Aside from a short teaser for season four, and learning that Better Call Saul will cross over more into Breaking Bad territory next season (including the addition of Lalo), we haven’t gotten a lot of specifics about the forthcoming chapter of the AMC series.
Showrunner Peter Gould, however, shed some light on next season in an interview with USA Today, revealing that we’ll start to really see the transformation from Jimmy McGill to Saul Goodman in season four.
“This season, the audience will start to better understand how the fun, slightly mischievous, but good-hearted man who was Jimmy became Saul, who does so many despicable things. You really start to see how that happens and what causes that.”
One event that helps to trigger that transformation will obviously be the suicide of his brother, Chuck. That’s going to cause a huge ripple effect, and while Jimmy won’t respond to the suicide necessarily in the “way you’d expect,” it will change the nature of Jimmy’s “relationship to Kim.” Kim, meanwhile, will also begin to reexamine her life after the car accident, and it may mean a change in careers. “She’s in a place where she’s really reevaluating what the law means to her and how she wants to spend her time,” Gould says.
Jimmy, too, will be looking for new employment. He’s been suspended from the practice of law for a year, so he needs a new job, which may mean working for potential new employers, Mr. Neff (Andrew Friedman) and Seymour (Michael Naughton) (both of whom are new to the Breaking Bad universe).
Meanwhile, after Nacho unsuccessfully tried to kill Hector last season, he has to worry about getting on Gus Fring’s wrong side, too (and Lalo, potentially, may be in the employ of Fring rather than Don Eladio). Season four will also see Gus attempt to take advantage of opportunities that arise from Hector’s stroke.
Elsewhere, Mike — who will spend some more time with his daughter, Stacey, this season — will have to work through the “tremendous guilt” he feels after he becoming a money-launderer for Gus, because he had never thought of himself as a criminal before and it doesn’t sit well with him.
All of these developments will ultimately result in the spiritual death of Jimmy McGill and the rise of Saul Goodman. Asked when exactly that would happen, Gould only offered, “Soon.”
Better Call Saul returns on August 6th.
(Via USA Today)
