Better Call Saul Season 6, Episode 13, “Saul Gone”

"Saul Gone,” the Better Call Saul series finale, is certainly one of the best episodes of either Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul, and might even be the very best of either series. Not only does it satisfyingly resolve the story of Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman, but in doing so, it also brilliantly implements an analogy to time machines. This implementation takes many forms. For one, “Saul Gone” is about Jimmy/Saul’s attempts to go back and fix the mistakes and crimes of his past, not by literally traveling through time, but by finally being honest about their nature, atoning for them, and facing up to their consequences. Interspersed throughout are many flashbacks to different parts of Jimmy’s life, which is a narrative device that somewhat resembles a time machine, allowing us (if not the characters) to revisit the past. What’s more, these flashbacks not only retrospectively enrich previous parts of Jimmy/Saul’s story by further revealing his capacity for introspection and his attempts to wrestle with his own moral quandaries, but the characters in these flashbacks also literally fantasize about how they might use time machines to change things that they regret about their pasts. Finally, the time machine analogy is also worked into the fabric of the episode both through the reappearance of a copy of H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine (which itself acquires new significance), and through the many parallels “Saul Gone” creates with previous parts of the series, most powerfully in the final scene between Jimmy and Kim. All of these temporal loops and whorls, both literal and figurative, layer on top of one another, resulting in a tremendously complex, highly emotional, and spectacularly executed series finale. “Saul Gone” is one for the ages. 

Better Call Saul Season 6, Episode 12, “Waterworks”

“This guy, any good?” This is the question that Jesse asks Kim about the competency of Saul’s legal practice when she runs into Jesse outside of Saul’s office in a crucial flashback scene in “Waterworks.” It’s a wonderful moment, not just because it’s a bonus Jesse cameo, or because it represents yet one more fleeting intersection between Kim and other elements of the Heisenberg-verse (akin to her encounter with Mike in “Hit and Run”), but also because the question can be easily interpreted as being about the quality of Saul’s character, hilariously boiling down Better Call Saul’s central concern into four simple words. Is there anything morally good about Saul Goodman – any vestiges of the good person Jimmy McGill used to be, still tucked away inside of Saul – or is he rotten to the core, having fully become the jaundiced, law-bending clown we know from Breaking Bad? The extended time we’ve had with Gene these past three episodes in the wake of everything that happened on Breaking Bad suggests that the answer is complicated, and that we might not be able to make a final judgment until the series finale. 

Better Call Saul, Season 6, Episode 11, “Breaking Bad”

“Breaking Bad” is a masterful episode of Better Call Saul. Not only does it deepen our understanding of why Saul got into business with Walt and Jesse in the first place, but it also draws parallels between Gene’s behavior in the present and Saul’s actions in the past, and perhaps most remarkably, somehow it does these things while also withholding a key piece of information that would better explain Gene’s actions throughout the episode, namely his decision to seemingly “break bad” himself by committing more scams with Jeff and Rick, even after Gene put it all behind him in “Nippy.”

Better Call Saul Season 6, Episode 10, “Nippy”

In “Nippy,” season six of Better Call Saul finally returns to Cinnabon Gene's life in Nebraska to resolve the conflict that began in the prologue of the season five premiere, “Magic Man,” where Gene had been identified as Saul by a cabbie that used to live in Albuquerque. In doing so, “Nippy” fulfilled my long-anticipated hope that the series would spend an entire episode set in Nebraska with Gene, although it did so not to show the past catching up with Gene (as I once speculated), but instead to show us a more or less self-contained vintage Slippin’ Jimmy caper.

Better Call Saul Season 6, Episode 9, “Fun and Games”

“Fun and Games” finds our surviving characters, Gus, Mike, Jimmy, and Kim, dealing with the emotional aftermath of the various stresses Lalo placed on their lives. Some of their responses are profound and impactful, while others are more subtle and telling, but “Fun and Games” develops each character in new directions and reveals compelling details about them as they cope with their trauma. In doing so, “Fun and Games” finally pays off years of viewer speculation by providing deeply satisfying answers to two of Better Call Saul’s three most prominent remaining narrative questions: what happens to Kim, and what causes Jimmy to become the version of Saul we know from Breaking Bad. It’s a fantastic episode of television, easily one of the series’ best, answering these questions while also revealing layers of nuance and calling upon a wealth of serial knowledge in the process.

