Mike is the coolest guy ever. He’s so cool, the first time I watched Better Call Saul, I didn’t get it. The just if it and breaking bad is that incredibly interesting people become worse and cement their worst faults. Unlike Saul and Walt, Mike doesn’t have moments where he’s obviously pathetic. The closest is an offhand mention to him getting plastered several times after his son died, which really isn’t hard to understand.

Over the coarse of the show, Mike becomes more and more of a criminal, but his ambitions always seemed more pure to me as he does bad things for his daughter in law and grand daughter, and he’s always so cool and professional about it. When he shoots the men who killed his son, I was all for it. He’s a hero, a man of action, and a badass. When stealing from the Salamancas for threatening his family, he leaves the driver alive and only sides with Gus to get justice for a civilian they killed.

Justice.

Over the coarse of the show, Mike helps Saul and Gus out, killing some bad guys and keeping a few out of prison. Compared to Lalo, he’s a saint.

Enter Werner Ziegler. My favorite kind of character, a smart person who is also not so smart. Mike makes friends with Werner, but he spills valuable information and Mike has to kill him… Has to?

My first time watching this, I felt like Mike had to do this. He was so cool, so honorable, such a good criminal, that I instantly sided with him when he killed a man who wanted to visit his wife, when he forced him to angrily tell his wife to go home so she wouldn’t die too.

Enter, Nacho. Kill his friend, threaten his family, almost murder him for a cover job? Well, it’s to beat the Salamancas, the real bad guys. And Mike stands up for him! Not enough that it saves his life, but he tries where he can!

Nacho dies, and Mike visits his father to tell him that justice will be done.

And he walks away, telling Mike his justice is meaningless. At first I got a bit upset. You don’t know what Mike had to do! You don’t know the situation. Come on, he’s not perfect but at least he’s not-

But really, isn’t he? By breaking bad he’s fully cemented as one of Gus’ thugs, a murderer for money willing to work for a man who puts children in danger.

I think the brilliance of the show really blinded me to the message, how I got wrapped up in the criminal fantasy of a man outside the law dispensing frontier justice. The world isn’t better off for having Mike in it.

I love Mike and Better Call Saul so much. Hope positive rants are allowed. Sorry for a lack of hot takes.