From the "Pimento" episode thread:
I am in a bind, here. My husband is away tonight on business and we agreed that we would watch tonight's ep together tomorrow night. But I just couldn't wait and I watched Pimento by myself. Do I fess up or do I watch with him tomorrow night and pretend that I don't know what's coming?
Mike would say that I am already a criminal, I suppose. Now I just have to decide whether I'm a good guy or a bad guy.
If that's your takeaway from what Mike said, you missed his point. Your actions affect you on the bad guy/good guy metric, not the criminal one. Mike wouldn't say you are a criminal, because you aren't breaking any laws by watching an ep without your husband. You already are a "bad guy" though, because what you did is not honor your deal.
Here's the relevant dialogue:
Mike: The lesson is, if you're gonna be a criminal do your homework.
Pryce: Wait, I'm not a bad guy.
Mike: I didn't say you were a bad guy, I said you're a criminal.
Pryce: What's the difference?
Mike: I've known good criminals and bad cops, bad priests., honorable thieves. You can be on one side of the law or the other, but if you make a deal with somebody you keep your word. You can go home today with your money and never do this again. But you took something that wasn't yours, and you sold it for a profit. You're now a criminal. Good one, bad one? That's up to you.
Pryce: I can get more pills.
Mike: And I am sure that fella will keep buying. Why don't you get us home? You can sleep on it before you decide.
Yes, Mike's a criminal—but he has a moral code. And Saul Goodman's a criminal lawyer, but we've seen Jimmy work awfully hard for his clients. Mike worked hard for Pryce, too—he "put in a lot of legwork" researching Nacho. Does Nacho's disloyalty to Tuco make him a "bad guy" in Mike's book? Could Mike ever trust Nacho?
Also, Mike's speech might cause us (the audience) to rethink his reactions to Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, and Gus Fring.
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