Better Call Saul Season 6 Episode 13

Given death or regret or redemption, showrunner Peter Gould delivers a farewell episode that rejects the need for a choice. [Spoilers]

Is it a neat and tidy parallel to the beginning of their partnership? The truth for what’s left of Jimmy McGill is more gradual, and even more in the eye of the beholder. He swaps the promise of a life in the clear for a life with a clear conscience. Not sure either of them would use the word “atoned,” but they’ve each given up the idea of hiding from the guilt or consequences of their shared time in New Mexico. As a result, neither are condemned to isolation. The 2004-era McGill-Wexler alliance was a toxic cocktail of ambition and cleverness and spite. The flashbacks in “Saul Gone,” aside from gathering in all the Albuquerque buddies for one last party, are part of the case that “Better Call Saul” has been building in its own trial of Saul Goodman for years now. Playing for clients, playing for judges, playing for his wife: maybe it was a mistake to reduce the man to a simple Jimmy/Saul binary. This certainly isn’t the last chance to salute the “Better Call Saul” creative team, but it’s worth noting some of the folks who made this final collection of affirmations as clear as it could be. It’s not just the Fosse hands in the mirror or the slicked-back hair or the pinky ring (one of the show’s only supporting characters to not make a return visit for the finale). Along with Gould, Odenkirk locates the idea that Saul Goodman was only as good as a reflection of his audience. (Given this creative team’s appreciation for — and participation in — TV history, it can’t be a coincidence that significant stretches of this episode are drama-series echoes of a finale for another of the greatest shows of all time.) Marie happens to be the representative present for one last “Better Call Saul” scheme, with Saul going from pacing around mumbling in a small Douglas County holding cell to engineering a dessert-topped plea deal in a manner of on-screen minutes. His smug additions to the terms of his cooperation with the federal government are delivered with the confidence of a man who ultimately gets what he wants, even if he has to spend a few months living in a different state before that happens. He offers a fabricated sob story — hinging on Badger, of all people — that raises enough of a specter of a hung jury to get an artisanal plea deal.

No, for this final season, Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould gave us three extra episodes. Is that a commentary on Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) himself and how he's ...

Netflix subscribers in United Kingdom, France, India, and over 30 other international regions will have access to new episodes of Better Call Saul thanks to next-day streaming. New episodes of Better Call Saul premiere on AMC+, AMC’s streaming service, the same time they premiere on the channel. In the past when it came to this show, AMC preferred to keep seasons off Netflix until a new season was set to premiere. That’s what happens in “Waterworks.” After showing Jimmy’s phone call with Kim (Rhea Seehorn) in “Breaking Bad”, the episode finally explained why Jimmy lost his temper. The final ever episode of Better Call Saul premieres tonight (August 15) at 9/8c p.m. on AMC and AMC+. If you have to miss this first showing, don’t worry. Then you better have some free trials left. If you choose the yearly option, that will save you $24 total. Sling TV, fuboTV, Philo, YouTube TV, or DIRECTV STREAM all include AMC. New episodes will also be available for next-day streaming on AMC’s website and on the AMC app. It seemed that Better Call Saul couldn’t possibly compete. Maybe! Regardless, grab your popcorn and maybe some whiskey as you prepare to watch Episode 13, “Saul Gone.” When Better Call Saul first premiered in 2015, fans were nervous. Is that a commentary on Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) himself and how he’s overstayed his welcome as a criminal?

The series finale of Better Call Saul masterfully wraps up Vince Gilligan's deeply human crime universe. Read our spoiler-filled review.

In the end, Better Call Saul goes out just as it lived — in intelligent, charming, deeply human fashion. In just a few quick lines, the pain and regret that hovers around Mike, but his desire to provide for his loved ones are all illuminated. Kim was the only person that could break the hold that Chuck had on Jimmy’s psyche, the only person that could make him feel regretful. Walt tears into the absurdity of the premise using science and is domineering toward Saul, yet he’s wise enough to get to the heart of what Saul’s really asking. He also discusses using the time machine to visit his family in the future. However, a final flashback with Chuck explains the behavior. Most fitting is that Mike is the first of these flashbacks because early on, Better Call Saul was as much Mike’s origin story as it was Saul’s. Gilligan and co-creator Peter Gould have been frank about the fact that Saul’s story has evolved greatly from its original conceit, and Mike’s presence in the series may have suffered as a result, but it’s nice to see one more conversation between the two characters. Not only was Breaking Bad the darling of Peak TV’s first wave, a word-of-mouth hit upping the ante creatively each week until it crescendoed to universal acclaim, but it was also special to me beyond the entertainment it provided or the conversations it drove. Reviewing Breaking Bad was the first time I received feedback from strangers in the comments here, and shockingly, it was mostly positive. My fears were that Better Call Saul would tarnish the legacy of my sentimental favorite. Breaking Bad may not have been the first series I covered for Den of Geek, but it felt like the first time I was really connecting with people through my writing. They also give us precious final moments with Mike, Walt, and Chuck, giving us a snapshot of who they were as characters on a fundamental level and allowing them a curtain call.

'Better Call Saul' has come to an end after six seasons. Read EW's recap of the series finale.

