Warning: This article contains spoilers for all Better Call Saul episodes up through season six, episode seven. Do not read if you haven’t watched until that point. It also references plot points from Breaking Bad.
Before the season six premiere, a friend and I put together a list of prop bets as to what might happen in the final episodes of Better Call Saul. There’s no money riding on it – just pride – but among other things, we speculated on the fates of the characters not seen in Breaking Bad (that would be the late Nacho, the late Howard, and the very much alive Lalo and Kim). We were both correct in guessing that Nacho was not long for this cruel world, but we both assumed Howard would make it to the end – not unscathed, of course, but alive. However, neither of us saw the midseason finale of Saul ending with only the fates of Lalo and Kim up in the air.*
*Fans of Breaking Bad know that in his final confrontation with Hector, Gus states that Hector is the only Salamanca left alive, but we still don’t quite know how Gus outwits Lalo – assuming it is Gus and not someone else who ultimately takes Lalo out. But I think it’s safe to assume that Lalo isn’t leaving this series alive. As for Kim, well, the common consensus is that she’s likely going to survive but in what state? Because if there’s one thing we’ve learned throughout our watches of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, it’s that there are, in fact, fates worse than death. And these writers love to deploy them to characters we are rooting for.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. There were a number of questions at the outset of this final season of Saul – namely, when Jimmy McGill would finally take the plunge and turn off the part of his brain where empathy lives and become the slimy criminal lawyer who would recommend killing someone over leaving loose ends. Seven episodes in – with six more set to begin airing in July – and we still haven’t reached that final tipping point. But watching Lalo murder Howard – a man only in the wrong place at the very wrong time due to Jimmy and Kim’s scheme – well, that might be the final push that gets him to the edge of the cliff. When Jimmy took on his role as a friend of the cartel back in season five, he was cavalier about it. After walking through the desert and nearly dying, he was a bit more circumspect with a healthy dose of fear. And when he thought Lalo was dead, he was able to breathe and focus on smaller things – getting his practice up and running and scamming Howard. But now? Well, I think we are about to see the last of Jimmy McGill for a good long time.
And when you talk about Jimmy, you have to talk about Kim as their fates are now fully tied together. We’ve all long suspected that the final shift from Jimmy to Saul would be linked in some way to Kim – whether it be her leaving because he went too far, a need to get out of town for her own safety, or her death at the hands of the cartel. There would be some trigger that sets him off and lets him lose that last piece of humanity. But now, in the aftermath of his success turned horrific tragedy with Howard – and the fallout that will almost certainly include learning that Mike told Kim about Lalo’s faked death and that she hid it from him for weeks – well, I can see that path from Jimmy to Saul a hell of a lot clearer now. This is a man who thought his actions didn’t have big consequences. Sure, he would ruin Howard reputation for a while, but Howard – as his brilliant speech in “Plan and Execution” highlighted – always lands on his feet. It was perverse fun at the expense of someone he thought could handle it (and the reveal that Howard’s life was already spiraling into darker recesses was a shock to Jimmy – one that certainly had him looking a bit chagrined at his actions). But, for the first time in his life, his game playing suddenly had very real and very deadly consequences.* And the question for Jimmy moving forward – once he deals with a gun toting Lalo Salamanca in his apartment and the body of Howard on the floor – is to decide how he wants to respond to those consequences.
*The only time Jimmy has really seen his actions result in something as traumatic as Howard’s death was the situation with Chuck. While Howard blamed himself for Chuck’s death, both the audience and Jimmy know that it was Jimmy’s actions that were the final nail in Chuck’s coffin. Jimmy has been able to push that to the background, blaming others and convincing himself that Chuck was someone who deserved what he got, and generally just ignoring the pain and trying to pretend it didn’t affect him. But now? Jimmy can’t just brush this to the side and ignore it. There’s a body on his floor and a psychopath with a gun in his apartment. This is very real and very much the result of his and Kim’s actions.
