WhenYour Honorpremiered in 2020, the Showtime drama didn’t win over critics. It landed at 50% on Rotten Tomatoes (now 49%), with many reviews dismissing it as overly dramatic and thinly plotted. It never reached the prestige tier of TV’s golden age thrillers.
However, four years later,Your Honoris streaming on Netflix, making it more widely available. With a more favorable 67% audience score, it’s finding new life among viewers who missed it the first time, especially those looking for something intense and character-driven.
For fans ofBryan Cranston’s best movies and TV shows,this isn’t a return toBreaking Badbrilliance, but it is another compelling performancein a role built on tension, compromise, and emotional fallout. That alone makes it a solid watch.
Your Honor Is Another Great Bryan Cranston Show
Cranston’s Performance Is the Real Draw
Even whenYour Honorstumbles,Bryan Cranston never phones it in. As New Orleans judge Michael Desiato, Cranston plays a man whose morality slowly fractures under impossible pressure, and his performance is the main reason the series works at all.
It’s not subtle, but that’s the point. Cranston brings a kind of performative guilt to the role. It’s not unlike Walter White inBreaking Bad, but less calculated and more desperate. He makes Desiato’s panic believable, especially in moments that hinge on silence or restraint.
The writing can feel over-plotted, especially in season 1, butCranston’s presence anchors the chaos. Even critics who were mixed on the series praised his commitment. AsThe Guardianwrote in its 2021 review: “Cranston, of course, brings to this weaker material all the talent, subtlety and commitment he brought to Walter White.”
Adam Desiato
Wednesday,Truth Be Told
The result isn’t a flawless drama, but it’s a strong showcase for an actor still finding new layers in morally compromised men. It’s no surprise thatYour Honorwas one ofGoogle’s top trending shows in 2024.
No show will ever fully replaceBreaking Bad, andYour Honordoesn’t try to. Butwhat it does offer is a similar emotional calculus:a well-meaning man doing the wrong things for the people he loves, and unraveling because of it.
Your Honorwas originally announced as a limited series but was renewed for a second season after becoming one of Showtime’s most-watched debuts.
Your HonormirrorsBreaking Bad’s structurein its exploration of a moral spiral. Both shows start with a lie, then descend into a moral sinkhole that can’t be refilled. Unlike Walter White, Michael Desiato has no intentions of building an empire, but he’s still covering up a crime, making ethically corrosive choices, and pulling his family deeper into danger.
What especially makesYour Honora solid follow-up toBreaking Badfans is its pacing and dread. Michael is just a father terrified of what will happen to his son; he’s not a criminal mastermind like Walt. The stakes are intimate, the tension constant, and the character arcs convincingly bleak.
It’s a pulpy, emotional ride anchored by a genuinely gripping lead performance.
If you’re chasing the next all-time crime saga, this isn’t it. But for fans of slow-burning tension and ethically messy characters,Your Honoroffers plenty to dig into. It’s a pulpy, emotional ride anchored by a genuinely gripping lead performance, and now that both seasons are streaming, it’s never been easier to give it a shot.
