Hank Schrader Made His Return on "Better Call Saul" and I'm in a Glass Case of Emotion
It had been no secret that "Better Call Saul" was bringing Hank Schrader back. He was seen in the trailer to Season 5 and Dean Norris has been on Twitter talking about it over a frosty cold Schraderbrau. And yet I have to admit, I still wasn't ready for it when they introduced him and his partner Steven Gomez this way in Episode 3 (mild spoiler alert):
Not to put to fine a point on it, but seeing Hank and Gomez actually took my breath away. It was like one of those dreams you have when you've lost someone you cared about where suddenly they're alive again like nothing happened.
Make no mistake: Hank Schrader is one of the great characters in TV over the last 25 years or so. His be considered one of the best character arcs in fiction if it wasn't overshadowed by Walter Whites, which is possibly THE best. Starting as the "hail fellow well met" who's sort of the person the whole White family wishes Walter was, to investigator to PTSD sufferer to Walter's arch nemesis, all the way to his gutwrenching ending, which is one of the most emotional deaths ever on TV, every note was perfect.
Truth be told, I wasn't all that sold on "Better Call Saul" for much of Season 1. It was well done, don't get me wrong. But it was a real slow burn. When it truly picked up was when it started to bring back more of the characters from "Breaking Bad" besides just Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman. It's the beauty of a prequel series. At their best they give you the chance to revisit characters and storylines even though you know how they'll end in the long run. To take a deeper dive into their backgrounds. And give more context about how they end up where they do.
In that regard, "BCS" has been crushing it, once Mike, Gus and Hector showed up on the scene. (Even as unbelievably good as Rhea Seehorn has been as new character Kim Wexler.) And adding Hank to the mix, with all the Alpha Male humor and braggadocio, that we all know is going to end badly, is hilarioius and bittersweet at the same time. One of the showrunners, Peter Gould explained the thinking behind bringing Hank and Gomez back to Entertainment Weekly:
Oh my god, what a thrill it was. Look, we love Dean. We love Steve. But those characters had a perfect, devastating end on Breaking Bad. So when we were talking about this season, we didn't say, “Oh, let's bring this character and that character back.” But once we started thinking about episode 3, it seemed obvious that Jimmy would be facing off against two DEA agents. And as soon as you say the letters D-E-A in our world, that means Hank Schrader. …
But it was not a foregone conclusion that Dean would do the show. I was a little bit nervous about it, because we really liked what we talked about and I was very excited to get him back. But we had to call him. So I roped Vince [Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad and co-creator of Better Call Saul] into the call. [Laughs] Vince created the character, Hank Schrader, way back in the pilot of Breaking Bad, and I wanted him on the call. So Vince and I got on the phone with Dean, and we were a little bit nervous. And we started pitching what would happen. But mostly we were pitching that there's something else to say about Hank Schrader that we should revisit him. And frankly Dean could have easily said, “You know, guys, I've got lots of other things going on. I think we did that character and I don't want to open that up again.” But he didn’t. He pretty much interrupted us as we were pitching and said, “Guys, I love it!”
And I for one am not only glad they wanted Hank and he agreed that I join millions of "Breaking Bad" fans in getting a big ol' raging hard-on he's back:
The way "BCS" is going, if they re-introduce Jesse Pinkman and Walter, I'm not sure the world will be able to handle it.