The Official "Better Call Saul" Season 4 Thread.

[Professor Emeritus]

Spoiler

Mike had to earn his stripes and protect his family. Do you actually think mike would let Werner escape and go on the run himself and leave his daughter in law and granddaughter behind? Let’s not forget what happened to the kid that killed combo. Mike was no angel himself, he’s killed in the past and it only gets easier after every time.

Spoiler

Remember how shook Mike was when he thought someone might be following his daughter-in-law? He knows full well that every moment he works for Gus, he's putting her at risk. She's at risk from Gus's men if he slips up and she's at risk from Gus's rivals if he does his job. Just look at how Jesse's girl got offed by Todd. He can't sit around and act as her bodyguard, he's got work to do and she's vulnerable as fukk. Whereas if he ghosts, what does anyone get out of killing his family? They're perfectly safe with him not around, a lot safer than they are with him around, and he can wire them money from wherever he lives.

So far as we know the ONLY guys he's killed in the past were his son's murderers, and they were about to off him too when he did it. Killing a murderer who you hate with the deepest passion you will ever have and killing a friendly German engineer who like personally like aren't even in the same universe. If killing got so easy, then why is it that in the whole BB era he never kills anyone other than thug gunmen who already have blood on their hands? How come he never kills Walter when Walter does way more to deserve it than Werner ever did?

 

[FaTaL]

Spoiler

Remember how shook Mike was when he thought someone might be following his daughter-in-law? He knows full well that every moment he works for Gus, he's putting her at risk. She's at risk from Gus's men if he slips up and she's at risk from Gus's rivals if he does his job. Just look at how Jesse's girl got offed by Todd. He can't sit around and act as her bodyguard, he's got work to do and she's vulnerable as fukk. Whereas if he ghosts, what does anyone get out of killing his family? They're perfectly safe with him not around, a lot safer than they are with him around, and he can wire them money from wherever he lives.

So far as we know the ONLY guys he's killed in the past were his son's murderers, and they were about to off him too when he did it. Killing a murderer who you hate with the deepest passion you will ever have and killing a friendly German engineer who like personally like aren't even in the same universe. If killing got so easy, then why is it that in the whole BB era he never kills anyone other than thug gunmen who already have blood on their hands? How come he never kills Walter when Walter does way more to deserve it than Werner ever did?

Spoiler

why would they kill his family? Because that’s what drug dealers do. Remember that taco guy, fring owns him but you fail to understand fring also owns mike. What do you think would happen if he tells hector he robbed his truck? There’s no hiding for mike, he’s in knee deep. Once he took hectors money there was no turning around. Once he choose to run the building of the lab there’s no running from fring, he knows his deepest secrets.

 

[Mission249]

I'm a patient person but couldn't keep up with this show from week to week. It was just too slow.
When I finally came back to it after some years, and binged it, I loved it. One of my favorite shows of all time.

Looking forward to the next season, probably going to wait for some episodes to pile up before I get at it.

 

[hex]

shyt. Just lost a long-ass answer. Okay, try again:

Spoiler

They didn't earn Werner's death. In 10 seasons of this show they've always earned every single death, it was always completely believable that that person would kill in that exact moment. Even when the writers purposely shocked us by having Todd kill the kid, we found out over time that Todd was a sociopath who was capable of anything and had no moral limits underneath his friendly exterior.

But we already know how Mike is going to end up. And Mike isn't that kind of killer. EVERY person Mike ever kills is a killer himself, either the crooked cops who murked his son or various shooters for the drug cartels. That's it. He's not an executioner, if he was then at some point in Breaking Bad he would have offed Walter much, much earlier, cause Walter fukked up way more than Werner fukked up.

