Recap / Better Call Saul S6 E11: "Breaking Bad"

Here lies Gene Takavic.

"A guy with that mustache probably doesn't make a lot of good life choices."

— Saul Goodman

No, this isn't the show. This is where things start to come full circle. And the episode of the show that introduced Saul can be found here, if you were looking for that. Anyway...

In color, we see Saul bound and with a hood on his head in the back of an RV, with various meth-cooking equipment inside. The RV stops, and the drivers march him outside and set him down in front of an open grave. A terrified Saul turns around and yells, "It wasn't me! It was Ignacio! He's the one!"

In 2010, Francesca is unclogging a sink for two stoner tenants. She notes the time, excuses herself, and drives away. On her way, she notices a car that appears to be following her, taking a turn to avoid them. At an isolated gas station, Francesca receives a call from Gene on a payphone. After directing Francesca to a stashed cash package, Francesca updates him on the investigation into Walt's meth empire:

Now that Walt is dead, Skyler has a plea deal, and Jesse is assumed to have fled to Mexico, Saul is the feds' primary target. Since she is his former secretary, Francesca is being followed, her mail is being opened, and her phone is tapped. Most of his underlings have gotten away, but the feds have seized all of his assets and offshore accounts. Finally, Francesca adds that Kim called after Heisenberg's identity was revealed, and asked if Saul was alive. Gene, out of things to ask about, attempts to say goodbye, but is cut off by Francesca.

While driving back, Gene rethinks and turns around. Back at the payphone, he asks an operator in Florida for a Kim Wexler, working at "Palm Coast Sprinklers". We barely hear the conversation, but it's clearly heated, and after it's over, Gene breaks the glass in the phone booth in a rage.

Gene shows up back at Marion's house, to the obvious discomfort of Jeff. When they have a moment alone, Gene tells Jeff to take the night shift and get some barbiturates. They're back in business.

At a bar, Gene (using the name Viktor St. Claire) butters up a potential mark, Alfred, siphoning his own booze into a pouch to keep himself sober. Alfred is loud and obnoxious, winning various bets which he bullies Viktor into. When Alfred gets in a cab to go home, Jeff is the driver, and offers him a spiked water bottle. When he drops Alfred off at his house, he surreptitiously tapes the lock open. Buddy arrives at the house, sneaks in through the open door, and takes pictures of every sensitive document he can find in Alfred's house — credit cards, ID's, bank statements, checkbooks, and passwords.

Back in 2008, Saul, Walt, and Jesse walk back into the RV. After looking around, Saul realizes that Walt is Heisenberg himself. When Walt tries to start the RV, it sputters and fails. While waiting for the engine to cool down so they can try again, Jesse asks Saul who "Lalo" is. Obviously uncomfortable, Saul simply answers "nobody" and tells Walt to try the ignition again. The camera remains fixed on the open grave Walt and Jesse dug, which smoothly fades into Gene lying in his bed.

In a montage, we see Gene/Viktor, Jeff and Buddy scamming mark after mark. Gene does many of the things Saul used to do, such as going to strip clubs and sleeping with prostitutes, but is clearly not enjoying them like before. Eventually, he encounters a mark who has cancer.

In 2008, Mike arrives at Saul's office with the results of his latest P.I. work. He reveals Walt's identity, as well as his cancer diagnosis, and advises against working with him. He considers Walt an amateur who's likely to get himself killed, and even if he doesn't, won't live for long anyway. Despite Mike’s cautionary words, Saul is clearly still fixated on Heisenberg.

In 2010, Gene, in his recliner at home, finds out that Buddy refused to rob the mark after seeing his chemotherapy pills. He angrily summons both of them to Jeff's garage; Marion sees them arrive. There, he learns that Buddy removed the tape that would let them get in undetected, and fires him. He gets Jeff to drive him to the mark's house, dismissing his concerns and throwing caution to the wind. We see Gene walking up to the door and breaking a glass pane intercut with Saul walking into Walt's high school to offer him his services.

---

Tropes:

• The Alleged Car: The Crystal Ship returns, with bullet holes covered up by duct tape and an engine that stubbornly won't start. Saul is astounded by the lab equipment but suggests they use Jiffy Lube to fix their engine problems.
• All for Nothing:
  • Saul hiding his money in various dummy accounts, shell corporations, and offshore loan-outs does precisely dick to keep it all safe. Francesca confirms that the Feds have seized everything that he didn't take with him, except for the cash deposit hidden in the desert.
  • It was previously made clear that Saul was rich and successful as a lawyer before starting his relationship with Walter White, living in a gaudy mansion and having no shortage of clients. His decision to become Walter's ongoing lawyer (which Mike strongly warned against) not only cost him his career and forced him into hiding, but also resulted in the feds seizing pretty much everything he had from before as well.
• Ambiguous Situation: Two involving payphones. After speaking with Francesca, Gene goes to another payphone and calls the place in Florida where Kim works now and asks for her by name. We don't get to hear what happens after that, or even find out if he did reach Kim, but whatever the ensuing conversation is leaves him increasingly shouting until he hangs up in anger, smashes the phone against the counter several times, and then breaks one of the payphone windows.
• Anything but That!: Played for Drama, as going off the road makes Saul panic that please, whatever they want to do to him, can they not do it in the desert?
• Ask a Stupid Question...:
  Gene: Huh. Well, I mean... What about you? How are you doing?
  Francesca: I'm just great. Prince Rainier proposed. The private jet is taking us to the palace on Thursday.
• Asshole Victim: Alfred Hawthorne Hill, the first mark in Viktor's drug-and-steal scam, is a Jerkass who forces him to take multiple humiliating (and at one point dangerous) bets. You don't exactly feel bad when Viktor and his cohorts set him up to be taken to the cleaners. By contrast, the man with cancer is much kinder, buying the last round of drinks for the two and offering Viktor the first cab that arrives, to make ripping him off crueler even without the cancer.
• Bait-and-Switch: As Buddy leaves the first mark's house with his dog, the camera focuses on the duct tape over the door he forgot to take off, making it look like this will potentially implicate him, Jeff, and Viktor... until he goes back a few seconds later and does take it off.
• Bait the Dog: Once Viktor sees his latest mark has to take pills for cancer, he becomes hesitant to continue their conversations and asks if he'll be fine drinking with his condition. Despite his apparent concern, it doesn't stop Viktor from letting him take Jeff's cab and the ensuing barbiturates. Even worse, when Buddy gives up on the scam, Viktor scolds him and angrily tells the duo he'll do the job himself.
• The Barnum: Gene/"Viktor" reflects an Exaggerated version, with Gene showing no sympathy for any of the marks he sent Buddy and Jeff after. He constantly switches between berating both of them for their hesitation and trying to get them to drop their guilt with calm reassurance.
• Blackmail: It's shown that Mike has been helping Saul scope out potential clients, targets, and other figures in the Albuquerque underground that could use his help and/or be easily taken advantage of. Besides Walter, Mike mentions a "Mrs. Denise Gabler" who he investigated for cheating.
• Boredom Montage: Viktor sees no pleasure in his ensuing crime spree with Jeff and Buddy. While the other two are enjoying themselves, Viktor's world stays black and white, and Viktor himself doesn't crack much of a smile during the whole thing. Not even indulging in his vices and saving more piles of cash make him feel any better after Gene's phone call to Florida.
• Breaking Old Trends: The traditional episode structure Better Call Saul was known for has been seriously changed.
  • This marks the first time the series has gotten a season with more than 10 episodes, with 2 more to follow.
  • The Cold Open is a scene we already saw in Breaking Bad, shot from a different perspective. This is in contrast to the other glimpses into the Breaking Bad timeline that were entirely new scenes. Once it ends, the intro sequence continues with the blue screen from the malfunctioning tape, only to quickly flash two monochrome sequences. There is no longer a trace of Saul Goodman in the footage, only Gene/Viktor and his era.
  • Like "Nippy", this episode focuses primarily on Gene/Viktor instead of keeping him relegated to the Cold Open. Unlike the previous episode, this pertains elements of an Interquel that switches back and forth between Saul's perspective in the Breaking Bad era and Viktor's current scheme.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Walter White and Jesse Pinkman finally appear in the flesh once more, via a flashback to the scene of Saul's kidnapping in his first appearance.
  • Both the RV and the Pontiac Aztek, characters in their own right, make their first appearances since "Ozymandias" and "Fifty One" respectively ten years earlier, though the former did appear briefly in El Camino through the diner's window.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Saul's kidnapping by Walt and Jesse gets portrayed with intense music and camera angles due to it being from his perspective this time. There are dramatic shots for the grave and when he turns around, believing Lalo has finally come back to tell him what happened with Ignacio. Once everything's settled and he heads back into the RV, Jesse asks who Lalo even is since he's never heard the name out in the streets. Saul calmly brushes him off as "nobody".
• Call-Back:
  • The episode being titled "Breaking Bad" is a reference to Breaking Bad itself having an episode called "Better Call Saul" which introduced Saul into the show. This episode brings things full circle not just by introducing Walter and Jesse into Better Call Saul, but by incorporating flashbacks from that aforementioned episode.
  • Francesca blows off Gene when he tries to give a heartfelt goodbye, similar to how she did in "Quite a Ride".
  • Saul gets asked who Lalo is, to which he replies "Nobody."
  • When Gene begins scamming at bars again, he uses the "Viktor (with a 'K')" alias he had when he was scamming with Kim.
  • When Mike informs Saul of what he's found on Walter White, Saul asks if "he-who-shall-not-be-named" had any opinions on him, obliquely referring to Gus and the fact that Mike refused to let Saul know who his other employer was until Walt was part of their empire.
  • Gene begins seeking comfort and companionship by hiring prostitutes after an unpleasant conversation relating to Kim, just as Saul did after she left him in "Fun and Games".
  • After confirming that all the funds that Saul attempted to hide have been seized by the feds, Francesca points out that he still has whatever he took with him to Omaha, which she suspects was significant. This probably references the diamonds Gene is shown to still have, although he's likely saving those for a second extraction, as his ability to actually utilize diamonds for their monetary value in his current situation is dubious.
  • Buddy's role in the scam is identical to the method used by the burglary crew in Vamonos Pest where only information on the victim's valuables is taken and sold off with nothing being physically removed from the house.
  • Once again, Jimmy/Gene does karaoke. Badly.
• Call-Forward:
  • Shortform^note in the sense that it's alluding to the events of the immediate next episode of Breaking Bad following these events: After Saul agrees to help Walt and Jesse, they wind up spending a little extra time in the desert because of the RV having trouble working.
  • Likewise, Saul asks how much product Walt and Jesse can cook using just the RV as a setup, a question which they find out in the next episode.
  • Upon deducing that Walt and Jesse are both the creators and sellers of the blue meth, Saul points at Walt and quietly whispers "you're Heisenberg". Walt noticeably looks confused about how to respond, where he'll later respond "you're goddamn right".
