One of the greatest monologues on modern television, Jonathan Banks' character Mike Ehrmantraut recounts the story of his son's death on Episode 6 of Season 1's "Better Call Saul". This is the full uncut version.
AB ASAFSGAF There was nothing wrong with Dinklage’s acting in any of the seasons. Acting by Dinklage was never the issue. Emilia Clarke and Kit Harrington on the other hand were pretty Goddamn cringeworthy at times during season 8.
"I made him lesser. I made him like me, and the bastards killed him anyway." The disgust he has for himself is all right here. Everything Mike was and what he became, is tied into this scene, and especially that line.
And killing Werner on Gus's orders so Werner wouldn't give away that they were building the meth lab to the Salamancas cemented for Mike that he'd become exactly like the men who'd killed his son.
yes, and in the last season when Saul asked what would you change if you had a time machine, where would you go. and he said he would go to the year when he first took a bribe. he regrets everything from that point forward.
@@chrisgardiner2215 there are no other words for a father to say that are more painful than that, however, there are more painful things for a father to DO instead of SAY… Such as what you are expressing.
The only time Mike shows this much emotion is when he talks about his son or his granddaughter. This scene blew me away with the acting coming from the most monotone hardass character in the show. Really powerful
I absolutely agree they really showed us how human Mike really is and he actually can be viewed as a victim of circumstance, amazing series this and breaking bad.
Experienced, more like. I think to a veteran like him, talent is no longer relevant - it's the years and years of experience and expertise, honing your craft, thinking about it, that makes you into such an awesome instrument of dramatic performance. Just like you wouldn't say that a really buff bodybuilder is talented. Those muscles were earned. Same thing with performing.
Yeah specially when the camera shadowed half of his face for the whole scene, and then letting his whole face exposed for her when he finishes, like 'this is my true self' kind of shot
That was directed at her. He was in effect saying, or at least this is my interpretation: "This is the father of the man you married, and this is the grandfather of your daughter. You're all I have left of Mattie. Can you accept the person sitting next to you for who he truly is, now that you know the truth?"
@@thecowboy9698 Did you notice how when she sat next to him there wasn't a single word of consolation towards Mike. She was trying to get a confession about killing these two cops. He told her he did it wothout telling her he did it - Never let your guard down near your close ones.
I really love how this retroactively informs Mike's relationship with Jesse, how he saw Walt doing the same kind of thing to Jesse and somewhat redeemed himself by being a better influence than he had ultimately been to his son.
@@fyradur Right? That's the brilliance of the show to me. He saw a kid who was actually good at heart being forced to corrupt himself....and he did what he could to help Jesse get out and embrace his purer nature instead. The writers really thought about every detail.
When I first saw this, I couldn't help but shed a few tears. It really let's you see the kind of man Mike was. He was not a good man, far from it. But he loved his family and would've done anything for them. Mike, along with Jesse, are the two people who brought a decency to this whole thing, even though they were not good men. I think Mike probably saw in Jesse what he use to be. And what his son was. That's why he always looked on Jesse with such affection.
Mike saved Jesse and redeemed his own soul. He saw hope in Jesse's heart so he decided to partner with Walter again, and show Jesse that this path leads to nowhere. He succeeded, and also died from this.
Jonathan Banks should have won an Emmy just for this scene alone. It brought me to tears. This was the most gut-wrenching, the scene in the parking garage was the most badass. Top notch series, with superb acting. Every scene with “Mike” warrants your utmost attention.
“It’s like killing Cesar, where everyone is guilty.” This quote I just love so much, it just sounds so chilling from the voice of Mike, who’s now, because of this show, my favorite character in the entire series. Incredible acting and writing for this scene, my god.
Jared Mike was always my favorite character from the moment his character started getting fleshed out in Breaking Bad. Better Call Saul has only reinforced that feeling. Jonathon Banks is one hell of an actor.
@@joejones891 I was the same way. Mike was a favorite for me during Breaking Bad as soon as the end of Season 3. From that ending and now, he's been so likable for me. Also, I'm from Philly myself lol.
To think that this character existed just to replace Saul on "ABQ" because Bob Odenkirk wasnt available for a fifth episode on season 2 just baffles me. Hes a terrific actor
SPOILER FOR BREAKING BAD: What makes this scene so much more sad is that just like his son, he died for nothing. All the events of for Mike in Better Call Saul end up being for nothing because of Walter in Breaking Bad. The fact that the writers made that comparison is so unbelievably incredible.
