The first episode of the 6th and final season of Better Call Saul begins inauspiciously. With no dialogue and set to a sweeping withal melodic score, we see people clearing out all the various possessions of a house. It is a house that presumably belongs to Bob Odenkirk's Jimmy McGill, who is fast on his mode to becoming the Saul Goodman we know from Breaking Bad . Mysterious and melancholy, information technology is i of many moments that has come to define the quiet beauty of a show. The show is fascinated with these seemingly mundane details of life that then go folded into the cluttered and tearing struggles for power at the core of the story. The first two episodes, "Wine and Roses" and "Carrot and Stick," provided to critics of the terminal season, rely on the show's solid foundation to depict united states in for the steep descent alee.

This is because Better Call Saul has and always will exist i of tv'south greatest tragedies. It is a harrowing yet enthralling experience as we sentinel a man slowly lose touch with the possibility to be good and instead fall into his own worst impulses. The prove has seen Odenkirk give not just the best performances of his career, just ane of the best ever put to screen. His shift from McGill to Goodman has been a patient i, drawing out every detail with both precision and poetry. The show's final season promises to be the long-awaited payoff to that as we meet the shady yet resourceful lawyer have to reckon with his by in a futurity that is already set. Nosotros know where this all leads. Rather than lessen the suspense and engagement with the story, it only builds it further. The inevitability that is hurtling toward all of Ameliorate Call Saul's characters makes information technology all the more devastating when nosotros know that they are all about to tip into oblivion.

The key to this is not actually Odenkirk. What makes information technology all work is a resolute Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler, Jimmy's swain lawyer and lover who has gotten caught upward in his mess. Kim is more kind than any character on the show, motivated by doing what is right and trying to stand upwards for those who would otherwise exist trampled underfoot. This bear witness is equally much her journey as it is Jimmy's, maybe even more than so at times. In the most simple of knowing looks or changes of expression, Seehorn gives a richly multifaceted operation that knocks you flat with every scene. She is a tactile performer, challenging our expectations for what she will exercise next at every moment. Even equally nosotros want to shout at her to go as far away from the whole situation as possible for her own sake, the style Seehorn brings her conflicted dearest for Jimmy to life makes information technology one of the near engaging turns of recent retentiveness. In this terminal season, even only seeing the two share a meal reveals some of the bear witness'due south virtually interesting character moments to appointment.

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Image via AMC

Of course, a meal is never just a meal with these ii, both in story and cinematic grade. The beginning of Amend Call Saul Season half dozen sees Kim and Jimmy beginning to hatch more than schemes. The mark this time is someone close to both of them and will require treading actress carefully — and the manner in which this planning scene is shot notably leaves Kim cast in shadow, revealing how she has fallen more than into the darkness over the course of the serial. The machinations of the plot are less important than what they reveal about the characters. Even every bit we hope that Kim will notice a life outside of Jimmy and all the complications he brings, nosotros too know that she is excited by the underhanded dealings they do. She is no bystander. Kim is a flawed, fascinating graphic symbol who Seehorn continues to pare back the layers of in every single episode. We don't know whether she volition survive the many ordeals to come already being sown in this season, though we know that she isn't around in the subsequent events of Breaking Bad. This instills a perpetual sense of dread that elevates the moments where the show seems to be getting too caught upward in the duo's hustles. Even equally ane wishes both Jimmy and Kim would spend what is probable their last moments together doing something else, this is precisely the indicate. The looming crunch would make their ploys feel silly if they weren't so downright depressing.

Of class, there is still a dark sense of humour in which Odenkirk excels. Perhaps despite ourselves, we tin't help but be taken by the style he is able to dispense and play people like a fiddle. Jimmy is good at this, turning characters confronting themselves with blowing that is as exhilarating as it is sinister. When we see him run ane over on the stuck-up manager of a country club, the schadenfreude is delicious in how devious it is. Even so, we know that Jimmy doesn't limit his manipulation to those in power and will soon grow to be fifty-fifty more selfish in his motivations than we ever thought possible. Odenkirk is a comedic wrecking ball that tin destroy anything in his path, though will also shift into playing upwards how Jimmy can exist shockingly callous and cruel in the blink of an eye. Information technology again demonstrates how he is a chameleon of an actor, playing his grapheme with a charm that masks his darker motivations.

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Paradigm via AMC

Virtually in the background of all this, at that place is the menacing dare leader Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton) who is planning his comeback after surviving an effort on his life at the finish of last flavor. This is unknown to both Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) and Gustavo Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), who believe the plan was successful in spite of not going as smoothly as they would accept hoped. Both Banks and Esposito keep to take a dynamic relationship, even as their characters ofttimes sit at odds with 1 another. Left behind in all of this is Nacho Varga (Michael Mando), who fled after he hoped Lalo would be killed just is now completely out on his own with no support. The portraits of all these characters and the piece of work of the actors are occasionally undone by the story getting wrapped upwards in itself. If annihilation, the experience is at its all-time when it lets the characters drive the story and the drama.

Better Call Saul is still mostly aware of this, equally it is abundantly patient and restrained. Moments of violence often occur offscreen, obscured by a handmade door of hay or covered up by the rushing of water from a drain. It is less about the spectacle and more well-nigh what the subterfuge says about the characters. In a scene where Mike goes through Nacho'southward house, the sequence cuts to a variety of angles and ensures we sit with the details of the search. Information technology is 1 of many ways that the story strips away whatsoever glamour of the criminal enterprise and hits dwelling house on but how dull it can near be. There is no joy in the work and whatsoever excitement is undercut by it all crashing down to Earth. That is where the testify excels and ultimately surpasses Breaking Bad in terms of how well-executed the story is in every unmarried moment. When Better Call Saul was first announced many years agone, I was one of its first skeptics about whether a prequel serial like this could actually thrive. Not only does it do that, but it also continues to exist 1 of the all-time dramas because of the commitment it shows to its captivating characters.

Rating: A

The first one-half of Better Phone call Saul's last season premieres with its first ii episodes on Monday, April 18 on AMC, with five episodes releasing weekly. The six-episode second half premieres on July 11.

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Hunt Hutchinson (135 Manufactures Published)

Chase Hutchinson is a Feature/Review Writer for Collider. His work has besides appeared in a multifariousness of publications including The Stranger, The Portland Mercury, The Inlander, and The Sunbreak. He lives in Tacoma, WA (it is near Seattle, though still very much its own thing) where he works as a writer and announcer.

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