  • Mike enters Saul's office wearing the same sunglasses he has on when meeting Jesse Pinkman for the first time.
    • During his debriefing, Mike also tells Saul that Heisenberg is a chemistry teacher in his civilian identity. Saul's initial reaction is understandably one of surprise and even some disbelief. When Saul 'visits' Walter at J.P. Wynne High School later that day and sees his classroom, he remarks Walt really is a Chemistry teacher.
• The Caper: After his phone call with Francesca and Kim, Gene Takovich embodies his old alias of Viktor St. Claire, and puts together another caper with Jeff and Buddy, this time running it repeatedly on different marks.
  • Viktor looks for a mark who lives alone, has some money, and occasionally frequents a bar.
  • Viktor approaches and befriends the mark at a bar over the course of an evening, doing whatever it takes to get him to drink as much as possible. Viktor pretends to match the mark drink-for-drink, but is actually siphoning his beverages via a tube up his sleeve into a rubber bladder under his shirt.
  • After getting the mark extremely drunk, Viktor escorts him to a cab outside the bar (driven by Jeff). On the way to the mark's house, Jeff offers him free water bottles, as the mark is sure to be thirsty after drinking so much alcohol. The water bottles are spiked with barbiturates. Buddy pretends to be Jeff's dispatcher so that he knows where Jeff is going and when he'll be arriving.
  • Jeff then escorts the extremely drunk mark to his front door, secretly sticking a strip of duct tape over the notch in the door threshold so it won't lock behind the mark as he enters.
  • Buddy shows up a few minutes later with a dog, having him stand guard right inside the door in case anyone else shows up. The mark will have quickly passed out from the spiked water bottles, making it easy for Buddy to raid his wallet and house for assorted financial information (driver's license, tax returns, bank accounts) that can be sold for a high price to another (unnamed and unseen) scammer who can use this information to commit identity theft on the mark.
  • Buddy leaves, removing the tape behind him, meaning the mark won't discover the deception for months, and will probably never know how his identity was stolen.
• Calling Shot Gun: Getting ready to head back to his office, Saul calls dibs on the passenger's seat of the RV while Walt decides he'll drive. Jesse complains about not having a proper seat, to which Saul reminds him about the way they treated him during the drive over.
  Saul: At least you won't be rolling around like the last Christmas ham in the back of the delivery truck.
• Caper Crew: Viktor comes back to Jeff and Buddy to take their newfound partnership to new heights.
  • Viktor becomes The Mastermind, scoping out bars until he finds a person with a lot of money and no family at home. After buttering them up, he calls their cabs and arranges for the target to enter Jeff's cab specifically.
  • Jeff and Buddy are The Partners In Crime, with Jeff offering spiked drinks to knock them out and Buddy tracking their location.
  • An unnamed party that has interest in people's accounts and personal info is The Backer for their operations, always giving big payouts for what the crew can find.
  • Unrelated to this is an off-screen character known as Lasky, who Mike mentions as a possible client Saul can help out. He runs with a high-end crew moving jewellery into Canada and was recently caught. He did the time without ever giving up the rest of his team in exchange for a lighter sentence, which impresses Mike.
• Cassandra Truth: Mike rightfully tells Saul that Walt is an amateur who is likely to get himself killed and bring Saul down and is therefore not worth the investment, no matter how good his meth is. Saul, of course, doesn't listen, and the end result is Mike's death, Walt's death (as Mike predicted), the end of Saul's legal career, Saul's associates all scattered to the winds, and Saul's own miserable exile in Omaha. The Breaking Bad flashbacks also parallel how Saul/Gene/Viktor is (once again) plunging into an ill-advised and likely doomed attempt at finding glory through his criminal acts despite people around him warning him not to and that no good will come of it.
• Casting Gag: Devin Ratray appeared with Bob Odenkirk (though not in the same scenes) in Nebraska! as a cousin who uses heavy-handed methods to try to steal a million dollars from Bruce Dern's Woody. Here, he plays a character who thinks he's scamming Viktor St. Claire out of easy money but gets scammed himself in the process.
• Cerebus Retcon: This episode fully leans into how Better Call Saul kept giving context to the events of Breaking Bad. Here, the (originally funny) scene where Saul is kidnapped by Walt and Jesse and offers to be their lawyer gets replayed Once More, with Clarity, this time from Saul's POV. It's shot like a horror film — a Bound and Gagged Saul begs to be taken anywhere but the desert, and repeats lines he's used from other traumatic events in his life: pleading for someone to talk, assuming they've heard him say he's a lawyer in Spanish before, frantically saying they can fix it, and of course the famous "It wasn't me! It was Ignacio!"
• Change the Uncomfortable Subject: Saul really doesn't want to talk about Lalo, dismissing him as nobody to Jesse, before asking Walter to try again with the keys.
• Continuity Nod:
  • During the flash-forward in "Quite a Ride", Saul gave Francesca the details of an upcoming phone call for her to answer. That call turns out to be from Saul himself as a way of scoping the current situation and figuring out where everybody is.
  • When he's tied up in the RV, Saul begs whoever is kidnapping him to do this anywhere but the desert, still traumatised over Tuco putting a gun to his head, as well as his last encounter with Lalo. Who he does not know is dead thanks to Mike's ambiguous wording.
  • In his call with Francesca, Jimmy/Saul/Gene refers to "the maestro" having "bought the farm" and asks her about the whereabouts of Huell, Patrick Kuby, Ira, and Danny (stated by the writer to be Daniel Wormald). She also fills him in on Skyler getting a deal and Jesse's car being found at the border.
  • Kim is working at a shop that sells sprinklers, only slightly a step up from her nightmare job of working at Hinky Dinky.
  • After Saul is taken back inside the RV in the aftermath of Walt and Jesse kidnapping him, he complains about his weak knees again. Walt also mentions how Saul proposed getting $80,000 for a plan to get Badger out safely, the details only being fleshed out when they get back to his office.
  • Saul walks over to the duo's glassware and starts admiring one of the flasks, reminiscing about the pet goldfish he used to speak with Dr. Caldera. Just like when Badger started toying with it, Jesse clarifies that it's a round-bottom flask, then glances back at Walt to make sure he got the term correct from the person that taught him about it.
  • Walt has trouble starting the RV after its fuel tank gets overheated, referencing the time they had to cook in Jesse's basement when it wouldn't work while foreshadowing the troubles they'll have getting it to start a little while later.
  • Mike enters Saul's office with sunglasses on. While he rarely wears them, he was last seen sporting them at Jesse's apartment to clean things up after Jane's death, his very first appearance.
  • Mike casually threatens to hurt Saul for inconveniencing him, just like he did when he was hunting for Jesse on Gus's orders. Saul is even doing the same thing: "exercising" on the floor with his Swing Master.
  • Mike doesn't bother listing many details about Walter and rattles off many other potential clients. This explains why Mike charged Saul for three hours worth of work when it most likely took him less than one to find out all about the "amateur".
  • Saul asks if Gus has been looking down on Walt like Mike has, jokingly following The Scottish Trope. This shows how comfortable Saul has grown with knowing both Gus' business and how well-connected Mike is, becoming the first in the chain of calls that will introduce Walt to Fring. And as he tells Walt and Jesse in Gus' debut episode, he's so low-profile he doesn't know his true identity.
