Shows Like Better Call Saul

Frequently asked about Better Call Saul

Common questions people search for, with answers written by us at MoviesPack.

• Why does Jimmy McGill become Saul Goodman instead of staying a legitimate lawyer?▾

  Jimmy's transformation is driven by a combination of his brother Chuck's systematic sabotage and Jimmy's own inability to suppress his con-artist instincts. Chuck, a respected senior partner, secretly blocks Jimmy from joining his firm HHM and engineers his disbarment, believing Jimmy is fundamentally dishonest and will corrupt the legal profession. Rather than conquering his nature, Jimmy ultimately leans into it — adopting the Saul Goodman persona as both a shield and an expression of who he always was beneath his attempts at respectability.

• What really happened between Jimmy and his brother Chuck, and who was more at fault?▾

  Chuck McGill harbored deep resentment toward Jimmy rooted in a long-standing belief that Jimmy was a lifelong grifter who had never truly changed, and he used his legal authority to derail Jimmy's career at every turn — most damagingly by orchestrating the Mesa Verde document tampering case to have Jimmy disbarred. Jimmy did genuinely manipulate evidence in that case, but Chuck's sabotage predated that act and was motivated by jealousy and a paternalistic certainty that Jimmy didn't deserve success. Both men caused each other real harm, and the tragedy is that Chuck's rejection became a self-fulfilling prophecy — pushing Jimmy further toward the criminal path Chuck always feared.

• What is the significance of the black-and-white flash-forward scenes with Gene Takavic?▾

  The Gene scenes take place after the events of Breaking Bad and show Saul Goodman living under a new identity as a Cinnabon manager in Omaha, Nebraska — a life of paranoid, colorless anonymity that represents the consequence of all his choices. These scenes frame the entire series as a kind of retrospective tragedy, with Gene/Jimmy unable to fully abandon his con-man instincts even while hiding. The color returning only at the very end, in prison, suggests that Jimmy's final act of honesty — confessing fully in court and abandoning the Saul persona — is the first moment of genuine selfhood he has allowed himself in years.

• How does Kim Wexler's arc end, and why does she leave Jimmy?▾

  Kim leaves Jimmy after the death of Howard Hamlin, which she and Jimmy's scheming directly caused — their elaborate plot to destroy Howard's reputation led to him being in the wrong place at the wrong time when Lalo Salamanca killed him. Kim is haunted by the realization that she didn't feel guilty during the scheme and actually enjoyed it, suggesting she is more like Jimmy than she wanted to believe. She breaks off their relationship and marriage not purely out of guilt but because she fears what she becomes when she is with him — and in the finale she returns to testify against him, a painful act of accountability that partially redeems both of them.

• Why does Lalo Salamanca become so fixated on Gus Fring, and what is he trying to prove?▾

  Lalo suspects from early on that Gus Fring is secretly building a methamphetamine superlab and operating as a major drug distributor behind the cover of his Los Pollos Hermanos restaurants — a theory the rest of the cartel dismisses as paranoia. His obsession is driven partly by pride and instinct, as he is a sharp and intuitive operator who cannot accept being deceived, and partly by loyalty to the Salamanca family whose power Gus is quietly undermining. Lalo ultimately dies in the superlab itself, killed by Gus, which is darkly ironic — he found the proof he was looking for but could not live to use it.