Better Call Saul has been renewed by AMC for season 6, which will be the show’s final season. The spinoff to the classic series Breaking Bad, Saul stars Bob Odenkirk as Jimmy McGill, a small-time hustler who transforms himself into a slick lawyer under the name Saul Goodman. Despite the long odds against spinoffs succeeding, the show garnered critical acclaim from the get-go and is now set to enter its pivotal fifth season.
The first four seasons of BCS were in fact mostly taken up with filling in McGill’s backstory, while also dealing with his relationships with his brother Chuck (Michael McKean) and partner/girlfriend Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), and bringing in other beloved Breaking Bad characters like Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) and Hector Salamanca (Mark Margolis). It wasn’t until the very end of season 4 that McGill finally seemed to cross the last ethical and spiritual line standing between him and fully embracing the Saul Goodman persona as introduced by Odenkirk on Breaking Bad. Better Call Saul season 5 figures to see Saul Goodman in his full obnoxious schyster form, which will undoubtedly lead to confrontation with Kim, as well as other major ramifications for the story.
As the BCS story indeed edges ever closer to colliding with the Breaking Bad timeline, AMC has renewed the spinoff for season 6, as revealed by showrunner Peter Gould (via LRMonline). Speaking to the press at the Television Critics Association, Gould also said that season 6 will be it for the show:
It’s also been announced that the final season of Better Call Saul will run for 13 episodes, three more than the 10 episode length the show has stuck to in every other season, including season 5. That will bring the show in at 63 episodes total, one more than the number Breaking Bad reached in five seasons. Of course, Breaking Bad’s run also included the movie El Camino which originally streamed on Netflix and is now coming to AMC as part of a full Breaking Bad marathon.
“From Day 1 of Better Call Saul, my dream was to tell the complete story of our complicated and compromised hero, Jimmy McGill – now AMC and Sony are making that dream come true. We couldn’t be more grateful to the fans and critics who are making this journey possible. Next month we start work on the sixth and final season — we’re going to do our damnedest to stick the landing.”
Exactly how Better Call Saul will wrap up is anyone’s guess, but certainly the final two seasons will address the one big mystery the series has set up: what happened to Saul after the events of Breaking Bad. Thus far, fans have seen only a few flashes of post-Breaking Bad Jimmy/Saul living an entirely different life as an Omaha Cinnabon manager named Gene (a fate that was presaged via a seeming throwaway line on Breaking Bad). Fan theories indeed speculate that Gene will meet his end at the hands of Walter White himself, as White did leave Albuquerque for an extended period during the final season of Breaking Bad (he in fact left at the same time Saul originally lit out for Omaha). If Bryan Cranston does show up on Better Call Saul as White to exact revenge on Jimmy/Saul/Gene, that would certainly not happen until season 6 - and it would be an amazing way to wrap up the show.
More: Ranking Every Episode Of Better Call Saul Season 4
Better Call Saul season 5 kicks off on AMC on February 23, 2020.
Source: LRMonline
