While Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad remains one of the best television dramas of the past decade, the prequel series is fast approaching its very own pedestal with Better Call Saul season 4. That’s because the spin-off all about how Jimmy McGill becomes Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), the attorney for criminals who helped Walter White’s (Bryan Cranston) drug empire, is just as great.
On Monday, the fourth season for Gilligan and co-creator Peter Gould’s show, which started six years before Breaking Bad, finds Jimmy mourning the death of his brother, Chuck McGill (Michael McKean), while struggling to find work as an unemployed and disgraced lawyer. There are still a few years left to go before he transforms into the man viewers first met in 2009, but judging by what we know about Better Call Saul season 4, it will happen very soon.
Better Call Saul season 4 predictions: The series will finally enter the Breaking Bad timeline
In a special issue of Entertainment Weekly commemorating the 10th anniversary of Breaking Bad, Gilligan revealed that “Better Call Saul season 4 will finally crossover with the other series’ timeline. “I picture two giant circles moving together, converging into an ever-largening Venn diagram, and that Venn diagram represents the overlap,” he said. “That area of overlap is getting larger and larger.”
Gould added that they’re “still a few years out from Walter White, but you’ll see some things that will definitely ring a bell.” This, Gilligan noted, will play out in “a subplot that very squarely gets into Breaking Bad territory and brings us into the world – or at least points us on a path toward the world of Walter White.” Specifically, the previously mentioned (but never before seen) character Lalo (Tony Dalton) will flesh this out in Better Call Saul sesaon 4.
Better Call Saul season 4 predictions: But will we see Walter or Jesse?
As Gould previously warned, season four is “still a few years out from Walter White,” but that doesn’t mean the new season will totally avoid any and all reference to him or his eventual partner in crime, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). Fans have been hoping for a cameo by either character since Better Call Saul first premiered, and while the potential for such an occurrence has always been there, it has never been as strong as it is now.
Cranston visited the set while Gilligan and company were filming season three, setting off a flurry of rumors about White’s arrival on the Better Call Saul scene. The actor was simply visiting, of course, but the co-creator took notice of the buzz. He told Entertainment Weekly that he “desperately” wanted to see Walter and Jesse in the show, as did everyone else. “Peter wants it, the writers do, the actors do,” he added.
Better Call Saul season 4 predictions: Jimmy will finally become Saul
A prediction whose outcome is all but guaranteed, however, is that season four will finally see McGill’s first steps toward becoming Goodman. During a recent set visit, The Daily Beast noted an office storefront window with a sign that read, “SAUL GOODMAN, ATTORNEY AT LAW.” When asked about it, Odenkirk carefully explained, “You are going to see a scene in Saul’s office from the time period of Breaking Bad.”
There are still a few years to go before the prequel series catches up to its predecessor, but judging by Odenkirk’s explanation, the scene — and set — in question may stem from Gilligan’s reveal that Better Call Saul season 4 would flash-forward to the Break Bad”timeline on occasion. So yes, it sounds like Jimmy will be stepping into Saul’s shoes for a bit this time around.
Better Call Saul season 4 predictions: Kim, however, may be on the way out
Aside from Saul’s arrival, one of the most pressing questions viewers have had since season one is, “Who is Kim Wexler, and what’s going to happen to her?” Jimmy’s on-again-off-again partner, played by Rhea Seehorn, has been a pivotal force in the titular lawyer’s life from day one. Yet she’s nowhere to be found in Breaking Bad. Kim is not even mentioned once. Obviously, she was a late addition to the prequel story, but the question remains.
Following season three’s car accident and the death of Chuck, Kim is struggling to help Jimmy process his grief while landing on her own two feet. With the eventual end of Better Call Saul, which AMC has already renewed for a fifth season, on the horizon, it’s inevitable that she will finally leave him for good. That, or some aspect of the new, darker path Jimmy is about to take will lash out and remove Kim from the picture.
Better Call Saul season 4 premieres Monday, August 6, at 9 p.m. on AMC.