Which is where the Kim question comes in. And not the big question everyone has had since the pilot – where was Kim during the events of Breaking Bad, although that will factor into things in these final six episodes for sure – but just how instrumental is Kim in Jimmy’s final fall from grace? Could Jimmy have gotten to this point – on the precipice of becoming the man, the myth, the legend Saul Goodman – without Kim’s influence? We’ve seen throughout season six that Kim has been the driving force behind the great Howard caper. For Jimmy, it was a chance to get revenge on the guy he blamed for stymieing his career and never believing in him. For Kim? This was deeply personal. When Kim made the choice to blow up her chance at getting the grant for her pro bono practice, she stopped being able pretend that she was destroying Howard’s reputation for anything other than the joy she got from it. Howard was right – she got off on the thrill of the experience. As far as we can tell, she never admitted as much to herself, but that comment by Howard brought to mind another character in this particular universe: Walter White. For years, Walt tried to convince himself that he did what he did for his family. Similarly, Kim tried to convince herself she was doing this to get the money from the Sandpiper Crossing settlement and to take Howard down a peg or two. She opted not to tell Jimmy about Lalo being alive so that he wouldn’t worry – and wouldn’t force them into hiding and force them to abandon their plan. But, like Walt, she ultimately tried to destroy Howard’s career and reputation because she liked it. And, like Walt, her actions resulted in a horrific aftermath. Is this enough to set Kim back on the right path? Or is she, like Jimmy, now a friend of the cartel and trapped in the game? Will there be a vacuum cleaner salesman to take her away? Or with something else intervene and remove her from the Albuquerque game board before Heisenberg shows up? We’re about to find out.
So, where does this leave us going into the final six episodes of the series? The first three episodes of the season were a vignette detailing the last days of Nacho (such a beautiful set of episodes and a stupendous performance from Michael Mando). The next four, taking us into the break, were centered on both the Howard plan and the Lalo plan – the planning and execution of each, leading to the legal and cartel sides of the story finally crashing together. One assumes that the remaining episodes will take on a similar breakdown. Perhaps three detailing the showdown between Gus and Lalo – how the Chicken Man outmaneuvers the seemingly supernaturally imbued Lalo one final time (after all, Chekhov’s gun has been stored in the meth lab – it needs to go off some time)? Then a final three episodes dedicated to wrapping up the heart of the series: Jimmy and Kim’s relationship and how it deteriorated to the point where Kim wouldn’t be in Albuquerque throughout the entirety of Breaking Bad? We’ve seen what Saul’s house looks like and there isn’t a touch of Kim throughout that palatial castle of bad taste. Her only presence in his life appeared to be the cap of their special tequila bottle, hidden away in a drawer, like Jimmy has become hidden within the life of Saul Goodman.*
*A popular theory, and one that I ascribe to, is that there’s some fail safe communication plan between Kim and Jimmy during the Breaking Bad years. The mid-season four flash forward scene showed Francesca and Saul running from the law office before the Feds busted in. During that conversation, Saul made Francesca promise that she would be at a specific pay phone at a specific time on Jimmy’s birthday, presumably to accept a phone call. Is the person that is calling Kim? Does she call to check in every year? Or is there a set “Call if you need me” plan in place? This is a series that doesn’t do half measures. We’re going to get our answers at some point in these final episodes, and I suspect we’re on the scent as to the answer here.
But no matter how the final six episodes come together, its clear that Better Call Saul continues to be the best damn show on television. It’s playing 3D chess, each moment linking elegantly into the next. The reason so many people were utterly shocked with the ending of “Plan and Execution” – even if they thought Howard wouldn’t make it out of the series alive – was that they were, like Jimmy and Kim, lulled into the false sense of security that final scene was set up to provide. Howard knocked, the confrontation that had to happen occurred, we all assumed they would say their piece and move on. The boogeyman wasn’t supposed to sweep into the room and throw everyone off kilter.
Lalo was supposed to go after Gus and leave Kim and Jimmy alone – at least in the interim. We weren’t supposed to think that when Mike pulled back his men to protect Gus, that it would also mean pulling them back from Jimmy and Kim (although I wonder if he kept his detail on Kailee). They were supposed to be safe. But in the world of Better Call Saul, you’re never really safe. And when you’re a friend of the cartel, you’re in the game for however long the cartel wants you. And when they don’t want you anymore? Yeah, that’s when things get rough. Howard was the latest instance of collateral damage in this series, but he likely won’t be the last before all is said and done. The problem is, we’re running out of characters whose fates we don’t know.
Better Call Saul is crushing it week in and week out thus far (even when the series is slowly doling out information, we should be well aware by now it’s only just biding its time before springing the trap it’s setting for us and the characters). As we approach the endgame, take time to savor these final episodes. Once Better Call Saul is gone, I doubt we’ll ever see the likes of it again.
Better Call Saul will be back with its final six episodes beginning on July 11 on AMC and AMC+.
