‘Better Call Saul’ Sees Jimmy Transform in ‘Electrifying’ Fifth Season

Better Call Saul Season 5
Preview
Warrick Page/AMC/Sony Pictures Television

Business is booming for the newly christened huckster lawyer Saul Goodman in the Breaking Bad prequel Better Call Saul‘s electrifying fifth, and next to last, season. (The two-episode premiere continues Monday in the drama’s regular timeslot, 9/8c.)

As Bob Odenkirk sheds the former Jimmy McGill’s sheepish demeanor, he dons the outrageous Saul’s flashy wardrobe of colorful suits and shirts. There’s a new slogan, too: “Speedy Justice for You.”

Certainly the show has picked up the pace. Saul is quite the entertaining scoundrel, bending the rules in and out of court, wooing low-life clients with free phones and half-off deals. Yet he insists Saul is fighting the good fight: “He’s the last line of defense for the little guy,” he brags to a fellow attorney.

At the same time, we can see where this ethics-be-damned swagger is heading: down a slippery slope toward corruption of the soul, as Saul’s more principled lawyer girlfriend, Kim (Rhea Seehorn), fears.

Better Call Saul Season 5 Jimmy McGill

(Credit: AMC)

And that’s even before he’s reluctantly drawn back into the drug war between the Salamancas and icy Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), an intrigue that attracts Breaking Bad’s combative DEA agent Hank Schrader (Dean Norris). Suspenseful, funny and unpredictable, it doesn’t get much better than Saul.

Better Call Saul, Season 5 Premiere, Sunday, February 23, 10/9c, AMC