By Patrick Cremona

Published: Monday, 15 August 2022 at 12:00 am

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When Bob Odenkirk’s Saul Goodman was first introduced in the second season of Breaking Bad, he was presented as a comic relief character – a jovial figure who could inject a bit of fun into proceedings even as the show went to increasingly bleak places.

And to begin with, Better Call Saul seemed to be operating very much in that mode. For its first couple of seasons, the spin-off was a fairly comedic companion piece to Breaking Bad that pretty much dispensed with the darkness of its sister show in favour of something far more light-hearted, even if there were a couple of hints of the drama that would come later.

For the most part, viewers were treated to a character-driven series that followed the various hijinks of former conman and aspiring lawyer “Slippin’ Jimmy” McGill as he tried to make a name for himself in the legitimate law world, with his clients in those early days more likely to be dissatisfied OAPs than feared drug barons.

Only, that didn’t last. Better Call Saul has evolved over its six seasons to become something every bit as gritty and dark as Breaking Bad, with a fair few familiar faces having joined the action as we’ve come increasingly close to the timelines joining.

So ahead of the final episode – which arrives on Netflix tomorrow (Tuesday 16th August) – read on for everything you need to know about the story so far.

Better Call Saul recap 

Season 1

The first season – which aired between February and April 2015 – introduced us to two different versions of Saul, one from before the events of Breaking Bad and one from after it.

In the later timeline, Saul is now a Cinnabon employee known as Gene Takavic, but after that first appearance, this version of him would only be glimpsed fairly irregularly going forwards – seen briefly at the start of each season.

Meanwhile, in the earlier timeline, we meet Jimmy McGill, a struggling public defender in Albuquerque who cares for his mysteriously ill older brother Chuck and is desperate for any clients he can get.

From early on we learn that Jimmy will go to great lengths to win clients – including some clearly dodgy behaviour. One such incident sees him attempt to represent a couple called Craig and Betsy Kettleman, who have embezzled vast sums of money from their place of work.

The Kettlemans have opted to be represented by Chuck’s firm Hamlin Hamlin McGill (HHM), but when a scheme to win them over goes wrong Jimmy finds himself having an unexpected encounter with drug lord Tuco Salamanca.

This also leads him to meet Tuco’s criminal associate Nacho, who attempts to enlist him in a plan to steal the $1.6 million the Kettlemans embezzled, which Jimmy refuses even despite the offer of a finder’s fee.

Things take a turn when Jimmy tries to warn the Kettlemans of the impending theft – but after a run-in with Nacho, and the discovery that the Kettlemans have gone on to fake their own kidnapping, Jimmy finds the $1.6 million of stolen funds and manages to convince Craig and Betsy to pay him $30,000 to keep quiet.

He uses this cash to attempt to market his services as a lawyer, and comes to blows with HHM as a result, with Chuck’s partner Howard Hamlin especially taking against him.Although most of the clients his advertising attracts aren’t particularly promising, Jimmy comes to learn that he is something of an expert when it comes to striking up a rapport with older clients, and is persuaded to specialise in elder law by his friend and HHM employee Kim Wexler.

Meanwhile, Mike Ehrmantraut, a parking lot attendant who has frequently interacted with Jimmy, enlists his help so that he can steal a police notebook. The notebook confirms fears he’d had that his son – a straight cop in a corrupt force – had been killed by two of his colleagues, and so Mike takes revenge against them by shooting them both dead.

The Kettlemans decide to return to Jimmy after becoming dissatisfied with their representation at HHM – where Kim had persuaded them to take a plea bargain – but after Mike and Jimmy steal the embezzled money and hand it over to prosecutors, Craig agrees to a jail sentence.

In flashbacks, we also learn two key details from Jimmy’s life – that he had once had something of a relationship with Kim, and then Chuck had blocked his attempts to find employment as an attorney at HHM.

Back in the present Jimmy stumbles upon an incredible discovery – that the Sandpiper Crossing nursing home has been overcharging residents for expenses, which amounts to elder abuse. Although they attempt to destroy evidence, he retrieves shredded documents and pieces them together with help from Chuck, who is clearly excited by the ordeal – even managing to go outside for the first time in years.

