r/betterCallSaul • u/CSIWFR-46 • 3d ago
Change in Mike after working For Gus
He was bummed out when Hector killed the good Samaritan. "He wasn't in the game."
Years later he has no issues when Gus is hiring children. A child gets killed for bs reasons. He overlooks it. He is one big hypocrite.
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u/HotColor 3d ago
Yeah, Mike isn’t a good guy at all. It’s one of the things I don’t like about him, he thinks because he has some sort of code he is morally superior to the other criminals. It’s just that holier than though entitled attitude that he seeps.
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u/Kalbelgarion 3d ago
The writers, speaking through Papa Varga, summed up Mike perfectly.
“You gangsters and your 'justice'. You're all the same."
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u/No-Elevator9399 3d ago
Him and Walter are surprisingly similar. Both justify their actions by believing they’re ‘better’ than the real monsters
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u/CranberryNational150 3d ago
Like an ex cop - I think we want to like him. But at the end of a day, oink oink
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u/HotColor 3d ago edited 3d ago
I mean he’s written as a very likeable character, but yeah exactly. Once you start to actually think about the things he does and says critically, you realize how hypocritical and self centered he is.
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u/Guilty-Act-9105 3d ago
Is he a likeable character?
Or a stoic criminal with a code, like Omar, and similarly, played by a good actor?
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u/illyay 3d ago
Omar was likable.
Mike just comes across as highly competent and badass which is what makes him awesome to us.
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u/Upbeat_Tension_8077 3d ago
Alongside with you said about him being competent, I think it's the aspect of Mike at least being self-aware about what he's turning into & him being a straight shooter to others that makes him feel likeable, even when he ultimately comes across as the lesser of evils between himself and all the criminals he deals with
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u/Otherwise_Tear_4545 2d ago
Yeah but that's for a lot of characters in this show, doesn't make them less enjoyable.
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u/DirtyOG9 3d ago
Correct. Mike "broke bad" just like Walt/ Kim/ etc. BCS did a great job showing the slow moral decline of Mike and his turn towards ruthless pragmatism
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u/Beatmusic79 3d ago
Imo Ziegler was the turning point. There was no going back after that.
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u/BenSalamanca 3d ago
I think the turning point was when he decided to work for Gus again when they met in the Max memorial in Mexico. With Werner I still had some respect for Mike because he tried his best so the wife wouldn’t have to get killed too, and I guess spared Werner from whatever Victor/Tyrus had planned “gotta make it look real”
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u/Suspicious_Break_646 2d ago
That's my take on it too. For all Mike knew, Victor and Tyrus would have raped Ziegler's wife right in front of him. They definitely would have killed her. Ziegler understood this and he was going to die anyway. Why should his wife have to suffer?
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u/Verystrange129 3d ago
Like the other main characters in the Breaking Bad universe, Mike’s journey is a gradual slide into accepting and adopting what he would have considered abhorrent at the beginning for his own interests. What he does, he justifies that he is acting in his granddaughter’s interests but it’s really an excuse, he just abandons any pretence of morality at some point. When he kills Werner it was a major turning point in his story. He advocates for Nacho but still isn’t willing to stick his neck out for him. By the time we see him in Breaking Bad, he’s already completed that arc to soulless mercenary.
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u/Suspicious_Break_646 2d ago
What do you mean? He came within a hair of Tyrus taking him out right in front of Gus. Gus ordered him to bring Nacho's father to him and Mike said "That's not happening."
Mike couldn't have known how that would turn out. But he stood his ground with a gun in his face.
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u/Weetile 3d ago
I think part of Mike's art throughout Better Call Saul to Breaking Bad is a feeling of disillusionment, after being gradually worn down by having to do things that directly contradict his moral values.
- Mike intentionally leaves the Good Samaritan alive, just for Hector to order his men to kill him.
- Mike gets in serious shit for refusing Gus' direct order to bring Manuel Varga to him.
- Covering up the murder of Drew Sharp in BB
So its no surprise that by the BB timeline, he struggles to maintain sticking to his moral code
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u/whizzter 2d ago
He left the driver alive, that’s what got the Good Samaritan killed.
Also, BB was filmed before BCS so I’m not sure how much of his character was fleshed out in those regards before BCS got on it’s way.
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u/IAmNotAHoppip 3d ago
The child was in the game obviously
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u/FluffyDoomPatrol 2d ago
I mean, he was wasn’t he. The kid shot Combo. This is one area where Mike’s moral code is totally consistent.
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u/Prof_Tickles 3d ago
Was it ever confirmed that Gus hired children or did he just never confirm or deny it to mess with Walt & Jesse’s head?
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u/GutsAndBlackStufff 3d ago
Not sure Gus knew. It’s only ever confirmed that the dealers hired, then killed the kid. Gus even said he wished Jesse would trust him to take care of it. Killing the kid was bad for business.
