A heavy portion of this episode is devoted to flashbacks to Mike's past. Jimmy is in this one but Mike is the central character. Kim and Chuck are not in this episode.
In the past, Mike arrives in Albuquerque for the first time. Stacey, his daughter-in-law, picks him up at the train station. Mike doesn't let on but he has a gunshot wound in his left shoulder. He dresses it as best he can in the bathroom before he gets in the car with her. He visits with her and his granddaughter. She asks him about a phone call that Matty, her husband, received the night before he was killed. She thinks he was talking to Mike but Mike claims he doesn't remember such a call.
In the present, the Philadelphia police officers who showed up on Mike's doorstep at the end of 1.05 are questioning him but he refuses to speak without a lawyer present. He isn't under arrest. They want to know if he knows anything about the murders of two Philadelphia police officers the night before he left Philly. The two murdered officers were there the night that Matty was killed. They survived, that night, but Matty did not.
Mike gives them Jimmy's business card and asks them to get him. Jimmy shows up. He gets a couple minutes alone with Mike before the questioning starts again. Mike admits to having seen the two murdered police officers in a bar the night they were murdered but not much else. Mike wants Jimmy to accidentally spill his coffee on the detective who is taking notes. Jimmy refuses at first but in the end he does. Mike swipes the notebook as he is helping the officer dry his suit.
Mike goes to see Stacey. He wants to know why she contacted the Philadelphia Police. She tells him about how she found several thousand dollars hidden in one of the suitcases. She didn't feel like she could talk to him so she went to the police instead.
In the past, in Philadelphia, Mike breaks into the police car belonging to the two not yet murdered police officers. He goes into the bar after that and stays there the whole night. He confronts them at one point and whispers to them that he knows what they did. They pick him up later that night as he is stumbling home. He tells them once again that he knows that they killed Matty and made it look like a junkie did it.
They take him to an abandoned area. They are getting ready to kill him when he pulls out a gun, that he stashed in the back of their car earlier that night, and kills them. One of them gets off a shot and wounds Mike.
In the present, Mike meets with Stacey again. He admits that he was the one that Matty was talking to on the phone the night before he was murdered. Matty was too straight-laced and was considering going to Internal Affairs when he got a whiff of the corruption in the police department. Mike knew about it. He had been a police officer in Philadelphia and had taken money to look the other way. He tried to convince his son to do the same. Matty eventually did but by then it was too late because his partner already suspected that Matty was getting ready to go to Internal Affairs.
Mike is angry with himself for making Matt take the money. It didn't save him in the end. Stacey wants to know what happened to the other two cops. Mike says, "You know what happened. The question is can you live with it?"
Thoughts
This was a much darker episode than most of the ones that preceded it. It didn't feel exactly like an episode of Breaking Bad but it had a similar vibe to it. I was very impressed by it. I wonder if future seasons will also have Jimmy-lite episodes.
I really like this one. I continue to enjoy this show. Definitely worth my time.
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