AMC
Better Call Saul is the rare follow-up that’s superior to its classic predecessor, and Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould’s Breaking Bad prequel ended tonight on a note that’s as perfect as just about every other maneuver it’s made over its six stellar seasons. Revealing what becomes of Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) in the aftermath of his escapades with Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), as well as the destiny of his ex-wife and frequent partner-in-crime Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), it proved an ideal capper to one of TV’s all-time greats—even if, when it came to the fates of its protagonists, it wasn’t all good, man.
[Spoilers Follow]
Last week’s penultimate installment “Waterworks” concluded with Jimmy hightailing it out of the home of Marion (Carol Burnett), who had discovered—via an internet search conducted in the wake of her taxi-driver son Jeff’s (Pat Healy) arrest—that her new friend wasn’t just a neighborly fellow worried about his lost dog, but a wanted con man. The aptly titled “Saul Gone,” however, doesn’t immediately commence with Jimmy on the run. Rather, it leaps backward to last season’s eighth episode, “Bagman,” to peek in on a brief water-break chat between Jimmy and Mike (Jonathan Banks) as the duo lugs $7 million of cartel money across the desert. Pondering what date they’d travel back to if they had a time machine, Mike chooses the day that he accepted his first bribe. Jimmy, on the other hand, says he’d head to 1965 so he could get in on the ground floor of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and then return to the present as a billionaire (or trillionaire). When Mike asks if he only cares about wealth, Jimmy responds, “What else?”