by Disclaimer: This review contains mild spoilers for Season 5.
On April 20, the fifth season of Better Call Saul wrapped up. This is the second to last season and man, did it end on a huge cliffhanger. If you don’t know what Better Call Saul is then here is the overall story. Better Call Saul is the prequel spinoff series of the hit show Breaking Bad. It follows the story of Jimmy McGill(Bob Odenkirk) and how he becomes the comic relief lawyer known as Saul Goodman, Mike Ehrmantraut (Johnathon Banks), who is involved with Gustavo Fring, (Giancarlo Esposito), and his drug empire.
Now, in this season, the two stories are starting to become more intertwined with characters like Ignacio ‘Nacho’ Varga(Michael Mando), and now Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton), bringing Jimmy into the criminal underworld while his closest friend Kim Wexler, (Rhea Seehorn), tries to be Jimmy’s moral compass.
The performances are top-notch this season, especially in the second half, and they just get better and better as the season goes on; with the most notable scene of the season being Kim and Jimmy talking to Lalo about what happened to Jimmy in the desert when he went to get Lalo’s bail money. In fact, Lalo, in general, was amazing this season with a great performance from Tony Dalton. He demonstrated how he can enter a scene and be in control, even if it’s a scene between himself and Gus or Mike. Another surprise from this season was the return of Hank Schrader,(Dean Norris) and his partner Stephen Gomez(Stephen Micheal Quezada), despite only appearing in two episodes.
The return of these two leads into some of the problems with this season and the show in general. Throughout the show, the audience believed that Hank and Gomez were going to be heavily involved with this season but instead were there for just two episodes. Another problem is the fact that the first 5 episodes just feel like the writers are just setting things up and episodes 6-10 is when the ball starts rolling. Despite these, this season was great story-wise. It has what most shows today struggle to have and that’s the care that everyone puts in for this show-from its writing to the acting, camera work and even down to the music. Overall, Better Call Saul Season 5 is an 8.5/10 because of all those reasons and how it leaves you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end. The final season is planned to arrive in 2021 with a total of 13 episodes but filming will most likely be pushed back because of the coronavirus.
