You think you know the guy. The loud suits. The "LWYRUP" license plate. The office in a strip mall where the inflatable Statue of Liberty keeps trying to escape its moorings. To most people who watched Breaking Bad back in the day, Saul Goodman was just a colorful cockroach. A "criminal" lawyer who helped Walter White build a meth empire because it made him rich.
But then Better Call Saul happened. And suddenly, we had to deal with Jimmy McGill.
It’s a weird shift. Honestly, seeing the guy who suggested "sending someone on a trip to Belize" (code for murder, if you forgot) helping elderly folks with their wills is jarring. But that’s the trick showrunners Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould played on us. They didn’t just give us an origin story. They gave us a tragedy.
The Myth of the "Exact Moment" He Changed
Fans spent years arguing about the "exact moment" Jimmy McGill became Saul Goodman. Was it when he got his law license back and did that finger-gun thing to Kim? Was it when he started selling burner phones?
The truth is way messier. There isn’t a switch.
Basically, Jimmy McGill and Saul Goodman are the same person wearing different masks. Jimmy is the guy who desperately wants his brother Chuck’s approval. He’s the guy who passed the bar via a correspondence school in American Samoa while working in a mailroom. He’s a striver. He’s a guy who loves Kim Wexler more than he loves himself.
Saul? Saul is a defense mechanism.
💡 You might also like: Not the Nine O'Clock News: Why the Satirical Giant Still Matters
Peter Gould once described Saul as a "cartoon character" that Jimmy uses to flatten himself out. When the pain of being Jimmy McGill—the brother who "killed" Chuck, the man who lost Kim—becomes too heavy, he just stops being Jimmy. He puts on the yellow tie. He cranks up the volume. He becomes a person who doesn't feel things.
Chuck McGill was Right (and also a Monster)
We have to talk about Chuck. It’s impossible to understand the Saul Goodman Jimmy McGill dynamic without the older brother who hated him.
Chuck McGill was a brilliant legal mind. He also had a psychosomatic "allergy" to electricity that kept him wrapped in space blankets. But his real sickness was resentment. He couldn't stand that "Slippin' Jimmy" with a law degree was like a "chimp with a machine gun."
- Chuck's View: Jimmy is a fundamentally dishonest person who will always cut corners.
- Jimmy's Reality: He only cuts corners because the "right way" is locked behind a door Chuck refuses to open.
Chuck predicted exactly what would happen. He told Jimmy, "You're going to hurt people." And Jimmy did. But here is the nuance most people miss: Chuck’s prophecy was self-fulfilling. By refusing to believe Jimmy could change, he ensured that Jimmy wouldn't.
When Chuck tells Jimmy, "The truth is, you've never mattered all that much to me," it’s a death blow. If the one person you want to be "good" for says you don't matter, why bother being good?
Kim Wexler: The Enabler and the Heart
If Chuck was the reason Jimmy became Saul, Kim was the reason he stayed Jimmy for as long as he did.
📖 Related: New Movies in Theatre: What Most People Get Wrong About This Month's Picks
Their relationship is the heart of the show, but it’s toxic in a way that’s hard to watch. Kim wasn’t just a victim. She liked the "pro-bono" rush of the con. They were a "perfect" match because they fed each other’s worst instincts.
Remember the Howard Hamlin scheme? It wasn't just a prank. It was a systematic destruction of a decent man’s life. When Howard died in their living room—shot by Lalo Salamanca just because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time—the "Jimmy" part of Jimmy McGill finally broke.
He couldn't look at Kim without seeing Howard’s blood on the carpet. And she couldn't look at him either. When she left, Saul Goodman became the only thing left.
The "Gene Takavic" Era and the Final Choice
After the events of Breaking Bad, Saul Goodman ends up as "Gene," a terrified manager of a Cinnabon in Omaha, Nebraska. He’s living in black and white.
Most people think the ending of the series is about Saul getting caught. It's not. It’s about Jimmy McGill coming back to life.
In the series finale, "Saul" manages to negotiate a sweetheart deal—only seven years in a "cushy" prison for a lifetime of federal crimes. He wins. He beats the system one last time. But then he hears that Kim confessed.
👉 See also: A Simple Favor Blake Lively: Why Emily Nelson Is Still the Ultimate Screen Mystery
He realizes that if he takes the deal, he’s still just Saul. He’s still a ghost.
By standing up in court and admitting to everything—not just the crimes, but the way he hurt Chuck—he kills Saul Goodman. He takes 86 years in a maximum-security prison. It’s a terrible "deal" from a legal perspective. But it’s the only way he gets to be Jimmy again.
Actionable Insights for Your Next Rewatch
If you're going back to watch the series, keep these things in mind to see the character differently:
- Watch the Colors: Jimmy wears muted tones. Saul wears neon. Whenever you see a bright color creep into a "Jimmy" scene, the persona is taking over.
- The Ring: Jimmy wears his friend Marco's pinky ring. It’s his connection to his "Slippin' Jimmy" roots. He never takes it off, even as Saul. It’s the tether to his past.
- The Silence: In Better Call Saul, the most important moments happen when nobody is talking. Look at his face when he's alone. That's where the real Jimmy lives.
The transformation isn't a straight line. It's a circle. He started as a guy trying to prove he wasn't a crook, became the world's most famous crook to hide his pain, and ended as a man willing to die in a cell just to prove he still has a soul.
Stop looking for the moment he "turned bad." Start looking for the moments he tried to stay good and failed. That's where the real story is.