Season 5, Episode 5: ‘Dedicado a Max’

There’s a pleasing symmetry to “Dedicado a Max,” an episode that could be more accurately titled “A Tale of Two Coots.” The bifurcated plot revolves around a pair of ornery old men. Both are natural-born fighters who don’t like to be told what to do. One is in a house that people want him evicted from, that he refuses to leave. The other is in a house that people want to stay in that he would like to flee.

The latter is Mike, who doesn’t seem particularly grateful for the lifesaving measures taken by Gus Fring, who has created a makeshift hospital somewhere in Mexico, complete with high-tech medical equipment, a surgeon and a housekeeper. Mike’s first thought is to escape this idyll. His second is to call Gus and bark: “This is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife. How did I get here?”

OK, those are not direct quotes, but they capture the gist. Fring turns up at the end of the episode to explain that he has saved Mike’s life because he needs some muscle and smarts in the coming war with the Salamancas. The scene, the finest of the episode, plumbs a theme dear to the show’s creators, which also loomed large in “Breaking Bad.” Can acts of kindness make up for acts of evil? Is there a karmic ledger that allows this kind of moral accounting, where pluses and minuses are tallied and zeroed out?

“The anonymous benefactor,” says Mike, all but sneering. “Well that must make you feel pretty good. And is that supposed to balance the scales, make up for everything else you do?”