Warning: SPOILERS for Better Call Saul season 6, episode 10.
In Better Call Saul norm, with a new opening credit sequence, a one-word title that varies from every other season 6 episode, a leap into Saul's future, and a black and white canvas.
While the Gene timeline harks back to the opening scene of every Better Call Saul season barring season 6, it also signals that the end is nigh, as it takes place at the latest point in the chronology seen so far in all of Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad. The time jump means that Saul Goodman is no longer Saul Goodman, working under a new identity of Gene Takavic as a Cinnabon manager in Omaha, Nebraska - the town Jimmy McGill's love interest, Kim Wexler, grew up in. The events of Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad have no doubt taken their toll on Gene, and one crucial moment details the extent of that toll.
After (just) successfully pulling off a heist with Jeff, a taxi driver that recognizes him as Saul Goodman, Gene returns to work at the mall and scours the clothing store he robbed the night before. Gene picks up a shirt and tie with gaudy patterns, clothes that were the hallmark of Saul Goodman's extravagant persona. He holds them up against his torso and examines himself in the mirror, but with the episode's use of black and white photography, the color is drained from the clothes, and their outlandishness is lost on the viewer. The adrenaline of the mall scam makes Gene want to try on the Saul Goodman suit once more, but upon seeing it with his thick mustache and glasses, it no longer looks the same, and he places the clothes back on the rail.
Is Gene Fully Done With Saul Goodman Now?
If Gene's heist in Better Call Saul proves one thing, it proves he's still got it. Even with Jeff's skittishness and slipperiness, Gene brings back the Goodman blabbermouth to buy Jeff more time to make his escape before Frank the security guard looks at the cameras. Gene trying on the shirt and tie certainly suggests a sense of longing to invoke Slippin' Jimmy once more, but Bob Odenkirk's drained expression paints more colorful a picture than any of Saul Goodman's shirts. He no longer has the energy to be the "World's Best Lawyer" Saul Goodman - after all, Breaking Bad shows that it caused him nothing but trouble, and even if he may have enjoyed his latest scheme, it is only born out of necessity.
The time in which Gene truly relished a con in Better Call Saul was when he did it with Kim - when he was Jimmy McGill. So while Gene may be finished with Saul Goodman, the possibility remains that he could return to Jimmy McGill, especially if theories of a Kim and Gene reunion are to come true. Gene always wanted to shake off the burden of the McGill name, and when he weaves his sob story to Frank, he pretends to cry about the loss of his parents and his brother Chuck. The one name Gene doesn't utter is Kim's, which demonstrates that the pain of losing her remains too poignant to talk about even after the Better Call Saul time jump. It also implies that Gene still holds onto the hope of finding her again at the end of Better Call Saul, because when he's with her he doesn't have to be Gene Takavic, or Saul Goodman, or even Jimmy McGill - he can just be himself.
New episodes of Better Call Saul air Mondays on AMC.