But things between Chuck and Jimmy soon turn very sour when Chuck enlists HHM’s help on the case and tells Howard that Jimmy should not be involved. When Jimmy discovers Chuck’s intervention – and following a bitter row between the pair – he stops taking care of his brother.

Later – after Jimmy appears to descend into his old ways with a week of scams in Cicero – Kim calls him to let him know that HHM is planning to work with another firm, Davis & Main of Santa Fe, on the Sandpiper case, and that firm would like Jimmy to be involved.

At the very end of the season, in a conversation with Mike about why they didn’t keep the Kettleman money, Jimmy reveals that he will not make the mistake of doing “the right thing” again.

Season 2

Jimmy initially declines the offer from Davis & Main to work for them, telling Kim that he is desperate to leave the law profession behind and return to his conman ways – which leads to the pair enjoying a night of scams. After spending the night with Kim, Jimmy is persuaded to back down and accept the offer.

Howard and Cuck are clearly unhappy about this situation and try to monitor Jimmy’s involvement in the case, which clearly unnerves him.

Meanwhile, he has been asked by Mike to represent a man named Daniel who has had his baseball cards stolen by Nacho but is viewed with suspicion by the police, who think he may be a drug dealer. Jimmy’s defence plan involves staging a video with Daniel that leads to Kim warning him against pulling similar stunts in the future.

Later, after Jimmy uses unethical methods to convince more of the Sandpiper residents to take action against the nursing home, she is forced to reiterate this warning. He also gets told off by Clifford Main after he runs a TV advert without the consent of Davis & Main, but is given a second chance.

Kim – who has been working in document review ever since she was demoted for losing the Kettleman’s business in season 1 – is desperate for a promotion and lands an impressive client in the shape of Mesa Verde Bank. Chuck then persuades Howard to move her away from document review, but only after he warns her about Jimmy.

Not long afterward, she is offered a job by Rich Schweikart of rival firm Schweikart & Cokely, and while pondering whether to accept she partakes in another scam with Jimmy – who is struggling to adapt to his job at Davis & Main.

Eventually, Jimmy decides he has to quit, and so deliberately behaves in such a way that will force Cliff to dismiss him. After he is fired, he attempts to convince Kim to partner with him in their own law firm, but she has a different proposal: they should start separate firms but share an office space.

One of the first things Kim does with her new firm is to try and win Mesa Verde’s business, which leads to a bitter war with HHM – not helped by the fact that Jimmy deliberately sabotages his brother’s firm by tampering with various documents.

Eventually, after Chuck tells Jimmy that he is retiring due to the ‘errors’ he’d made on the paperwork, Jimmy guiltily confesses to his sabotage – not realising that Chuck has recorded his confession on a hidden tape recorder.

Meanwhile, all this time, Mike and Nacho have been involved in a scheme to frame Tuco – who has been behaving increasingly erratically – and this leads them to his uncle, Hector Salamanca. At the end of the season, Mike attempts to assassinate Hector but is stopped by someone whose identity remains a mystery.

Season 3

The start of the season set up two storylines – Chuck’s plans to use his taped confession of Jimmy to bring about his downfall, and Mike’s attempts to get to the bottom of who stopped him from assassinating Hector.

Mike makes progress in his plan when he discovers that he is being tracked, and comes up with a clever scheme using the tracking device to follow the mystery meddler.

Meanwhile, Kim tells Jimmy of the existence of the tape, which forces him to break into Chuck’s home and steal it – not realising that Howard and a private investigator are watching him and have now told Chuck to alert the police. He is arrested and threatened with jail time, but Chuck would rather that he submit a confession to the New Mexico Bar Association that will result in his disbarment.

We learn that the person who had been tracking Mike is Gus Fring and the two meet and come to an agreement that Mike will not kill Hector, although he still continues to bring him to the attention of the police by planting cocaine on his truck.

