WithBetter Call Saulslowly, but surely coming to its inevitable conclusion, fans of the series need to come to terms with having to bid farewell to Vince Gilligan’s masterfully crafted universe. The deep dive into the underworld of Albuquerque (as well as thedarkest corners of the human psyche) began all the way back in 2008, with the critically acclaimedBreaking Bad.
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Its prequel series has been applauded by fans and critics for the ways in which its writers were able to set up the story and greater world of its predecessor without overshadowing the focal point of the show, which is Jimmy McGill’s transition into Saul Goodman. Over the course of its six seasons,Better Call Saul’swriters managed to weave in plenty of story beads that directly affect the plot ofBreaking Badand make re-watching the 2008 AMC hit all the more enticing.
Warning: Spoilers for Better Call Saul Ahead!
10Mike Getting Tuco Arrested
Tuco Salamanca was one of the most fearsome and unpredictable characters Walt and Jesse have encountered inBreaking Bad.His heated personality, combined with an uncontrollable meth habit has rendered him an undependable business partner, to say the least. In the second season ofBetter Call Saul,Tuco crosses paths with Mike Ehrmantraut, who was hired by Nacho to kill the Salamanca drug distributor out of fear for his own life.
Instead of murdering him, Mike provokes Tuco to assault him, which results in the hot-headed gangster getting sent to prison. When Walt and Jesse first meet him in Season 1 ofBreaking Bad, Tuco is fresh out of jail and out for blood, his erratic behavior only exacerbated by using Heisenberg’s blue meth. Had Mike simply agreed to assassinate the Salamanca as Nacho requested,Walt’s drug empirewould have gotten off to a much different start.
9The Rise Of Gus Fring’s Distribution Network
Better Call Saullays the groundwork for Gus’s clockwork drug distribution network. Although the Los Pollos Hermanos restaurant chain was being used as a front for large-scale shipping of illicit substances before the show took place, Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould have filled viewers in on the details of how Fring became Don Eladio’s distributor of choice.
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Prior to Gus becoming the sole distributor for the cartel, this task was split between his Los Pollos Hermanos and Regalo Helado, a frozen goods company used by the Salamancas for the very same purpose. Mike Ehrmantraut sabotaged this operation at the beginning of Season 3, leading to the cartel bosses deciding to use Los Pollos Hermanos as the crime organization’s one and only drug distribution solution.
8Establishing Mike’s Relationship With His Family
One of the main reasons why Mike was such a beloved character inBreaking Badwas the depiction of his relationship with his granddaughter, Kaylee. It ran in stark contrast to Mike’s day job as Gus Fring’s hitman and “security consultant.” Although viewers caught a few glimpses of Mike and Kaylee’s time together, the show’s writers never got to explain the origins of how Mike became a cynical, emotionless killer and a loving “Pop-Pop” at the same time.
This is a central point of Ehrmantraut’s story inBetter Call Saul.In the very first season, it is revealed that Mike came to Albuquerque in hopes of reuniting with his daughter-in-law and granddaughter after shooting the policemen responsible for the death of Matty, his son. Not long after that, viewers learn that Stacey (Mike’s daughter-in-law) is having money troubles, which led to Mike picking up more and more dangerous jobs to help provide a better life for his granddaughter.
7Hector Salamanca’s Condition
Don Hector Salamanca was tied to a wheelchair for the vast majority ofBreaking Bad, save for a few retrospective scenes. However, it was never revealed how the cartel don came to be that way. Fans have come up with plenty of theories throughout the years, but none of them came close to getting it right. After all, who would have guessed that someone who was only mentioned in a throwaway line inBreaking Bad’sSeason 2 was the one responsible for Hector’s disability?
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In Season 3 ofBetter Call Saul, Nacho Varga managed to switch up Hector’s heart medicine with spiked pills, which led to Hector’s heart attack and stroke in that season’s final episode. Had it not been for Nacho, Hector would likely still be in full physical capacity during the events ofBreaking Bad,which would have definitely derailed Gus Fring’s rise to power and affected Walt and Jesse’s meth-cooking operation.
6Building The Underground Meth Lab
A key location inBreaking Bad’sthird and fourth seasons, the iconic underground meth lab was always shrouded with an aura of mystery. How did Gus manage to hide the laboratory in plain sight under the industrial laundry? The size and specifications of this facility always pointed to it being a purpose-built area, which baffled fans of the show for years. As Gus himself stated to Walter White: “Quite a lot of planning went into this.”
