The Full Story of Mike | Better Call Saul & Breaking Bad Retrospective

Mike Ehrman trout is a fascinating and morally ambiguous character within the world of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul he was my favorite character throughout Breaking Bad so it was a pleasant surprise to find out that he was gonna play a lead role in Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul when it first came to fruition Breaking Bad I already showed how much of a stone cold Hitman Mike was for Gus and Better Call Saul shows the history of what led Mike up to that point in his life how he started working for Gus along with his past and how he even came to be in Albuquerque in the first place in this video I'll be giving an extensive analysis on the full timeline for Mike Ehrman Trout's character along with the entire history of the character warning spoilers for Breaking Bad El Camino and Better Call Saul but first let's hear a word about today's sponsor poor weather conditions such as rain or snow could ruin your shoes but thanks to vesi that's no longer a problem with Bessy shoes 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kiwi to get your style and size you want now before they sell out thank you so much to vesi for helping support the channel by sponsoring this video I greatly appreciate it with that being said let's jump into the video I do what I do so they can have a better life and if I live what if I die it really doesn't make a difference to me as long as they have what they need so it is my time to go I will go knowing I did everything I could for them so first off we'll be discussing the history and past of Mike's life during and before 2001 which is pretty Better Call Saul is Better Call Saul takes place in 2002-2004 although there's a lot of info about Mike's past a lot of it is heavily implied which creates a lot of minor discrepancies which we'll be discussing momentarily so Mike was born sometime between 1940 and 1944 and we never learned the exact year which gives a four-year ballpark to estimate within while discussing his exact age during certain events and Better Call Saul episode 408 Mike implies how he had a rough childhood due to his father not being around much and just leaving him a flat of water and a stack of bills for Mike to take care of himself from a young age and Better Call Saul episode 204 while Mike is looking at possible snipers to buy for Lawson he implies how he's very familiar with the M40 line of snipers Mike picks up them 481 sniper in such a way that it seems like he's used one before Lawson notices this saying how Mike seems to be familiar with it but all Mike says is a response is that you could say that putting two and two together it's implied that Mike could have served as a marine sniper during the Vietnam war now the Vietnam War was from 1955 to 1975 meaning that Mike could have served as a marine sniper anywhere between his early 20s to late 20s and even in to his early 30s Mike being a marine sniper would explain why he's so familiar with snipers especially m40s with it being his weapon a choice for many situations throughout Better Call Saul Now during this conversation with Lawson Lawson says how the employee is essentially the same sniper used by Marine snipers in the Vietnam War since 1966. the original M40 was used since 1966 and was eventually replaced by the m40a1 in 1970 which is the sniper in this scene Lawson says how the M4A1 stock is made of fiberglass compared to the Woodstock on the original M40 Mike says how the Woodstock warped like hell due to it getting wet and then putting it out in the sun and how someone should have figured that out before they sent it into a jungle implying that Mike had first-hand experience with this struggle so to potentially narrow it down even more if Mike mainly only used the original M40 during the war that means that he was probably only in the war around 1966 to 1970 since the original m40s were put into service in 1966 and replaced by the m40a1 in 19 170 until the end of the war in 75 Mike would have been 22-26 in 1966 along with 26-30 by the time he left the war in 1970. Mike does eventually purchase them for the A1 in Better Call Saul 210 and when taking out for target practice with Lawson he's shown to have impeccable aim with it this m40a1 is the same sniper that we see him use later on and Better Call Saul during episodes 304 508 and 603 so after leaving the war sometime around 1970 Mike begun a 30-year long career as an officer in the Philadelphia Police Department frequently having to deal with situations such as break-ins and domestic disputes one example of a domestic dispute that he had to deal with was explained to Walt during Breaking Bad season 3 episode 12 during Mike's iconic half-measure monologue where Mike explained to Walt about a half measure that he took back when he was a cop against an abusive husband who was repeatedly beating his wife Mike explains how after many repeat offenses he kidnapped the abusive husband and drove him out into the middle of nowhere Within of Killing Him however Mike backed down only threatening the husband's life if he ever laid a hand on his wife again Mike thought that that would be enough but it wasn't as a few weeks later he was called back to their home to find the abuse of husband had killed his wife by hitting her too hard with a blunt object more on this later in the video another example of a case that mic'd out with is explained during Better Call Saul 103 when Mike gives Jimmy advice on The Disappearance of the kettleman's Jimmy thought that the kettlements quote kidnapped themselves but no one would believe him at first until Mike finally does Mike explains that the reason why he believes Jimmy is because he worked on a case back in Philly where a bookmaster disappeared after taking 6 million dollars in Super Bowl bets it turned out that instead of fleeing the country he hid two doors down from where he lived in a foreclosed house for six months without anyone suspecting him while working as a cop Mike also apparently became familiar with a Colombian gang since he told Gus that he recognized the tattoos on the Hitman during the 508 shootout from a Colombian game that he knew from when he was working as a cop back east in Philly now on to Mike's family and Better Call Saul 409 Mike admitted to Werner that he was married for 22 years also sometime in the late 70s Mike's son Matt AKA Maddie was born implying that he knew his wife her soon-to-be wife by this time Mike's actor Jonathan Banks said in interviews that he wishes that Better Call Saul would have explored his ex-wife but it never came to fruition as we never see her or even learn of her name and Better Call Saul 404 the cold open shows a flashback to the early 1980s as Mike and Maddie build a carport together this flashback was in reference to a story that Maddie must have told Stacey Maddie's wife at some point as Stacy reminded Mike about it in Better Call Saul 306 but we'll get to that later also Maddie's son Kaylee Mike's granddaughter was born in 1999 meaning that Maddie died in 2001 while Kaylee was only two years old which makes sense as Kaylee never really knew her Father which is why she asked Mike and Stacy about him constantly so now I'm gonna discuss Mike's marriage more in depth the thing is although Mike clearly isn't married anymore he never talks about getting divorced and we never hear about Mike's ex-wife still being alive this leads me to believe that Mike didn't get divorced with his wife because they wanted to break up but that Mike's wife actually died somehow while Maddie was still at a young age the way that Mike's past is implied is that Maddie only ever had Mike around as a solo parental figure during Maddie's whole life which is why Maddie was so close to Mike and vice versa Mike seemingly raising Maddie on his own isn't the only reason why I'm so sure that Mike's wife is dead either if she was still alive you'd think that she'd want to also visit her remaining family just like Mike being Stacy and Kaylee but we never see or hear of anything like that ever happening Mike's wife being dead would not only explain the fact that we never hear about her still being alive from Mike or Stacy but also the fact that she never comes to visit Stacy or Kaylee I originally came to this conclusion by working backwards from the facts given to us if Mike's wife died while Maddie was young causing Mike to raise Maddie on his own that means that his wife would have died sometime in the early 80s before the carport flashback if Mike was married for 22 years up until her death that means that he would have had to have gotten married in the 60s before he went into the war during Better Call Saul 613 Mike says how 1984 was when he took his first bribe which could have been due to needing the extra money to take care of Maddie after his wife died if Mike's wife died by 1984 that means that they would have been married since 1962 which could have been a few years before Mike went into the war from 1966 to 1970. If This Were the case it'd explain how Mike's seemingly raised Maddie alone as a single parent with his wife out of the picture the fact that Mike became a dirty cop to provide for his family all by himself along with having to look after Stacy and Kaylee all by himself as well as there is only family left so with the timeline of Mike's marriage settled I'd like to discuss the death of Mike's son Maddie Moore as it's the main reason why Mike moved to Albuquerque in the first place as we know Mike was a cops since the 70s and it wasn't until 1984 when he started taking dirty bribes to presumably make ends meet and help take care of Maddie after his wife had passed away Mike was a cop for 30 years and was such a role model to his son Maddie that Maddie became a cop as well however two years into Maddie being a cop Maddie was offered his first bribe and initially declined Maddie went to Mike to discuss it to which Mike told Maddie to just take the bribe in order to convince Maddie to do so Mike had to admit to Maddie that he was also a dirty cop but just like the rest of them which broke Maddie's glorified image of Mike since Maddie always held Mike on a pedestal due to never knowing that Mike was dirty Maddie eventually took the bribe but was hesitant while doing so and was killed for it by his two partners Hoffman and fenske due to this Mike felt the guilt not only destroying Maddie's image of him but also making Maddie stoop to his level which in the end still got him killed so Maddie was killed in late 2001 due to the guilt that Mike felt over circumstances surround Maddie's death Mike retired from the police force only a week after Maddie was killed Mike then became heavily depressed over Maddie's death and turned to alcoholism as a vice then a few months after Maddie's death Mike planned his revenge against Hoffman and fenske one night Mike went to a bar that coughed regular dad including Hoffman and fenske but before going inside when he arrives he breaks into their cop car to plant a gun between the seats for later use Mike then goes into the bar pretending to just coincidentally go there at the same time as Hoffman and fenske after being noticed Mike greets them and lures them by implying how he knows that they killed Maddie causing them to want to pick up Mike after he left the bar and kill him due to knowing too much as Hoffman and fenske do just that and pick up Mike and drive him away they take his gun and then confront him on what he said to them back at the bar Mike confirms their suspicions telling them that they killed Maddie and staged it as a junkie with a gun so they drive Mike out to a parking lot to kill him but before they drag him out Mike grabs the pistol that he hid in the back seat from earlier proving that this was Mike's plan all along Mike wanted them to take him out to a secluded area for them to kill him just so he can kill them first he told his favorite bartender that he sold his car and was already planning on moving to Albuquerque showing that it was always Mike's plan to kill Hoffman and fenske and then moved to Albuquerque immediately after Mike successfully killed Hoffman and fenske turning the tables on them and killing them before they could kill him but he didn't get away unscathed as he was shot in the shoulder by one of them while doing so the very next day Mike moved to Albuquerque exactly as planned Mike moved to Albuquerque after killing Hoffman and fenske in March 2002 not only to run away from his murders but also to reunite and reconnect with the only family he had left being Stacy and Kaylee now that he was done walloping over Maddie's death due to while getting revenge on his son's Killers When Mike spoke to Stacy after moving to Albuquerque in March 2002 Mike told Stacey that he wanted to help her look after Kaylee from now on but since Stacy was suspicious of Addie's attitude days before his death in regards to a mysterious phone call that he had late one night before he was killed she confronted Mike about this accusing Micah being the person that Maddie was on the phone with Mike denies this and tries to put it to rest but Stacy is still suspicious of it when Mike moved to Albuquerque he also met with Caldera through a cab driver to help patch up his bullet wound as he didn't want to go to the actual hospital for his wound since having it on the record would implicate him in the murder of Hoffman and fenske meeting Caldera also opened up the possibility for Mike to indulge in criminal activity which we do see in better cross all season one since Mike moved to Albuquerque in March of 2002 in better cross All Season 1 starts in May of 2002 it's implied that Mike had only recently gone his job at the toll booth for the courthouse which we see him doing during Better Call Saul season 1. so with this stage entirely said in the pieces and place for Mike now living in Albuquerque let's go ahead and discuss Mike during the events at Better Call Saul starting with season one so Better Call Saul season 1 happened between May 13th and July 18th of 2002 during the beginning of Better Call Saul Mike is revealed to be working at the courthouse toll booth and is a stickler for validation stickers this becomes a recurring theme due to Jimmy never having enough stickers which gave us some comedic moments with Jimmy giving Mike a hard time for it eventually Jimmy became fed up with this and pushed the button for the toll booth without Mike looking clearly not thinking about how he'd have to see Mike again so the next time Jimmy showed up Mike told Jimmy to find somewhere else to park which resulted in Jimmy trying to park his car right at the toll booth which Mike confronted him on Jimmy laid a single finger on Mike causing Mike to put Jimmy in some sort of arm lock which caused the detectives to try and use this against Jamie with regards to the Kettleman disappearance Mike of course decided not to threaten to press charges since he ended up believing Jimmy that the kettleman's kidnapped themselves which we discussed earlier the next day Jimmy tells Mike that he was right and that the kettlemans were camping out five miles away from their backyard Mike doesn't seem surprised but Jimmy still appreciates the health and tells Mike that if he ever needs any legal assistance Jimmy will help for free Mike ends up taking Jimmy up on this offer due to needing him for help against the Philly cops that came to Albuquerque to question Mike about Hoffman and fenske's death see after a night shift at the toll booth might goes to Stacy's but sits outside unable to confront her due to being estranged from her ever since they last spoke months ago when Mike first arrived in Albuquerque Mike then goes home before he can settle in the Philly cops arrive at his doorstep they take him into an interrogation room and try to act friendly towards him but Mike just keeps saying lawyer over and over again then gives them Jimmy's card Mike specifically asked Jimmy to bring him a coffee and when Jimmy arrives with it Mike tells him that the coffee is so that he can spill it on the detective's notebook Jimmy initially denies it but caves and ends up doing so allowing Mike to pickpocket The Notebook from the Cobble pretending to clean the coffee off his shirt also in this scene with Mike Jimmy and the two Philly cops is where we learned a lot about Mike's past with his son dying Hoffman and fenske dying along with them being suspicious of my kill them right before he moved to Albuquerque while Mike reads the detective's notebook back at home Mike realizes that Stacy talked to the Philly cops about Hoffman and fenske's death due to her thinking that the same person who killed Maddie could have also killed them too as she's unaware of the full story of Mike actually killing them at this point Stacy mentions how she found six grand hidden in their house after Maddie died leading her to believe that Maddie was a dirty cop Mike finally admits that he was the one on the phone with Maddie that night that Stacy suspected but yells at Stacy that Maddie wasn't a dirty cop even though Stacy admits that she doesn't even care Mike storms out but then sits in his car for a moment to calm down and ends up going back inside to tell Stacy the truth about how he admitted to Maddie that he was dirty in order to convince Maddie to take the bribe just for Hoffman and fenske to kill him anyways this is one of the most memorable and iconic moments for Mike out of all of Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad due to how amazing Jonathan Banks is in the scene along with how well the entire episode 5-0 was written and directed as a whole watching that I broke my boy scene against me every time definitely one of the most emotional moments out of the entire show and definitely a standout scene an episode out of the first few seasons of Better Call Saul so Mike admits to Stacy that Hoffman and fenske killed Maddie but doesn't openly admit that he kills Hoffman and fenske which is a moment that I love so much when Stacy asks what happened to Hoffman and fenske Mike tells her that she already knows the answer and asks her if she can live with it like I'm getting Goosebumps even just describing the scene it's just that great it's implied that Mike left the decision up to Stacy in regard to if she's going to turn him in for killing Hoffman and fenske but she never does implying that she can live with the truth the next stage I mean Mike meet the Philly detectives back at the station where they return the notebook that Mike stole with Jimmy covering it up under the excuse that they found it in the parking lot Jimmy then later gets Mike to steal the kettleman's stolen money in order to convince them to go back and take their deal with hhm Mike does this by spraying a stack of money and sticking it to an RC truck so he can drive it up to the kettleman's back door to find it when they do they take the money and bring it up to their hiding spot to hide it with the rest of their cash which gives Mike a clear Trail to follow by sneaking into their house after they go to sleep and using a black light to see their fingerprints and their hiding spot below their bathroom sink seeing Mike put his old detective skills to work is always entertaining to see with this just being one of the first times we do so chronologically in the Better Call Saul Breaking Bad Universe Mike then brings the money back to Jimmy to which Jimmy includes the full amount to the bribe that the kettlemans originally gave him and then eventually Loki blackmailed him for since if they were going to return the money to hhm as part of their deal they'd need the full amount Mike being unaware of all of this asks Jimmy what he's doing putting more money into the pile to which Jimmy just responds by saying that he's doing the quote right thing Mike then starts babysitting Kaylee for Stacy showing that they're starting to reconcile their family relationship after Mike's first babysitting session Stacy asked Mike if she can spend the dirty money that she found for Maddie to which Mike tells her that she can use it in order to make sure that her and Kaylee can get by this is also what makes me think that night became a dirty cop in the first place in order to get by providing for Maddie since he's okay with Stacy using the dirty money to provide for Kaylee although Stacy admits that it'll help she says how it's only a drop in the bucket of her expenses which unintentionally motivates Mike to go to Caldera and take up criminal work to help provide for her in order to see Caldera Mike needs to bring in a dog as a cover which he actually ends up giving to Stacy and Kaylee as a gift Mike's first criminal job in Albuquerque is a protection job for Daniel Price wormald selling pills to nacho which unintentionally brings Mike and nacho together for future events while waiting to get picked up by price and their agreed-upon spot at an empty parking garage Mike meets two other hired guards who go by the names Mountain Man and Mr X with the latter being played by Stephen oggs we get a hilarious confrontation between Mike and Mr X where Mr X asks Mike what he's packing Mike says a pimento sandwich which is what the episode that this takes place in is named after betterco Saul episode 109 pimento Mr X realizes that Mike didn't bring a gun to to a protection job and gives Mike a hard time for it while also breaking about his own guns due to this when price shows up Mr X suggests cutting Mike out and splitting Mike's cut between himself and Mountain Man Mike says that he'll use one of Mr X's guns if he needs to to which Mr X takes out one of his guns provoking Mike to take it Mike hilariously does so with ease followed by hitting Mr X and throw with his own gun along taking the rest of his guns off of him and throwing them in the trash mountain man is so scared of what he just saw Mike do to Mr X that he runs away like a little girl which not only emphasizes how much of a badass Mike is but also causes Mike to do prices protection job all by himself getting paid for all three men it's just so funny how Mr X originally wanted to cut Mike out of the job when in reality the exact opposite happened with Mike being the only man remaining at the actual deal spot Mike coach's price on how to properly do the deal with price becoming nervous that he only has one man for protection instead of three when nacho arrives and price counts the money he admits that he's short twenty dollars causing Mike to give nacho a hard time for it saying how either they get the remaining twenty dollars or no deal it was clearly an accidental miscount but Mike does this to set a president on how they're not people that will be walked all over and pushed around after the deal Mike surprises price with his knowledge and nacho due to the work that Mike did looking into nachos to why nacho would want to make sure that the deal went off without any problems this is why Mike knew that he wouldn't need a gun because nacho is running a secret side business that he doesn't want to go his boss to find out about Mike then gives price an amazing monologue about how price is a criminal now and what the difference between a good criminal and a bad person is this is one of the great many monologues for Mike throughout Better Call Saul with in my opinion this being an extremely underrated one at that season one ends with Jimmy meeting Mike at the toll booth again asking him why he didn't take the money that they stole from The kettleman's Mike tells Jimmy how he was hired to do a job simple as that Jimmy tells Mike that he knows what stopped him which was doing the right thing and that he's never gonna let that