  • Viktor's scam where he plays a pathetic idiot humiliated by rich guys without any enjoyment, before drugging and swooping their personal info, is a direct line to the rather dark idea Jimmy had where he wants Kim to pretend he's a loser who she's cheating on so they can sell their mark a very expensive fake credit card.
• Continuity Overlap: The post-Breaking Bad flash forwards finally sync up with El Camino, as the film's events are acknowledged here and have impact Saul's fugitive status quo (as the Feds have been unable to locate Jesse and have turned all their attention towards the sole surviving leader of Walter White's operation).
• Continuity Snarl: The RV's interior is noticeably larger than when it was last seen in Breaking Bad; this is due to being shot on a soundstage (as the original RV's interior had long been gutted). Notably, the duct tape covering the bullet holes is also placed on the other side of the door rather than just outside, when it was established they only covered the exterior.
• Cliffhanger: The episode ends just as Viktor breaks into a cancer-stricken mark's home.
• Creator Cameo: Thomas Schnauz, one of the producers of Breaking Bad and director of this episode, appears in one of the ID's the trio manages to steal during the montage.
• Crime Spree Montage: Viktor, Jeff and Buddy nail their racket down to a science, always finding the perfect target to drug and sell out to the black market. Gene at least is seen to be stashing some of his ill-gotten gains in a cavity wall and spending some of it on Hookers and Blow (albeit with alcohol instead of harder drugs).
• Cross-Referenced Titles: Just as there was a Breaking Bad episode called "Better Call Saul", which marked the debut of Saul in that show, now there's a Better Call Saul episode called "Breaking Bad" which marks the debut of Walt and Jesse in this show, as well as featuring scenes set during its twin from a different point of view.
• Descent into Addiction: After an exchange over the phone related to Kim shocks him to his core, Gene not only retreats into his old conman ways as Viktor, but reaches new lows with the harshest scam he's ever come up with.
• Deliberately Monochrome: Just like in the previous episode, all of the present-day scenes encompassing most of the episode are set in black and white. However, this time they're interspersed with scenes set in the Breaking Bad timeline that are in full color.
• Despair Event Horizon: Francesca finally receives the call on November 12th, which turns out to be Gene trying to get a handle on how things are going at Albuquerque. As a small glimmer of hope, she mentions Kim ended up calling her at one point to see if he was still alive. Almost right after, he tries to get a hold of the offices at Florida she's said to be working under, only to end up with... something that makes him lose his cool. Following that, he decides to strike up a partnership with Jeff and his friend to run one of the harshest cons he's ever come up with.
• Didn't Think This Through: Saul had most of his money in shell companies and offshore accounts, likely believing that the Omaha situation would just be temporary. The feds found and took everything, much to his chagrin.
• Dirty Old Man: To show how much Saul has moved on from Kim, he tells Walt and Jesse about how expensive his chiropractor is, thanks to how she adjusts everything. It can be seen as how desperate he is to ignore the pain from having broken up with her.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The series continues using Jimmy/Saul/Gene/Viktor's fondness for scams as a metaphor for drug addiction by emphasising that he tends to throw himself into schemes and new identities as a way of distancing himself from his pain and trying to regain control over his life; having resisted the urge throughout his life as Gene except when he felt it necessary as a self-preservation tool in the previous episode, it's telling that he begins falling back into old habits as Viktor almost immediately after his attempt to reestablish contact with Kim ends disastrously. The episode also combines this with Off the Wagon by making it clear that it's getting particularly bad this time; previously, Jimmy/Saul at least had other things to hold onto in his life, but as Gene/Viktor he's lost pretty much everything except his skill at running cons, placing him in the metaphor as the late-stage addict who has absolutely nothing else but his addiction.
• Double-Meaning Title: The episode shows unseen events from the Breaking Bad timeline and features protagonists Walt and Jesse from that show; it also shows Gene breaking bad by starting a new scam as Viktor and losing any moral restraint holding him back.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Basically everything about Mike and Saul discussing Walter White, from Saul seeing some potential in him in the meth business, to Mike writing him off as an amateur, and comparing him to a Betamax player that he once had only to get rid of due to being junk. In the span of one year, Walt would not only become a vicious, lucrative player in the drug world, but he will be responsible for Mike's death and the end of Saul's criminal career.
  • The post-El Camino manhunt for Jesse. Thanks to the events of the film, the authorities now believe Jesse's fled south into Mexico. Only the audience knows, of course, that Jesse actually fled in the opposite direction (i.e. to Alaska).
• Driven to Villainy: After his then-unheard Kim-related conversation, Gene Takovich drops any intents to find peace with his new life and starts the chain of vile cons as Viktor St. Claire.
• Dub Personality Change: It's an odd (and most likely accidental) example, but in the French and German dubs, some of the dialogue from Gene's obscured phone call is clearly audible (not everything, but enough to give viewers the gist of the conversation, including who he's speaking to), making his subsequent motivations more obvious on a first watch. Said motivations are different in each version, with the English version having Kim express Anger Born of Worry and Gene deciding she's a hypocrite who never cared about him, the French version (the least detailed) seeing Gene pleading about something, and the German version having Kim telling him to go to jail and Gene throwing it back in her face.
• Easter Egg:
  • One of the documents the first mark has is from "Cherkis Associates", referencing BCS producer/writer Ann Cherkis.
  • Thomas Schnauz is one of the ID's being photographed during the montage.
• Even Evil Has Standards: While Viktor, Jeff, and Buddy are all part of an ongoing criminal conspiracy, Buddy draws the line at victimizing a cancer sufferer, mentioning that his own father had cancer. Jeff agrees and is hesitant to drive Viktor there, but not enough to outright quit like his friend.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Buddy's dog, Zeke, makes barely a sound until the end, barking up a storm when an angry Viktor is ready to throw Buddy out for sparing a mark with cancer.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Downplayed example when Mike's briefing Saul on Walter White. Mike gets to the cancer diagnosis, a stunned Saul digests this...and then he realizes this is why Walt kept coughing in their previous interactions.
• Fatal Flaw: The Insider Podcast detailed how this episode was Jimmy/Saul/Gene/Viktor's biggest problem (and how Kim has made herself small but at least learned her lesson), in how he responds to something traumatising happening to him by self-destructing, and makes choices that will ruin him and everyone else in the long run.
• Foregone Conclusion: The flashbacks in this episode show that Mike scoped out Walt & Jesse and tried to convince Saul to just leave them be, as both appeared to be complete amateurs. It shouldn't be any surprise to see that Saul completely ignored Mike's advice and recruited the pair anyway.