It's an expertly written scenario (in terms of how damned Matt was by not immediately accepting, how Mike's point of view did make sense, and the guilt he must feel knowing it got his son killed anyway), but it'd just be nice writing if it wasn't for Johnathan Banks knocking out of the park with his performance here! Just great! So painful, yet so beautiful to be able to rewatch.
Such pain in his heart when he says that. Remembering, thinking about and bringing up the traits that made people themselves and unique makes you really feel the pain of missing them. Johnathan Banks portrayed that perfectly!
I think the deepest tragedy of Mike's character is that life has turned him into a dark phantom of the loving, good man he should have been. He has integrity, compassion, honesty, intelligence and experience. You can see why he joined the police. And yet at the same time he ends up a corrupt cop and then finally a murdering henchman for a truly evil villain. In a way his senseless death mirrors his entire existence. Huge potential to be a great person, twisted and waylaid into darkness and folly.
It's more tragic when you recognise a parallel to his story in real life. I know a guy who joined his local police force in the late 80s here in the UK; the other lads in the precinct got him on cocaine that they had regularly seized, and he was never the same. Basically became something of a junkie and is fucked in the head to this day ever since. Tragic because he's still such a charming guy and VERY funny, but he's a liability to himself and others now.
"I made him lesser" is the real tragedy. His son's death is something that can be lived with, despite how awful, he could have died the same man who kept his dignity but he didn't. To Mike that was worse than anything.
@@cosmai23 Dinklage won for the season that he was on trial. He was great that season. You couldn’t go wrong with either one. If anyone got hosed, it was Rhea Seehorn. She shouldve won this past year.
@@StuUngar Emmys and oscars are both a complete joke, but Jennifer Coolidge winning over Rhea Seahorn was so unbelievable stupid i still cant believe it
It always weirded me out how they just continued their relationship even with her knowing that he was a cop killer/murderer. She knew they definitely deserved to die so I guess that helped
The two were clearly trying to kill him, so this should set his conscience at ease. His real tragedy and regret was that he had broken his son's moral backbone.
Such a neatly well written episode. When Mike's voice broke during his monologue, I started sobbing and I had to pause. The acting is phenomenal. PHENOMENAL. I can't stop coming back to this scene.
Five-0 is definetly one of the show´s best episodes so far. It´s up there with Pimento, Lantern, and Bagman. My personal favourites are Winner and Chicanery. Just can´t choose neither of both cause they´re pure perfection.
Me too. Five-0 was like the turning point in which the show first established its main core. We´d had very hilarious episodes with Jimmy trying to lure the Kettlemans but this episode showed that, beneath all that humor, BCS is a great tragedy, even more than BB in my view.
This show managed to make me sad about a death of the character that wasn’t even on screen for a second, by showing how it affected other characters. Really great and emotional scene
Definitely, we never see Matt. But seeing how Mike delivers his monologue tells us exactly what we needed to know. And we know DAMN WELL Mike loved his son. Its almost like a positive feedback loop.
I wonder if Vince Gilligan had all this backstory thought out back when he was working on BB. Because there's a scene (pretty sure is in season 5. I think the episode was either Madrigal or Hazard Pay) when Hank and Gomez are interrogating Mike, Hank says that Mike's departure from the force was rather dramatic.
Don't know about that. If the police had knowledge of these events Mike would have been arrested for double homicide. Unless they suspected what happened but didn't have any evidence to prosecute him.
@@conradritchie2236 Hank would have been aware that something happened from his fellow cops at the Philadelphia PD, but wouldn't have known the details because they didn't know either. All they could do was speculate. And in BB, when asked about it, Mike wouldn't budge either.
Actually Mike was an improvised character because Bob Odenkirk (Saul Goodman) couldn’t participate on the Jane’s death episode due to scheduling problems. In reality Saul was the one going over to Jesse’s house and getting rid of the evidence and everything. Which makes Mike’s story even more amazing! They created a character with so much depth as an emergency plan.
@@Palito525 I know. I mean that, when Gilligan was writing the interrogation scene, and he added that line, I wonder if he was already in talks with AMC about a spin off focused on Saul that also included Mike, so maybe he was thinking ahead, knowing that he needed to give a more precise explanation about Mike's departure.
XxDrevokxX I think so, BCS is just too consistent with BB to not have been planned ahead imo. like when Walter and Jesse first meet Saul when they kidnap him and Saul says: “Did Ignacio sent you?” Clearly referring to Lalo, who never even appeared in BB”
One of the most fleshed out characters I’ve seen in anything. He’s such a real character, all the characters in this show are. Better call Saul is maybe the best written show I’ve seen, in a way it’s even better than breaking bad.