stop them again lfl better calls all season 1 ends with the back and forth between Mike and Jimmy the two main Breaking Bad protagonists in Better Call Saul with this scene also being replayed during the season 2 premiere to kick it off speaking of which onto Better Call Saul season 2 which takes place between July 18th and September 21st 2002. we see Mike getting picked up for another protection job for price but refuses to get in his flashy Hummer that screams drug dealer Mike suggests driving his car instead saying how this type of job requires restraint and how prices flashy Hummer is the opposite of that price tells Mike that he's been paying Mike the salary of three people to stand there and do nothing and that the last three Deals have gone smoothly to the point that price feels like he doesn't even need Mike anymore price then gives Mike the ultimatum to either get in the Hummer to not come at all and Mike calls his bluff and walks away price not wanting to cave in goes the deal without Mike which proves to be a bad idea as nacho secretly finds where price lives and then robs his house while he's not home stealing the cash that price is made from these steals along with his expensive baseball cards we later see price arrive at the courthouse while Mike is working his Tollbooth job price admits that he's going to speak to the police about his baseball cards but Mike takes him aside to explain how the cops invited price for a fishing trip and explains what that even is Mike strongly advises against it and convinces price to go back home due to Mike admitting that he'll find prices baseball cards himself price calls this a generous offer but Mike admits that it'll cost him Mike then goes to Nacho's father's upholstery shop in order to speak to nacho privately with nacho initially seeing Mike as a threat to his family Mike explains how he knows that nacho robbed price and that nacho underestimated how naive price is towards the whole situation as we learned in season 1 nacho likes to Rob criminals as they have no recourse except price is actually stupid enough to go to the police about the robbery Mike calls this a carrot and stake situation saying how tuku is the stick implying that he'll get too good to find out about Nacho's side business if nacho doesn't play ball Mike then explain finds the carrot which will result in nacho getting a net profit at sixty thousand dollars if he gives back the baseball cards along with 10K in cash this is because Mike Forces price to trade Nacho's flashy Hummer in order to get his baseball cards back as price and Mike go to leave The Exchange price gets a call from the police implying that they're still suspicious of price and will keep bothering him until they get answers in order to get the police off of prices back Mike calls Jimmy in to represent price where we get the hilarious squat cobbler excuse in order to get the cops to leave price alone Mike has then seen babysitting for Kaylee again and gives Stacy a stack of cash to help her get by which is from the protection jobs that Mike has done for Price along with what he got for in exchange between price and nacho in regard to the Hummer in the baseball cards Stacy then admits that she's not getting much sleep due to supposedly hearing gunshots throughout the past few nights Mike suggests staying over for the night but Stacy denies this and tells Mike to not make her sorry that she told him Mike then Stakes out her house the next night without telling her and doesn't see or hear any gunshot thoughts but notices a mailman throwing newspapers in front of each house early in the morning later that day Mike then gets a call from Stacy while he's at work saying how she's noticed damage on her house which she thinks is from a gunshot Stacy shows Mike a chip in the corner of her house paranoid that is from a bullet and convinced that it happened the night before Mike of course knows that this isn't true due to staking out her house during the entirety of the previous night but can't tell her this as it would go against her wishes of Mike not being overprotective Mike tries coming up with the excuse that Stacy dreamed it but Stacy denies it saying that she was awake all along she then gets worked up while saying how she promises him that it wasn't there before even though it probably was and she just never noticed it Stacy backs this up by saying how she was there the night before when Mike wasn't which is incredibly ironic considering we know that Mike was there staking out her house anyways Mike tells her that he believes her in order to calm her down and suggest paying for them to go stay at a hotel for a while that night Mike gets a call from Caldera with a job that has an X level pay and tells Mike how the guy specifically asked for him this turns out to be nacho that nacho knew that he could get in contact with Mike through Caldera since they both probably got the connection to work with price through him Mike meets nacho during the night with nacho telling Mike that he has a problem and needs someone to quote unquote go away the next day Mike and nacho stake out the taco joint that nacho and tuko usually collect drug money from every Tuesday as nacho wants a mic to kill tuko for him Mike tells nacho that killing your partner is a bell you don't on ring which may be a reference to the fact that Maddie's Partners killed him nacho then admits how he scared that tuku will one day kill him not to suggest that Mike should drive up to tuko's cars Tico's leaving and shoot him but Mike goes over all the variables as to how that can go wrong Mike then suggests taking a long distance shot with a sniper rifle confident that he can make the shot since as we know he most likely used to be a marine sniper in the Vietnam War speaking of which this is where we see Mike going to Lawson to check out snipers such as them40a1 that we discussed earlier but he ends up changing his mind and doesn't buy one at least not yet Mike then meets with Nacho again to explain how he won't kill tuko as it's a bad idea Mike explains how killing tuko will draw attention of other salamancas and the cartel worried that nacho won't be able to keep the secret that he's the one that ordered the hit on two go although Mike is making a good point it is also just an excuse that Mike doesn't have to kill tuko as he doesn't want to kill in general throughout Better Call Saul we will see the evolution or the evolution rather of how Mike goes from not wanting to kill anyone to eventually becoming a ruthless Hitman for Gus at the starter Better Call Saul Mike isn't okay with killing anyone even if they're in the game as we see here with tuko eventually Mike Will skew his morals to be okay with killing someone else but only if they're in the game while also not being okay with Innocent civilians and not in the game getting killed due to either being in the wrong place at the wrong time or being affiliated with someone who is in the game by the end a Better Call Saul it's implied that Mike is forced to be okay with killing anyone who's Affiliated as he spirals down into the corruption that he's eventually accustomed to by the time the events of Breaking Bad happen this is the antithesis of Mike's Viewpoint going from being okay okay with taking half measures to only taking full measures as we eventually come to learn during breaking bad as we continue this video I'll be highlighting each moment that Mike has which causes him to struggle with his own moral code eventually changing it for worse with season two A Better Call Saul still being at the beginning of his journey with Mike still taking half measures due to resisting the idea of killing anyone even if they're in the game anyways Mike suggests sinacho that they should get tuko arrested and sent away to prison for a long time instead of killing him as it'll solve Nacho's problems without actually having to kill tyuko we then see tuko and nacho collecting money at the Taco Shop with Mike outside across the street using a pay phone to call in a fight happening at the Taco Shop is because Mike is planning to get into a fight with tuko so he calls the cops ahead of time to assure that they'll show up while tuko and Mike are still in the ACT while knowing the delay in arrival time that the cops will have Mike then pulls up and intentionally bumps tuko's cars He Parks since nacho told him beforehand that Tuco Parks facing forward in the same spot every time so he can keep watch on his car which implies that tuko cares greatly for it Mike walks in pretending to be an oblivious Geezer completely ignorant to the fact that he hit tuko's car mike then goes to pay for some tacos and purposely shows off his wallet and the fact that he has a bunch of money Mike then leaves and tuko follows them to confront him outside Mike suggests trading insurance information but tuko doesn't have insurance and just laughs at the idea and States how he wants cash Mike says that he's willing to accept responsibility but can't help too kofu won't go through Insurance tuko then swipes Mike's Keys away from him which Mike plays Dumb allowing it to happen as it guarantees a conflict before Mike can leave which is exactly what he wants tuko then it costs Mike to give him the money in his wallet to compensate for the damages to his car even though the money is more than what's needed with this effectively turning into tuko wanting to Rob Mike tuko flashes the gun that he has holstered at his hip and demands Mike's wallet to which Mike finally takes it out causing tuko to swipe it tuko mentions how there's like 400 in his wallet and gives Mike a hard time for risking his life for it as he does so nacho note notice the Sirens of police getting closer and tells tuko that it's time for them to go in order to not raise suspicion that he's affiliated with what's about to happen in any way nacho leaves but tuko states to ignorantly continue to give Mike a hard time Tiko then does eventually go to leave but Mike prevents this from happening by grabbing onto tuko's shirt two good demands that Mike lets go and pulls his gun out but Mike smacks it out of his hand causing it to slide under his car Chico starts punching Mike while continuing to tell Mike to let go but not only does Mike refuse to let go he refuses to punch back as he wants Tuka to be caught red-handed as the aggressor once the cops arrive Mike holds Tuka with one hand and holds the post behind him with the other barely able to stay conscious as the cops finally arrive this of course is what causes Mike to have a bruised up and beaten face which was revealed at the beginning of the episode as a you probably wondered how I ended up here cliche we then see Mike meet nacho late that night as nacho pays him for the job nacho wonders why Mike went through all the hassle to get beaten up for half the pay as Mike went a long way just to not pull the trigger Mike Will will go through impractical Links at this point in time for a half measure instead of taking the easy route when it includes taking someone else's life Mike says nothing in response and just leaves as he knows that nacho makes a good point regardless of Mike's own current morals this is the first of multiple examples this season that causes Mike to realize that not pulling the trigger is too much of a liability Mike's half measure Solutions take much more effort just so he doesn't have to pull the trigger and also creates loose ends that could cause potentially even worse unintended consequences one of which we'll see in the next episode as Hector surprises Mike at his favorite Cafe with a deal Hector wants to bribe Mike to lie that tuko's gun was his so tuko doesn't get as much prison time the next day as Mike returns home he sees Arturo waiting for him to give an answer to Hector's deal but it's also a subtle thread implying that they know where Mike lives Mike declined so Arturo and another gang member sneak into Mike's house later that night in order to try and intimidate him to change his mind however Mike suspected that this may happen and realizes that they're inside his house when he gets home due to previous rigging his welcome mat to show their Footprints since Mike knows they're there he manages to get the upper hand on them by luring them out under the ruse that he's watching TV this scene of Mike beating up Arturo and his fellow Lackey is another great example of how much of a badass Mike can be when he wants to be similar to the pimento scene back in season one Arturo admits that they were just supposed to scare Mike into taking the deal and Mike says to try harder although he soon may end up regretting saying that this is because when Mike visits Kaylee at the motel that she and Stacy are staying at Mike gets a surprise visit by the Salamanca twins on a nearby rooftop threatening to kill Kaylee if Mike doesn't comply this crosses the line for Mike as his family is all that he has left to care about Mike doesn't care much about his own life but he cares immensely for his family so Mike takes this extremely personally which is the point that night Mike confronts Hector at his ice cream store with Nacho the Twins and Arturo also there Hector demands that Mike tells the authorities that tuko's gun was his and when Mike wants to discuss his payment Hector says how that time is Mike demands fifty thousand dollars turning the tables on Hector explaining how simply getting to live isn't enough Hector threatens the lives of Stacy and Kaylee causing Mike to threaten Hector back stating how either he gets his money or neither them leave the building alive Hector laughs at the balls on Mike and agrees to Mike's terms nacho goes to Mike's house afterwards to pay him the fifty thousand dollars and to allow them an opportunity to talk privately and Mike personally gives nacho half of the money back as a refund for the twenty five thousand dollars that nacho originally paid Mike to deal with tuko Mike explains that he's giving notcher the money back as he didn't keep up his end of the deal since tuko is now returning sooner than they expected we then see Jimmy representing Mike the next day as Mike tells Suzanne Erickson that the gun wasn't tukos but also won't admit that the gun was his this takes the gun charge off a tuko while also negating the possibility of implicating himself for it as they leave Jimmy mitz to Mike of his own running with tuko during the first two episodes of the show Jimmy tries building a rapport with Mike through their common interactions with two know and tells Mike that this time the legal representation is on him Mike however denies this making Jimmy take a separate elevator along with telling Jimmy to Bill him Mike then uses the money that he's earned to help Stacey move into a new house with Kaylee which becomes the house that she lives in for the rest of both shows although Mike's conflict with Hector has ended Mike has still offended that Hector threatened his family and takes revenge on Hector by robbing one of his Supply trucks Mike Stakes out Hector's drug smuggling operation and learns that they hide their cash in their tires Mike then creates a spike belt with the unknowing help at Kaylee and uses it to stop the truck Mike manages to steal two hundred thousand dollars from the truck's tires believes the driver alive another half measure due to Mike not wanting to pull the trigger although Mike thinks that it's safe to leave the driver alive since the driver never saw Mike's face due to being blindfolded it causes an unintended consequence that will discuss momentarily the truck heist is also another badass Mike moment showcasing how competent he is when he puts his mind to something afterwards Mike Stakes out Hector at his ice cream store once more and is happy to see Hector pissed off when he learns that one of his trucks was robbed Mike then uses some of the money to buy everyone around to drinks at his favorite bar meanwhile nacho puts two and two together realizing that it was Miku robbed Hector's truck as Mike is the only person that nacho can think of who will go through Great Lengths to not pull the trigger nacho tells Mike that since he left the truck driver alive it resulted in an innocent civilian getting killed this is because a Good Samaritan noticed the truck driver tied up on the side of the road and stopped to help him the truck driver then called Hector and when Hector showed up to the scene he killed the civilian as he was a loose end Mike realizes that his hesitation to not kill the truck driver created a domino effect that caused an innocent civilian to be killed because of it since Mike couldn't even kill someone in the game it resulted in someone not in the game being killed which is another horrible unintended consequence of Mike's half measures this causes Mike to want revenge on Hector once again in Mike's point of view if he's gonna finally pull the trigger it's going to be directed towards Hector himself Mike is mad at Hector for killing the innocent civilian million even though might cause the domino effect which resulted in it happening Mike thinks that if he kills Hector it'll put an end to everything and bring Justice to the Good Samaritan this could be seen as a parallel to Mike wanting Justice for his son Maddie by killing his Killers Hoffman and fenske even though Mike started that Domino of events as well by telling Maddie to take the bribe in the first place due to being dirty himself both situations could be seen as potential examples of Mike learning that even if he gets Justice he'll never be able to entirely make things right which we'll discuss much later on in the video so with Hector and Mike's crosshairs he follows nacho and Arturo to learn where they're bringing the truck driver in the desert Mike finally buys them 481 off a Lawson which we discussed earlier in the video Mike then brings the sniper and purges himself up on an important Rock and overlooks that lone house where the truck driver was brought to Mike watches Hector nacho Arturo and the Salamanca twins as they interrogate the truck driver for information and watches the twins kill the truck driver anyways in a way this is seen as insult to injury since the try truck driver was always going to die due to Mike's truck heist regardless of if Mike would have been the one to pull the trigger or not and if Mike would have just killed the truck driver in the first place an innocent civilian would have never gotten mixed up in the situation and killed because of it so Mike can't get a clean line of sight on Hector due to nacho unintentionally standing in the way Mike could have possibly went for a collateral kill but doesn't due to not wanting to kill nacho to get to Hector then before Mike is given another opportunity he hears the Horn of his own car blaring in the distance Mike runs back to his car to see a branch propped up to make it go off along with a mysterious note that says Don't implying that someone knows that Mike wants to kill Hector and is telling him not to this leads us directly into Better Call Saul season 3 which takes place between September 21st 2002 and March 22nd 2003 with the first episode picking up immediately where season 2 left off so Mike understandably freaked out by the note drives away and then pulls over to check his car for a Tracker when he doesn't find one he brings his car to a junkyard to completely dismantle it until he finds one Mike initially misses it but eventually realizes that there was a Tracker in his gas cap the tracker in a gas cap hiding spot becomes a trend for Mike throughout Better Call Saul so keep that in mind this is also another Detective Mike Montage with minimal dialogue as Mike dismantles his car to find the tracker once Mike finds the tracker he then leaves his gas cap with the tracker in it so he can secretly meet with Caldera to buy an identical tracker and when he finally gets it he tests it out at home to see how it works Mike discovers that if he unplugs the battery the blip on the tracker disappears and then reappears when he puts the battery back in in order to not raise suspicion to whoever is tracking him Mike rakes the original tracker up to a radio to quickly drain the battery throughout the day this causes the people tracking Mike to come to his house that night to replace the tracker in his gas cap a little do they know Mike has actually put his own tracker in his gas cap for them to take this means that when the man falling Mike swaps out the tracker he's actually taking Mike's tracker allowing Mike to track him back absolutely love how Mike Plays this reverse Uno tracker card on them allowing Mike to now track the men who are originally tracking him Mike wants answers as to who is following him so he starts following them himself with his own tracker in order to do so while also leaving their tracker in his gas cap at home so that they don't catch on to the fact that he's now following them Mike follows the man with his tracker to various dead drop locations with the trail eventually ending at Los poyos implying that it's Gus who has been tracking him Mike then sends shimmy into Los Pollos to spy on The Bag Man that Mike has been following but Jimmy blows his cover due to being too obvious with Gus realizing that Mike is on to him Gus sends Victor out in an SUV with Mike's tracker so Mike follows him but then comes upon his tracker in the middle of the road with a phone on top of it Mike cautiously approaches the phone and it rings with Mike answering it Gus is on the other side and agrees with Mike to leave their guns holstered and that Gus will approach Mike on the road to speak in person this shows us the first time that Mike meets Gus and speaks to him in person over the fact that Gus has been following Mike ever since Mike's started the conflict with tuko and Hector back in season 2. so Gus reveals that he's aware of Mike's conflicts with the salamancas throughout season 2 including Mike's confrontation with tuko Hector confronting Mike over tuko's gun along with how it was Mike who robbed Hector's truck which is a big deal since no one knows about that other than Mike and nacho Gus calls out Mike for wanting revenge on Hector after learning that Hector killed the Good Samaritan with Mike admitting how it bothered him due to the Good Samaritan not being in the game Gus tells Mike that he stopped him from killing Hector as Gusto wants Hector alive but that he approves of Mike robbing another one of Hector's trucks as it does hurt his business and his pride Gus wants Mike to hurt Hector's business again causing Mike to realize that Hector is a competitor of Gus Mike is initially reluctant to help Gus hurt Hector's business but agrees due to having Gus's approval being the only way that Mike can continue to mess with Hector without Gus getting in his way so Mike goes down across the border and grabs drugs off of Gus's Mexican doctor in order to use sad drugs you gotta one of Hector's ice cream distribution trucks caught at the order Mike accomplishes this with a slightly convoluted plan to fill a shoe with drugs hanging on a power line and shoot it with his M40 sniper as Hector's truck passes under it in order to sprinkle the drugs all over the truck without the drivers knowing about it also in order to not raise suspicion over his gunshots he tricks the drivers into thinking that he's just a hunter by purposely shooting his gun in the air a few times first the shoe that Mike shoots is also the same shoe that was seen in a Flash Forward at the beginning of this episode as a Los Pollos truck drives under it with the full story implying that this is how Gus started to take over Hector's smuggling Roots Mike then Stakes out Hector's ice cream store the Winking Greek