Better Call Saul is impeccable television.
“Walter White couldn’t have done it without me!” echoes the voice of Saul Goodman in a silent courtroom, every word a dagger to his own heart. In the same surroundings where he was revered in, now on the opposite side, knowing that it’s the last time he’ll ever be in one.
A poetic and gut-wrenching finale of Better Call Saul finally brought the Breaking Bad universe to a close, as we see Saul Goodman a.k.a Jimmy McGill a.k.a Gene Takovic face the music for all the actions that his past is marred by.
Warning: Spoilers for the show Better Call Saul
Quite a ride, huh?
When Saul Goodman appeared in Season 2 of Breaking Bad, he was a much needed comic relief as we plunged into the gritty, gloomy underworld of Albuquerque. Showing up with flashy suits and witty one-liners, Saul Goodman was an instantly adored character and was crucial to the overall story and the rise of Heisenberg. His scheming and plotting, promotional advertisements and his unsuitable clients all added up to an iconic character that rightly deserved it’s own spin-off. But before he was Saul Goodman, he was Jimmy McGill.
Jimmy McGill’s story is a fascinating one, a consistent character study from the pilot to the finale. It took him years of guilt, betrayal, loss, alienation and apathy to become the energetic Saul Goodman he becomes in the later seasons of BCS and throughout Breaking Bad. Saul Goodman is a hollow, hopeless man who knows tragedy all too well. He has a big mansion but he lives all alone. He has sex with prostitutes because those are the only attachments he is now suitable for. He scams and loots people because he has no purpose anymore. His marriage to Kim Wexler was the one thread keeping him tied together since we embarked on this roller-coaster of a ride with all the attorneys and the cartel and the elderly etc. Jimmy knows that he is destructive, he is sick, like a virus, corrupting everyone around him. He is the catalyst for a lot of ruined lives — including his own. The final season of BCS explores the descent into this doomed persona of his in detail, but let’s talk about the final season huh?
Saul Gone Man
The final season released in two parts, Part I - Episodes 1 to 7 and Part II - 8 to 13. The present timeline wrapped up at the end of Episode 9 and we began to watch Jimmy’s life as Gene Takovic after the events of Breaking Bad, and that’s where the show truly felt like two different seasons. People needed to be reminded that this is the same season where Nacho kills himself, where Lalo kills Howard and is then killed by Gus, and yet, once the Gene timeline begins and we get deeper into Saul’s new life as a Cinnabon manager in Omaha, the writers manage to make us feel like it was such a long time ago, much like the time gap between those events in the story of Saul in Albuquerque and Gene in Omaha.
The colorless, bleak cinematography of Gene’s world showcases a lack of vividity and affluence in Jimmy’s life. He’s the subject of a manhunt, his wife has moved away, his business uprooted and now having to live under a new identity, he is always looking over his shoulder. But as they say, A leopard doesn’t change its spots.
He falls back into his old persona, stealing and planning extensive ways to make scores. No remorse, no hint of redemption, even going as far as nearly choking an old lady to death with a telephone cord. Jimmy is gone, Saul is gone. The writers let us believe that this cunning, despicable man will never change. It’s just a matter of whether he will accept that it’s all over for him and whether he will give himself up to the police. Because no matter how far he runs away, the cops (and his past) ultimately will catch up to him.
The Name’s McGill….James McGill.
In the thrilling conclusion to this acclaimed series, Jimmy is finally arrested. With about an hour to go until the series concludes, viewers don’t know what will happen next. They know he is too good to let himself be tried and sentenced but they also know that with all his contacts in the criminal underworld gone, there is no way he is going to orchestrate an escape.
Turns out there is a bit of Saul left in him after all, as he successfully plays the victim card and convinces the authorities during his plea hearing to bring his sentence down to 7 years from a life sentence. This is classic Saul Goodman, feet on the table in front of him, laid back, running his mouth and manipulating individuals with every word. It looks settled as Saul will serve only a short time before being back on the streets again, as himself. No more hiding. He can go back to his old ways again.
Yet, he does not.
