TV Review: Better Call Saul "Five-O"

Despite new revelations, he’s still the same old Mike.

Review by Brandon Wolfe

Jimmy McGill cedes the spotlight this week to his fellow Breaking Bad alum, Mike Ehrmantraut, to fill in some of the many blanks concerning the past of the gruff, endlessly resourceful man of few words. Unlike Jimmy, who’s still walking the road to becoming Saul Goodman, picking up certain defining traits along the way, Mike is basically fully formed at this point. He may not be a criminal fixer as of yet, but he’s unmistakably the same Mike we knew from this show’s predecessor. However, certain previously unknown facts about Mike’s life come to light this week, even if none of them are exactly earth-shaking.

On Breaking Bad, all we ever knew about Mike’s personal life was that he was the doting grandpa to a young girl named Kaylee, that he was once a cop in Philly and that, in a throwaway comment from Hank Schrader, his police career ended in a unelaborated-upon dramatic fashion. “Five-O” finally brings us up to speed on the dramatic nature of that mysterious career-capping event. It seems Mike’s heretofore unmentioned son, Matty, was also a Philly cop, and one of the rare ones who kept his nose entirely clean (Mike’s, we learn, was one of the dirty ones). When Matty learned that a couple of his colleagues were on the take, he went to Mike for advice. Mike told Matty to take the money in order to make his life and career easier, which Matty grudgingly agreed to do. Yet Matty compromised his values for nothing, as he was killed by the two Vic Mackey wannabes all the same for still having the stink of decency on him. Mike immediately knew exactly what happened and took it upon himself to avenge his son’s death by murdering the two cops, using the sort of crafty tricks he’ll later use in his tenure under Gus Fring. Mike then fled to Albuquerque (and apparently immediately got that parking-attendant gig) before the Philly PD caught up with him to answer a few questions.

Fortunately for Mike, he had already made the acquaintance of a local lawyer, whose business card is presently burning a hole in his pocket. Jimmy is summoned to Mike’s interrogation room only to find that Mike doesn’t want his legal representation, but only needs him to spill coffee on one of the cops so that Mike can surreptitiously snag the guy’s pocket notebook for info. Jimmy objects to this, still clinging to some of those pre-Saul ideals, but ultimately does as he’s told, getting Mike what he wants. And this one scene is all Jimmy’s services are required for this week. “Five-O” is very much an all-Mike outing.

More Mike is something likely every Breaking Bad fan has clamored for since Better Call Saul began. It’s not that the show has been lacking with its primary focus trained upon Jimmy, but Mike is such a powerfully magnetic character that it’s hard not to want as much of him as possible. This may be Jimmy’s show, but it has seemed designed from the jump to be Mike’s to a large extent as well. However, “Five-O” still falls victim to the same languid pacing that has plagued Better Call Saul thus far. The scene in the first act where Mike has a tense conversation with his daughter-in-law goes on for what feels like an eternity, with only a small amount of key information being relayed. Many other aspects of the episode seem padded out a bit as well. I know at one point in its conception, the idea was floated that Better Call Saul could clock in at a half-hour rather than a full hour and I occasionally wonder if that might have been a more effective decision. While the spin-off is consistently pumping out fine episodes, there’s been this lingering feeling that it’s struggling to fill up 60 minutes in a way that Breaking Bad never did.

In the end, the Mike we meet in “Five-O” is the same Mike we already knew, except with a little bit of pathos slathered on top. This has always been an uncomplicated, extremely straightforward character and he remains so. So while “Five-O” isn’t a gamechanger in terms of our conception of Mike, it does pull off the more pressing goal of putting him and Jimmy in bed together, forging the union that will become a cornerstone of their lives between now and the time later on when Walter White darkens their doorstep. Watching these two very different yet equally resourceful men embark on a shady, mutually beneficial working relationship, honing their disreputable skill sets along the way, that sounds like a show worth giving permanent residence to on your DVR.

Discuss this review with fellow SJF fans on Facebook. On Twitter, follow us at @SandwichJohnFilms, and follow author Brandon Wolfe at @BrandonTheWolfe.