• From Bad to Worse: Gene was clearly unhappy and missed his Saul days, but he was harmless to others and himself. Viktor emits downright evil vibes, as he ruthlessly scams everyone around him no matter how sympathetic they are.
• The Ghost: Walter White turns out to have come from a full list of prospective criminals Saul wanted Mike to scope out. Among the names given, there's a "Mrs. Denise Gabler" he can possible blackmail for cheating (or whose husband has hired Saul to help him divorce her), a bus driver with a legitimate neck injury (as opposed to the fake injuries Saul loves applying to clients), and a random crew of thieves moving jewellery up into Canada, of whom the only one to get caught did not snitch on his associates.
• Good-Times Montage: The crime spree Viktor, Jeff and Buddy are running eventually cut to Viktor saving his cash, meeting with hookers, and all three enjoying their time with drinks and a visit to a stripclub.
• His Own Worst Enemy: Jimmy again runs into another identity as a response to pain, this time changing "Viktor" from an alias he used for fun scams with Kim, to someone who drugs and robs people, and doesn't give a shit about "sob stories".
  Schnauz: Now, he's a whole other creature entirely. He's not quite Saul, he's not Jimmy. He's the guy who's drugging people and stealing their money.
• History Repeats:
  • Saul meeting Walter despite Mike warning him not to segues into Viktor breaking into a house, showing how Jimmy trying to shove his pain down and get some control back has terrible results, and with the clear implication that just as his decision to go after Walter would end in Saul's downfall, his decision to pursue his current mark will have similar results for Gene/Viktor.
  • In general, both the Omaha and Albuquerque stories in this episode follow a similar pattern for Jimmy.
    • He suffers a traumatic event (Saul gets kidnapped and threatened out in the desert in a way that reminds him of both Tuco doing the same to him years ago and Lalo holding him hostage; Gene gets informed that the feds have seized almost all the money he attempted to hide and his first talk with Kim in years goes extremely poorly).
    • He uses his skills to turn the situation to his favor (Saul uses his lawyer abilities to get Walter and Jesse as his clients and comes up with a solution to their problem that is also highly profitable to him; Viktor uses his con man abilities to rip off several people for large sums of money).
    • He pushes it too far in an attempt to make even more money (Saul ignores the advice of Mike to stay away from Walter and Jesse as they're both amateurs who are likely to get caught and recruits them as permanent clients; Viktor ignores both his partners when they object to ripping off a man with cancer and decides to do it himself despite it being several hours after their planned intrusion and their easy entrance to the house no longer being available).
    • He ends up ruining everything (Walter's criminal activities get exposed about a year after Saul joins up with him, resulting in Saul losing his lawyering career and almost all of his money, as well as his miserable life in Omaha; Gene/Viktor's fate to be determined).
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Tigerfish Corporation, Saul's fictional shell company where he hides his offshore accounts, gets discovered by the feds due to him naming Francesca as a board director without her knowledge, forcing her to give it up when questioned about it.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Viktor's rendition of "Brandy, You're a Fine Girl" at karaoke might be the single worst performance of that song in history; it's not even clear if he is in any way familiar with that song. His singing in an earlier episode (karaoke with his brother) wasn't nearly that over-the-top bad. Invoked and Justified given the context — Gene-as-Viktor is completely sober but is trying to come off as acutely intoxicated in order to dupe to dupe a potential mark.
• Hookers and Blow: Viktor rejuvenates his lifestyle as Saul with a minor version of this, bringing Jeff and Buddy along. With their new racket making a profit, they spend their time at strip clubs and with prostitutes.
• Hope Spot: In the last episode, Gene still had a lot of issues (including letting slip that he feels like a shadow) but had got Jeff off his back, was having fun in his job finally and managed to put the Saul-like shirt away. But after an unrevealed phone call with or about Kim, he hits the Despair Event Horizon and splinters himself into yet another identity.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: As terrifying as Lalo was during Saul's earlier criminal escapades as a lawyer, enough time has passed for much of the streets of Albuquerque to forget him and move on. Jesse mentions he's never heard of the guy, letting Saul quickly change the uncomfortable subject.
• Innocently Insensitive: Downplayed, as they still kidnap a guy, but Walt and Jesse had no idea of just how hard they pushed their new criminal lawyer’s trauma buttons. Jesse, softer one of the two that he is, even asks about Lalo later.
• Instant Sedation: The barbiturate-spiked water Jeff offers knocks every barfly out by the time he's pulling up to their houses.
• Interface Spoiler: Whilst Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul are Not Named in Opening Credits, Jonathan Banks' return to them after the previous episode only billed Bob Odenkirk clues the audience into what's going to happen.
• Internal Homage:
  • Like Chuck in "Lantern", Gene had a Hope Spot of being just a little satisfied with his job and making progress, but a call with Kim (like how a conversation with Jimmy made Chuck break down) makes him jump off the slippery slope, in his case going into a whole new, far worse identity that’s bordering on sociopathic.
    Jimmy: He was himself. Something made him relapse.
  • After the disaster phone call, Gene is staring into a mixer, slightly swaying. An exit sign is prominently displayed, like the ending of "Chicanery" with Chuck in the courtroom (showing again how Jimmy is not exactly behaving differently from his mentally ill brother). It's also played similarly to Jimmy’s dissociating before in “JMM”, when his brain breaks a little at seeing Whalen’s family, but like Gene deciding to get worse, makes the choice to defend Lalo anyway.
• The Internet Is for Cats: Jeff uses some of the money from the heist to buy Marion a laptop. Gene shows her how to use the Internet to watch funny cat videos.
• Interquel: The scenes set during Breaking Bad depict previously offscreen moments from "Better Call Saul"; Mike's appearance in this episode is chronologically his first appearance in that show's timeframe, since it is set before his debut in "ABQ".
• Internal Reveal: This episode contains two originally missing moments from Breaking Bad, Saul realizing for himself that "Mr. Mayhew" is actually the Heisenberg, and Mike delivering him the information on Walter White's real identity.
• The Internet Is for Cats: Gene shows Marion how to watch cat videos on YouTube with her new computer that Jeff bought.
• Ironic Echo: Viktor completely bastardises Mike's speech about "you'll realise one day you can forget", mocking Buddy for not wanting to rob a guy that's dying from cancer and condescending that he'll get over it.
• Irony:
  • As Saul and Mike casually discuss Walt's criminal potential, Saul remarks, "Guy with that mustache probably doesn't make a lot of good life choices". Little does he know that he'll be sporting similar facial hair as Gene/Viktor and, in this episode, make terrible decisions.
  • Viktor, almost worried for the guy with cancer, asks if he "should" really be drinking while taking his treatment. The mark excuses his drinking with the phrase, "You only go around once". Both sentiments are applicable to Viktor risking his safety with his current scams; He shouldn't, but he doesn't have much left to lose otherwise. If anything, the guy potentially motivated Viktor into continuing the con.
  • Jesse expresses curiosity about Saul's terror of Lalo, having never heard of the guy during his criminal career. Over the next year or so, Jesse will work in the underground meth lab that Lalo's corpse is buried under, with him none the wiser.
