'Better Call Saul' Season 2 Photo Preview: Jimmy and Mike Become Partners
Don’t call it a friendship, because, almost certainly, Mike Ehrmantraut (Emmy nominee Jonathan Banks) would never admit to having any sort of personal, friendly feelings for the man who will become Saul Goodman (Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Bob Odenkirk). But when Better Call Saul Season 2 premieres on Feb. 15, we will see Mike and Jimmy McGill solidifying their professional partnership, one that we know only gets stronger (and more illegal and dangerous) as the days and nights in Albuquerque roll on. BCS showrunner Peter Gould told Yahoo TV late last year that both he and series co-creator Vince Gilligan began the drama thinking Jimmy would have morphed into Saul by the end of Season 1. Jimmy’s still Jimmy when Season 2 begins, but, along with a trio of exclusive gallery photos from the sophomore season, we can offer a few more hints at what viewers can expect for him and his associates in Season 2.
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Thick as Thieves
Mike and Jimmy appear to be looking over their shoulders at someone… could it be Tuco (Raymond Cruz), the only other major Breaking Bad character besides Jimmy and Mike to appear in Saul’s first season? Or maybe Nacho (Michael Mando), the enterprising criminal we met in Season 1, who is going to become an even bigger presence in Jimmy’s life in Season 2? “When we started out [with Saul], one of the movies I kept thinking about was Midnight Run,” Gould says. “[Jimmy and Mike] certainly don’t seem like the two characters in Midnight Run at this point, but they are on very interesting journeys. Their two journeys sometimes overlap and touch, and sometimes go off in their own ways, but you’re going to see a lot of Jonathan Banks, a lot of Mike Ehrmantraut, in Season 2.”
Who’s He Gonna Call?
Mike’s tragic backstory with his son and Jimmy’s heartbreaking realization about his brother, Chuck, will lead to even bigger reveals in Season 2, as Gould confirms they’ll dig deeper into the characters. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to meet Saul Goodman just yet, though. “In the Breaking Bad writers’ room, every time Walter White had a problem in the first couple of seasons, one of us would inevitably pitch, ‘Walt goes out, and he buys a gun, and he shoots this person in the head,’” Gould says. “Of course he wasn’t ready for that. That wasn’t who the man was. By keeping our powder dry, as it were, by being true to where he was in the story — even though we certainly would have all enjoyed a good explosive action scene — I think it meant that when he actually did pull the trigger on a character, it had that much more weight to it. It was that much more rewarding. I think that’s what’s worked for us so far [with Saul], too, to be as true as possible to where these folks are in life.”
Slippin’ Jimmy With a Law Degree
Season 1 ended with Jimmy not only learning of Chuck’s betrayal, but with the death of his old partner in grifting, Marco (Mel Rodriguez). Those events pushed him to resolve not to let the expectations of others get in the way of his career pursuits anymore, but that’s going to be easier said than done for Jimmy in Season 2. “In the very last scene of Season 1, where he’s driving off humming ‘Smoke on the Water,’ the song that Marco used to hum, I think he’s trying to find a new way,” Gould says. “You can say, ‘I don’t care about anybody but me, I’m going to follow my own way,’ but that could be a very lonely journey. Jimmy’s somebody who seems more alive when he’s with other people. The truth is that he cares deeply about a number of other people. That’s one of the things that we delve into.”
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Season 2 of Better Call Saul premieres Feb. 15 at 10 p.m. on AMC.
