This I don’t agree with at all. If we don’t see Mike arguing with Gus, it’s only because Gus is smart, Mike respects him, and what Gus does makes sense to Mike.
Yes, he tells Gus: “I know better than to ask.” But if it had been anyone but Gus, Mike would have asked. The only reason he doesn’t is that Gus has earned his trust. And Mike has his limits even with Gus, I’m sure. If Gus had ordered a killing, or something that came into conflict with Mike’s own values, Mike wouldn’t have gone through with it. Or he would at least have asked.
Mike stands up to people all the time. He certainly stands up to Walt. He has no problem telling Saul where to stick it. Mike has integrity coming out the wazoo. He’s his own man.
Also, with Mike and Gus, the trust goes both ways. We see Gus ask for and respect Mike’s advice. That’s not how Gus behaves with just some yes-man goon. Or maybe with anyone else at all, except Mike.
BTW, that should have read “a killing that Mike didn’t agree with” above. Obviously, Mike isn’t shy about killing when he thinks that it’s justified.
Maybe it isn’t literally impossible that Mike would kill Andrea. But I can’t come up with a scenario where it would happen.
Convincing no one, I have argued that, morally, there is no difference between Todd and Mike. But they obviously have their differences.
Although not a moral difference I think the best distinction between them is Todd is young, impulsive and eager to please. Impulsively he shoots motorcycle boy without waiting to see whether there were other options. Respectfully he listens attentively to Walt, trying hard to become a good cook. In general he is trying to improve and become a more successful criminal. Although depicted as ‘junior’ the obvious implication is he aspires to being a leader one day. Todd is a work in progress.
Mike is older and more experienced. Plus he has become what he is. He is much calmer and considered. He will go into dangerous situations (into a police filled hospital to murder the Salamanca cousin or down to Mexico for a planned mass murder) but there is a suggestion he avoids trouble when he can. He is clearly shown as NOT wanting leadership. He declines Walt’s offer to take out Gus. After eventually joining with Walt and Jesse he initially tries to take control… But soon Walt is calling the shots. Mike is not a leader, just good at taking control of a situation when it happens.
For me the unanswered question is would Todd have grown up to become a Gus or a Mike? Or a Salamanca? (Spelling?) Although I suspect what he would have really wanted was to become a Walter.
This is actually a good point, that I hadn’t thought about. This may be a flaw with Mike.
Mike is at his best with a good boss. Like Gus. With a bad one, like Walt, there’s going to be trouble.
I see myself in that a bit, although I’m nothing like Mike in any other respect. I’m not a leader either, but I’m also no follower. More like a rebel, I suppose. This has gotten me into trouble in work situations. If you leave me in a cubicle with instructions that are vague enough to let me improvise and do my own thing, I can do well. But the problem is that I have an anti-authoritarian streak. I often can’t help succumbing to that impulse to stick it to the man, just for the hell of it. Usually with the result that I undermine my own position.
Of course, when I think about it, that describes Jesse a lot more than Mike. I wonder what Mike was like when he was young. I wonder if Jesse has it in him to grow up to be something like Mike.
Mike has no special respect for Walt. In fact he is preparing to execute Walt when the phone call to Jesse gets Gale killed and saves Walt’s life. Mike has no special respect for Saul.
Meanwhile, yes, Mike is a senior and trusted part of Gus’s operation. He can suggest, probably has the authority to gently ask, possibly to even question. But we are never shown Mike going against Gus’s wishes. It follows if Gus ordered a hit the most obvious outcome is Mike would arrange for it to happen.
Would Gus order Andrea killed? It worked for the Nazis suggesting it was a good, business, decision plus Walt has no doubt that Gus would kill the White family.
Note the show suggests the guy Gus murdered by slitting his throat was ‘one of Mike’s men’ arguably quite close to Mike. Now the explanation will be the dead guy failed to protect Gale and deserved to die. It is another YMMV moment. Gus slaughters a colleague of Mike’s. Walt tries to use this as a justification for Mike to join Walt and go against Gus - for their own safety - but Mike is having none of it. Punches Walt in the face and reaffirms his loyalty to Gus.
I need to ask you something. What would you do if you were put in a cubicle and there was an abandoned tarantula in a glass jar? Enquiring minds need to know.
The explanation is a lot simpler: Victor (the guy) had been seen by witnesses at a murder scene. Not only that, but at a murder scene where the victim was also directly related to Gus’s operation. Wanted posters with a good resemblance of him are posted all over. Victor screwed up by letting himself be seen. But he’s not killed because he deserves to die, that doesn’t even enter into it. It was a simple security measure. And who knows, maybe it wasn’t the first screw-up. Maybe Gus already saw him as a liability.
And, yes, I know: If security and getting rid of potential liabilities are the priorities, that does make you wonder why Gus doesn’t off Walt and/or Jesse. Are they really that indispensable? So I guess we can have fun with that one, too.
Of course, the way Victor gets killed is 1) the stuff of freaking nightmares, and 2) probably about sending a message to Walt.
What would happen if Gus ordered Mike to kill a true innocent? Frankly, we don’t know. We never saw it happen. We never saw anything close to it happen. And honestly, it’s debatable what would happen. It might depend on whether there was reason to believe this was a one-off event due to unique circumstances. It might depend why Gus wanted the innocent killed. It might depend whether it was a child or a woman.
