10 Best 'Better Call Saul' Quotes, Ranked (original) (raw)
From 2008 to 2013, Vince Gilligan's Breaking Bad ran on AMC. To this day, it's still remembered as the single greatest drama TV show in the history of the medium. When a prequel/spin-off created by Gilligan and Peter Gould was announced, fans didn't know what to expect. How to follow up the greatest show in history with something that lives up to its quality? Somehow, Better Call Saul did so with ease.
There are plenty of reasons why Better Call Saul can also be counted among the greatest TV shows ever made. Fantastic performances, fascinating characters, and gripping storylines are but a few. On top of that, like all great series do, it has some unforgettable lines of dialogue. From the quotable to the funny to the deep, the show's best quotes are masterclasses in writing good dialogue for television.
10 "It is acceptable."
Gus Fring (Season 5, Episode 4)
Image via AMC
Near the start of the penultimate season of the series, the DEA and the Albuquerque Police Department are doing stakeouts at Gus' (Giancarlo Esposito) dead drops, seizing the drug money and making three arrests. When he receives this information over the phone while lying low at his restaurant, Los Pollos Hermanos, Gus is not happy.
Gus vents his anger on the assistant manager, Lyle (Harrison Thomas), making him repeatedly clean the fryers. Once he's done, he deems Lyle's work simply "acceptable." It's a small moment, but it's a perfect display of Gus' obsessiveness and perfectionism, as well as of just how extreme they can get in frustrating situations. It's precisely these kinds of small character moments that make him one of the greatest villains in TV history.
9 "Slippin' Jimmy I can handle just fine, but Slippin' Jimmy with a law degree is like a chimp with a machine gun!"
Chuck McGill (Season 1, Episode 9)
Image via AMC
One of the most complex and morally gray characters in the entire Breaking Bad universe, Chuck (Michael McKean), Jimmy's (Bob Odenkirk) older brother, is a hyper-successful lawyer that's become a recluse as a result of a somatic disorder. Introduced as a mostly sympathetic character, Chuck begins showing his true face throughout the first season of the series.
Near the end of the season, Jimmy deduces that Chuck has been successfully keeping him out of joining HHM as a partner. When he interrogates him about why he's treating his little brother so poorly, Chuck cracks and tells Jimmy that he doesn't believe he's changed his old dishonest ways, calling this lawyer version of him "a chimp with a machine gun." The quote stings particularly hard not only because it's such a hurtful moment, but because, as anyone who's watched Breaking Bad (or who's rewatching Better Call Saul) will know, Chuck isn't exactly wrong here.
8 "So when you are sitting in your s**tty nursing home, and you're sucking down on your Jell-O night after night for the rest of your life, you think of me, you twisted f**k!"
Nacho Varga (Season 6, Episode 3)
Image via AMC
Better Call Saul often shone through its expansion of characters shown previously in Breaking Bad, but the new characters it introduced to the mythos are every bit as fascinating. One such character is Nacho Varga (Michael Mando), who spent his entire life being a pawn in the deadly games of more powerful men, from Gus Fring to Héctor Salamanca (Mark Margolis)—until the end, that is.
Nacho's death, though expected, was still executed in such a way that it was one of the most shocking moments in the entire show, as well as one of the most badass. Nacho went out as a master of his own fate, giving the proverbial middle finger to the men who ruined his life. The moment when he tells Héctor that he was responsible for his decline in health is one of the series' most satisfying lines, the kind of quote that makes this one of the 2010s' best drama shows.
7 "There are so many stars visible in New Mexico. I will walk out there to get a better look."
Werner Ziegler (Season 4, Episode 10)
Image via AMC
At least for the first few seasons of Better Call Saul, Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) was almost a co-protagonist of the show, the link between the legal plot of the show and the crime storyline. Watching his journey to becoming the character seen in Breaking Bad was always going to be a gripping one, but no one expected it to be so heartbreaking.
Typically regarded as the moment where Mike lost his soul, the scene where he has to shoot Werner Ziegler (Rainer Bock), the engineer behind Gus' superlab and his close friend, is by far one of the saddest scenes in the Breaking Bad universe. The small line of acknowledgement that Werner gives his friend is both a beautiful farewell and a deeply saddening quote.
6 "I broke my boy."
Mike Ehrmantraut (Season 1, Episode 6)
Image via AMC
Yet another moment that showed that Mike was a far more emotionally complex character than Breaking Bad usually made him out to seem, his conversation with his daughter-in-law, Stacey (Kerry Condon) in the middle of the first season is among the show's most emotional moments, the type of scene that contributes to making Better Call Saul 2015's greatest TV show.
Jonathan Banks acts the hell out of the scene, but the fact that his dialogue is so brilliantly written definitely helps as well. His whole speech to Stacey is heartbreaking, but it's particularly when he tells her "I broke my boy" when speaking about his son's murder, which he feels he's responsible for, that hits closest to home. It's the only time in either show that we see Mike cry, and the insight the line offers into his character and his motivations is priceless.
