100 Favorite Shows: #21 — Better Call Saul
“Saul Goodman, speedy justice for you.”
After the early success of AMC’s Breaking Bad, creator Vince Gilligan and producer Peter Gould felt that there was potential in a spin-off for one of the series’ characters. The idea of producing a spin-off for one of the most successful prestige dramas in television history was a daunting one, but the combined talents of Gilligan and Gould should never have been in doubt. Following the persuasion of Bob Odenkirk that Saul Goodman, the crooked lawyer in the cartel, was a fan-favorite character with an interesting backstory to explore, Better Call Saul launched in February 2015. Initially conceived as a “case of the week” legal comedy, Better Call Saul instead developed an ongoing, serialized narrative with rich character development and some of the most impeccable creative prowess on television. Returning with Odenkirk were Jonathan Banks (as enforcer Mike Ehrmantraut) and, eventually, Giancarlo Esposito (as boss Gus Fring). But the heart has resided in the series’ new characters, like the masterful Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) and the restrained Nacho Varga (Michael Mando). Five seasons in, Better Call Saul has cemented its position as one of the television’s best ever dramas and — with one more arc forthcoming — a superior successor to the original show.
(This essay features spoilers for Better Call Saul and its predecessor, Breaking Bad. Better check out now, if you’re spoiler-averse.)
Every season of Better Call Saul begins with a black-and-white, noir sequence that takes place in a post-Saul (and a post-Breaking Bad) reality, in which Saul Goodman (originally named Jimmy McGill on Saul) takes on the name of Gene Takavic, a man who works in Omaha as a Cinnabon franchise manager. We’re seeing a reality far-removed from the story at hand in Better Call Saul because the prequel element leaves Jimmy’s fate evident to us all. Yet, we’re not sure what happens to Gene when he collapses at the bottom of Slippin’ Jimmy’s slippery slope. (Slippin’ Jimmy is the original nickname for Jimmy McGill and his grifting, get-rich-quick schemes.)
We’ve seen five Gene sequences to date and they reveal precious little about the fates of any character, aside from Jimmy himself. While the fates of Mike and Gus are set from the arc of Breaking Bad, we know nothing about Kim and Nacho while we spend time in Omaha — all we know is that they’re not there with Jimmy.
The most recent Gene Takavic vignette spanned thirteen minutes (the longest stretch yet) of the season five premiere, “Magic Man,” and it maintained the core ethos behind the segments. Saul itself is riddled with rich character development and all-encompassing thematic territory. The Gene sequences eschew larger importance for a more story-oriented identity mystery. Yes, they dabble in themes of agency, paranoia, and Goodfellas-esque consequences of boredom after a free-wheeling life of crime. For the most part, though, each Gene sequence is a thrilling composition of what happens next. In a series so rooted in prequel territory, it’s a welcome reprieve of high stakes and tension (especially when Gene gets made and reluctantly phones Ed (Robert Forster), a disappearer in Albuquerque) because of how expertly handled they are.
After all, I’ve long been an advocate that Saul should make the leap to become the “Gene” show because of how eager I am to spend more time in that realm than doled out segments once every year and a half. But Gould and Gilligan have long since proven that they know better than I do. Of course, the one thing holding me back from yearning for more Gene at the Cinnabon is the fact that I don’t feel secure that Kim Wexler and Nacho Varga would join us. They just happen to be characters I love watching — even more than Mike and Gus at this point. I’m not willing to sacrifice them to see more Gene Takavic. Not yet.
From the very first Gene detour in the Saul pilot, “Uno,” it was clear that we were in good hands. Admittedly, I harbored doubt that Saul would be a worthwhile endeavor after the conclusion of Breaking Bad, which I felt to be a masterwork. Not only do prequels rarely justify their own existence (Fantastic Beasts, Star Wars, and The Hobbit have all experienced varying degrees of quality), but Saul Goodman was essentially the comic relief of Breaking Bad. He was the weathered creation of comedic genius Odenkirk, who presented the character as a smooth talker with a joke in his holster at all times.
“Only two things I know about Albuquerque,” Jimmy remarks in season one’s “Nacho” episode. “Bugs Bunny should’ve taken a left turn there and give me a hundred tries, I’ll never be able to spell it.” Even on Better Call Saul, he was still a wise-cracker with a penchant for idioms, billboards, and a comparison of Hamlin Hamlin McGill (his antagonistic law firm) to Scrooge and Marley. Yet, within just a few minutes of a broken down Gene Takavic begrudgingly rolling dough, it was clear that the character had transcended comic relief. The highly skilled creators of the spin-off established a pathos-infused journey for Jimmy to embark on to become Saul and, later, Gene. We were going to see how his Looney Tunes references were eventually replaced with a reluctance to speak at all.