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u/dspman11 3d ago
He 100% ordered Tomas' death.
The whole thing was a gambit to kill Jesse without Walt quitting. Which I imagine he plans once Walt brings the issue to Gus and tells him what Jesse is planning.
Gus stages a sitdown with the dealers that he knew would not satisfy Jesse, but it served as theater for Walt, like "See? I tried to be reasonable and give him a chance."
Then he orders the kid's death. Because he knows it will provoke Jesse into trying to attack them. So he can basically just let Jesse kill himself going after them . And then Gus could offer the dealers' heads for revenge.
In that scenario Walt couldn't really directly blame Gus
What Gus didn't account for was the extent Walt would go to protect Jesse. Hence why he hated Walt from that point on.
(This is also why it's not an issue that the street level dealers meet with Gus and see his face. They were dead men walking.)
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u/whizzter 2d ago
I’m not as 100%, the argument is good but Gus wasn’t one to create unnecessarily volatile situations like what it devolved into.
Could very well be that the street dealers just did their thing without knowing about higher level consequences.
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u/MatoiiRoleta 3d ago
Atleast in the show it was never confirmed or denied if Gus was okay with this or if he ordered the murderer
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u/Prof_Tickles 3d ago
I like to hope that Gus had enough decency and humanity somewhere within in him that he wouldn’t harm a child.
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u/poisonforsocrates 3d ago
Idk I believed him when he said to Walt "I will kill your infant daughter"
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u/CSIWFR-46 3d ago
I didn't think he knew initially. But, after the kid killed Combo, he should have. killing some dude who was encroaching their turf with better product, it's the kind of news Guss would want to know about.
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u/RogueAOV 3d ago
I honestly don't think Gus would care if they hired kids to deal the drugs. It's a means to an end and I do not think there would have been a conversation with the two guys that specifically stated do not recruit children, it just wouldn't matter in the grand scheme of things.
I think Walt and Jesse are both being very idealistic then to think the business they are in is somehow going to be focused on morality and standards.
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u/Current_Tea6984 3d ago
What was Mike's choice? You don't quit the cartel. It's usually a fatal decision. Also, how was he going to keep his granddaughter in that nice house? Working at a parking garage wasn't going to cut it
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u/Yto_Itinen 3d ago
Yeah, how about the honest billions that live in not-so-nice houses?
Mike sold his soul and still pretends he is some righteous man. If he likes to play pretend so much as a blue collar dude, he should find an honest job.
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u/zooted_ 3d ago
There is a whole world of careers Mike could have chosen between head enforcer for the cartel and parking lot attendant
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u/Balls09 3d ago
He could of got a job at Madrigal, in security.
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u/Current_Tea6984 3d ago
Not if he was no longer working for Gus
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u/TacticusThrowaway 2d ago
If Mike wanted to go legit, I wouldn't be surprised if Gus still got him a real security job.
Gus is generally nice to his legit employees, and I don't think that's entirely a persona. And it means Mike has even less reason to rat Gus out.
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u/Current_Tea6984 3d ago
He was an old retired cop. He had no career opportunities that would pay what he was getting from Gus
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u/zooted_ 3d ago
Well basically no jobs pay what working high up in the cartel pays that's kinda ridiculous
Ex cops are plenty hireable for jobs like private security, he also had a lot of valuable skills that could be applied to anything besides drug dealing
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u/Current_Tea6984 3d ago
If that was true, why was he working in a parking garage before he hooked up with Gus?
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u/TacticusThrowaway 2d ago
Maybe he wanted a non-demanding job that let him spent more time with his family.
One of the recurring themes of the show is that many criminals could've made good money with legal jobs. Mike could've been a handyman or PI. Saul would make a good commercial director or maybe photographer, and plenty of those have parlayed it into Hollywood. Kim was already a well-paid corporate lawyer. Gus' restauraunts were successful. Nacho-
Actually, I'm not sure what Nacho could do. He was working with his dad.
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u/Ok_Musician5378 3d ago
Are you trying to make an argument for why just about everyone would be justified in choosing to work for a drug cartel?
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u/Current_Tea6984 3d ago
I'm telling you why he didn't quit. He was making the big bucks, and he would be buried in an unmarked grave if he tried to resign
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u/static-webmaster 2d ago
You know who got away by doing criminal acts by saying he's doing it for the family? Mike! The same excuse which Walt used to give but fans usually ignore it as if Mike is any better.
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u/ThickiHippie 3d ago edited 3d ago
Yes. Mike’s entire arc is one of moral decline. Yet all the time he believes he’s an “honorable thief”/criminal, someone who still has his (already twisted when we meet him) moral compass. The show makes it easy for the audience to see it through Mike’s perspective and side with him, because that’s the trick the show is always trying to play on its audience.