USA TODAY International Edition
On his ‘ Honor,’ Cranston shares a surprise
Spoiler alert! We’d be risking our own honor if we didn’t warn you that this story contains one very juicy spoiler from the Season 2 premiere of “Your Honor.”
Oh, baby!
The final minutes of the Season 2 opener of Showtime’s “Your Honor“( Sundays, 9 EST/ PST), which chronicled the unlawful lengths former judge Michael Desiato ( Bryan Cranston) went to in order to protect his teenage son Adam Desiato ( Hunter Doohan) in its first season, delivered quite a surprise. Fia Baxter ( Lilli Kay) was pregnant when Adam died and is raising their son. That makes Adam’s grieving dad, Michael, a grandfather ( and explains why Fia so desperately wanted a relationship with the disgraced judge).
As the premiere wraps up, Fia pauses while writing one of her monthly letters to Michael to comfort a fussy infant. The arrival represents hope for Michael, Cranston, 66, says.
“Here’s a story of a man who doesn’t feel he has any life at all. He’s got nothing going for him, and yet there’s perhaps reason to – if not rejoice, maybe to accept that there’s a new possibility of joy.”
In the February 2021 first- season finale, Adam was shot and killed by Eugene Jones ( Benjamin Flores Jr.) who was aiming instead for the son of notorious New Orleans mob boss crime boss Jimmy Baxter ( Michael Stuhlbarg).
In Sunday’s premiere, viewers meet a Michael who is shattered by the loss of his only child and his dishonorable actions to shield Adam from the consequences of killing Jimmy’s son Rocco in a hit- and- run. An imprisoned Michael is gaunt and force- fed a nutritional supplement. Cranston estimates he lost 15 pounds for the role. The reckless Michael also volunteers to be the target of a fuming bull in a prisoner’s rodeo.
“Why can’t you people just let me die in peace?” Michael asks Rosie Perez’s character, Olivia Delmont, mistaking the prosecutor for a psychiatrist. ( She ends up securing Michael’s release from prison so he can help her take down the Baxters.)
Cranston, who likes the brevity of a limited series, says he became interested in a second season to explore themes of grief and despair honestly.
Michael “doesn’t want to live,” Cranston says. “He wants his physical body to catch up with his emotional and intellectual capacities, which are basically dead. He feels like a dead man. He’s lost everything. He is not capable of containing anything anymore.”
Joey Hartstone, showrunner for the series’ sophomore run, says in the first season, “you have a character with the strongest motivation possible, and in
Season 2, we start with a character who basically has no motivation to do anything because he’s lost everything. So the real challenge, at least for the Michael Desiato story in Season 2, was ‘ What story can we tell with this guy? How could we motivate someone who has lost everything and has largely given up on life?’ And that became a real interesting challenge to slowly try to piece him back together as a human being and give him things to care about.”
The arrival of a grandson does that nicely. The new baby also further complicates Michael’s relationship with the sinister Baxters and terrifies Michael, says Hartstone.
“At the end of episode one, he believes he probably can’t be hurt anymore than he already has,” says Hartstone. “And then seeing this adorable grandchild that he has will potentially threaten his ability to protect himself from being hurt again.”