Saul Goodman's Best Moment In Better Call Saul Season 5
Season 5 of "Better Call Saul" is packed with both crisis and triumph for its main character. Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) gets his law license back and Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian) offers him a partnership at Hamlin, Hamlin, and McGill, but Jimmy responds by throwing bowling balls through the windshield of Howard's car. Jimmy uses all of his ethically questionable tricks to fight Mesa Verde bank's expansion on behalf of a local homeowner, but in doing so, he jeopardizes the goodwill between his soon-to-be wife Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) and her client, Kevin Wachtell (Rex Linn).
He also begins to slide deeper into his shady Saul Goodman persona, bringing about some poor decision-making and falling into dangerous situations as he becomes more involved with the Salamanca cartel. When Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton) is charged with murder under an alias, he and Saul arrange for the overconfident attorney to drive into the desert and pick up $7 million in cash for Lalo's bail.
In two of the most memorable and highly-rated episodes of the show, "Bagman" and "Bad Choice Road," Saul is ambushed by Salamanca rivals and saved by the sharpshooting of Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks). After the two spend the night in the desert and hike for miles, Saul is finally able to have a wholly triumphant moment.
Saul manages to convince Lalo he simply had car trouble
Saul and Mike make it safely to a rest stop, where they swap their torn, sweaty, and dirty clothes for things you can buy in a gas station. Clad in flip-flops and a cheap patriotic t-shirt, Saul lugs the two bags of cash to the courthouse and bails Lalo out. But even after surviving a shootout and the physical and mental ordeal it takes to get him to that point, he still has to face Lalo without letting him know that it's Mike who saves him.
Saul's success as an attorney comes from his ability to put on a sincere face and convince almost anyone of just about anything, and he tells Lalo that his car broke down and he hiked out alone and got lost in the desert overnight. He appears to convince Lalo in that moment that he is telling the truth, earning a hearty and seemingly sincere "You did good," along with a friendly whack to his sunburned shoulder. Moments of relief for Saul and disadvantage for Lalo are extremely rare in Season 5, so the intersection of both makes this a standout moment.
The triumph won't last long for Saul, as Lalo finds his Suzuki Esteem in the ditch where he and Mike leave it and his suspicions are raised again — resulting in another confrontation that Kim bails him out of. Season 6 of "Better Call Saul," premiering on April 18, will tell us whether this moment is the beginning of the end for Saul Goodman or if he's able to dig himself out of this hole before his inevitable tragic fall.