How could we have ever doubted the creative and production teams on Better Call Saul? All that time spent filming in the Sun Belt allowed the crew to perfect every technique and every story beat strategy they learned while working on Breaking Bad. It’s technical perfection in a prestige era where some series are more ambitious and some are more fantastical. But Better Call Saul is just a human drama at the highest level, a promise of excellence fulfilled in every turn of the series.
Methodology and process are painstakingly depicted to provide every emotional climax with the necessary context to make it feel earned. Every grimace and blank stare are perfectly within character to imbue the series with subtle subtext of characters who either like or dislike the paths they’re embarking upon. (Even Gus Fring, who has little storytelling range for Esposito to flex his villainous acting muscles, is still capable of showing so much when switching from a genial smile to a foreboding frown in an instant; the acting is top notch throughout to the point where it seems effortless, especially for Giancarlo Esposito.) Better Call Saul is subtler, more thorough, and more invested in the emotional bonds of the characters, rather than establishing the climactic action crescendos that came to define Breaking Bad.
What elevates Saul above Breaking Bad, for me, are these exact elements. The downfall of Jimmy McGill is depicted like a modern day Shakespearean tragedy. After all, when audiences would pack the Globe to witness a tragedy, they knew what horrors befell the hero of stories like Hamlet or Macbeth. For Better Call Saul, we already know that tragedy is waiting for Jimmy McGill, so the development to arrive at that point and touch on the nuances of a modern society wind up being the point of the series, rather than the nitty gritty plot details. It’s all emotion; it’s all character!
Yet, even though we know the end of Jimmy McGill’s character arc, the Saul team still managed to inject the series with plenty of suspense. After all, we don’t know what happens to Gene. More significantly, we don’t know what happens to Kim. There’s still a chance for us to root for a happy ending in the Omaha noir side of the series, an element Shakespearean tragedies never investigated before. In the wall-to-wall development of Kim Wexler as a noble hero for audiences to fall for, the prequel elements of Better Call Saul wound up being the show’s greatest strength and never something that held it back from reaching the heights of Breaking Bad (even if such expectations are inherently unfair).
Somehow, though, even as Saul topped Breaking Bad from a character and storytelling perspective, in my opinion, it’s also managed to enhance the cinematography (orchestrated by Marshall Adams, Arthur Albert, and Michael Slovis) and visuals of the original series, which was often considered the most arresting and stunning show in television history. On Saul, the increased, honed skill set of the show’s production staff illustrated the ability to find beauty in every shot. The opening chords of the series’ theme often play over an inherently uncinematic object (coffee grounds, a corny bench advertisement), but there’s also a number of stunning shots throughout the series.
Occasionally, Vince Gilligan enters into the series’ director chair, just to prove that he can still flex on the rest of television. But many of the best shots come in non-Gilligan helmed episodes, including a bullet hole in a thermos, a dripping drain pipe, and a crackling exit sign. While every episode promised a number of moments that would fit in on the One Perfect Shot Twitter account, there were also multiple sequences that were framed as slick as any montage from Breaking Bad, but were actually about activity that was vastly more mundane than cooking meth.
Legal wrestling to obtain Mesa Verde as a client, early law stories underscored by montages of doc review sessions. There’s even a tense moment in season three’s “Chicanery” that sees Jimmy and Kim strutting into the courtroom with the reading of the case taking the place of a hype-inducing song. Better Call Saul was always comfortable to devote hours to the details, just like lawyers, who are often presented with dense files and hundreds of pages of court review information.
This emphasis on maintaining an interest in the machinations of a courtroom (or a tollbooth, in the case of Mike’s early subplots) over a meth lab was an obvious subversion of what Breaking Bad fans yearned for after Walter White’s story came to an end. (Sadly, some fans never returned to Saul, even when the drug side of the series’ shadow crept in closer over the narrative.) But there was a subverting of expectations throughout the series. The fact that Saul was named Jimmy McGill at the beginning was one, but the dynamic nature of Saul applied to all characters. Jimmy’s brother, Chuck (Michael McKean), was not a supportive role model for Jimmy to emulate; he was an enemy to be dismantled. Chuck’s partner, Howard (Patrick Fabian), was not a repressive force against Jimmy’s ambition; he was a reluctant pawn in Chuck’s maneuvering of power against his brother. Kim Wexler was not a law-abiding paragon of virtue; she was prone to a slope into unsavory tactics — just like Jimmy. No character was exactly what we expected them to be when Better Call Saul began and seemed to establish archetypes abound.