Here was a guy who avenged his son's death and was just trying to take care of his family. Would he have killed Werner, just a friendly overtalkative engineer who missed his wife, solely to protect Gus? I don't see it. If you say, "Gus would have killed him anyway", nah, Mike could have had Werner on a flight to Germany in no time and Gus don't have no reach in Germany. If you say, "But Gus would have killed Mike if he didn't do that"...based on what? Gus is a scary dude but he's also a careful dude, we haven't seen any evidence that he goes around hunting guys down just to kill them, nor have we seen any evidence that Gus got killers with better skills than Mike anyway. Gus is solely as southwest USA operation, Mike could have just put Werner on a plane, jumped his own ass back to the east coast somewhere (where his own contacts are almost certainly better than Gus's) and had his old dying body stay low for the few little years he had left. Would probably hook up with some crooked cops or another low-level crook and pulled small jobs while he sent money back to his daughter-in-law. Gus is too careful, since he knows Werner i gone and he knows Mike ain't gonna talk, he isn't gonna put his own neck out there doing something stupid solely because Mike ghosted on him.

The showrunners want us to believe Mike would just make an easy decision to off Werner in cold blood like there was no other choice. But we have like 6 seasons of Mike to know that he ain't like that, and there were other choices. An old dude like Mike ain't gonna kill a family man with his life still ahead of him like Werner unless Werner really deserved it, and Werner was clearly just fukking naive, he wasn't a bad guy. Werner died way to easy and they didn't earn it. I love these shows and this is literally the only plot point I've ever criticized them on.

Spoiler

Gus has a lot of pull in Germany man. The bank roll for Pollos Hermanos is in Germany.

You're entitled to your opinion but Mike in "BCS" is not Mike yet. Not as we know him. Dude is just an entry level goon that Gus seen potential in. Which is why he is overseeing the lab. Werner bounces, even though it's not Mike's fault....that's Mike's fault. Because he was left in charge. For Gus to tell him "handle it"....and Mike puts the guy on a plane and saves his life? Mike would be dead, man. Because at that point he fukked up twice and doesn't follow orders.

And Gus definitely hunts people down. Walt told Gus in season 3 that Jesse left the state and Gus didn't give a fukk. He wanted him dead. And brutally murdered Victor on the hunch that people would be able to ID him. Gus ain't gonna let two loose cannons (Mike and Werner) that know about the super lab bounce with no repercussions.

Spoiler

Remember how shook Mike was when he thought someone might be following his daughter-in-law? He knows full well that every moment he works for Gus, he's putting her at risk. She's at risk from Gus's men if he slips up and she's at risk from Gus's rivals if he does his job. Just look at how Jesse's girl got offed by Todd. He can't sit around and act as her bodyguard, he's got work to do and she's vulnerable as fukk. Whereas if he ghosts, what does anyone get out of killing his family? They're perfectly safe with him not around, a lot safer than they are with him around, and he can wire them money from wherever he lives.

So far as we know the ONLY guys he's killed in the past were his son's murderers, and they were about to off him too when he did it. Killing a murderer who you hate with the deepest passion you will ever have and killing a friendly German engineer who like personally like aren't even in the same universe. If killing got so easy, then why is it that in the whole BB era he never kills anyone other than thug gunmen who already have blood on their hands? How come he never kills Walter when Walter does way more to deserve it than Werner ever did?

Spoiler

Nah man, Mike was in the military. A Marine sniper, given his age most likely in Viet Nam. He was a killer long before the events in "BCS".

I don't understand asking "why'd he never kill Walt?" when he was prepared to kill Walt in season 3. On Gus's orders. Which is what he did with Werner, too. Mike is just an extremely competent goon at the end of the day.

Fred.

 

[hex]

Never watched this series.


Damn. Y'all in here sayin Better Call Saul is way better than Breaking Bad and I put Breaking Bad up there w/ The Wire...

I wouldn't say it's better than "BB" but it's closer to something like "The Wire" (which is where the "it's better!" reactions are coming from) as far as how it's structured. It's slower paced and a character study first and foremost...."BB" had Walt catching a body at the end of the first ep....meting bodies in ep 2....by ep 6 he was blowing up Tuco's crib.

Jimmy McGill eventually becomes Saul but the process is a lot more gradual. In "BB" you get the vibe that we're seeing who Walt was all along. It's just the circumstances that showed his true colors. In "BCS", Jimmy is an actual decent guy. And Saul clearly isn't. So the path to Saul is less bad ass and and more sad and than "Breaking Bad".

