Better Call Saul (Season 5)

Creators: Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould
Starring: Bob Odenkirk, Jonathan Banks, Rhea Seehorn, Patrick Fabian, Michael Mando, Tony Dalton, Giancarlo Esposito, Mark Margolis, Max Arciniega, Kerry Condon, Dean Norris, Steven Michael Quezada, Barry Corbin, Rex Linn, Cara Pifko, Lavell Crawford, Robert Forster
Original Airdate: 2020

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★) 

When Better Call Saul premiered in 2015 it was understood that, as a prequel, certain developments would be inevitable. Locked in, so to speak. The challenge for showrunners Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould would be to take the details we already know about Breaking Bad and retroactively deepen them without causing disruption or inconsistencies within the narrative. The pressure wasn't in being great, but merely not screwing up, as most prequels have. And they chose to do it through Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), the sleazy, comedic "criminal" lawyer of Walter White many didn't think had an interesting enough backstory to carry this. And the doubters were sort of right, because the show ended up not being about him at all, but Jimmy McGill, the name to which he was born, and has spent the past few seasons desperately trying to shed.

Jimmy's long transformation into Saul appeared to have finally peaked at the end of last season, formally changing his professional name and fully licensed to engage in legal tactics that would make his late, brother Chuck (Michael McKean) turn over in his grave muttering, "I told you so." Even if it was a monster he helped create. The chipanzee with a machine gun is now officially on the loose and the final straw seemed to came at the end of Season 3 when the Jimmy did the unthinkable in suckering girlfriend, sometime business associate and scamming partner Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) into believing he'd changed. That he tearfully came to terms with his troubled realtionship with Chuck, only to turn her around and play her for a sucker, doubling down on his deception. S'all good man.

We know what happens to Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) and to a large extent, Jimmy McGill, but Kim was always the wild card. And the the closer we get to brushing up against Breaking Bad's timeline, the more we realize this has really been about her all along. Not only because Rhea Seehorn gives the most under-rewarded, underappreciated performance on TV, but we know Kim won't be in it, which is terrifying. This whole time we've been bracing ourselves for Jimmy's crash, wondering when he'll drag our beloved Kim down, scratching our heads how this reasonable, kind, intelligent person could continually go to bat for such a self-destructive con-artist.

This penultimate season does nothing to alleviate any fears about Kim's potential fate since it's clear she has a blind spot, and we struggle to come to terms with how large it may be. Now we have our answer. And if what happens in the final minutes of this season is to be taken at face value (which few things on this show are), then we may have been worrying about the wrong person, as Gilligan and Gould introduce the possibility that Kim may share more than a few similarities with a certain high school chemistry teacher turned pork-pie hat wearing drug kingpin. Chief among them is moral indignation accompanying a belief that the end justifies the means. That it isn't the wrong thing if you're doing it for the right reasons.

It's entirely possible Kim's just testing Jimmy, but just as likely that the writers have cleverly shifted the conversation and she doesn't need to save him from himself since he'll become Saul Goodman attempting to rescue her from herself. It's a potentially shocking development from a series that always walked up to the line of predictability without stepping over. The chance that Kimberly Wexler has broken bad while Jimmy sits in regrettable, nervous contemplation over his violent brush with the criminal underbelly is as unpredictable as it gets. And now, with the two frequently overlapping worlds of the show officially colliding, there's no turning back.

Like each prior season, we flash- forward to a post-Breaking Bad, black-and-white Omaha, Nebraska where Jimmy's assumed identity as Cinnabon manager Gene Tacavic is now increasingly starting to show its cracks. Following an impromptu fainting spell, a trip back from the emergency room ends up blowing his cover. And it's hard not to feel that these scenes carry an added urgency after El Camino, which proved it's possible to successfully add an epiolgue onto Breaking Bad that doesn't violate anything that came before. Like that film, we're treated to an appearance from the late, great Robert Forster as vacuum salesman and "disappearer," Ed Galbraith, who can only get Jimmy out of this one for a price. That is if he wants to get out, or instead fight, possibly re-embracing his original identity, despite the risks. And whichever identity that is, it's clear either would be preferable to being Gene, a charade that's slowly killing him inside.

