‘Better Call Saul’ Needs a Gene-Centric Episode

Ever since Better Call Saul premiered in 2015, Gene Takavic (Bob Odenkirk) has been haunting us. Jimmy McGill’s second persona appeared in the legal drama’s first episode, a lonely, mustachioed Cinnabon worker who spent most of his time on screen flinching at even the slightest noise. Now that Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould’s legal drama has killed off three of its biggest characters and only has five episodes to go, I have a simple request: Give us a Gene episode. Mild spoilers ahead.

This may be an unpopular request. I don’t care. I need more Gene in my life precisely because he’s one of Better Call Saul‘s most boring and uncomfortable elements. If Gene really is the final form of this saga, then I want to know precisely the man Jimmy has become.

Throughout these past six seasons, we’ve seen so many sides of Jimmy that we never witnessed on Breaking Bad. He’s been the hopeful new lawyer, the joke of a younger brother, the steadfast caretaker, the vengeful sibling, the underdog, and — in his latest iteration — the unapologetic villain. Yet through all of these personality and costume changes, the Jimmy we know and love has basically remained the same. He’s always had a fast mouth and a harebrained plan. Even at his lowest, the past version of Jimmy has never lost those qualities. For example, in “Point and Shoot”, he tries to do the impossible and convince Lalo (Tony Dalton) to send Kim (Rhea Seehorn) to run an errand instead of him. And it works. It’s a move so shocking that Lalo doesn’t entirely know what to do with it, and Gus (Giancarlo Esposito) actually looks shocked when he learns about what happened. That’s always been the magic of Slippin’ Jimmy.

From what we’ve seen so far, that’s not who Gene is. His time spent spreading frosting is devoid of jokes, a tool the old Jimmy often used to recruit people to his side. He’s jumpy, not smooth. When someone recognized Gene as Saul Goodman, Jimmy didn’t have a backup plan. That encounter ended with Jimmy clumsily lying as he pretended not to know who Saul was. The same face-off also proved that Jimmy’s notoriously silver tongue was a thing of the past. In the small moments that we’ve seen him, Gene has emerged as the shell of a shell of Jimmy McGill.

I want to see how far this damage goes, no matter how depressing it is. Sure, it will give me another reason to hate Walter White (Bryan Cranston), which is always a welcome feeling. But more than that, I feel like I owe it to Jimmy to fully take in how far he’s fallen. Besides, I have questions.

Does Gene ever joke at work? Does he try to charm cashiers just to see if he still can? How does he fill his time after work, those endless hours when the sickly sweet smell of sugar can’t distract him? Does he still watch old movies even without Kim? And why did he choose Omaha? If Better Call Saul gave us a Gene episode, we could get these answers and then some.

Look, I understand that control has always been what’s made Better Call Saul a masterpiece. The series has always dangled its carrots just out of reach, giving us enough backstory to deepen this world without wrapping it in a tidy bow. But for the past six seasons we’ve only seen glimpses of Jimmy McGill’s presumably final act, and I need more. Give mama her Gene fix.

New episodes of Better Call Saul premiere on AMC Mondays at 9/8c p.m.