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canyonwalkerAcross the first few episodes of Better Call Saul season 3, hit-man Mike Ehrmantraut continues to be a featured minor character. I've remarked many times that the series often feels lkke it should be Better Call Mike as his charcter arc gets so much screen time. But I say that in a fond way as Mike, played with acerbic wit by actor Jonathan Banks, is fun to watch.
Recall season 2 ended with a pair of cliffhangers, one for main character Jimmy (pre-changing his name to Saul) and one for Mike. That's one of those points at which viewers might wonder if this Mike should get title billing. In ones cliffhanger, Mike is interrupted from his attempt to kill drug gang boss Hector Salamanca by some unseen person who's tailed him into the desert and rigged his car's horn.
Sure enough, a person comes by Mike's house late that night to swap the trackers. But the dead tracker is actually hidden nearby and the one in Mike's gas cap is his— meaning the mysterious adversary has just driven off with Mike's tracker, which Mike can follow. Mike, who stayed up all night watching the street from his darkened house, starts to follow.
Mike tails the man with his tracker to an empty industrial site. The man hands off the tracker to another person, who appears to be his boss. Mike tracks the boss as he drives around Albuquerque from the wee hours of the morning through sunrise, picking up packages stashed in out-of-the-way locations. Mike's mysterious adversary is a bag man for a drug gang.
It's worth noting that Mike doesn't yet know who Gus Fring is— or that he's a drug lord. For all Mike knows the restaurant is simply a place where the bag man makes a handoff. Though his radio tracker shows him the bag isn't moving, so Mike reasonably knows that someone in the restaurant is high up in hierarchy of this mysterious drug gang.
Recall season 2 ended with a pair of cliffhangers, one for main character Jimmy (pre-changing his name to Saul) and one for Mike. That's one of those points at which viewers might wonder if this Mike should get title billing. In ones cliffhanger, Mike is interrupted from his attempt to kill drug gang boss Hector Salamanca by some unseen person who's tailed him into the desert and rigged his car's horn.
Spy vs. Spy
Season 3 for Mike begins with him trying to track down who's tracking him. He assumes, correctly, that his unseen adversary has placed a tracking device in his car. He literally tears the car apart looking for it, but it eludes all the places that he— as a former career police officer— knows to look for contraband in a car. Just as he's about to give up and leave his torn-up beater at the junkyard, inspiration strikes he finds it, a tiny tracker placed in his gas cap. Being a resourceful person he uses his contacts to buy an identical device and study how it works. Then he puts his tracker in his car's gas cap, runs down the battery on the mystery device to alert its owner, and waits to watch who comes to swap out the tracker on his car for one with a fresh battery.Sure enough, a person comes by Mike's house late that night to swap the trackers. But the dead tracker is actually hidden nearby and the one in Mike's gas cap is his— meaning the mysterious adversary has just driven off with Mike's tracker, which Mike can follow. Mike, who stayed up all night watching the street from his darkened house, starts to follow.
Mike tails the man with his tracker to an empty industrial site. The man hands off the tracker to another person, who appears to be his boss. Mike tracks the boss as he drives around Albuquerque from the wee hours of the morning through sunrise, picking up packages stashed in out-of-the-way locations. Mike's mysterious adversary is a bag man for a drug gang.
Another Great Minor Character (Re)Appears
The bag man's final stop is a location that's familiar to all us fans of Breaking Bad. It's a Pollos Hermanos restaurant. The bag man leaves his bag— full of money plus Mike's tracker— at one of the restaurants owned by Gus Fring (portrayed by actor Giancarlo Esposito).It's worth noting that Mike doesn't yet know who Gus Fring is— or that he's a drug lord. For all Mike knows the restaurant is simply a place where the bag man makes a handoff. Though his radio tracker shows him the bag isn't moving, so Mike reasonably knows that someone in the restaurant is high up in hierarchy of this mysterious drug gang.
