This one makes me sad. I really liked Mike (Jonathan Banks) even when he was just a recurring part in the show’s mid-period, with his gruff deadpan and workman efficiency at any dirty job. If he hadn’t become anything beyond that, I still would have been disappointed to see him go. But he did become more than that, gaining a larger role in the narrative last season, and then our sympathy in this one as Walt (Bryan Cranston) passed him on the bad scale. So his demise actually feels quite tragic.
And yet the way the show builds up Mike’s character to the point that we despair at his death is so subtle you could miss it. We don’t expect him to be more than a nameless goon at first, but Banks grows on you so well that you never notice how his role gets bigger and bigger. The establishing scenes with his granddaughter seem to be nothing more than a small throwaway touch. But she’s the only glimpse of Mike’s humanity away from the job we see, and watching him have to leave her behind to escape the feds this episode is very sad. The whole episode feels like the world is closing in around Mike, and we feel as nerve-wracked as we did when the same was happening to Walt and Jesse (Aaron Paul) in times past. We forget that just last season, this man was an antagonist, a goon for Gus Fring. And just when we realize we actually care about Mike...he's gone.
I was disappointed how Mike got killed on my first viewing, as it seemed like they only did it to get him out of the way. I’m still a little let down (he could have at least put up some resistance), but this time it seemed a little more fitting in the story. Inevitable, even. Not that it’s any consolation, but Mike turned out to be right about Walt being a time bomb.
He’s more than that, really; he’s now fully Heisenberg, a volatile, destructive force that destroys everything around him. Not just Mike, but also his family, who he’s driven out of his house. And his marriage, as Skyler (Anna Gunn) now won’t even speak or look at him. He even drives away Jesse, the one person who could kind of wrangle him in (note that Jesse was there to temper the other disputes between Walt and Mike this season, but not their last one). This makes Walt’s sudden show of remorse after shooting Mike—very out of character after the cold, manipulative demeanor he’s shown the rest of the season—a little more plausible. His last shred of his humanity realizes too late that he’s killed every relationship in his life, even though Mike was the only one he actually murdered.
You could say two characters suffered tragic losses this episode. I feel sorrier for Mike’s.
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