Rhea Seehorn – Memphis Flyer

At the end of Citizen Kane, the nameless reporter, who has pursued the mystery of Charles Foster Kane’s last word “Rosebud,” stands with his colleagues amid piles of the great man’s possessions and admits he hasn’t been able to figure out what it meant. “What have you been doing all this time?” they ask.

“Playing with a jigsaw puzzle.”

The sixth and final season of Better Call Saul begins with homage to that famous ending, only instead of executors taking inventory of a mogul’s estate, it’s the government seizing the property of fugitive lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk). Like Breaking Bad, the show it serves as a prequel to, it’s the story of how a fairly normal guy becomes an epic villain. Only in the case of Better Call Saul, we’ve always known where this is going. It’s like Titanic — we know the ship is going to sink; it’s all about the details of how it happened.

When the season begins, Jimmy McGill is more successful than ever, but he’s already in over his head farther than he knows. His new solo criminal practice under the name Saul Goodman is thriving, and he’s flush with cash thanks to his star client, Mexican drug cartel kingpin Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton). He’s blissfully unaware of carnage unfolding south of the border, where Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) has ordered a hit on Lalo in his own home — a big no-no in the cartel world. His man on the inside, Nacho (Michael Mando), did his job by unlocking the gate for the gunmen. It’s not his fault that they killed everyone in the house but Lalo, including burning to death the Salamanca family’s beloved grandmother, but he’s the one who’s left without a chair when the music stops.

Meanwhile, back in Albuquerque, Saul and his power-lawyer wife Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) are pursuing an elaborate scheme to win a long-running lawsuit by framing their former boss Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian) for cocaine possession. Their machinations generate some much-needed comedy in the persons of Betsy and Craig Kellerman, former clients whose transparent viciousness makes them easy marks.

Then, showrunners Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould deliver one of their patented rug-pulls. When the Kellermans get wise to the scheme, Saul wants to simply bribe them into silence, but Kim’s solution is so vicious and cold-blooded, it actually shocks Saul. Kim is Better Call Saul’s richest character, and biggest surprise. The woman we met as a try-hard do-gooder, whose attraction to the bad-boy screwup is a mystery to everyone, has emerged as the show’s Lady Macbeth. Of all of the show’s drug lords, street bosses, criminal lawyers, and lawyers who are criminals, she is the most dangerous because no one knows what she wants. Her quest to ruin Howard is unnecessary, and her methods — as fun as they are to watch — are excessive and dangerous. Surely, an operator as shrewd as she understands the risks, so what does she see that we don’t?

The most ironic aspect of this story that revels in earned irony is that the only displays of virtue come from the most hardened, violent criminals. Nacho’s operatic demise in episode 3, “Rock and Hard Place,” grows from his desire to protect his father from the consequences of his life of crime. It’s Fring’s enforcer Mike Ehrmantraut’s (Jonathan Banks) principled stand against civilian casualties that ultimately saves his boss’ bacon when Don Hector (Mark Margolis) starts asking uncomfortable questions about who tried to whack Lalo.

Artistically, Better Call Saul has no rivals on television. The show routinely pulls off bravado shots few would dare attempt, and the writing team is at the top of its game. Since it’s the last season, the executives at AMC seem to have given them carte blanche to do all the crazy stuff that enters their heads.

For all that, Better Call Saul’s artistry is not indulgent. It’s disciplined, visually inventive, emotionally affecting, character-driven filmmaking of the highest order. The most mundane detail, like Kim’s discarded wine-stopper, can become the setup for an emotional punch line. Even the most outlandish moments feel real.

And wither Saul Goodman? Will we end the series understanding how he broke so bad? The opening Citizen Kane reference suggests that the exercise is ultimately futile. The boat sinks, and we may never truly understand why.

Better Call Saul is streaming on AMC+.

Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) offers 50% off felonies in Better Call Saul.

Here’s the trouble with prequels: Their ostensible reason for being is to explore an intriguing backstory suggested by their parent story. But here’s the rub: If the backstory was that interesting to begin with, it should have been the original focus of the story. Prequels are always at a disadvantage, story-wise.

This might be a daunting problem for most writers, but showrunners Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould are not most writers. Now, seven episodes into their fifth season of the Breaking Bad prequel Better Call Saul, they’re using the story of small-time shyster Jimmy McGill’s transformation into sleazy lawyer par excellence Saul Goodman to draw some of the deepest characters ever attempted on television. Like Titanic, we all know the ship is going to sink, and the important part is how it looks to the people on deck.

Rhea Seehorn and Bob Odenkirk

This penultimate season has been about the characters’ duality, the gaps between how they present themselves to the different people in their lives, and what that says about who they are inside. Bob Odenkirk has been masterful in his presentation of the slide from Jimmy the screw-up prankster to the calculating, creepy Saul. Jimmy/Saul is, like any expert manipulator, a fine observer of people. But his blind spot is himself. He can fine-tune his personal presentation to fit the audience he needs to con at the moment, but he is either unwilling or unable to turn his piercing insight inward. The closest he comes in season 5 is the end of episode 7, “JMM,” when he sees the family of a person his drug lord client Lalo (Tony Dalton) murdered. But his crisis of conscience is short-circuited when he sees his old nemesis, Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian) and explodes in a self-aggrandizing tirade that buries Jimmy under an avalanche of Saul.

Giancarlo Esposito as Gus Fring

But that’s only one of a slew of great performances. Giancarlo Esposito’s stone cold demeanor as Gus Fring, the meth kingpin disguised as a fast-casual restaurant owner, is as nuanced a performance as you will ever see. Unlike Jimmy/Saul, Gus — who, it is hinted, was a soldier before he was a drug lord — knows himself, and the clarity of his self-knowledge is his greatest strength. In season five, we find that Gus tries to balance the evil that he does with good works back home in rural Mexico. His interior steel brings his fixer Mike (the brilliant Jonathan Banks) out of his funk after having to execute a friendly German engineer last season.

Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler

This season’s surprise MVP, it’s Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler, Jimmy’s super-lawyer girlfriend. She alone sees the struggle between Jimmy and Saul, and tries to put a finger on the Jimmy side of the scale. Kim is the most ambivalent of them all. She reacts to Saul’s betrayal, which endangers her brilliant career, by forcing him into a marriage that is clearly the best thing that could happen to the guy. But, as her blowhard client Kevin (Rex Linn) points out to her in a rare moment of clarity, she could do so much better than Jimmy. Her ultimate goals, and how she intends to get there, remain a mystery.

Better Call Saul’s emphasis on character has been at the expense of the twisty, intricate narratives Breaking Bad did so well. The exception was episode 2 of season 5, “50% off,” where Saul Goodman’s introductory special of half-off felony defense representation sparks an epic crime binge that becomes the catalyst for Jimmy’s spiraling entanglement with the Salamanca drug cartel. A recurring theme has been meta-commentary on filmmaking itself. There’s a lot of overlap between the legal profession and acting, and Gilligan and Gould have found ways to blur the lines between the two. At one point, Saul becomes a director when he and his film student friends produce a TV commercial to gain leverage in a case against the Mesa Verde bank.

Breaking Bad helped launch the era of “prestige television,” and while it has spurred many imitators, its high points have rarely been equalled. Better Call Saul’s effortless virtuosity gives you what you really want out of a prequel — a chance to return to a familiar world and live there for a little while.

Better Call Saul Puts on a TV Masterclass