At Jimmy’s hearing, it has been arranged that all electrical items should be switched off so that Chuck can attend without his electromagnetic hypersensitivity playing up, but at the end of the trial, Jimmy reveals he has placed a mobile phone inside his brother’s pocket which has seemingly not affected him. This prompts an outburst from Chuck that stuns the room into silence.

Eventually, Jimmy is suspended for a year rather than being disbarred, and Howard convinces Chuck that the two brothers should attempt to mend their differences.

Meanwhile, things between Hector and Nacho have been growing tenser – with the former wanting to use the latter’s father’s upholstery shop as a front for a new smuggling route. In response, Nacho steals a nitroglycerin capsule from Hector – which he needs following an angina attack – and replaces it with ibuprofen in the hope of inducing a fatal heart attack.

After it looked like he had been making progress with his electromagnetic hypersensitivity symptoms, Howard suffers a relapse when he is forced out of HHM by Howard over a disagreement surrounding the ongoing Sandpiper case, and Jimmy’s attempts to reach out are ignored. Eventually, he destroys his home’s interior and intentionally starts a fire – killing himself.

Season 4

At the start of the season, Jimmy is feeling guilt for Chuck’s death – but when Howard reveals that he believes his decision to dismiss Chuck from HHM caused Chuck’s suicide, Jimmy feels much better about himself, even though he knows he was still partly to blame.

Meanwhile, Gus has fallen suspicious of Nacho, who has taken over Hector’s business. He eventually learns that Nacho was responsible for Hector’s stroke and tells him this – but says that since the Salamancas do not know this, he essentially controls him now.

Things seem to be going well for Gus, but that all changes when Lalo Salamanca emerges at the end of the season – he appears to be aware that something is up and that Gus has an upper hand that he is not revealing.

Out of work, Jimmy comes up with a new plan that involves stealing an extensive Hummel figurine. This eventually leads him to start a scheme that involves selling burner phones to criminals – a scheme that sees him begin to use the name of Saul Goodman.

Meanwhile, Kim, who suffered a car crash in season 3, is not enjoying her work with Masa Verde and decides that her life will be more fulfilling if she takes on some pro bono clients – which eventually leads to her taking a job at Schweikart & Cokely.

Jimmy is not happy about this due to the fact they had been planning on opening a firm together when his suspension was over, and there is a negative effect on their relationship – although they later heal their wounds the traditional way, by concocting another scheme together.

Mike is now working for Gus to help build what will become the meth superlab that is famously used by Walt and Jesse in Breaking Bad. This involves supervising the German crew – led by engineer Werner – who are forced to keep the entire operation a total secret.

Although at first glance it seems like it will be the younger members of the crew who risk giving the secret away, eventually Werner decided to sneak away to spend a weekend with his wife who he dearly misses. During this trip he unwittingly gives away the location of the lab to Lalo – leaving Mike with no choice but to kill him on Gus’s orders.

Towards the end of the season, Jimmy’s suspension is up, and although he initially has his request for reinstatement denied, he enlists Kim to help him and eventually manages to work his way back in by faking remorse over Chuck’s death.

He says that his return to the law will see him use only ethical methods and that his days of scheming are behind him – but it doesn’t take long before he announces his plans to now practice under a different name: Saul Goodman.

Season 5

In season 5, an all-out war begins between Lalo and Gus, with the latter finding the impulsive behaviour of the former increasingly hard to accept. Lalo’s suspicions have also forced Gus to shut down construction on the meth lab, with the remaining Germans sent home, and Mike has become rather disillusioned – especially given the way in which Gus ordered the killing of Werner.

Jimmy also has his own scrapes with Lalo throughout the season, stemming from when he was hired to defend him after the murder of an innocent store clerk. During this process, Jimmy is asked to pick up Lalo’s $7 million bail fund from a location in the desert, but while there finds himself getting shot at by members of the Salamanca cartel. Thankfully Mike arrives to save the day, but the pair are then stranded in the desert, facing a long trek home without a car or any water.