• It Will Never Catch On: Mike assures Saul that Walt is too risky to associate with, and thinks it's only a matter of time before the amateur catches a bullet or gets arrested, if the cancer doesn't get him first. To drive his point home, Mike compares Walt to a "cutting edge, top-of-the-line" BetaMax he bought years ago, which turned out to be a flop. Undeterred, Saul believed he had potential.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Whatever happened when he tried to get in touch with Kim again does this to Gene, as it causes him to descend into Viktor and return to running scams full time and indulging in more of his old habits/mannerisms as Saul Goodman. It also causes him to be more vicious and indiscriminate with who he targets, as he doesn't hesitate to pull a scam on a cancer sufferer (though it's debatable whether his experiences with Walt influenced him on that front as he claims).
• Kick the Dog: When Viktor finds out that Buddy refuses to scam a cancer patient, he furiously fires him on the spot and decides to break into the mark's house himself.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: The central theme of the episode is that our protagonist, tragically, does not. The episode ends with him breaking into a man's house in reckless determination to carry out a hustle despite his allies trying to warn him off doing so and the universe itself practically holding up a massive flashing neon sign announcing it to be a terrible idea that will only end badly. This is paralleled with flashbacks to the early days of his involvement with a certain high school teacher and his assistant, in which pretty much the same point is made; after he dug up info about Walt and Jesse for him, Mike tried to convince Saul to just forget about them, as they were two amateurs not worth investing any time into. So it should be no surprise that one of the last shots of the episode sees Saul go into Walt's high school.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: As the first of 3 episodes that breaks the ongoing trend of 10 episodes per season, it begins with the finally-worn-out tape barely playing anything and Gene asking if there's anything going on in Albuquerque. Francesca is baffled with how much he's relying on her to relay everyone else's fates, suggesting he simply go on the internet if he wants to know. With the audience following Jimmy/Saul/Gene's perspective, this interaction comes across as mirroring the audience wanting to know what might be left of the show without being able to see what's going on for themselves. Gene becomes attached to one last plot thread, Kim Wexler. Whatever answer he received from the following call was simply too unsatisfying to him, causing him to smash the phone booth. invokedAs the creators have stated how they intentionally made the tenth episode enter the Gene era and skip the events of Breaking Bad to trick the audience, it's almost as if Gene knows the series itself is ending without literally knowing he's in the show's final episodes. Despite peacefully wrapping everything up and seemingly saying farewell to Saul/Slippin' Jimmy for good in the previous episode, he can't help but force his cons with Jeff to continue.
• Locked Out of the Loop:
  • Gene attempts to defy this with his scheduled call to Francesca. He asks her how dangerous it is to come back to Albuquerque, and she reports current investigations as being directed towards him as the last remaining associate to Heisenberg's empire. He then questions what happened to everybody else, if she can manage it.
  • Francesca isn't able to recap everything accurately, especially where the events of El Camino are concerned, as she heard about Jesse's car being found near the Mexican border and has taken that to mean he fled to Mexico. Which was, of course, the intention of Badger's plan to dupe the police (and everyone else) into thinking just that.
  • During the flashback to Breaking Bad in Saul's office, Saul asks Mike if "He Who Shall Not Be Named" had any opinions on Walt, showing Saul still not knowing about who Gustavo Fring really is until Walt starts working under him.
• Mistaken for Gay: Gene asks Francesca about what Bill's doing these days, and she just tells him he "switched sides". Gene assumes that meant he recently came out as gay, causing Francesca to clarify she meant he went from a prosecutor to a defense attorney.
• Mood Whiplash: At first it may seems that Viktor will continue to scam various assholes with minimal collateral damage. But then he runs into genuinely nice guy, who is also a cancer patient... and doesn't stop.
• The Most Wanted: With Walt dead, Jesse reportedly out of the country and all the hideouts Saul had being investigated, he becomes the highest priority for the police in Albuquerque and possibly New Mexico and the entire United States as a whole.
• Motif: The episode spreads many references to Frankenstein, leaning into Gene's decision to take on the "Viktor" persona. After namedropping the director of the Boris Karloff adaptation, he refers to Jesse as "Igor", servant of the infamous "Heisenberg". This symbolism is turned on its head as Saul and Mike contemplate the idea of assisting Walter in his criminal career, making Saul the actual "Dr. Frankenstein" and Walt being the monster he (helps) create. On a more humorous note, this discussion is preceded by Saul comparing Mike's gait to that of "Frankenstein after he was probed by aliens".
• Not Named in Opening Credits: Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul. Jonathan Banks is the only other principal actor listed. As in the previous episode, none of the "Jimmy McGill"-era main cast is listed, breaking with tradition (usually, deceased/departed characters would continue to appear in the opening credits for the rest of the season).
• Off the Wagon: In keeping with the show's use of Jimmy/Saul/Gene/Viktor's fondness for scams as an addiction metaphor, his return to scamming in the new persona of "Viktor" after the unpleasant phone call he had with his contact for Kim in Florida is played almost like an alcoholic diving back into the bottle after a life set-back. His behavior as Viktor is also appropriately darker and clearly framed as self-destructive, as there's little sign of either the hints of conscience and (few) standards that he had in his previous personas, nor that he's at least getting any kind of pleasure from what he's doing like he used to.
• Once More, with Clarity: The scene of Saul's kidnapping from the Breaking Bad episode "Better Call Saul" is glimpsed at once again, and is noticeably shot and scored far more dramatically than the original version, which was more played for humour, because this time we see it from Saul's point of view, and his terror over the idea that Lalo has somehow caught up with him is what colors the scene instead. But this time, we get a continuation scene after Walt, Jesse, and Saul head back into the RV, where we see Saul piece together that Walt is the legendary Heisenberg, the trio has trouble getting the RV started, and Jesse inquires on who "Lalo" is.
• Perspective Flip: The opening scene replays Saul's kidnapping from his perspective, repeating lines from "Bagman" frantically, hyperventilating and begging to do this anywhere but the desert. The shallow grave is also used as symbolism, Jimmy digging his own no matter what identity he's in.
• Playing Drunk: Gene/Viktor saps his bar drinks away into a pouch hidden under his sweater, while getting his marks actually drunk. This leaves them vulnerable since they think he's getting just as drunk as they are, being willing to trust him when they think they'll both need cabs.
• Popcultural Osmosis Failure: Saul describes Walt and Jesse's RV as "James Whale's traveling roadshow". Jesse expresses he has no idea what Saul is talking about.
• P.O.V. Sequel: The flashbacks take place during the the Breaking Bad episode 'Better Call Saul', showing us previously unseen moments like when Saul found out Walt and Jesse's identities.