The action preceding all this in New Mexico is what carries the most suspense and anticipation, as the drug war rages on between Gus and the Salamancas. With patriarch Hector Salamanca (Mark Margolis) incapacitated from his stroke and now using that infamous wheelchair bell to communicate, his charismatic nephew, Lalo (Tony Dalton) has taken over. He's made Nacho (Michael Mando) his right-hand man, unaware he poisoned Hector and secretly works for Gus. If only Lalo could find a good lawyer. Enter the recently re-instated Jimmy McGill, now officially practicing under "Saul Goodman."

Jimmy's representation of the criminal element escalates from hawking cell phones to being suddenly thrust into the middle of a big stakes drug war for which he was entirely unprepared. Kim also has her own distractions practicing at Schweikart and Cokely while simultaneously taking pro-bono cases on the side. Torn between facilitating the greed and corruption of banking client Mesa Verde and its clueless President and doing the right thing for a cranky land owner they're evicting, she involves Jimmy. That's a big mistake.

If anyone knows about living with mistakes, it's Mike, and the fallout from last seaon's bungling of the Superlab construction and his killing of Werner Ziegler has led him down a dark, depressing path of drinking and violence. The only person who may be able to pull him out of that hole is Gus, redirecting the former cop and doting grandfather's goals, serving as a motivating force in much the same way he eventually will for Walt. It's an interesting parallel, especially considering where all three characters eventually end up. But everything leads back to Kim and Jimmy, who find themselves on opposite sides, both in the courtroom and their personal lives, with criminal chaos quickly engulfing their world.

It's been established throughout the previous four seasons that Kim not only harbors a blind spot for Jimmy's illegal and morally bankrupt schemes, but is even frequently excited by them. But for someone whose ethical compass is so steady she's expressed a degree of reluctance joining in even his most minor of scams, he seriously tests her. First, with the Mesa Verde mess, which sees Jimmy really pull the wool over her eyes all in the name of "protecting" her and then again with his involvement with Lalo, that puts both of their lives in jeopardy. Her answer to dealing with it will drop a lot of viewers' jaws, further cementing a union we knew was doomed from the start.

It's pretty sad when the only person Jimmy feels truly comfortable opening up to is Mike, and as much as he leaves Kim in the dark, he still ends up telling her too much, or at least enough to make her vulnerable. But one of many things we've learned about her is that she won't take anything lying down and may in fact be more equipped to deal with all of this than he is. She's nobody's victim and it's a testament to Seehorn's performance that she somehow still suprises and even shocks with her range of reactions to the curveballs thrown her character's way. And ultimately, the show saves the best one for last.

If these ten episodes really succeed in shining its spotlight on the characters who don't appear in Breaking Bad, but nontheless shape those upcoming events. As Lalo Salanmanca, Tony Dalton is a charismatic force of nature, and a total break from what we've come to expect from a family that's basically been portrayed as brainless, hot-tempered thugs up until this point. From Tuco to Hector to the Cousins, they've cornered the drug game with muscle over mind, with none of them presenting themselves as a match for the calm, calculating Gus.

Lalo's different. Not only is he just as intelligent as Gus, he's surprisingly funny and charming, while knowing exactly what he's doing. Combine that with what at times seems like superhero-type survive skills like leaping onto cars and escaping impossibly precarious physical situations, and you have trouble. So much so that you wonder if the result would have turned out the same if Walt had to deal with Lalo instead of Gus. And if that's not a compliment to Dalton's performance, I don't know what is.

Like a chess player, Lalo's more than a few steps ahead, frustrating Gus' takeover plan and even forcing him to adjust course several times. This also affords Giancarlo Esposito to offer a deeper peak into Gus' psychology and how it's evolved leading into the events of Breaking Bad. Much about him is the same, but he does seem less in control here, still negotiating the balance between his public facade as the mild-mannered Los Pollos Hermanos manager and impending rise as a drug kingpin. But you can see the blueprint in his fastidious attention to detail with both. And Nacho, who Michael Mando continues to play with such nervous intensity, can barely go a moment opposite Lalo without the viewer thinking he'll be found out.

