BCS 3.04: Mike and Gus Work Together
Mar. 24th, 2025 02:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerI've written a lot of blogs about supporting character Mike in Better Call Saul. In season 3 he gets drawn deeper into "the game", as he calls it, eventually taking sides with one drug dealer after stirring up trouble with a rival drug dealer. Episode 3.03 was where Mike met Gus and agreed to work together.
Mike would be careful to point out that working together didn't mean he was working for Gus Fring. As he noted a couple of times, he was attacking Hector Salamanca's business for himself. In 3.04 he's merely doing that in coordination with Gus.
Mike's goal really is to disrupt Hector's business— and to do it by drawing police attention. He figures Hector's removed enough from the operations that he won't get arrested, but if he can get the cops to shut down Hector's operation then Hector hurts, financially. Thus the still image above.... Mike's not shooting a person with that sniper rifle, he's shooting a thing.
The thing happens to be a package of cocaine he's hung from a telephone wire over a desert road where a truck carrying Hector's drug supply stop at a stop sign. Mike pierces the bag with a bullet, the cocaine powder sprinkles onto the truck, and then when the truck crosses the border from Mexico into the US it's caught at the inspection station. The driver is arrested and the DEA raids the front business Hector had set up.
Gus pays Mike $30,000 for creating trouble for his rival, but Mike returns the money. "I did it for me," he explains. But he adds, "We're square now."
Gus stops and turns as he's walking away. "Do you know why I stopped you from killing Hector?" he asks— referring to how his henchmen tailed Mike in the season 2 finale."It is because because a bullet to the head would have been far too humane." That, in turn, is a reference to a flashback scene in Breaking Bad 4.10 where Hector murders Gus's boyfriend at Don Eladio's behest and forces him to watch. It's fun to see how Better Call Saul is providing fascinating backstory for so many of the supporting characters from Breaking Bad, not just Jimmy/Saul.
Mike would be careful to point out that working together didn't mean he was working for Gus Fring. As he noted a couple of times, he was attacking Hector Salamanca's business for himself. In 3.04 he's merely doing that in coordination with Gus.
Mike's goal really is to disrupt Hector's business— and to do it by drawing police attention. He figures Hector's removed enough from the operations that he won't get arrested, but if he can get the cops to shut down Hector's operation then Hector hurts, financially. Thus the still image above.... Mike's not shooting a person with that sniper rifle, he's shooting a thing.
The thing happens to be a package of cocaine he's hung from a telephone wire over a desert road where a truck carrying Hector's drug supply stop at a stop sign. Mike pierces the bag with a bullet, the cocaine powder sprinkles onto the truck, and then when the truck crosses the border from Mexico into the US it's caught at the inspection station. The driver is arrested and the DEA raids the front business Hector had set up.
Gus pays Mike $30,000 for creating trouble for his rival, but Mike returns the money. "I did it for me," he explains. But he adds, "We're square now."
Gus stops and turns as he's walking away. "Do you know why I stopped you from killing Hector?" he asks— referring to how his henchmen tailed Mike in the season 2 finale."It is because because a bullet to the head would have been far too humane." That, in turn, is a reference to a flashback scene in Breaking Bad 4.10 where Hector murders Gus's boyfriend at Don Eladio's behest and forces him to watch. It's fun to see how Better Call Saul is providing fascinating backstory for so many of the supporting characters from Breaking Bad, not just Jimmy/Saul.
