This post was first published on August 15, 2022 following the “Better Call Saul” Season 6 finale, which is now streaming on Netflix.
During the series finale of AMC’s “Better Call Saul,” our deeply flawed, often immoral and sometimes sympathetic hero keeps asking figures from his past what they would do if they had a time machine. First, it’s Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), who regrets the day he first took a bribe and embarks on a path that has made him a completely different man. Then, it’s Walter White (Bryan Cranston), who explains that Real The question behind the time machine thought experiment is regret.
Saul regrets that he actually hurt himself when he was 22 in a slip-and-fall scam. “So you’ve always been like this?” Walter pounces on her. But we, loyal “Better Call Saul” viewers, know better than that, right? wasn’t about the show criminal lawyer The one who spent his life scheming and getting to the top, only to sink to the very bottom. It’s always been a show about a man whose soul finds peace when the world won’t let him be anything else that he once was. The series finale — which revisits the quieter moments between the “Better Call Saul” and key times in the “Breaking Bad” timeline — somehow, expertly and beautifully, manages to bridge the gap between it all.
Mike asks Saul if “you wouldn’t change a thing?” In addition to chasing the money if he can go back in time as the two trek through the desert in the return of season 5’s “Bagman”. Walter, driven by blind ego, can only blame others for his problems as we await the start of his and Saul’s new life, courtesy of the vacuum man, in the final season of “Breaking Bad.” Shortly before Chuck’s suicide, he tells Jimmy that it is not too late to change his ways. Call them all interludes or cautionary tales. What matters is that none of these conversations redirect the path that our main character has set for herself, despite her initial intentions. But in the accumulation of a lifetime of regrets, deflections, selfishness and loss that consume him completely, Saul takes one last breath of humanity before the show closes the book on his journey.
Following his arrest and the official end of Gene Takovic, Saul miraculously takes a plea deal for seven years despite being on trial for the crimes he committed (bonus points for co-creators Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan, Bill Oakley , a minor background character, is its most important episode as Saul unfolds one last grand story). It’s haughty, manipulative, and selfish – but it’s always been the core of Saul Goodman. Why change now?
In a fitting thematic touch, it is Kim’s (Rhea Seehorn) conscience that serves as the tip of the spear piercing Saul’s crumbling armor. Saul Goodman makes one last Showtime drama when he learns that his admission to the DA about the true circumstances surrounding Howard Hamlin’s death in the final episode has put him in potential legal trouble.
As he addresses the court, a transformation takes place as he trades his cushioned pleading in exchange for raw, honest truth. “I was not just a willing participant. I was indispensable,” he tells the court. “Walter White couldn’t have done it without me.” In that moment, the man who became rich and famous for assuring his customers that they were not responsible finally takes responsibility. He frees Kim from the ghost of trouble that guarantees her imprisonment, as well as the freedom of her soul. “I tried. I could have tried more. I should have.” There was a regret that he didn’t want to be together and that he was letting Kim suffer more than ever.
Sitting down, he notes to the judge that he is no longer Saul Goodman, he is Jimmy McGill – although the persona he has fashioned for himself is always ahead in the eyes of the impressed criminals waiting for him in prison. . As he prepares to serve his 86-year sentence, Kim goes over to share a cigarette like they once did in the pilot and, in no uncertain terms, tells him that he did the right thing. .
If “Breaking Bad” was about the rise and fall of Walter White, then “Better Call Saul” was about the path Jimmy McGill almost took and the path he now regrets.
