“No one ever accused you of being lazy. Every other sin in the book, but not that one.” Chuck McGill says this to his brother, Better Call Saul’s protagonist, Jimmy McGill. It’s likely hard for fans to believe that Jimmy/Saul Goodman took his final bow after 13 years with the sixth and final season that premiered on April 18th, 2022. He will be missed and so will his cons.
As Chuck suggests, Jimmy is an intelligent, hard-working man, despite being, to put it charitably, morally gray. Jimmy wears a lot of hats besides lawyer throughout the course of Better Call Saul, but the most prominent hat is that of a conman. But which of his cons were the cleverest?
Throw Me A Bonus, Here
Jimmy is dissatisfied with his big-time lawyer job at Davis & Main. He wants to quit, but if he does, he'll lose his signing bonus (as well as his coveted cocobolo desk). The solution? Make them fire him. Wear obnoxious suits, loudly play the accordion, don’t flush the toilet. It’s childish, but it got the job done.
Jimmy is simply unable to conform. While Davis & Main is almost exactly the job he always actually wanted (to work alongside his brother at HHM), it falls short, as it lacks both his brother’s approval and his own freedom. He may be willing to give up one, but certainly not both. While his solution to leave isn’t the most elegant or clever, his ability to find the solution in the first place certainly was.
War Hero
Jimmy finds a “veteran” to bring onto an airforce base. Jimmy, the vet, and the vet’s “grandsons” (the film students Jimmy often hires) are given the grand tour and a show of a prolific bomber plane … until the tour guide steps away, giving Jimmy and co. ample time to film a shot for another McGill ad targeted at senior citizens.
Jimmy may have missed his calling as a b-movie director, as he’s able to guide his star and crew through a quick shot. Or maybe he missed his calling as a producer, as he’s able to swarm his way into a government facility under false pretenses. While it certainly exploits a sort of fetishization of veterans in American culture, Jimmy has an understanding of his audience and successfully capitalizes on that understanding.
“S’all good, man.”
Jimmy makes a new friend in the bar, and the two drunkenly stroll into an alleyway where they find a man nearly passed out. The friend takes the man’s wallet, Jimmy takes his watch. The friend gets upset though; it appears Jimmy has a Rolex. But Jimmy is willing to part with it for all the money in the wallet, plus whatever the friend has on him. The friend leaves and the “passed out” man, an actual friend of Jimmy named Marco, rises, he and Jimmy are now five hundred bucks richer.
It’s a small-time con compared to what Jimmy would become capable of later in his life, but it still shows his elaborate and successful planning. It worked well too, given how many times they pulled it off.
Viktor And Giselle Order Tequila
Jimmy and Kim find a mark in a hotel bar, one of Better Call Saul's best single-episode characters, and pose as siblings who just came into an inheritance, looking to invest. The stockbroker offers to buy them drinks while he gives them a “no-pressure” sales pitch. The two agree and order the hotel’s most expensive shots of tequila.
Justifiably, Jimmy has it out for rich, straight-laced types, and it’s fun to see him successfully punch up. However, what elevates this comparatively small-time con is how Jimmy, whether he knows it or not, begins to seduce Kim over to the dark side. While just another day for Jimmy, it’s an important, if also uneasy step for his relationship with Kim, as well as her development.
Better Save Huell
Not able to give Huell legal representation after assaulting an officer, a bar-suspended Jimmy and Kim hatch an elaborate scheme to save Huell. This comes via Jimmy traveling across the country and getting fellow Greyhound passengers to write letters on Huell’s behalf, claiming they’re from his home state of Louisiana and giving Huell’s judge a massive headache. Furthermore, Jimmy uses various prepaid phones to pose as different members of Huell’s community to speak on his behalf.
While a lot of effort and planning went into this con, it’s not Jimmy’s alone. However, this far into the show, his influence over Kim has certainly taken hold, and she is more than game to help Jimmy come up with this scheme.
Toilet Paper
While trying to build the foundation of a case against the assisted living home, Sandpiper, the receptionist blocks Jimmy’s entry from the establishment. Jimmy asks to use the bathroom and drafts a legal letter of demand to speak to his clients, first on the back of a legal pad and then on toilet paper after he runs out of room. And it’s 100 percent binding.
Jimmy’s understanding of the law is bulletproof, and he is more than willing to exploit loopholes in unorthodox fashions. This particular case is what elevates him beyond the back of the nail salon, and seeing him weasel his way up, on toilet paper no less, shows remarkable resilience and cleverness.
“People Love A Hero”
As Jimmy films himself lamenting the loss of his parody billboard, the man hired to take it down suddenly falls off the side, dangling by his safety wire. Jimmy rushes into action, climbs to the billboard and pulls the average Joe workman up… and subsequently ends up on the news to talk about his heroism. This was, of course, a setup, as Jimmy paid the worker to fall so he could save him and generate clientele.
While Jimmy's upset at having to take the billboard down, he’s certainly not one to submit to defeat without a fight or a grand display of showmanship. Paying a man to fake an accident is sleazy, sure, but such a clever con early on in the series immediately cements Better Call Saul as a rewatchable drama.
Acker Vs. Mesa Verde
In Kim’s guilt representing Mesa Verde and one of Saul's better later-season characters, Kevin, against an old man (Mr. Acker) for his property, she asks the newly-dubbed Saul Goodman to represent the codger as best as he can. Jimmy obliges and creates a series of sabotage against Mesa Verde’s construction workers looking to tear down Mr. Acker’s estate.
This con is Jimmy to an absolute T. Not only does it demonstrate his knowledge of legal loopholes, but it also shows his devotion to Kim. Sure, he may be having fun being a thorn in the side of a big corporation, but if his con is in service to Kim, Jimmy will come correct with maximum effort and maximum cleverness.
A Numbers Game
Jimmy, upset for Kim that she lost Mesa Verde to HHM, breaks into Chuck’s house and steals some documents, taking them to a copy store and altering them so they create major setbacks for Mesa Verde. This subsequently makes HHM and Chuck, in particular, appear to be incompetent.
Jimmy displays masterful attention to detail in his forgeries. There's just one missing key element: Jimmy’s underestimation of Chuck’s ego and power. Chuck is so self-confident he knows that he would never make such a mistake, immediately aiming his suspicions toward Jimmy. While the damage was certainly done to Chuck, Jimmy wasn’t completely able to get away with it. Leading to…
Chicanery
It’s a simple con, marking Huell’s return to the Better Break Bad universe, as he bumps into Chuck in the hallway. When Chuck’s on the witness stand, Jimmy reveals he had Huell slip a phone battery into his breast pocket, showing without any doubt that Chuck’s “sickness” is all in his head. And Chuck positively explodes.
This con marks a massive turning point in the series. Not only does it disprove Chuck’s electricity allergy, but it also saves Jimmy’s law career, gaining him sympathy and understanding in his dynamic with Chuck. It's also greatly cathartic for the audience to see Jimmy defeat Chuck this way. Simply put, nothing else beats it.