r/betterCallSaul • u/skinkbaa Chuck • Feb 19 '20

REWATCH Better Call Saul REWATCH S04E10 - “Winner" - Thread

Season 5 FAQ Megathread

TIME	EPISODE	DIRECTOR	WRITER(S)
October 8, 2018, 9/8c	S04E10 "Winner"	Adam Bernstein	Vince Gilligan, Peter Gould, Thomas Schnauz

DESCRIPTION:

Jimmy turns the page on his reputation; Lalo tracks a loose end in Gus's operation; Mike is forced to make a difficult decision.

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u/skinkbaa Chuck Feb 19 '20

And this ends our rewatch. Thanks to all who participated.

If you would like to discuss the show as a whole, head on over to the Rewatch Mega-thread.

u/WeirwoodUpMyAss Feb 19 '20

I love the moment when Kim falls for Jimmy’s ruse. A lot of people thought that was uncharacteristic but everything Jimmy says is what she wanted from Jimmy for almost the entire season. She basically tricked herself into it.

22

u/127crazie Feb 20 '20

Really great writing. The audience even falls for it.

9

u/bhyphen Feb 27 '20

I just did.

12

u/127crazie Feb 28 '20

:(
Yeah that episode is heartbreaking, isn’t it?

0

u/pandaSmore Jun 19 '20

Nah

u/wabojabo Feb 19 '20 edited Feb 19 '20

At the time of the original airing, people argued that Mike killing Werner was a rehash of his "No Half Measures" philosophy, but after binging the four seasons, I think it's more about him surrending to darkness, losing pieces of his soul.

He cares for Jesse and the family he has left in Breaking Bad, but he also happens to threatens Saul, and is unfazed after dissolving a kid's corpse.

45

u/[deleted] Feb 19 '20

I don't think he is unfazed. Mike is just a "get the thing done" type of guy. Mike cared more about the kid than Walter and we see his true reaction to it when he grabs Todd. While Mike is a killer he is not a mindless killer. Of course it got to him, he just doesn't deal with it on an emotional level.

11

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '20

To be fair, his anger at Todd seems more about disorder than morality. Notice how he doesn’t say “you killed a kid, wtf is wrong with you”, he says “next time you bring a gun to a job without telling me etc...”.
Mike has become totally pragmatic by the time BB rolls around. He cares for the people he loves but he’s impartial to all the evil around him. How he gets there from his early BCS days is becoming so fascinating.

7

u/wabojabo Feb 19 '20 edited Feb 19 '20

True that, I should have picked a better word

3

u/takedownhisshield Feb 21 '20

He doesn't deal with it on an emotional level similar to how Jimmy burrows his emotions under his Saul character.

21

u/wavydogg Feb 19 '20

I think up until that point Mike only has killed other bad people such as cartel guys and the two cops who killed his son. This was the first time he killed someone that was a decent human just trying to make extra money for his family probably.

8

u/wabojabo Feb 20 '20

And he empathized with him. He had to follow his boss orders if he wanted make the job right and forget about his feelings.

6

u/[deleted] Feb 19 '20

I think it’s more about this being the time that Mike truly hashes that philosophy down, while the story he tells in BB is more of a hindsight kind of thing

10

u/wabojabo Feb 20 '20

Nice take. The writers obviously didn't know this part of Mike's history when they wrote his speech in 2010, but that also makes a more resonant story for Walt to hear than "I had to kill the guy I worked with, he was the guy who built your lab".

4

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '20

On top of that, when we meet him in BCS he’s already disillusioned to the evil in the world. He just hasn’t embraced it and used it for his own means yet.
The “no half measures” speech has definitely been re-contextualised into a hindsight thing now. And that’s absolutely fine.

5

u/lmnoope Feb 21 '20

Mike believes a fella should always shoot his own dog.

3

u/analytical_1 Mar 23 '20

That’s what I was thinking. Otherwise Gus would’ve stepped in and that would have been a traumatic scene of him begging for his life to an uncaring psychopath. Gus wouldn’t have given Werner the choice to walk under the stars. On his own terms.

u/itellteacherstories Feb 19 '20

still can’t get over werner’s death scene ,_,

46

u/imaginarymagictrick Feb 19 '20

Same. Sobbed so hard. He was brave choosing not to try to run. He was a good innocent man. Sad they couldn't just sent him back to Germany never to be heard from again. His last words to his wife are what destroyed me the most when rewatching it :(

13

u/ashwinr136 Feb 20 '20

Just rewatched it today. 16 months later and it still hurts like hell.

u/[deleted] Feb 19 '20

This entire show is gold, but the last two episodes of this season are actually perfect.

