BWW Recap: It's History Time on BETTER CALL SAUL

Until now, we've only been given teeny tiny, itty bitty glimpses into the complicated, troubled past that belongs to one Mike Ehrmantraut. We know he used to be a cop in Philadelphia, and we know that he now works as a parking attendant, but that's about it. Every good BREAKING BAD fan knows that a lot happens between the end of last week's episode (remember, when all those cops came knocking at his door) and when we meet him as Saul's right-hand-man in Albuquerque. Tonight, we finally start filling in those blanks.

Before we get into that, though, I want to get all film nerdy on you all for a minute and mention the beautiful opening sequence. The first image of the train tracks fading into the background and the next steadycam shot of the train pulling into the station are the images that separate BETTER CALL SAUL from most other shows on television. They're stylistic: you know instantly what show you're watching, and you can't help but be intrigued. The train itself is also symbolic. New station, new destination, new beginnings.

But enough about the train scene. Let's get back to Mike.

He arrives at the train station and who does he meet there but the lady that we saw him drive by in last week's episode! Last week, I thought that she may be his daughter, but it's immediately clear that that's not the case: she's ever so slightly awkward with him - and she calls him Mike. We learn that she is his daughter-in-law: she was married to Mike's son, Matt, before he died.

Before they head back to his daughter-in-law's apartment, Mike makes a pit stop in the bathroom and does what any MacGyver would do: uses a...ehm...feminine hygiene product...as a gauze pad to tend to the bullet wound - that's right, bullet wound - in his shoulder.

Soon, though, he does make his way back to his daughter-in-law's house, and I start having unbelieveably sad BREAKING BAD flashbacks when Mike plays with his granddaughter on the swings. Good thing him and his daughter-in-law start their heart-to-heart right about now, because if playtime went on any longer, there probably would've been tears.

Mike says that he'll be in the area for a while, that he wants to be with his family, and that he's better now - he's a recovering alcoholic. His daughter-in-law has no patience for chit chat, though: she gets right down to brass taxes. She explains that for a few weeks before his death, Matt was acting weird. One day, a few days before he died, Matt got a strange phone call at 2 in the morning. The call got heated, and his wife has a feeling he was speaking to Mike. Mike encourages her to let it go and to forgive herself, that there's nothing more she could've done. Our friend Ehrmantraut's being very very sneaky, between that clearly made up story and his secret bullet wound...

And then, in true Ehrmantraut fashion, he heads to the world's sketchiest veterinarian to get his shoulder stitched up.

Enter Jimmy McGill. "So what happened? Mayor didn't give you enough stickers?"

Jimmy's sass level reaches a new high in this episode, and it's great. But Jimmy's not in the room for two seconds before Mike takes over and starts coaching him. Jimmy's not really feelin' the whole "spill the coffee onto the cop" plan, so he goes the classic questioning lawyer route. Fortunately for him - and for us - he gets some answers out of the officers.

We learn that Matt, along with Mike, was a member of the Philadelphia Police Department. He was killed in an ambush, but both of his partners got out alive. The detectives investigated every lead they had to try and find out who murdered Matt, but they kept coming up empty handed. A few months later, both partners turned up dead, too, and the detectives began to think that they were mixed up in some sketchy, underhanded dealings that Matt got dragged into unintentionally. Mike says that he saw Matt's partners at a bar the night they died, but that he had no idea what happened to them after he left.

Fortunately for Mike, Jimmy caught on to the fact that Mike knows more than he's saying, and he actually goes through with Mike's spilling coffee plan! Jimmy pulled it off, and Mike got out with the detective's notebook, just as he planned.

As he's flipping through the notebook, he realizes something: his daughter-in-law is the one who called the Philadelphia Police Department detectives that are now questioning him. Confused and a little bit angry, he goes to her house in the middle of the night for some answers. She explains that she called the detectives because shortly after moving to New Mexico, she found thousands of dollars in cash tucked into the lining of one of their suitcases. Matt didn't make much money, so she knew something deceitful was going on. She demands that Mike tell her the truth about the phone call that night, and for the first time, Mike gets - dare I say it - emotional.

He insists that Matt wasn't a dirty cop, and we learn what exactly went down the night that Mike saw Matt's partners in the bar. Mike drunkenly told Matt's partners that he knows the truth about what happened to Matt: they killed him and staged it to look like a murder. The partners couldn't risk Mike ratting them out, so they took him to a deserted bridge to kill him. Obviously, Mike wasn't going to let that happen. He pulled out his gun and shot both of the partners, but not before getting shot in the shoulder himself (mystery solved).

And now, the tears. (Both Mike's...and mine.)

He was on the phone with Matt that night. He feels terrible that he broke Matt's heart by revealing that he was as dirty as everyone else: you either went along with the schemes and kept quiet, or you ratted them out and ended up in prison next to people you were responsible for locking up. He feels responsible for Matt's death. He convinced Matt to take the money to protect himself and his family. Matt hesitated, though, when he went to collect his cut, and his partners felt that they couldn't trust him. A few days later, Matt was killed.

He knows he's the reason that Matt died. He was trying to protect his son, but he made Matt just like him, and Matt ended up getting murdered anyway. Mike is compeltely, absolutely devastated.

His daughter-in-law puts two and two together and realizes that Mike is the one who killed the partners. Now it's time to see if she can handle living with this information.

What did you think of tonight's episode? Did your heart break as much as mine did when the rock-solid Ehrmantraut started to break down? Let us know in the comments below and on Twitter @CourtHenley.

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