What's crazy is, there's flashes of Jimmy even in "BB". When he gives Jesse relationship advice....when he tells Walt to turn himself in to the police to save his family, etc. Which makes how far he falls even more tragic.

Lastly, there is "BB" style fukkery in "BCS". Don't get it twisted. The longer the series goes on the closer it gets to the timeline of "BB".

Fred.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

I wouldn't say it's better than "BB" but it's closer to something like "The Wire" (which is where the "it's better!" reactions are coming from) as far as how it's structured. It's slower paced and a character study first and foremost...."BB" had Walt catching a body at the end of the first ep....meting bodies in ep 2....by ep 6 he was blowing up Tuco's crib.

Jimmy McGill eventually becomes Saul but the process is a lot more gradual. In "BB" you get the vibe that we're seeing who Walt was all along. It's just the circumstances that showed his true colors. In "BCS", Jimmy is an actual decent guy. And Saul clearly isn't. So the path to Saul is less bad ass and and more sad and than "Breaking Bad".

What's crazy is, there's flashes of Jimmy even in "BB". When he gives Jesse relationship advice....when he tells Walt to turn himself in to the police to save his family, etc. Which makes how far he falls even more tragic.

Lastly, there is "BB" style fukkery in "BCS". Don't get it twisted. The longer the series goes on the closer it gets to the timeline of "BB".

Fred.

I agree that in Breaking Bad we're seeing the exposure of who Walt really is. Perhaps a commentary on the positions that society places us in, even a demented a$$hole like Walt could have lived out his life as a fairly decent family man and teacher so long as his surrounding circumstances had stayed relatively stable. Whereas have Walt grow up in the hood and he would have been catching bodies before he was old enough to drive.

So far as Jimmy goes, hmmmmm....

Spoiler

calling him an "actual decent guy" is a real stretch. I'd say it appears that way at first, but as the show goes on we not only realize that Jimmy has been a lifelong con artist but that a lot of what we see of "straight Jimmy" is only a partial truth at most. Even when he's straight many times he's only doing so out of necessity, or as its own con, or with mixed motives at least. I'd say it's more that we see that Jimmy could be an actual decent guy, that he glimpses the possibility of breaking good and shows flashes of good character, but right when he was on the brink he couldn't quite do it.

What about Kim though?

And I know it doesn't fit what we know of the timeline at first glance but if Nacho somehow manages to break good.

 

[hex]

I agree that in Breaking Bad we're seeing the exposure of who Walt really is. Perhaps a commentary on the positions that society places us in, even a demented a$$hole like Walt could have lived out his life as a fairly decent family man and teacher so long as his surrounding circumstances had stayed relatively stable. Whereas have Walt grow up in the hood and he would have been catching bodies before he was old enough to drive.

So far as Jimmy goes, hmmmmm....

Spoiler

calling him an "actual decent guy" is a real stretch. I'd say it appears that way at first, but as the show goes on we not only realize that Jimmy has been a lifelong con artist but that a lot of what we see of "straight Jimmy" is only a partial truth at most. Even when he's straight many times he's only doing so out of necessity, or as its own con, or with mixed motives at least. I'd say it's more that we see that Jimmy could be an actual decent guy, that he glimpses the possibility of breaking good and shows flashes of good character, but right when he was on the brink he couldn't quite do it.

What about Kim though?

And I know it doesn't fit what we know of the timeline at first glance but if Nacho somehow manages to break good.

The best way to sum it up is Walt was a bad person pretending to be good....Jimmy is a good person doing bad things.

Obviously I don't mean when he's fully Saul in "BB".

But as far as Jimmy....

Spoiler

I'd say how the whole Sandpiper situation played out is proof Jimmy is 100% a good person at his core. In season 3 dude scammed Irene and turned her friends against her so they'd settle and he'd get his 20%....which was fukked up....but when he seen how sad she was he ended his own career in elder law. And lost the chance to get the $1 mill from the settlement. At least for the time being, anyway.

Most people wouldn't do that. Hell, most good people wouldn't do that.

Fred.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

The best way to sum it up is Walt was a bad person pretending to be good....Jimmy is a good person doing bad things.

Obviously I don't mean when he's fully Saul in "BB".

But as far as Jimmy....

Spoiler

I'd say how the whole Sandpiper situation played out is proof Jimmy is 100% a good person at his core. In season 3 dude scammed Irene and turned her friends against her so they'd settle and he'd get his 20%....which was fukked up....but when he seen how sad she was he ended his own career in elder law. And lost the chance to get the $1 mill from the settlement. At least for the time being, anyway.

Most people wouldn't do that. Hell, most good people wouldn't do that.

Fred.

I wouldn't say that shows he's good at the core so much as it shows him vacillating wildly between extremes.

Spoiler

I mean come on now, the only reason he had to do that in the first place was because he tried to destroy a little old lady's life AND fukk up the money for all her friends solely to line his own pocket. Number of people who would go that low is pretty slim. And the examples of Jimmy going low are far more prevalent than the other way.

Perhaps a better way to say it is that it's playing on a theme that Breaking Bad hit up as well - that people have a choice to be good or be bad, they are not "inherently" one or the other but go in those directions due to circumstances and the consequences of their own choices.

 

[hex]

I wouldn't say that shows he's good at the core so much as it shows him vacillating wildly between extremes.

Spoiler

I mean come on now, the only reason he had to do that in the first place was because he tried to destroy a little old lady's life AND fukk up the money for all her friends solely to line his own pocket. Number of people who would go that low is pretty slim. And the examples of Jimmy going low are far more prevalent than the other way.

Perhaps a better way to say it is that it's playing on a theme that Breaking Bad hit up as well - that people have a choice to be good or be bad, they are not "inherently" one or the other but go in those directions due to circumstances and the consequences of their own choices.

Maybe you're just more optimistic than I am....but a lot of people would do similar things for a shot at $1 mill. Hell, people have done far worse for far less.

Fred.

 

[FaTaL]

The best way to sum it up is Walt was a bad person pretending to be good....Jimmy is a good person doing bad things.

Obviously I don't mean when he's fully Saul in "BB".

But as far as Jimmy....

Spoiler

I'd say how the whole Sandpiper situation played out is proof Jimmy is 100% a good person at his core. In season 3 dude scammed Irene and turned her friends against her so they'd settle and he'd get his 20%....which was fukked up....but when he seen how sad she was he ended his own career in elder law. And lost the chance to get the $1 mill from the settlement. At least for the time being, anyway.

Most people wouldn't do that. Hell, most good people wouldn't do that.

Fred.

Spoiler

i can’t remember exactly but didn’t Kim press Jimmy to do the right thing?

 

[FaTaL]

The best way to sum it up is Walt was a bad person pretending to be good....Jimmy is a good person doing bad things.

Obviously I don't mean when he's fully Saul in "BB".

But as far as Jimmy....

Spoiler

I'd say how the whole Sandpiper situation played out is proof Jimmy is 100% a good person at his core. In season 3 dude scammed Irene and turned her friends against her so they'd settle and he'd get his 20%....which was fukked up....but when he seen how sad she was he ended his own career in elder law. And lost the chance to get the $1 mill from the settlement. At least for the time being, anyway.

Most people wouldn't do that. Hell, most good people wouldn't do that.

Fred.

When your facing death like Walt he was able to come out of his shell because he had nothing to lose. He was always afraid of his own shadow, left his rich gf because he was insecure, left his company because he was afraid of success, took a job at a high school because he he knew he was superior then everybody else at that school.
Walt is a tragic character, I think he was working at a company when he met his wife, did they ever say why he quit that job?

 

[hex]

Spoiler

i can’t remember exactly but didn’t Kim press Jimmy to do the right thing?

Spoiler

About the Irene thing? No, not at all. She didn't even know he did all that.

He came to tell her he was getting the settlement money but she had to bounce because she was late. Then she got into that wreck.

He went back to check on Irene after a while, figuring the other women forgave her. When he found out they were still ignoring her he kept his mic on while "revealing" his plan so they'd all hear and blame him instead of Irene.

