Better Call Saul's Emmys snub is a crying shame

How on earth do you follow that? And why on earth would you choose to do so with Saul Goodman, the greasy, self-serving lawyer who helped Walter White expand his drug empire?

The man we're first introduced to in season 2, episode 8 of Breaking Bad, titled Better Call Saul, is a clown and a weasel with no real depth and certainly no redeeming qualities. Saul isn't someone you could ever root for, or be truly invested in, largely there to serve the viewer some light relief – which makes him the worst possible candidate for his own show, right?

But in Better Call Saul, Gould introduced us to James Morgan "Jimmy" McGill, a man who has real depth, and who had us all intensely invested in his fate across six captivating seasons as we learned how Jimmy became Saul, and what became of him after the events of Breaking Bad and beyond.

I was late to the party, and having been warned by my partner and the internet that the first couple of seasons were a bit of a slog, I tailored my expectations. But instantly, I was hooked.

The dynamic between Jimmy and his brother Chuck is something I still think about regularly, almost as if they're people from my own life that I once knew. Their relationship was complex, conflicted, desperately sad and always riveting. There was love there, but unlike Jimmy, who admired the man his brother was and all that he'd achieved within the legal profession, Chuck's love, if you can even call it that, always felt like it stemmed from a sense of obligation.

He didn't admire his brother, and any opportunity for progression or self-improvement was acceptable, and actively encouraged, so long as Jimmy didn't surpass him and his achievements.

The complicated nature of their brotherhood, which travelled to pitch black depths, also opened it up for debate among viewers, with many a Reddit thread dedicated to competing versions of what the truth of Jimmy and Chuck's relationship was. All of them hold weight, and that is the beauty of Better Call Saul. So much of the show is open to interpretation.

Chuck's mental illness was also a stroke of unexpected genius from Gould. The lawyer believed he was suffering from electromagnetic hypersensitivity, so much so that he shut himself firmly inside his home and refused to use anything that required electricity, with Jimmy acting as his personal caddy, delivering his Financial Times and favourite apples in a display of brotherly devotion.

It's an unconventional narrative choice, and not only something I hadn't really seen before in a TV drama, but also a detail I didn't expect to feature in a series about a criminal lawyer with ties to a drug cartel. But Better Call Saul always marched to the beat of its own drum, acutely aware of what it was doing, even if it wasn't always immediately clear to the viewer.

It also wasn't afraid to rip up the rule book, as we saw in the last few episodes, which almost made the final season feel like two different shows. At the time it was jarring, and I also wasn't sure it was the right decision. But looking back, it was necessary in order to bed in key details as it made its long, slow approach to the final episode, which was masterful.

Gould delivered the right ending for Jimmy – the rest of his days behind bars – but not without first giving him one final opportunity to showcase his flair for undermining the legal system, which has always been one of the most entertaining aspects of Better Call Saul, and it's also key to why the character was deserving of his own show in the first place.

But following that, Jimmy was then given the space to take accountability for all of his illegal and moral wrongdoings, including the sabotaging of his brother's career, which ultimately contributed to his suicide – a stunning moment of self-admission which gets right to heart of what Gould set out to do with Better Call Saul: showcase the human capacity for change and self-reflection, even in the most unlikely of cases.

For all of its grisly, exceptionally bleak moments, the finale wasn't without hope.

But most notably, Jimmy didn't accept responsibility to benefit himself, his previous modus operandi. Instead, he took that step for Kim, his former partner in life and in crime, literally.

Their relationship, also complex, conflicted, desperately sad and always riveting, is one of TV's greatest and strangest love stories, if that's even the correct term. They were a modern day Bonnie and Clyde who, for so long, brought out the worst in one another.

Was Kim corrupted by Jimmy? Or did she always have a dark side?

Did she influence him?

Together, they were dangerous and destructive, fatally so, and it made for delicious viewing – until it didn't, when Howard Hamlin was murdered. And yet, even though they had to go their separate ways in the final season, it didn't make it any less heart-breaking.

Another winning quality of Better Call Saul is its ability to leave you feeling conflicted.

Kim and Jimmy's final conversation lasts less than four minutes. They say fewer than forty words to one another as they share one final cigarette, the end of which glows orange in an otherwise entirely black and white scene.

It's a quietly assured farewell, entirely free from frills and melodrama, and it's perfect. Better Call Saul was always at its best when stripped back.

Kim as a standalone character was also Gould's opportunity to right the wrongs of Breaking Bad, which did many of its female characters a disservice. A person in her own right, not just Jimmy's sidepiece, she was an enigma who used her legal expertise to help the vulnerable and the voiceless, while also finding a home in Jimmy and their schemes, leaving a trail of destruction behind her.

But that is just one facet of Better Call Saul. I haven't even touched upon the expansion of Gus Fring, Mike Ehrmantraut and Nacho Varga, who we first met in Breaking Bad, but learned far more about in Gould's series.

Michael Mando, who played Nacho, delivered a breathtakingly good final performance as his character exited the show in brutal fashion, which sticks long in the memory.

There was Hector Salamanca, played by the late Mark Margolis, and his service bell, which usually spelled disaster for someone. The actor deserves every plaudit for doing so much with so little. And there was Lalo Salamanca, a drug lord with a smile so dazzlingly seductive, you almost forgot what he was capable of. His entrance also paved the way for Bagman, a masterclass in white-knuckle tension and one of the finest episodes of TV ever written.

There was also the return of Walt and Jesse, which was a moment of pure joy for viewers, and Betsy Brandt's unexpected and brilliant cameo as Hank Shrader's widow Marie, with Gould further illustrating the long-standing, corrosive nature of the violence Walt wrought upon his family.

I could write a thesis. Someone probably already has.

In an era teeming with superlative television, Better Call Saul is a show unlike any other and yet, of the 53 Emmy nominations it received, it hasn't won a single one, which is staggering.

And there will be no further opportunities for it to go again, with the most recent awards the final window of eligibility.

That isn't to say Succession, which took home the gong in all of the categories Better Call Saul was also nominated in – Best Drama Series, Best Actor in a Drama Series (Kieran Culkin), and Best Writing for a Drama Series (Jesse Armstrong) – isn't deserving. It's Succession! Of course it is!

But it's like a near perfect Liverpool failing to win the Premier League trophy because they happen to be playing at the same time as Manchester City.

Rhea Seehorn also didn't triumph as Best Supporting Actress in a Drama, with The White Lotus's Jennifer Coolidge taking home the top prize for the second awards running.

Again, that's a thoroughly deserved win – she delivered one of the most iconic TV lines of 2022 – and I certainly don't begrudge the actor's moment in the sun following a career that she herself feels hasn't always been kind to her.

But for Better Call Saul fans everywhere, and I'm sure the cast and crew, who would have hoped that their talents would finally have been recognised in this particular forum, it's a crying shame – particularly given that Bob Odenkirk suffered a heart attack during the filming of the final season, made a miraculous recovery, and returned to deliver the performance of his life, which makes it all the more astonishing.

But even without an Emmy to its name, Better Call Saul remains a triumph that went toe to toe with its predecessor, and emerged an equal. Some even believe that it surpassed Vince Gilligan's series.

So, when you put it like that, there is no greater reward.

Better Call Saul is available on Netflix in the UK and AMC in the US. Check out the best Netflix series and best Netflix movies to keep you entertained, or visit our TV guide for more to watch.

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