Better Call Saul - Season Four Discussion & Digestion

Did I miss a post where someone pointed out that Jimmy was finally introduced as Saul within the BCS timeline? Did the business card officially announce that Saul is now officially a side of Jimmy that would eventually take over completely?

 

He used the Saul Goodman name in the previous season, when he was selling his advertising company in TV commercials, immediately after his suspension.

Jimmy's Evolution Continues On 'Better Call Saul'

 

What's so small about exposing Gus as a drug dealer to not warrant it as a serious? I'm not sure how anybody can even that Mike isn't a stone-cold killer and/or that he hasn't killed for less.

 

Watching BB and the episode "Better Call Saul" its inner'esting how Saul mentions that he is "not in the shakedown business" and still has the attitude that he has some integrity within even the worst of crimes simply due to the fact that he is acting as a lawyer. Saul in that moment is very much in the same mindset as Jimmy. Or is it that, once again, Jimmy has pretty much always been Saul?

I keep going back to Kim also. I think one has to understand her personality in order to decifer her actions. Life seems very black and white to Kim. Yet, Im not sure she is a black and white personality. Dual realities seem to be a concept that both BB and BCS explore. This duality within Kim will also be her downfall.

 

They know something is amiss - with all the secrecy and huge price tag, what it is they probably have no idea.

I agree that Mike would not kill them unless under VERY extraordinary circumstances. Even if Gus were to order it - and I don't think he would - I think Mike would simply tell him it's a bad idea. Gus tends to know when Mike is right.

 

At this point in the story we haven't seen Mike "kill for less." I'm not even sure he did in BB.
Please correct me if I'm wrong on either count.

 

Mike killed Chow for next to nothing in Breaking Bad. The point is, it would be difficult to believe that Chow's death was the first time Mike killed somebody for nothing. He did it to protect Gus' interests. At some point Gus will ask Mike to show his ultimate loyalty. That's why in all of the gangster flicks you see the boss hand the underling a gun to do the actual killing.

At some point they have to show just how bad Gus and Mike are.

...and why would it be a bad idea? If something proved injurious enough to Gus' business, hadn't Gus shown us he will do anything not to go to jail? Why would Gus even want to go to jail, or risk anything that could send him to jail?

Perhaps we have different perspectives and Mike and Gus. Both of these dudes make Walter White look like Walk Whitman.

 

Chow was killed by Chris.

I think thoroughly trusts Mike, but yes he may demand something to prove his loyalty.

Yes, this is why I said it would take something very extraordinary for Gus to order the killing.

I don't think our perpectives are that different. I think it's more a timeline-related thing. In BCS we haven't seen Mike do any of this and the worst we've seen Gus do is kill Arturo - an arrogant scumbag who provoked him and basically sentence Hector to a lifetime of misery in a wheelchair with a bell to ring - Hector murdered Gus's partner in front of him, insulted and belittled him and was just generally a total dick - recall Hector scraping the crap off his shoes onto Gus's desk. I'd say both guys deserved it.

 

Maybe, but Gus does't really seem motivated by the trapping of wealth from what I can tell. Whenever is is not working, he is usually shown cooking a simple meal in his own modest kitchen. Keep in mind that Gus isn't really his own boss, he is controlled by the Cartel in Mexico. I believe it's the Cartel that is likely behind his continuous expansion and never ending quest for more money. He's not really in the position to say "no" to them. We don't see this on BCS of course because they can't tell everyone's story.

 

No doubt Jimmy was poking fun of Schweikart's retreat. He was loud because he wanted everyone to hear and purposely drew attention to himself. Limiting the retreat to a destination a few hours away by bus (yuck!) is incredibly cheap for a law firm that projects a posh image. In reality, Jimmy's suggestions to go to Colorado wasn't even lavish by law firm standards. A resort like Hawaii, Mexico or the Caribbean would be more impressive, and of course that would require air travel. Attorneys really don't travel by bus - ever.

 

I'm a little behind.

That scene with Gus was good insight into his persona but it fell flat when it was in English. It would have been more intimate had it been in Spanish.

 

Regarding Mike's evolution (or devolution), I note (again) that I watched the first two seasons of BCS then watched all of BB. I was greatly shocked at the difference in Mike's character (or at least my perception of it) in BB. I was surprised how easily and heartlessly he offed people in BB simply based on orders to do so. He seemed like an entirely different person in that respect.

 

Actually, lavish law firm retreats were more of a 1990s thing. By the 2000s, they were not common in smaller cities, and tended not to be lavish. In Kansas City, where I practice law, and which is larger than Albuquerque, the large firms have held retreats at the Lake of the Ozarks, which is a three hour bus or car ride away. It may be different for large firms in very large cities like New York, Chicago, Dallas, etc.