• Pretender Diss: The more Saul looks into "Heisenberg", the more Mike derides him as a newbie and "small potatoes". Saul wonders if Mike's just repeating what Gus has been thinking, and Mike clarifies Gus isn't even bothering talking about him.
• Product Placement: Francesca's stoner tenants watch Jackie Chan Adventures on their TV. The show was owned by Sony Pictures, who also produced both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.
• Rage Breaking Point: The prospect of the phone call with Francesca is suggested to be the one thing that's really been keeping Gene going over his months in hiding. When he discovers he's the number one target in the Heisenberg case, she can't give him anything specific on what happened to his associates, his various money-laundering fronts have all been seized by the federal government and his attempt to make contact with Kim ends badly, it proves too much.
• Retcon: When we first saw Saul getting kidnapped by Walter and Jesse in Better Call Saul, Saul only expressed minor annoyance of his situation, and only began panicking that Lalo may have found him again the second the hood came off his head and he was shown an empty grave out in the desert. Here, Saul is shown to have suspected from the get-go that he's being kidnapped by Lalo's goons while tied up in the back of their RV.
• The Reveal: The fates of several characters post-Breaking Bad are revealed here.
  • Francesca was released from police custody, but is still occasionally followed and has her phone tapped.
  • Skyler was able to make a plea deal with prosecutors, presumably after giving them the coordinates to Hank and Gomez's bodies as Walt had told her to do.
  • Kim now works at a place called Palm Coast Sprinklers in Titusville, Florida. She called Francesca once to check in on her, and asked if Jimmy was still alive.
  • Huell was eventually released from the safehouse and moved back to New Orleans.
  • Jesse's car was found parked at the Mexican border by authorities, and is thus believed by everyone to have fled down south when he actually fled to Alaska.
  • Bill Oakley has now opened his own private practice as a defense attorney.
  • And finally, the police were able to track down and seize every single last one of Saul's shell companies and secret accounts. And the Lazer Base, with Pryce seemingly in the wind.
• Riches to Rags: Saul had millions hidden in various bank accounts and front businesses. All of that has been found and seized by the federal government. He still has a fair amount of loot stashed at his house in Omaha, but it's a pittance compared to his heyday.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: In the end, Mike was right about Walt not worth the investment and warned Saul not to get involved with him, but not because of Walt's ego and pride, but because he considers Walt an amateur who won't last long in the game if his cancer doesn't kill him first.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • In the scene before his reuniting with Marion and Jeff, Gene looks at a dough machine spinning over and over while an "exit" sign is placed to the left of the shot. It shows Gene contemplating his decision to leave things behind, before ultimately throwing his lot in with Jeff on further scams. It's also an Internal Homage to Chuck at the end of "Chicanery", with the brothers McGill not that far off on mental states at this point.
  • As Walt, Jesse and Saul prepare to take off in the Crystal Ship, Saul calls shotgun while Walt decides to drive. It portrays Saul as the true co-pilot guiding the rise of Heisenberg's empire, despite Jesse being his dedicated partner-in-crime. This is bolstered by all the Frankenstein Motifs peppered throughout the episode.
  • After the scene of Walt, Jesse and Saul in the RV, we transition from an overhead shot of the grave dug to intimidate Saul to an overhead shot of Gene lying in his bed, framed so that he's briefly in the grave, showing both his self-destruction and complicity in burying himself in his Gene, Saul and later Viktor personas.
  • Viktor's approaching to the house of his crew's latest mark is cut up and matched with new scenes of Saul slowly walking up to J.P. Wynne. Knowing his infamous offer to Walter White eventually doomed the cast and sent him to where he currently is, the sequence heavily implies Viktor's decision to break into the cancer patient's home will lead to disastrous consequences.
• Self-Harm:
  • There's no trace of any kind of joy that Jimmy had with his scams. Viktor descends so low with this whole drugging and robbing scheme (as a response to whatever pain the phone call bought up) that both Jeff and Buddy are freaked out.
  • There’s an implication that Saul was doing this too, knowingly getting over his head with Walter and thinking he can mold the guy so he can distract from his feelings towards Kim and massive trauma.
• Shout-Out:
  • Saul compares Walter and Jesse's relationship to a Laurel and Hardy routine. When they start arguing, he tells them to knock it off by saying he's no fan of The Bickersons.
  • Viktor's first mark is named Alfred Hawthorne Hill, which is the real name of English comedian Benny Hill.
  • There's a lot to Frankenstein, Jimmy using his Viktor persona as yet another identity formed of all of his other dead selves, Saul calling Jesse "Igor", and Saul telling Mike that he walks "like Frankenstein['s monster]". With Saul hoping to coach Walter's criminal career, the show essentially portrays "Heisenberg" as "Frankenstein's Monster" to Saul's "Dr. Frankenstein". Saul also namedrops James Whale, who directed the Boris Karloff picture.
  • Gene slamming the pay phone down and kicking the phone booth after calling Kim’s new workplace in Florida is highly reminiscent of Robert De Niro in Goodfellas.
  • Episode writer and director Tom Schnauz compares the final, unresolved post-Breaking Bad fate of Kuby to D-Day vanishing into the ether at the end of Animal House.
  • As another reference to the famed poem, Saul asks Walt if the RV will finally start up or if they'll end up discovered "buried in a sandstorm a thousand years from now".
• Slipping a Mickey: Viktor mixes barbs into water bottles for Jeff to offer in his cab, allowing Buddy to sneak into their target's house and steal their info.
• Spotting the Thread: It takes Saul roughly ten seconds to unravel he's not dealing with two flunkies, but Walt and Jesse are the full operation and Walt is Heisenberg. Lampshaded by Jesse pointing out how dumb Walt's attempts to play dumb are.
  Walt: No. Details.
  Jesse: Dude's standing in front of a meth lab, not like he ain't gonna put two and two together.
• Stating the Simple Solution: As Gene keeps piling on more questions about how everyone's doing in Albuquerque and what's been happening with the ongoing investigation into Heisenberg's empire, Francesca asks if he has access to the internet so he can find out for himself.
• Stepford Smiler: After being untied and let into the RV, Saul chatters and touches the equipment like he's a child, but when there's a silent moment, he is deeply uncomfortable and freezes when Jesse asks about Lalo.
• Stupid Crooks: Saul meets Walt and Jesse while they're still in an earlier part of their criminal career. Jesse decides to entertain a few questions Saul has despite being the ones that kidnapped him. While Walt is incredulous that Jesse's bothering to give details about what they do and who they are, Jesse reminds him that he didn't want Saul seeing his face and only complied at Walt's suggestion. When Saul wants to ask Mike about them, the latter casually dismisses them.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Even though Walt died and Skyler made a deal with the police, the heat in Albuquerque hasn't totally died down yet, given how Jesse and Saul are still unaccounted for. And since it's believed Jesse fled to Mexico, Saul is now the government's number one target.
  • Francesca is only able to give Saul vague details on Huell's whereabouts (apparently moved back to Louisiana) and has no clue about Kuby, Ira, or Daniel Wormald. Considering that the DEA is still actively pursuing anyone connected to Walter White, it only makes sense that Saul's underlings have scattered to the four winds without telling anyone where they were going. Francesca is also not the kind of person who would want to constantly keep tabs on everybody, especially when it could compromise her own standing with the cops.