When he hears that Kim Wexler has come clean to the authorities, he has a change of conscience. Under the pretense of giving out more information about Kim and her criminal involvement with Saul in a testimony, he manages to get Kim to come to his trial in Albuquerque. This is the first time they see each other in years since she left his office after signing the divorce papers. The shots, the dialogues and and glances the two character share are done so masterfully that viewers expect Jimmy to have fully turned on Kim, and to go all out against Kim in his testimony because he feels “betrayed” that Kim went to the authorities first to confess.
And yet, he does not. What follows is one of the greatest last 20 minutes or so in modern television.
In an unexpected turn of events, Jimmy comes clean to the judge himself, contradicting the story he told to the authorities to get his plea deal of 7 years. He mentions that he only said about speaking out against Kim because he wanted her to be present during this trial, because it could very well be the last time they see each other and that otherwise he would never see her again. Jimmy admits to all his crimes, the meth business, the scams, Howard and Chuck’s deaths etc. in an impressive monologue. He tells the judge to not call him Saul anymore, he is Jimmy McGill. He has left his destructive Saul Goodman persona behind. For the first time in his life, he is not running away anymore. This is the moment he becomes Jimmy McGill forever, with Kim watching him in this process. Due to his confessions, the plea deal of 7 years is changed to 86 years of imprisonment for Jimmy, and he is transported to ADX Monrose prison to serve his sentence.
But why did he do it?
“With good behavior…who knows?”
Redemption. It’s all about redemption for Jimmy. Up until the moment he found about Kim’s confession, he was still ready to be Saul and scam his way out of this. But something changed in him. He wanted to be better for once, possibly his last act as a free man. He wanted Kim to be there to witness his change, he wanted to earn her respect. He could have gotten away with a 7 year deal and left as a free man, but then he wouldn’t have Kim’s respect, nor would he have anything to live for. He’d rather take the 86 years of sentencing if it meant that he would earn Kim’s admiration, while also at the same time clearing her name during most of the testimony, which he did. He gave up his freedom for Kim’s. In prison he can use his legal knowledge and smart mouth to get along with the prisoners and as shown in the bus scene where he is transported to the prison, most of the inmates already know his name because of his reputation representing criminals in court, so he knows that in prison he can be himself without any danger. What if he takes the plea deal of 7 years, comes out and sees that there is no purpose for him? He would never be able to reconnect with Kim, his friends are long gone, he can’t work nor get clients. He would still be living a hollow life, something he wanted to change. And he did. He went out on his own terms. Something that Walter White couldn’t do.
“You walk in with your head held high, be the John Dillinger of the Metropolitan Detention Centre. How bad is that?” - Jimmy to Walt on their final scene together in S5E15 Granite Slate.
In the final scenes, Kim visits Jimmy at the prison using an invalid ID card, and the two share a cigarette for the last time. A beautiful callback to the very first episode where they do the same. In a world devoid of any colours, the flame that lights up their cigarette is the only thing that is in colour, resembling that this little moment is what makes Jimmy truly happy and hopeful.
‘You had them down to seven years’ Kim tells Jimmy, acknowledging that this man is a genius, a damn good lawyer, possibly the best. He had the whole room on his strings, stripping down a sentence to 7 years and then coming clean to instead getting 86 years made a mockery out of the officials involving the plea deal. He knew that he had one last decision to make in that court, whether to go out as Saul or Jimmy. If he had picked Saul and taken the 7 years, Jimmy would forever be lost. He’d rather live 86 years as Jimmy McGill than 7 years as Saul Goodman.
The last shot of the series shows Kim walking out of the prison with Jimmy looking on from behind a fence. He does their signature finger guns gesture towards her one last time, which he also did to Kim when he first became Saul Goodman, and then Kim doing it to him after deciding that she wants to destroy Howard Hamlin’s reputation. Kim doesn’t gesture back, signifying that for her, this life is over. She turns around and looks at the man she loves one last time, knowing that she will possibly never see him again and that he would very likely die in prison. And just like that, Saul Gone.
- Note: Images are sourced under the Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976. Allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research.
- I do not own any images. All images are courtesy of AMC, Sony, Better Call Saul.
Read some of my other stuff
