WARNING: This article contains minor spoilers for Better Call Saul season 6, episode 10.The newest episode of Better Call Saul, titled "Nippy," introduced a new actor in the role of Jeff the cab driver. Don Harvey had previously been cast in the role of the mysterious cabbie, briefly appearing in the first episode of season 4 where he can be seen recognizing Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) through his rearview mirror. That episode aired in 2018. Harvey reprised the role in 2020 for the season 5 opener where Jeff confronts Jimmy at the mall, making it clear that he knows "Gene" is in actuality Saul Goodman.
Monday night's episode finally brought back Jeff to provide resolution to what the previous two seasons had been building up to. Some viewers may have been left confused as the character was now played by Pat Healy. Providing some context about the character's recasting, series co-creator and showrunner Peter Gould spoke about the situation on the new edition of the Better Call Saul Insider Podcast.
During the chat, it was confirmed that this all came down to an unfortunate scheduling conflict. The Better Call Saul team had wanted Harvey to return, but when it came time to shoot season 6, the actor had been secured by HBO for a role in the series We Own This City. Because of his contract, Harvey was unavailable to return as Jeff, putting the writers in a difficult position. The solution was to go back to the audition tapes and that's when they saw a new vision for Jeff with Healy in the role.
"That is correct, and we were very sad. We did not know what to do. Then our brilliant casting folks said, 'Why don't we take a look at the original auditions for this role?' And there was Pat. It would have been a different string of episodes with Don. I think Pat is fantastic. I love what Pat does with this role."
Gould went on to explain how perhaps this was bound to happen eventually, feeling they've just been very fortunate in the past with getting certain actors to return. Asking an actor to stay committed to the series for the span of four years, especially for a character with such limited appearances, might have been the moment when they pushed their luck too far.
"In the past, we've been lucky on this. We've done this many times, where we've had actors who we wanted back on different seasons that we didn't know. I mean, Mel Rodriguez (Saul's old pal Marco) certainly came back three times, and we didn't know. We've been very, very lucky. This time, we maybe pressed our luck by asking for four years, I don't know what it was, a four-year span. And Pat, we're just damn lucky that Pat Healy was available to us, and he came running off of a Martin Scorsese movie to Albuquerque. So, we're just so damn lucky to have you, Pat, and I love your character."
Pat Healy Is the New Jeff in Better Call Saul
Pat Healy has drawn some praise for putting a spin on Jeff that worked out well within the context of the "Nippy" episode. With that said, there have been some fans who've expressed that the casting change was jarring. For his part, Peter Gould praised Don Harvey as an actor but pointed out how the character had been featured in such a limited capacity in previous episodes, so he hoped that viewers would quickly accept the change and enjoy the show.
"To be fair, Don is also a great actor, but also to be fair to us, he really only had one speaking scene. So, hopefully, the audience will roll with it."
There are just three episodes left of Better Call Saul, and they arrive on Mondays on AMC and AMC+. You can get more of the inside scoop about the latest episode from the Better Call Saul Insider Podcast.