The first half of Better Call Saul season 6 — yes, the first half, since this is yet another popular show cutting its final season in half, prolonging the goodbye — is still a little more than a week away.
Nevertheless, critics who’ve gotten an early look at the new season’s initial episodes are already raving about what viewers are in store for. In fact, as of the time of this writing? Part one of Better Call Saul’s sixth and final season already has a perfect 100 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. Thanks to the critical acclaim, some early examples of which can be found below:
- IndieWire: “With 50 episodes in its memory and 13 more to go, this is a meticulous closing stretch of the journey, astonishingly short on false moves so far.”
- Entertainment Weekly: “Inventing tantalizing new mysteries right as the end begins? Only the best artists pull a con like that.”
Better Call Saul Season 6 release date 2022
Better Call Saul Season 6 will premiere on AMC with two back-to-back episodes on April 18 at 9:00 pm ET. The 13-episode final season itself will roll out in two parts. The first half consists of seven episodes beginning April 18. The final six episodes debut starting on July 11.
“Better Call Saul’s final season concludes the complicated journey and transformation of its compromised hero, Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk), into criminal lawyer Saul Goodman,” AMC says by way of summarizing the final batch of episodes.
“From the cartel to the courthouse, from Albuquerque to Omaha, season six tracks Jimmy, Saul, and Gene as well as Jimmy’s complex relationship with Kim (Rhea Seehorn), who is in the midst of her own existential crisis. Meanwhile, Mike (Jonathan Banks), Gus (Giancarlo Esposito), Nacho (Michael Mando), and Lalo (Tony Dalton) are locked into a game of cat and mouse with mortal stakes.”
Catch up on Season 1-5, now streaming on Netflix
Meanwhile, here’s a reminder of where things stood at the end of season five of this Breaking Bad prequel. Which just hit Netflix, by the way, so you can easily get caught up before the new episodes arrive.
A hit squad failed in its attempt to assassinate Lalo Salamanca, on behalf of Gus Fring. It becomes pretty clear that Lalo knows his young protege Nacho Varga had something to do with the botched hit. The season ends with Lalo stomping angrily into the foreground and out of frame. He does so, as the sound of the gravel crunching underneath him subtly morphs into booms of thunder.
What heights are there left to scale for the creators behind a work of art who’ve already produced something sublime and deeply affecting? We’ll soon see. Because Better Call Saul hasn’t been a TV show so much as a richly-drawn character study, along the lines of a novel come to life.
The beginning of the end
The show is also replete with jaw-dropping vistas and slices of life from the American West. You can almost feel the sticky summer heat of the New Mexico sun beating down on you. Smell the coffee in the diner. It feels instinctive to turn up your nose at the cheap cologne Saul Goodman no doubt wears.
The menacing cartel goons, the blue-chip lawyers who look down their noses at Jimmy, Kim’s undying affection for her lovable, rakish partner — it grows on you, a show like this. All of it.
It envelops you, and commands all your senses. And by the time it’s all over, these 13 episodes will reiterate something no one has surely forgotten. That Vince Gillian, the creator of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, is one of the finest TV creators in the history of the medium. Before Better Call Saul fans get to that point, though, welcome to the beginning of the end.
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