Lalo and Nacho share many intense scenes, each seemingly more  than the next, culminating with the finale. Bound to Gus to protect his family's life, Nacho's caught between a rock and a hard place, as the consequences could be equally bad if Lalo suspects he's a rat. Despite he and Lalo getting a shout-out early in Breaking Bad's run, we really have no idea whether either makes it, or maybe Saul's unaware that they didn't. Along with Kim, these two are pretty much at the top of every viewer's death watch list, with Nacho the most vulnerable of all.

The back half of the season finds all these characters scrambling, with Jimmy now all the way in. If Lalo has to use his resourcefulness to outsmart and outmaneuver Gus when the walls start closing in on him, it becomes clear just how underestimated he is. Jimmy's at his most pitiable and fearful as a desert shootout leaves him a walking billboard for PTSD and left to wander the desert with Mike in theVince Gilligan-directed episode, "Bagman." It's probably the most screen time Jimmy and Mike have shared thus far during the series and plants the seeds for the working relationship they'll eventually have, with the latter grumpily protecting the criminal lawyer while even developing a begrudging respect for him, at least by ornery Mike's standards.

The desert experience changes a shell-shocked Jimmy but it's unlikely anyone thought it affect Kim more. Knowing how things turn out for him, maybe we took it for granted that he would be quickly comfortable with a life of crime. He's not quite there yet, and if Jimmy is Kim's weak spot, than his is still Chuck. His continued obsession with "getting even" with his late brother through HHM's Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian) over slights both perceived and imaginary prove he'll never be out from under Chuck's thumb.

There's no reason to believe Howard's olive branch of employment to Jimmy is anything but genuine since he was one of the few to try to go to bat for him. But despite his possible sincerity, Howard has this way of coming across as a slick phony looking to absolve himself for being Chuck's lackey. But it's Kim who thinks that throwing bowling balls onto his car and framing him for soliciting prostitutes isn't enough punishment for Howard's warning that Jimmy's "bad for her." The bigger question is whether she even truly cares. Does destroying Howard's life and career for the sake of building a pro-bono law firm make her master plan morally just? No one could have envisioned a scenario where Jimmy is the voice of reason, pleading her not to go through with it. Or is she just testing the waters to see how far he'll go? Only now we have a whole new avenue as to how he can possibly get there. 

After delivering what many believe is its strongest season yet, some have gone as far as to say this series is eclipsing Breaking Bad. I'm not one of them, especially considering this show's existence is based entirely off of it. That series to told one story with laser-like focus and few detours, whereas this has been a bit messier and took longer to find its footing, its two main storylines only now fully intersecting in its fifth season. While it hasn't spun its wheels, the execution's been deliberate and I wouldn't blame anyone for thinking they'd be further along at this point, or at least not a full four years before Walt starts cooking. But you still sense, more than ever, there's a strong plan, with the gaps between seasons perhaps partially contributing to that anxious feeling of impatience. Where it more clearly falls short of its predecessor is in its sometimes inconsequential cold opens that just seem to do little else other than reveal expository information related to the episode.

On Breaking Bad, these opening segments were a can't-miss, often times featuring an earth-shattering flashback or flashforward that reveals character or intel that was absolutely crucial to the overall narrative. But there are still notable exceptions here, such as The Cinnabon Gene flashforwards, flashbacks to Jimmy and Chuck's history and last season's Ozymandias cold open, which saw Saul scrambling to disappear with his new identity. All those seemed essential, as does the long-awaited Kim childhood flashback we got this season, which directly ties into her current plight, as well as the character's psychological motivations.

It's probably too early to say they dropped the ball on Hank (Dean Norris) and Gomez's (Steven Michael Quezada) appearances since they'll very likely be back, but their minimal involvement this season seemed inconsequential and even somewhat forgettable considering how important we know they'll become. But these are nitpicks of what's arguably the most successful prequel series in modern television, and one that faced no small creative task in terms of what it had to follow. When it's over it'll be an interesting experiment to watch the two shows in chronological order and then see how Better Call Saul plays knowing what we'll know. That'll be the ultimate test. After what's sure to be an excrutiatingly long wait for the final season, it's a safe bet Gilligan and Gould will have it all figured out and really step on the gas when it returns, making it all worth the wait.