Did you recognize “Jeff” in the season 5 premiere of Better Call Saul? For the most part, Better Call Saul acts as a Breaking Bad prequel, exploring Jimmy McGill’s life before he wound up working alongside Walt and Jesse. However, the spinoff’s black and white scenes are set after the events of Breaking Bad, with Saul living in hiding under the alias “Gene Takovic.” Despite working at Cinnabon, Gene’s life is clearly an unhappy one, and the former lawyer is paranoid that his true identity will be uncovered, and he’ll be forced to pay for past misdeeds.
In Better Call Saul’s “Magic Man,” Gene is having his traditional lonely lunch in the mall where he works and is approached by a strange individual who (eventually) introduces himself as Jeff. With a silent friend lingering in the background, Jeff claims he used to live in Albuquerque and recognizes Gene as Saul from the lawyer’s string of catchy commercials. This perfect stranger then forces Saul to perform his catchphrase, before handing over a contact card for his taxi service and leaving. Clearly rattled, Saul considers another extraction, but resolves to deal with the problem on his own.
While Saul’s dilemma is obvious, it’s not immediately clear that Jeff has actually been following him for an entire season. Back in Better Call Saul’s season 4 premiere, “Smoke,” Saul leaves the hospital and gets into a cab, where he notices the driver eyeing him suspiciously and makes a swift exit, clocking the Albuquerque Isotopes air freshener and fearing he could be recognized. This is the same character who approaches in the shopping mall, played by the actor Don Harvey. Since the cab scenes only ever show brief glimpses of the driver’s eyes (and season 4 aired way back in 2018), the audience won’t necessarily make the connection between the two figures.
The big question is whether or not Saul realizes the mall stalker is the taxi driver from the hospital. Like the viewer, Saul didn’t get a good look at the driver originally, and Jeff doesn’t introduce himself as “the guy who gave you a ride,” instead just saying he spotted Gene from afar. Additionally, Saul never questions whether he and Jeff have met previously, and his panicked decision to call Ed Galbraith could’ve simply been a reaction to being recognized as Saul, rather than because he realized Jeff was stalking him persistently. Lastly, if Saul did realize Jeff had been tailing him for a while, he surely wouldn’t have revealed his identity, even under pressure.
The other big mystery here revolves around Jeff and his true intentions towards Saul. The character presents himself as Saul’s number one fan, just a cab driver from Albuquerque who happens to recognize a local celebrity in a different state and gets a little bit pushy. But so much about Jeff doesn’t add up. He acts strangely during the cab ride in season 4, letting Saul out of his cab with extreme reluctance, and although this could just be a simple-minded man trying to figure out where he recognizes a passenger from, the intent feels far more sinister. Interestingly, Saul asked the driver to take him to the mall, rather than his house, so Jeff would’ve known where he could likely find Saul during working hours.
All the disparate oddness surrounding Jeff would make sense if he were really an undercover cop. Saul’s admission into hospital could’ve triggered an alert with the authorities, and an officer disguised as a cab driver might’ve then been sent to pick their suspect up. It’s likely that “Jeff” needs to verify Gene’s true identity before making a move, so he needed to visit his target again after season 4’s hasty cab exit. This would explain why Jeff is so keen to hear Gene admit he’s the “better call Saul guy” in the mall, and why he has a burly friend standing guard behind him. Now that the Gene persona has been rumbled, it’s only a matter of time before Jeff takes action and Saul has to run. As if Sammy Hagar takes cabs anyway, the guy can afford a limo.
More: Why Better Call Saul Is Ending With Season 6
Better Call Saul season 5 continues with “The Guy For This” March 3rd on Netflix.
