Better Call Saul is gearing up for a sixth and final season, wrapping up the now 11 season (and a movie) run that began with Breaking Bad. The show has a lot of questions left to wrap up about its characters that don’t appear in Breaking Bad, including Lalo, Nacho, and Rhea Seehorn’s Kim Wexler (whose Emmy snub is a disgrace, by the way). But one big question relates to the flash forwards we’ve seen at the start of each season–what happens to Jimmy?
Peter Gould, the show’s executive producer, has talked to Entertainment Weekly about the final season, and what will happen with Jimmy McGill (hiding out in his new identity as Cinnabon manager Gene Takovic). The Season 5 opener suggested that Jimmy might be in some trouble, but Gould wants viewers to ask themselves a larger question throughout the final season.
“Anybody who watches the show carefully and is thinking about where this is all going, one of the questions you have to ask yourself is: ‘What does this man deserve?,'” Gould told Entertainment Weekly. “What would be a deserving end to this? Does Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman/Gene Takovic deserve death? Does he deserve love? What would be the most fitting end for this guy–for the show?”
Gould wants viewers to consider whether there’s any room for Jimmy’s redemption. Throughout Better Call Saul, the character slides further into his dark side, but never goes as far as Walter did in Breaking Bad–in a memorable Season 3 plotline, Jimmy briefly ruins the life of an elderly client, Irene, for one of his schemes, before finding a way to help her that dramatically blows up his potential career in elder law.
Gould also touches on Kim, and the fact that why she isn’t in Breaking Bad is the show’s “other big question.” Gould answers cryptically, saying that fans should “keep (their) eye on the bottle stopper”–a reference to a momento Kim has held onto from a scam she and Jimmy ran on an investment banker back in Season 2, which directly led to the two characters becoming a couple.
These are not the most direct answers–but then, we don’t want the show spoiled for us.
Better Call Saul is due to air its final season in 2021, as long as it’s able to film amid COVID-19 restrictions. Bryan Cranston, star of Breaking Bad, recently revealed that he was diagnosed with and recovered from COVID-19.
