*Warning: This contains spoilers about Better Call Saul series finale*
After 7 1/2 years, six seasons, and one of the most maniacal mustached menaces to ever grace a TV screen, Better Call Saul has finally ended. If you've been following the criminal crusades of Jimmy McGill turned Saul Goodman turned Gene Takovic (Bob Odenkirk), his fate as a federal inmate was comforting in its moral certainty. But, Better Call Saul's series finale did more than end the story of Saul Goodman; it gave closure to a few lingering questions left from Breaking Bad.
The sobering consequences compounded by each of Saul's wrongdoings were inextricable of the somewhat fantastical playground of mischief where his human engineering and legal ingenuity roamed free. The Cinnabon house of cards Gene built only comes crashing down in the finale after he innocently mentions Albuquerque on the phone with Marion (Carol Burnett) while giving her a suspicious explanation for why he needs to bail her son Jeff (Pat Healy) out of jail in the penultimate episode "Waterworks." Jeff was only in jail because he nervously crashed into a parked car after being spooked when a cop car parked behind him while he was waiting for Gene to leave the house he was robbing. Gene was only robbing that house because he was hellbent on replenishing the millions he found out the government seized in the third to last episode "Breaking Bad," regardless of the fact the victim was dying of cancer. That one mistake led him to an 86-year sentence in federal prison.
Show creators Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan helped us bid farewell to Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), Saul Goodman, and the Better Call Saul world, but they also tied up a few loose ends from the Breaking Bad world.
How did Hank Schrader factor into the finale?
After being arrested inside a dumpster with the last of his money submerged in the trash, Saul has to answer for his Breaking Bad crimes to not only the U.S. government's lawyers but also one of the people he hurt: Marie Schrader (Betsy Brandt). The last time we see Schrader is in the Breaking Bad series finale "Felina," where she's frantically advising Skyler White (Anna Gun) to be on the lookout for her wanted husband, Walter White (Bryan Cranston), who is back in town. This comes after she overhears Walt threatening Skyler on the phone with the revelation that she'll never see Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) again because he crossed him.
Marie got the painful answer to her husband's whereabouts but never got the chance to confront any of the people who had a hand in his death until Better Call Saul. In an episode centered around Saul coming to terms with his misdeeds, Marie meets the legal mind behind the meth empire that killed her husband for the first time at his plea negotiation. She compares him to trash, scolds him for helping make three children fatherless, all for money, and lets him know no prison sentence will be enough for the pain he's helped cause. For the first time in the year since she learned Hank was dead at the end of Breaking Bad (and months after his body was located), Marie tearfully unloaded the grief she had no outlet for months.
The Significance Of Walter White and Saul Goodman's Last Conversation on Better Call Saul
The last time we saw Walt and Saul together was in the penultimate Breaking Bad episode ("Granite State"), where the two fugitives were holed up in a bunker waiting for the criminal relocator Edward "Ed" Galbraith (Robert Forster) to give them new identities and residences. In their final interaction, Walt is looking to assemble assassins to murder neo-nazi group leader Jack Welker (Michael Bowen) for killing Hank and kidnapping Jesse to manufacture the meth he labored to make near-perfect. Saul, who's no longer a lawyer, gives his former client one last legal consultation on the house. He gives Walt the harsh truth that his best option would be to turn himself in because his fleeing would put his wife and kids in legal jeopardy. After Walt tries one last time to intimidate Saul into doing his bidding, his cancer rears its ugly head in a series of coughs that bring him to his knees and let Saul know big bad Heisenberg is no more before he leaves for his new life in Omaha.
Walt's first appearance in Better Call Saul came as an extended version of the Breaking Bad scene where he and Jesse kidnap Saul to threaten him into doing their legal bidding. The same is true for his final appearance on the show: A look inside Walt and Saul's life in the bunker before being relocated. Outside debating the theoretical merits of time travel and fixing their hot water problem, Walt reveals for the first time he regrets leaving the Gray Matter Technologies company he started with graduate school friends Elliott Schwartz (Adam Godley) and Gretchen Schwartz (Jessica Hecht). Throughout Breaking Bad, Walt insisted the pair stole his work and were responsible for his dire financial straits. Even though he does blame the couple for "artfully maneuvering" him into leaving the company he helped build, he finally sets a bit of his megalomaniacal pride to the side to admit he regrets not profiting off of the multi-billion dollar company Gray Matter grew into.
Their convo also shows that Walt had his former friends on his mind a while before he saw them publicly deny he had anything to do with the company other than the company's name on Charlie Rose from inside a New Hampshire dive bar in the "Granite State" episode. While that serendipitous TV viewing was the impetus for Walt to frighten the pair in their home into donating $9.7 million of his drug money to his son in an irrevocable trust in the Breaking Bad series finale, it was this conversation in Better Call Saul that took his former friends from the recesses of his subconscious to close enough to the top of his mind to make the next time he saw them enough for him to enact some measure of revenge finally.
In the end, Better Call Saul accomplished exactly what it was supposed to: give Breaking Bad fans closure while expanding the universe deeper into our hearts. There will only be one Saul Goodman. Long live Better Call Saul.
Keith Nelson is a writer by fate and journalist by passion, who has connected dots to form the bigger picture for Men’s Health, Vibe Magazine, LEVEL MAG, REVOLT TV, Complex, Grammys.com, Red Bull, Okayplayer, and Mic, to name a few.
