Years before he took on the name Saul Goodman and became Walter White’s criminal lawyer
in Breaking Bad, Jimmy McGill was a struggling public defendant in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Jimmy had grown up a hustler and a con artist, but recently had resolved to turn his life
around.
His older brother Chuck was a highly successful lawyer working with law partner Howard Hamlin
at the firm Hamlin, Hamlin, and McGill, or HHM.
Chuck has spent most of his life getting Jimmy out of trouble, and eventually forces his
brother to stop the cons and find a real job.
Inspired by Chuck, Jimmy got an online law degree and passed the bar exam.
While studying for the bar exam and working in HHM’s mailroom, Jimmy met and befriended
Kim Wexler, who, upon passing the bar, is hired by Chuck and Howard’s company.
Jimmy is passed over for a job and begins working in the low-paying and under-respected
job of public defense.
As Jimmy tries to get his burgeoning law career off the ground, he also becomes a caretaker
for his brother.
Chuck becomes convinced that he has electromagnetic hypersensitivity, leading him to become a
recluse with no electronics or sunlight in his home.
Both Jimmy and medical professionals suspect that Chuck’s condition is entirely psychosomatic.
Despite his new career in law, Jimmy hasn’t fully left behind his old ways and oftentimes
tries to use his old hustler tactics to get ahead.
While trying to win over new clients, the embezzling husband and wife duo the Kettlemans,
Jimmy hires some accomplices to stage a car accident.
Unfortunately, his accomplices target the wrong vehicle, putting them and Jimmy on the
radar of drug kingpin Tuco Salamanca.
Tuco and his men threaten to kill Jimmy, but Tuco’s associate Naco Varga convinces him
it would be in their best interest to spare the lawyer’s life.
After seeing Jimmy’s natural rapport with his older clients, Kim suggests he starts
specializing in elder law.
While working with his new clients, residents of the Sandpiper Crossing nursing home, Jimmy
discovers that Sandpiper was severely overcharging residents, to the point of elder abuse.
Jimmy and Chuck work together to compile evidence for a class action lawsuit, and eventually
Chuck suggests the case was too big for just the two of them, and that HHM should be brought
in to help.
During a meeting with HHM, Howard Hamlin agrees to take the case, but on the condition that
Jimmy not be further involved in exchange for a percentage of the eventual settlement.
Jimmy refuses the deal, but then discovers that Chuck had not only told Howard to bar
Jimmy’s participation in the lawsuit, but had also been the one to refuse to hire Jimmy
at HHM in the first place.
Despite Jimmy’s best efforts to grow and make his brother proud, Chuck never saw him
as anything but the con man he used to be.
Devastated by his brother’s betrayal, Jimmy allows HHM to take the case and stops taking
care of Chuck and his condition.
While Jimmy relapses into his old hustler lifestyle, Kim informs him that HHM was bringing
in another law firm, Davis and Main, to assist with the Sandpiper case.
Davis and Main were impressed by Jimmy’s rapport with the elderly clients and wanted
to hire him full time.
This leaves Jimmy to consider what he wants for his future.
Elsewhere in season one, Jimmy befriends parking lot attendant Mike Ehrmantraut.
Mike was a former dirty cop, still grieving the loss of his son Matt, who was murdered
by fellow police officers when they feared that Matt would snitch about their corruption.
Mike murdered those cops in revenge and was now taking odd jobs on the side to provide
for his daughter-in-law Stacey and his granddaughter Kaylee.
One such job sees Mike working as hired muscle for a pharmacist named Pryce who sells pills
to Nacho Varga.
I wanted to cut in real quick to tell you about the best way to watch Better Call Saul.
If you’re like me and live in the United States, new episodes of Better Call Saul are
an AMC exclusive.
So unless you want to sign up and pay for another streaming service, you’ll have to
wait a year or more to watch the final season on Netflix.
That is, unless you have NordVPN.
With NordVPN you can change your internet’s virtual location and browse Netflix libraries
from different countries.
Different regions have different libraries.