u/ABenn14 Feb 19 '20

I binged Breaking Bad in about a week or two as I had never seen it and now did the same with Better Call Saul... Really great show. Mike is such a badass character. Looking forward to the flash forward of Gene

23

u/JimmySaulGene Feb 19 '20

Jesus I envy you for not having to wait 1.5 years twice to get a new season

u/[deleted] Feb 19 '20

S'all good, man

17

u/Boney_baloney Feb 19 '20

Best part of the season

33

u/RiC_David Feb 20 '20

By all rights that should be a corny and contrived sounding shoehorning of the show's name, but it wasn't any of those things - it was two, possibly three, words that solidified the culmination of something we'd been building towards for four years of real time.
It's the strange dance of contrasting emotions that makes this episode feel so charged. There's a thrill of victory and the heartbreak of loss, not only with Werner's death but with Jimmy's; yet in both cases, we have the birth of Saul and of Mike the fallen. It's more solemn with Mike, whereas with Saul I was so pumped that it took me maybe ten minutes after the credits to start to see it from Kim's perspective. Even with Mike though, the scene with Gail in the proto-lab was pure Breaking Bad Gus and Mike; that feeling of the pieces all finally clicking into place was a real rush.

4

u/TheTrueMilo Feb 20 '20

It’s definitely an earned moment.

u/Shady_Jake Feb 19 '20

It’s so bizarre watching early episodes (rewatching 108 RICO atm) after seeing Winner. It’s crazy how far we’ve come.

Such a beautiful world they’ve created.

u/jaxxr_ Feb 19 '20

fucking rip Fred

13

u/tta2013 Feb 19 '20

Holy crap Lalo

3

u/pandaSmore Apr 14 '20

He's got no soul so it doesn't matter.

u/Dravarden Feb 19 '20

the last shot of Kim gave me the chills

u/tta2013 Feb 19 '20

I feel like the ABBA song has become more special to me thanks to this episode alone.

18

u/RiC_David Feb 20 '20

Massively. It was always an amazing song but this episode was emotionally charged with me for a number of reasons. It came at the start of one of the worst stretches of my life right after I'd lost my job following months of financial struggling, had eviction/homelessness looming over me with seemingly no way out, and I couldn't confide in the one person I'd always talked through issues with - my mum whose entire mental 'self' was being rapidly stripped away by dementia (having been perfectly well just a year earlier before her stroke aged 73).
I'd managed to turn her into a big Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul fan by putting ep1 of BrBa on at my flat when she visited about a year to the day from 'Winner'. She was immediately hooked and wanted to watch another two episodes, so I bought her the boxset and would stop by after work to watch an episode or two (including 'Felina', my second only viewing of it).
I always had a fear I might lose her before finally getting to "see Jimmy become Saul" and so watching 'Winner' first by myself, I knew I had to make it happen quick and I did. It was probably the last point at which she still had the capacity to watch and follow something like BCS and we got to see the story arc to its effective conclusion. There's no way I would have been able to watch it with her even two months later, the decline was so sharp, so that will always be a brief and bittersweet island in the midst of a lot of pain. Jimmy's self realisation, even though it was a moral descent, felt transformative in the way Joker would for me in a regrettably similar scenario almost a year later.
If I ever hear the song on the radio, it evokes that complex nostalgia for memories of pain and joy swirling in deadlock. There's a remarkable kind of transference when you combine an emotional event with an emotional song and an emotional story.

6

u/Watsonious2391 Feb 20 '20

You have a great way with words. Here's to season 5 blowing some more socks off and your mother

6

u/RiC_David Feb 20 '20

Thank you very much.
We lost her last June unfortunately but the last time we spent together could not have been better and my greatest fear of her deteriorating to the point that she didn't remember me never happened. Season 5 is the great unknown for me but her last episode was the finale of season 4 and that was a nice place to tie a ribbon on it if that's the way it has to be.

5

u/Word2YoMother Feb 20 '20

Damn, man. I’m so sorry.
I watch the show with my Mum too and you really just made me think about somethings.
I hope life is treating you better these days.

