In my Season 4 review, I wrote that the show's biggest flaw was just how separate the Saul and cartel storylines were. With Season 5, I'm happy to say that this is not the case anymore, resulting in one of the show's best and most compelling seasons yet.
Season 5 of Better Call Saul continues pretty much where the last season left off. Jimmy has pretty much officially become "Saul Goodman", Gus and Lalo Salamanca are in a drug war, and Nacho and Mike are pretty much caught in the middle. Similarly to Season 3, all of the buildup from the previous season starts to pay off a bit. Jimmy is particularly interesting as while he immediately gets a ton of clients, he's also contacted by none other than Nacho early on in the season, which ropes him into the cartel war as well. Given that one of my biggest gripes with the series is how separate the two main storylines are, seeing them actually intersect in this season felt incredibly rewarding, and it leads to some of my favorite episodes yet. Just like last season, Kim also has some amazing. The premiere starts with Kim seemingly disapproving of everything "Saul" stands for, but throughout the season, she finds herself joining him in trying to take down her own client Mesa Verde. Unlike Skylar, who only gets more disapproving of Walt as time goes by, Kim seems like she's actually enjoying scamming people with Jimmy. And then, in the second half of the season, she gets involved with the cartel herself. I never quite realized it until this season, but Kim might just be the show's greatest character.
As for the Mike side of things, the big conflict between Gus and the Salamancas is probably at its most intense this season, with both sides having their own victories throughout the season and Nacho and Mike stuck in the middle of the battle. It all builds to the season finale, which has an assassination attempt that causes Lalo to learn that Nacho is also working with Gus. I can only imagine how intense things will get in Season 6. And then there's Mike himself, who is left shaken by Werner's death at the end of the last season. This might be my favorite season for Mike, as we finally get to see him make peace with the past. By the last few episodes, he is at his most confident and self-assured. With all of the praise I have given the storylines and character arcs, my only major issue with the season is that it does have a bit of a slow start. With the exception of The Guy For This (which boasts a fun Hank and Gomez cameo), the entire first half of the season is fairly standard fare. Thankfully, the second half of the season is probably the best stretch of episodes in the series to date, they're a payoff so strong they make the entire season better in hindsight.
Predictably, most of the highlights this season are in the second half:
Wexler Vs Goodman: The Mesa Verde storyline comes to an end in this episode as Jimmy/Saul works on a defamation video behind Kim's back. While they worked (and were super entertaining to watch), it's another pretty cold move from him... yet the episode still ends with Kim asking to marry him. Meanwhile, Mike finally turns the tables on Lalo by actually managing to have him arrested.
Bagman: This might have been the most Breaking Bad episode of Better Call Saul ever made. It's a grueling, terrifying, and cruel trek through the desert focused around the show's two main protagonists, containing a shootout, a compelling scene between Kim and Lalo, and a pretty sickening ending. It feels like BCS's Ozymandias, though its brutality comes from being slow-paced and plodding rather than fast-paced and overwhelming. Bagman is probably the most ambitious and unconventional episode of the series, and it's up there with some of the best, but it's also so painful and hard to watch that I probably won't be seeing it again anytime soon.
Bad Choice Road: Bagman wasn't enough? Bad Choice Road comes directly after it and manages to be just as good, though for much different reasons. The whole episode is an incredibly tense buildup as Jimmy tries to maintain his story while also dealing with his trauma from the events of Bagman, only for it to start to unravel when Kim and Lalo stumble upon bullet holes (I guess you can say his story had holes in it). It all leads to this ridiculously tense final ten minutes which has Lalo come to Jimmy and Kim's house and question them on the story, which ranks up with Chicanery as one of the most impactful final scenes.
Something Unforgivable: While it doesn't quite stack up to Bagman and Bad Choice Road, or the last two finales for that matter, this was still a strong conclusion to the series that takes the war between Gus and Lalo to a new direction. The assassination attempt on Lalo is tense, and the reveal of Nacho's betrayal left me very worried about his chances of survival. Meanwhile, Kim finally breaking bad at the end of the episode was a shocking twist that parallels the ending of Winner is a disturbing way.
Overall, Season 5 finally brought the disparate threads of Better Call Saul together to outstanding results, leading to some of the best episodes and characters arcs in the entire series. It has a bit of a slower start, but the second half is one of the best stretches of episodes yet.
5/5 Stars
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