and watches it As It Gets Busted by cops due to the truck that was busted at the border leading the authorities back to Hector's establishment as well afterwards Mike goes to visit Kaylee and Stacy again and Stacy can tell that something is up with Mike the next night Mike gets a payment delivered to him by Victor during one of his toll booth night shifts but gives it back to Victor as he's not helping Gus mess with Hector for money along with the fact Mike doesn't want to be under Gus's thumb by accepting his payment Mike then accepts a side job from Jimmy in order to pay him back for Jimmy helping him out beforehand Jimmy wants Mike to get information out of Chuck's house while masking as a repairman to fix Chuck's door that Jimmy broke down in 302. this is also the only time that Mike and Chuck ever meet face to face I really enjoy this interaction between them as Mike tricks Chuck to go upstairs and leave him alone due to my convincing truck that he has to use power tools in order to get the job done while Mike is fixing the door he takes photos at Chuck's house and finds a phone number for Chuck's ex-wife Rebecca in order to give to Jimmy Mike delivers the Intel to Jimmy at his favorite Diner and says nothing when Jimmy starts wanting to talk smack about Chuck I would have liked to see Mike give his opinion about Chuck to Jimmy but it makes sense that Mike wouldn't take sides and would stay out of the brotherly Vendetta back at the toll booth that night Gus arrives to speak to Mike directly about Mike sending back the payment Mike admits that what he did he didn't do it for Gus this causes Gus to imply to Mike that although he feels bad about the Good Samaritan being killed nothing you can do will ever fix that this Begins the trend of Mike realizing that making things right is the one thing you can never do also although Mike helped Gus's business again by messing with Hector Mike says that it just feels good to have Hector out of his head Gus also admits to Mike that he stopped Mike from killing Hector due to a bullet through the head being far too Humane implying to Mike the idea that Gus has a personal Vendetta against Hector Gus gives Mike an open invitation to work for him in the future and Mike keeps it as an open possibility but States how it'll depend on the work which also parallels what Mike once said to Caldera Mike is open to working for criminals whether it's a connection through Caldera or Gus himself but Mike's strong moral code still won't allow him to be a hired Hitman Mike then starts going to support group meetings with Stacy over trying to cope with Maddie's death Mike thinks that he's just there to support Stacy but in reality I think Stacy wanted Mike to go with her because she can tell that he's still suffering from the loss of Maddie just as much as she is if not more after the meeting Stacy admits that she volunteered Mike to help build a new playground with out asking Mike first and Mike reluctantly agrees after Stacy brings up how Mike helps build a carport with Maddie when he was a kid what's interesting is Mike doesn't even remember this and as I mentioned earlier we actually see a flashback of Mike building this carport with Maddie during season four back at Mike's house we see him take out five thousand dollars from the hiding spot in his closet where he's hiding the money that he stole from Hector in order to pay for the supplies that he needs to build the playground that Stacy wants him to he reluctantly allows members of the support group to help him including Anita who slowly becomes a temporary love interest for Mike that night at the toll booth Mike notices price parked in a vehicle waiting to speak to him about wanting to hire him as his bodyguard the same as before due to nacho forcing price to order empty pill capsules Mike denies taking the job and advises that price does the same because Mike realizes that nacho is trying to take out his new boss Hector just like how he once wanted to take to go out since Mike staked out Hector multiple times Mike knows that Hector has a heart problem and so he puts two and two together realizing that nacho wants to take actor out by swapping his heart pills with phony ones Mike knows that Gus doesn't want Hector dead so he doesn't want to be a part of Nacho's plans to take Hector out as he knows that that's a bad idea Mike however doesn't tell price any of this so price decides to go through selling Notch of the empty pill capsules with or without Mike as nacho is forcing Price's hand along with the fact that price already ordered the capsules during another support group meeting Mike learns how Anita is there due to Never Getting closure over her husband who disappeared years ago Mike wonders if her husband was a cop but is told that he used to be in the Army and that he disappeared while hiking alone Mike realizes that her husband could have accidentally come across some criminal activity while out hiking and was killed for it which hits Mike personally as it's a similar situation to the Good Samaritan that was killed due to the truck heist this makes Mike want to call price to get involved with the meeting with nacho as he wants to get the directions for where exactly the Good Samaritan was buried along with wanting to make sure that if nacho goes through with his plan to take out Hector that he does it right without being under the suspicion of Gus once at the meeting Mike calls out Nacho first plan to take down Hector and tells him to switch the pills back after so the cartel doesn't find out that it was him who did it Mike checks Nacho's gas cap to make sure that Gus's men aren't on to him and then he warns nacho that there are other people to worry about besides the salamancas indirectly warning nacho about Gus without outright mentioning his name in The Next Episode we get a montage of Mike using his metal detector to search for the good Samaritan's body and he finds the body due to the body having a wedding ring on one of his hands this is a double-edged sword as it allowed Mike to find the body but also makes Mike feel worse about what happened due to knowing that this man has a family Mike anonymously calls in the body to give the Man's family closure something that anito wishes that she could have although this is a noble action for Mike to make it doesn't make up for the fact that the man is dead you can try and do what you can in order to try and help the situation but sometimes there's nothing you can do to ever truly make up for what's happened later that night Mike takes out money that he stole from Hector's truck and brings it to Los poyos to speak to Gus about laundering it for him Gus agrees to launder Mike's money for him under the condition Edition that Mike works for Gus in the future and they shake hands on it Mike then meets with Lydia at the magical offices in order to go over the details of their transaction and Lydia informs them that he'll be paid ten thousand dollars per week meaning that his total of two hundred thousand dollars should be paid in the next 20 weeks Mike is initially reluctant to give over his information as he doesn't want to leave a paper trail in order to make their transaction look more legitimate Mike suggests changing his job title from Logistics consultant to security consultant as he used to be a cop Lydia tells Mike that Gus and her the only two people who are aware of Gus laundering Mike's money and that Gus has never done this with anyone else before stating that Gus must think highly of Mike in order to agree to do this Mike then States how Lydia is risking a lot for a drug dealer but Lydia responds by saying how that's all Mike thinks like Gus is then Mike must not know Gus very well next up Better Call Saul season 4 which happens from March 23 2003 to April 1st 2004 since Mike is now getting paid 10K a week to sit around and do nothing he quits his job at the toll booth and checks in with Kaylee and Stacy in order to let Stacy know that his schedule is now more flexible as he's making his own hours when Mike gets home he looks at his first check for Magical in the mail for 10K but has trouble just sitting down and relaxing Mike then looks up the address to a magical warehouse and thus Begins the arc where Mike starts poking around magical buildings as a security consultant in order to make his shop feel more legitimate I'm unsure if Mike actually feels like this helps or if he just doesn't like sitting alone all day with his thoughts Mike really goes out of the box here as he finds where a magical worker lives in order to impersonate him by sneaking into magical with his key card Mike also kills the battery to the worker's vehicle so he doesn't arrive to work until much later Mike easily enters the magical building and blends right in from signing birthday cards to a bossing around employees Mike eventually finds the worker that he stole the key card from and has to speak to his Superior getting the superior a long list of security flaws from within the building the superior is understandably overwhelmed and Confused causing Mike to tell him to call up Lydia then at the park with Kaylee the following day Mike gets a call being told that Lydia wants to meet up with him when Mike arrives Lydia calls him out for what he's doing as an unnecessary risk but Mike argues that putting his face to his job does the exact opposite Lydia wants Mike to stop going around magical terminals to bother her employees but Mike states that he has an entire list of seven other terminals that he wants to do that exact same thing too Lydia then tells Mike that he currently has Gus's respect and that he should try his best not to lose it Lydia then calls Gus to complain about the situation but Gus Takes Mike's side telling Lydia to let him do what he wants and to get him his own key card if she must Mike then meets Jimmy at his favorite diners Jamie has a job proposition for him but Mike turns down the Hummel Heist as he doesn't need the money anymore due to Gus now laundering his money not only does Mike turn down the job but he tells Jimmy that he shouldn't do it either and then gives Jimmy condolences for Chuck's death but Jimmy just brushes that off frustrated that Mike won't take the job it feels like Mike reached Jimmy like an open book during this scene and can tell that neither of them need to be doing jobs like that right now but for different reasons Mike tells Jimmy that the job is solid but implies that Jimmy shouldn't do it as you can tell that Jimmy's trying to distract himself from dealing with his grievances over Chuck's death also as a side note it's revealed from a phone call between Gus and Bolsa that the cartel thinks that a rival gang were the ones who attacked Hector's truck back in season two when in reality it was Mike meanwhile Mike meets up with Anita at his favorite Diner and it's implied that since Anita also knows the waitress on a first name basis that either she has been there Bunch herself or that Mike and Anita have come there multiple times already off screen they bring up their support group causing Mike to call out a member named Henry who's been lying about telling stories about having a dead wife Mike mentions how his stories never add up and that he rubs his wrist whenever he tells a fake story calling it out as a tell like what a poker player would have at first Anita's slightly appalled that Mike is accusing Henry lying but after he States the facts I just mentioned she ends up making a bat with him to see if he's right or wrong later on at the support group meeting we hear Stacy talk about how she's worried that she'll eventually forget about Maddie due to going an entire morning without thinking about him put a pin in what stacy says here as it gets reiterated multiple times throughout future Seasons kind of crazy it seems like some just insignificant dialogue but it becomes very important later on anyways Henry tries relating his ex-wife to Stacy grieving over Maddie which frustrates Mike since he knows that Henry is lying so he sees Henry reaching out to Stacey as an insult both Mike and Anita notice Henry rubbing his wrist when he begins lying about having a dead ex-wife so at this point I'm pretty sure that Anita believes that Henry is lying too Mike rolls his eyes and gives a sarcastic sigh over Henry speaking and gets called out for having a problem with them Mike starts calling out Henry for lying and goes a bit overboard even with Anita trying to get him to stop even though Anita knows that Mike is right she doesn't want Mike to make the scene that he's currently making Mike not only calls out Henry but once Henry leaves Mike also calls out the entire support group which reminds me a lot of Jesse doing something similar during Breaking Bad this Loops us back to the teasered episode with Mike stating how you want me to talk I talked which is what the episode is also named after we then see Mike at another magical terminal and he gets a call from Victor telling him that Gus wants see him that night when Mike arrives Gus confronts Mike over knowing about how nacho is going to go after Hector Mike admits that he knew about Nacho's plans and States how although he agreed to not go after Hector himself anymore he never agreed to be Hector's bodyguard Mike then stands up to Gus in a pretty badass way calling Gus's Bluff over having a bunch of armed men surrounding them as a threat Mike knows that he's too useful to Gus for Gus to take him out and can tell that Gus has a job for him so he tells Gus to cut to the Chase and tell him what it's about it's revealed that Gus wants Mike to help him hire an engineer in order to construct the secret underground location for the super lab that we know from Breaking Bad they have an incredibly complicated method of transporting Engineers to check out the laundromat which includes giving them directions to get in a specific car once they get out of the airport drive to the side of a random road and place a bag over their head to be picked up in the first engineer proves to be untrustworthy as he has a blabbermouth about previous jobs along with being overconfident and getting the job done Gus eventually ends up hiring Berner Ziegler with this being an introduction to werner's character got shows Mike the living quarters that berner's crew will live in during the Super lab construction Mike says how Werner said construction would take at least six months with Mike estimating 8 to 10 months with possible delays in mind Mike then goes over a list of accommodations that they should get for werner's crew and then goes over the security setup with Tyrus this shows how Mike's fake job as a security consultant for Madrigal is actually transforming into being a real security consultant for Gus's secret operations along with Mike creating a crew of trustworthy men to work under him Mike goes to Stacy to apologize for lashing out at the support group meeting as he left her with quite a mess to clean up she mentions that he should also apologize to Anita but Mike implies how that bridge is burned with us never actually seeing Anita on screen ever again Mike then introduces werner's work crew to their living quarters but when he addresses the crew Kai is already introduced as a problem Mike lets them know that they can write down whatever they need and that Mike's crew will get it for them Werner compliments their living quarters and thanks Mike for everything he's done Mike then goes out to his man watching the security cameras and tells him to keep a close watch on Kai's specifically over the next nine months Mike oversees verner's crew and their construction of the super lab location with episode 407 having a nine month time skip from April of 2003 to January 2004 being one of the biggest time skips in Better Call Saul during the construction while Werner updates Mike on how they need one more blast before pouring concrete for the walls one of the men accidentally knocks over support beam with the forklift causing a fight to break out between Kai and the forklift operator due to it causing yet another delay Mike breaks it up and then later confronts Werner about it they first start the conversation with small talk as Verner teaches Mike some German because his last name's German but Kai gives him a hard time for her updates Mike on the delays and Mike wonders if they can send Kai home but Werner admits how Kai's their best demolitionist Werner admits how they thought that they'd only be there for eight months but after nine months they're barely halfway done Werner requests some r r which Mike reluctantly agrees in the next episode we see that Mike has brought Vernon's crew to a strip club Mike brings Werner to his favorite bar as you can tell that just like himself this strip club released isn't werner's scene this of course is because Verner is married and admits to Mike that after 26 years this is the longest that he's ever been away from his wife Mike and Verner can fight over their fathers with this being where we learned that Mike's father left him alone for most of his childhood as I discussed near the beginning of the video Mike gets a call about Kai causing a disturbance at the strip club and goes to handle it while for some reason leaving Werner alone at the bar instead of taking him with him Mike pays off the bouncers at the club to prevent them from calling the cops on Kai while demanding Kai to go back to the living quarters by the time Mike gets back to the bar he finds Werner blabbing about the super lab construction plans to fellow bar goers and quickly rushes burner out of there under the roof that his wife is calling him back in the car of Runners completely oblivious to the trouble that he's in and might confronts him about it the next time they speak back at the living quarters Mike calls burner out for scribbling his blueprints on a coaster for the strangers that he was talking to at the bar and Werner unsuccessfully downplays it might calls out the fact that he's a German National randomly in the middle of Albuquerque pouring hundreds of tons of Concrete in a secret underground location Werner admits that Mike is right and sincerely apologizes still not understanding how serious this is and that his life is on the line my carefully warns Werner about how the man they're working for is very serious and to think about the precautions that they go through to make sure their work stays secret Mike tells Werner about how much money he's making along with what might happen if something goes wrong here Mike is implying to Werner that he may be killed if he slips up like this again and although Werner says that he understands he honestly doesn't Mike then speaks to us privately about the progress of the construction stating how the support being fell in their concrete form and that'll take a few days to make a new one might also foreshadows the huge rock that they'll have to blast as it's right in the middle where their Elevator Shaft will go which will take another week although Mike admits that they're only about halfway done with construction he vouches for werner's crew doing solid work Mike then vouches for Werner himself telling us how Werner realizes how he messed up and that it won't happen again since Mike is vouching for Werner as much as he is here this essentially makes Werner Mike's problem if anything else goes wrong during the crew lasting final Rock they have a wiring problem and Verner volunteers to fix the issue as he doesn't work High to risk his life even though Kai's the main demolitionist he manages to fix the issue and the blast is successful with Mike Intel that burner's still shaken up from having to deal with such a dangerous issue back at the living quarters the crew celebrates with Mike but Mike goes over to confront Werner on how he still feels shaken up Werner says how he's homesick and asks Mike if he'd be able to see his wife side note this is also where Mike admits that he was married for 22 years anyways Mike denies werner's request to see his wife and tries compromising by saying how he can speak to his wife over the phone forever long he'd like when Mike tracks in the next day they realize that verner's missing and so Begins the can Mouse Chase to catch him before Lalo does Mike splits up his crew to search for Werner while going out to look himself starting with calling up travel wire to learn which branch Werner had his wife wire money to Mike then goes there under the ruse that Werner is his brother-in-law with Dimension diabetes without his insulin he convinces the worker to not only admit that Berner was there but to also let him look at the security footage after calling up one of the his men to recite the transcript of werner's last call with his wife Mike realizes that they're headed to a resort and calls up multiple until he finds out which one verner's booked at meanwhile it's revealed that Lalo's been spying on Mike and starts tailing him in a quite obvious way in order to lose Lalo Mike tricks him by getting him stuck in a parking lot this gives Mike a head start to reach Werner before lalocan but Lalo still manages to call Vernie to get some information out of him before Mike can arrive to hang up the phone so not only did Berner escape the living quarters he blocked details about the construction to Lalo which is the final straw Mike brings Vern around into the middle of nowhere hoping that he can talk Gus out of killing him but is unsuccessful since Vernors now become Mike's responsibility Mike accepts the burden of taking burner's life so werner's death will at least be quick as opposed to whatever Tyrus and Victor may have in mind also since Mike takes a burn on himself he's able to get Werner to convince his wife to return to Germany so that she won't be killed as well it's incredibly tragic and saddening to see all this go down along with the fact that this is a turning point for Mike being the first kill that he's ever had had to do for Gus Mike returns to Gus at the super lab location and says nothing but gives Gus a cold stare implying that the deed is done even though Mike isn't happy about it slowly but surely Gus is corrupting Mike's moral code and this is the first major instance that Mike has skewed his morals in order to accommodate working for Gus but on to Better Call Saul season 5 which happens between April 1st and May 14th 2004. since Lawler knew about Werner working for Gus on a construction project the beginning of season 5 sees Mike taking part in Gus's rears against Lalo with the excuse that the construction project was just a chicken cooler Lalo asked to be introduced to Mike who he calls Michael as that's what Werner called him when speaking about until Lalo in the season 4 finale needless to say lala doesn't believe Gus's excuses about Werner or the construction project causing Gus to have to send Vernon's crew home until Lalo's been quote dealt with Mike is then shown secretly sending home verner's crew by moving them to a remote location in the desert and having them all leave with separate vehicles to separate airports when Kai talks down on Burner Mike sucker punches him before slandering verner's Integrity then when Casper confronts Mike he tells Mike that Verna was worth 50 of him and Mike stands there and takes it as he knows that that's true and feels remorse for killing Verner Mike then meets with Gus to notify him that Vernon's crew has all been sent back to Germany and Mike vouches for the crew keeping their mouths shut Mike says how the entrances to the super lab location have all been sealed Gus offers Mike a retainer to sit around and do nothing until they can resume construction but Mike tells Gus to keep his retainer over being frustrated that