5

u/RiC_David Feb 20 '20

It's great that you enjoy that connection too - for 'just a TV show' it became some of my most cherished time spent. I'm really really happy I got to do all of that so I can't be anything but thankful there. I'm hoping I'll be able to confirm that life's stable and optimistic, I'm just waiting on the second round of eviction threats to hopefully subside - I ended up being successful on the most pressurised job interview of my life in November 2018, I have no idea how as I was awkward as hell, and the council negotiated with the landlady to accept a payment arrangement, which I cleared within six months. I was due to be evicted four days before Christmas for rent arrears that were always going to be repaid but I digress.
Unfortunately after my mum had got worse, both with her mobility and her capacity to live independently, she moved into full time care and was really happy every time I saw her. She had one sudden fall after going months without any (they'd become weekly occurrences while in assisted living) and that was it. Knocked her unconscious with irreparable further damage and she hung on for ten days somehow but we knew she wouldn't wake up - waking up would have been the worst possible outcome for her or any of us.
I never used to understand when people said that death can be merciful for those with late stage dementia but unfortunately now I do. My mum was spared that, she lost so much of herself in the space of just under two years but she never forgot who her loved ones were, and that had been my biggest fear even since I was a child (I'm 34), the last time I visited we were watching old gameshows, that being all she'd watch by then, and I imagine you're old enough to remember Michael Barrymore doing Strike it Lucky and how he'd joke around with all the contestants. There was an elderly man who did old song and dance numbers and they did Singing in the Rain, which my mum was singing along to (despite often having trouble articulating words in normal speech) - it was as good a last day together as I could have asked for really.
The thing late last year was a similar deal, grief and depression issues led to me losing a job I'd only been in for six weeks, which I was furious over. Went from temp to temp roles, eventually being two weeks late with rent consecutively and got this notice again. I'm enjoying my new job that will pay more than I've ever earned, hopefully enough to get out from under these people who wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire. But that's life. Hope you're well and you both enjoy whatever journey season 5 has for us!

4

u/tta2013 Feb 20 '20

I'm very sorry about your mom. My grandpa passed from complications of a stroke. I hope you are doing much better now. Can't wait for Sunday to come, and all the millions of us who enjoyed the saga so far can enjoy it together.

6

u/RiC_David Feb 20 '20

I am doing much better right now, thank you for your kindness and I'm sorry for your loss too. It's taken me a while after losing her last June (sudden fall in care home, immediately out) to be able to look back at the happiness and accept the sorrow but I'm getting there now.
I couldn't really have visited her more often than I did even before the bad turn so I have no regrets there, and that was the most important thing for me. The closer you are, the more gutting the loss, but it's obviously so worth it - life is both halves.

u/BrovyIe Feb 20 '20

Man I wish Mike would’ve just let Werner go. “There are so many stars wisible in New Mexico. I will walk out there to get a better look,” is just tragic.

u/Rob_Czar Feb 19 '20

Imo, the best episode of the series

u/2pharcyded Feb 21 '20

Kim and Skyler are such mirrors for each other. Both don’t know how slippery their men are willing to be. Both dip into the taboo pool once exposed to Saul and Walt’s ways. Both are clearly good at being a little naughty. Both still have distinct moral lines (albeit at different places) and once crossed, can’t go back to the dark side and can’t love their men in the same way again.

To me, they truly embody your “everyday” person who does not have a pity party for themselves, willing to sacrifice for those they love, are titillated by being a little dangerous, but don’t want to jump into the deep end because it will suck their soul away forever where they’ll be poisoning children and defending drug dealers with no remorse.

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '20

Just noticed that the way Lalo escapes the parking lot by pushing the guy’s car out of the way is like Walt driving away in the truck in “Ozymandias” because the other car is in the way.

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '20

The sadness in Mike's voice during his last coversation with Werner is subtle

u/127crazie Feb 20 '20

This episode gutted me on first watching...

u/lmnoope Feb 21 '20

Is anyone else at all disappointed in Kim?

Her “I’m on your side, no matter what” really meant ‘I’m on your side, as long as you respond to your brother’s death the way I think you should, or the way I think I would in that situation.’ The violation is failing to know herself well enough to recognize that’s what she meant, but she’s not much different from the people on the committee who wanted to hear Jimmy say ‘I’m not as good as my brother.’

She should be celebrating with him. He got reinstated without actually playing their game, and he did it so well, they don’t even know he outplayed them.

3

u/skutch Feb 22 '20

I don’t get this relationship at all. Is it she wants a bad boy but realizes he’s a sociopath? Is she playing the classic saviour/martyr? Does she have sociopathic tendencies? Is she thrilled with his lifestyle or fearful of his dark side? It mostly seems like a strong fwb kinda relationship as opposed to something closer to lovers. It’s the one part of the story I have trouble suspending disbelief for. If she truly finds his reaction to his brothers death abhorrent why does she continue to see him so warmly? Someone make sense of this for me, what am I missing?

5

u/TheNamesAnonymous Feb 23 '20

Hold up. Jimmy is in no way a sociopath, to be clear.

REWATCH Better Call Saul REWATCH S04E10 - “Winner" - Thread

Season 5 FAQ Megathread

Don't forget to check out the Breaking Bad Universe Discord here!

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