Jonathan Banks Turns Great Shows into Classic Television

New Mexico is much more beautiful with Mike Ehrmantraut in it.

I just want to take a minute to talk about how awesome of an actor Jonathan Banks is and has always been.

Jonathan Banks is new to me, the first place I saw him was on "Breaking Bad" as Mike Ehrmantraut. He was phenomenal on that show. He was the badass assistant that Gus Fring needed. He was the perfect hitman, bodyguard, money guy, basically, he was the jack of all trades, as long as it was shady. When Mike showed up in season four of "Breaking Bad", that's when that show went from great to a classic masterpiece. He really turned an already great show into absolute, must watch TV. He was so great and was almost as fun to watch as Gus. No one, and I'm including Walt and Gus and Jesse, was as good on that show as Mike was. He was awesome.

Now I'm a big fan of "Better Call Saul". I put season one in my top 5 shows of 2015, both on the podcast and on my blog. It's a really great show. I had my doubts, it was released so close to the end of "Breaking Bad", so how could they even come close to what they had with that show, but they have pulled it out. It doesn't hurt that Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould still produce and write a lot of the episodes and that the majority of the original actors appear as themselves on "Better Call Saul". That helps the show even more.

Bob Oedenkirk is the star of the show, but what makes shows like "Better Call Saul" and "Breaking Bad" so great is the fact that any number of actors can have their moments. In "Breaking Bad", it wasn't always Bryan Cranston as Walt that made it great. There was also the afformentioned Gus and Jesse, but also Krysten Ritter as Jesse's junkie girlfriend or Walt's brother in law Hank, his thieving wife Marie, Walt's wife, Skyler and, of course Saul and Mike. They all had episodes that featured their characters in pivotal roles and some of the episodes that featured these people, like when Walt watches Jesse's girlfriend choke and die on her own vomit, were compelling as any Walt heavy episode. Same thing goes for "Better Call Saul". There is plenty of episodes that focus on Saul's brother Chuck, played expertly by Michael McKean, and his struggles with electronics and paranoia and the fact that Jimmy is still a crook. There is also the stuff that features Jimmy's, that was Saul's name before he became Saul Goodman, girlfriend/work buddy Kim. She's played a pivotal role in 2 of the first 5 episodes of season 2 already. There is also Howard, who is co owner and creator of the law firm that Chuck started and Jimmy could never get a real job at.

Every episode of "Better Call Saul" is great television ,but the best episodes, and I'm including the ones that are Jimmy centric, are the ones that focus on Mike. He is wonderfully brilliant on this show. The fact that we get to see him alive again, spoiler alert, is fantastic. And man does Jonathan Banks knock it out of the park with this role. He is so god damn good. He plays the same type of character that he did on "Breaking Bad", but on "Better Call Saul", we get to see what turned him into this shady back door bag man and body guard and hit man and con artist. The episode in season one of "BCS" where we learn why he left the police was one of the best, most heart wrenching 45 minutes of television I have ever witnessed. That episode is a masterpiece and it should be shown in film and TV schools because it needs to be studied by the future TV and movie writers. It is so, so great. Go back and watch that episode. You will cry and you will feel things you never thought a TV show could make it feel. It is a work of art.

This season on "BCS", it seems that they have taken a more forward approach to making Mike more of a main character and the show is so much better for doing that. Jonathan Banks as Mike is so soft spoken and calm, yet you can see the anger and violence that he has behind those eyes. He never gets to amped up or too crazy about anything or any situation he's thrown in. He always has the same look on his face and the same tone to his voice and he carries himself with the same demeanor. He's always calm, but you better not cross him, or he will make you pay. Take an episode earlier this season. The guy from Minnesota, that he was essentially a body guard for, shows up in a humongous bright yellow hummer to go do a drug deal and Mike calmly tells him that he will not get in that car that screams arrest me and that if this guy goes to the deal alone, he will pay some kind of consequence. The guy doesn't listen and his home eventually gets robbed and his treasured baseball card collection is stolen. Mike cleans everything up for this guy in the next episode, but he is not happy about it. He did it for the money. Then, there is last nights episode, where he helps get Tucco arrested. Tucco's assistant, Nacho, wants Tucco killed and asks Mike to do it, but Mike calmly explains how this is a terrible idea for everyone involved. Instead, he hatches a plan to get Tucco arrested where no one will suspect any foul play and it works to perfection.

Jonathan Banks is a excellent actor. I'm just upset that it took for me to watch "Breaking Bad" to realize this. He was great on that show and he has been the best thing about "Better Call Saul" and I love that show. Hopefully he gets awards or at least recognition for the awesome things that he is doing on TV. Jonathan Banks is a wonderful actor.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He forgets that Johnathan Banks taught a lot of young men about the biology of a young woman (thanks to Conan O'Brien for digging this gem up). Learn from Ty by following him on twitter @tykulik.

Ed note: We misspelled Jonathan Bank's name when the article was posted. Ty got it right, I was wrong. It has been corrected. Sorry