5 "Apart, we're okay. But together, we're poison."
Kim Wexler (Season 6, Episode 9)
Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) and Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) sitting on their bed looking serious and upset in Better Call Saul Season 6 Episode 8
Image via AMC
Throughout the history of television, there have been plenty of iconic couples, but few are as fascinating as Jimmy and Kim (Rhea Seehorn). Their complex, sometimes tumultuous relationship is the beating heart of the show, particularly as each season progresses. It's not until the last season of the show (one of the greatest seasons of television of all time), though, that their dynamic comes to a boiling point.
The fact that their breakup isn't so much an argument as it is a moment of self-reflection makes it an even sadder moment.
"Fun and Games" is a relatively quiet episode, particularly when compared to the gut-wrenching mayhem of its predecessor, "Point and Shoot." It's the epilogue to all the character arcs from the main Better Call Saul timeline, before the show takes a dramatic time jump to after the events of Breaking Bad. This, of course, includes the collapse of Jimmy and Kim's relationship. The fact that their breakup isn't so much an argument as it is a moment of self-reflection makes it an even sadder moment, and the fact that Kim's reasoning for separating makes so much sense is the final nail in viewers' coffin.
4 "Sooner or later, you're gonna realize you haven't thought about it. None of it. And that's the moment you realize you can forget. When you know that's possible, it all gets easier."
Mike Ehrmantraut (Season 5, Episode 9)
Image via AMC
The ending couple of episodes of the penultimate season of Better Call Saul are among the show's best, starting with the heart-racing "Bad Choice Road." It's not all suspense and action during this episode, though. On the contrary, there are some particularly powerful moments of quiet dialogue between Jimmy and Mike, including one in Mike's car.
During this scene, Mike gives Jimmy advice on how to move on after a traumatic experience in the desert. He's speaking about a very specific moment, but this quote feels like it speaks to what will become Saul's entire philosophy on how to ignore the awful things he's done. With brilliant writing and brilliant acting by Banks and Odenkirk, this scene is one of the episode's most memorable.
3 "You can't conceive of what I'm capable of! I'm so far beyond you! I'm like a god in human clothing! Lightning bolts shoot from my fingertips!"
Jimmy McGill (Season 5, Episode 7)
Image via AMC
Toward the end of the show's fifth season, Jimmy blows up in Howard's (Patrick Fabian) face. This emotional outburst, which is admittedly darkly amusing, has become one of the show's most memed moments. All memes aside, though, it's genuinely a fantastic scene. It's funny, yes, but it's also a turning point for Jimmy's character.
Howard, realizing that Jimmy was the one behind the harassment he's been suffering for the last few episodes, rescinds the offer he'd made for Saul to join HHM. Jimmy's ego explodes in a way viewers hadn't really seen before, claiming that Saul Goodman has grown too big for HHM in a way that's too over-the-top to not laugh. It's a fortune that fans have Netflix within arms' reach to rewatch this iconic scene as often as they'd like.
2 "S'all good, man!"
Jimmy McGill (Season 4, Episode 10)
Image via AMC
Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul fans love to joke that the most random scenes are "the moment Walter became Heisenberg," or "the moment Jimmy became Saul," but the fact of the matter is that there's an actual moment one can easily pinpoint as the one where there was no going back in Jimmy's devolution into Saul, at the end of season four.
Kim realizes that Jimmy acted his way through his whole reinstatement hearing, and is then double-shocked when she hears that he'll no longer be practicing under the name McGill. Jimmy's answer to Kim's surprised "What?!" is simply "S'all good, man." Such a simple gag is all the viewer needs to realize alongside Kim that Jimmy is long gone. Long live Saul Goodman.
1 "Fact is, Walter White couldn't have done it without me."
Jimmy McGill (Season 6, Episode 13)
Saul Goodman stands with his finger pointed in court in Better Call Saul
Image via AMC
No one could have predicted how a show as unique and risk-taking as Better Call Saul would end. It was certainly a surprise that it ended with four episodes showing everything that happened to Saul after the events of Breaking Bad. The series finale in particular, one of the greatest episodes in television history, is a flawless yet constantly surprising way to end the show. Saul's testimony during his trial is one of the episode's biggest shockers, as well as one of the series' greatest scenes.
There is nothing about this whole speech that isn't downright perfect. There's the comfort of Saul getting Kim off the hook for Howard's death; the touching poignancy of Saul's façade of dishonesty coming down to allow Jimmy to come through again; and the satisfaction of Jimmy stomping on the late Walter White's (Bryan Cranston) gargantuan ego by confessing something that, though Walt would never admit it, is nevertheless true: Without Saul Goodman, Heisenberg's empire would have never come to be. Yet it feels like it's not Saul saying these things, but a genuinely regretful Jimmy McGill. It's what makes this one of the most satisfying series finales in TV history.