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[frelling_tralk]

Full-length trailers are now out for Better Call Saul and for iZombie! "How 'iZombie' differs from 'Veronica Mars' (aside from the fact she's dead)"

Anyone else planning to check out either of those shows? :)

Comments

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I kind of did end up disliking Mike by the end tbh. Nothing against the actor, and I did like Mike a lot more when he was first introduced and working for Gus in a lower capacity, but I hated how he ultimately came across as believing that he knew it all and everyone around him were idiot children, some of his screen time was quite grating to me in the final season. People (correctly of course) note how full of himself Walt became, but I never saw Mike as all that different, he was just more world-weary and long-suffering with it if that makes sense? He absolutely gave me the vibe that he thought that he knew it all about this business, and it was everyone around him that kept screwing up. That was something that was apparently endearing to viewers, I saw a lot of love for example for the scene of him acting like Walt and Saul were a couple of kids fighting in Saul's office, but really he came across to me as every bit as arrogant and know-it-all as Walt, just for Mike it was apparently considered a positive character trait to be arrogant and condescending! But really, if you look at how much Walt and Mike clashed when they were both fighting over who got to be in charge and dictate their business terms etc in season 5, or (in a subtler way) fighting over who got to be the one to influence Jesse and hold sway over him, they weren't all that dissimilar, so it's strange to me that Mike gets so much fan love in comparison


And I'm not that into the zombie genre either really, it's mostly the Veronica Mars connection that caught my interest and got me excited about what they're doing with the characters

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

Oh, I disliked him from S5a on. Like you said, he always came off as arrogant, but what I think turned me off completely was the hypocrisy. It's one thing to be pissed at Walt, but at the same time, to me, Mike just completely ignored the reality that it was Walt or Gus...what did he expect him to do? It bugged me, since he always seemed to at least be able to see both sides. Instead he just comes off a whiny.

What you say is true. He's just as arrogant as the rest. I feel a similar way about Hank.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Haha yes, it's funny that it's Walt alone that gets the focus on how terrible he became in season 5, it wasn't a great time for Mike's character either imo, yet that's when the viewers seemed to fall all over themselves to praise him as a badass who knows how to put other characters in their place. I've just never been a fan of characters like that, and yes the whining of what a great set-up they had with Gus didn't do him any favours either. It was actually Jesse who ~messed that up~ (by taking out Gus's dealers for killing kids), but Mike seemed to lay the blame squarely at Walt's feet for protecting his partner, and then refusing to lie down and die in the face in Gus's threats to his family? Jesse was the one who was chaffing under Gus's rule and selling extra on the side, and Jesse was the one to ultimately speak out against Gus's methods (not hating him for that of course, just saying), Walt was the one who kept urging Jesse to keep his head down and not rock the boat, yet it's Walt alone that Mike blames for ruining the good thing that they had going with Gus?!

I do have more of a soft spot for Hank though admittedly, I think the show did a good job of contrasting him and Walt. I liked how they deconstructed Hank's more flashy arrogance and hyper-masculinity by giving him the panic attacks, and then the disability to learn to cope with, while meek and mild scientist teacher Walt turned out to be the one to live his final days by the belief that real man provide for their family, that real man need to make a name for themselves to make their sons proud etc. Whilst Hank did ultimately put being a good person ahead of his pride, he held his hands up and admitted to beating up Jesse, he was able to admit to his superior in the end that he just wasn't able to go back to the place (I forget the name now!) where he witnessed the tortoise bomb, he was the one to say that Walt Jr. doesn't need to drink until he threw up to be one of the men. So yeah, I can understand why viewers got more attached to Hank as his journey was in a way a good counterpoint to Walt's, in the end he seemed to really got the things that mattered in the way that Walt was blind too for so long. (Man I still cannot believe that the actor didn't even get an Emmy nom for season 5b)

I will never understand those that heap praise on Gus and Mike though, while slamming Walt as the worst

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

I think my beef with Hank is more the idea that we're meant to see Walt as prideful and arrogant (he is) but 5b showed that Hank was every bit as prideful as Walt. Had he gone to his superiors, much of what happened could have been avoided (and I'm not even sure anything was admissible anyway, given how he collected the info). He was willing to burn down everything to get Walt because Walt got over on him on his turf.

So I'm with Hank up until 5b.

It might not be that way on rewatch. I always wonder how much of my reaction is to other fans. I hate the sort of anti-protagonist privilege that's common now (with writers, even). The message will be that no matter what the impetus for a bad decision, the decision was still Walt's and he's accountable. Yet, this isn't true for Skyler, Jesse, Hank, Gus, etc. They all made decisions to bring about what happened. I've never understood the idea that it's defending a character to basically call them a weak-willed puppet of the main. I'm with Skyler when she said she'd rather be seen as Bonnie Barrett than too stupid to know what was going on.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Hmm good point about 5b, I was disappointed that Hank didn't get any back-up and let anyone else know what he was doing, maybe then him and his partner could have had more protection in the end :( I'm not sure though if I agree that it was a turf war in Hank's mind, or if it was the personal betrayal of Walt that really got to him, as there were so many indications throughout the series that both Hank and Walt liked one another more than you might at first assume from the pilot. Maybe a mixture of both? It was pride in the final arrest though I guess when Hank wanted to be the one to bring him in. Still I did always get the feeling that we were supposed to see him as the more stand-up guy deep down, in comparison to Walt being the one focused on his ego at the expense of his family, whereas Hank could generally curb his ego when it mattered and put others first

And I totally agree on wondering if fan reaction starts colouring your views! I feel like that a lot with Mike and Jesse especially because those are the characters I most often see praised at the expense of Walt in the final season, and so that always make me dig my heels in and focus on the fuck-ups those characters made that deserve to be called out. I don't think fan reaction affected me as much with Skyler or Walt though, fans on both sides seemed so extreme that I just kind of stick to my own reading of their characters, whereas there seems to be such a fandom consensus with Mike and Jesse that it bothers me more I guess. I used to agree with fandom on Jesse for most of the series, but I started getting impatient with him in season 5 at the time that he was really blatantly becoming the fandoms woobie, and many viewers were only watching from the of POV of how mean Walt is to Jesse. Which is true a lot of the time, but there's a whole lot more to the show than that y'know, so I started possibly tiring of the character a little bit at times because of the overzealous fandom. I mean I can't know how much fandom may or may not have coloured my views, but I was definitely starting to feel that Jesse fatigue in season 5b in certain scenes