So if you switch your location to somewhere like Canada, you can watch the final season
of Better Call Saul every week as it airs.
No new subscription service.
No more year long waits.
And there’s a lot of other great shows you can watch on Netflix in different regions
that aren’t available in the US, like Rick and Morty, Friends, and even The Office.
So don’t sign up for another streaming service.
Sign up for NordVPN.
And the streaming thing is just the cherry on top of NordVPN’s other features.
They protect and encrypt your personal and private data, so you can go online with no
risk of annoying ads, trackers, or malware.
It’s also the fastest VPN on the market, so you don’t have to worry about internet
speeds or throttling.
So sign up for my exclusive deal at NordVPN.com/chilltv for 73% off your new plan.
It’s risk free.
There’s a 30 day money back guarantee.
Link is in the description.
Let’s get back to the recap!
In season two of Better Call Saul, Jimmy and Kim grow closer together, and he even shows
her how to run a basic con to have a stock trader buy them expensive drinks.
Kim enjoys the thrill of the con and winds up spending the night with Jimmy, while also
convincing him to accept the offer of working for Davis and Main.
When the police start investigating Pryce and Mike asks for Jimmy’s assistance in
exonerating him, Jimmy uses some unconventional means to clear Pryce’s name.
This upsets Kim, as Jimmy’s unethical actions could cost him his new job at Davis and Main,
and since she recommended him for the job, his actions could reflect negatively on her.
When Jimmy decides to run a commercial to draw in new Sandpiper clients without first
getting permission, his bosses at Davis and Main reprimand him, while Howard and Chuck
punish Kim by demoting her.
To win back her boss’ favor, Kim manages to secure a large new client, Mesa Verde Bank,
but despite this success, Kim still isn’t treated with the respect she deserves.
Jimmy becomes frustrated with the straight and narrow life of Davis and Main and orchestrates
his own firing so that he can start his own law firm with Kim.
Kim agrees to quit HHM, but instead of forming a law firm together, Jimmy and Kim start their
own, separate firms in the same building.
When Kim tries to secure Mesa Verde as her own client, Chuck belittles her skills to
Mesa Verde CEO Kevin Wachtell, leading him to remain at HHM.
Furious for Kim, Jimmy decides to take Mesa Verde documents from Chuck’s house to a
copy store, secretly altering them.
These forged documents cause a delay in Mesa Verde’s application for a new branch, leading
Kevin to fire HHM and hire Kim instead.
Chuck, not believing he made the paperwork mistake, begins to suspect Jimmy was responsible
and begins trying to find proof.
Jimmy, realizing the worker at the copy shop was the only witness for his crime, goes to
pay off the worker.
As Jimmy watches from across the street, Chuck braves the outside sunlight to interrogate
the worker.
Unfortunately, the electromagnetism is too much for Chuck to bear, causing him to faint
and hit his head.
Jimmy rushes to his brother’s side and calls him an ambulance.
Upon Chuck’s recovery, he confesses to Jimmy that his mistake on the Mesa Verde paperwork
made him question his skills as a lawyer and that he now wished to retire.
Racked with guilt, Jimmy confesses to tampering with the paperwork to frame Chuck.
After Jimmy leaves, it’s revealed that Chuck had secretly been recording their conversation
to secure Jimmy’s confession.
As for Mike, Nacho pays for his help in killing Tuco, explaining that the drug dealer was
erratic and posed a danger to Nacho if his side hustle selling Pryce’s pills was discovered.
Mike refuses to kill Tuco, but does agree to come up with a plan that would see Tuco
imprisoned.
Mike goads Tuco into assaulting him, leading to Tuco’s arrest.
When the police find Tuco’s gun at the scene, the drug kingpin’s uncle Hector threatens
Stacey and Kaylee lives to force Mike into telling the police the gun belonged to him.
Mike reluctantly agrees, telling the police the gun belonged to him, which ensured Tuco
a lighter sentence.
In retaliation for the threats made against his family, Mike begins targeting Hector Salamanca’s
drug shipments, stealing $250,000 from one of Hector’s trucks and leaving the driver
tied up.