Gus thinks that compensating werner's wife with money fixes the fact that Mike had to kill Werner a few days later we see Mike hung over woken up by multiple phone calls from Stacy asking him to babysit Kaylee last minute since Mike is depressed over having to kill Werner he has reverted to drinking himself in a hole and takes it out on Kaylee duder continuously asking Mike questions about Maddie When Stacy gets home Mike tells her that Kaylee is locked in her room won't come out didn't have dinner and leaves without stating why Mike then goes and gets extremely drunk at his favorite bar and demands the bartender take down the photo he has up at the city opera house since it reminds him of Werner because because when Mike brought Werner to that bar murder told Mike how his father helped construct the Sydney Opera house as Mike walks home he provokes a bunch of skids getting into a fight with them with this time coming out on top as the rest of them are stunned over Mike taking down one of them the next day Mike tries to apologize to Stacy for yelling at Kaylee although he has ignored her calls up until this point stacy says that since he never returned her calls she got a different babysitter to look after Kaylee for the afternoon and suggests that Mike should instead come over at a later date for dinner Mike has however stubborn and impatient and suggests paying off the babysitter and taking over himself but Stacy denies this as she can tell that something's going on with Mike and then he needs time to work out whatever issues he's having Mike lyzen says that he's fine but Stacy wonders what'll happen the next time Kaylee brings up Maddie so Mike rudely storms off the beginning of season 5 shows Mike going down a self-destructive path as he becomes estranged from his family and drinks his sorrows away Mike feels like he deserves punishment for what he did to Werner so he gets drunk and walks home the same way again past those same skids purposely wanting to get beaten up but the thing is this gets taken too far as one of the pulls a knife out and stabs the mic he then wakes up in a random bed and walks outside the building to reveal that he's woken up in Mexico it's implied that Gus was somehow keeping an eye on him and that Gus had his men save Mike's life and bring Mike to Gus's Mexican doctor that we saw in season three the doctor saves Mike's life and tells Mike that he can try to leave on his own that he'll need to rest for a week or he won't survive the trip back home Mike wants to speak to Gus and ask him Mike esperan to Mexico so he tries factoring together a homemade phone charger but then the lady that lives there hilariously gives Mike an actual phone charger to use Mike calls Gus and questions Gus's reasoning but is told that this is not a good time and gets hung up on while Mike rests he's later called by Jimmy who wants Mike to do some work for him as a pi Mike doesn't want to do the job and he couldn't even if he wanted to so he denies Jimmy's job offer as Mike recovers he first takes a look around the villa and notices how there's an entire community living there as he gets surprised by stampede children running past him Mike then decides to use the spare time to fix a window to the house that he's in which seems to be therapeutic for Mike as he focuses his mind on something other than his troubles finally Gus arrives and speaks to Mike in person and implies why Gus brought Mike to Mexico it's revealed that Gus is aware of how Mike has been drinking himself to death and how he's estranged from his family and that Gus can see the self-destructive path that Mike is going down it's implied that Gus brought Mike to Mexico in order to allow Mike to cool off and work through his problems in order to get his head on straight Gus gives Mike an ultimatum that he can either continue down the self-destructive path that he's going down or he can get back on his feet and continue working for gusts to help provide for his family Mike is initially reluctant as he doesn't want to become a hitman for Gus and sees Gus is no different than the salamancas Gus relates himself to Mike as being two people that understand the concept of Revenge and how they'll both stop at nothing until they get it this idea of Revenge brings them both together with Mike agreeing to get his head on straight and try to fix his life to the best of his abilities and to continue working for Gus once Mike's back in Albuquerque he speaks to Stacy and says that he's all good now when Stacy asks why Mike says that he's decided to play the cards that he's been dealt implying how he's potentially okay with compromising his moral code in order to keep working for Gus although this is an initially seen as Mike fixing his mental struggles he can be seen as a bad thing too as now Mike is further corrupting his morals in order to let go what he's done to Werner along with being potentially okay with doing something like that again in the future also Mike goes with Gus and Victor to a meeting with nacho in order for nacho to give them Intel about what Lalo's been up to along with what he's planning Gus tells nacho to report to Mike from now on which works out well as they already know each other after Gus and Victor leave nacho confronts Mike alone about who Gus truly is Mike tells nacho that he warned him back in season three that there were other people than the salomonkers to worry about and that Gus is who he meant nacho admits that Gus has a gun to his father's head but Mike States how they first have to deal with Lalo and then they'll talk about his father and so that's what Mike sets out to do by first trying to get Lalo arrested and sent to prison he accomplishes this by pushing evidence about what Lalo did in the season 4 finale to come to light in order for the Albuquerque Police Department to have a reason to arrest him first Mike poses as a pi under the Alias Dave Clark in order to coach a witness from the travel wire incident to change her statement and call back the detectives about Lalo's car then Mike goes under cover again this time to bring evidence to detective Tim Roberts that it was also Lalo's vehicle that did the hit and run in the parking lot on the same day when Lalo was trying to tail Mike Tim Roberts puts the obvious two and two together realizing that it's the same person from each crime which is exactly what Mike wanted now that the cops are out looking for Lalo's vehicle Mike gets nacho to call him and tell him of all those whereabouts so Mike can use a police radio to impersonate a cop and call in where Lavo is so that he'll get arrested once love is in jail nacho wants Mike to help him with Gus secretly holding his father's life hostage but Mike puts a pin in that as Lalo still isn't out of the picture even though he's now arrested see the thing is it's revealed that wallow had a phone snuck into prison so he can still make the shots while being detained with one request being the fact that he wants nacho to burn down a Los Pollos Gus allows this as he doesn't want Lyle to be suspicious that Nacho's secretly working for him but at the same time now Gus and Mike have realized that Lalo being locked up isn't enough and that they'll have to kill him in order to kill Lalo without the cartel thinking that Gus is to blame Gus tells Mike that they have to get Lalo South of the Border since if follow dies while in the U.S the cartel will suspect Gus in order to do that they have to first get Lalo out of prison on bails so that law will be forced to flee to Mexico meanwhile since law was arrested nacho got Jimmy to represent him to get a Lalo out on bail which initially seems like an impossible task that is until Mike brings over evidence for Jimmy to use along with a plan to get Lalo out on bail what's interesting is that Mike originally got Lolo arrested but now that he needs a lot out of jail he essentially has to get Jimmy to undo everything that he's done to get Lalo arrested in the first place the judge compromises between the prosecution and Jimmy's defense by allowing law to get out on bail but only for the ridiculously impossible amount of seven million dollars this is where we get the infamous Bag Man episode as Lalo needs Jimmy to be his bag man and retrieve the bail money from the Salamanca twins this job proves to be more difficult than just drive through the desert however as Jimmy gets jumped by a cartel gang wanting to steal the money and kill Jimmy in the process Mike is revealed to have been secretly tailing Jimmy as a bodyguard sent by Gus to assure that Lala would get his bail money with Mike following Jimmy's Car using a Tracker in the gas cap to Suzuki Esteem which if you'll remember is the same way that Gus initially started following Mike in the first place so just before Jimmy is killed by The Hitman Mike takes out all of them with his sniper rifle saving Jimmy's life Mike ends up driving back with Jimmy Suzuki esteemed due to his own vehicle being rendered useless from the shootout but not too far down the road Jimmy's car stops working too as it was also shot so they ditched Jimmy's Car and walk on foot through the desert but avoiding the main road as one Hitman survived and has been doing a grid search looking for them during Mike's timeout in the desert with Jimmy it definitely Bond more than ever before due to being in such a high-stake life and death situation they end up having to camp out for the night where Jimmy admits to Mike that not only is he now married to Kim that he told her a half truth about what he's doing out in the desert Mike worries what Kim will do with this information but Jimmy assures on that she'll just be worried sick Mike tells Jimmy that since she knows what's really going on she's in the game now which is true no matter how much mental gymnastics Jimmy tries to do in order to deny it although Mike is relatively hard on Jimmy throughout this experience he does have sympathy towards Jimmy due to his naivete I can tell that Jimmy has been in shock over the shootout out and that he doesn't have the kind of survival skills that Mike himself does Mike ends up sharing a small portion of his water with Jimmy along with even advising Jimmy to collect his own piss in case he's desperate enough to drink it after one of Jimmy's not so bright ideas to drag the duffel bags of money instead of carrying them Mike realizes that Jimmy's ripped a hole in one of them and has been leaving a trail of 100 bills behind him Mike patches up the hole with Jimmy's license plate which Jimmy starts collecting the straight bills but while doing so Jimmy stubs his big toe on a cactus which was the final straw to break Jenny's spirit with Jimmy Lang there given up Mike gives an incredibly important monologue when Jimmy asks Mike how or why I can keep going Mike states that he knows why he's out there and that he knows what it's all for well Jimmy asks them to elaborate Mike explains that he has people waiting for him to provide for them so they can have a better life they don't know what he truly does for his job and they never will as he wants to keep them protected Mike admits that it doesn't matter to him if he lives or dies as long as his family has what they need he concludes the monologue by stating that when it's his time to die he'll be ready to accept it knowing that he did everything he could for them this monologue is incredibly important not only for Mike's motives and why he does what he does but also the overall fate of Mike's character so that being said also put a pin in this for now as we will be returning to it near the end of the video that being said it gives Jimmy the courage to face off against the final Hitman Jimmy starts using himself as bait to lure out the Hitman as he tells Mike to get his sniper ready to take him out and Mike succeeds in the last moment now since this is a chronological timeline video we'll actually be briefly discussing the cold open for the final episode to Better Call Saul 613 as the cold open is a missing scene that happens at the end of Eggman 508 but before bad choice Road 509 this missing scene reveals that during their walk back to civilization Jimmy might come across a cistern water which means that they actually were able to hydrate themselves and refill their water supply before finishing their walk back when Jimmy brings up stealing while his bail money Mike States how it's not theirs and that he knows people that would have a problem with it this is a nice callback to the season one finale A Better Call Saul when Mike stated that he didn't steal the kettleman's money because he was hired to do a job that's as simple as that my cash Jamie if he's feeling alright to which Jimmy asks what he'd do if they hypothetically use the money to to create a time machine Mike first says they'd go back in time to the day that his son was killed but then he changes his answer to the date that he took his first bribe as a cop this implies that Not only was Maddie's death the one thing that Mike wished he could have prevented that he regrets ever becoming a dirty cop in the first place as that created the domino effect that would eventually lead to Maddie's death Mike says that he'd like to go forward in time to check on his family in five to ten years to see if they're okay which also implies to be Mike wanting to be able to check on his family after he's potentially died Mike is potentially implying that he doesn't expect to live longer than five to ten more years but he's okay with it relating back to what he just said to Jimmy earlier about accepting his own death as long as he knows that he did everything he could to provide for his family this shows that although Mike is dedicating his life towards providing for them no matter how confident he is about doing so by the time that he dies he still wishes that he could go forward in time after his death to see if it all actually eventually worked out for them Mike and Jimmy managed to walk back to civilization until they come across a travel center to clean up hydrate and call Gus's men to come pick them up Victor and tires picked them up and informed them that they'll clean up what they can of the shootout out and Mike gets Jimmy to work on a cover story to explain to Lala what took him so long to return with the bail money Mike meets with Gus to discuss the Hitman and when Mike admits that the Hitman had tattoos on them resembling a Colombian gang that Mike recognized from Back East Gus realizes how it was Bolsa who hired them in order to try and keep Lalo in jail Bolsa did this to naively try and help Gus when in reality it hindered Gus's true plans after Gus and Mike settle things about Bolsa along with discussing their plans to kill Lolo South of the Border Mike vouches for nacho and tells Gus that he should let nacho off the hook as he's done everything he's been asked of here we can see more hints that Mike truly cares for nacho Mike tells Gus that fear isn't a good motivator showing how Mike's ideals on how to handle certain situations differ from Gus not only is this an important note to keep in mind as a contrast between their characters we'll also be putting a pin in this too to discuss later on in the video as their viewpoints will eventually change we then get the iconic scene of Mike trying to help out Jimmy with his PTSD from being out in the desert this seems really important to both characters and for that reason I've discussed this many many men many many many times on the channel but essentially Mike's just telling Jimmy that one day the trauma will go away and he won't think about it anymore along with the fact that they have nothing to blame but their past decisions putting them in this situation and Mike is pretty much just paraphrasing what Stacy said at a support group meeting about not thinking about Maddie for a whole morning which is why would Stacy said there was so important as Mike pretty much just reiterates it to Jimmy later on that day Lalo ends up finding Jimmy Suzuki Esteem with old holes in the ditch so he goes to Jimmy and Kim's apartment to confront them on it Mike repeatedly calls Jimmy to warn him but it's too late as Lalo's already there Mike gets Jimmy to leave the phone on but to set it down somewhere that it can't be seen in order for Mike to listen in on the situation it's then revealed that his Lalo is confronting Jimmy and Kim Mike is set up with a sniper rifle across the roof in order to provide cover fire for them in case he needs to although Gus doesn't want to kill Lalo north of the Border due to it raising suspicion of Gus's the culprit it appears that Mike is willing to risk that in order to potentially save the lives of Jimmy and Kim not only that but if Jimmy blabs about the truth involving the mail money along with Mike working to get Lalo out of jail in the first place Lalo would realize that Gus wants him out of jail on purpose to kill him Mike is moments away from sniping well through the apartment Window but Kim steps in metaphorically and literally to save the day Tim convinces Lyle to back down he decides to leave and return to Mexico except this time with nacho by his side Jimmy picks up the phone and Mike tells him that Kim saved his ass and that they'll have to wait and see what happens next the next day Mike meets with Gus to discuss their assassination attempt against Lalo like updates Gus on Lalo's current whereabouts along with the fact that he brought nacho with him Mike once again vouches for them to save Nacho's life during the assassination but Gus sees it as a risk Gus does however end up compromising with Mike to save Nacho's life as Gus thinks of a way to use Nacho's position to his Advantage which in this case is to let the Hitman into Lalo's compound to do the job Mike's final scene in season 5 is with Jimmy arriving at his house as Jimmy impatiently wants answers in regard to what's going on with the current wall of situation as he doesn't want to be constantly looking over his shoulder in fear that Lyle could return at any moment although Mike informs Jimmy that he's asked asking for information that he can't have Mike does tell Jimmy if you think sees his mind first without mentioning Gus by name he implies to Jimmy that Gus has bigger things on his mind and that he's not worried about Jimmy or Kim also Mike tells Jimmy that Lala will die that same night and that by tomorrow it'll be done so that leads us into Better Call Saul season 6 which happens between May 18th and June 25th 2004. so season 6 picks up right where season 5 left off with nacho escaping while those compound and running for his life Mike speaks to Gus about how contradicting is hitman's final report was about their mission to kill wallow being a success even though they all ended up dying Mike says how it's been known to happen but Gus is still suspicious a lot of still being alive which becomes a trend for most this season Mike suggests putting himself at risk to go get nacho and bring him back to safety as he's able to do it quietly but Gus seems to have different plans although Mike doesn't want nacho to die just like with Werner Mike knows that it's not his call and that he ultimately can't go against what Gus wants even if he doesn't agree as nacho awaits at the Mexican motel for extraction he continuously calls Mike but Mike Forces himself to ignore the call as he knows that Gus doesn't want to save nacho because his double crossing nacho and wants the Salamanca twins to find and kill him is why we see Mike search Nacho's house in the beginning of 602 in order to break into a safe and replace it when Mike does this he includes an envelope that wasn't there before including information of the motel that Gus has nacho hiding it he does this knowing that Bolsa will eventually find it and send men after nacho however while Mike does this he tries to make sure to save anyone else who may be in contact with nacho that's not in the game since we know that Mike has a soft spot for people not in the game being killed due to just being connected to someone who is first Mike gives Nacho's junkie girlfriend's money to run away and tells them never to come back then while replacing nachos safe Mike takes the fake ID that nacho had made for his father so that when bolsa's men later search it they don't pin their crosshairs on Nacho's father as well for being potentially involved since he's not Gus calls Mike after confronting Hector as it caused Gus to realize that Lalo is still alive and they meet back at the portable meeting room at Gus's chicken factory to discuss their current situation while Mike's men keep on the lookout for any Potential Threat Mike suggests that Val was gunning straight for Gus he be there already which means that law is probably looking for proof that Gus has been acting against the cartel's interest Mike States how nacho is Lalo's best lead and worries that nacho will get caught if they don't do anything so Mike suggests once more to bring men across the border to track nacho down and save him before the cartel gets to him but instead Gus wants to take Nacho's father as a hostage Mike puts his foot down and denies this stating how that's not gonna happen Tyrus points his gun at Mike for disobeying Gus to which Mike tells Gus the famous line whatever happens next it's not going to go down the way you think it is just at this moment while Tyrus had Mike at gunpoint Mike's phone starts ringing and he reveals that Nacho's trying to call him and he has been ever since Lawless assassination attempt Gus allows Mike to answer and when nacho confronts Mike about Gus double crossing him Mike tells nacho that it wasn't his call not just reads that he'll die covering for Gus but only if his father isn't heard Mike promises that he'll be all right stating that anyone who goes after Nacho's father will have to first go through him so nausea gets smuggle back to Albuquerque inside of a Los Pollos truck and Mike gives him one final meal and drink while telling him that he'll die the next day Mike needs to beat up nacho to make a look believe that he was captured by force but Mike only does it as an act of sympathy since Victor would have done much worse later that night Mike and Gus speak to nacho at the chicken factory portable privately outside Mike tells Gus that he should be there for Assurance convincing us to allow him to oversee the situation with his sniper rifle they drive out into the desert the next day and as Mike gets dropped off to go to a sniper perch he stares at nacho one final time the perch that Mike goes to is revealed to be the same spot that Mike went to try and kill Hector way back in the season 2 finale with the shack that Gus brain's notch or two being the same Shack that they killed the truck driver act during the season 2 finale as well Mike overwatches the entire situation go down which results in nacho using a broken Shard of glass that he found in the trash earlier to stab Bolsa in the leg and take him as hostage with his own gun Mike watches down his scope as nacho takes his own life and right before nacho dies the final person that he stares at is Mike himself after nacho dies Mike takes a look down as he honestly hated to see nacho die knowing that there was nothing he could do to save him the show then instantly jumps forward a few weeks after Nacho's death Mike doesn't even really ever complain about how nacho had to die to Gus the show just jumps forward to gospel preparing for a while's inevitable attack and that's it just keep in mind how much Mike really did care for nacho and try to look out for him as Mike will act a similar way towards another character sometime in the future which we'll discuss later in the video anyways a few weeks later Mike