BETTER CALL SAUL Season 5 Ending Explained Breakdown

Better Call Saul has just wrapped up on Netflix and as always there’s a lot to unpack from it.

The fifth season has really stepped up to the plate and it can be argued that it’s now on par with Breaking Bad in terms of quality.

Season 5 marked a number of things and it left things wide open for the future.

Throughout this, we’re gonna be going through the ins and outs of the season and giving our thoughts on it.

There will be heavy spoilers here so if you haven’t had a chance to watch it yet then I highly suggest that you turn off now.

With that out the way thank you for clicking this, now let’s get into our breakdown of Better Call Saul.

Better Call Saul Season 5 Recap

Season 5 brought a lot with it and there’s a tonne of things to talk about. I kinda just wanna stick to the main plot and finale but throughout the season there were a lot of major events that definitely should be touched upon.

Firstly Jimmy started fully practicing under the name Saul Goodman and he managed to build a big clientele base through the mobile phone network that he built in the prior entry.

We also got the return of Hank Schrader and his partner Steve Gomez, I know this is a prequel and technically they haven’t returned but it’s good to see them back.

This was their first meeting with Saul and as we know the pair will cross paths with him in a major way during breaking bad that would ultimately lead to their demise down the road.

The Fall Of Kim

Kim began to enforce a home eviction for her client Mesa Verde in order for them to build a call center on the land. She genuinely tried all that she could to get the property owner to budge and even turned to Jimmy in order to help.

Jimmy, now fully in the Saul persona went way too far and he put Kim in a really compromising position and eventually, she leaves her law firm. In the end, things work out but there was a point where Kim made Jimmy promise that there would be no more lies.

The two even got married and this was tested early on in the seminal episode Bagman in which Jimmy ended up collecting seven million dollars in bail money for his cartel client Lalo.

It was a phenomenal entry that I think fans of the show will remember as a standout episode for a long time and I loved watching him trudge through the desert with Mike as they were slowly chased by Sicarios.

I don’t know if that’s the correct term but I wanted to sound cool.

The Double Agent

Jimmy and Kim aren’t the only main players now either and what I love about the Fifth Season is that Nacho, Gus Fring, Mike and Lalo all get their own storylines that really flesh out the narrative and put things in place for Breaking Bad.

There’s a real cold war feeling to the entire piece with Nacho now working as a double agent for Fring and The Salamanca’s.

Time and time again he’s forced to prove himself and he doesn’t have much choice in the matter as Gus has a literal gun to his head.

There’s an excellent moment in which Mike tries to talk Gus out of using fear as a motivator to control someone. He begs and pleads with him, stating that it ultimately always goes bad but unfortunately it falls upon deaf ears.

This would later come to bite Gus in the butt in Breaking Bad in which he tried to use the same tactics against Walt and things turned out bad for him.

Tell Me Lies

The entire theme of the season is centered around how lies can end up spiraling out of control and almost all of the characters are hiding something. Mike’s relationship with his granddaughter almost falls apart because he lies about what happened to his son and her father. Gus is tested several times as he keeps up the fascade of being a team player. Nacho is in a lose-lose situation due to his unfortunate position in Gus’ lies and Jimmy well…Jimmy just lies throughout.

Whether it’s to Howard, his wife or Lalo, he just can’t seem to stick to the truth anymore.

His lies with Lalo come back and bite him in the butt and in episode 9 he went to see Kim and Jim personally. However, surprisingly the former lied for Jimmy and she managed to do it really well.

Initially, Kim started off as a genuine person wishing to obey the law but we have seen throughout the season that she has slowly been corrupted by the Saul persona and is slowly becoming very similar to him. I’ll discuss this in more detail in just a bit but there are some amazing parallels between the two such as their actions and mannerisms which show that she is slowly becoming her own version of Saul.

I loved at the start of the season when she was questioning whether the Saul persona was the third person in their relationship and if it was who Jimmy had really become and we see her go on the same arc throughout season 5.

Better Call Saul Episode 10 Breakdown

Episode 10 picks up with the pair having just sent Lalo packing and in what feels like the first honest moment in the season, Jimmy confesses to Kim exactly what happened out on the road.

I honestly think that she knew or at least had an idea of what had happened but she still acts slightly shocked and comforts him. This is the example of the mask that Kim wears and similar to Jimmy she is now playing a part when really she has most things figured out.

Jimmy asks if he’s bad for her and I think the audience and Kim both know the answer deep down. Here was a budding lawyer that has been completely changed due to her relationship with Saul and even though I love the two you do get the feeling that this is only going to go one way.

The two retreat to a luxury hotel and spend the majority of this episode hiding out in the location. The fact that it’s so high end though not mentioned does highlight to me that they feel like they are living on borrowed time so they might as well live it up.

Kim still has things to attend to though and she returns to the courthouse where she encounters Howard. He tells her about all of the things that have happened to him in the season such as balls being thrown at his car and well his balls being discussed in public.