The character of Chuck McGill is one that’s easy to forget as the legal/Jimmy side of Saul blends with the crime/Mike side, but the brotherly relationship between Jimmy and Chuck remains the heart of the series to date. It’s hard not to view Jimmy’s behavior and choices as a lawyer as the product of his perpetual put downs from Chuck. His own brother, an accomplished law firm partner, didn’t believe in Jimmy’s abilities and felt better about himself when Jimmy was struggling to become at least moderately successful. After Chuck’s demoralizing death by lantern at the end of season three, a streak of ambition and effort snaps within Jimmy. He’ll never be able to prove himself as a worthy lawyer and a worthy brother to Chuck once Chuck dies, so Jimmy just about stops trying.
The seminal turning point in their fraught relationship (siblings can irk each other like no one else knows how) occurs in the aforementioned “Chicanery” episode. The installment begins with a flashback when Chuck first began to struggle with EHS (electromagnetic hypersensitivity), an unproven (and thought to be psychosomatic) disease that prompts Chuck to feel sick when he’s surrounded by electricity. (Early episodes of Saul possess Chuck wrapped in a space blanket as a hallmark.) In the flashback, Chuck does his best to hide his condition from his then-wife, Rebecca (Ann Cusack), while Jimmy pleads with him to be open with her.
This scene demonstrates how much Jimmy truly cared for Chuck and didn’t want him to lose the most important person in his life, the woman who made him truly happy. Chuck’s unwillingness to appear weak posits him as just as much a tragic character as Jimmy, even when he’s intent to break his brother’s spirit. It comes from his tortured, poisoned mind and his refusal to seek help from his loved ones is what eventually severs all that Chuck cared about.
When “Chicanery” returns to the present, we see Chuck and Jimmy waged in legal battle against one another, as Chuck seeks to disbar Jimmy (using a phony excuse of nepotism as a reason for blocking Jimmy from joining Hamlin Hamlin McGill) and Jimmy aims to go scorched earth on Chuck’s reputation, seeing no other recourse. The only way for him to become a lawyer again is to ensure Chuck’s demise in an act of survival of the fittest. But Chuck is clearly not fit to compete.
For Chuck, the law is sacred. His operations in the trial against Jimmy’s licensure status are entirely traditional, as Chuck believes the way to win and see Jimmy punished is to take the high road and play as the book dictates. His tactics are unconventional and his vocabulary is lofty (the use of “chicanery” alone is a signal of Chuck’s belief that rhetoric and reasoning will carry him to victory), but he’s no match for Jimmy, who is comfortable playing dirty to the court proceedings into a “gotcha” case.
The dynamic between Jimmy and Chuck is reminiscent of modern DNC tactics, as Democratic leaders believe that appeals to logos and ethos are all they need to defeat the GOP, whereas the Republicans are much more content to scheme, cheat, and play catch with some mud. One plays by the rules and the other doesn’t, just like Chuck and Jimmy. And as Jimmy brings Rebecca into the courtroom to rattle Chuck (and calls upon pickpocket Huell (Lavell Crawford in a perfectly executed bit of Breaking Bad fan service) to plant an electromagnetic battery on Chuck’s person without his knowing), he wins instantly, as Chuck snaps and rants and raves about Jimmy’s lack of “qualifications.” But at that point, it doesn’t matter. He’s licked — all because Jimmy made an exhausted white flag out of the rule book.
As the entire courtroom looks on Chuck with pity, believing him to be a lost cause and a lunatic, though, it is not a triumphant moment. McKean plays the look of resigned horror on Chuck’s face expertly as his playbook has no Plan B for when he loses to Jimmy. He can do nothing but sputter and stammer on the stand and it hurts Jimmy, who derives no satisfaction from his brother’s collapse. It’s not a seam-splitting revelation akin to the less-serialized Perry Mason and it’s not a rousing climax like A Few Good Men. It’s just the tragic, permanent fraying of a brotherhood.