confronts Kim in person for the first time due to Kim noticing that Mike's men were following her Mike admits that his men are watching her and Jimmy due to the fact that Lalo's still alive so he has his men watching it anyone that will let me try to contact Kim realizes that he's the guy who saved Jimmy's life out in the desert and wonders why he's telling her all of this and not him to which Mike admits that he thinks that she's made of Sterner stuff which is most likely due to the fact that he's impressed about how she was able to stand up to Lalo when he confronted her in Jimmy at the apartment when meanwhile Jimmy was about ready to break Mike doesn't outright tell Kim to not tell Jimmy that while I was alive but there is this unspoken implication where he leaves it up to her on whether or not to tell him and she doesn't as Mike leaves he tells her to just ignore his man from now on and that sooner or later they'll be gone for good and she'll be able to keep living her life it was really interesting to see Mike speak to Kim for the first time in person after six seasons of the show and it just adds a huge the main characters throughout Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad that only ever see each other on screen maybe once or twice as Mike leaves Kim calls out that she actually does recognize him as the guy he used to work at the toll booth at the courthouse so Kim has seen him before in her day-to-day life but never in a way that was significant in any way until now next up we see how Gus has a secret tunnel that leads from the basement of his own house to his neighbor's house and that he's using the neighbor's house as a safe house for situations like the one that he's currently in in regard to waiting for Olalla to attack Gus also has both of these houses along with his neighborhood wired with security cameras he also has a body double of his own living in his own house while he hides at his neighbors since this would have taken ages to set up it's implied that he had this fail safe long before Lala was ever a threat I'm unsure if Mike helped him set this up off screen during the past few seasons since Mike is the head of his security riff Gus had this made beforehand anyways Gus meets Mike at his neighbor's house and it's revealed that Mike not only has guys following people like Kim and Jimmy but he also has guys planted throughout the entire town especially in any location that Gus would be including Los Pollos Mike says how his men are stretched in and brings up how he's starting to think that Lalo really is dead wondering where he is if he's still alive so although Gus is able to use the tunnel from his basement in order to get to his neighbors Mike has to be smuggled in by hiding in the trunk of an SUV Mike is shown to continue to oversee Gus's security but even with all their precautions notices that Gus still has some sort of stress-induced OCD due to just needing to wait for a law to attack in order for Gus to try and plan any outcome he decides to bring Mike to the super lab location in order to make one more proactive defense Mike assures gusts that no one will come through the tunnel built to bring in construction equipment as it's been sealed shut and suggests putting more men on the place but is met with silence and goes upstairs to wait for Gus as he can tell that Gus wants to be left alone Gus plants a secret gun down there and leaves during one of the following days we see Mike checking the laundromat where the super lab is hidden under and he confronts tires but has his own team has security there Mike has gone to meet Tyrus who wants to confront him over the fact that he told his man to stop guarding his own house while still guarding Stacy's Mike states that his reason is that he hasn't been to his house in weeks so it's pointless to guard an empty house although that's true it shows how Mike would also prefer to protect his own family over his own life since they are the most important thing in the world to him and the reason why he's even doing any of this tires counters by stating that even so law is more likely to show up at his house than Stacy's Gus and tyrus's intentions aren't just to protect Mike and his family but to guard the most likely places that Lala could show up meaning that catching a wallow is a higher priority to them than protecting Mike and his loved ones Mike stands up to Tires over this telling Terrace to either come at him or to get Gus to himself tires reluctantly backs down leaving Mike alone we then get probably one of the best scenes between Mike and his family where Mike speaks to Kaylee stargazing over the phone while Mike is actually in the house across the street that Mike's men are using to secretly watch over Stacy's house from it's just a simple yet heartwarming scene that emphasizes the previous scene with Mike standing up for them to Tyrus meanwhile with Lala back in Albuquerque he accidentally gives up his element to Surprise by calling Hector unaware that the phones are tapped however Lal calls back to use this to his Advantage by making Gus and Mike think that he'll attack us at his house that night causing Mike to pull most of his men from various other locations in order to protect which includes low level targets such as Jimmy and Kim off most of his men at the laundromat leaving just a few men there some I can Gus plan their defense to Ambush Lalo at Gus's house but instead Lala goes to Jimmy and Kim's apartment to use Kim as a distraction while he infiltrates the super lab Kim gets caught by Mike at Gus's front door due to them seeing her approach with the cameras and Mike interrogates her to bring them up to speed on the current situation Kim tells Mike that Lala went to her apartment and ordered her to kill Gus and he gets mad at Mike for not having his men watching her to protect her like he said he would Mike tells Gus to wait at the safe house and takes half of his men to confront Lalo at the apartment and potentially save Jimmy but it's too late as Lalo's already gone this shows how although Gus and Mike are usually two steps ahead of any opposition Lalo is a formidable foe to them as he's given Mike not one but two red herrings now with both Kim and Jimmy after on time Jimmy Mike realizes this and tries to contact Gus but again it's too late as Gus has gone on his own to confront Walla at the super lab After figuring out this ruse Gus manages to barely take out Lala using the gun that he had previously planted in the super lab and Mike's gold afterwards for taking such a risk regardless Lawless now out of the picture which is all that Gus cares about even if he did have to put his life on the line to do so Mike then goes back to Kim's apartment to clean up the mess including Howard who was killed by Lalo in the process Mike tells Jimmy and Kim what they should say as a cover story and how they need to act going forward in order to not raise suspicion along with how he's going to cover up Howard's death Mike is clearly unhappy with the fact that Howard is someone who wasn't in the game was killed due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time dying in the crossfire although Mike never confronts shimmy or Kim about this he's unimpressed with how Jimmy and Kim schemed against Howard and uses their false narrative to his Advantage as the cover-up story for Howard's death Mike berries Howard in the same grave as Lalo under the floor of all will become the super lab so although Mike tells Jimmy that Lala won't be coming back he doesn't outright tell Jimmy that lollo's dead and that he's going to burywal's body the next day while Jimmy and Kim pretend to have a normal work day Mike cleans up their apartment to get rid of any trace of Howard being killed there Mike then Burns any evidence that he collected as Gus gets home from meeting with the cartel he speaks to Mike about what to do forward Mike tells Gus that jimin can play their part well and that they've avoided any suspicion while mentioning how they successfully covered up Howard's death Mike is then ordered to find a new engineer and to finish up constructing a super lab Mike then takes the fake ID for Nacho's father and goes to speak to him in person to tell him of Nacho's fate I just wanted to give Nacho's father closure about nacho which is somewhat of a callback to the Good Samaritan during better cross All Season 2 and season 3 where if Mike ended up finding the body and Reporting it so the Dead Man's family would have closure that while the guy was dead also since Mike has lost a son of his own and got revenge on his son's Killers he wanted to tell Nacho's father if Nacho's fate while also telling him that Mike will get revenge on the people that killed nacho nachos fathers however unpleased by this calling out Mike for Revenge not being true Justice Nacho's father calls out Mike for allowing nacho to die because he was there and tells Mike that he's no better than the ones who killed nacho themselves it is also a parallel to season 5 when Mike told Gus that Gus was no different than the salamancas to which Gus argued that he was along with bonding with Mike over the idea of Revenge but now in season 6 no father has called out Mike's ideals of Revenge implying that it will never make up for what's happened and that might can never make things right so that's the end of the official 2004 Better Call Saul timeline and now to discuss sort of an interlude period between Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad which is June 25th 2004 to December 28 2008 for the next four years Mike continued to work under Gus as ahead of his security while also overseeing the completion of the superlab construction by the time the events are breaking bad happened in 2008 Mike has proved himself to Gus enough to become Gus's right hand man along with becoming a reliable Hitman for Gus throughout Better Call Saul we saw the reluctance of Mike wanting to kill but throughout that show saw how he corrupted his morals to accommodate working under Gus Mike has devolved from not wanting to kill anyone to only killing people who are in the game to just flat out becoming a soulless Hitman with Verner being Mike's major turning point as Mike told Stacey he's settled to play the cards that's been dealt to him even if that compromises his morals not to kill also even though Mike is making bank from working for Gus he also occasionally still works for Saul is a hired Pi this is because ever since Caldera has retired from the game Saul used his Sandpiper money to purchase caldera's criminal contact book and has now become the center of the criminal world within Albuquerque so although Mike doesn't necessarily need the money from Saul for the PI work he still works for Sal's a useful Ally and connection to have due to solve being the intermediary within the Albuquerque criminal World although we don't officially see Mike until season 2 episode 13 of Breaking Bad Better Call Saul season 6 shows us a missing scene of Mike working for Saul as a pi during the events of Breaking Bad season 2 episode 8. Mike walks into Saul's office while he's using his swing master and reluctantly waits for assault to finish doing so before giving Saul the info that he hired Mike for might give Saul updates on various targets that Saul is hired Mike to keep track of in regard to his legal cases along with potential criminal contacts one of which is Heisenberg with this scene happening right after Walt and Jesse had kidnaps Saul and taken him out into the desert but before solid confronted Walt at his high school classroom it's revealed that Mike was the pi that's all hired in order to find out Heisenberg's true name occupation and health condition so so Mike was the one who found out the info about Walt's first saw in regard to who Walt is where he works how to find him and the fact that Walt's criminal Partners Jesse a former student of his oh and also the fact that Walt has stage 3A lung cancer Mike advises Saul against pursuing a partnership with Walt as he's a loose cannon who will get caught sooner or later due to being incredibly naive and ignorant without any Street Smart Mike States how since Walt is such an amateur he'll most likely get caught by the cops or get himself killed before the cancer even catches up with him Saul of course goes against Mike's advice and seeks out Walt on his own to create a partnership with him during Breaking Bad it becomes very clear that Mike doesn't like Walt but this scene elaborates on why since Mike advice Saul against working with Walt this shows how Mike had a resentment against Walt before ever even coming in contact with him during Breaking Bad in season 2 episode 11 of Breaking Bad before Mike's first ever official appearance in episode 13 Saul alludes to Mike when speaking to Walt and Jesse about putting them in contact with Gus in order to sell a large batch of drugs to him since Saul is aware of Gus but not directly he has to use Mike as an intermediary between himself when Saul tells Walt and Jesse that he knows a guy who knows a guy it's implied that Mike is the guy in the middle so on to Breaking Bad seasons 2 and 3 which are between January 27 2009 and April 16 2009 so as you may have guessed since Mike doesn't appear until Breaking Bad season 2. I've skipped over Breaking Bad season one and most of what happens in 2008. also since Mike doesn't officially appear in Breaking Bad until the season 2 finale I'm just gonna love season two and three of Breaking Bad together so Mike's first official appearance in Breaking Bad is for a higher job by Saul to clean up Jane's crime scene before the authorities arrive along with telling Jesse a cover story Saul knows that Mike is the right man for the job due to knowing firsthand that Mike is a pro at accomplishing this since he saw Mike not only clean up Howard's body and crime scene but also due to the fact that Mike had given Jimmy and Kim a cover story to stick to in regard to Howard's death Saul also got Mike to keep tabs on Jesse's whereabouts after Jane's body was taken away to which Mike reluctantly brings Walt to find Jesse after Walt demanded Saul to do so Mike advises Walt not to go into the trap house to find Jesse as cops have been known to keep an eye on the place along with the fact that Walt could get shot simply for entering Mike suggests that Walt should just go home and let him handle it but Walt decides to go into the trap house and retrieve Jesse himself near the beginning of Breaking Bad season three we get our first Breaking Bad introduction to Kaylee as Mike watches her at a park and gives her money to buy ice cream with while doing so Mike gets a call from Saul requesting him to keep an eye on Skyler a few days later Mike Stakes out the white residence and waits for Skyler and Junior to leave for the day so he can sneak into the backyard and plant bugs in their house this is our first Mike Pi slash detective-like scene in Breaking Bad something that I always love to see which is why I'm so glad that they expanded on it during Better Call Saul as you've heard me discuss previously anyways while Mike is bugging Walt's house Walt unexpectedly arrives to try to break in himself since at this point in the story Skyler has kicked him out of the house over his second phone among other things so Mike quickly finishes his job for Saul raid as Walt arrives Mike manages to hide from Walt as Walt sneaks in and then Mike goes back to his car to leave oh Walt gets inside his house from the crawl space however before Mike leaves he notices another unexpected party arrived to the white residence in the form of the Salamanca twins looking to take out revenge on Walt fertuko's death while Waltz is in the shower the twins wait on his bed for him to finish up and come out during this time Mike manages to contact Gus in form of the situation causing Gus to get a text sent to the twins to call off their attack as Gus won't allow it to currently having an interest in Walt in his high quality product so at long story short Mike totally saved Walt's ass here without Walt ever knowing about it Mike is told by Gus to not tell us all about this and then leaves a few days later Mike brings Saul recording of Walt and Skyler arguing over her sleeping with Ted after she found out about the truth that Waltz was cooking after they hear Skyler leave they listen to Walt talking to himself implying that he's going to confront Ted before Walt can attempt confronting 10 by sneaking in through the back Mike pulls up to shove Walton to his car and takes him to Saul's office while it ends up attacking Saul in his office due to realizing that Saul had his house bugged requiring Mike to pull walls office all all in and their little cat fight while it demands that they take the bugs out of his house causing Mike to have to do it himself while the cost Mike really does so but as Mike leaves he tells Walt that it doesn't hurt to have someone watching his back which is a reference to how Mike saved his life just a few days beforehand Mike says this not only due to Walt being a dick to him not long after Mike saved his life but also because he notices a sickle drawn in chalk on the road beside his car being that the Salamanca Twins were outside of Walt's house again implying how they've become impatient and wanting to kill him because of Gus Mike then meets up with Gus in a parking lot to update Gus about Walt Mike states that although Walt is fighting his cancer well he's mentally off the rails due to current conflicts with Skyler Mike also tells us about the twins growing impatient to take out Walt and Gus tells Mike to not let Saul know about that either since Gus is the only thing stopping the twins from taking out Walt Mike wonders why Gus doesn't just tell Walt that the twins want to kill him in order to use it as leverage to convince Walt to start cooking again Gus tells Mike that he doesn't believe fear as an effective motivator which is a reference to what Mike once told Gus years prior in regard to notch show in Better Call Saul season 5. this implies that Gus has grown a lot since the days of Better Call Saul that he's changed his ways and viewpoint on certain situations and it's interesting how Mike and Gus's ideals have completely swapped by this point Gus once used fear as a motivator against Notch to do what he wanted with Mike advising against that now the tables have turned with vice versa being applied to Walt it's implied that since the nachos situation ended up going down so terribly that Gus has learned from it where meanwhile Mike has become so corrupt that he's now okay with using fear as a motivator when he previously vouched against it so in a way this is gusts reminding Mike of what happened with nacho and at this time he wants to try a different solution I believe that although Gus is still capable of it he instead now uses it as a last resort instead of being the first card that he plays Mike then switches the topic to let Gus know that Saul wanted to pass the word along that Jesse is looking to sell when Mike mentions how Jesse and Walt have broken up his Partners Gus tells Mike to do the deal with Jesse as Gus realizes that he can use this to his advantage to create more conflict between Walt and Jesse jumping forward a tad we don't see Mike again until the whole Hank versus the twin twin situation at the hospital during the aftermath got sent Mike in to take out the surviving twin while Gus lured all the police downstairs for some Los Hoyos as a distraction then some more time passes as we don't see Mike again until the whole half in full measure situations first off Walt wanted Saul to set up Jesse and get him arrested so that he doesn't attempt to kill the dealers that orchestrated combo's murder as those dealers worked for Gus Mike later visits Walt at home as a personal courtesy to confront him on his plan to set Jesse up after Saul tried to hire Mike to accomplish it Mike denies setting up Jesse as he considers it a moronic plan that Gus wouldn't approve of Mike explains that if Jesse were to be arrested regardless of why I guess would have Jesse killed due to seeing Jesse's arrest as a problem Mike tells Walt that they both have a good thing going here and implies not to ruin it by risking it all for Jesse Mike then applies to Walt that Jesse's death has been a long time coming and that it may be time to burst that bubble Walt doesn't quite pick up when Mike is putting down which is why we get the iconic no-half measure monologue by Mike tawalt which I mentioned at the beginning of the video Mike tells Walt the story of how he tried to use a half measure to resolve the problem of only warning the abusive husband instead of killing him which didn't work this taught Mike the hard lesson that he should have went all the way instead and just killed the abusive husband instead of letting him off with warning Mike says out he'll never make that mistake again and as Mike goes to leave he advises Walt not to take any half measures with Jesse implying that Walt should take a full measure instead and just kill Jesse to solve their problem Jesse creates his own plan to poison the dealers but gets picked up by Mike and escorted to the portable meeting room at Gus's chicken factory where Gus is there waiting with Walt and the dealers themselves it's revealed that Walt told Gus about Jesse's Feud with the dealers in order to work out a deal instead of killing Jesse like Mike insisted however this deal to make peace could be considered as a half measure solution since it proved to be ineffective because forced the dealers to compromise by stopping their use of children to do their crimes which resulted in them killing the child this caused Jesse to want to shoot the dealers himself but when Walt found out he drove the dealers down himself so in a way Walt did make a full measure decision except instead of killing Jesse Walt killed the dealers Mike then gets Walt to meet up with him and Gus in the desert after learning that the dealers have been and killed and Mike admits that he hasn't slept in days due to having to work overtime cleaning up the murders Walt even admits that Mike told him no half measures throwing his words back at him but Mike just responds by saying how it's funny how words can be open to interpretation as killing the dealers is not what Mike was trying to imply when Walt speaks to Gus he covers for Jesse's whereabouts to which Mike States how he'd still be able to find Jesse as that's what he does considering all the elaborate PI work we've seen Mike do over the years I wouldn't be surprised if he did but we'll get to that we then see our second Mike and Kaylee scene in Breaking Bad and they talk about having a rhino as a pet mike always does this thing with Kaylee where he plays Dom during their conversations and pretends that Kaylee is correcting him this happens multiple times during their scenes throughout Better Call Saul and during this Breaking Bad scene Mike pretends to think that a rhino's horn is his nose my point here is that when Kaylee corrects him he tells her that he learns all types of things being with her which actually has a deeper meaning than the surface level small talk this isn't only in regard to pretending to learn about a rhino's nose or Jupiter as a gas giant planet but instead is about Mike being reminded of the good in humanity in the world killing Stacy are the only two family members that Mike really has left and so he devotes his life to caring and providing for them while visiting them it helps Mike keep his Humanity alive and in check by watching over his granddaughter and seeing the innocence of life since Micah so often surrounded by Gloom death and illegal activity it's