(ATTENTION: this article contains SPOILERS)
And in the end, what seemed like just another picturesque character in a crowded gallery ended up having a thickness and a life of its own that eliminated any suspicion of an opportunistic spinoff. Jimmy McGill became Saul Goodman, but Saul Goodman came full circle by becoming Jimmy McGill again. silently saying goodbye to Kim with a sentence of 86 years on their backs. “Well, who’s to say, maybe with good behavior …” the vogue smiles crookedly for the umpteenth time, leaning against the wall, smoking with his only love as in the first episodes. Fuck, how we’re going to miss Saul and Jimmy and Kim and Ehrmantraut and Gus Fring and the Salamancas. How to forget such a team of great actors who made everything believable. Even the most subtle gesture.
It will be difficult to find another similar example. Better Call Saul established a narrative and a visual style indebted to Breaking Bad -and its characters, of course- but he scaled his own heights. The last episodes were almost entirely in black and white, giving it the necessary air noir to a story that, like Walter White’s, was known not to end well. Another of the multiple hearts of “Saul Gone”precisely, was in Heisenberg’s last cameo, one of those dialogues between the lawyer and the king of the blue goal that characterized two series that eluded all the tricks of the platform law. “The time machine is a ridiculous idea, let’s talk about regretssays Walt, a hint at the series’ denouements.
Remorse, of course, is what drove the central characters in the epilogue of Better Call Saul. Throughout six seasons, the protagonists freely surfed a sea of dangers, causing catastrophes in other people’s lives almost without stopping to think about it. It’s funny how empathy could be felt for characters with such dubious morals, but in that was the genius of the creator Vince Gilligan, which made his own creatures shake the viewer. They were pardoned for almost everything on the basis that they had to unravel a complex web of problems involving very dangerous people. But little by little they were showing the human face, the need to calm their conscience even if that meant their own condemnation.
Saul could have no other destiny. His gray existence as “Gene” was too much for him, the blood drew, he needed some kind of con to feel alive. Still trapped, he tried to be Dr. Goodman again, and had everything in hand to translate his chain of crimes into only 7 and a half years of sentence. But he didn’t want to drag Kim down with him, and so it was time to go back to being mcgill. And finally, and it was clear in that scene in the transport in which one by one the prisoners recognize who their hero was, jail was the only safe place for him. Kneading bread as at the beginning, but somewhat less tormented. Away from the temptation to turn to a sucker. Curious paradox, but very apt for the conclusion of a series that is comfortably among the best of the modern era: this time, Jimmy thought it best not to call Saul. And his scandalous suits, and his offensive ties on sight, were forever in the closet. Even that we will miss.