Spoiler Warning: Better Call Saul Season Six
The final half of Season Six of Better Call Saul premiered Monday night with “Point and Shoot.” Audiences were left in suspense after the mid-season finale showed Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton) returning to Kim (Rhea Seehorn) and Jimmy’s (Bob Odenkirk) apartment, killing Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian), and attempting to use the lawyers in his fight against Gustavo Fring (Giancarlo Esposito).
In “Point and Shoot,” Lalo sent Kim to serve as a distraction by taking up a doomed-to-fail assassination attempt against Gus Fring at his home. Using Kim as a distraction, Lalo infiltrated the super lab to tape evidence of Gus’ deception for Don Eladio (Steven Bauer). Gus’ Spidey senses would begin to tingle when he discovered Lalo didn’t really care who tried to kill Gus, Kim, or Jimmy. Sensing it was a distraction, Gus went to the lab where he finally confronted Lalo, using the gun he planted on the bulldozer to bring an end to Lalo Salamanca.
The end of “Point and Shoot” features Mike (Jonathan Banks) cleaning up Howard’s body and giving Jimmy and Kim instructions on how to handle the coming days to avoid suspicion. After such a traumatic event, it is hard to see things returning to normal for the pair, and the coming episodes will likely feature the end of their relationship. As the fate of Kim and Jimmy hangs in the balance, one may wonder what ending both characters deserve, specifically Jimmy or Saul Goodman.
Walter White (Bryan Cranston) met his end in a fury of gunfire, and Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) was able to escape to Alaska to start over and live a new life, but what fate is in store for Saul Goodman? Saul may represent a middle ground between White and Pinkman, not deserving to die and not deserving to continue fleeing the consequences of his crimes.
Chuck was Right About Jimmy McGill
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Jimmy’s relationship with his brother, Chuck McGill (Michael McKean), had always been strained. Chuck was the older and more successful brother, achieving great academic success by finishing at the top of his classes and eventually graduating from Georgetown law before he joined George Hamlin’s law practice in New Mexico. Jimmy was the opposite of Chuck. He was less stoic and more eccentric, barely getting by in school and taking all the shortcuts in sight, even stealing from their father’s store. Despite Jimmy’s flaws, their parents tended to favor the younger brother over the older, even when Chuck tried to convince their father that Jimmy had been stealing from them.
Jimmy became a scam artist in adulthood and took on the mantra, “Slippin’ Jimmy,” after a scam where he would stage a fall on slippery ice to get settlement money. Eventually, Jimmy’s antics would catch up to him when he made a drunken choice to get back at his ex-wife’s lover, Chet, by defecating through the sunroof of his car. Chet’s kids had been in the car, and Jimmy was arrested and risked becoming a sex offender if found guilty.
Jimmy’s mother convinced Chuck to go and visit Jimmy to help with the charges. Chuck eventually agreed to help Jimmy get off on the condition he come with him to Albuquerque to take up a legitimate profession and go on the straight and narrow. The most important of Chuck’s conditions was that Jimmy not make a fool out of him for his help. Jimmy would work in the mailroom of Chuck and Howard’s law firm, doing exactly as he promised Chuck, until he decided to take the bar exam and become a lawyer himself. Chuck was irritated that Jimmy achieved what took him a lifetime to earn and didn’t trust that “Slippin’ Jimmy” would use his new achievement for good, making a mockery out of the law.
Chuck would force Howard to deny Jimmy a chance at practicing law at HHM and would later try to get Jimmy disbarred in season three for tampering with Mesa Verde files, which got Kim, the client of Mesa Verde, over Chuck and Howard’s HHM. Jimmy would get out of this situation in typical “Slippin’ Jimmy” fashion, planting a battery on Chuck before going into the courtroom to prove that his electricity-related ailment was a mental illness rather than a serious physical condition. In response, Chuck goes off on Jimmy during the trial, claiming he wishes he never got him out of jail and that the court must stop him from being a lawyer. Chuck’s rant makes him appear unhinged and mentally unstable, resulting in Jimmy not being disbarred.