But the fact is that there’s a tough and interesting debate there about what Mike would do, and zero debate about what Todd would do in the same situation. THAT’s the difference between them. (And no, that’s not just because Todd is “eager to please”, it’s because he’s a sociopath.)
It’s also worth pointing out that while people have described Todd as “polite” and “eager to please” and so forth, we’ve only really seen him interact with people whose approval would directly advantage him. He was super nice to Walt… who was teaching him to make Meth. He was super nice to Lydia… who he had a crush on and was part of his Meth operation. He was super nice to his uncle Jack… who was his uncle and also his boss, etc.
He seemed to be “super nice” to Jesse, even though he was throwing him in that hole every day.
I think Todd was truly a sociopath, but I don’t think his politeness has an ulterior motive. I think he is essentially an evil robot–one that can only one run a single program for social interactions. A program called “Super Nice.” But I’m guessing most people quickly realize that the kid isn’t all there once they get to know him. His eyes. They remind me of shark’s eyes.
Lydia wasn’t killed to protect Jesse, she was killed to protect Skyler. Walter was intending to kill Jesse along with the Neo-Nazis until the last minute, when he saw that Jesse was being kept a captive instead of working with them willingly.
The first time I watched the final episode, it wasn’t entirely clear to me why Walt poisoned Lydia, since she had never directly done anything bad to him. But later in the episode Skyler tells him that Todd had threatened her and Holly, obviously on Lydia’s orders. (This seems out of order, since Walt poisoned Lydia before learning this, but maybe Walt decided to kill Lydia as a precaution knowing of her predilection for eliminating loose ends.)
The phone call to Lydia wasn’t for exposition, or to inform Jesse. It was for the benefit of the audience, so we could see one of the most evil characters on the show get her comeuppance. It would be less satisfying if what happened to her was just inferred rather than being shown.
While agreeing with you generally, I don’t think it is an either or. Everything is ultimately for the audience, but Walt doesn’t know he is on TV ;). He may not have killed Lydia for Jesse, but killing her was definitely to Jesse’s advantage. He could very well have decided in the moment to quietly let Jesse know that everything was done ( police aside ).
Maybe, but I’m not sure that Jesse would have even known that Lydia was much of a threat. AFAIK, only Mike and Walt really knew that she had planned to kill all of Gus’s men before Walt actually did it.
At any rate, Lydia is probably the last thing on Jesse’s mind at that moment. In a few minutes the police, DEA, and FBI are going to be converging on the compound and Jesse’s only hope is to get as far away from Albuquerque as possible.
(Although Jesse is shown exulting at his escape at the end, I couldn’t help thinking that he’s going to last about 20 minutes on the run. He’s doesn’t have a dime - nothing but the car and the ratty clothes on his back. He’s emotionally and physically shattered. His only allies are the criminal masterminds Badger and Skinny Pete. It doesn’t look like his options are very promising.)
I sorta figure the last episode of Better Call Saul is going to find poor Saul in a heart-attack inducing panic as Jesse shows up at his Cinnabon concession. Only to find out Jesse is just there to apply for a job :D.
Incidentally, here’s the scenes in question. When Walt tells Lydia he gave her ricin, Jesse is several yards away and it seems he may not even be aware of the conversation or its significance. When Jesse and Walt exchange looks at the end, it seems they are just acknowledging all they’ve been through together, rather than anything to do with Lydia.
When Gus fires Walt (the episode Walt gets tasered and taken out to the desert) Gus informs Walt he is sacked, that Hank will now be murdered and that if Walt interferes in any way?
The precise threat Gus makes is ‘I will kill your wife. I will kill your son. I will kill your infant daughter.’ (You may note not ‘we will kill’ or ‘I will have killed.’) The threat seems genuine and certainly Walt believes it.
Mike is present at the time. We are never shown any sign that Mike is concerned about the threat to an innocent. Mike always remains a loyal employee to Gus, then and later.
Maybe Mike would have killed Holly, maybe he would have sub-contracted it out. Maybe he would have willingly abducted the Whites and bought them to Gus to personally kill. Who knows? But nothing suggests he would have fallen out with Gus over the matter.
When the kid Tomas (Andrea’s kid brother) is killed it is implied Gus sanctioned or even commissioned the murder. Walt believes it was Gus’s ‘dealers’ according to Wikipedia but I don’t think the point is ever proven in the show.
Now Tomas was a dealer himself and had killed Jesse’s pal so is hardly innocent. Then again he was just a kid, ten or eleven years old.
It is an assumption that Gus ordered the kill but not a huge one. Nothing suggests Mike did the execution himself. But it is demonstrated Mike works in a business where children get killed. Doesn’t pull the trigger himself? Doesn’t give him a pass in my book.
Yeah, I agree. A lot of us like the way Mike was written and played, but there is really no justification for “cuddlifying” him by making up imaginary lines that he supposedly Would Not Cross. The show did not establish that Mike would turn down any job that involved killing an innocent.
This has gotten me into trouble in work situations. If you leave me in a cubicle with instructions that are vague enough to let me improvise and do my own thing, I can do well. But the problem is that I have an anti-authoritarian streak. I often can’t help succumbing to that impulse to stick it to the man, just for the hell of it. Usually with the result that I undermine my own position.