Better Call Saul series finale

This show is ultimately about how you live with what you've done”: Talking about the end of Jimmy and Kim with the show's mastermind.

And if you can't think about your regrets, then you can't change your ways. But you can't help think about the pages that you would go back and rewrite if you had the opportunity. When you watch Bob [Odenkirk] in that scene, you know, he's got to be thinking about his brother. And the time machine is a thought experiment: if you could change something in your life, what would it be? Better Call Saul became something of a time machine, flitting between the technicolor days of Jimmy and the future noir-scape of Gene, with glimpses of Saul’s gaudy high-life in between. Especially for Jimmy, but also Mike, and Kim, and Walt—all of them have made decisions that I think, if they were to be honest about it, they regret.

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.

The star joined The Times to discuss Monday's series finale, why the role left him “ragged,” and his future hopes for the “Breaking Bad” universe.

“He’s a guy who is showing the audience his need, his hunger for love and respect from his brother Chuck. His heart is open to Chuck, and Chuck crushes him. Said Odenkirk: “The craziest thing is, all of these feelings I’m going through now — saying goodbye to this great thing — are going to be really helpful in this next role. He’s not a great guy in a lot of the actions he takes. She’s a person with a stronger sense of herself and a stronger mettle than Jimmy. She has a greater desire to be good, but there’s something wrong with her. “I play a character, who, while he reveals earnest sides of himself and can be very likable, most of the time he’s doing unethical, unjustified stuff. He returned to work in September after a hospital stay and recovery at home. It’s the biggest journey the character makes in the whole series.” “I love the finale and where it goes,” Odenkirk said. “The courtroom scene was hard,” Odenkirk said. The fugitive attorney, who has been hiding with a new identity as Cinnabon manager Gene Takavic, finally ends up behind bars, but he finds redemption in his punishment for multiple crimes, including accessory to murder and money laundering. There’s a degree of self-awareness this character gains that I always knew he was capable of. And it’s going to hit me.”

I write this review fresh from watching the series finale of Better Call Saul, an episode so profoundly powerful and well-crafted, I can think of few hours ...

He gets them down to 7.5 years, even picks the low-security prison he wants to stay at, and the wing of the prison he wants to stay in. And I didn’t expect that the final moments of this brilliant show would be so powerful and profound and heartbreaking. Then he talks about Chuck and how he hurt his brother and how his actions led directly to his brother’s suicide. I was right and I was wrong, as is so often the case with predictions. He confesses, but he’s confessing for Kim and for himself and for his brother. Soon, he’s hiding in a dumpster trying to call the vacuum man, but the cops find him and take him to jail. So Saul asks him what his regrets are, and of course Walter doesn’t think about the way he ruined his family’s life or the many other lives he had a part in snuffing out, including his brother-in-law’s. He doesn’t think about his actions at all. He makes it home to his apartment and gets some money he’s stashed there, but the cops show up outside so he flees out a back window. He regales the lawyers with tales of murder and fear. It’s what he wanted in the end: Not the deal he eked out of the Feds. He wanted to confess, in the end, not to the state or the judge but to Kim. Finally, after so many years of running from himself and justifying his mistakes and rationalizing the terrible things he did to others, Jimmy owned up to what he had done. When he was 20, he tried to do a “slip and fall” and cracked his knee on ice. Mike tells him he’d go back to the first day he took a bribe, implying heavily that he’d make a different choice.

'Better Call Saul' star Bob Odenkirk bids a fond farewell to the show in a new Twitter video — watch his goodbye.

“But we weren’t. We were given a chance, and hopefully we made the most of it. “It’s too many moving parts, and they fit together too beautifully, and it’s a mystery to me how it even happened.” We came out of maybe a lot of people’s most favorite show ever [in Breaking Bad], and we could have been hated for simply trying to do a show,” he continues.

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“He said his name was Mayhem.” He goes into the same story he delivered to George and Marie a few days before. “Better Call Saul, right,” the man says. “Hi Jimmy,” she says. “Oh,” he says, “I lied to the government about Kim Wexler … I just wanted her to be here today, to hear this.” He turns back to the judge and explains that he knew what was happening with Walt’s business even if he never saw the murders or the drugs. “It’s showtime,” Saul says. Heads to the mic, passing a very confused (and intrigued) looking Bill. “Two years ago, a man came into my office,” Saul begins. Not from the police — from them.” Saul lost everything, he says. “That was my introduction to Walter White.” Sure, Saul made a lot of money, but he only did it because he knew Walt would kill him. “Life plus one hundred and ninety years” is the verdict, but George says he will allow a one-time offer of 30 years on good behavior. “Then I’d come back here,” Jimmy continues, “and I’m a billionaire.” “This is how they get you,” he repeats over and over again. Saul suggests splitting the cash 50/50. “It’s not ours,” Mike says.

"I did nothing to deserve this part, but I hope I earned it over six seasons."

But we weren't. We were given a chance, and hopefully we made the most of it. "It's too many moving parts, and they fit together too beautifully, and it's a mystery to me how it even happened." Immediately following Better Call Saul's series finale on August 15, star Bob Odenkirk posted a video to Twitter bidding a fond and appreciative farewell to the fans and his co-workers.