Mike hoped this would draw the attention of the authorities toward Hector’s drug operation,
but Nacho informed him that Hector had the scene cleaned up and planned to execute the
driver.
This leads Mike to try to take matters into his own hands, buying a sniper rifle to assassinate
Hector with.
But before he can take the shot, an unseen stranger leaves Mike a simple, one word message:
“Don’t”.
In season 3, Chuck is re-acclimating himself to the outside world and planning his return
to work, all the while scheming on how to use Jimmy’s recorded confession to take
him down.
Howard suggests that the confession has no real legal value, but Chuck has his own secret
plan, orchestrating for Kim to discover the tape’s existence.
Kim takes on Jimmy as a client to give them attorney-client privilege, then informs Jimmy
that Chuck had set him up.
Despite her pleas for Jimmy to stay calm, as the taped confession couldn’t legally
be used against him, an angry Jimmy breaks into Chuck’s home and destroys the tape.
But this was all a part of Chuck’s plan, as Howard and a private investigator reveal
themselves, having witnessed Jimmy breaking into Chuck’s home to destroy evidence.
And so, Jimmy is arrested.
Chuck convinces the prosecutor not to pursue criminal charges against Jimmy, but instead
force him to submit a confession of his crimes to the New Mexico Bar Association, which would
potentially lead to his disbarment.
And so, Kim and Jimmy prepare for a legal battle against Chuck.
Kim and Jimmy’s legal strategy is primarily focused on discrediting Chuck by exposing
his psychosomatic electromagnetic hypersensitivity.
While Chuck is taking the stand to give his testimony, all of the lights are turned off
and all electronics are removed from the room.
Jimmy invites Chuck’s ex-wife Rebecca to the courtroom, which throws off Chuck.
While Chuck is on the stand for cross-examination, Jimmy reveals that he had hired a pickpocket
named Huell to plant a cellphone battery in Chuck’s pocket, meaning he had been exposed
to electromagnetic energy for over an hour without noticing.
When the court rules that Chuck’s mental health should not be called into question,
Chuck snaps at the idea that his condition wasn’t real and angrily vents at Jimmy,
which shocks the room.
Ultimately, the New Mexico bar association decides to suspend Jimmy for a year, which
he and Kim take as a victory.
Jimmy had already paid for several tv ad spots to market his law practice, so Jimmy takes
on the alias Saul Goodman and begins selling his airtime to other local businesses.
Meanwhile, Kim struggles to pay for her shared office with Jimmy now that he’s out of work,
so she takes on another client, overextending herself and eventually falling asleep while
driving, resulting in a crash that breaks her arm.
In a petty attempt to get revenge on Chuck, Jimmy decides to pay a visit to HHM’s insurance
company to detail the nature of Chuck’s mental health struggles.
Jimmy then gets word that the Sandpiper case is finally ready to settle, which would net
him over a million dollars for his share.
Unfortunately, HHM and Davis & Main turn down the offer, believing they can receive more
money if they continue to fight.
The only way for Jimmy to receive his money now, and keep his dream practice with Kim
afloat, is to convince Sandpiper resident Irene to accept the settlement against HHM’s
counsel.
And so, Jimmy goes about manipulating Irene into taking the settlement, which ostracizes
her from her friends.
Feeling guilty, Jimmy reveals his manipulations to Irene and her friends, which results in
Irene retracting her acceptance and costing Jimmy his million.
Jimmy also decides to break his office lease, allowing Kim to work from home and take on
a lighter workload.
Meanwhile, Chuck’s outburst on the stand has caused him to reevaluate his condition
and resolve to conquer it.
He begins reacclimating himself to sunlight and electronic devices and eventually is ready
to return to work at HHM full time.
Unfortunately, Jimmy’s visit to HHM’s insurance company to inform them of Chuck’s
condition causes them substantially raise their malpractice premiums unless Chuck agrees
to be supervised by another attorney.
Chuck refuses this proposal, so Howard is forced to push Chuck into retirement, paying
him an $8 million payout.
