GREG LEWIS/AMC/SONY PICTURES
Photo: GREG LEWIS/AMC/SONY PICTURES

When Better Call Saul started in February 2015, it didn't quite become the household name quite as much as its predecessor did. Now, after five excellent seasons, we’re strapped in and ready for Better Call Saul season 6. AMC renewed the show for a final season a month before the season 5 premiere, and as of March 2021, Better Call Saul season 6 has finally begun filming.

Co-creator Peter Gould and the writers spent five years carefully developing each complex character, and now the stories of Jimmy, Kim, and the drug kingpins of New Mexico are ready to reach their climax. Speaking to Deadline, Gould says Better Call Saul season 6 is “going to be big, and it’s going to be resolved.”

Better Call Saul season 6: Release Date

Better Call Saul season six was originally expected to launch at the start of 2021, but the series suffered major production delays as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Production finally got underway in March 2021, but Netflix revealed that there was no information in the way of a released date as yet – we’ll keep you updated as and when that changes although you will be likely disappointed if you expect to see the final batch of episodes this side of 2022.

How many episodes will there be in Better Call Saul Season 6?

GREG LEWIS/AMC/SONY PICTURES
Photo: GREG LEWIS/AMC/SONY PICTURES

While Better Call Saul seasons typically consist of 10 episodes, the last season will have 13 episodes to wrap up the story. (That will bring Better Call Saul to 63 total episodes; Breaking Bad had 62 episodes plus the spin-off film El Camino.) The final season of Breaking Bad had 16 episodes and was split up into two parts, which aired in different years, but it seems likely that Better Call Saul's last season will not be cut in half.

"AMC is really our lodestone here," said Gould in an August 2020 Hollywood Reporter interview, when asked about the possibility of splitting the season. "I mean, my preference is to have the episodes run one right after the other, but AMC knows what's right for them, too. And if they feel that they want to break it up a different way, that's something that's worth discussing. But I think there is a power to just having one episode after another."

Better Call Saul season 6 trailer

Unfortunately, there’s no sign of a teaser yet, and there won’t be for a while! The first trailer for season five didn’t emerge until a few weeks prior to the premiere’s airdate so we are likely looking at the end of 2021 at the earliest before we see the next one.

Better Call Saul season 6 cast: Who’s returning?

GREG LEWIS/AMC/SONY PICTURES
Photo: GREG LEWIS/AMC/SONY PICTURES

Obviously, Bob Odenkirk will be returning for the last season to play Jimmy McGill, aka Saul Goodman. Breaking Bad fan favorite Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) will also be back, along with Rhea Seehorn's increasingly compromised attorney Kim Wexler. Expect to see more of Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian), Nacho Varga (Michael Mando), Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), and Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton), too.

Here's the tougher question: How many more major Breaking Bad characters will drop back into the story? Dean Norris's DEA agent Hank Schrader and his partner Steve Gomez (Steven Michael Quezada) popped up in Season 5, and the show has weaved in plenty of other high- and low-impact Breaking Bad characters (e.g., Tuco, Huell, Gale, Krazy-8) over its run, so expect at least a few more in the final season.

But who? Todd Alquist (Jesse Plemons), Jane Margolis (Krysten Ritter), Skinny Pete (Charles Baker), and Badger (Matt Jones) all appeared in El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, but would make less sense for cameos in Better Call Saul. Other big Breaking Bad characters that might feel gratuitous, although certainly fun, to see on BCS: Skyler White (Anna Gunn), Walter White Jr. (RJ Mitte), and Marie Schrader (Betsy Brandt). What about Tortuga (Danny Trejo)? Why not?! [Fun fact: Mike Erhmantraut and dearly departed actor Robert Forster's "disappearer" Ed Galbraith are the only two characters who have appeared in Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad and El Camino so far.]

But given that Better Call Saul Season 6 naturally sets up Breaking Bad Season 1—or maybe even more accurately, BB Season 2, since Saul Goodman is introduced in the second season's eighth episode—would it be that strange to see Bryan Cranston's Walter White and/or Aaron Paul's Jesse Pinkman return for at least one scene? In past interviews, Paul has indicated that he'd be down, and so has Cranston. "I would be in it if Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould, who are co-executive producers on it, wanted me to be in it," said Cranston when asked about it during an interview in August 2020. "I would do it in a second. But it hasn’t happened yet, I can tell you, and we’ll see. I don’t know."

