'Better Call Saul' Season 6 Episode 12 Ending Explained

Nearly everyone watching last week’s episode (Season 6, Episode 12) of Better Call Saul was part of some big dramatic irony scheme pleading their favorite lawyer Gene/Jimmy/Saul to not do whatever he was doing. So much so, that Bob Odenkirk who plays the character mentioned above agrees with the take, TVLine reported. 

Speaking on AMC’s Talking Saul, Odenkirk said, “He really is doing this whole scam just to burn up his life.” He elaborated, “He’s trying to destroy himself.” He likened Gene’s downward spiral to Nicolas Cage’s self-destructive character in Leaving Las Vegas: “I’m gonna do these scams until you catch me and I go down… I’m just gonna burn this down.” Last episode, audiences saw Gene just push himself past the etiquette ledge, breaking into a cancer patient’s house and lying to Marion to her face. 

Gene has reached the point of no return with his life in Omaha: “He’s not enjoying the Cinnabon job,” Odenkirk added with a laugh. “He’s not enjoying being hidden away… to be utterly mute, as effusive as his character is. He can’t handle it.” But it was Marion telling Gene “I trusted you” that broke the spell, he pointed out: “The sweetness of her face and the hurt in her heart that hurt so much in that moment melts his steely anger, and he remembers that he’s human again, briefly, and he can’t do it.” But “he gets close, which is crazy!… It’s the furthest length that he’s gone.”

The show manages to set up the sequel Breaking Bad well, explaining why Saul Goodman decided to take up Walter White even though he has had a bad experience drug-running with Lalo Salamanca. Saul knowing that Walter White was the one who cooks “the blue stuff” inspired him to get into business with him: “He’s been waiting for somebody like that to walk into his life.” But Odenkirk is convinced that it won’t go as bad as it did: “I think he sees Walt as, ‘This guy is not an off-the-rails guy. This guy has a life. He has a wife and kids, and he’s a teacher.’… What if I can get a mastermind criminal who’s not out of his f—king mind?”

Next week is the series finale for the show, while the creators haven’t gone too much into detail about what is coming (naturally). But Rhea Seehorn (Kim Wexler) called it “so thoughtful” and “so respectful of the intelligence level of our fans,” adding: “I’m still thinking about the ending.” Odenkirk summed up the finale in three succinct words: “Hard-won truth.” Vince Gilligan, meanwhile, had a stark warning for fans: “Stock up on Depends.”