Also in season 3, Mike learns who was responsible for intervening in his plan to assassinate
Hector Salamanca: a rival drug dealer named Gus Fring.
Both Gus and Hector work for the drug cartel leader Don Eladio, distributing his cocaine
from Mexico into America.
Recently, Eladio has shown more favor toward Gus, spurning a lot of jealousy from Hector
and the Salamanca family.
Gus is impressed by Mike’s skill and ingenuity, and agrees to hire him at the company Madrigal
Electromotive to help launder the money stolen from Hector.
Meanwhile, Nacho is becoming even more disillusioned with Hector’s leadership.
When Hector forces Nacho’s innocent, working class father Manuel to use his business as
a drug front, it's the final straw for Nacho.
Nacho replaces Hector’s heart medicine with empty capsules, hoping it would lead to a
heart attack and death.
During a meeting between Gus, Hector, and their associate Juan Bolsa, Hector is informed
that Don Eladio wants the Salamancas to use Gus’ trucks to smuggle drugs into America.
This enrages Hector, who then suffers a stroke.
To avoid any suspicion, Nacho then replaces Hector’s fake capsules with his real medicine,
which Gus takes notice of.
As the season comes to a close, Chuck has been defeated and humiliated, costing him
the career he loved so much.
He relapses in his electromagnetic hypersensitivity and begins destroying his own home, then intentionally
sets his house on fire while he’s trapped inside.
In season four of Better Call Saul, the death of Chuck seems to be hitting everyone hard
except for Jimmy.
Howard, unaware of Jimmy’s insurance manipulation, blames himself for Chuck’s suicide, having
pushed him out of HMM.
Jimmy happily lets Howard take the blame and continues to go about his life, business as
usual, which greatly concerns Kim.
In his year of suspension from practicing law, Jimmy uses his alias Saul Goodman to
sell burner phones to criminals.
Kim takes a job working at Schweikart & Cokley, allowing her to handle the Mesa Verde account,
which bored her, and pro bono defense counsel work, which excited and inspired her.
Meanwhile, Mike is pulled further into business with Gus, and is placed in charge of overseeing
the top-secret construction of an underground meth superlab.
Gus hires German engineer Werner Ziegler and his team to construct the lab, but if the
Salamancas or Don Eladio discovered his business plans it would be a disaster.
Speaking of the Salamancas, Gus hires the best medical team to keep Hector alive.
As Hector’s mind recovers, Gus sends away the medical team, trapping the elder Salamanca
in his own body as torture.
Gus also informs Nacho that he was aware of his involvement in Hector’s stroke, threatening
to expose him to the Salamancas if Nacho didn’t agree to secretly work for Gus.
The Salamancas then send Lalo Salamanca to run the business in Hector’s absence.
He takes on a much more hands-on approach to the business, causing a great deal of stress
for Nacho.
Lalo gives his uncle Hector a bell to help him communicate and begins looking into Gus’
operations to find a way to bring him down and restore the Salamancas to top favor.
When Werner begins missing his wife during the long months of construction, he makes
plans to run away to be with her, inadvertently exposing details of the underground construction
to Lalo.
As Lalo tries to track Werner down, he kills Fred, an innocent employee of a money transferring
service for failing to give up more info on Werner.
This infuriates Gus, and a reluctant Mike is forced to kill Werner.
Meanwhile, as Jimmy’s year of suspension comes to a close, his request for reinstatement
to practice law is denied due to the chairman finding him insincere.
Kim suggests Jimmy be more open about his emotions toward Chuck’s death, so on his
appeal Jimmy gives a rousing speech about his desire to make his brother proud and honor
the McGill name.
His appeal succeeds and even Kim is convinced that Jimmy had finally processed Chuck’s
death.
But Jimmy then admits it was all a con to be reinstated and he would now be practicing
law under his alias Saul Goodman.
In season 5 of Better Call Saul, Jimmy is continuing to practice law under his alias,
Saul Goodman.
Meanwhile, Kim is beginning to feel disillusioned by her work with Mesa Verde, and when the
bank wants her to forcefully evict a man named Acker from his home so they can build a new
branch there, she enlists the help of Jimmy to stop Mesa Verde.
