I wouldn’t kill anyone, but would strongly think about doing that.

…
Yes, the situations aren’t 1->1, but the point being, he still does come of as respectful and even understanding. He just simply has a job to do, he takes great pride in doing it and these ruffians just made his life every sorts more difficult.

Though I must agree with some other commenters, that the way he goes about his business, he really should have been in the type of trouble he found himself in in the end way sooner. XD

And yes, he’s still a very bad, even evil man.

And counts as free money if the price shoots up after an “untimely” demise, wrought by “trying to be a hero”…

Shrewd, JJ, shrewd.