The eventual loss of Chuck leads to the loss of Jimmy. After all, Chuck’s not exactly wrong about how Jimmy treats the law like it’s a plaything. He just didn’t realize that he was consistently pushing Jimmy closer and closer to the sleazy, jazzy, fortune-telling pitchman that we see in “Magic Man.” He’s no longer looking over his shoulder or trying to impress Chuck. By season five, he’s doing what he’s best at: marketing himself and running promotional discounts for criminals who need representation. Any pretense of helping people who need it is gone from Jimmy. His slippery tendencies excel best under the guise of Saul Goodman. Fire up the finger guns — it’s all good, man.
That’s one of the most tragic elements of Jimmy’s downfall: that he thinks being a “friend of the cartel” is the only way he can be of use in his profession. It’s slightly pathetic to watch Jimmy make a plea to Kim that “Saul Goodman” is the natural conclusion of his legal career, wheeling and dealing to conjure up convincing arguments. (The clear enunciation of every word in the argument is a testament to how effortlessly Odenkirk seems to slip into the character by this point.)
In this sequence from “Magic Man,” Jimmy begins his claim that Saul Goodman is his destiny by embodying the classic quick thinking of his personality when he substitutes the initials (JMM) on his new briefcase (a gift from Kim) from representing his name to standing for “Justice Matters Most.” Throughout, it feels like the minutiae of the scene says so much about the growing divide and confusion between Jimmy and Kim (she’s baffled by the idea of a Saul Goodman persona, but still makes time to request one scoop of ice cream with sprinkles on top) because Better Call Saul’s immaculate craft implies subtext in every twitch, every word.
Ultimately, what bothers Kim the most is that she knows Jimmy has finally resigned himself (after all the hard work he endured to become reinstated as a lawyer) to taking the easy way out. Jimmy once told Chuck that the bigger the lie he concocts, “the harder it can be to dig out.” Eschewing his own advice, he decides to lean into the lying and scheming side of the legal profession. By season five, he’s too deeply entwined with his crooked persona to dig himself to nobility. Bootstraps have never existed in this universe, after all.
While Jimmy’s eventual acceptance that he’s more talented at being Saul than at being Jimmy proves to be an irreversible pivot towards converging the Saul story with the Breaking Bad story, it was merely the sprinkles on top of the bowl of ice cream that was being scooped ever since Jimmy decided to dismantle Chuck. Even halfway through season four, in the episode, “Quite a Ride,” we see the two shows colliding with one another, as episode scribe Ann Cherkis dropped us directly into a Breaking Bad-era moment. Showing the Saul side of “Ozymandias,” “Quite a Ride” flashes forward to Jimmy and his assistant, Francesca (Tina Parker), shredding documents and preparing to skip town.
“Tell ’em Jimmy sent you,” he suggests to Francesca after handing her a business card (frustratingly keeping the pronoun vague enough to not reveal what becomes of Kim) and leaving the office. By this point, Saul was rubbing up right against the Breaking Bad narrative to the point where it seemed like, at any moment, the time could skip and Jimmy could be out in the desert with Walt and Jesse once again.
Since this installment, the Superlab has received a great deal of attention, Hank (Dean Norris) and Gomey (Steven Michael Quezada) have turned up, and Mike and Jimmy have seen their narratives re-cross once again, with Nacho in tow, too. (Jimmy and Nacho spent seasons apart from interacting with one another.) We’ve basically arrived at the jump, but the creative staff repeatedly shows their restraint at relinquishing of the Saul timeline, especially since it no longer requires Breaking Bad to be required viewing itself.
That being said, the sides of Saul that are closer to the cartel and meth-cooking elements of Breaking Bad have grown exponentially more compelling than they were in the first three seasons of the spin-off. By now, Nacho is a favorite character of mine because he comes across similarly to a quieter version of Jesse Pinkman. Like Jesse, his intelligence and resourcefulness are both underrated (Nacho’s grease trap in “Something Unforgivable” is absurdly clever), but he’s also an ambitious young enforcer who wants more than to be stuck in a crime syndicate run by other, more ruthless bosses.
Repeatedly, Nacho is told to shut up, do what he’s told, and stop worrying about his actions, but Nacho also makes numerous plays to present himself as a man who can’t be kicked around as an obedient underling. Through every unblinking stare, lip bite, and neck twinge, Mando’s performance reveals the interior yearning of Nacho Varga, a man biding his time in an effort to gain more of it for himself.
Part of what’s motivating Nacho is also the desire to protect his father, Manuel (Juan Carlos Cantu), from the obvious depravity of the multiplying Salamanca gang. These streaks of humanity define Macho above his status as a glorified cartel consigliere and they’re qualities recognized by Mike when he aims to advocate for Nacho against the ceaseless grip Gus has on him.