Better Call Saul is more.. realistic, maybe. Down to earth, dark and emotional. Breaking Bad was an action show mostly. You kinda have to judge them on their own merit.
@@masterknife8423 no shit, they had a whole season's mistakes to learn from. Everything that wasn't good in breaking bad, they were able to learn from and do it better.
it kinda made me sadder wondering what happened to the poor girl after Mike died I was even hoping, aside from Brock, Jesse would write something to her and her mother letting them know what happened to Mike
"I was the only one that could get him to debase himself like that. And it was for nuthin'. I made him lesser, I made him like me. And the bastards killed him anyway." The most heart-wrenching 30 seconds on TV.
Whenever I start wondering how Mike can still play the dirty cop, I watch this scene. Mike put everything into his son. All his hopes and dreams and aspirations. His son was his masterpiece, his legacy in this world. Everything Mike was and everything he couldn't be. And then Mike had to destroy his masterpiece. Had to break all the good in him to make him survive. And he died anyway, and with him, died all of Mike's hopes & dreams. Mike has a code, but he knows he killed all the good he would ever have been capable of doing that night. All that's left is a broken man trying to preserve what's left of his legacy, his family. Not for him, but for them. And while that makes him kinda like Walt, Mike isn't doing it for the feeling of superiority. He's doing it because that's what you do, end of story.
What an awful feeling. Despite getting revenge on the cops who killed his son you know there is no one he hates as much as himself. If he was killed by those cops for flat out refusing he would have died with his honor intact. But he took away everything his son believed in and “made him lesser”. All for nothing.
seeing the toughest character in the BB series sputter through the phrase “I broke my boy” made me tear up like i wouldn’t imagine, nothing less than peak fiction.
"My boy was stubborn. My boy was strong" Mike was so proud of Matt for being the man that he failed to be. Mike believes in many of the right things. It's why many of us love him throughout BB/BCS, but at the end of the day, he compromises too much morally(Half Measures) to be considered a good man. He raised Matt to be a good man, a truly good man, and it was only possible because Matt believed his father to be a good man. So when Mike told him that he was just like everyone else at work, he was broken completely. Breaking Matt was the last meaningful interaction he had with his son. Tragic.
This is one of the most realistic scenes of grief I've ever seen. It actually felt like I was in the room with my own father; those few times in my life where he opened up to me and poured those kinds of emotions out. It really hurt watching this scene. It made me cry, and it made me realize how phenomenal of an actor Jonathan Banks is.
And that's why Werner's death is significant because his personality mirrors Mike's son. They were both too naive for the field that they were in, too kind-hearted, and they both had to die when they showed that they weren't trustworthy, even if only for a moment. By killing Werner, Mike had become the man he had hated.
Mike asks his son Matt to debase himself to save his life in the same way that Walt asks Hank to do so to save his, but unlike Matt, Hank refused to be corrupted and so died with his integrity intact
i don’t have children but this scene reminds me of the time my dad told me that his worst fear was that I wouldn’t turn out to be a better man than him... i’ll never forget that talk when i turned 20.
Every good parent wants their kids to be better than them. We're already corrupted. We've all sinned. So our expectations for ourselves are way lower than for our kids. We can steal without a second thought, it's just in character for us. But we want our kids to be better than us, so we expect more from them. And it hurts a lot worse when they steal, because you don't want them to end up corrupted like you. My dad always loved the phrase "do as I say, not as I do"
@@cameronschiff132 Because there was no way he could hide the truth in that moment of honesty, of opening up to his daughter in law. So he went all the way in and indirectly admitted he was a murderer and accepted the fact that he's going to lose her and Kaylee
Still tearing up from it. It’s been a hard time for my family, and things are hitting harder than normal. I watched it for the first time in years, and I teared up. Absolutely beautiful, yet completely heartbreaking scene. When you can put a face to your hero and seeing them not be invincible, that’s when life hits hardest.
Mike's monologue about "no half measures" in Breaking Bad was another brilliant scene. Mike really has been through some really rough shit, and its so sad to see a genuinely good person deteriorate into a bad guy because of all the pain and suffering he has endured. To think, Mike was originally written as a throwaway character to replace Saul for one episode because Bob Odenkirk was too busy to film that day. Now he is one of the greatest characters in the history of TV.