  • The authorities had to let Huell go because Hank and Gomez had him held in the safehouse under false pretenses.
  • Saul gears up for a heartfelt goodbye to Francesca... who immediately hangs up on him without a word. Her opinion of him had already deteriorated over the years, and getting her stuck under police surveillance hasn't improved their relationship.
  • Saul went to great lengths to launder his money and stash it in secret bank accounts and various business. However, once multiple federal agencies started investigating his business dealings, they quickly found and seized all the shell companies and front businesses. All Saul has left of his old fortune is the stash of money he kept when he fled to Omaha.
  • Jesse having never heard of Lalo despite knowing people who have interacted with him makes sense when you remember that Lalo never actually spent enough time in Albuquerque to really establish his name beyond being just another Salamanca. Krazy-8 probably wouldn't tell anyone the real origin of his nickname, and since Tuco was in prison during Lalo's brief tenure, he would have no reason to tell anyone about him.
  • Being held captive for the third time, and having all his Lalo/desert (and Kim-related) trauma dredged up again, makes Saul want to have something he can control and mould as a way to bury it all down, and he picks the worst choice he can. All this is paralleled with Gene/Viktor relapsing and self destructing in the future.
• Suspicious Spending: Gene has apparently briefed Jeff on how to avoid this, and Jeff swears that the laptop he bought for his mother doesn't count.
• Sympathetic P.O.V.: Saul is still a terrible person and a stepford mask for Jimmy to hide behind, but his scenes show just how damaged he is by Lalo and his desert trips, ignoring Mike’s advice to leave Walter alone because he needs a distraction from thinking about PTSD, and is uneasy with Walt treating Jesse badly. All this contrasts him with Viktor, the far worse creature Gene turns into as a response to a wound being open again.
• Take That!: Mike mentions having bought a BetaMax after hearing how much of an improvement it was over VHS, in the context of comparing it to Walter White and how both will end up as acclaimed wastes of time to him.
• Tempting Fate: Saul decides to visit Walt at his high school and go into business with him, after Mike advised him on what a dumb move that would be.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: Viktor's face in the strip club.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: After spending years as an unhappy, burnt-out prosecutor for the DA's office, Bill Oakley is shown to have opened his own private practice as a defense attorney with associates in the post-Breaking Bad era. He seems to be doing well to the point where he can afford to advertise on benches like Saul did before him.
• Took a Level in Jerkass:
  • Before the time skip, Mike was depicted as empathetic despite being a hardened criminal, his last major on-screen interactions showing him being deeply remorseful and hurt respectively by Jimmy and Manuel's circumstances. By the first time we see Mike in the Breaking Bad timeline here, he's already taken the steps to become the asshole he was known as in that series, being coarse in his speech and having little patience for Saul, who he used to view as a friend. He even threatens to harm him if he keeps irritating him.
  • Even after everything Jimmy did, he still had occasional moments of showing a heart — even as Saul in Breaking Bad. Now Viktor has absolutely no compunction about drugging and swindling a man suffering from cancer, and fires Buddy when he objects.
• Trauma Button: As well as the obvious Lalo fear, Saul panics "Yo soy abogado" in the same way Jimmy kept trying to rehearse in "Bagman", and begs that they can torture him anywhere but the desert. The Insider Podcast confirmed that it was partly down to being kidnapped again, dredging up flashbacks, that Saul ignored Mike's advice to go see Walt again.
• The Unreveal:
  • Although Francesca briefs Saul on the whereabouts of several of his colleagues, Patrick Kuby (who mysteriously disappeared near the end of Breaking Bad), Ira (who ran Vamonos Pest), and Daniel Wormald (who Word of God confirms was the proprietor of the Lazer Base) all remain a mystery.
  • Played with with regards to Kim; we find out where she now works (at least when Saul/Gene last heard), and that she got in touch with Francesca after the fall of Heisenberg, but when Gene attempts to contact her we then don't hear the conversation that takes place (or even find out who Gene is speaking to), only that it leaves him furious. This is Subverted in the next episode as we learn the full phone call between him and Kim.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • A combination of Mike letting Saul know more about the mysterious "Heisenberg", him discouraging any association with him, and the partnership offered at J.P. Wynne spell the beginning of the end for the casts of both shows.
    • On a similar note, while Walt and Jesse kidnapping Saul set things in motion in the original show, this episode (and the overarching narrative of the spinoff) now adds additional context to the doom they instigated. By kidnapping Saul the way they did and dragging him out into the desert, Walt and Jesse unknowingly pushed all of Jimmy's PTSD buttons. If they hadn't, then Saul wouldn't have gone looking for a new coping mechanism and he might have heeded Mike's warnings to not do business with Heisenberg.
  • Jesse is revealed to be this for 2010 Saul thanks to the events of El Camino. With Walt dead at the end of "Felina", the Feds were focusing their efforts on locating Jesse and Saul — at least until Jesse successfully fled New Mexico for Alaska. With his trail having gone cold, the Federal investigation's now focused entirely upon finding Saul — which leads to the discovery and seizure of his previously hidden financial assets and the chain of dominoes kicking off his downward spiral in this episode.
  • While Lydia is never mentioned, Walt's murder of her may also make him this as assuming her number would have been found in Todd's phone by the authorities, she could have been sought after as a higher target than Saul given her status as a big Madrigal executive.
• Vocal Evolution: Jesse's voice is significantly deeper and less animated than it was in Breaking Bad. This is a case of Real Life Writes the Plot however, as Aaron Paul is revisiting a role he played in his late twenties in his early forties.
• Wham Shot: 2008 Saul arriving at J.P. Wynne High School. Not only has he ignored Mike's advice regarding Walter, Saul's literally walking into that fateful classroom meeting with Walt that will seal their partnership — and ultimately destroy both their lives. The Match Cut with Viktor breaking into the home of his latest mark also makes it very clear how that is going to turn out for him.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Invoked by Gene, hoping Francesca knows what happened to the rest of their associates. She doesn't have all the answers, but she tries her best to relay everything she could get her hands on.
  • Huell was let go from the safehouse, but she can only guess where he went. Most likely back to his hometown in Louisiana.
  • An In-Universe case applies to Jesse, as the public is left thinking he fled south, just as Jesse and his friends planned. They ultimately don't know where he is and what he's doing by now.
  • This is most applicable to Kuby and Daniel Wormald, as Francesca has zero idea for what happened to either of them.
• Wrong Assumption: As he thinks whoever is sent by Lalo, and is trying to say he’s a lawyer in Spanish before stopping himself because they already know that, Saul seems to think the Salamanca twins are the ones kidnapping him at first.

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