BETTER CALL SAUL
AMC, 10 ET/PT
This strong Breaking Bad prequel returns for a third season as Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) struggles to recover from his brother’s betrayal and Mike (Jonathan Banks) searches for a so-far hidden adversary. It all brings us ever closer to Jimmy’s transformation into Saul, a change that can’t come soon enough for some and can’t be delayed long enough for others.
Nearly six years after he got his face blown off in an explosive episode of Breaking Bad, fans still tread lightly around Gustavo Fring.
“People are afraid of me, because I have a very intense aura when I’m playing that character,” says Giancarlo Esposito, 58. “It takes people a moment to approach me, then they want the selfie. I always know they want the terrifying Gus look to the camera, as opposed to the smiling Giancarlo look they would normally get.”
But the abominable drug lord (and purveyor of greasy fried chicken) may get a chance to save face in Season 3 of AMC’s Bad prequel series Better Call Saul (returning Monday, 10 ET/ PT), which introduces him to two-bit lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) — who still goes by Jimmy McGill — and crooked cop Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks).
Mike’s shady partnership with Gus was teased in Saul’s secondseason finale, when he opted not to shoot drug runner Hector “Tio” Salamanca (Mark Margolis) after finding a note reading “Don’t” on his windshield, presumably written by Gus.
When “the note got left on the car, they were putting out into the universe, ‘We want this guy back,’ ” says Esposito, who has since appeared in the Maze Runner movies and Netflix’s
The Get Down. Shortly after last year’s finale, he got a call from
Saul co-creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould asking if he would return to the fan-favorite character, which earned him an Emmy nomination for supporting actor in a drama series.
“I said, ‘Listen, here are my concerns: What kind of Gus would we meet in ( Saul), and what can we do with him that’s original and fresh?’ ”
The answer: showing how Gus cultivates his meth empire, as well as his complicated relationships with Jimmy, Hector and Mike.
“Mike is a cop who’s had a checkered past but is more or less living on the straight and narrow. How does this guy become righthand man to a drug lord?” Gould says. Gus, too, “has a different set of problems from the ones we saw him face on Breaking Bad. His empire is at an earlier stage, and there’s a lot to explore.”
Viewers also will see more of Gus’ interactions with employees as boss of Los Pollos Hermanos, his Albuquerque fast-food joint that becomes a front for meth distribution. As he pushes a new recipe for curly fries and shoots training videos for other franchises, “you start to see him grow the business” and “get the courage to grow into his shoes as a leader,” Esposito says.
But fans needn’t worry about too much backstory on the calculating kingpin, whose icy exterior have helped make him one of TV’s most enduring villains.
“We’ve got to be careful about how much we reveal, because it could potentially be to the detriment of the character’s power,” Gilligan says. “Part of his power comes from his mystery, so we want to take our time and not give away the secrets of Gus too quickly, if at all.”
Gus “has a different set of problems from the ones we saw him face on ‘Breaking Bad.’ ”