On July 4, the United States of America will turn 250 years old. To celebrate, one of TV’s great patriots has come out of retirement to bless us with new content: Bob Odenkirk once again donned the garishly colorful garb of attorney-at-law Saul Goodman, supporting player in Breaking Bad and the full-blown antihero of his own spin-off, Better Call Saul, which is arguably even better than the progenitor show.
The new video, titled “Know Your Rights,” was uploaded by Better Call Saul co-creator Peter Gould to a YouTube channel called Saul4Democracy, per Variety. It’s set in Saul’s old office, where the walls are papered with the text of the U.S. Constitution. “Hi, I’m Saul Goodman. Did you know you have rights? Well, you do,” Odenkirk says. “Sure, they’re old timey. They were written by a bunch of guys in powdered wigs and knee socks. Boring! But believe it or not, they’re still surprisingly relevant.”
Your rights include, but are not limited to, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, freedom against unreasonable searches and seizures, et cetera, et cetera. Wow, you lucky so-and-so. Look at you, you got rights coming out the wazoo, all because a whole bunch of good people, 250 years’ worth, sacrificed everything they had for this awesome wallpaper behind me.
Odenkirk wraps up with a plea: “Know your rights, and for the love of Mike, don’t ever give ’em up.” We then get a cameo appearance from Jonathan Banks as fixer Mike Ehrmantraut, still speaking in his dead-eyed, deadpan delivery: “I’m Mike, and I approve this message.”
Gould confirmed on the social media site Bluesky that this is “not AI.” So either they really reconstructed Saul’s office, or Odenkirk is in front of a green screen. Either way, the effort is appreciated.
The commercial plays like something Saul Goodman would have actually produced, and comes with a timely message. Just recently, President Donald Trump celebrated the 250th birthday of the United States with the UFC Freedom 250 event, a series of UFC fights on the White House lawn. Although that was purportedly about America’s birthday, the event actually took place on June 14, which is Trump’s birthday. The president has sometimes struggled to respect all the rights guaranteed in the Constitution — for instance, he’s challenged the freedom of the press by attempting to punish networks that offend him — so it’s good to be reminded of our rights, even if Saul himself was morally flexible at the best of times.
Better Call Saul ended in 2022, with Odenkirk moving on to other projects like the Nobody action franchise. He’s sounded hesitant about the possibility of returning to play Saul again, at least in a proper TV show. Clearly he’s willing to bend a bit for YouTube videos.
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2015 – 2022-00-00
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AMC
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
