Written by Gordon Smith

Directed by Adam Bernstein

Last episode, we finally got some more definition of the secondary players in Better Call Saul‘s drama, but this episode we got essentially nothing but a fill-in of Mike Ehrmantraut’s back story. Like “Hermanos” on Breaking Bad (04.08, 2011), this is an episode that gives us a ton of insight into one character (and gives that actor his Emmy submission episode) but doesn’t really move forward the primary storyline.

We already had quite a bit of information about Mike’s history from veiled clues in the past, but this episode made it all clear: Mike was a dirty cop whose son was killed for failing to go along with a protection scheme. In response, Mike killed his son’s murderers and moved immediately to New Mexico, where his daughter-in-law (h/t, Chase had that right last week.), Stacey, had taken his granddaughter, Kaylee (He also had the spelling right–Kayleigh looks much better, though, doesn’t it?). None of this is earth-shattering information–it’s pretty close to what we could have gathered from what clues we had in the past. Instead, it’s just adding some depth and specifics. Continue reading →