Better Call Saul Writer Teases "Bigger and Badder" Episode 609

Warning: this story contains spoilers for Better Call Saul Season 6 Part 2. Better Call Saul is about to break bad. Following Monday's shocking midseason premiere, "Point and Shoot," there are just five episodes remaining of the Breaking Bad prequel about Jimmy McGill's (Bob Odenkirk) transformation into criminal lawyer Saul Goodman and post-Bad alias as Omaha Cinnabon manager Gene Takovic. As Saul's final season wraps up the pre-Heisenberg era circa 2004 — still four years out from Saul laundering the meth money of clients Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) in Breaking Bad — the two timelines will soon begin to intersect.

"We don't have that much real estate left, honestly. And we have a lot of storylines still kind of waiting for us. We have to figure out what's happening with Saul Goodman as Saul Goodman as we've seen him in Breaking Bad," executive producer Gordon Smith, who wrote "Point and Shoot," told EW. "We've had little flashes of him, but now we need to know what causes him to become a permanent state of affairs."

We also need to know what becomes of Mrs. Goodman, Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), now the last-surviving Saul player whose fate is unknown in the Breaking Bad era.

"We need to know what Kim is going to make of all of this," Smith said of the aftermath of Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton) executing Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian) in front of Saul and Kim, who masterminded an elaborate plan to ruin the HHM lawyer and force a settlement of the Sandpiper case. "They've gone through a lot this season, they've gone through a lot together, and I think this is a reckoning for her and for him." 

In "Point and Shoot," rival drug lord Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) shoots and kills Lalo at the site of the underground meth superlab where Walt and Jesse will cook for Fring's operation years later in Breaking Bad. Even after Fring's right-hand man Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) disposes of Lalo and Howard's bodies — burying them beneath the superlab never to be seen again — it's not all "Fun and Games" for the Goodmans in the final episodes. 

"In terms of what it says for the endgame? Lalo is certainly an existential threat to them, but I've always said, 'This is a prequel. And the thing that we have in our pockets is that the worst thing that can happen to somebody isn't necessarily to die. There are worse things that can happen to your state of being and your state of your soul,'" Smith teased. "And I think there's still room for Jimmy to fall, there's still room for Kim to fall, and there's still room to kind of figure out what that does to their world, with no Lalo."

After AMC announced the Breaking Bad duo of Walt and Jesse would return in Better Call Saul's final season, Cranston has hinted at how they would appear (but not when). Possibly tipping off Walt and Jesse in Episode 609 — and answers about what happens to Kim Wexler — Smith said of the next episode: "It's bigger still in a lot of ways. Episode 9 is bigger and badder, and to my mind, even more heartbreaking than this one." 

Reads the tight-lipped synopsis for "Fun and Games," airing July 18: "Gus attempts to smooth things over with the cartel while Mike ties up loose ends." New episodes of Better Call Saul Season 6 premiere Mondays on AMC and AMC+.