‘Lucky Hank’ Trailer Sees Bob Odenkirk Play a Bitter English Professor!! Check It Out!!

Even though he officially hung up the colorful suits of our favorite criminal lawyer last year with the end of Better Call Saul, it wasn’t long before the series lead Bob Odenkirk was announced to be returning to AMC for an all-new series known as Lucky Hank. After months of short teasers and images, the eight-episode midlife crisis tale now has an official full-length trailer that introduces us to the abrasive and angry personality of Odenkirk‘s William Henry Devereaux Jr. and the drama that kind of person brings to a college campus, especially as the head of the English department. The series is set to debut on March 19, 2023.

Lucky Hank is based on the 1997 novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Russo titled Straight Man. Originally sharing the “Straight Man” title with its source material, the series received its new name in early January 2023. The story of both the series and novel follows William Henry Devereaux Jr. (Odenkirk), the unlikely interim chairman of the English department of the extremely underfunded Railton College found in the rust belt of Pennsylvania. As Devereaux finds himself in the middle of a midlife crisis, he must do everything in his power to keep the struggling school afloat. The other talented individuals joining Odenkirk on this ensemble cast include Emmy-nominated Mireille Enos (The Killing), Oscar Nunez (The Office), Tom Bower (Die Hard 2), Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks), Chris Diamantopoulos (Silicon Valley), Diedrich Bader (Space Force), Olivia Scott Welch (Fear Street), Sara Amini (CSI: Vegas), Cedric Yarbrough (Reno 911!), Suzanne Cryer (Silicon Valley), Alvina August, Shannon DeVido, Lilah Fitzgerald, Jackson Kelly, and Arthur Keng, among others.

The new trailer has one main goal: to show us how much Devereaux Jr. can mess up his own life. Opening with him confronting a student at a meeting and calling the whole school “mediocrity’s capital.” When the audio of his disparaging the school is released, it sets off a series of events that are made even worse as they class with his miserable personality. From problems at home to problems at work to even deciding to box a goose at a park, it isn’t until near the end of the trailer were all of this is summed up fairly succinctly: “That man is chair of the English department?”

Lucky Hank Premiere and Odenkirk’s AMC History

Lucky Hank will debut across four of its linear networks with BBC AMERICA, IFC and SundanceTV joining AMC and AMC+ for a multi-network premiere event on Sunday, March 19 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT. This will take place just a week following the series’ official world premiere at South By Southwest (SXSW) 2023 in Austin on Saturday, March 11. With Odenkirk starring in this series, it will be the third time he is performing in a series for AMC, with the other two being his Emmy-nominated portrayal of everyone’s favorite slippery lawyer Saul Goodman in both Breaking Bad and its prequel series, the aforementioned Better Call Saul. Aaron Zelman (Silicon Valley, The Killing) and Paul Lieberstein (The Office, The Newsroom), will serve as the series showrunners and will also act as directors along with Odenkirk and Peter Farrelly (Green Book). The novel’s original author Russo is serving as an executive producer. Other executive producers on the series include Zelman, Lieberstein, Odenkirk, Farrelly, Mark Johnson (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire) Naomi Odenkirk, and Marc Provissiero (PEN15). The series is produced by AMC Studios with partners Sony Pictures’ Television TriStar TV and Johnson’s Gran Via.