Better Call Saul Season Six, Episode Eight, “Point and Shoot”

“Point and Shoot” kicks off the final stretch of Better Call Saul by continuing the momentum of “Plan and Execution,” picking up (almost) right where we left off before the hiatus. It resolves the major outstanding cartel plot, and leaves some strong indications – as well as a few questions – about the remainder of the series. In theory, it could be difficult to make “Point and Shoot” into a compelling episode of television, since it’s mainly focused on resolving the conflict between Gus and Lalo, and thanks to the show’s prequel status, most viewers can easily guess at the general outcome of their feud, if not the specific details leading up to it. So, how does “Point and Shoot” still manage to be so (mostly) riveting? The answers have to do with some of Better Call Saul’s regular storytelling techniques and narrative conceits.

Better Call Saul Season 6, Episode 7, “Plan and Execution”

After several episodes of moving the pieces around the chessboard, “Plan and Execution” finally advances Better Call Saul’s major story beats by concluding Kim and Jimmy’s con of Howard and addressing its fallout. It’s a tremendous conclusion to the first half of this final season, as it not only satisfies various expectations raised over the previous six episodes, but also manages to toss in a few surprises along the way. It’s easily the high point of what has been a fairly slow final season thus far, and hopefully a portent what’s to come as the series moves toward its conclusion after a brief mid-season hiatus. 

Better Call Saul Season 6, Episode 6, "Axe and Grind"

Season five’s concluding episode, “Something Unforgiveable,” raised the intriguing question of who bears responsibility for Kim’s newfound capacity for immorality. Throughout the episode Jimmy secretly suspects that he is at fault, that his influence has corrupted her into someone who is comfortable ruining someone else’s life to benefit themselves. Kim, however, pushes back against this notion, stating that she makes her own choices for her own reasons. We’re encouraged to see it both ways: yes, she is her own person, but she has also been influenced by the various stresses Jimmy has placed on her, which seem to have shifted her moral center closer to Jimmy’s more flexible worldview. “Axe and Grind” sheds further light on the question of who bears responsibility for this new-look Kim, lending further credence to the notion that her increasingly flexible morality and risk-inclined behavior is less a product of Jimmy’s influence and more of an innate character trait. 

Better Call Saul Season 6, Episode 5, "Black and Blue"

Better Call Saul, like Breaking Bad before it, is often committed to showing the incremental steps between larger events. We see how people go about their business, their working methods and habits, both professional and personal, and how they handle the minute consequences of their actions. It makes sense for these shows to do so, given that at their core they are about how their characters undergo gradual change as they wind down increasingly dark paths. However, sometimes this commitment to showing the incremental steps can lead to relatively slow episodes that exist mainly to move the characters into position for presumably more eventful and captivating episodes later on. Indeed, Better Call Saul usually has lull in the plot around episode four or five each season. Such has been the case in the previous two seasons, for instance, and season six is no different, as “Black and Blue” is largely concerned with laying track for subsequent episodes.

Better Call Saul Season 6, Episode 4, “Hit and Run”

"Hit and Run” is one of those incremental episodes of Better Call Saul, where nothing major happens, but where plots advance bit by inexorable bit. In the hands of a less skilled creative team, it could come across as boring or rote, but in the hands of these writers, and especially in the hands of first-time director Rhea Seehorn, the episode is still incredibly compelling. It helps, of course, that Seehorn directs the hell out of it. “Hit and Run” is full of stylistic flourishes and visual nuance that enlivens the action and enhances the storytelling in various ways. 

Better Call Saul, Season 6, Episode 3, “Rock and Hard Place”

“Rock and Hard Place” is the first episode of this season to feel like Better Call Saul is coming to an end, since it resolves one of those longstanding unanswered questions we’ve had since season one, this time concerning the fate of Ignacio “Nacho” Varga. Like the title of the episode implies, Nacho is caught between Gus and the Salamancas, both of whom want him dead, just for different reasons: Gus because Nacho could divulge that Gus was behind the attack on Lalo, and the Salamancas because Nacho betrayed Lalo.

Better Call Saul, Season 6, Episodes 1 and 2, “Wine and Roses,” “Carrot and Stick”

Midway through “Wine and Roses,” the season six premiere of Better Call Saul, Kim discusses a potential con with Jimmy, telling him, “It has to be paced right. We move too fast they’ll see us coming. And it has to make sense…. There has to be a reason for everything.” This line of dialogue might as well be the Better Call Saul writers making a statement about what this final season of Better Call Saul has to accomplish. It perfectly corresponds with the writers’ need to negotiate viewers’ expectations about its most pressing unresolved questions, including whether or not Kim is a part of Saul’s life during the Breaking Bad years, what finally pushes Jimmy to become the Saul we know from Breaking Bad (or if “Saul Goodman” is merely a persona Jimmy performs for his clients), if/how Nacho and Lalo survive, and what becomes of Jimmy/Saul/Gene in his post-Breaking Bad life. Pacing, as always, is key, and any surprises need to be firmly rooted in the slow progression of changes the characters have undergone as they inch closer to the material we’re already familiar with from Breaking Bad.