easy to see how he could be corrupted and sucked into the Vortex that is the criminal World however in a way Kaylee and Stacia become his only link to what having a normal life is even like anymore also as a side note when Mike drops Kaylee off at her house we see Stacy come out in greet her but Stacy's played by a different actor this is actually the only time we see Stacy's character in Breaking Bad and it's even from a distance since she's barely on screen at all during Breaking Bad it makes sense that they'd recast her for Better Call Saul since she plays a far more significant role in the prequel show and you'd think that I'd be used to it considering how many times Kaylee has been recasted but it just feels kind of odd getting a glimpse of the original breaking pad Stacy after focusing on Better Call Saul so much these past few years anyways when Mike drops Kaylee off he only gives her a few balloons that are in his car that's because he has a more nefarious plan for the rest of them we then cut to Mike outside where house and uses the balloons to cause a power outage there by letting them float up into the power lines what unfolds next is one of the most badass mic scenes ever as he infiltrates the warehouse killing cartel gunman left and right in order to save a man named Mr Chow who is Gus's chemical supplier Mike takes out the first two with one bullet he takes out the third by using an employee's shoe as a distraction to draw him out and then takes out the fourth one through a wall with the aid of Mr Chow's hands indicating how high or low to aim through the wall after Saving Mr Chow Mike shoots him in the hand for not keeping him in the loop Mike brings back the IDS of the goons to Gus and they determined that they were cartel men searching for weakness in Gus's business as Mike leaves the Gus tells him to track down Jesse this leads to Mike going to Saul's to acquire Jesse's whereabouts and he walks in on Saul once again using his swing Master due to the parallels here I actually broke the scene down in great detail during my video discussing the song Mike Breaking Bad missing scene during Better Call Saul season 6 episode 11 but all elaborated a little bit in regard to the current Breaking Bad plot so Mike threatened Saul for Jesse's location to which Saul indirectly gives him Mike what he's searching for except a little does Mike know Saul actually gave Mike a phony location considering all the interactions that we now know occurred between Jimmy and Mike during Better Call Saul it's interesting to see how Jade and Mike has become towards Saul in regard to the way that Mike threatens to not only break both assault's legs but also put him in the ground considering how close Mike and Jimmy became all those years ago during Better Call Saul it's interesting that Mike now just considers Saul a means to an end while putting his well-being in Jeopardy if he needs to although it may initially seem jarring to see the way Mike poorly treats Saul throughout Breaking Bad keep in mind that Mike was never a fan of Jimmy think back steering Better Call Saul although Jimmy was always eager to work with Mike Mike was always incredibly reluctant and only ever turned to Jimmy if he had no one else to that being said even though Mike was never fond of Jimmy you'd think that their experience on the desert together would have bonded them close together right although that may have been the case for a time Mike definitely lost a lot of respect for Jimmy due to what Jimmy and Kim did to tear down Howard which I alluded to while discussing the end of the 2004 timeline earlier in the video not only that but over the years as Jimmy purposely devolved into the caricature that is Saul Goodman Mike's patience have slowly doing with him over time to the point that Mike feels like the Jimmy he once knew was already dead so anyway Saul takes Walt to see Jesse who saws keeping in hiding and confronts Walt on how paldi is over the fact that Mike threatened to break his legs Saul also emphasizes how good Mike is at his job tracking people down as a pi and says that they have under 24 hours before Mike realizes that the address Saul gave him was phony Walton Jesse devised a plan to take out Gail in order to make sure that Gus will keep them alive but while Walt leaves his house to go do so he gets picked up by Victor and brought to the laundromat to be killed by Mike Walt begs for his life but Mike States how unfortunately it has to happen and makes Walt shut up Walt does manage to offer to give up Jesse's leverage to keep himself alive but when he can't give Mike a location He suggests calling Jesse to meet up with him this is however a trick from Waltz as he uses the short time to phone Jesse to warn him that Mike is about to kill him and not Jesse needs to kill Gail in order to keep them alive Jesse runs off to take Gail out and Walt explains the situation to Mike this causes Victor to rush to Gail's house but as Walt said Jesse is closer and has about a 20-minute Head Start so Victor doesn't reach Jesse until he's already killed Gail Mike even tries calling Gail to warn him but Gail doesn't pick up as he doesn't notice his phone ringing due to his music loudly playing and with that on a Breaking Bad season 4 which happens between April 16th and July 14th of 2009 Victor brings Jesse back to the super lab and forces him to wait there with Walt and Mike Mike freaks out over the news that Jesse has killed Yale and gives Victor a hard time for being seen by Gail's neighbors Mike calls Gus to inform him of the situation and when Gus arrives and does the box cutter deed even Mike is taken back by it instinctively wielding his gun out of fear this proves to Mike that although Gus doesn't believe in fear to be a good motivator anymore he'll still pull that card if it's his last resort Gus gets miked oversea Walt and Jesse dispose of Victor's body Mike admits that he's never used this acid to dispose of a body before and asks Walt if he's sure it'll work but Walt just tells Mike to trust him Mike is shown to be overseeing Tyrus now stepping in for Victor when Walt asks Mike to speak to Gus Mike tells Walt that he's never going to see us again Walt confronts Mike at his favorite bar and Mike gives Walt a hard time on needing to learn how to tail someone better Walt offers to buy Mike a drink to which Mike accepts will passive aggressively telling Walt that he makes a lot more than he does which is an interesting detail Walt tries clearing the air by explaining how his action to orc straight Guild's death was all in self-defense that he doesn't hold it against Mike for almost killing him as he knows that Mike was just following orders Walt tries to turn Mike against Gus by implying that Mike may not be safe after what happened Victor as he wants Mike on his side to try and take out Gus Mike then calls out Walt for having a gun on him and that he noticed how Walt had it at the super lab while continues to insist Mike to help aid him in killing Gus but Mike punches Walt in the face as a response this shows that Mike isn't concerned about being killed by Gus and even if he was we all know that Mike doesn't necessarily care if he dies since if he does he'll accept it knowing that he did everything he could to help his family in the meantime this also shows how loyal Mike is towards Gus which is exactly why Gus has Mike as his right hand man also as we discussed a Tad earlier Mike understands that he has a good thing going while working for Gus and doesn't want to jeopardize or ruin it as it's his best way to make money in the criminal World about a week later we see Mike sitting in on those points delivery truck which as we know is the method that Gus uses to smuggle his drugs Mike was assigned to guard Duty over the drug shipment and waits inside as he hears some cartel members Force the truck off the road to shoot the driver and then they shoot up the truck trying to kill anyone inside Mike anticipating this matches to lay down as flat as he can to avoid the gunfire and takes out the cartel man as they open the back doors to the truck although Mike survived the Ambush he didn't do so unscathed as when he takes his hat off he reveals to the camera that the corner of his ear was shot off from the gunshots while hiding in the truck it's just yet another badass mic moment that shows that although Mike is extremely talented and cutting in what he does he's not invincible and he was that close to getting killed a few days later Mike wakes up Jesse at his house to notify him that one of the junkies from Jesse's various parties has stolen a large sum of money from him Jesse trying to drown out his trauma and depression by constantly throwing Raves at his house so he's not alone with his thoughts has become jaded to wealth or anything materialistic that he has so when Mike confronts Jesse about this kid stealing from him Jesse is shown not to care whatsoever along with being under appreciate version of that mic has caught the thief for him and returned his money when Mike confronts Jesse about it Jesse belittles what Mike is doing to try and give Jesse a wake-up call causing Mike to remind Jesse that he's on thin ice Mike then meets with Gus at his office in Los poyos to warn Gus that Jesse's become a large risk and liability due to becoming increasingly unconscious that even though Walt won't like it something has to be done about it although Mike is implying that they should kill Jesse Gus instead tells Mike to take Jesse out on a mysterious ride along with him in order to try and strain him out since Waltz is left out of the loop here he starts freaking out thinking that Gus has killed Jesse while it speaks to Mike and Jesse over the phone but isn't given much detail due to Mike not saying Mike Mike tells Walt that Jesse's with him today and that Walt is gonna have to cook without him Mike brings Jesse along to various dead drop locations it's interesting how they're going to different locations than the ones that we saw in Better Call Saul since as we know Hank and Gomez busted them Jesse initially thinks that he's with Mike his backup to help protect Mike pick up the dead drops as the episode goes on it becomes more prevalent that Mike is almost babysitting Jesse as he becomes increasingly annoyed at Jesse's boredom and impatience along with not allowing him to smoke in his vehicle Jesse continues to persist with what his purpose in being with Mike is to the point that Mike stops the car along the side the road to give Jesse as iconic you are not the guy speech which has sadly been ruined to me due to me thinking that fan made Breaking Bad Remix song every time I watch this scene but in all seriousness Mike telling Jesse that he's not the guy has multiple important meanings first off the original intention is that Mike is implying how Gail was his guy not Jesse especially since Mike says how he had a guy but now he doesn't and says it with such anger due to Jesse being the one that killed Gale In Cold Blood but also after the release of Better Call Saul it gives this scene some new context as Mike could be referring to nacho as the guy that he used to have this is for multiple reasons first off the fact that although Jesse and nacho have their differences their comparable characters between the two shows as they give off a similar Vibe secondly Mike grew a bond with nacho that could be considered as parallel to the bond that Mike and Jesse will grow throughout the rest of Breaking Bad although Jesse doesn't currently have the same bond with Micah nacho did as The Show Goes On Jesse and Mike grow closer and closer together which can be seen as a tragic parallel considering nachos state that Mike was a witness to you and couldn't prevent no matter how hard he tried Mike frustratingly admits to Jesse that he doesn't even know himself why Jesse is out there with him that he's just following orders so he strongly suggests to Jesse that he should do so as well Mike says that it's not his call and that he's just doing what he's told which is a Cornerstone to Mike's character whether it was Mike having to kill Werner allowed Gus to double cross nacho or kill Walt before Gail died time and time again we see examples of Mike following orders and sticking to the job he was hired for saying loyal to his employer no matter how he personally feels about it so although Mike's loyalty can be seen as an incredibly positive quality it's also potentially his downfall as his loyalty to Gus has corrupted his Viewpoint and perspective of his own morality it's a huge characteristic of Mike that deserves to be emphasized every time we come across an example of it Mike and Jesse continue picking up dead drops well into the night and Mike executes a plan set up by Gus where his men pretend to jump Jesse and Mike's car with all the dead drop money while Mike is inside a warehouse picking out more money Jesse manages to successfully flee his pursuers in Mike's car and later finds Mike walking down the sidewalk and picks him up Mike now seemingly proud of Jesse for taking action and getting away successfully allows Jesse to now have a smoke in his car so Jesse can de-escalate from the situation the next day Mike meets with gussa Los Pollos to tell him that it all went according to plan and that Jesse now sees himself as a hero Mike says how the only injury that came from it was one of their men spraining an ankle and Gus tells Mike that he'll reimburse Mike for the Damage Done to his car when Gus asked Mike if he has any questions Mike admits that he has a handful but knows better than to ask it's implied that Gus is trying to sober up Jesse and make him snap out at his self-destructive state so that Jesse isn't so much of a liability anymore and Gus is also trying to drive a wedge between Walt and Jesse by getting Jesse close to Mike something I won't realize is but Jesse refuses to accept this is because although mikeish is following us his orders to do so Mike and Jesse genuinely do begin to create a strong bond between one another where they actually start caring for each other Mike may also care for Jesse in a situation since as we saw years ago during Better Call Saul Mike was once in Jesse's shoes Gus also helped Mike get out of his self-destructive State and isolate him long enough to calm down think rationally except the cards that have been dealt to him now that Mike can see Jesse is going through something similar Mike can relate to Jesse and sympathize with him one example of this is how Mike takes Jesse to his favorite Diner and notices that Jesse is having withdrawal symptoms so Mike gives Jessie his food although Jesse has a drug problem Mike has a drinking problem they're both substance abuse problems that can relate to each other especially considering the positions that Mike and Jesse Apple been in while trying to battle their addictions so even though Walt figures out what Gus is doing with Jesse it continues happening with Mike this time bringing Jesse to a trap house to recover a bucket of drugs that was stolen from another attack on all those poyos delivery truck this time the cartel was successful might conforms Jesse that they should just stake out the trap house as junkies are unpredictable but if we've learned anything from their previous Adventure it's that Jesse doesn't handle boredom well Jesse decides to take action but after failing to buy drugs off of one of the junkies to befriend them by distracting him with digging a hole in ass to use his bathroom to gain access to the house Mike enters the house from the back allowing Jesse at the upper hand on the other junkie with a shotgun and they retrieve the stolen drugs Mike and Jesse returned to the diner but Gus shows up wanting to speak to Mike alone my conforms Gus that the people who robbed his truck purposely gave the drugs to a couple of junky nobodies for Gus's men to find as the Los Pollos bucket had a message on it asking if Gus is ready to talk Mike suggests hitting them back but Gus shuts down that offer as he doesn't want to start a war and instead uses Mike to set up a meeting with them Mike helps facilitate the meeting as Gus's head of security and gives Jesse a gun just in case after the meeting with Gaff would have done eladio's right-hand men Jesse asked Mike what God sees in him and Micah seems loyalty even if Jesse has loyalty for the wrong person implying Waltz Mike has also shown tailing Hank and Walt since Hank is on to Gus and trying to get Walt to put a bug on Gus's vehicle which Gus allows him to do so as he doesn't want to race suspicion after Hank meets with Gus due to Hank catching on to him Gus calls Mike to discuss it Mike tells Gus that Hank is now acting on his own against Gus as the D.A doesn't consider Gus a person of interest at all when Gus asks about if Hank will find out about his past Mike states that if he can't find any record of Gus before he immigrated to Mexico and the U.S then neither will hang this makes me wonder how much Mike truly knows about Gus's past does Mike have rough ideas similar to the viewing audience a better call solid Breaking Bad in regard to the Pinochet regime and Chile or does Mike actually know more that we don't regardless we sadly never find out how much Mike truly knows about Gus's past along with the fact that throughout both shows we never fully learned about Gus's past as an audience either anyways Mike tells Gus that they can handle either the DEA or the cartel separately but handling both at the same time could prove to be a problem because if the DEA is watching Gus when the cartel decides to make a move it could implicate Gus Mike then leads an operation to clean up the Los Pollos factory farm before Hank and search it and gets Jesse to eat a minute Jesse brings up whether or not Gus will kill Hank for investigating him trying to get information out of Mike but Mike continues to play the strong and Silent type which he is a master of when Jesse is speaking he mentions that killing a cop that's investigating you can look extremely suspicious which although isn't a direct parallel could make Mike think about how he killed Hoffman and fenske for killing his son and then immediately moved to Albuquerque the day after which made Mike look suspicious in the eyes of the Philly PD the only thing that Mike asked Jesse about the Hank situation is if Jesse would have a problem with Hank being killed but Jesse gives a non-answer implying that no one cares what he thinks as Jesse goes outside he watches one of Mike's men suddenly gets sniped in the head by Gaff and freezes in fear Mike leaps into action saving Jesse's life as he grabs Jesse and leads him to cover this of course is when Gus walks through the sniper shots like a goddamn badass causing the sniper to stop Mike and Jesse then bring the dead man back to the super lab to be dissolved in acid and when Walt wonders if he should even ask Mike implies that he shouldn't while it becomes agitated causing Mike to stand up to him shut his mouth and threaten to kill him if Walt ever calls the cops on one of his men again referencing how Walt previously called the cops on Tyrus for staking out Hank's house afterwards Jesse thanks Mike for saving his life to which Mike tells him that next time instead of standing there like a dumbass he should move Jesse the NASA Mike what the deal was with Gus walking into the sniper shots and Mike explains how the cartel still needs Gus due to his distribution methods when Jesse keeps asking questions Mike tells him enough and that if he has questions he can ask us himself this starts the whole Arc of Gus taking down the cartel under the ruse that he wants to bring Jesse to Mexico to teach the cartel chemist how to cook blue crystal Mike accompanies them for this of course and is aware of Gus's true intentions I feel like this is a good time to mention the overall role of Mike's character throughout Breaking Bad at least for Seasons three and four see although Mike is a main character for many of the scenes that he's in he just stands around acting as Gus's bodyguard or right-hand man Mike does eventually get his time to shine in the show some of which we've actually already discussed with a lot more coming in season five but for now he was created as a supporting character this is the main difference between Mike's character between Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad with Breaking Bad he's more of a side character in some instances while during Better Call Saul he's one of the lead roles although I love Mike in both shows it's true that Breaking Bad is more so Walt and Jesse's show with Mike being a support character and other characters such as Gus and Jesse will Better Call Saul shines the spotlight directly on Mike more often for example although Mike is there during the whole trip to Mexico with Jesse Mike is mostly a bystander as it is Jesse's time to shine up until Gus pulls out the saphir oniejo that is speaking of which back to the show while Jesse contemplates his position on now being owned by the card tell Mike implies to Jesse how that's not going to be his future stating that either they all go home or none of them will Mike does eventually spring into action once the poison from the sphere Anejo starts taking an effect on the cartel members including Donald audio Mike Garrett's Gaff with Jesse jolting up in shock Gus walks back out to the pool area to witness this along with witnessing Donald audio fall into his pool as he dies Mike yells at Jesse to make himself useful and to find a gun and they help carry Gus out who's now feeling the effect of the poison himself Jesse finds them a car but his mic puts Gus into the back seat might get shot in his side Jesse kills the shooter and gets them the hell out of Dodge Jesse drives Mike and Gus to Gus's Mexican doctor but is shocked when they only are taking care of Gus instead of Mike as well when Jesse shows concern for Mike the doctor States how Gus pays his salary so he gets treatment first Jesse Waits by Mike side while he's getting treatment and speaks to the doctor about how the doctor knows everything about all three of them as Gus has thought of every outcome by this point Gus is now able to walk around freely while Mike is still bedridden Gus tells Jesse it's time to go but when Jesse once again shows concern for my like the doctor says how with Mike's injuries he won't be able to travel for at least a week Gus says how he'll send for Mike once he's better and they leave little does Jesse know but this isn't the first time that the doctor has saved Mike's Life along with looking over Mike for about a week while he recovers since Mike has to stay back in Mexico to recover he's effectively out of the running for the rest of Breaking Bad season 4 and until after Gus dies Breaking Bad season 5 which for Mike at least is July 15th to October 2nd to 2009. now since Mike is the only notable character left from Gus's Empire he takes more of a main role during season five with him now alongside Walt and Jesse as a trio since Gus is gone this allowed us to explore Mike as a character more personally instead just being Gus's button man so to speak since Mike stayed back in Mexico he missed the whole situation involving Walt finally killing Gus when he returns he meets with Jesse and Walt in the desert and is very angry about it Mike wants to instantly kill Walt but Jesse manages to talk him down to the report that they have between them while it brings up the fact that they have to get rid of the tapes that recorded them at the super and Mike explains how all the recording went to Gus's laptop Mike drives them back to Jesse's house and uses the same Dave Clark Alias that he used years ago while trying