Jimmy does go to apologize to Chuck for his trickery, but Chuck tells him to stop apologizing/showing remorse and to embrace what he is, to essentially go full-on Saul Goodman. Chuck tells Jimmy that no matter what, he will hurt everyone around him because he can’t help himself. These words are stinging, considering they are the last thing Chuck says to Jimmy, but knowing Jimmy’s turn in Breaking Bad, they’re quite true. This is best evident by Jimmy getting Chuck’s insurance raised, as he cons the agent by pretending to be broken up about his brother’s condition and breakdown in court. Jimmy does care for his brother, but at this moment, he only desires revenge against Chuck for the hearing and never believes he could change. This indirectly results in Chuck’s suicide and while Jimmy didn’t intend for this, his own insecurity and anger make him turn into “Slippin’ Jimmy” to hurt Chuck in a grave way, illustrating Chuck’s point in their final conversation.
Lives Saul Goodman has Ruined
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Throughout Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad, Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman has ruined numerous lives. Although Jimmy has never killed anyone, he has been a party to numerous tragedies. As mentioned earlier, he is indirectly responsible for his brother’s death. Chuck is no innocent victim, as his belief Jimmy can never change pushes him to become Saul Goodman, but Jimmy goes a bit too far and, in a moment of pure emotion with the insurance agent, makes Chuck lose everything by having his rates spike, pushing him to suicide. Jimmy might not have been full Saul Goodman, but Chuck did see the signs, such as with the billboard incident and Mesa Verde Files, although his animosity was fueled more by jealousy than his brother doing wrong.
By representing Lalo Salamanca in court for the murder of TravelWire employee, Fred Whalen (James Austin Johnson), Jimmy helps Lalo make bail and leave the country. Fred Whalen’s family is in the court at the time and while Jimmy questions if what he’s doing is right, he still goes through with it. As a result of Jimmy taking Lalo’s money over doing what is right, Fred Whalen’s family will never get justice for their murdered son. Although not to the extent of others, Saul ruins Francesca Liddy’s (Tina Parker) life to an extent. Francesca was a former DMV employee who served as the receptionist for Kim and Saul and later Saul alone when he buys his iconic law office in Season Six. Francesca reluctantly continues as Saul’s receptionist for the money alone, despising and resenting Saul for bringing her into the criminal world. Saul seemingly secures a job for her post-Breaking Bad, but she’ll have to live with her connection to Walt and Saul’s criminal enterprises and hope that their activities are never traced back to her.
In terms of antagonists in the Breaking Bad series, Saul ruins the lives of Gus and Mike by introducing them to Walt and Jesse, a connection that would result in their deaths and Mike’s granddaughter, Kaylee, never getting the money that Mike earned under Gus. While Gus and Mike are no innocents, they are the lesser of two evils when it comes to Walt, as Walt is driven by his ego and emotions, whereas Gus and Mike are more business-oriented and less willing to take lives unless necessary. Had Saul given up the location of Jesse in Season Three or Walt in Season Four, he’d likely still be practicing law, and Walt’s complete turn into Heisenberg wouldn’t have occurred in season five.
In season four of Breaking Bad, Saul agrees to help Walter White steal the ricin cigarette off of Jesse so that Walt can use it to trick Jesse into thinking Gus poisoned Brock (Ian Posada), motivating him to take Walt’s side in their conflict. Saul didn’t know about Walt’s intent to use this maneuver to poison Brock, but after he finds out, he still goes along with Walt and his empire, reaping the benefits. Eventually, Jesse finds out and confronts Saul, stealing his car in an attempt to burn Walt’s house down. Jesse choosing not to go to Alaska and team up with Hank (Dean Norris) to take down Walt results in Walt giving Andrea (Emily Rios) and Brock’s address to Jack Welker’s (Michael Bowen) White Supremacists to try and find Jesse and kill him before he does something that takes everyone down.
In the end, Jack and Todd use their knowledge of Andrea’s address after capturing Jesse to kill Andrea so that Jesse doesn’t attempt to escape their captivity. If Saul had drawn the line at Walt poisoning children and turned him over to the police, Brock wouldn’t be an orphan, and the tragedies of the latter part of the final season of Breaking Bad wouldn’t have occurred.
Two of the most important characters in Better Call Saul are Kim Wexler and Howard Hamlin, and with the stunning cliff hangar that was the mid-season finale of season six, it’s safe to say that Saul played a part in ruining their lives as well. In terms of Howard, Jimmy and Kim decide to con him in an attempt to undermine his professional standing and settle the Sandpiper Case. The duo succeed in making Howard look like a cocaine addict who has a weakness for prostitutes. When Howard finally calls out Jimmy’s elaborate actions to humiliate him in his confrontation with the Sandpiper mediator, he looks like a man whose own addictions have driven him to crazy theories that are now intertwining with his professional life.