Better Call Saul Season 5, Episode 10, “Something Unforgivable”

“Something Unforgivable” concludes another stellar season of Better Call Saul, one that once again has upended my expectations not only about where the series is heading, but which has also altered my notions of what the series is about more generally. All along, I’ve thought of Better Call Saul as a sister show to Breaking Bad, each of them being about the transformation of somewhat “good” characters into largely “bad” characters. And while each show is certainly about how people can change, Jimmy McGill’s transformation into Saul Goodman is revealing itself to be a more complicated story than Walter White’s transformation into Heisenberg. Perhaps even more significantly, the show is also revealing itself to be about the changes other characters undergo, particularly Kim.

Better Call Saul, Season 5, Episode 9, “Bad Choice Road”

“Bad Choice Road” is a phenomenal episode of television, easily the best yet of Better Call Saul season five. It gets its name from a speech Mike gives to Jimmy midway through the episode. Jimmy suffers from PTSD after he and Mike make it back to civilization, and when he turns to Mike for advice about how to handle it, Mike lays out the entire ethos of character arcs on both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul: “We all make our choices. And those choices, they put us on a road. Sometimes those choices seem small, but they put you on the road. You think about getting off, but eventually you’re back on it…. And nothing, nothing can be done about that.”

Better Call Saul, Season 5, Episode 8, “Bagman”

“Bagman” finally gives Better Call Saul the kind of action-packed episode that was regularly featured on Breaking Bad, where the characters are put in a life-or-death situation and must figure out how to survive. The result is a highly rewarding suspense piece that also performs important character work, pushing forward character change and certain relationships.

Better Call Saul Season 5, Episode 7, “JMM”

Midway through “JMM,” Lalo, who has hired Jimmy/Saul to defend him in the Fred Whalen murder case, suggests that the monogram on Jimmy’s briefcase should stand for “Just make money,” rather than what Jimmy tells him it means, “Justice matters most.” The dueling mottos are emblematic of the difference between Jimmy’s and what will become Saul’s priorities as attorneys.

Better Call Saul Season 5, Episode 6, “Wexler v. Goodman”

“Wexler v. Goodman” is another excellent entry in season five of Better Call Saul, one that begins with a flashback to young Kim that reveals how unwilling Kim was to trust her very unreliable-seeming mother. It provides yet more insight into her character, but it’s bearing on the rest of the episode only snaps into focus in the final scene, when Kim is given strong cause to distrust another important person in her life: Jimmy.

Better Call Saul Season 5, Episode 5, “Dedicado a Max”

Late in “Dedicado a Max,” Gus tells Mike he’s at a crossroads, but it’s also a statement that applies to Kim, who finds herself at her own crossroads. The sentiment also applies to the series more generally, or at least, my patience with certain parts of it. While the idea of a crossroads provides this episode with some thematic unity, it’s also made me realize my feelings for a central part of this series has also come to a crossroads.

Better Call Saul Season 5, Episode 4, “Namaste”

“Namaste” finds most of the regular characters trying to clean up messes of one sort or another. Some of the messes are perfunctory: Kim literally sweeps up the mess of broken glass she made in the parking lot at the end of “The Guy For This,” while Jimmy is hired to represent the pair of idiots who were inspired to go on a meth-fueled bender by Jimmy’s 50% off sales gimmick. The most interesting mess is the one Acker made of Kim’s moral compass, both because it’s yet another step down a dark road Kim is travelling, and because it intersects nicely with what Jimmy is going through in this episode.

Better Call Saul Season 5, Episode 3, "The Guy For This"

Early in “The Guy For This,” Kim warily eyes a beer bottle Jimmy has balanced precariously on a railing. It’s an apt character beat, because both Jimmy and Kim will engaged in their own parallel balancing acts throughout this episode, regarding various aspects of their aspirations and careers. Despite both of their best efforts, they each end up tipping the scales in their least preferred direction, Jimmy by getting drawn into the cartel world, and Kim by being forced into doing Mesa Verde’s dirty work.