The origins and process of building the “Superlab” were one of the main plot points ofBetter Call Saul’sfourth season, where Mike Ehrmantraut is responsible for recruiting and managing a team of German structural engineers tasked with building the facility from scratch. This plot line adds a lot of additional context to Walt and Jesse’s time working at the lab, as well as a slight eeriness to it with Lalo Salamanca and Howard Hamlin’s corpses buried deep underneath the structure.
5Laying Down The Structure of Albuquerque’s Underworld
WatchingBetter Call Saulreveals exactly how much of a disruptive force Walter White was to the crime scene in Albuquerque. The prequel toBreaking Badalso answered some questions that fans have been asking for years regarding how certain characters came to power.
From Mike’s disruption of the Salamanca family’s supply chain, through Nacho sabotaging cartel operations in an effort to protect his father, all the way to Lalo and his role in the rise of Albuquerque’s topcriminallawyer,Better Call Saultore the New Mexico underworld apart and brought it together like a complicated puzzle. The end result is the reality that Walt enters in Season 1 ofBreaking Bad,and his actions are what ultimately disintegrated it once again.
4How Mike Started Working For Gus
InBreaking Bad,Mike Ehrmantraut is well-established as a trusted aide of Gus Fring, and a capable private investigator on top. However, he wasn’t always so deeply involved in the upper echelons of Albuquerque’s organized crime syndicates.Better Call Sauldepicts Mike’s journeyfrom a stone-cold parking booth attendant to a stone-cold killer.
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The very first thing that set Mike on the road to finding Gus is getting a gunshot wound treated by a well-connected veterinarian soon after arriving in Albuquerque. Mike starts picking up odd jobs from the vet until one of his tasks (Nacho’s request to get rid of Tuco) sends him down a road that culminates in Ehrmantraut finding out about Los Pollos Hermanos' central role in the Albuquerque drug distribution network.
3The Hidden Origins Of Walt And Gus’s Partnership
The antepenultimate episode ofBetter Call Saul,aptly titled “Breaking Bad,” provided fans with some additional important context to the story of Walter White’s meth empire. As it turns out, after Saul commissioned Mike to look into Walt’s background, Ehrmantraut advised the lawyer against working with him, calling the chemistry teacher an “amateur.”
Of course, Goodman goes against Mike’s advice and pursues Walter’s signature so that he can make money off him, launder income, and most importantly, get him in touch with Gus Fring and expand the operation. While in the wider context ofBetter Call Saul,these scenes were meant to serve as an exploration of Jimmy McGill’s pattern ofrepeating the same mistakes, they also reveal to the audience that Walt wasn’t as “in control” as he thought all throughoutBreaking Bad.
2Kim And Jimmy Breaking Up As The Catalyst For Saul Goodman
As viewers learn throughout the course ofBetter Call Saul,one of Jimmy McGill’s main character flaws is his inability to deal with trauma and reflect upon his own behavior. The writers showed it perfectly in Season 4, in the aftermath of Chuck’s death. Acting overly casual and nonchalant with regard to his brother’s demise was easier than pondering upon their complicated relationship and facing the grief head-on.
Jimmy McGill deployed the same sort of defense mechanism in “Fun and Games,” the ninth episode of Season 6. The guilt over being indirectly complicit in Lalo Salamanca murdering Howard Hamlin, Kim decided to break up with Jimmy, quit the law, and leave Albuquerque for good. The break-up led Jimmy to fall into the same pattern as after Chuck’s death and hide from the pain, fully embracing the persona of Saul Goodman and becoming the sleazy lawyer fromBreaking Bad.
1Kim “Recommending” Saul To Jesse
From the moment Vince Gilligan announced that Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul will reprise their iconic roles of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman in the final season ofBetter Call Saul,fans have called for ascene featuring Jesse and Kim Wexleron-screen together. The pair assumed the same roles of the genuine, good-hearted sidekicks to a partner-in-crime who was becoming more and more morally corrupt over the course of their respective shows.
With “Waterworks,” the sixth season’s penultimate episode, people calling for these fan-favorites to meet got what they wished for. As Kim and Jesse shared a smoke in front of Saul Goodman’s office, Pinkman expressed his concerns about Saul, asking Kim whether he was actually a good lawyer. “When I knew him, he was,” Kim responded, which seems to be enough for Jesse, who later vigorously encouraged Walt to enlist Goodman’s services in Season 2 ofBreaking Bad.
