Everything We Know About 'Better Call Saul' Season 6

How will the final season connect with 'Breaking Bad'?

better call saul
Greg Lewis/AMC/Sony Pictures
Greg Lewis/AMC/Sony Pictures

When the Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul debuted on AMC back in 2015, it was unclear what type of show we'd be watching. Saul Goodman, the scheming lawyer character played by Bob Odenkirk, had his serious moments on Breaking Bad, but he was also a source of comic relief in a series that trafficked in white-knuckle suspense, particularly in its final seasons. Would his new show be a goofy comedy or another careful study in sustained tension?

After five seasons, we know the answer: Better Call Saul is its own thrilling, expectation-defying beast. While the series has countless connections to the trials and tribulations of Walter White, co-creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould also turned Jimmy McGill into a complicated protagonist who stands on his own, and the final season should give the writers plenty of opportunities to tie up loose ends and ratchet up the excitement. Here's everything we know about Season 6 of Better Call Saul so far.

better call saul
Greg Lewis/AMC/Sony Pictures

Will there be a Better Call Saul Season 6?

Yes. Better Call Saul was renewed for a sixth and final season in January 2020, right before the fifth season premiered on AMC. Given the critical acclaim and awards attention the show generates, the decision wasn't surprising. "From Day 1 of Better Call Saul, my dream was to tell the complete story of our complicated and compromised hero, Jimmy McGill—now AMC and Sony are making that dream come true," showrunner Peter Gould said in a statement at the time. "We couldn't be more grateful to the fans and critics who are making this journey possible."

When will Better Call Saul Season 6 premiere?

AMC has announced the premiere date for Better Call Saul's final season. The ending will kick off with back-to-back-episodes starting at 9 p.m. Monday, April 18. Similar to Breaking Bad, the final season will be split into two parts, with first even beginning in April and then the last six episodes begin airing on July 11. 

As part of the announcement, AMC also revealed that the final season will be accompanied by three short-form series that expand the larger Better Call Saul universe. Those shows include an animated series called Slippin' Jimmy that follows a young Jimmy McGill in Chicago, Cooper's Bar featuring Saul star Rhea Seehorn, and new episodes of the Better Call Saul Employee training series. So, if you've been starved for new Saul stories, there's a lot coming. 

better call saul
Greg Lewis/AMC/Sony Pictures

When was Better Call Saul Season 6 filmed?

On March 10, 2021, Gould tweeted a photo of a clapperboard for the first episode of Season 6 and wrote, "And awaaaaaaaay we go!" (The slate in the photo confirmed that the first episode will be directed by Better Call Saul veteran Michael Morris, who helmed Season 5's "Wexler Vs. Goodman.") Later in the month, Odenkirk tweeted a photo of him and some of his fellow Better Call Saul cast members getting the COVID vaccine together.

However, on July 27, TMZ reported that Odenkirk was taken to the hospital after collapsing on set while filming in Albuquerque, New Mexico, drawing an outpouring of support from fans and Breaking Bad co-star Bryan Cranston and Mr. Show comedy partner David Cross. (The news was later confirmed by the Hollywood Reporter.) On Wednesday afternoon, his son Nate tweeted "He's going to be okay," and THR confirmed that Odenkirk was in stable condition after a "heart-related incident," inferred to be a heart attack.

"He and his family would like to express gratitude for the incredible doctors and nurses looking after him, as well as his cast, crew and producers who have stayed by his side," Odenkirk's reps wrote in a statement. "The Odenkirks would also like to thank everyone for the outpouring of well wishes and ask for their privacy at this time as Bob works on his recovery.”

Of course, that meant that production on the season was on pause as Odenkirk recovered. THR reported that the season was a little more than halfway complete at the time of Odenkirk's collapse.

On September 8, Odenkirk tweeted that he was "back to work" on Better Call Saul. "So happy to be here and living this specific life surrounded by such good people," he wrote, attaching a photo of himself in the make-up chair. His Better Call Saul co-stars Rhea Seehorn and Michael McKean also tweeted out words of encouragement.

better call saul
Greg Lewis/AMC/Sony Pictures

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

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 spinoff Netflix film El Camino.) The final season of Breaking Bad had 16 episodes and was split up into two parts, which aired in different years. The final season of Better Call Saul will also be split in half, but the wait between the two parts will not be as long. 

better call saul
Greg Lewis/AMC/Sony Pictures

Which cast members are returning?

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
Greg Lewis/AMC/Sony Pictures

What will Better Call Saul Season 6 be about?

Unlike most other TV shows, Better Call Saul always had a relatively fixed destination and a tragic structure to build around. Because it's a prequel set prior to the events in Breaking Bad, the show was always going to focus on Jimmy McGill's gradual transformation into Saul Goodman, with all the moral slippage that implies. But the black-and-white flash-forward scenes the show uses have also hinted at the possibility of extending even further past the Breaking Bad timeline, so the ending is not exactly set in stone.

"I think by the time you finish watching Better Call Saul, you're going to see Breaking Bad in a very different light," said Gould in a 2020 interview with The Hollywood Reporter. "I think we're going to learn things about the characters in Breaking Bad that we didn't know. We're going to learn things about the events of Breaking Bad that we didn't know. And we're going to learn things about the fates of a lot of these characters that may surprise people or certainly throw them into a different light. I think we started this 2007, so that's 13 years of work that's distilled, that all has to fit together. Hopefully like a perfect jigsaw puzzle."

More specifically, the final 13 episodes will need to resolve the Season 5 cliffhanger involving vicious Lalo Salamanca, who'll now be looking to exact vengeance (on Nacho? on Gus Fring?) after surviving the assassination attempt. The storyline with Howard and the Sandpiper case should come to a conclusion.

And no doubt, we'll learn the fates of many of the other characters that don't appear or even merit mentions in Breaking Bad, most notably that of Kim Wexler. While it certainly seems likely, given where her storyline left off at the end of Season 5, with her increasingly in the know about and involved in Jimmy's nefarious activities, that things will end badly for Kim, but who knows? Maybe she just winds up in witness protection.

In an interview with the Guardian from June, Odenkirk, who swears he doesn't know how the show will end, offered his own theory on Wexler's fate. "I don’t think she dies,” he said. “I think she’s in Albuquerque, and she’s still practising law. He’s still crossing paths with her. To me, that would fuel his desire to be on billboards everywhere, because he wants her to see him.” Of course, Odenkirk is only speculating—just like us!

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