5 big questions before Better Call Saul’s finale

Their last in-person meeting—to sign their divorce papers in Saul’s office—was tense and awkward and full of Saul making jabs about Florida and Kim’s decision to decline a share of the Sandpiper settlement. Kim seemed to want to say something meaningful to Jimmy/Saul but chose to sign the legal docs and slink away with a mutually cold goodbye instead. And then there was that disastrous call that led to Kim’s confession to the DA and Cheryl Hamlin in Albuquerque, as well as Gene’s crime caper in Omaha. When last we left them, Kim was presumably headed back to Florida with a meltdown on the ABQ airport bus, and Gene was running out of Marion’s kitchen after she found his “Better Call Saul” commercials on the internet. Is there any circumstance that could pair them up again? Do we get one last sincere conversation between the two to get the closure we (and they, presumably) need?

Speaking of Gene’s getaway, the preview for next week’s finale shows what looks like Jimmy’s Suzuki Esteem, in a battered, burned, and rusty state, while we hear the voiceover of an out-of-breath, stressed Saul (or is it Gene?) trying to repeat the code to order an extraction from Ed the vacuum shop owner. The last time we saw the car, it was in bad shape, and would likely be even worse after all this time, so that tracks. But why would Gene make his way back out to the desert to find it? Especially if his most pressing objective is, as it should be at this point, to reconnect with Ed and make another getaway? While reciting the instructions to order the extraction, Gene switches the order around, which is odd, because he has drilled this information into his memory. And is it possible Gene will dial the number, only to find out Ed is no longer in business? After all, Robert Forster, the actor who played Ed, died in 2019. Or is this just, you know, a red herring of a finale teaser?

Kim told Cheryl Hamlin that it’s unlikely she’ll be punished for what she confessed to the District Attorney, mostly because of a lack of physical evidence. But, especially now that Saul is on the lam and will soon be confirmed as alive, wouldn’t even an attempt to punish him, at least, be a very attractive proposition to the DA? Especially since Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, Mike Ehrmantraut, and Gus Fring escaped punishment for their Heisenberg business, and Saul, as far as the DA is about to find out, is the sole survivor? (Remember, Jesse is presumed dead; the ABQ DA never saw El Camino.) So while Kim probably made those confessions mostly for the sake of her guilt about Howard’s death and his tarnished reputation, she could end up paying a bigger price if the authorities want to make a public case against Saul and anyone connected to him (run, Francesca!). Oh, one more question for any legal proceedings Kim or Jimmy/Saul/Gene might face back in New Mexico: Is it possible their former DA/now defense attorney pal Bill Oakley could pop up again to represent Kim?

It’s impossible to overstate how delightful Carol Burnett’s performance at the end of the series has been, made even more so by how significant a role it has turned out to be. (We knew Marion was one tough lady despite, or maybe because of, how hapless her son Jeffy is.) Let’s all assume an Emmy nomination is a given for Burnett next year. But what we’re still wondering about is whether or not we’ll run into Marion, who already told the police that Saul Goodman is indeed alive, again in the 98-minute finale.

This is the biggest question left to answer, of course, over those aforementioned 98 minutes. Will Gene end up dead? In jail? On the lam anew? The finale is titled “Saul Gone,” which could mean any one of those things is true. But we can feel pretty safe in assuming that the man born as Jimmy McGill isn’t going to experience a happy ending for any of his alter egos. Saul showrunner Peter Gould advised viewers during this week’s Talking Saul to plan thusly for the episode: “Find somebody who will let you hang onto them and grab ’em, and that’s how you should watch the finale.”