Better Call Saul Season 6 Episode 9 has just released on Netflix and AMC, and we get an
episode that gives us the end of Jimmy Mcgill, the birth of Saul Goodman and some very reflective
moments for Gus and Mike. In this spoiler review, I'm going to be giving you my recap
of Better Call Season 6 episode 9, entitled Fun And Games, alongside discussing my general
thoughts on it. But before I get into it, if you want
to see more videos on the final episodes of Better Call Saul, then don't forget to support
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at cortex videos, which is all linked in the description below. But with that out the way,
lets dive into my recap and review for Better Call Saul Season 6 Episode 9.
So as we learned in the last few episodes, characters that were not present in Breaking
Bad were being given brutal endings on Better Call Saul. In Episode 7, we saw the tragic
execution of Howard, and in episode 8, Lalo was killed in a tense gunfight with Gus. And
now in Episode 9, which is titled 'Fun and Games', we get an ending that signals the
end of Kim Wexler in the Better Call Saul timeline, and
also the metaphorical death of Jimmy Mcgill, which leaves behind the birth of Saul Goodman.
Now for all we know, we could have more scenes with Kim Wexler left to come, especially when
we think about the post-Breaking Bad timeline, but it's clear that this episode is the end
of that character in Better Call Saul one. But
regardless, this episode told us that it was all fun and games, until everything was over.
So let's first recap all the events of this latest episode as we finally reach the landscape
of Breaking Bad.
Starting with Gus Fring, it appears that having defeated Lalo Salamanca, the chicken boss
is now set on the path of victory against the cartel that unfolds in Breaking Bad. But
we do also get a sign of some reflection from him
too, realising that he can't possibly have a relationship in this line of business. It's
something that reflects the circumstances with Jimmy
and Kim later on and very in-character of him to realise that in a moment of quiet reflection.
But before we get to that scene, first, we come to a tense meeting that he has to attend,
involving Don Bolsa, Don Eladio, Don Hector and the cousins. Hector rightly accuses Gus
of setting up the hit on Lalo and they claim that he knows Lalo was alive. What turns out
well for Gus is that Don Eladio doesn't buy Hector's
story, even as he sits in his wheelchair agressively ringing his bell. So as expected, Gus wins
in this case and Eladio even gives him more territory to control at the end of their
conversation. Before Gus can leave though, Eladio does tell him that when he looked into
his eyes as Hector asked for, that he saw hate.
He tells him that as long as you know who's boss, then there's no problem. Of course everything
here is wrong from the perspective of Eladio and this hate is something that really
stays present in Gus throughout. Especially with this scene, which ends on Don Bolsa drinking
tequila to foreshadow the poisoning incident in Breaking Bad and Gus looking down at the
pool, where his partner died and where Bolsa will lie one day too. It's a sign of the inner-hate
he feels and the start of what will soon be his revenge. But after this very stressful
encounter, we come to a scene where Gus tells Mike that he wants construction to resume
immediately on the superlab before. The two depart in opposite directions. We'll come
to Mike shortly, but we learn that Gus heads out to
a fancy restaurant and we get that reflective scene which I was talking about before. To
start with, it feels quite out of place seeing Gus
sat at a bar, sipping wine and talking happily to a waiter in a long scene, as it makes us
wonder what this truly for. But as we get into it, we realise that this is really an
aspect to Gus we hadn't seen as much of and an answer
to what he truly feels. He speaks to a waiter named David, and it's quite obvious that they
both know each pretty well, with the waiter getting Gus to try a vintage wine. David talks
about his life, Gus puts on a smily face as he does, and it's difficult to imagine that
he would let this character we haven't met talk for as long as he does. But of course,
Gus does let him go on and it becomes quite telling that he likes this person. It's been
long assumed that Gus had a relationship with Max,
his friend and partner from 'Breaking Bad', and I think while he's sat at this bar, he
thinks of him and the life he could have. And this is even more telling, because after
David leaves to get more wine, Gus's face goes from
that smily one to one that's the complete opposite. After reflecting on the death of
Max at Eladio's pool and wanting revenge for that, I
think he's realising here that he doesn't need a relationship to get in the way of what
he does next. With no more problems, he can set in motion his plan to take over and get
his revenge. He has no time for a relationship
because that would risk the life of the person he cares about. It frames the man we see in
Breaking Bad with the brutal business mindset that
we know him for.
