The second season of AMC’s Better Call Saul ended on a cliffhanger that had fans salivating: Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) receiving an anonymous note consisting only of the word “Don’t.” Given the twist’s positioning to close out the season—and the fact that the letter writer had knowledge of and reason to intervene in a plot to kill cartel boss Hector Salamanca (Mark Margolis)—perceptive viewers could only come to one conclusion: Gus Fring, Giancarlo Esposito’s memorable Breaking Bad antagonist, was the man behind the letter.
The theory was only bolstered—perhaps even confirmed—when fans dug out an anagram hidden in the Better Call Saul Season 2 episode titles. (Using the first letter of each, “Fring’s Back” could be spelled out.) Creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould admitted this was intentional before vaguely adding that “just because Fring’s back—technically speaking, if not literally—it doesn’t mean that folks should assume that they’ll see him at the beginning of Season 3.” Now, AMC is playing coy, too. Ahead of Season 3’s debut, the network launched a “commercial” for Los Pollos Hermanos—the fast-food chain and drug front owned by Fring—complete with the perfectly cheesy tagline “Taste the family!” and a very corny Fring cameo.
Like the many other teases, this new video doesn’t end the debate over whether Fring will (physically) appear in Better Call Saul Season 3. And as to the show’s quality, it wouldn’t even really matter: Saul established itself as an independently great drama in Season 2, a worthy (perhaps even superior) successor to Breaking Bad. But this new video is quite deliberately fanning the flames of speculation—and the prospect of the great Esposito back in Albuquerque, facing off against the likes of Banks and Bob Odenkirk, is just too irresistible to ignore.
Better Call Saul is set to return sometime in spring 2017.
*Update, Jan. 11, 2017: Looks like we have even more reason to believe that Gus Fring will be coming back now:
