Season 6

Excellent last season of an awesome show. I'm pleased how they connect all loose ends and got the transition to BB right. I don't have to point out that this show is well written and looks beautiful.

There are some weaker elements though:

• I don't like how Howard's death is intertwined with Lalo's story. I don't doubt that Lalo is capable of what he did. It's not even unthinkable that sometimes innocent citizens in Lalo's way are killed for no good reason. But this is not what the writers intended to teach. It's supposed to be another of BB's and BCS' famous "I told you so - actions do have consequences" moments. Jimmy and Kim try to destroy Howard's reputation by rather innocuous pranks. And the consequence is that they share a responsibility for his death? Hmm. I don't know. If I'd believe in Karma maybe, but I don't buy it. They are not even guilty of not telling the truth to the police or the widow. What's their alternative? However, Seehorn does an excellent job to illustrate guilt-ridden and traumatized Kim. Whether her guilt is justified or not. But I don't think that part of a story is a well written parable with an instructive climax.
• Don't like what Jimmy and Kim do to Howard. I found that really underwhelming. That's not a terrible, heinous plan to undermine someone's life. Their grand plan is like a series of pranks. Couldn't they come up with something better?
• Lalo in Germany. This is not Germany. Can't they send a crew to Germany? Destroys the illusion. Plus, I don't think that Lalo's investigations in Germany are well told, exciting or even important in the grand scheme of things.
• The last b/w part is too long. I'm not interested in his little schemes. It would have been sufficient to tell that this grandiloquent and flamboyant character can't hide disguised as a boring regular citizen. He won't change. He fails to understand his responsibility for his own actions. Everyone knows that by 6x09. And one day, perhaps by pure chance, somebody will identify him 'cause the crimes he was involved with were not exactly local news only. People like him (or Walter, or Jesse) aren't exactly made for a life in hiding.
• The b/w cinematography was a nice idea in theory. But b/w classic movies usually look fantastic. Warm and vibrant. BCS' b/w looks insipid.
• To no one's surprise, actors became older. I did not really care until mid-season. But in this last part of the season, especially with Jesse, it kind of destroys the illusion that this is a prequel produced before BB.

In_Waterworks_, the opener is Saul bouncing a ball around his office until he eventually hits one of his foam columns, which then falls over. He goes over to pick it up and puts it back into place, although it's not quite aligned as it was before. It's a great opening for what the episode becomes, symbolizing his loss of power and his whole facade crumbling around him, but it's also perfectly representative of Jimmy McGill, Saul Goodman and Gene Takavic's convergence and his eventual "losing."
And that's what this season is. Actions have consequences.

It's an amazing season, honestly. It's shot as beautifully as ever, the digital work of that ARRI Alexa shining beautifully, especially with those night scenes. It was one of my favorite parts of El Camino's look, and it really suits it here too, I think. Might be a controversial opinion, given the sanctity of film, but Gould and Gilligan know what they're doing!
Speaking of that cinematography, the framing and shot composition is fucking incredibly good. Scenes are given long, drawn out moments, rigs are used to just play off of what's happening in the moments (a camera being attached to a chair being pulled along is coming to mind), and shots just linger whenever they need to, and cut when they don't. Lovely stuff!

Everyone gives it their all this season, Michael Mando gives his tragic last moments this tenacity and grit that you can feel Nacho Varga has been building and simmering this whole time, and in probably one of the most shocking moments of the show (another being Howard Hamlin's death), and speaking of Patrick Fabian, he gives a wonderfully tragic performance of Howard just, losing it, eerily similar to Michael McKean's Chuck MicGill earlier in season 3.
But the real star of the show, besides the already amazing Bob Odenkirk and Jonathan banks and the downright terrifyingly calm Tony Dalton and Giancarlo Esposito is Rhea Seehorn. If she doesn't win an Emmy this award season, that will be one of the biggest snubs in awards history, I think. Rhea has to switch between the poison and the cure, she has to lie and sell, and there's one particular long scene of her holding her composure before just breaking down and sobbing, and it almost made me cry to see it. She fucking killed it as Kim Wexler, throughout this whole show, but especially this season. I also just gotta say, someone like Lalo Salamanca is one of the most terrifying villains I've ever seen, Tony Dalton portrays it with this perfect malice and calmness too.

A big part of the show that I thought (and knew) this season was gonna be doing were the cameos made by the amazing Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul and surprisingly Betsy Brandt. These were implemented waaaay better in my opinion than the distracting Dean Norris and Michael Quezada as Hank Schrader and Steve Gomez, because they put in Walter and Jesse in the moments leading up to meeting Saul and including one really good scene where Walter and Saul are awaiting their new lives, and Saul asks his time travel question, and as a result of what's said we suddenly get this one pure moment of a character defining insult that Walter, the fucking worst person on the show lmao, gives to Saul: "Oh. You were always like this."
Betsy Brandt appears also as Marie Schrader as an emotional weight against Saul in a way that really just, sells what I think this whole show really was leading up to but is super defined in season 6.
Actions have consequences. But what happens to those that have to pick up the pieces?
Well, Saul ran from his consequences. But Jimmy picked up what was left.

Season 6 Score: 9.6/10

Better Call Saul triumphantly ends with perhaps its best season. I think this is easily the best season on purely a technical level. There were so many shots that I audibly reacted to just because of how beautiful they were -- the cinematography is on another level. The direction was spectacular as well. I'm writing this after the Emmy nominations were released and the fact that this didn't get one directing nomination is beyond me. Technical aspects aside, where this season goes with its characters and how they ultimately concluded the series is some of the best narrative work in a show you'll probably ever see. Each character had a conclusion that I found so satisfying and full of depth and nuance. Nacho blossomed into one of my favorite characters in this universe and thus you'd think that ending his arc in the third episode would bother me, but the way he goes out is so bittersweet and hauntingly satisfying that I think they earned that early exit. The show also managed to make me actually root for Howard, and the parallels between his story and Chuck's story were so good. His exit is less bittersweet and more straight up devastating. Using what happens to him as a vehicle that ultimately influences Kim's arc and the arc of Jimmy and Kim's relationship was a really smart move that made a lot of sense. Lalo's end was less gripping for me, but the shot of his and Howard's bodies being buried together was an INSANE visual metaphor for the convergence of Jimmy's character and that image will stick with me for a long time.

Episode 9 catches us up to where we essentially find Jimmy in BB, bringing that seasons long arc to a beautiful close. And then we pick back up post-BB to get the true conclusion for the character, and I thought this arc was beautifully done as well. The flashbacks to the BB days with Walt and Jesse were a lot of fun, but they also always conveyed important moments in Saul's life and cemented the themes of the show. Everything leads to one of the best series finales I've ever seen. BCS cements itself as having one of the all time great character arcs with Jimmy's ultimate decision at the end of the show. The entire series we have watched him continue to make bad decisions, continue to blame everyone else, continue to fall further and further into the muck, and continue to be dishonest with himself and others about who he really is. Yet in his final moments as a free man, he finally accepts himself for who he is and the person he has become. That he's not a victim, but a willing participant who enjoyed the crimes he committed. And this is is not who Saul Goodman is, it's who Jimmy McGill is. He reclaims his name for himself and accepts who he is, while simultaneously ending his life as a free man. Our main character technically loses in the end, but also has this breakthrough triumphant character arc. BCS essentially transforms Jimmy's arc from tragedy to victory in the end. Not in a superficial way, but in a deeper and more meaningful way. That final episode absolutely blew me away, just incredible.

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