The real reason Mike had the postcard taken down in Better Call Saul season 5

As ScreenRant astutely points out, the episode never directly addresses this moment of tension when Mike calls for the postcard’s removal, but his violent reaction appears to be a response to a painful remembrance of Werner Ziegler. Careful viewers will remember that Ziegler was the engineer who Mike offed back in Season 4. The image of the opera house is a visual callback to a conversation that Mike had with Ziegler before the hit — one in which Ziegler revealed that his father was one of the engineers behind the famous landmark’s construction.

The sight of the postcard stirs Mike’s guilt over the assassination. Given his drunken state, the melancholy hitman is unable to prevent himself from lashing out. Once the postcard comes down, we can almost feel the tension leave Mike’s body. This is one killer with some deep-seated issues, and — given what we know about the character’s arc later on, during the events of Breaking Bad — they’re issues that aren’t going away any time soon.

Better Call Saul airs Mondays at 9:00 PM on AMC.

Written by: Looper