to get Lalo in jail to make a call to find out that the cops already have Gus's laptop Mike makes plans to hit the road and flee for his life as he doesn't believe that they can retrieve the laptop from evidence throughout this whole ordeal Mike is understandably pissed off at walled for killing Gus as it completely ruined the infrastructure that Gus took so many years to set up although Mike was aware that Gus was a ruthless psychopath or whatever you want to label him as Mike knew that Gus was reliable and that he had Gus's trust and loyalty and vice versa remember that Mike has been with Gus for about five years now and everything went fine until Walt came into the picture Mike was reluctant to involve Walton Jesse in his criminal activities every step of the way ever since he advised sold enough partner up with Walt in the first place and ever since then everything's blown up in Mike's face because of them mike always had a bad gut feeling about Walt and time and time again Mike's instincts have been proven right if it weren't for his camaraderie with Jesse Mike would have just killed them and or fled for his life as soon as he learned that Walt had killed Gus but Jesse manages to convince Mike to reason and listen to Walt's plans and not only destroy any evidence that the cops may have of them being affiliated with Gus but to even convince Mike to continue working with them in the future which we'll get to in just a moment but back to the evidence situation so Mike and Walt argue back and forth with Mike shutting down every suggestion that Walt gives until Jesse finally butts in and gives the suggestion of using a giant magnet to destroy the laptop so they go to the junkyard to Fashion together their mega magnet and when Walt asked Jesse to spot money for him and that he'll pay Jesse back later Mike advises Jesse that he should just take that money and skip town still reluctant over this whole crazy idea Jesse once again convinces Mike to stick with the team calling it a three-man job stating how the only way he knows that it'll work is if Mike is on board with them I personally don't blame Mike for being so pessimistic towards the situation as it does seem like an unrealistic plan with some fans even believing that the magnet Heist is one moment where the show jumped the shark so to speed even after they prove that it works Mike still wonders if they'll be able to get the job done and Escape before getting caught due to the loud noise it'll create with everything in evidence flying across the room the magnet Heist ends up working even though they had to leave the truck behind due to the magnet causing it to tip Mike worries that leaving the truck behind could give them evidence but Walt assures Mike that there's no Prince left behind and that the salvaged parts that they use are untraceable a few days later Walt and Jesse go to visit Mike at his home to offer him a partnership in working together again but Mike denies the offer emotions aside Mike calls out Walt for being the trouble that he is calling him a time bomb that's just waiting to go off while tells Mike to sleep on the offer and they shake hands Mike then meets up with Lydia at his favorite diner with Lydia being unreasonably cautious in a hilarious manner first she doesn't even sit at the same booth as him and she tries speaking back to back then when they do go to the same booth Lydia calls Mike an alias in front of the server unaware that the server knows Mike well enough to know his real first name since Mike has been a regular there for many years Lydia is so cringe in this scene that it makes makes me think of this particular scene every other time I see Mike in this Diner so Lydia gives Mike a list of names of people who are in jail as she's nervous that they're gonna talk and get them in trouble Mike vouches for them being solid as they're his men and denies killing them along with calling Lydia out for being unnecessarily scared Mike's attachment to his men does end up being his downfall or at least one of them which is another example of a strong loyalty actually working against him many times throughout the rest of the show characters such as Lydia and Walt try to take these men out but Mike doesn't allow them to do so and goes through Great Lengths to continue to pay off his men specifically so they don't speak Mike then gets called in to speak to the DEA and on his way in he bumps into Mr Chow who was just leaving after talking to the DEA himself as well so Mike speaks to Hank and gomi and waves his right to have an attorney present which is kind of a silly move but Mike may have done it to try and not seem guilty or suspicious while speaking to Hank and gomi they reveal the mic that they found Financial info for Gus that led them to discover the secret offshore bank accounts paid by Gus one of them being in Kaylee's name Mike denies having any knowledge of it even after Hank and gomi tried to bribe Mike with the idea that Kaylee may be able to keep some of that money since Mike has never touched the account himself he can't be arrested for it which is the only reason why he's not in jail wall all of his men are Gus's offshore bank accounts were only discovered due to the magnet Heist it destroyed a picture frame of Gus and his former partner Max revealing the accounts secretly written behind the photo so in a way by agreeing to work with Walton Jesse on the magnet Heist Mike indirectly screwed over Kaylee from getting any of the money that he's worked so hard to accumulate from working with Gus over the years it's really tragic that by Mike trying to save his own ass he unknowingly screwed over his own family from not getting all the money that he saved up for them now it's possible that Walt and Jesse would have just gone ahead and done the magnet Heist without him anyways but there's a chance that they wouldn't have now as if Mike didn't already have enough reasons to hate Walt now he has another which is possibly the most important to him the fact that his family won't get all the money that he's secretly saved up for them remember ever since Mike started working in the Albuquerque criminal world even before he started working for Gus he did it all to provide for his family so they'd have what they needed long after he was gone now that's all been ruined here's a work in planning down the drain because of Walt With Better Call Saul truly emphasizing that fact With Better Call Saul we saw the hard work effort and planning that went into continuing and furthering Gus's Empire with Walt being the one Catalyst and Breaking Bad to tear it all down and destroy it oh also while speaking to Hank and gomi they allude to the fact that they're aware how Mike worked in the Philly PD before moving to Albuquerque while the fact that Mike's job as a former cop ended rather dramatically which we've already explored near the beginning of the video in regards to Maddie Hoffman and fenske but it's just interesting to see these seeds planted and Breaking Bad that later got elaborated on in Better Call Saul and to see where they got those ideas from later while Mike is visiting with Kaylee he gets a call from Mr Chow asking to speak in person but Mike has the foresight to realize that Lydia has hired a Hitman to not only take out Mike and Mr Chow but the remainder of Mike's men in prison as well Mike manages to get that for hand on the Hitman who turns out to be one of Mike's previous men as well before Mike killed the Hitman he revealed to Mike that Lydia was going to pay him ten thousand dollars per name and that he had only gone to Mr Chow and wanted to take out Mike first since Lydia was offering him thirty thousand dollars for Mike specifically Mike decides to take out Lydia before she can hire another Hitman on him but decides to keep her alive due to wanting to use her to acquire more methylamine barrels also as a sign up for the rest of the video I'll be referring to this substance that they used to cook as either just barrels or Supply or something vague like that as it's sadly a risked to say the m word for the drug that they cook as the main drug and breaking bad as YouTube can potentially ding me with age restrictions for it even if it's just part of another word such as the m lamine so if you've wondered why I've danced around the m word for this entire video that's sadly why kind of crazy I have to censor myself from saying the m word when referencing to the drug that Breaking Bad is all about but hey that's current day YouTube for you anyway since Mike's money from Kaylee is down the drain instead of cutting his losses killing Lydia and running he decides to work with Walton Jesse again to try and make up for his lost money as we know for years now Mike hasn't cared about if he lived or died the only thing he cared about was being able to provide for his family long after he was gone since that was taken away from him he now feels forced to work with Walton Jesse in order to try and make up for his losses and provide for his family once more as that is his one true motive in life Mike calls off Walt to tell him that he's in and the next day goes to visit his men in prison one by one to assure them that they'll still get their Hazard pay even though the DEA took away their offshore accounts Mike also tells them that even though Chow was killed that they have nothing to worry about as Mike is taking care of it ever since Mike threatens Saul's life they haven't exactly seen eye to eye with Mike now using a different lawyer named Dan watchberger in order to get in to speak to his men in prison along with the fact that Saul is even reluctant to let Mike into his office once Walt and Jesse told Saul that Mike would be working with them from now on Saul does eventually allow Mike into his office though and Mike makes a crystal clear that Walt handles production and he handles business and that he doesn't want them telling each other how to handle their respective sides of the operation Walter reluctantly agrees and they go out with Saul searching for a new business to cookout of they unanimously shut down every offer that Saul makes for permanent location and eventually come to the conclusion that they'll work out of vamano's pest control cooking out of tented houses Mike vets the vamanos pest crew and declares that they can't steal from houses that they cook out of along with leaving Walt and Jesse alone to do their jobs unless they specifically call upon them after they sell the first batch Mike splits up their money into 367 thousand dollars each but Walt has many problems with the way that the money is divvied up first complaining how they have to give 250 000 to their mules Mike explains how Gus didn't have to use mules as he spent 20 years creating his own distribution and gives Walt a hard time for killing Gus as now Gus's operation is obviously no more and since it is now gone they need to pay each level of their own operation out of their own profits including vamanos pests of Saul mules Etc which Cuts their own profits in nearly in half not only that but since Mike has decided to keep his men in prison alive and told them he'd continue to pay them off that takes off another hundred and seventeen thousand dollars each Mike explains how this is how it's is going to be from here on out as his men's Hazard pay are an ongoing expense after all the expenses are accounted for they're each left with 137 thousand dollars each with while complaining that that's less than with Gus Mike clarifies that although Walt killed Gus that doesn't make him Gus as Gus had two decades to build his Empire while Walt Jesse and Mike are all essentially starting from scratch also with Gus they made 200 pounds of batch with vamanos pests they're only making 50 pounds of batch yet another great example as to why Mike is mad at while for killing Gus as it's not only Gus's death that Mike is upset over but Gus's Empire as well so the next day Lydia calls Mike freaking out over the DEA resting her guy that provided the barrels to them but Mike just calmly tells her that he'll send another guy in hangs up meanwhile Hank suspects Mike for being the man that's keeping Gus's men quiet when Jesse reports back to Mike and Walt over the fact that they can grab a barrel from Lydia due to there being a Tracker stuck to the bottom Mike debunks the DEA putting the tracker there and thinks that Lydia put it there herself in order to try and trick them into cutting ties with her Mike explains is going to kill her for this as he was already going to before but gave her a second chance which she now just ruined in Mike's eyes this is yet another example of him only taking a half measure with her when he should have gone all the way so not only does Mike now just want to kill people if they become a problem for him whereas years ago he would have never pulled the trigger he's so quick to jump to this conclusion that he doesn't even think about the fact that Lydia might actually be innocent Jesse and Walt convinced Mike to First kidnap Lydia before killing her and when they do Mike tells her that they're giving her one final chance this final chance is to see if it truly was Lydia who plan to the tracker on their Barrel if it really was the DEA Mike makes Lydia call Hank with a script to confront Hank over the tracking device on her products and Mike tells her that if she makes Hank suspicious in any way that they'll kill her while he's doing so he uses an intimidation tactic that he learned from Gus which involves Mike telling her to look at him while he's speaking and not Walter Jesse as Lydia calls Hank about the tracker they use the bug that Walt stuck in Hank's office earlier to listen into Hank and gomi discussing the fact that they didn't place the tracker there after all so this obviously makes Lydia seem guilty at first but then they hear Hank speaking to the Houston Department who admits that they foolishly planted The Trackers on the outside of every barrel due to not having time to place them inside since the barrels were about to be shipped now this is quite an interesting turn of events because the show Led you to believe that it was Lydia that put the tracker there but as it turns out she's actually innocent even though Mike was wrong about Lydia he still wants to kill her but Jesse agrees with Lydia on the fact that she saved them as if she didn't notice the tracker under the barrel they'd all be in jail right now Mike finally admits to Jesse and Walt that Lydia put a hit out on him and that that's the reason why he can't trust keeping her alive even though Lydia can't get them barrels for Magical anymore she Bargains her life by offering a way to get a massive Supply by robbing a train full of stuff and so planning begins Mike states that they'd have to kill the two crew members on the train so that they don't leave any Witnesses behind even though Jesse suggests just tying them up Mike States how he's been doing this for long enough to know that if they want to get away with this they can't leave any Witnesses this may also be my thinking back to how he left a witness alive when he robbed Hector's truck all those years ago which caused an unfortunate domino effect that resulted in not only a Good Samaritan being killed due to finding the witness alive but the witness ended up being killed regardless although the circumstances of doing the train Heist are much different than Mike robbing a truck from the Salamanca cartel years of experience including that particular situation has trained Mike into believing that leaving Witnesses behind is too much of a loose end regardless of if they are or aren't in the game this is a great example showing how much Mike has corrupted his own morals by 2009. think back to 2002 to 2003 Mike he didn't even want to kill people who were in The Game let alone someone who isn't 2002 Mike would have never killed two innocent Witnesses not in the game but 2009 Mike suggests killing them without a second thought now back at Jesse's house Mike and wall to get at each other's throats again over many variables from switching back to an inferior cook along with Walt once again giving Mike a hard time for wanting to pay off his men in prison instead of killing although Mike makes a valid point by stating that Walter and Gus's Empire so he has to pay for it if Mike could betray his loyalty and just allow his men in prison to be killed it would have saved them a lot of trouble it would be a horrible thing to do but my point still stands Mike and Walt arguing over how to handle their current Supply situation is very reminiscent of them arguing over how to handle the situation with Gus's laptop and once again Jesse comes up with a third option to save the day which is to rob the train without them ever becoming aware of it long story short Mike helps them set up and execute the train Heist by being their Lookout and it works perfectly except for the fact that Todd kills the kid on the dirt bike that witnessed them there Mike votes to keep Todd in their crew in order to keep a close eye on him although Jesse is clearly the one that's most upset over Todd killing the kid Mike lashing out at Todd shows that there's still a little bit of the old mic still inside because even though Mike's now okay with killing innocent civilians that aren't in the game when he wasn't before obviously killing an innocent kid is crossing the line we then see Mike at the park with Kaylee and he realizes that the DEA are watching him so he leaves a note at a nearby trash can under the reason it's a dead drop so when the DEA look at it it's just a no telling them Fu implying that Mike knows that they're watching him which is believable considering this isn't the first time Mike has been able to realize that he's being tailed back at home Mike continues to listen into Hank and gomi talking about him using the bug that Walt previously planted and here's that even though gomi calls him a pro Hank states that he'll eventually mess up and that they'll be there when he does after Jesse realizes that Walt feels No Remorse over Todd killing the kid he meets with Mike off-screen and they both decide to quit the business while Walt finishes up cooking a batch Jesse meets Mike down by the river to discuss how they feel about the current situation this is actually where the El Camino missing scene of Mike and Jesse comes into play where they discuss the fact that Walt won't be happy when he learns that they're both out of the game Mike says that the money he's made will go to the same place that the rest of it does which is implied to be Stacy and Kaylee then when Jesse asked Mike where he'd go if he were him Mike gives Jesse the idea of moving to a Alaska to start fresh when Jesse says how he wants to put things right Mike tells him how that's sadly the one thing he can never do as I've mentioned previously throughout this video is one of the many lessons that Mike has learned while working in the criminal World here in this El Camino scene with Jesse and Mike telling him this is a major life lesson for Jesse and is incredibly important for both of their characters and yes the reason why I kept implying to put a pin in Mike learning that he could never put things right throughout the entire video was to conjugate all of those examples up to this one scene of Mike telling Jesse this lesson that he's learned Micah stride many times to put things right for situations that he's been a part of but it never fully Works whether it's getting revenge on the people that have done him wrong or trying to give himself or others affected closure nothing will ever truly put things right from killing Hoffman and fenske for killing his son to wanting to kill Hector for killing the Good Samaritan reporting the body of the Good Samaritan to his family to get closure or even the cartel as a whole for Nacho's death time and time again Mike has had to learn the hard way that no matter what he does to put things right nothing truly ever makes up for what's happened in the past so Walt then goes back to the vamanos pest garage that they've been working out of to deliver the finished batch and when he does so he finds Mike and Jesse already there you decide to come clean with Walt and Talon that they're quitting the business first Mike admits that the DEA has been telling him a bunch lately due to Hank acquiring a keen interest form which Walt gets angry at Mike about for not telling him about this sooner due to the D.A keeping tabs on Mike he's decided to quit the business and when Walter seems that Jesse will take over Mike's side of the business Jesse admits that he's gonna quit too Mike then informs Walt that they plan to sell their two-thirds of the supply that they got from the train Heist to a connection that Mike still has through fraying for 5 million each and that Mike will pay off his man in prison with his own share the next day Mike and Jesse meet up with Mike's connection Declan but when he realizes that Mike and Jesse has a third partner who's holding out on a third of the supply Declan declares that either he buys all of it or none of it as he wants Gus's Blue Sky to disappear from the streets for good even though Mike tells him that their third partner's territory won't impact his Jesse tells Walt but Walt refuses to give third so he goes to the garage to try and steal it all but when he does Mike is already there to stop him stating how he thought Walt might try something stupid Mike friends Walt with its gun and forces wall to stay there with him in order to keep an eye on wall to making sure that the deal goes through without Walt stopping it when Walt suggests allowing Mike to let him cook their supplies it'll more than double the profit Mike just laughs it off stating how he's never seen someone try so hard to not get five million dollars after sitting there together until the next day Mike restrains Walton leaves him alone as yes something else he needs to go do before that happens Mike goes with salt to me with Hank and go me in order to get them off his back by calling their tailing stalking and filing a restraining order against the D.A on the behalf of Mike back in Saul's Cadillac they listen in on Hank and go me discussing how they're still gonna go after Mike Saul tells Mike that they're right and that this restraining order will get thrown out after 24 hours Mike says how that's enough time for him to skip town but when he goes back to the garage he notices that the entire Supply is gone with Walt and Jesse waiting for him Mike holds Walt at gunpoint ready to shoot but Jesse talks in down long enough for Walt to explain how he has a plan that'll get them both their 5 million along with allowing wall to keep the supply Mike drives Walton Jesse to meet Declan and tells Walt that since this is his play the floor is his Walt gives his iconic say my name speech and Declan takes the deal which includes Mike getting 5 million as a retirement fee back at the garage Mike gives his parting thoughts to Walton Jesse he reminds them that he'll cover the hazard pay with his men in prison and advises them to somehow remove the bug that while planted in Hank's office as the D.A will eventually do a sweep to find it once they've caught on to the fact that Mike was continuously one step ahead of them while rhetorically asked for thank you for the 5 million dollars along with an apology for restraining him against a radiator but Mike stances ground and just rudely tells Walt to get the bug as he's so sick and tired with Walton can't wait to be done working with him after Walt walks away Jesse seems to think that since he's quitting too he'll be able to meet up with Mike in the future but Mike politely denies this implying