Attention: SPOILERS for the 10th episode of season 6 “Better call Saul”.
In “Better Call Saul,” season 6, episode 10, “Nippy” Gene Takavich puts on a bright shirt and tie combination and looks at himself in the mirror, but this quick moment has profound implications for the entire arc of Saul Goodman’s character. “Nippy” stands in stark contrast to the rest of season 6 of “Better Call Saul,” as the final season of the “Breaking Bad” prequel turned into several dizzying crescendos only to fall into a snowy blanket of Nebraska silence in season 6, episode 10. The episode slaps viewers in the face, announcing that its formula is different from the norm of “Better Call Saul”, with a new sequence of opening credits, a one-word title that differs from any other episode of season 6, a jump into Saul’s future and a black and white canvas.
While Gene’s timeline goes back to the opening scene of every season of “Better Call Saul”, with the exception of season 6, it also signals that the end is near, as it happens at the last point in the chronology, which has so far been seen in all “Better Call Saul” and “Better Call Saul”. Breaking bad. The time jump means that Saul Goodman is no longer Saul Goodman, working under the new identity of Gene Takavich as the manager of Cinnabon in Omaha, Nebraska — the city where Kim Wexler, Jimmy McGill’s love interest, grew up. The events of “Better Call Saul” and “Breaking Bad” undoubtedly affected Gene, and one crucial moment details the extent of this loss.
After a (just) successful robbery with Jeff, a taxi driver who recognizes him as Saul Goodman, Gene returns to work at the mall and searches the clothing store he robbed the night before. Jean takes a shirt and tie with bright patterns, clothes that were the hallmark of Saul Goodman’s extravagant image. He presses them to his torso and examines himself in the mirror, but due to the use of black-and-white photographs in the episode, the clothes lose color, and their strangeness is lost to the viewer. The adrenaline from the scam at the mall makes Gene want to try on Saul Goodman’s suit again, but after seeing him with his thick mustache and glasses, he no longer looks the same, and he puts the clothes back on the hanger.
Is Gene completely done with Saul Goodman?
If robbing Gene in “Better Call Saul” proves anything, it proves he still has it. Despite Jeff’s timidity and evasiveness, Gene returns the chatterbox Goodman to buy Jeff more time to escape before the guard Frank looks into the cameras. Gene trying on a shirt and tie certainly suggests that he can’t wait to summon Sliding Jimmy again, but Bob Odenkirk’s haggard expression paints a more colorful picture than any of Saul Goodman’s shirts. He no longer has the energy to be the “Best Lawyer in the World” Saul Goodman—after all, Breaking Bad shows that it gave him nothing but trouble, and even if he liked his latest scheme, it was born only out of necessity.
The time when Jin really enjoyed the scam in “Better Call Saul” was when he did it with Kim when he was Jimmy McGill. So while Jin may be done with Saul Goodman, there remains the possibility that he may return to Jimmy McGill, especially if the theories about Kim and Jin’s reunion come true. Gene has always wanted to get rid of the burden of the name McGill, and when he tells his tearful story to Frank, he pretends to cry about the loss of his parents and his brother Chuck. The only name Jin doesn’t pronounce is Kim’s, which demonstrates that the pain of her loss remains too acute to talk about even after the “Better call Saul” time jump. It also means that Gene still hopes to find her again at the end of “Better Call Saul,” because when he’s with her, he doesn’t have to be Gene Takavich, Saul Goodman, or even Jimmy McGill—he can just be himself.
