With AMC’s Better Call Saul poised on the brink of its sixth and final season (or technically the first half of an oversized final season split in two just like the final season of its predecessor, Breaking Bad), there’s a sense that’s changing expand and contract its narrative possibilities at the same time.
On the one hand, the bigger picture seems to be falling into place and years of meticulous planning are paying off, as its characters’ varied fates eventually converge somewhere in the hellish sprawl of Albuquerque’s underworld. On the other hand, having already seen the aftermath of Better Call Saul on Breaking Bad, we already know more or less where the limits of this big picture lie.
Better call Saul
The Bottom Line An exciting beginning to an inevitable end.
air date: 9 p.m. Monday, April 18 (AMC)
Pour: Bob Odenkirk, Jonathan Banks, Rhea Seehorn, Giancarlo Esposito, Patrick Fabian, Michael Mando, Tony Dalton
Creator: Peter Gould, Vince Gilligan
How satisfying the series will ultimately be in being able to navigate between these conflicting directions remains to be seen. But at least the first two episodes that were sent to critics continue to reflect a confident drama that’s firing on all cylinders and showing all the signs of it ending as brilliantly as it came.
One of Better Call Saul’s most impressive qualities throughout its run has been its consistency, and that continues into season six. The joys of the show are still her joys. His performances haven’t missed a beat, and neither has his writing – if anything, these characters and the world they live in have only gotten richer and more complex with time. (I beg you Emmy voters: stop sleeping on Rhea Seehorn.) The cast and writers (led by showrunner Peter Gould) retain their gift for dancing between breathless suspense, painful tragedy and genuine LOLs; The first two episodes have moments from all three.
It remains a show that delights in the intricacies of an intricate scheme, be it a bit of legal goofball from Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) or methodical groundwork from Mike (Jonathan Banks) as part of a larger criminal conspiracy from Gus (Giancarlo Esposito). . And it’s still one of the flashiest shows on TV, with an eye for beauty and meaning in composition and a playful habit of placing the camera in odd places — with a bundle going through an X-ray machine or up close with it an ordinary insect going about its business.
At the same time, its shortcomings are still its shortcomings. For most of its run, Better Call Saul felt like two parallel series. One is an excellent, often devastating, character study set primarily in the legal world, tracing Jimmy’s transformation into Saul Goodman. The other is a perfect crime drama about power shifts and deadly conflicts within and around the Salamanca cartel. These storylines occasionally overlap, and the final episodes of season five tie them together more closely than ever under the massive, looming threat of Lalo (Tony Dalton).
But in the early episodes of Season 6, the show returns to its typically forked state, and as usual, it’s hard not to notice how much more interesting one half is than the other. The new episodes pick up immediately after the explosive season five finale, and while the premiere doesn’t exactly count as a breather — this is still Better Call Saul, so there’s still vibrant moments where life hangs in balance — it feels as a moment when the characters must reevaluate, regroup, and redirect their attention to play out the consequences of the important decisions they made last season.
It’s simply a matter of survival for Better Call Saul’s gangland characters as they try to figure out the state of the land after the (unsuccessful) assassination of Lalo. The start of season six hinges heavily on the excitement of what that means for Nacho (Michael Mando), who has often been sidelined throughout the series for fan-favorite splashiers like Gus.
But the decision to give him the spotlight is now proving wise. Not only is Nacho one of the most likable characters in a cartel populated by figures whose coldness verges on the superhuman (see Hector, the Cousins or, again, Gus); He’s also one of the few whose fate wasn’t already described in Breaking Bad. The threat to his life gives these scenes an urgency that Mike, for example, never could since we know Mike lives to see the rise of Heisenberg.
At this point, however, Better Call Saul’s most pressing question might be what will become of Kim (Seehorn) – which has come to mean not just whether she survives, but whether her soul does. She and Jimmy are still fat as thieves when we meet them again, but their turn to the dark side in the season five finale seems to have shifted the balance between them in a small but significant way. As Kim advances her career at a brisk pace, a new sense of hesitation seems to weigh on Jimmy. It’s as if he, too, realizes on some level that he’s reached a turning point and is reluctant to let go of Jimmy McGill and embrace his next life as Saul Goodman.
But the chapter’s turn from Better Call Saul to Breaking Bad is inevitable, underscored by the already announced arrival of Walt and Jesse sometime this year. In the second episode of season six, a supporting character knocks over a domino, knocking over a whole bunch of them. It seems an equally fitting metaphor for what is to come. For five seasons, Better Call Saul has been arranging the tiles, astounding us with the complexity of its design and the patience required to do it justice. Now it’s time to sit back, hold your breath and watch them fall.