Jimmy represents Acker against Mesa Verde and uses every backhanded scheme and con he
can to sabotage Kim and Mesa Verde’s case.
Eventually, Jimmy and Kim discover that Mesa Verde’s logo was stolen from a photographer
and force the bank to drop their pursuit of Acker’s property.
Kim angers both Mesa Verde and her employers at Schweikart & Cokley, and ultimately decides
to quit to focus on her pro bono work.
Kim and Jimmy then get married, allowing their conversations to be legally protected under
spousal privilege.
Meanwhile, Salamanca drug dealer Domingo, aka Krazy-8, is arrested.
Nacho convinces Lalo to hire Jimmy as a lawyer to represent Domingo.
Jimmy arranges for Domingo’s release in exchange for becoming an informant for DEA
agent Hank Schrader.
Lalo uses this to his advantage, having Domingo expose the locations of Gus’ dead drops.
In retaliation, Mike, on Gus’ orders, alerts the authorities to Lalo’s involvement in
Fred’s death.
Upon his arrest for murder, Lalo once again calls upon Jimmy for his legal assistance.
Jimmy arranges for Lalo to be released on a $7 million bail.
The only problem is, Jimmy would have to pick up the money and deliver it himself.
In exchange, Lalo offered to pay him $100,000.
And so, against Kim’s concerns, Jimmy heads out into the desert to pick up two bags filled
with money.
On his way back, Jimmy is confronted by armed gunmen who attempt to steal the money from
him.
Jimmy and the money are rescued by Mike, but when all of the vehicles are destroyed, Jimmy
and Mike are forced to make their trek home on foot.
Upon reaching civilization, Jimmy and Mike part ways.
Jimmy posts Lalo’s bail and returns home to Kim, seriously traumatized by the ordeal.
Jimmy tells both Lalo and Kim that his car broke down, forcing him to walk home alone.
This acts as a cover for his friendship with Mike and therefore his association with Gus.
Kim discovers the truth when finding a bullet hole in Jimmy’s coffee mug, and Lalo investigates
Jimmy’s car to similarly discover bullet holes.
When Lalo arrives to confront Jimmy over his lies, Mike rushes to the scene with a sniper
to protect his friend.
But Mike wasn’t needed, as Kim fearlessly stands up to Lalo, insisting that random passerbys
could have shot up Jimmy’s car after he abandoned it, then berates Lalo for not trusting
Jimmy despite getting him out of jail for murder.
Lalo accepts this explanation and leaves.
Lalo retreats to his home in Mexico, bringing Nacho with him.
Lalo introduces Nacho to Don Eladio, who approves of his business plans.
While in Mexico, Gus calls on Nacho to assist in his plans to assassinate Lalo.
Gus would send in a team of killers, Nacho just had to let them in.
And so, Nacho opens Lalo’s gates to allow the assassins into the compound, then flees
the scene.
Lalo is able to fend off his attackers, killing all but one, then forces the survivor to inform
Gus that Lalo had successfully been killed.
As the season comes to a close, Kim suggests that she and Jimmy try to sabotage Howard’s
career in order to force the Sandpiper settlement.
This would provide a very generous payout to them both, allowing them to focus on the
legal defense work they felt called to.
Jimmy is hesitant to the idea and begins to fear that his scheming, conman ways had finally
begun to corrupt the morals of Kim Wexler.
Also throughout the series of Better Call Saul, we catch glimpses into the future of
Jimmy McGill and his life following the events of Breaking Bad.
After the DEA begins looking into Saul Goodman and his involvement with drug kingpin Walter
White, Jimmy hires a man named Ed to help make him disappear, giving him a new life
as the manager of a Cinnabon in Omaha named Gene Takavic.
Gene reflects on his glory days while living a secluded life without many connections,
fearful that his past will come back to haunt him.
His worst fears are realized when a taxi driver recognizes him as Saul Goodman.
Gene considers once again having Ed “disappear” him, but instead resolves to handle the situation
himself.