How does a person go from a bruised ego to just killing somebody in cold blood? There were plenty of times where Mike 'bruised his ego' and he didn't kill him then didn't he.
Clearly Walt had killing Mike on the top of his mind, but would make that decision based on whatever convo they had. If was a satisfactory convo he might not have done anything. Mike just accelerated what was already on Heisenberg's brain by pissing him off.
There is no other point in the series where Walt has helped Mike so much, and received nothing but disrespect in return.
In this ep Walt secured Mike's $5 mill, warned him about the DEA coming for him,
and brought him his go-bag and money. The scene showed Mike would
never respect him, no matter what he did.
So yeah, that's why it's a little deeper than any other time Mike "bruised his ego". This is the last time they'd interact with each other.
And it wasn't a satisfactory conversation and Walt still let him take the bag from him, turn his back, and walk away after refusing to hand over the list of names.
So if killing Mike was
anywhere in his thought process why didn't he do it then? He blurted out "you're welcome!" because all he wanted was a "thank you". He wanted respect from Mike, for once.
I don't even understand how this is a topic of discussion. If killing Mike was at "the top of his mind" he had a full 5 minute scene to do it. He barely did it, at the ass-end of the scene, and then immediately regretted it as "something that could've been avoided".
What are people seeing in this scene? I honestly don't get it.
Fred.