 

RE: Mike

This is what I wrote nearly a month ago, as a brief character study about Mike (for what it's worth - which isn't much):

Mike is a US Marine, first and foremost; becoming a cop is what saved him, what grounded him. You take that away from a guy like Mike and he's parked in a lot that he doesn't quite fit in.

He's what you call a "lifer." He needs long term stability in whatever organization he becomes apart of, almost institutionalized, just this side of freedom. The Marines couldn't supply that for Mike. You can't stay in forever without making rank. Therefore becoming a police officer was Mike's way of escape.

Mike's not dumb. He knew retirement was on the horizon. He just never could have predicted that the death of his only boy would cause him to retire.

I submit that in the end, Mike used the only thing he had left: a supreme knowledge of the criminal mind, since anything on the right side of the law didn't have that structure that the US Marine Corps hardcoded in him at an early age.

He was too old to be a security guard, so we saw what Mike's job was: manning security at a friggin' gate. It was the closest thing he could grab.

It's sad. What's more, you're right; his generation didn't bellyache much, and if they did, the only did it to each other, where us chickens couldn't hear. Or, they took it out in their children for being simpering slugs...or maybe their wives.

Mike didn't do either of those, so what we saw from Mike was the teeth of the caged tiger. Gus will open the cage.

As @misterjones alluded to, the Mike we see now is in transition to the Breaking Bad Mike. I'm adding to that by claiming that Mike's "transition," as far as killing goes, will not be a gradual one. An organization - namely Gus' - just has to open the cage to let the animal out. It will happen all at once.

Yes, we see an evolution (or devolution) for Mike as a person, in BCS, but that will all eventually lead to that moment where Mike decides to kill or not to kill, as a member of Gus' circle. That is, I don't think Mike's scenario is as convoluted at Jimmy's.

This is why I believe that Mike will decide to kill for Gus. Obviously I can't call my shot and say that it will go down just as I wrote it. Nevertheless, despite Mike's "moral code" as a person, when he becomes a part of an organization, that code goes out the window for the sake of the pack.

 

Did I hear there are only 2 Episodes left????

 

I told Kai not to tell anybody that.

 

Can I just say how much I love Jonathan Bank’s work in BCS? Granted he’s had a long career, but he really hit his stride with Mike. Even knowing his work from Wiseguy, 48 Hrs and Beverly Hills Cop, he lives and breathes that character.

You could definitely tell Mike had Kai sized up immediately, and it didn't take much for the writers to suggest that Kai was in Mike's crosshairs from then on.

 

Isn't it 3 ? (in this season)

 

Yeah, 3 more left.

 

Phew....

 

This is really smart and spot on. To add one thing that corroborates this interpretation. When my son got speech therapy his therapist always referred to his teeth clinched shut as the "gate." Many cultures refer to the mouth as the gate of the mind or heart. During that group therapy session Mike, after weeks of putting up with the phony member, unleashed his fury on him, which caused problems with his daughter-in-law. I think there is no doubt about Gus releasing him from the cage. Mike has already done it, just not in a physically violent BB way.

 

Yes, very much so. That therapy session worked! It got Mike to speak. The thing is, nobody expected what Mike spewed. It's goading the tiger.

So, now, Mike is very much in that frame of mind, and I believe that right now, at this moment in BCS, that Mike is in full-on mode to help his granddaughter, by any means neccesary, just as we see in BB.

The only difference is, his org hasn't told him to kill yet...but they will.

When they do, Mike might be hesitate, but he'll do it all the same.

None of us gets points for hesitating to break the law if we break the law, anyway.

 

I thought it was pretty much a given that both the architect and the workers are guys that are hired for secretive jobs like this... they aren't under the impression that they're laying the foundation for a church or a kindergarten. They are kept sequestered so they don't know (and can't tell anyone) exactly where the project is they're working on, but they still come from the criminal world.

That said, I was surprised Fring told the architect his name.

 

In a much different set of circumstances I could see these two being the best of friends - they have such an easy rapport and obvious respect for each other. Testament to good acting and - as always - great casting from the BCS crew. That'll make it an extra hard gut punch if Mike is ordered to kill him.

 

Other than that it is secretive, we don't know what they know. Just knowing it could be an illegal thing, but not knowing the nature or the types of people involved is not voluntarily thrusting themselves into the middle of cartel goings on. They could just be thinking they are secretly doing something in violation of zoning laws for some billionaire, for all we know. They are "civilians" if they do not know the details of all the danger around the people involved - they haven't "assumed the risk" and are not voluntarily thrusting themselves into cartel stuff, if that is the case. If they are fully informed and heavily involved in the game that is a different story.