Gilligan and company kept a relatively tight lid on Cranston's cameo in El Camino, the Pinkman-centric Breaking Bad sequel movie they made for Netflix, so don't expect too many leaks teasing possible returns in the next few months.

Better Call Saul season 6: Plot

The season 5 finale set up two major storylines: Kim against Howard Hamlin, and Lalo Salamanca versus, well, everyone. In the final scene we left Lalo fuming with rage after Gus’ failed assassination attempt. With his house ablaze and mother dead, “Lalo has vengeance in his eyes and is heading north for revenge,” Tony Dalton told the LA Times. We know Lalo survives, though, since we recall Goodman’s terrified line to Walter White in Breaking Bad: “Did Lalo send you?”

One of the men with a target on his back is Nacho Varga, and Gould told The Wrap he’s “in deep, deep trouble.” Nacho disappears during the assassination, and the extended shot of Lalo fixating on the drinks he shared with Varga moments earlier confirms that he suspects his former colleague’s involvement. Nacho never appears in Breaking Bad, so don’t bet on him making it out alive.

Another central Better Call Saul character missing in Breaking Bad is Jimmy’s wife, Kim Wexler, and she doesn’t seem to be on a danger-free path either. After standing up to Lalo - so she has one foot in the grave already - it seems like the taciturn attorney is getting a taste for chaos: she wants to scam goody-two-shoes Howard out of his illustrious legal career, making the newlyweds millions.

Gould is also concerned for Wexler: in an interview with The Wrap, he says “The title of the penultimate episode this season was Bad Choice Road. And, certainly, Kim Wexler seems to be on a bad choice road.” In a virtual Deadline panel, Rhea Seehorn reflected on her time on the show so far, explaining that playing Kim was more complex than just "one giant arc of this mask coming off" as her backstory interweaves with Jimmy's present. But while Seehorn claimed to not know where her story is going yet, Gould said "We have a lot of ideas."

In many ways, the roles of Kim and Jimmy have reversed. Following ‘Saul Goodman’s’ near-death experience in the desert, he’s reverted back to the unsure Jimmy McGill. Speaking to Deadline, Bob Odenkirk said “Jimmy is in a vulnerable place. He’s in a weak and uncertain and frightened place inside.”

While Gould is naturally keen to keep the upcoming story threads under wraps, he did highlight the kinds of questions we should be asking with EW, pointing us in the direction of season 6's major preoccupations. First is Gene Takovic, McGill's alter ego we see in black-and-white flash-forwards at the beginning of each season. Gould encourages us to consider "What does this man deserve?" as much as " What's going to happen to him?"

Then, when asked for a final cryptic hint, he says we should "Keep your eye on the bottle stopper" Kim took from her office as she resigned her job as a lawyer at Schweikart & Cokely. It's hard to know what he's getting at, but this will certainly be reveal as the complex machinations of season 6 come to a head.

***READ MORE: The Mandalorian Season 3: Release Date, Filming, Cast and More

Better Call Saul season 6 canceled: Is the show ending?

More bad news… yes, season six spells the end for Better Call Saul. The show may have taken a little while to heat up – as with Breaking Bad – but it has rapidly grown into a prequel series more than worthy of a place in Gilligan’s universe.

Season six is likely to stitch itself to the beginning of Breaking Bad and potentially show us more of Saul (now in hiding as “Gene”) following the events of the original series. We have previously only seen Jimmy as Gene in the odd black and white scene here and there.

But the end of Better Call Saul may not be the last time we see Jimmy as it has been revealed via Variety that an animated prequel to this prequel is in the works at AMC and it has been given the appropriate name of Slippin’ Jimmy.

The show will apparently explore Jimmy’s life prior to the events of his own show while young Jimmy and Chuck McGill were in Cicero, Illinois. It is unknown whether the original actors will return to play the characters in this new version and that, we imagine, will depend on how far back this is set.
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