Coming now to Mike and what he gets up to, he also has a very reflective and emotional
tie up for his Better Call Saul arc. After trying to work out every problem that he could
resolve in the battle against Lalo, we now watch him
chilling out in his living room and watching TV, but things are clearly on his mind. He’s
of course thinking about Nacho’s father, and that
is brought back up after looking at the fake ID in his wardrobe and also through looking
at his granddaughter’s toys. Mike, who is a much more emotional and parental figure
in Better Call Saul, can't stop thinking about the death
of Nacho. So he decides to make a trip to his father's store and tell him the devastating
news to his face. He tells him that Nacho died,
that it was quick and painless, and that he had a good heart. He tells him not to worry
about the Salamanca cartel, because in his words, justice is on the way. And while that
justice does eventually come, what Nacho's dad says
back, is the key difference between a character like him and Mike. He makes it clear to Mike
that what he's doing isn't justice, and in fact
it's all just revenge. We know he's completely right and the business that Mike and Gus work
in corrupts and leaves it's brutal mark on those involved. Like with Gus, it shapes who
these men are and exactly what the consequences mean for others. It's nice to get a final
moment here with Nacho's dad and what he says is a realistic twist on the speech Nacho gave
back in episode 3.
And that's it for Gus and Mike in this Better Call Saul timeline, because the rest of this
episode deals with heartbreaking consequences for Jimmy and Kim's relationship. The episode
begins with a montage that reflects exactly what Mike told Jimmy and Kim to do at the
end of the last episode, and it involves going about their normal day. While Kim heads to
court, Jimmy goes to his office, and they treat it
like any other day. During this, Mike and his men clean their apartment and remove any
trace of Howard. And when both Jimmy and Kim return after their normal days at work, it's
like nothing happened. But we learn quite quickly that they can't move on from what
happened that easily. They try and spend some time at
a motel to forget about it and Jimmy hopes that they can put those horrible events behind
them. The line for this episode's trailer is then spoken, as Jimmy says to Kim, "one
day we'll wake up and brush our teeth and go to
work and at some point, we'll suddenly realize we hadn't thought about it at all." Like for
a lot of this episode, Kim remains silent to this
kind of statement and we can really feel what she's thinking just through the looks and
expressions she gives. She clearly can't move past what's happened. And things only get
more stressful the next day, because when they
go to Howard's memorial at HHM, the lie that they started of Howard being a drug addict
who commited suicide is believed by all. Well, everyone
apart from Howard's wife, who in a conversation with Jimmy and Kim, is positive that he was
clean. She mentions to Jimmy that she's knows that he aggrivated Howard, and while Jimmy
tries to claim that he's innocent and just had jealousy towards him, Cheryl isn't buying
into it. What deflates her perspective is actually what Kim says to her afterwards as
she tells a completely fake story about Howard doing
cocaine when she was still working at HHM. Because Howard's wife heard this from Kim,
rather then just a con man, it convinces her to
believe the drug claims. It makes you sick watching them lie here after what we saw this
season and even more devastating that Howard's wife believes this and runs to the bathroom
crying. And it only gets lower from here. Once Jimmy and Kim get to the parking lot,
Jimmy claims that the healing shall begin. It's at this moment where Kim completely realises
that she can't go on this way. She looks at him
frozen, kisses him and then gets in her car and drives off. This could have been a moment
where the show leaned back into that breaking bad
philosphy that Kim has shown multiple times throughout the show, but with her driving
off immediately after, it shows us that this won't be the case this time around.
That's because the Jimmy and Kim relationship has come to an end in the Better Call Saul
timeline. Since the beginning, Jimmy's and Kim's onscreen relationship has produced all
possible emotions. And while originally, the show was
trying to convince us that Jimmy was bad for her, things took a turn and we learnt that Kim
was just as problematic. They fed into each other's bad side and Kim finally realized
that. She quit being a lawyer in court and once Jimmy finds out that she has done so,
he rushes home freaked out and tries to once again,
tell her that they can get past it. He tells her that they should go on a vacation and
take a break from everything they've been through. But this is soon derailed once he
sees that Kim has already packed up all of her stuff,
ready to leave. It's all over and Kim tells him exactly why. It's not that Jimmy's bad
for her it's that they are both bad for eachother and
their actions result in serious consequences, as seen recently with Howard. Kim says that
together they're poison. So after all the theories about a tragic death, Kim getting
arrested and so on, what we actually got was the more
realistic and fitting end to their relationship. A more grown up and emotional conversation
between Jimmy and Kim as adults is much more appropriate for Better Call Saul, rather than
the more eventful end that Breaking Bad may have given a character like this. Of course,
they are both brilliant for their own methods but
this just feels more fitting for what we've seen with Kim in this particular show. There
was just no repairing the things that happened, and while a part of Kim wants to stay and
try to move on, the other side knows it's too dangerous.
It ends with Jimmy and Kim both expressing their love for eachother, and Kim replying,
"but so what?" And Jimmy just can't reply to
that. He's lost the one part of true joy, the light in his life and the one person who
defended him. So for the Better Call Saul timeline, their relationship is truly over.