Mike is never afraid to stand up to the series’ more terrifying characters, as he refuses to be intimidated by Gus, a man demanding demure loyalty from Mike on occasion when his skills and expertise are not immediately required. When Mike sees a potential way forward to free Nacho and his father from the cruel clutches of an unforgiving side of the world (potentially projecting his own father-son dynamic onto Nacho in an act of protection), he demands Gus release Nacho. Currently, Nacho is too much of an asset for Gus, but there’s no denying that a major aspect of Mike’s arc in the final season might revolve around the liberation of Nacho. Or, at the very least, the attempt of liberation, considering the way he later treats Jesse in the same manner.
Mike is also unbothered by Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton), a blustery villain with jovial menace and a hyper-awareness of his surroundings. “Better get back to it,” Mike monotonously remarks after meeting Lalo for the first time. Just like Breaking Bad, Saul built up its villains to become bigger threats over the course of each passing season, but Lalo is absolutely the best villain in the entire Breaking Bad universe. Not only is Dalton’s performance so enriching, but the inclusion of Lalo ratchets up the tension of both halves of Better Call Saul, as season five eventually culminates in Jimmy wandering the sweeping vistas of New Mexico in an effort to bring Lalo seven million dollars in exchange for a six figure cash reward.
When a clash of gunfire turns the plan upside down, Mike saves the day, proving that there’s no way to go back to the series Saul once was. Jimmy was nearly killed by a rival cartel and he’s fully entrenched in that lifestyle now, as “Bagman” depicts an aimless sense of loss (both physically and psychologically, for Saul seems to mourn Jimmy McGill) between Jimmy and Mike. Eventually navigating their way out of the desert, it’s clear that the experience has changed Jimmy forever.
The next episode, “Bad Choice Road,” activates Jimmy’s newfound PTSD as a phone vibrating breaks his concentration and orange juice whirring in a blender sends his breakfast cereal clattering to the floor. Suddenly, it’s Jimmy’s turn to be the hypersensitive McGill brother. The damning element of “Bad Choice Road,” though, is not only in that it cements Jimmy as a cartel ally for life. But rather that Jimmy’s initial panic at the act he faced in the desert eventually happens so frequently that he’s desensitized by the time he ties a crooked tie for himself in the name of aiding Walt and Jesse.
The title, “Bad Choice Road,” also implies an indirect convergence of Kim and Mike’s characters, who have largely been separated on Better Call Saul. Mike reassures Jimmy’s newfound trauma by informing him that there are two roads he can embark down, including a “bad choice road,” which we know Jimmy eventually chooses. It’s this advice he also provides to Kim after she quits her job at the Schweikart and Cokely firm in an effort to work in a pro bono capacity. However, Jimmy recognizes Kim’s choice as another decision that pulls her closer into the orbit of crime he’s cultivating for himself. Even though he’s drawn to the “bad choice road,” he’s fervently against Kim joining him for the ride.
After all, Jimmy was lost in the desert and nearly shot in the head, before proceeding to lie about this to Kim. These would have been deal-breaking red flags for the early version of Kim Wexler. Yet her development was so thoroughly constructed as being a woman who is drawn to the unconventional behavior of Jimmy, no matter how much of a threat to her safety he might be.
“Something Stupid,” as covered by Lola Marsh is the recurring musical cue Saul leans on when aiming to illustrate the growing distance between Jimmy and Kim. However, when it’s employed in “Bad Choice Road,” it shows that Jimmy and Kim, despite their distance, actually might be growing closer to one another, in spite of the downward spiral embodied by Jimmy’s “Saul Goodman” persona. Kim can’t help but feel the alluring pull of a life of schemes and scams, rather than always playing by the rules and making no headway on virtue and consistently being met with a stagnant sense of goodness. Yes, it’s a bad choice road she goes down and yes, it’s something stupid to say “I love you” to Jimmy, but she doesn’t care. Her and Jimmy are not some screwball rom-com love story. They’re more aligned with a Hitchcock thriller or Double Indemnity — two people who are so capable of doing bad and so uniquely self-assured that they’re actually good for each other. In the worst possible way.
One of the earliest hints of Kim’s potential for breaking bad herself comes in season two’s “Switch.” When Kim feels conflicted about taking a position with Schweikart, she decides to distract herself by acting as “Giselle” alongside Jimmy’s “Viktor” and runs a swindle against unsuspecting tiki bar patrons who wind up parting with ten thousand dollars unwittingly. It’s a scheme that Kim eventually reneges on, but she still saves a bottle stopper as a tiny memento of what her abilities can be used for.
