When We Last Saw Them
We don’t see Nacho in the Better Call Saul season 4 finale, but we know he’s in season 5 so he didn’t skip town. We also know there’s a dead TravelWire clerk left behind by Lalo, and Mike Ehrmantraut’s image will appear on the office’s surveillance camera footage, along with Werner’s, unless Gus sends people to take care of that. Mike might be getting an unwelcome visit from the police early in season 5.
Jimmy learns about Chuck’s death at the beginning of the season, and then spends the year that he’s suspended from practicing law officially working at a cell phone store. He’s there by himself most of the time, so he’s able to sneak out to pursue a more lucrative vocation, reselling burner phones to criminals under the name Saul Goodman.
Kim thinks her days as attorney for the Mesa Verde bank are over in the wake of her car accident, but a local law firm hires her to work for them and bring Mesa Verde into their client base. So she goes from working from a home filled with file boxes of Mesa Verde paperwork to having her own elegant and spacious office with a shelf full of awards commemorating new branches she helped Mesa Verde navigate the legal requirements to establish. This proves unfulfilling, however, and she takes up some pro bono work for some down-and-out clients on the side.
Along the way, Kim and Jimmy pull off a couple of elaborate scams which were some of the highlights of the season. But their relationship suffered, more because Jimmy thinks she disapproves of him and his secret cell phone business than because Kim actually feels that way.
The climax of the season is Jimmy’s hearing to get reinstated as a lawyer. He’s denied on the first pass and told some committee members felt he wasn’t sincere. He and Kim finally have the screaming match we knew was coming, but Kim is clearly committed enough to the relationship to try again, and helps him get a second chance. They conclude the key is for him to show how the loss of Chuck affected him, and that, for Jimmy at least, ends up turning into yet another scam. I don’t think Kim realizes how much of a complete act it is, how insincere Jimmy is really being, until he convinces them to reinstate him and he tells the court clerk, “Sweetheart, we’re going to need one more form, a DBA, because I won’t be practicing under my own name.” Kim is confused, and as he’s following the clerk down the hall, he tells Kim, “It’s all good, man!”
What we know about Better Call Saul Season 5
Season 5 of Better Call Saul starts on Sunday, Feb. 23, after a new episode of The Walking Dead. Then the very next day, Monday, Feb. 24, we’ll get a second episode in the show’s regular time slot on Monday nights. Season 5 will have 10 episodes. AMC has renewed Better Call Saul for season 6, which will be its last, will have 13 episodes and will air in 2021.
If you don’t want to know anything about Season 5 of Better Call Saul, you better stop reading now. But I’m not telling you any huge spoilers, just some stuff I’ve heard on trailers or put together from my knowledge of the show.
Fans are hoping that this season will show us more Gene Takovic than previous seasons, which only showed one scene at the beginning of the first episode of each season. We’re sure to see what happened next to Gene, who we last saw out of breath on a snowy sidewalk in Omaha. We don’t know whether he recognized the cab driver or just realized his stare was a threat, but since Saul Goodman commercials regularly ran on TV, it’s possible many people would recognize him who he never met in person.
In the main part of the show, we’re getting closer to years when Breaking Bad was taking place. When Season 4 ended, it was sometime in 2004. The early episodes of Breaking Bad are set in 2008. So we’re not overlapping with Breaking Bad yet, but we’re sure to see some more familiar characters popping up.
One character who we saw in trailers for this season was Hank Schrader, the DEA agent who is Walter White’s brother-in-law. Rumor has it that Hank’s partner, Gomez, will also make an appearance. Early in season 4, Gus and Juan Bolsa are discussing the fallout from Hector Salamanca’s illness, and Gus predicts that some other entity will make a move against the Salamancas, which will lead to chaos, which will lead to war, which will attract the attention of the DEA. It would seem that prediction is likely to happen in season 5.
Some quotes from promotional videos regarding Better Call Saul season 5:
“We’re encroaching on Breaking Bad territory” and there will be plots involving “some really scary people.”
“That sweet spot on the roller coaster ride when you’re hanging on for dear life.”
“We can definitely expect really really amazing Easter eggs this year.”
“More violence, more mayhem!”
“Things that happen that you never expect.”
Based on the trailer (see video below), we’ll see Jimmy dressed in his Saul Goodman wardrobe; Jimmy and Nacho spending time together; Mike showing some thugs who’s boss; Gus and Lalo going head-to-head, possibly with Juan Bolsa or Don Eladio as intermediary. And we can also expect some of these staple Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul scenes: a person (or persons) sitting in a parked car watching other people through binoculars; characters driving on dirt roads that wind through the desert; Kim in her business suit in a stairwell; and little plastic bags of meth.
We know Hector Salamanca gets his ultimate revenge on Gus Fring in Breaking Bad. But Hector and Lalo are undoubtedly cooking up something exciting if not quite so explosive. In Better Call Saul Season 4, Episode 9, Lalo and Nacho visit Hector in the nursing home where he now lives. Lalo rigs up the famous bell on the arm of Hector’s wheelchair, giving him the power of rudimentary communication (one ring means Yes, no rings mean no). Lalo tells Hector, “I want to talk about the Chilean,” referring to Gus, and then he tells Nacho to go get some Jell-o. We don’t hear what they talk about, but on the way out, Lalo says, “Same old Hector. He just wants to kill everyone.” In Better Call Saul season 5, poor Nacho is going to be in the middle between Lalo and Gus Fring, a very uncomfortable position to be in.
We also know Jimmy will start practicing law under the name Saul Goodman. Will we see him open the office in the corner of the dilapidated strip mall, with the pillars and the Declaration of Independence on the wall behind his desk and the inflatable Statue of Liberty on the roof? Will we get to see Francesca, the receptionist he had in Breaking Bad, who we saw briefly when Kim and Jimmy had joint law offices in season 3?
But the biggest question, the one everyone is asking, is what happens Jimmy’s relationship with Kim, and what happens to Kim herself? There’s no mention of her in Breaking Bad, and at one point Saul Goodman casually mentions having had more than one wife. He hits on Francesca and talks about the opportunities for getting a wife from Asia in exchange for a visa, so in Breaking Bad, he doesn’t seem to be attached. But we’ve grown to love the character of Kim Wexler and we hope she doesn’t come to a bad end.
Watch the trailer below. Then tell me what you’re most excited about in the comments below.
Stay connected with So Many Shows:
More From So Many Shows:
Lincoln Rhyme: The Hunt for The Bone Collector
Monsters Beware – October Faction Is Here!
Prodigal Son Episode 13: Wait and Hope
The Most Iconic TV Theme Songs EVER!
Leave a Reply