Of course, there are still 4 episodes left, and there's
still a lot to be answered surrounding the future. Like might we see Kim again in the
Breaking Bad or post-Breaking bad timeline. With Gene
in Nebraska, they could quite easily bring them back together for the last episode or
two and maybe the scene that we've previously seen with Gene hanging up the phone on Ed,
is actually the moment where he decides to meet
up with Kim and make things right. It's going to be interesting to see whether Kim does
come back for a few scenes, but for now, the McGill
and Wexler train is officially over.
The episode does however, have one last twist for us to think about regarding timelines. After
the the break up, we get a time jump a few years into the Breaking Bad timeline, telling
us that Jimmy McGill is gone and Saul Goodman has arrived. He has his combover hairstyle,
his colorful suits and he's now living in that mansion which we saw being raided in
the cold open of Season 6. He spends some time in his
new mansion using his Bluetooth phone, talking with clients, making deals and even speaking
about public masturbation. Who would of thought. But he soon takes his cadilac over to what
we know as his office from Breaking Bad, fully redesigned with the inflatable statue of liberty
placed on top. He enters to a miserable francesca just like we knew her before and
the reception is swarmeing with shady clients. Enter the office and Saul is about to begin
his casual day as the crooked lawyer, even saying
the line that Chuck said before he died. "Let justice be done… though the heavens fall.
On the table is a world greatest lawyer mug, meaning that's he's graduated from 2nd greatest.
And that's it for our transition into the Breaking Bad timeline. It'll be interesting
to see what they focus on in this period because like I said, there's still 4 episodes to go,
but I think they did bring justice to the prime
Better Call Saul events. What happens next will hopefully set us up for that much anticipated
Gene timeline.
So what are my overall thoughts of this latest episode. Well, Fun And Games gives us a tragic
end to the relationship of Jimmy McGill and Kim Wexler, showcasing two fantastic
performances from Rhea Seehorn and Bob Odenkirk. It's a natural end to everything they've gone
through together in these pre-breaking bad events and you can feel the heartbreak onscreen
in those final moments, even when Jimmy is trying to hold on. It feels completely honest,
yet Kim tries to let Jimmy down in the quickest way she can. We knew the end was coming
but watching it actually unfold on screen in this particular way, makes it even more
of a gut punch. Still, this may be the one of the better options for this character to
go after everything we've seen and everything
she has become involved with. Rhea Seehorn really delivered one of the best characters
I've seen on the small screen and after seeing the
developing bond that Kim grew with Jimmy, it makes the moments here where she talks
all the more effective. A lot of the time, you can feel what she's going through and
even what she could be thinking, making it right that she
comes to her own conclusions, even as Jimmy rambles one about finding a way to move past.
Kim might be able to forget what happened, but she has enough moral processing to know
that this realistically, just can't happen. The production and cinematography once again
captures this in melancholic fashion, alongside the
end of Gus and Mike's arc in this pre-breaking bad world, making for a perfect contrast and
commentary on the no-way-out situations that this world can bring to the individuals involved.
Better Call Saul has never been better and I think it's only start of what will come,
as we now enter the world of Breaking bad and the world of Saul Goodman.
But that was my spoiler review and recap for Better Call Saul Season 6 Episode 9. Fun And
Games delivers on it's title and shows us the end of one passage of time leading into
the greater downfall of another. It has one of
the greatest cuts I've seen in a TV Show, flashing forward to the 2005 era and showing
us the complete transformation of a figure we've known
as Jimmy McGill for many years. A part of me wanted to see the gradual transformation,
but with everything mostly wrapped up and the bad decisions having been made, this transition
was effective and a smart way to get us thinking
even more about what goes on beyond the events of the previous show. It also leaves us with
the possibility of Saul or Gene interacting with
Kim, and just imagine the reasons why that would happen or how it would even turn out
if it did. But where we go in these final four episodes is really a mystery. I do hope
we havn't seen the last of Kim, because although tonight's
break up was really impactful and done well, it also doesn't feel like the very final goodbye.
I'm actually now buying into that theory I had in my predictions video, that Kim might
be around for the Gene timeline at the end of the show and that Jimmy does something
to help her. But then again it did feel like a fitting
end to the events of Better Call Saul's time period, so I guess we'll just have to see.
Overall though, it was a fantastic end to one chapter and it really showcased the descent
that is now fully complete. I'm giving Season 6
Episode 9 of Better Call Saul a rating of 9.5 out of 10. But to those who have already
seen this episode, what are your thoughts on all the
events that went down and what do you think will happen in Episode 10? Let me know down
below in the comments section.
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and as always make some noise.