Later in the season Kim and Jimmy are paid a visit by Lalo in their home, and although nothing happens in the end, it’s a very tense affair – especially for Kim, who had previously been relatively unaware of Lalo and the threat he posed.

Kim herself experienced something of a transformation in season 5. Spurred on by Jimmy’s experience in the desert, she decides to drop Masa Verde and focus solely on her pro-bono work and is also eager for the Sandpiper case – which is still ongoing – to finally be settled so they can get their payout.

Her plan for this involves a scheme that will see them destroy Howard’s reputation, and for once it is Jimmy who suggests that this would be too unethical – although he is eventually won over.

Towards the end of the season, Mike promises to help protect Nacho and his father if he is able to eliminate Lalo. Nacho’s job is relatively straightforward – while he is staying at Lalo’s house, he should open the door at 3am and run, allowing Gus’ men to enter and kill him.

The problem is that the plan relied on Lalo being asleep at that time, but he was very much still awake and ready to face the assassins by the time they reached him. Therefore although all of Lalo’s family were killed, he was able to escape – and what’s more, has been able to work out that Nacho has been working for Gus.

Season 6

The first part of season 6 was essentially focused on two separate storylines that came together in a brutal incident in the mid-season finale.

First, there was Jimmy and Kim’s attempts to ruin Howard’s reputation. This included, amongst other things, bringing back the Kettlemans to claim that Howard was using drugs while representing them – and it eventually led Cliff Main to make a decision about settling the case, a triumph for Jimmy and Kim.

With regards to the cartel aspect of the plot, it was bad news for Nacho – who was forced to turn himself in, in an attempt to save his father’s life. This led to a final showdown between himself and the Salamancas – with Mike and Gus also in attendance – at which Nacho accepted full responsibility and killed himself before any of the others could get there first.

After hearing about Cliff’s decision, Howard took a trip to Kim and Jimmy’s apartment to ask why they decided to go ahead with their plan, but he chose the wrong night to make such a trip.

On that same night, Lalo, who was still looking for dirt on Gus, who he believed was guilty for the attempt on his life, also arrived and shot Howard dead – a shocking end to the first half of the season.

The second part of the season started by dealing with the fallout of the incident. Lalo instructs Jimmy to go to Gus’s house and kill him, only for Jimmy to refuse and insist that Kim goes instead.

But it turns out this is all a diversion anyway – the real confrontation takes place when Lalo tracks down Gus himself and forces him to show him the lab. Gus, however, is far too quick for his adversary and kills him, with Mike later overseeing the joint burial of both Lalo and Howard.

After Howard’s funeral, Kim emotionally tells Jimmy that she can’t go on with their relationship anymore – and also resigns her law licence. We then see a time jump – with Jimmy now living firmly in his Saul Goodman persona.

The remaining episodes have taken place across two timelines. One of them, set during the Breaking Bad era, has seen the appearances of characters such as Walt and Jesse and also included a confrontation between Jimmy and Kim while they finalise their divorce papers.

But the more crucial scenes have been set in the post-Breaking Bad timeline, with Jimmy now living in Omaha as Gene Takovic. Here we have seen him take part in some more new schemes – most of which include his new accomplice Jeff, who had become aware of his true identity and threatened to turn him in.

Gene is also seen trying to reach Kim, who we learn is now living in Florida, but she clearly has no interest in reconnecting – leading to quite an aggressive outburst in a phone booth. In the penultimate episode, we see that Kim appears deeply dissatisfied with her life, and following her phone conversation with Jimmy she reaches a decision to turn herself in – driving to Albuquerque and telling Howard’s wife about the role she and Jimmy played in his death.

Meanwhile, back in Omaha, one of Jimmy’s schemes – involving a string of burglaries – has gone horribly wrong and after Jeff is arrested, his elderly mother Marion works out that Gene had been lying to her. Not only that, she’s managed to work out his real identity – and calls the authorities with her Life Alert button. In other words, Jimmy is being closed in on all sides…

Better Call Saul is available on Netflix in the UK and AMC in the US. Check out the best Netflix series and best Netflix movies to keep you entertained, or visit our TV guide for more to watch.

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