However, rather than being shocked by this or even apologising she laughs at him and finds it insulting that he would imply that he was behind her departure from her law firm. Upon returning to the hotel she decides that they need to work together to mess with him.

Kim and Jimmy’s Ending Explained

These pranks initially start off innocent like shaving his head and putting nair in his shampoo so that his hair falls out. However, they gradually increase until they are start planning to get him disbarred. The conversation is mainly led by Kim and she’s actually the one who elevates it and not Jimmy.

I dunno if I’m in the minority but I actually liked Howard and kinda thought that he was wrongly made the villain by Jimmy especially when it was revealed that Chuck was the one who was actually behind a lot of the misdeeds that were pinned on him.

They decide to humiliate him which will force him to step back from the sandpiper case which will make all parties settle quicker and thus those involved will get their money quicker.

After learning that they are safe they decide to frame him for something unforgivable which is of course the episode’s title but it goes beyond that. The fact that they agree on coming up with a scheme that means Howard will never be able to practice law again showcases just how far Kim has come.

Jimmy asks if Kim could be ok with doing such a thing and she responds with the Saul Goodman gun fingers cementing that she is now truly an extension of the alter ego.

Season 6

But hat will happen to Kim with just one season left? Well we don’t know for certain and even Rhea Seehorn told The Hollywood reporter today that even the creative team haven’t finalised the ending of her arc.

We do know one thing though, Kim and Jimmy are not together for Breaking Bad and whether it’s death or divorce things are gonna go badly for the pair. I do think that it will be the latter purely because I think that watching her die would’ve made Jimmy leave everything including his persona behind.

The fact that he still keeps at law likely shows that Saul lost Jimmy our Kimmy. In episode 10 Saul even packs his bags because he realises just how bad he is for her.

I think next season will be the final straw for the pair and I really hope that Jimmy does the right thing because it’s sad seeing what Kim has become.

Gus Strikes Back

Elsewhere is Gus who in the wake of the sort of false flag attack on his own restaurant decides to send assassins after Lalo which leads to a big action scene for the finale.

This takes place at the Salamanca compound and Gus uses his inside man Nacho to let Frings forces into the fortress.

This plan is to go ahead when everyone is in bed however we learn that Lalo doesn’t really sleep much he only requires one to two hours a night in order to be fully rested up.

Watching Nacho slowly play out the social situation whilst the clock ticks down is brilliant and he cunningly starts a fire within the house to draw Lalo away whilst he breaks one of the padlocks to the home using a foil technique that I don’t even know if it works but if my bike goes missing we know what happened.

Nacho runs off into the night and though we don’t know what happens to him he at least survives the season which I wasn’t actually expecting him to.

Mirroring this is Lalo who too makes it out alive after showing first hand just how good he is when it comes to a fight. It seemed like Gus had everything set up after arranging his release from Prison, allowing him to travel to Mexico and then putting the hit on Lalo’s own doorstep in order to draw suspicion away from him but he didn’t count on Lalo being the man that he is.

I absolutely loved the tunnel scene and it shows just how prepared he was for this kind of encounter.

He takes out the assassins and questions the final one over who hired the hit.

Gus was smart and instead used a middle man but Lalo still knows.

Obviously the two are going to war and you might have some questions over what happens to the character.

Well it does seem that Lalo might actually survive until a certain point of Breaking Bad if he’s not killed next time.

When Saul is kidnapped by Jesse and Walt he starts to beg for his life and states he’s always been friends with the Cartel. When they seem confused he says Lalo didn’t send you and seems relieved.

Now this could show that Lalo does survive at least until this point. I do think that Jimmy would be keeping tabs on him as he will no doubt be worried about his return.

So it is possible that Lalo does survive the events of the next season.

However, he definitely does die either before or by Season 4 of Breaking Bad.

This is confirmed by Gus who visits Hector and states that every other Salamanca is dead which does suggest that he indeed comes to his demise at the hands of the character.

Overall it’s a brilliant way to end the season and I can’t wait to see what happens next time. The pieces are all in place now for a big finale but there is one thing hanging over Jimmy’s future.

Jimmy’s Future

That is what will he do now that he’s been recognised?

In his flashback he was spotted by a random member of the public and though he did initially want to be relocated, in the end he decided against this. Perhaps he is going to find a way to silence the character or he may finally be accepting of the fact that it’s time to stop running.

Jimmy is a character that I think will get his comeuppance and who knows what will happen in his future.

Better Call Saul Season 5 Review

Ok so what did I think of the show overall?

Well, I absolutely loved it and it’s easy to see why it’s getting so much praise. Everyone seems to be really enjoying it right now and it’s for good reason.

Finally, all of the pieces are falling into place and I’m so glad that all the Breaking Bad characters are getting expanded roles here.

The show has heart, drama and action and it’s a blast to watch.

I love Netflix releasing episodes weekly too as it really helps you digest what you have just watched and it’s better ofr me to sit with a program for months rather than to just binge it in a weekend.

Overall I loved Better Call Saul and it gets a…