It’s this bottle stopper she grabs in “Bad Choice Road” when she quits her job, officially resolving the arc of a lawyer trying her best and setting in motion a potential “Slippin’ Kimmy” storyline. After all, she lied to one of her clients, Bobby (Roland Buck III), in order to convince him to take a plea bargain and she went nuclear in an effort to establish a call center for Mesa Verde. With every silent smirk towards Jimmy and with every shattered beer bottle, Kim grew closer and closer to the bad choice road. What Jimmy doesn’t realize is that she’s already met the fork in those roads long ago.
Earlier in season five, during the episode, “Wexler v. Goodman,” we’re treated to a flashback of Kim, refusing to accept a ride home from her drunk mother, even after waiting hours for her to show up and knowing how many miles home the walk is. We see Kim Wexler as a character who always appreciates a challenge to take on, whether that’s a walk home or the corruption of the man she loves. Like Jimmy, Kim feels that her efforts are growing more and more exhausted and leaving her no tangible evidence that what she’s doing actually matters and actually makes a difference. It’s a sentiment within her that is consistently expressed through Seehorn’s expert performance (one of the best on television — curse you Emmys!), which reveals outward frustration and endless interiority, always building on the behavior of Kim that came before.
What elevates Seehorn to the status of a legendary television performer, however, is the dramatic, tense sixteen minute final sequence of “Bad Choice Road,” which pits Kim against Lalo. After learning that Jimmy potentially lied about how his retrieval of the money in the desert transpired, Lalo confronts Jimmy and Kim in their apartment. Dalton is incredibly haunting in the scene, as his smile seems to be the only barrier between a tense conversation and outright violence. His imposing figure intimidates Jimmy and Kim into silence (as a stashed cell phone clues Mike in to the dialogue unfolding, as he waits on a nearby rooftop with a sniper pointed at Lalo), while he roams about the apartment, stating, “Tell me again,” and tapping the fish tank on the counter, uncaring about whether or not that upsets the fish.
The scene features flawless blocking — credit to Thomas Schnauz’s legendary direction of the episode’s conclusion — as Mike watches the scene unfold attentively from a window, viewing Lalo in the crosshairs of his gun, and Lalo repeatedly creeps closer and closer to the hidden phone. But it also features a different kind of tension from Breaking Bad and it’s the kind of well-written, gripping tension that I prefer to a messy, bloody explosion.
After Lalo repeatedly asks for Jimmy to tell him the story of what happened in the desert, seeking the truth rather than the cover Jimmy concocted with Mike, Kim steps in for a series breaking point that depicts Saul’s trajectory towards Breaking Bad and Kim’s trajectory towards doing it herself. (Gould connects it more to Jimmy, as he told Variety’s Michael Schneider.) She convinces Lalo through frustration, annoyance, contempt, and fury that he’s wrong to intimidate Jimmy, rather than get his affairs in order with a Salamanca cartel organization that he can trust for once. Throughout, Seehorn is a revelation and even Mike is partially convinced by her ability to reframe the narrative. Lalo turns and leaves the apartment, satisfied with her explanation. In that moment, Kim has officially cemented herself as a character on the radar of the Salamancas and as a lawyer who is capable of reasoning out a lie even better than Jimmy or Saul or Gene were ever able to.
Now consider the fact that this all-time Better Call Saul episode came about in the penultimate slot of the fifth season, with the promise of one more ahead of it. Add to this, the fact that Gilligan is returning to the writing staff for the sixth season of Saul, almost like Andy Daly coming to play in the final season of Veep or Kevin Durant joining the Golden State Warriors. One of the best dramas ever made is setting itself up for one of the best final seasons of any series.
And yet, they still make it seem so effortless. Time will tell if Better Call Saul dismounts soundly onto the mat, but for now, we can relish the fact that Kim and Nacho are still alive and that Gene Takavic is ready to take everything he learned over the course of a decade and apply it to the recovery of his identity in Omaha. There’s so much promise waiting for us on Better Call Saul, which is remarkable when considering how impeccably crafted the series has been up until this point. It’s the natural conclusion of peak TV: a drama so perfect that it’s hard to find anything to enjoy about it, sans for the flawless craft at every turn. How gluttonous we are to be experiencing story arcs and character development at their finest and still taking it for granted as just what Gilligan and Gould do. How grateful I am that I gave it a shot, in spite of prequel skepticism. How riveted I am to learn about what happens to Saul Goodman, all over again.
