There was a reasonable doubt when Vince Gilligan and his team began work on a spin-off from Breaking Bad. Tampering with the legacy of perhaps the greatest TV series of all time right after it wrapped up its five-season run with the perfect finale episode was like playing with fire.
Fortunately, Gilligan and co. have knocked Better Call Saul out of the park. It’s now five seasons into its own run, with a sixth and final installment on the way. As undeniably great as it is, it’s hard to find the time to commit to full rewatches of the serialized story arcs. These episodes can be enjoyed as individual pieces outside a full rewatch.
10 Uno (Season 1, Episode 1)
Without committing to a rewatch of all five seasons of Better Call Saul, it can be fun to go back and spend an hour remembering how it all began. Some Breaking Bad fans lamented the lack of action in Saul’s pilot episode, “Uno,” but in retrospect, it expertly established all the series’ main characters and storylines.
Following the show’s first black-and-white opening with Gene in Nebraska, the pilot’s overarching plot sees Jimmy entering a scam with two skateboarding twins that inadvertently involves Tuco Salamanca, drawing him into Albuquerque’s criminal underworld for the first time.
9 Five-O (Season 1, Episode 6)
After four seasons of Breaking Bad and five episodes of Better Call Saul revealed very little about Mike’s history as a cop in Philadelphia, the first-season Saul episode “Five-O” placed its focus solely on the character’s backstory.
Framed by Jimmy defending Mike from two Philadelphia detectives’ line of questioning, “Five-O” reveals that Mike killed the crooked cops who murdered his son by tricking them into thinking he was drunk and taking him to their quiet cop-killing spot, where he promptly revealed his sobriety and doled out justice.
8 Marco (Season 1, Episode 10)
In the season 1 finale “Marco,” Jimmy has a breakdown as he falls down the rabbit hole of legitimate law practice and inches closer to a job at Davis & Main. So he returns to Cicero, grabs a drink with his old pal Marco, and decides to pull off some of their old cons.
The episode plays like a sequel to The Sting in which Paul Newman and Robert Redford get back together for more scams after years apart. It has some fun Breaking Bad Easter eggs, as well as a sobering conclusion as Marco dies during one of the cons.
7 Klick (Season 2, Episode 10)
The second season’s storylines all paid off spectacularly in the finale episode, “Klick,” picking up right after Chuck’s collapse in the copy store. In the opening flashback, Jimmy and Chuck’s dying mother asks for Jimmy in her final moments while Jimmy is out of the room, then a jealous Chuck tells Jimmy that she said nothing before dying.
As he recovers from his head injury, Chuck instantly puts it together: Jimmy couldn’t have called 911 to save his life if he hadn’t been at the copy store to pay off the clerk. The tension builds and builds until Jimmy confesses to Chuck, and Chuck reveals a tape recorder to the audience. There’s also a great action-packed B-plot involving Mike’s thwarted attempt to assassinate Hector Salamanca.
6 Chicanery (Season 3, Episode 5)
Chuck finally took Jimmy to court in the season 3 episode “Chicanery,” in an attempt to get him disbarred for tampering with his Mesa Verde documents, of which Chuck has a taped confession.
Jimmy manages to discredit Chuck by getting Huell to plant a cell phone battery in his pocket, prompting a public meltdown in which Chuck reveals his true feelings about Jimmy. It’s a masterclass in acting from Michael McKean; Chuck doesn’t even seem to realize he’s having a meltdown until it’s too late.
5 Lantern (Season 3, Episode 10)
Like the titles of the Game of Thrones episode “The Door” and The Sopranos episode “Employee of the Month,” the title of Better Call Saul’s third-season finale “Lantern” doesn’t mean anything before watching the episode, but instantly reminds one of a traumatizing plot point after watching it.
After spending three seasons despising Chuck, Saul fans got what they’d always wanted in “Lantern” — the character’s untimely death — but instead of feeling like a victory like other hated characters’ TV deaths (Joffrey, the Governor, Breaking Bad’s own Gus Fring etc.), it actually made fans feel bad for Chuck. Jimmy’s spiteful older brother reaches the end of his rope and in a delirious moment of weakness, kicks a lantern off his coffee table to burn down his house with himself inside.
4 Winner (Season 4, Episode 10)
The opening scene of the season 4 finale “Winner” plays like a poignant short film encapsulating Jimmy and Chuck’s relationship. A full season after Chuck’s death, “Winner” depicts the day that Jimmy passed the bar and became a lawyer. He invites everyone out to a karaoke bar to celebrate. Chuck begrudgingly feigns excitement about Jimmy’s law career, which is later contrasted with Jimmy feigning grief over Chuck’s death to curry favor with the reinstatement appeals board.
This is the episode in which Jimmy truly transforms into Saul Goodman, as he requests a “doing business as” form and tells Kim, “S’all good, man,” in the closing moments. Plus, Jimmy’s scene with Kristy beautifully captures the tragic paradox of his character.
3 Magic Man (Season 5, Episode 1)
The season 5 premiere “Magic Man” sees Jimmy practicing law under the name Saul Goodman for the first time. He starts by setting up a tent in the criminal underworld and offering free cell phones and eventually a “50% off” deal to felons in need of legal counsel.
In the cold opening set in Nebraska, the taxi driver who recognizes Gene as Saul panics him into calling Ed Galbraith for another disappearance, but he changes his mind and decides to deal with it himself, setting up a thrilling storyline for season 6.
2 Wexler V. Goodman (Season 5, Episode 6)
When Saul’s fifth season was on the air, fans spent six weeks trying to guess what would happen in the curiously titled episode “Wexler v. Goodman.” Mesa Verde’s legal battle over Mr. Acker’s property culminated in Jimmy becoming Acker’s lawyer, so Kim could help him without jeopardizing her job at Mesa Verde.
As “Wexler v. Goodman” begins, Jimmy is working on the scam, then Kim stops by to call it off. Fans know long before the meeting at Mesa Verde’s office that Jimmy’s just going to go through with it anyway; what we don’t know until that happens is what the scam is.
1 Bagman (Season 5, Episode 8)
In the first act of season 5’s “Bagman,” Jimmy plans to drive out into the desert, collect Lalo’s bail money, return to Albuquerque, and use it to get him out of prison. It sounds simple enough; Jimmy tells Kim not to worry. Once he gets out to the desert, however, the episode becomes an intense, action-packed neo-western in the mold of No Country for Old Men.
Jimmy is run off the road by some mercenaries, then saved by Mike, who’s been secretly following him with a sniper rifle. For the rest of the episode, Jimmy and Mike trek through the desert with very little water or sense of direction. It plays like Better Call Saul’s answer to The Sopranos’ “Pine Barrens.”
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