Ever since AMC announced a spinoff series centred on Breaking Bad's grifter of a lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), two and a half weeks before Breaking Bad's final episode aired in September 2013, we've all been waiting to see when and how the Better Call Saul timeline will mix with the Breaking Bad timeline. Better Call Saul co-creator Peter Gould already confirmed America's favourite meth lab coworkers, Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), would be reprising their Breaking Bad roles this season. So, after five remarkable seasons, it appears our questions will finally be answered in the series' sixth and final season, starting with its riveting season premiere.
In Better Call Saul, the Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad starts as a duplicitous lawyer with a heart of gold known as Jimmy McGill. He becomes Saul Goodman as a way to escape the smothering shadow of his deceased brother and esteemed lawyer Charles McGill (Michael McKean). He dates and then (strategically) marries fellow lawyer Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) through his law journey, arguably the most intriguing character in the entire show. Unfortunately, his crooked road to becoming a lawyer leads him to do the bidding of the Mexican cartel, whether that means bringing bail money from the desert or bending the law to free nefarious criminals.
Gould told Entertainment Weekly, "I don't think you're going to look at Breaking Bad the same way again after you've seen this whole season." We've seen it all in Better Call Saul, but now it's time to see how it finds its way into the Breaking Bad timeline that created it.
How Do The Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad Timelines Mix?
For five seasons, Better Call Saul has been every bit a Breaking Bad prequel, giving nuanced backstories to some of the most beloved (and hated) Breaking Bad characters. We discover why Mexican drug lord Hector Salamanca is relegated to a wheelchair and can only communicate by ringing a bell. We find out how Saul Goodman got his name, criminal clientele, and trademark Bluetooth headset from the ancient times of the early 2000s. Mike Ehrmantraut, Gus Fring, Huell Babineaux, and a bevy of other Breaking Bad characters have their stories fleshed out more on Better Call Saul than on Breaking Bad. But, while Breaking Bad characters enter the Better Call Saul universe, rarely do the two shows' timelines converge.
Better Call Saul's final season premiere wastes no time implicitly merging the two worlds from the opening scene. For the first five minutes of the episode, we're greeted by movers emptying what appears to be a palatial estate once owned by Saul. They clean out his massive bathroom equipped with golden shower walls and an obscene golden toilet, load his 1997 Cadillac DeVille made famous in Breaking Bad on the back of a truck to be taken away, and removes every piece of furniture not nailed down. While Saul scored a hefty payday from being a "friend of the cartel" at the end of Season 5, the luxury on display in this opening scene is likely outside the price range of a man who once had a law office in the back of a nail salon in Better Call Saul. But, it's more in line with the price range of a man who had wads of cash stashed in a ceiling in case of an emergency like Saul did when he was ready to skip town with a new identity near the end of the Breaking Bad timeline. We see him retrieve this money from the Breaking Bad timeline in the fourth episode of Better Call Saul's fifth season, entitled "Quite A Ride," the last Better Call Saul scene we see set in the Breaking Bad timeline.
But, in the Season 6 premiere, it's what the movers don't take that truly unites the Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul timelines.
As they're loading a dresser drawer into the back of the moving truck, a Zafiro Anejo tequila bottle stopper tumbles out. The camera slowly zooms in, signifying this is a significant development and that it isn't just any tequila bottle stopper. It's appeared in both Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad. In Better Call Saul, the bottle stopper of the fictitious tequila brand has appeared in a few of Kim and Jimmy's playful cons they would run on unsuspecting fools. It most poignantly appears on the show in episode 9 of the show's fifth season, entitled "Bad Choice Road," when Kim quits her cushy job as partner and head of Schweikart & Cokely's banking division but makes sure to double back to her office to retrieve the bottle stopper she kept in her desk drawer. In Breaking Bad, the bottle stopper appears less prominently yet more impactfully when criminal mastermind and fired chicken mogul Gus Fring poisons a bottle of tequila in an effort to kill the head of the cartel who once killed his dear friend Max.
Another clue the two timelines are merging was hinted at in the Season 6 promo photo. In the photo, Saul, disguised as the Gene Takavic identity he uses when he is relocated out of Albuquerque after Breaking Bad, appears in grey while putting on a jacket coloured bright red. For the entirety of Better Call Saul, glimpses into Saul's new life as Gene are depicted solely in grey, indicating it's a separate timeline from the colorised Better Call Saul timeline. The promo photo clearly shows the show is ready to merge the Breaking Bad timeline portrayed in grey with the Better Call Saul timeline bursting in colour. Since the Better Call Saul already introduced us to a colourised scene from the Breaking Bad timeline with the "Quite A Ride" episode, there are plenty of reasons to see how the opening scene of Season 6 follows the timeline merging of the Season 6 promo photo.
What Happens To Kim Wexler In The Breaking Bad Timeline?
That much isn't fully clear yet, but the Season 6 premiere does set the stage for her to have an influence on the show. Given the fact Kim was the last one with the bottle stopper in Better Call Saul, and it appears to fall out of a desk of Saul Goodman's from the Breaking Bad timeline, it's safe to assume the bottle stopper is at the very least a memento from Saul's time with Kim in Better Call Saul. But that's just the beginning. As the show has made Saul's life inextricable of Kim's, everyone has wondered if she'll appear in the Breaking Bad timeline and what her role would be. Will she be Saul's wife we never see on Breaking Bad because the show seldom dedicates more than a few scenes an episode to the lawyer? Will she be one of the cartel lawyers living in Mexico while Saul handles their legal matters in the States? Or will she be dead and never appear? That's still unclear, but what Season 6 clarifies is that Kim Wexler's influence leaves an imprint on the Breaking Bad universe.
In the Season 6 premiere, Saul tells Kim he rented an unspectacular brown Ford Taurus. Kim's reaction is less than impressed, and she suggests if Jimmy McGill is going full-on with this Saul Goodman character, he needs to do it up big. To her, Saul Goodman drives an American-made car with a little more flair. That sounds like the Cadillac DeVille he drives around in Breaking Bad, which was being taken away at the beginning of the Season 6 premiere.
As Season 6 continues, we'll keep an eye out on how the Better Call Saul timeline finds its way into Breaking Bad's timeline, and vice versa, before we say goodbye to Saul Goodman forever.
Keith Nelson is a writer by fate and journalist by passion, who has connected dots to form the bigger picture for Men’s Health, Vibe Magazine, LEVEL MAG, REVOLT TV, Complex, Grammys.com, Red Bull, Okayplayer, and Mic, to name a few.
