brake alert: Don’t read if you haven’t watched the Season 6 finale episode of “Better Call Saul” called “Saul Gone.”
More than seven years after “Better Call Saul” began, and 13 years after Bob Odenkirk’s debut as a sleazy lawyer in “Breaking Bad,” his story is over — and Saul is behind bars.
After a US lawsuit against Saul Goodman, now reformed Jimmy McGill ended up in 86 years in prison as Walter White’s “indispensable” criminal attorney. After going down a dark path for the past few seasons, Saul has finally taken a turn and confessed to all his crimes, in doing so removing the name Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn).
So how did we get to this (somewhat) happy ending, at least by “Breaking Bad” standards? The episode began with a flashback of “Better Call Saul” Season 5, Episode 8, in which Saul and Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) are trapped in the desert with $7 million in cash. Sweating in the desert, perhaps before he drinks his pee, Saul asks Mike what he would do if he had a time machine and could go back to change something? Mike says he’ll go back to the moment he accepted his first bribe, or he’ll check in with some people in the coming years. On the other hand, Saul will selfishly go back in time when Warren Buffett took over Berkshire Hathaway so he could play the stock and become a trillionaire. This time machine idea continues through the episode, so pay attention.
Next, we pick up where last week’s episode ended: Saul is a runaway from the police after Marion (Carol Burnett) LifeAlert-ed them. But in the end, Saul’s luck ran out. Everywhere he turns, there are cops. After hiding in a trash can, Saul tries to find a phone to call Ed the Disappearer, but he fumbles with everything he’s carrying and the police find it.
Saul lands in a prison cell, where he calls his co-workers at Cinnabon to tell them they’ll need to find a new principal, and then convinces Bill Oakley (Peter DeSeth) to be his counsellor in the upcoming trial. At this point, we’ve got our shocking first episode debut: Betsy Brandt is back as Marie Schrader! For the first time since Breaking Bad, Mary is back to put Saul behind bars for the rest of his life. “They told me they found you in a trash. That makes sense,” she tells him, tragically recounting how her life changed in the wake of the murders of Hank (Dean Norris) and Stephen Gomez (Stephen Michael Quezada) in Breaking Bad.
But Saul has a story for himself: He’s been a victim ever since Walter White (Bryan Cranston) kidnapped him and forced to carry out his orders. To paint a picture of Walt’s violence, Saul described the prison massacre orchestrated by Walt, in which 10 men were killed in three prisons within two minutes. In the end, Saul says he only needs one juror to believe him, and his sentence is reduced to seven years, plus his cozy North Carolina prison and mint chocolate chip ice cream every Friday. He even offers to give up dirt on what happened to Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian), but prosecutors inform him that Kim has already confessed to the murder.
From here, we return to “Breaking Bad” and see what Walt and Saul were up to as they waited to move away into their new lives. Saul returns to his question about a time machine, which Walt describes as scientifically impossible, but then says he regrets leaving Gray Matter Technologies, the company he co-founded. When Saul says he regretted his “slipping and falling” in his twenties, Walt coldly asks, “So, have I always been like this?”
Back in Florida, Kim volunteers for Central Florida Legal Aid, but Saul appears to be plotting to betray her, and she knows he will testify against her in court. Now, it’s show time: US starts vs. Sol Goodman. Saul, Kim, and Mary are in court, where Saul represents himself with Bill Oakley. The judge says Saul’s recommended seven-year prison sentence is the most generous she’s seen in 20 years, but before the full courtroom drama unfolds, he interrupts Saul to tell his shocking testimony. After he was sworn in, Saul withdrew 180 votes and confessed to all his crimes with Walter White, almost bragging about how Walt couldn’t build his drug empire and stayed out of prison without him.
Saul also confesses how he sabotaged the career of his brother Chuck McGill (Michael McCain), which led to his suicide. The courtroom erupts into pandemonium, Saul demands that James McGill be called and the prosecution wants the full verdict.
Before we see Saul’s fate, we get a flashback once again with another surprise guest: McCain’s return as Chuck. At his dark brother’s house, younger Jimmy, before Saul, drops some groceries. In a recent reference to time travel and regret, Chuck tells him that “there’s no shame in going back and changing your course.” Then it was revealed that Chuck was reading H.G. Well’s The Time Machine.
Finally, we see Jimmy, falling out of his own persona as Saul, on the prison bus, surrounded by inmates who recognize him and chanting “Better call Saul!” Before Jimmy is locked up for the rest of his life, he receives one last visit from Kim, with whom he shares a cigarette, just as in the series premiere. We know he was sentenced to 86 years in prison, which is slightly higher than the seven years he first negotiated. Once friends, co-workers, and lovers, Jamie and Kim share their last looks at each other while Jamie is in the prison yard. With a quick flick of the finger guns, Jimmy was gone. His criminal life has finally caught up with him, and “Better Call Saul” has finally come to an end.
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