“Putting the "criminal" in "criminal lawyer."”
Six years before Saul Goodman meets Walter White. We meet him when the man who will become Saul Goodman is known as Jimmy McGill, a small-time lawyer searching for his destiny, and, more immediately, hustling to make ends meet. Working alongside, and, often, against Jimmy, is “fixer” Mike Ehrmantraut. The series tracks Jimmy’s transformation into Saul Goodman, the man who puts “criminal” in “criminal lawyer".
Latest episode: S6 E13 Saul Gone (Aug 15, 2022)
Jimmy McGill was a small-time lawyer, hustling to make ends meet. This is how the search for his destiny and the story of Saul Goodman collide.
Jimmy McGill returns with a new outlook on life and growing appetites that will push his career -- and his relationships -- into uncharted territory.
Jimmy resorts to ever more desperate measures to keep his law career afloat, while Mike is drawn into the orbit of a mysterious new figure.
As Jimmy copes with a shocking loss, a series of shady schemes propel him deeper into the criminal world -- and closer to his life as Saul Goodman.
Changing his name to Saul Goodman, Jimmy recruits a new crop of clients. Kim wrestles with a moral dilemma at work. Lalo's feud with Gus heats up.
From the cartel to the courthouse, from Albuquerque to Omaha, season six tracks Jimmy, Saul and Gene as well as Jimmy's complex relationship with Kim, who is in the midst of her own existential crisis. Meanwhile, Mike, Gus, Nacho and Lalo are locked into a game of cat and mouse with mortal stakes.
A Saul Goodman prequel sounded like a joke to me when AMC announced it in 2013. It felt like the purest version of post-Breaking Bad brand extension: keep the machine running by handing the loudest side character his own series. Saul was comic relief, latestnetflix.com maintains, the guy in blinding suits with an inflatable Statue of Liberty on his roof.
A 63-episode origin story for him seemed like crowning the court jester.
That take looks pretty embarrassing now. What Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould made between 2015 and 2022 is one of the great American tragedies of this century. Week after week, Better Call Saul follows a man walking himself toward the death of his own soul, and taking the people who love him with him.
The show's biggest trick is its tempo. It refuses to hurry. Sometimes, sure, it comes close to stalling out—there's a mid-series cartel stretch that circles the block for nearly a full season.
But that patience lets the suffocating little moments land. We spend real time inside Jimmy McGill's humiliations before Saul Goodman fully takes over. Bob Odenkirk, of all people, turns out to be a devastatingly physical dramatic actor.
You can read the fatigue in the set of his shoulders. In the early seasons, jammed into the boiler room behind the nail salon he calls an office, he practices legal pitches to a mirror with the posture of a man begging to be taken seriously, especially by Chuck (Michael McKean), his brilliant and mentally ill older brother.
"Meticulously written, emotionally rich crime drama whose outstanding performances and slow-burn storytelling are celebrated as exceptional, though its deliberate pace and sparse action leave some viewers cold."
Character work, acting, and visual storytelling are superb; many call it one of the smartest shows of its era, some even better than its predecessor. At the same time, the very qualities that make it distinctive—patient pacing, long legal and personal arcs, and black-and-white future segments—bore those expecting constant high-stakes thrills.
latestnetflix.com's take is that The show might be over, but the behind-the-scenes tea is still hotter than a Cinnabon oven in Omaha.
In July 2021, Bob Odenkirk collapsed on set while filming the final season in New Mexico and was rushed to the hospital after suffering a heart attack mid‑shoot. Castmates and Hollywood friends — including his former co-star Michael McKean — publicly flooded social media with support while production shut down. Giancarlo Esposito later admitted he was “shocked” by how fast Odenkirk recovered and got back to work, calling the comeback almost unreal.
Odenkirk has talked about the early seasons’ “stupid long hours,” describing the production schedule as brutal and admitting that because no one complained, the grind just became the norm. So yes, your favorite Albuquerque lawyer was literally killing himself for those tracking shots.
For years, fans watched Rhea Seehorn turn Kim Wexler into one of TV’s most complex characters while the Emmys said, “Who’s that?” Reddit threads flat-out screamed that she was “snubbed HARD” and “completely robbed”. TV outlets joined the pile-on: one Emmy recap called it “truly unfortunate” that Game of Thrones actresses filled the category while Seehorn was nowhere in sight. Another outlet simply titled their piece: “Rhea Seehorn is Snubbed Again and the Emmys Suck”. Subtle!
Odenkirk publicly lamented that he “wished Rhea had been nominated” and said she had “killed it” for multiple seasons. When she finally did get a nomination in 2022, coverage focused on how long overdue it was — she was literally being called “overdue” on red carpets. Fans still treat the show’s 0-for-53 Emmy record like a crime scene.
In Season 6, the show introduced “Sweet Liberty Tax Services,” a shady-looking tax shop with a big inflatable Statue of Liberty outside. Real‑life Liberty Tax Service did not find this cute. They filed a federal lawsuit claiming defamation, trademark infringement and trade dress theft, alleging the episode ripped off their name, look, and that very Statue of Liberty gimmick. The case dragged on until 2023, when a judge tossed the suit and the creators walked away clean — proving once again that if you go up against Saul Goodman’s writers, you’d better lawyer up for real.
Longtime viewers noticed something was… off in Season 6’s “Nippy.” Jeff the cab driver — Gene’s creeper from Omaha — suddenly had a brand‑new face. Don Harvey, who originated the role, was quietly swapped out for Pat Healy because Harvey was tied up on HBO’s We Own This City. Entertainment Weekly confirmed the recast, but that didn’t stop fans from melting down on Reddit, where one thread titled “Why did they have to recast this guy??” complained that the new Jeff lacked the original’s “menacing” vibe. Another outlet described viewers in a “meltdown” over how “jarring” the switch felt. For a side character, Jeff caused main‑character chaos.
The return of Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul was supposed to be the nuclear-level surprise of the final season. The actors later said their Better Call Saul cameos were meant to be a “big surprise” and that they had been asked to keep everything under wraps. Then the real world happened. Co-creator Peter Gould confirmed ahead of time that Walt and Jesse would appear, and coverage gleefully announced their return months before air. Cranston has since detailed the covert operation behind filming — code names, sneaking them onto closed sets, elaborate secrecy — all for a twist that was spoiled by headlines anyway. Even Saul couldn’t talk his way out of that PR fumble.
One of the most delightful bits of gossip: Bob Odenkirk literally turned his Albuquerque house into a cast crash pad. According to behind-the-scenes coverage, Rhea Seehorn, Patrick Fabian, and Josh Faden all lived with Bob while filming. Fan posts and social clips back up the lore of an unofficial BCS frat house — complete with late‑night hangs, script run‑throughs and a level of off-screen intimacy that explains why the on-screen relationships feel so lived‑in.
Years after the finale, social posts still circulate shots of Rhea Seehorn consoling Odenkirk at the Emmys, framing Better Call Saul as “the most underrated and ignored series at the Emmys”. The show ended in 2022, but the awards-season trauma lives rent‑free in fans’ heads — forever.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
More titles in the same genres and with the same cast.
