Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Better Call Saul season 6, episode 2.
Better Call Saul's final season brings Jimmy McGill's roller coaster journey full circle, revisiting some unfinished business from way back in season 1. Bob Odenkirk's Jimmy McGill has evolved almost beyond recognition since Better Call Saul first started digging into the Breaking Bad character's origin story. From an aspiring lawyer with a side-hustle in criminality, Jimmy is now an aspiring criminal with a side-hustle in law. One of the very first steps on that journey was Better Call Saul's Kettleman case. Craig Kettleman, former Bernalillo County treasurer, stood (rightfully) accused of embezzling over $1.5 million. Craig, pushed along by wife Betsy, sought Jimmy's legal services, but took their business to HHM instead. Jimmy subsequently stumbled across proof of their guilt and took a bribe to stay quiet, before ultimately handing the money back and reporting the Kettlemans.
Better Call Saul season 6 catches up with Craig and Betsy a few years later. Craig has served his jail sentence, and the couple now run a tax service that - to the surprise of absolutely no one - is a scam, misreporting customers' money owed and skimming the difference. Needing a former HHM client to accuse Howard Hamlin of having a cocaine addiction, Jimmy and Kim approach the Kettlemans and manipulate them into making the (totally untrue) claim about HHM's head honcho.
The Kettleman case gave Better Call Saul's debut season its biggest storyline, but their dealings with Jimmy never felt completely over. Craig was punished for the embezzlement, sure, but Betsy got away lightly, and neither Kettleman really paid for screwing over Jimmy. By bringing the crooked couple back for season 6, however, Better Call Saul finally dishes out true, Saul Goodman-branded justice. Not only is Jimmy able to humiliate and exploit the Kettlemans, but Kim then forces the husband and wife to pay back everything they owe to conned customers - twisting the knife in a fashion few could suggest is undeserved. It's the long-awaited "gotcha" moment Craig's reduced prison sentence didn't quite deliver back in Better Call Saul season 1.
Bringing back Better Call Saul's first "antagonists" also highlights the extent of Jimmy's criminal evolution. In season 1, the Kettlemans outsmarted Jimmy, first by refusing his legal services, then by making him an accessory to the crime. In season 6, Jimmy remains two steps ahead at all times, predicting Craig and Betsy's movements like a chess grandmaster, and playing them both like the proverbial fiddle. The biggest payoff comes when Craig moves to sign Jimmy's engagement contract, only to be stopped by Betsy. Exactly the same scenario played out in Better Call Saul's series premiere ("Uno") but, on this occasion, Jimmy is banking on the refusal. The callback to Better Call Saul's very first episode showcases how season 6's Jimmy McGill is a more shrewd, cunning, streetwise figure. Alas, the Kettlemans' return also demonstrates how far Jimmy has fallen morally. Back in season 1, the guilt of taking a bribe (a relatively clean one by his current standards) weighed too heavy for Jimmy to bear. Now, in Better Call Saul's final season, taking stolen government money wouldn't even rank within Jimmy's top 10 most despicable acts.
With Jimmy getting some long-awaited revenge on a couple who wronged him, and the Kettlemans acting as the perfect barometer for Jimmy's own decay, Craig and Betsy's Better Call Saul return couldn't be more perfect. A key strength shared by both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul is how every single detail comes around sooner or later, whether that be a poisonous plant or a broken drainpipe. By involving the Kettlemans in Jimmy and Kim's ruination of Howard Hamlin, Better Call Saul brings plot threads that once seemed disparate together with an almost symphonic artistry.