Is There Life After Despair? Bryan Cranston’s Character Confronts That Question in Season 2 of YOUR HONOR

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede “Why won’t you people just let me die in peace?” When Bryan Cranston’s character, Michael Desiato, speaks those words in the opening episode of Season 2 of YOUR HONOR, which returns Friday, Jan. 13 on Crave, he means them. As anyone who saw Season 1 knows, Michael has experienced incalculable loss and pain. But fate – particularly in the form of Assistant U.S. Attorney Olivia Delmont, played by Rosie Perez – has a different plan for Michael, a former New Orleans judge who lost everything in a well-intentioned but misguided effort to protect his son. “(Michael) set everything aside and became someone he was not, and he lost himself, so he spiraled down to less than zero,” said Cranston in a virtual panel interview. “And it then occurred to me, if we end it there (at the end of Season 1), it’s certainly understandable. The man is dead in so many ways. But is there life after despair? Is there any sensibility of life after grief?” The mere fact that there’s a Season 2 of YOUR HONOR suggests the answers to those questions are at least in flux. “That sort of intrigued me, and I wanted to explore that in an honest way, to be able to say there can be a reconstruction of a human being if that person follows certain kinds of human protocols to get back in touch with their humanity,” Cranston continued. “And that’s kind of what happens here. So as Season 1 was spiraling downward for this character, Season 2 has a very slow spiral upward, for lack of a better description, and it actually made me feel better about human beings and the complexity that we hold.” Picking up in the aftermath of the accidental killing of Michael’s son Adam (Hunter Doohan), a grieving Michael is incarcerated and beyond hope as Season 2 begins. Having fled the crime scene, Eugene (Benjamin Flores Jr.) finds himself caught in the cutthroat relationships between criminal kingpin Jimmy Baxter (Michael Stuhlbarg) and his cold-blooded wife Gina (Hope Davis), Big Mo (Andrene Ward-Hammond), politician Charlie Figaro (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), and the police. And shaking it all up even further is the arrival in New Orleans of Perez’s Olivia Delmont. “Rosie (Perez) adds a slice of life that we haven’t had in the first season, because she doesn’t have the history or baggage of anything inferred in Season 1,” Cranston said. “So she’s allowed to have an objective point of view coming in, that kind of skewers things in a way, certainly with me. We don’t necessarily see eye to eye on things.” A big part of the allure of Season 1 was watching a character who is as smart and measured as Michael get further and further compromised, to the point that viewers felt almost claustrophobic as the walls closed in on him, and tragedy followed tragedy. Showrunner and executive producer Joey Hartstone was asked if viewers can expect to feel that same claustrophobia in Season 2, or is the show aiming for a different vibe? “I think you will sense that (claustrophobia) in some of the characters,” Hartstone said. “What’s hopefully really interesting about Season 2, or one of the aspects, is that it’s a continuation from Season 1, but it’s not a reset and a redo. Specifically, when you look at Michael, the way that he thinks mentally and the way that he’s quick on his feet (early in Season 1), he has atrophied because of what he has experienced. So, expect to see the characters that you know, but because they all endured such trauma in Season 1, it has impacted who they are.” Cranston was asked why, in a more general sense, viewers tend to be fascinated by watching men – powerful or otherwise – make horrible decisions. “I think it’s because it’s so prevalent,” Cranston said, prompting laughter. “I think it is, though. It’s a generalization, but the testosterone that pumps through a man’s body makes him do stupid things. We’ve known that forever. Part of that is ego and thinking, ‘I can do this, I can control it, watch me.’ And that invariably gets men into trouble.” billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv