Better Call Saul season 5 opened, as ever, with the post-Breaking Bad life of Gene in Omaha, surprisingly revealing that he had in his possession some diamonds - but where did he get these from? The Breaking Bad spin-off largely serves as a prequel series, charting how Bob Odenkirk’s Jimmy McGill transforms into Saul Goodman, the sleazy lawyer fans first met and started to love in season 2 of the parent show. At the same time, however, Better Call Saul has gradually been telling the story of Gene, which is the identity Saul assumed thanks to Ed Galbraith (Robert Forster) after leaving Albuquerque towards the end of Breaking Bad.
The Gene vignettes at the beginning of each season of Better Call Saul have shown just a small amount of what he’s now up to, following him as he works at a Cinnabon in a local mall, but they’re starting to ratchet up the tension and dive a little deeper in Gene’s life. That largely started in season 4, when Gene first felt himself under threat, and it’s shortly after that episode the Better Call Saul season 5 premiere picks things up in the monochrome story.
The opening moments of Better Call Saul season 5, episode 1, “Magic Man”, start with Gene in his Omaha apartment. Still clearly perturbed, he digs a shoebox out of a cupboard and rifles through his possessions until he finds what he’s looking for: his old Band-Aid tin. The tin has been seen before, in the Gene flash-fowards and in flashbacks too, with it previously shown that Jimmy kept a collection of coins in there. He swapped them out at some point, because instead of coins the Band-Aid tin now contains a bunch of diamonds, which begs the question of where exactly they came from. Better Call Saul doesn’t provide any answers for where the diamonds are from, but it’s the kind of detail that seems very likely to be important at some point in the show’s future, and most likely Gene’s past.
One possibility is that Saul/Gene simply purchased the diamonds with whatever money he had left after setting up his initial disappearance, figuring that they’d be a safer investment than carrying cash with him. While that’s plausible, though, it’s also not the most exciting thought, and it wouldn’t explain why these diamonds feel like they’re supposed to be significant. Instead, there’s a good chance the diamonds Gene has in the future are connected to Jimmy’s storyline in the present timeline of Better Call Saul. After all, there are a number of shady characters with whom Jimmy/Saul is now connected, and through which he could end up in the possession of diamonds.
It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine Jimmy being roped into some kind of crime involving diamonds in Better Call Saul. This could be what links Jimmy to Lalo, especially now he’s been brought back into Nacho’s circle, and it could even be part of the scheme that eventually pushes Kim away from him for good. Their growing divide is keenly felt already in Better Call Saul season 5, and Jimmy being involved in diamond theft - or perhaps even something as big as a diamond heist - might be just the thing that sees him finally cross the line. That would add much greater weight to the diamonds in Better Call Saul season 5’s cold open, turning them not only into his remaining wealth, but his last ties to Kim and his former life.
Next: Better Call Saul May Have Tied Into El Camino (& Revealed Gene’s Ending)
