Viewers spent so much time watching Bob Odenkirk run away from trouble on Breaking Bad that it’s odd to see him readily picking a fight with a relative stranger in the first clip from Better Call Saul, which premiered during tonight’s Walking Dead midseason finale. Of course, that stranger happens to be one Mike Ehrmantraut, played with hard-nosed grace by Jonathan Banks, so the oddness pays off in spades. Check the clip out below.
Wow, we knew that Mike used to be a cop before he got mixed up with Saul Goodman and, possibly on a separate note, Gustavo Fring’s Los Pollos Hermanos drug empire. But nobody ever said he was a parking lot attendant, the kind of job that you just know was completely grating to the hardcore bastard’s nerves. What does he need less than anything in his life? A pretentious know-it-all lawyer trying to act as if he’s above the law, following some unknown earlier altercation.
Few things in life make as much sense as the way this clip ends, with Mike forcing the antagonizing Saul down to the ground with his arm behind his back. Maybe it’s embarrassments like this that kept Saul out of physical harm’s way in his Breaking Bad years. Of all the ways I could have envisioned these two guys first meeting each other, a public parking lot rumble would have been closer to the bottom of the list. I’m still optimistic that Saul pulls some ninja shit out once this clip is over though.
Those looking to get another new peek at Better Call Saul are in luck, for AMC also released this new trailer. Nobody gets put into a suplex or a headlock here, but it’s still pretty great.
A day in the life of Saul Goodman contains everything from dayplanners to a world’s greatest lawyer mug to oodles of temporary cell phones to a paper shredder that has probably seen more than its fair share of evidence getting passed through and destroyed. One has to wonder if the items getting shredded here are worth anything, or if this is just a generic guy used to set up Saul’s work duties. Does Idaho’s David Shilale ring any bells?
Witness all of Saul’s pre-Breaking Bad beatdowns and organizing skills when Better Call Saul hits AMC for its first season’s two-night premiere starting Sunday, February 8.
