When Better Call Saul, the Breaking Bad spinoff centering on Bob Odenkirk's sleazy lawyer, was announced by AMC, the first thing my friend and I did was plan how we would watch each of the episodes together, just as we had for the last season of Breaking Bad. Such is the slavish devotion to AMC's greatest series, its world of drug dealers and New Mexican grime that, now, feels weirdly familiar. Odenkirk will always be Saul to me. And Jonathan Banks will always be Saul's fixer Mike Ehrmantraut. Now Banks has joined the spinoff.

The term "veteran character actor" is overused these days, but in Jonathan Banks's case, it applies in a special way. Before Breaking Bad, you probably knew him as that guy playing supporting roles in various Hollywood action movies like 48 Hrs and Beverly Hills Cop. (Hint: He plays a cop a lot.) On Breaking Bad, he plays the retired Philadelphia cop who's stooped to cleaning others' messes in order to give millions of dollars to his granddaughter. (Warning: Spoilers ahead for non-Breaking Bad viewers.) You can see Banks's experience playing all those cops. It's in his eyes, and the way he looks like he's going through the motions. The edge is gone. There's a resigned sadness but also a gentle warmth to Mike. It's no wonder his death caused as much consternation as any on the show. Walt should've died in his place, we told ourselves. And maybe Walt did, too: another signpost on his way to innocence lost. Since Better Call Saul is unlikely to be the same kind of harrowing experience we got from Breaking Bad, hopefully we'll get to see a little more of Mike's warmth this time, like the kind he's been showing lately on Community. And hopefully he gets to live.

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Paul Schrodt Paul Schrodt is a freelance writer and editor who also contributes to Esquire, GQ, Money, The Wall Street Journal, and more.

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