When he got in his machine, the only place he ever went was the future — and before he returned to his own time, he went so far forward that he witnessed the end of the world. They finish the cigarette, in that room where the barred window is nothing but a shadow above them. But as much as this final episode centers on the question of regret, the usefulness of that question is undermined by the way that this story has always been permeated by inevitability. Her hair is curled again, but still dark, still different, because Kim can't travel back in time any more than he can; this is how it looks for her to move on. Better Call Saul has always dwelled in the irresolvable tension between the two, in the way that Jimmy McGill's genuine sweetness and Saul Goodman's venal self-interest were two parts of the same whole. By the time he's finished describing how he built Walt's criminal empire, his plea agreement is toast, but Kim's safety is secure — and he's going by "Jimmy McGill" again. He tries to tell them his name is McGill. He tries not to smile. Regrets, he's had a few, but he has neither the time nor inclination to linger on them. Is it purely altruistic, that he still loves Kim, and still wants to protect her? But when he finally arrived to a life of leisure — when he'd made more money than he knew what to do with, when he'd installed himself in a home that reflected both his material wealth and his life's emptiness from every one of its copious mirrored surfaces — he could never belong there. A striver, a dreamer, a man with big plans to claw his way into the sun where he belonged. We don't see Saul's mirrored mansion in this episode, but I thought of it at one particular moment, the one where he calls Bill Oakley (Peter Diseth) from the police station.

The series finale “Saul Gone” is a supremely satisfying sendoff.

Later, in his flashback to the visit with Chuck, Chuck has a paperback book on the kitchen counter: H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. For a minute, they are those two people in the first episode of the series, “Uno,” when they are in the HHM parking garage, oozing chemistry while they are passing a cigarette back and forth. She makes a point of telling Jimmy she got in to see him with that New Mexico bar card that has no expiration date on it. Saul gets emotional as he tries to talk about what happened to Howard, but then, when he sees Kim at the back of the room and sees that she’s really listening to him, he finally reveals what he did to Chuck, ruining his ability to practice law, to purposefully hurt him, after which Chuck killed himself. Poor Bill tries to save some semblance of the case, because while Saul was getting his Jimmy McGill on and redeeming himself with Kim, he was costing himself that sweet government deal. At first, we think Saul is angry that Kim got the better of him and has limited what he may be able to get out of the government. All is not lost, though: During that bus ride, his fellow inmates recognize him not as Jimmy, but as “Better Call Saul,” and they stomp their feet and shout his catchphrase in appreciation of their hero. - Jimmy’s big break began with dumpster diving for info to help the Sandpiper residents sue the company. In another beautifully shot scene, Kim and Jimmy (that’s what she calls him) stand against the visiting room and share a cigarette she has snuck in for him. Showrunner and episode writer and director Peter Gould’s storyline sent Saul to jail early in the finale, which amped the excitement about all that awaited us. When asked to give a hint about how Better Call Saul would wrap up during a Tribeca Festival panel in June, Bob Odenkirk offered two words: “second life.” That clue turned out to be much pithier and more perfect than anyone might have guessed. He can totally own his opponent, even when he should be looking at decades in prison.

Jimmy McGill returns to square up to what he's done and earn redemption from the person who matters most. A recap of “Saul Gone,” season 6, episode 13 and ...

A few times during “Saul Gone,” Jimmy brings up the idea of a time machine as a thought experiment — with Mike during their miserable trek through the desert, with Walt during their stay in the basement of a vacuum-cleaner repair shop, with Chuck as he’s bringing him his supplies. (Cutting to the yard afterward seemed akin to adding a denouement after “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship” in Casablanca.) Few shows in television history have been as artfully filmed as Better Call Saul. I’ll miss its images perhaps most of all. A time machine has the power to erase the past or jettison a person so far into the future that the past ceases to matter. Later, Walt seethes over his own billion-dollar company getting swiped out from under him by Elliott and Gretchen. There were more complicated reasons than money for Jimmy and Walt to act as they did, but wanting it was still a factor. While it’s true that Walt and Jesse Pinkman abducted Jimmy and held a gun to his head over an open grave, the rest of his story is nonsense. “If you don’t like where you’re heading,” says Chuck in a touching flashback, “there’s no shame in going back and changing your path.” He doesn’t have to live the rest of his life as the 22-year-old who went down the literal slippery slope by pulling “a slip-and-fall” outside Marshall Fields. He can square up to what he’s done and earn a measure of redemption from the person who matters most to him. The problem with regret is that it’s not anything close to a time machine. He saw the chance to build the drug empire that would make him a millionaire, and he didn’t have Kim around any longer to look at him sideways for doing it. “Saul Gone” is essentially about two versions of the same speech, one by “Saul Goodman” and the other by Jimmy McGill. The first is when “Gene” is finally captured and brought before a tableful of prosecutors to discuss the charges against him, with Marie Schrader as a special guest. That finale image of a gut-shot Walt returning to the lab with the tenderness of a serviceman coming home from a long tour overseas is a sublimely perverse and pathetic fantasy. Last week, the door was closed firmly on the notion that maybe Jimmy and Kim could somehow rig a future together because Jimmy could not be helped. That’s what 14 years of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul has been about — who these men are fundamentally and whether they have the capacity to change.