The final season of Better Call Saul has arrived in all its grimy, morally ambiguous glory. Through its first two episodes, Saul focuses on the moral and societal identity of its main characters, using parallel storylines to both blur the lines between good and bad and highlight their subtle differences. Already at the end of a second hit AMC series, this premiere is a ballet by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould, gracefully tiptoeing towards an explosive finish line (while also leaving room for possible spinoffs set in the same universe). The producer duo has, again, masterfully towed their characters along an empathetic but ethically questionable line that seems to be stretched further and further as we learn more about them. Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul’s characters are vivid introspections of survival tactics used in American Society; the shows themselves represent two sides of the same coin polished and embellished to keep the Nielsen ratings high.
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Duality is obviously a key ingredient to crafting the storylines, characters, and overarching transformations that Gilligan and Gould intend for throughout their series. There’s depth in duality, but there’s also opportunity to portray true human nature, which is never binary, never fully settled into a set of beliefs, and never not adaptable when faced with tough decisions. Better Call Saul exemplifies this nature and forces the audience to reckon with the reality that we’re all only a few steps away from Breaking Bad.
Jimmy vs Saul
Sony Pictures Television
Season 6 opens with a sullen reminder of Saul Goodman’s inevitable downfall, making his actions throughout the first two episodes all the more painful to watch. Jimmy McGill is, on the surface, long gone for the series, indicated by the many characters who call Bob Odenkirk’s character by his alias. However, evidenced by Saul’s reluctance to follow Kim’s newfound love for scheming and avenging injustices, there’s a little bit of Jimmy that feels bad or awkward for dragging his wife into his scummy lifestyle.
Jimmy was a humble and caring young man who became a lawyer to help people, following the footsteps of his older brother who he admired from a very young age. In Jimmy’s innocence and sincere efforts to be a good person and lawyer, he was met with nothing but disrespect, reluctance, and disdain by his colleagues and older brother. In comes Jimmy’s new persona, a man with a silver tongue who knows how to snake the system that’s constantly cheated him. Whereas Saul was born from tough conditioning by admired colleagues, he will consume Jimmy by the end of season 6, when something tragic happens to the last bit of Jimmy he has left, Kim Wexler.
Nacho vs Lalo
AMC
Season 6 sees Nacho and Lalo on a collision course as the latter survived an assassination attempt orchestrated by the former. The two have vastly different moral compasses but similar roles as enforcers for their respective drug organizations. Both characters are in hiding, slyly moving towards their own resolution to the situation — for Lalo, that’s revenge; for Nacho, it’s escape.
As Nacho’s hiding in a Mexico motel, he confronts a spy sent by Fring to ensure Nacho stays put. Composed and calculated, Nacho knocks the man unconscious instead of killing him and tipping off the entire town to his presence. In contrast, Lalo’s encounter with a group of coyotes who he needs to transport him across the border, goes unnecessarily awry because the coyotes refused to “be nice” to Lalo. He murders them around plenty of witnesses that could incriminate him if he makes it out of the series alive.
Kim vs Howard
Like Jimmy, following the straight and narrow resulted in a similar disappointment for Kim as she navigated the corporate legal system that offers clean resumes but rarely delivers justice to people that truly need it. Howard Hamlin exemplifies this system as the head of his own massive law firm and, although he’s not inherently evil, he is counter to the justice that Kim believes in defending most deeply. After a long day of meeting pro bono clients, Kim tells Saul, ‘It was one of the best days of my life,” reinforcing the fulfillment she feels through helping desperate common folk, even if it’s on a smaller scale than when she worked for Howard.
Her anger towards the system Howard represents has grown so much throughout Better Call Saul that her main motivation in season 6 is to assassinate Howard’s character and force his firm to settle the Sandpiper case for Saul’s own financial gain. Like Jimmy, Kim became a lawyer to make a difference in the lives of regular people; however, the system conditioned her against this selflessness. So, Kim follows Saul, scheming and lying to subvert the system and force it to conform to her desires. Just as karma inevitably catches up to Saul, it will likely ruin Kim at some point in season 6.
Bob Odenkirk Would Return for a Better Call Saul Movie: ‘I Love Playing This Guy’
Fring vs Salamanca
Easily the most double-edged juxtaposition of the series is the two cartel factions constantly looking to gain more control within their established hierarchy. The Salamanca’s represent a historied, familial rule over their drug operations, commonly employing a “blood for blood” policy towards any opposition. Their tactics are brutal and unforgiving, but they at least remain loyal to each other, putting the family name above everything else. Gus Fring is the newcomer who made himself invaluable to the Salamanca’s through calculated decision-making and an equally tight ship. Fring and his accomplices, specifically Mike Ehrmantraut, play the “good bad guys,” or at least a more thoughtful group of criminals than the Salamanca’s.
In episode 6.2 “Carrot and Stick”, Mike, at the command of Fring, clears Nacho’s apartment of certain incriminating evidence, knowing that Salamanca’s men will arrive to dissect it soon after. Mike opens Nacho’s safe using a precision drill to release the locking mechanism and replaces the safe with the same model for the Salamanca’s to discover on their own. Cut to the Salamanca’s infiltrating the same safe and sparks are flying from their use of a massive saw that has even ignited crucial documents inside. It’s subtle, but emblematic of the differences between these two antagonistic forces in the series.