It's interesting how Nacho's story with his father mirrors Mike's story with his son: someone who is held in high regard, but is actually dirty, convinces (or tries to convince) his honest loved one to take part in something immoral in order to protect them from unscrupulous, distrustful scumbags.
This poor poor guy. In order to save his sons life, he first had to break his heart. And at the end, none of it mattered because his son was killed anyway. Pure agony
You can tell that Mike was just thinking about this for a long time. He was marinating in his sadness and guilt, replaying the phone call in his head a thousand times, seeing the whole thing play out in his dreams. Mike doesn't strike me as the type of guy to go to therapy so this has to be the first time he really poured his thoughts out and let his feelings flow.
I love how these shows will have some truly professional comedic bits, and are immortalized in memes and jokes. Yet they also have scenes like this where an actor gives an Emmy worthy performance that just tears your heart out.
Honestly casting a lot of comedians in serious roles for these shows was great. They know how to have charisma ooze at the same time as holding back a lot of “material”, and always looking like they’re thinking about what to say next on the spot. It’s a completely different grounded feeling compared to high end drama movie actors.
I think she understood what he meant. She knows what Mike did with those two. But for the sake of their relationship , and Kaylee, she doesn't inquire any further and decides to just quietly accept it and not think about it.
Most intense moment ive ever seen from the dude. Showing this depth, it shows the reasons why the dude can play a calm cool demeanor for multiple seasons without any real emotion. Cuz hes got that below the surface, it can always be present without being apparent. I was so still watching this.
Mike said they killed his son for nothing, just like Walter killed him, for nothing. Mike’s life was so badass just to know Walter killed him in the stupidest way over bullshit without even knowing Mike’s backstory
I have read a fan theory somewhere that Walt had failed to Mike and he is actually alive. According to the theory, when Walt shot Mike the bullet missed Mike and he had faked his death. When Walt was bringing Mike's body back to dispose it he might have somehow escaped and replaced the body with someone else's body and later escaped with the help of the vacuum cleaner man.
Such a good show. Matt has zero seconds of screentime, and yet he has such an impact on it just by how he impacts the other people who knew him. Just from how he talks about it, you can tell how much Mike loves Matt, and how every day he's haunted by what happened. His sons last memories of his dad was how he was a crook, the man he looked up to his whole life, was accepting bribes. You can tell how much that weighs on Mike's heart. He really deserved a reward for his acting.
@@cybersecurityforcivilians walts parents, his mom is still alive off screen and walts dad was part of the reason that he was about to understand what it means to die alone by the series finale i guess.
The irony is that when mike mentions the killing of caesar. The actress in this scene was on the series Rome playing Octavia. Her family took Caesars place after he died
It's a great reference. Tobias Menzies, who played Brutus in Rome, also mentions Caesar [in the show The Terror (2018 show)]. Ciaran Hinds is also in both shows.
@@rickardkaufman3988 Spoiler alert. But anyways I really enjoy both their acting. And the friendship, betrayal, etc. that goes on between the two of them.. it's my favorite storyline of the show.
“I made him like me.” There’s such bitterness in his voice when he says that. He blames himself for what happened, and he hates that he had to reveal the bad parts of himself to his son who idolized him.
Making a prequel that not only works and feels right, but actually improves our understanding of a characters motives is a rare achievement and Better call Saul has done it masterfully on several characters.
This hits so powerfully because Mike is usually stoic. A man's man, so to speak. When he gets emotional, it comes out of left field, and the scene is all the more powerful because of it. Jonathan Banks is a great actor!
Mike has several amazing scenes but this is the one that tops it all for me. I've watched it many times and "I broke my boy" still gets me every time. Jon Banks really should've won the emmy for this episode.
Id say one of the greatest scenes in the breaking bad/ better call saul universe, Jonathan Banks deserved multiple rewards for this scene alone, i love every word of this scene
Mike has always been my favorite character. Just the fact of how wise he is as a person and the amount of care he has for other characters, like Nacho and Jesse. HE was the one who always looked out for Nacho and Jesse like a father figure. What an amazing character.
In each series, Mike has the BEST monologue... "I broke my boy" from BCS, and "No more half measures, Walter" from BB. Both should have won him academy awards.
This is the real actor coming out of this guy, the tough guy part of Mike is absolutely amazing, but here you see the real emotion of the actor without some predefined emotion.
Even though the later seasons of BCS get even better as they go, this scene from season one is still one of my all time favorite moments in all of television.
Absolutely heart-wrenching performance from Jonathan Banks. This episode's writing and acting is just on another level! Without question, it's my favorite episode in the entire series.