that he'll never see Jesse Again by seeing how when he's out he's out oh I'm telling Jesse to just look out for himself from now on Mike sends watchberger into a bank to deposit incremental payments into safety deposit boxes for his nine men still in prison along completely filling up a larger deposit box full of money to leave for Kaylee on her 18th birthday the lawyer then meets back outside with Mike and tells him that the families of the men in prison are reliable with withdrawing the deposits and that they aren't complaining about not receiving their total Hazard payout once as it's safer to receive them in partial payments over time Mike continues to Listen to Hank with the bug while he can and over here is that they have a warrant to search his house since Mike anticipated this he's removed all his guns and any incriminating evidence from his home and dumps it all on a well in the desert including the laptop that he used to listen into the bug with Mike then leaves the rest of his money his passport and a gun in the trunk of a vehicle at the airport and grabs a taxi to go back home in time for the police to arrive with the search warrant although Hank's search and Mike's house comes up short all the fact that he gets cut funding to continue investigating Mike Hank decides to get gomi to instead tail watch Burger due to him representing all nine of Mike's men this causes watch Burger to get caught with a suitcase full of cash the next time he goes to the bank to bring deposits for Mike's men meanwhile while Walt is secretly removing the bug from Hank's office he overhears that Hank and gomi have been interrogating wash burger for 14 hours and that he's going to give Mike up we see Mike sitting at a park with his daughter he gets a call from watchburger who tells him that there's a problem with the money and that he needs to come meet since Mike is in the middle of something he can't meet for a few hours causing watchburger to request Mike's current location which Mike reluctantly gives him just as he hangs up Walt calls Mike to warn him that his lawyer's been caught and is talking to the DEA so they're on their way to capture him Mike stands up and notices police arriving at the park forcing him to abandon Kaylee there and make a run for it now Jonathan Banks has said in interviews that the one time he truly thinks Mike acted out of character was leaving Kaylee alone in the park he admits that he knows that Mike had to flee due to the police arriving there to arrest him along with the fact that he knows that Kaylee would have been okay since those same police officers would have found her and escorted her back to her home but it was still difficult for banks to accept Mike abandoning Kaylee he's so went along with it however due to having such high praise and Trust in the writers the only reason why the writers wrote the scene this way was because at the time of filming Breaking Bad they of course weren't aware of how important the characters of Kaylee and Stacy would become for Mike during Better Call Saul as the prequel hadn't been thought of yet Mike manages to evade the police but can't reach the bag in the trunk of the car that he left at the airport so he calls Saul to grab it for him while volunteers to get the bag for Mike since Saul won't do it and Mike won't let Jesse risk himself for it but when Walt gets Mike's bag he steals Mike's gun Walt them brings the bag to Mike who's waiting for him at what I believe is the same river that he previously spoke to Jesse at during the El Camino missing scene Walt doesn't want to give Mike his bag until Mike is Walt the names of the nine men that he has in prison as they've now become a thread to Walt and Jesse since Mike isn't able to pay them off anymore because a watchburger getting arrested Mike refuses and takes the bag from Walton begins to leave but turns around when Walt is a rhetorical you're welcome due to Mike never thanking him for anything and while it's eyes Mike owes him the names of the nine men as he should be more appreciative for not only getting him his bag but also for getting him the 5 million Mike however has hated Watson's day one or day Zero rather as I discussed earlier he's had a bad gut feeling about Walt ever since before he had even met him in Mike's eyes everything that's gone bad since well got involved is Walt's own fault with Mike holding it all against him at every turn Walt wonders how Mike getting followed by the D.A is his fault but Mike traces it all the way back through the domino effect that if waltand killed Gus the DEA would have never been onto Mike or his men in the first place the way that Mike calls out Walter for ruining the good thing they had going with Gus is something that Walt definitely needed to hear for a long time all of this falling apart like this is on you you just had to blow it up you and your pride and your ego you just had to be the man we had a good thing you stupid son of a as Mike had already explained to Walt Gus had an elaborate system setup which they don't have anymore Mike tells Walt that they had everything that they needed with Gus and if Walt would have just kept his head down and his mouth shut they could have made as much money as they would have ever needed but Walt just had to go and ruin it all with his pride here you go though Mike is cracked in holding Walt's ego responsible for ruining their good situation with Gus that's only one part of a very complex puzzle for Mike's point of view he hates Walt for killing Gus as it ruined the entire setup that Mike had going with Gus even if it meant corrupting Mike's morals as badly as it did everything bad that's happened to Mike since the beginning of Breaking Bad season 5 is a direct result of Gus dying Mike lost his initial savings with Kaylee his men got arrested he became a prime suspect to the DEA now he has to run for his life after the DEA has caught his lawyer and seized his second lump of money that he was going to leave for Kaylee as well regardless of the domino effect and how it may have started in Mike's eyes everything he worked for was ruined one way or another all because Walt got involved Walt unable to handle Mike calling him out for ruining their operation by killing Gus takes his rage out on Mike by shooting him Walt in disbelief of what he just did approaches Mike's car to see that he's run away down by the river Walt follows Mike's tracks and when he finds him disarms him and just stands there with Mike while realizing what he we just did by this point it's clear that Mike's gonna die as the shot was fatal Walt has essentially just murdered Mike and now they have to stay there by the river with that realization until Mike dies and this is just insult to injury for Mike because he knew that one day soon he was going to die but being with Walt is the last person that he wanted to die alongside well Walt did to Mike was completely pointless as it only happened due to while not being able to control his anger for Mike insulting his ego so by shooting Mike Walt just proved Mike right in the worst way possible in regard to Walt's ego ruining everything while it feels apologetic for doing so and tries to air out his guilt as he realizes that he didn't even need to confront Mike over the names of his men as he could have just gotten the names from Lydia instead Walt apologizes for everything as he realizes that this whole situation could have been avoided but Mike just tells him to shut up and let him Die In Peace So they just stay there in silence watching the river with episode ending as Mike collapses Walt killing Mike is definitely the final straw that cemented my hatred towards Walt especially considering how it all went down it's B beautiful writing in such a tragic way although Walt had already done many unforgivable things up to this point in the story and rightfully killing Mike in a fitter rage has to be one of the biggest things that I could never personally forgive Walt for as Mike is my favorite character in Breaking Bad off my favorite Breaking Bad character and Better Call Saul as well Mike knew that working with Walt was a bad idea ever since he first advised Saul against doing so but was reluctantly forced to anyways due to Saul getting Walt involved against Mike's wishes along with Gus having an interest in Walt due to his formula Mike could have just walked away after Gus was dead but decided to risk working with Walt again in order to try and make back his lost money for Kaylee and ended up paying for it I suppose Mike should have taken his own advice that he once told Saul but by this point Mike was so far down bad choice road that he couldn't just live with the fact that the DEA had taken away everything he had worked so hard for resulting in everything he's done the past four years tall B for nothing so he decided to take another swing at it although it would have sucked for Mike to just give up and accept that after everything he's done he wouldn't have left money for Kaylee and Stacy but at least he would have lived longer and been able to spend that time with his family instead since Mike decided to work again with Walton Jesse even though he made his money back it still never reaches Kaylee and now in his family's eyes he's mysteriously disappeared Without a Trace while abandoning Kaylee at a park by herself although that's the end of Mike's sorry there's still much more to discuss in regard to Mike's Legacy including what happens to his body along with what happens to his family after Mike's death Walt secretly brings Mike's body back to the garage in the trunk of his car and he calls Todd to help dispose of the body Walt tells Todd that he doesn't even want to talk about Mike's death and that it had to be done even though Walt knows that's a lie before wall can dispose of Mike's body Jesse arrives at the garage to speak to Walt about Mike Jesse wonders if Walt brought Mike his bag and if Mike got out safe the Walt doesn't confirm or denied this instead just states that Mike is gone it's incredibly brutal that Waltz is keeping his murder of Mike is secret from Jessie while lying about its Jesse right beside Mike's body hidden in his trunk Jesse does eventually put two and two together that Walt killed Mike and so on Walt page Jesse the 5 million that he owes them Jesse tries getting Saul to give half of it to Kaylee however Saul won't arrange it due to Mike's family being watched closely by the DEA so Saul gives the money to Walt to give back to Jesse the final time that Mike is mentioned on screen and Breaking Bad is when Saul and Walter waiting and add the disappears basement to his vacuum store to get relocated when Walt thinks of ways to get his money to his family Saul uses Mike as an example stating how even though Mike was smart in what he did every time he tried getting his money to his family the DEA would seize it and then the final time the mic is mentioned chronologically is when Saul's been hiding as Gene post-breaking bad and speaking to Kim on the phone he tells her that Gus and Mike are both dead so she has nothing to fear in regard to getting backlash from him we do also see Mike's name in the confession letter that Kim gives to Howard's wife Cheryl which admits that Mike was the one who mainly held to cover up Howard's murder so after everything that Mike did to provide for his family in the end it was mostly all for nothing Mike dies knowing that his family will never get the money that he wished he could have left him all of the fact that Stacy and Kaylee will never have closure for what happened to him not only that but I imagine Stacy would have been initially mad at Mike for hearing that he left Kelly at a park when he disappeared all the fact that Kaylee could have developed abandonment issues because of it and it's also ironic or even poetic in some ways that after everything Mike did to try to give the people around him closure from giving himself and Stacy closure about Maddie and giving the family the Good Samaritan closure to even giving Nacho's father closure about nacho Mike's family will never have closure about him although Mike was able to provide for Stacy and Kaylee during the events of Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad from 2002 to 2009 after Mike disappeared he had nothing to leave for them which was his whole motive behind everything he did Mike's First Savings of two million dollars towards Kaylee got seized his second lump of money out of the 5 million that he got from Declan got seized and even after Mike died Jesse tried giving Kaylee money that never happened since Saul thought it was too risky this implies that even long after Mike is gone the DEA will be keeping tabs on both Kaylee and Stacy so that if they ever randomly came across a large sum of money in the future the DEA would know that'd be from Mike or his associates trying to leave behind a legacy savings for them I suppose that Saul could hypothetically tried to convince Stacy to buy business so he could launder Jesse's money to make it clean but the show never explores that possibility as it's sadly unrealistic now whenever I think of Mike's death or watch the scene where it happens I always think back to the big man monologue that Mike gave to Jimmy while they were out in the desert together and vice versa these two scenes are so brilliantly linked together due to the big man monologue perfectly foreshadowing the tragedy of Mike's death Mike told Jimmy that he did what he did without giving up because he knew that his family was depending on him Mike was never in fear of dying as long as he could do whatever he could while he was still alive to assure that he'd leave behind his family as much money as possible to set themselves up for the rest of their lives this is one of the many ways that Better Call Saul elaborates on and emphasizes the events of Breaking Bad by adding more context to its characters and their past Mike's big man monologue just makes his death and Breaking Bad so much more tragic due to emphasizing the fact that Mike had ultimately failed in his goal to provide for his family after his death no matter what he did to try and fix it although Stacy and Kaylee did fall on hard times after Maddie's death with Stacy telling Mike and Better Call Saul that she had many bills to pay and payments to make Etc it's not like they ever needed to be rich it just needed enough to get by it's possible that Mike wanted them to live lavishly under a cushiony pillow of wealth but it wasn't necessary Mike had saved up enough money for them to get by for the rest of their lives as long as they used it properly while possibly investing some of it but Mike didn't know when to stop it's almost like since Mike felt so horrible over the guilt of being part of the domino effect that led to his son Maddie's death he could never forgive himself for not only unintentionally getting his son killed but for also ruining his son's family fracturing it and leaving Kaylee without a father and Stacy a widow now I'm sure Mike already cared deeply for Stacy and kale even back when Maddie was alive but Maddie's death ultimately caused Mike to want to infinitely provide for Stacy and Kaylee even after his own death to try and make up for what happened to Maddie sadly as Mike learned many times throughout his life in Albuquerque all the right up to his death making things right is something you can never do Mike Feld and his gold sleeve Stacy and Kaylee all the money in the world but even if he had succeeded in it it still wouldn't have made up for Maddie's death no amount of wealth could make up for what happened Maddie even if it did set up Stacy and Kaylee to live the best lives that they can plus since Mike had become so close to Stacy and Kaylee after Maddie's death I can only assume that losing Mike due to his disappearance would have been just like losing Maddie all over again but potentially even worse as they would never get closure on the mystery of what truly happened to Mike because eventually they might learn that he was in affiliation with Gus but they'd still never truly know what happened to him so even though Mike tried to help them he ultimately hurt them which is an even more tragic twist to consider while trying to make money for his family Mike was involved in many tragedies that he tried correcting but never fully could after all the lessons about never being able to fully make up for what you've done or said things right final example that Mike realized before dying was about his own family as well it all started with Maddie's death and all ended with Mike's death unable to provide for his family the way he wanted which she was only trying to do to make up for his son's death in the first place which was ultimately something he could have that right no matter how much money he could have left his family it's just such a perfect way to make Mike's story and motives all come full circle by making Mike the prime example and premise of never being able to set things right but kept trying to do anyways every day until his death when we first met Mike in Better Call Saul during 2001 to 2002 after killing Hoffman and fenske Mike never wanted to kill again he never wanted to kill anyone whether they were innocent or guilty or regardless of being a criminal Mike didn't want to kill tuko an evil man who was in the game and went through Great Lengths to avoid pulling the trigger Mike left Witnesses behind he did not wanting to kill them but went in the hard way that doing the Humane thing will come back to bite you in the ass throughout 2002 to 2004 Mike learned to kill people in the game whether they were bad or good Mike being forced to kill Werner was an ultimate turning point of my compromising his morals in order to get the job done after werner's death Mike decided to cut his losses and play the cards that he was dealt with agreeing to become a bun man for Gus working for Gus truly corrupted Mike in a horrible way and you can really tell the way that Mike just kind of accepts Nacho's death and moves on by 2008 when we meet Mike and Breaking Bad he's a hardened killer with almost no morals left in regard to who he would or wouldn't kill with his only valuable moral code left being his loyalty which in the end somewhat resulted in his downfall as well Mike was fine with Gus hiring men to use kids to sell drugs and commit murder often getting killed while being cut loose Mike was completely fine with killing Lydia and leaving her daughter an orphan thinking that her mother abandoned her although Mike was more bothered by Todd killing the kid than Walt he didn't feel as bad as Jesse and like Jesse Todd killing the kid wasn't what made Mike decide to quit it was the fact that the DEA wouldn't stop chasing him until they caught him Mike went from someone who would never kill as a solution to a problem to someone who usually thinks of killing as their first option Mike wanted to kill Lydia over and over again he wanted to kill innocent train conductors when they were first planning to train High student not wanting to leave Witnesses alive even if they are innocent and not in the game only 2002 Mike could have seen what 2009 Mike would eventually become throughout Breaking Bad We only knew Mike as a Hitman and security guard for Gus but throughout Better Call Saul we learned more are the Humane side of him and watched how working in the criminal underworld corrupted his morals and skewed his point of view to the ruthless killer that we know him to be in Breaking Bad another reason why I Love How Better Call Saul emphasizes these characters going to Breaking Bad as I mentioned before now just compare and contrast Walter Mike for a moment as they both started working in the criminal World due to wanting to provide for their own families unlike Walt Mike was truly only in it for his family although Walt initially started out with those intentions throughout the show it turned into him using it as an excuse for his actions when in reality he ultimately did what he did for himself Mike however was only truly involved in the criminal world for his family so in a way he was what Walt never could be although Mike was good at his job he never let it get to his head and always remind himself what it was ultimately for Mike didn't work as a criminal because he loved drugs and violence even though he was a pro on most of what he did including detective work investigating and well killing he did it all for his family and unlike Walt he never let his job get to his head due to not having half the ego that Walt did Mike may have done it to try and make up for the death of his son something you can never treat really make up no matter what infinite amount of money you tried to earn but he did do it for his family bottom line I really love all the intricacies for the characters of the Breaking Bad Universe considering the huge character Transformations that they go through between both shows for example I already loved Mike from Breaking Bad so getting to see infinitely more of him during Better Call Saul is almost like a dream come true with Mike's full story and how to close what are your opinions of the character you've sat through mine for a few hours now so feel free to share your opinions in the comments below also who would you like to see a character Spotlight for next is obviously the big players like Walt Jesse Saul Etc and I do plan on eventually covering every character throughout the Breaking Bad Universe although I will be switching up the order that I do so between Main and Side characters I say this for my own sanity you know how they say it's been a pleasure it hasn't since full retrospectives on main characters can be quite long as you can clearly tell I still have Kim in mind ever since my last video about her own bad choice Road and I would like to do a video on nacho in the near future as well but let me know of any interesting Side characters that you'd like to see an analysis on since you know minor characters will have a more reasonable video length for them if you've enjoyed this full story of Mike Herman trout give it a like to appease the algorithm God so they'll share the analysis with even more Breaking Bad fans but most importantly thanks for watching till the end of the video I really do appreciate it subscribe for more Breaking Bad and better cross all retrospectives in the near future but until then I'll talk to you guys later peace out packing a memento sorry what pimento sandwich no I mean what are you carrying you know the piece what's the make pimento is a cheese they call it the caviar of the South don't worry I brought sandwiches pimento cheese how's that sound the moral of the story is I chose a half measure when I should have gone all the way no more half measures Walter you said no half measures yeah funny how words can be so open to interpretation I don't think fear is a great motivator I don't believe Fear To Be an Effective motivator you are not the guy you're not capable of being the guy I had a guy but now I don't you are not the god I what the hell

Channel: TheVividKiWi

Views: 1,050,055

Keywords: better call saul, breaking bad, better call saul retrospective, breaking bad retrospective, breaking bad mike death, breaking bad walt kills mike, breaking bad vs better call saul, better call saul mike, mike ehrmantraut, better call saul stacey, better call saul easter eggs, breaking bad timeline, better call saul timeline, howard death, lalo death, nacho death, mike and gus, mike and jesse, mike and nacho, gus fring, walter white, character analysis, character spotlight

Id: HbTQdhb3uKE

Length: 151min 16sec (9076 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 24 2022