When your facing death like Walt he was able to come out of his shell because he had nothing to lose. He was always afraid of his own shadow, left his rich gf because he was insecure, left his company because he was afraid of success, took a job at a high school because he he knew he was superior then everybody else at that school.
Walt is a tragic character, I think he was working at a company when he met his wife, did they ever say why he quit that job?

There is no in-show canon explanation but from interviews with Jessica Hecht (Gretchen Schwartz) and Vince Gilligan you can kinda piece together that Walt had a complex about dating a rich girl and felt insecure around her and her family. So he blew up the relationship (and by extension, his job at Gray Matter) to get away from her.

Fred.

 

[itsyoung!!]

shyt. Just lost a long-ass answer. Okay, try again:

Spoiler

They didn't earn Werner's death. In 10 seasons of this show they've always earned every single death, it was always completely believable that that person would kill in that exact moment. Even when the writers purposely shocked us by having Todd kill the kid, we found out over time that Todd was a sociopath who was capable of anything and had no moral limits underneath his friendly exterior.

But we already know how Mike is going to end up. And Mike isn't that kind of killer. EVERY person Mike ever kills is a killer himself, either the crooked cops who murked his son or various shooters for the drug cartels. That's it. He's not an executioner, if he was then at some point in Breaking Bad he would have offed Walter much, much earlier, cause Walter fukked up way more than Werner fukked up.

Here was a guy who avenged his son's death and was just trying to take care of his family. Would he have killed Werner, just a friendly overtalkative engineer who missed his wife, solely to protect Gus? I don't see it. If you say, "Gus would have killed him anyway", nah, Mike could have had Werner on a flight to Germany in no time and Gus don't have no reach in Germany. If you say, "But Gus would have killed Mike if he didn't do that"...based on what? Gus is a scary dude but he's also a careful dude, we haven't seen any evidence that he goes around hunting guys down just to kill them, nor have we seen any evidence that Gus got killers with better skills than Mike anyway. Gus is solely as southwest USA operation, Mike could have just put Werner on a plane, jumped his own ass back to the east coast somewhere (where his own contacts are almost certainly better than Gus's) and had his old dying body stay low for the few little years he had left. Would probably hook up with some crooked cops or another low-level crook and pulled small jobs while he sent money back to his daughter-in-law. Gus is too careful, since he knows Werner i gone and he knows Mike ain't gonna talk, he isn't gonna put his own neck out there doing something stupid solely because Mike ghosted on him.

The showrunners want us to believe Mike would just make an easy decision to off Werner in cold blood like there was no other choice. But we have like 6 seasons of Mike to know that he ain't like that, and there were other choices. An old dude like Mike ain't gonna kill a family man with his life still ahead of him like Werner unless Werner really deserved it, and Werner was clearly just fukking naive, he wasn't a bad guy. Werner died way to easy and they didn't earn it. I love these shows and this is literally the only plot point I've ever criticized them on.

Just finished this season show just keeps getting better and better kim a real ride or die


As far as this post goes


I agree the motive felt empty. Like a big lead up was missing. We all knew it was coming, but yet it still felt rushed. probably the only time i hated gus fring and also disagreed with him. For someone to be so calculating, this seem really misjudged.

also maybe i possibly missed it as i just binge watched this entire season in 2 days basically

but the engineer just knew he was building something and it was for a real particular guy who plays no games. But at no time did he know he was building a meth lab for a big drug lord with a short fuse. He had 1 warning from after the bar scene but to an average guy he could be thinking a beating, a firing, etc but probably not death.

how many times have we been told at work at some point in life “this boss dont fukk around” whole time we not thinking we gone get killed

all im saying is they could of maybe stressed to the germans their employer is really bout that action prior to this ending. A cut off finger, a shot to the leg... something..

 

[AkaDemiK]

Finally finished the season. Waiting on season 5 to come to Netflix. I was juggling too many shows and this slipped into the depth of my backlog lol. Great season. The show got better and better every season. Incredible.

 

[Fctftl]

Finally finished the season. Waiting on season 5 to come to Netflix. I was juggling too many shows and this slipped into the depth of my backlog lol. Great season. The show got better and better every season. Incredible.

You aint seen shyt yet. Season 5 might be the best one so far. Shows done with the slow burn, its about that action now