Hamlin confronts Kim and Jimmy at their apartment, and Lalo kills Howard after stopping by to talk to the two. Howard put Kim in document review as an act of punishment for withholding knowledge of Jimmy’s commercial at Davis and Main, often talking down to her and holding what the firm did for her over her head. Howard often sided with Chuck over Jimmy and prevented him from obtaining a position at HHM, but after Chuck dies, he offers Jimmy a job, which Jimmy takes as a slight, throwing bowling balls at his car and having prostitutes confront him at lunch. Howard may not have been the best to Kim and Jimmy at times, but he never hated them and, in his own way, did care about the two to an extent. His death was by no means justifiable and is one, if not the worst, outcome of Jimmy’s cons.
Kim Wexler was by no means an innocent bystander when it came to her relationship with Saul. The two encouraged the worst parts of one another, with Kim enjoying being a part of Jimmy’s cons. Kim encouraged Saul Goodman’s deviousness over Jimmy McGill’s desire for honest work and change. Saul did the same to Kim, specifically in season six when he decides to go along with her plan to con Howard. Jimmy seemed hesitant at the end of Season Five, but his loyalty and love for Kim as well as his own love of the con, drive him to help her. In this sense, their relationship is quite toxic, as the two thrive in encouraging the more devious and less honest sides of one another. Kim did have a choice to take up Cliff Main’s (Ed Begley Jr.) offer to join a foundation aimed at encouraging Kim’s pro bono work, but in the end, she turns around to help Jimmy re-stage photos for their con.
To say Jimmy ruined Kim’s life would be to undermine her character and the choices she actively makes to become “Slippin’ Kimmy.” Jimmy encouraged Kim’s turn from honest work just as Kim encouraged Jimmy’s turn to Saul. The two pushing one another toward their worst impulses results in the catastrophe of Howard’s death in season six, a disaster that is likely to change the lives of both, if not ruin Kim and Jimmy’s chance at legitimate legal careers. It’s important to note that the two encouraged one another in their pursuit of passing the bar prior to Better Call Saul, pushing each other to succeed. At the end of Better Call Saul, they push each other to destruction and their relationship, although based in love, ruins their chance at legitimate success.
Does Saul Goodman Deserve to Get Away with It?
After the events of Better Call Saul, audiences will finally get an answer to what happens to Saul Goodman in the post-Breaking Bad universe. There are three possible outcomes for what will happen to Saul, either he will die, escape, or be arrested and sentenced to prison time. Death seems a bit too heavy-handed for Saul, he may have played a part in the deaths of others, but he never intentionally sought to kill another person. Escape is the second most likely outcome for Saul. However, for it to be satisfying, it would have to differ in its meaning compared to the ending of Breaking Bad. If Saul simply thwarted the threat of Jeff the cab driver and stayed hidden, this would hardly be worthy of the six-season-long buildup to what changes for him while on the run. If nothing changes, then why include the post-Breaking Bad timeline at all?
Escape is more likely to take the form of Saul being reunited with Kim Wexler in hiding. Kim’s whereabouts are unknown post-Breaking Bad, but after Lalo killed Howard, it is likely she is in hiding after using Ed (Robert Forster) to escape just as Saul did. While this would please the fans of both characters, after their actions in season six, it’s difficult to see how these two would deserve to have their relationship rekindled, considering the destruction it has wrought. They might meet again, but things will never be as they were before. Prison is the most deserving fate for Saul Goodman. Chuck’s biggest regret was that he helped Jimmy get out of going to prison. Had Jimmy gone, he would have likely never become Saul Goodman and would have been more apt to go on the straight and narrow, having faced the consequences of his actions.
Saul/Jimmy has gotten away with manipulating and evading the law for too long, and his silence in his collaboration with Walt led to the deaths of many, not to mention the meth addictions spawned by Walt’s empire. Saul would thrive in prison. As Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul show, he thrives in his interactions with criminals and is, in a way, beloved by them. Saul may be sentenced to life in prison, but this life may be better than the one he currently lives, fearing for the day his false life in Nebraska comes crashing down. The ending has been described by creator Peter Gould as bittersweet, and what would be more bittersweet than Saul going to prison and discovering that was preferable to going on the run all along?
