Engineer Werner


This seasoned engineer guy who is aware he is building some super secret location for a drug lord can't holdout for probably millions of dollars? It doesn't cross his mind that they will probably kill his wife if he leaves? He was even in contact with his wife by phone on a regular basis. I just thought that his guy's behavior didn't make sense.

reply

I did find it to be somewhat of a cheap and contrived twist to subvert the audience's expectations that the unruly and rebellious acting German worker K̶l̶a̶u̶s̶ "Kai", who turned out to be a red herring, was the one who was going to cause trouble.

Werner's behavior made absolutely no sense & felt like a total contrivance for conflict of drama. As much as I enjoyed Breaking Bad, I hated how often the writers did this sort of thing with Jesse to create conflict & move the plot forward.

reply

Yup it didn't make any sense. He was the smartest and most professional of the group and only lasted about six months before he starts to cause trouble. I understand it with Jesse most of the time as he wasn't the brightest although maybe I need to rewatch the show as it has been years.

I just felt like they could have came up with something different to eliminate his character and move Mike's down a darker path.

reply

Very poor writing indeed.
At least it could have been a cliche "my wife is sick - I need to see her NOW", not this bullshit 3 days holiday in a shitty fucking hotel in ABQ...really worth dying for it!

reply

Nah

reply

I thought it was believable. The rowdy young guys are easily distracted. The smart serious guy wasn't used to being in that situation, and needed his wife to see him through.

reply

It was mostly okay, the whole thing with "My wife! My wife! My sacred wife! I can't live without my precious wife!" was a bit ridiculous but there are people who are like that in reality.

The thing that was a little much was the dialogue between Mike and Werner under the stars with Werner going on like he was only in a little bit of trouble and they were just gonna give him a slap on the wrist, maybe actually let him see the precious wife and then let him get back to work like nothing happened. It felt like they were really shoving it down the viewer's throat, the contrast between Werner's naivity and the seriousness of the people he had angered. Probably they thought if Werner came across as childishly naive it would feel extra awful when Mike killed him, but eh, like others said, conthrived.

He was sympathetic enough to make the viewer understand how bad Mike felt about killing him without that.

reply

[deleted]

[deleted]

To be fair with the way these lockdowns have shown us how people can affected by not seeing their family etc I can totally believe Werner's story.

reply

Good point. But you don't get second chances in a war, either. Werner got his court martial.

reply