Yahoo News 6 ways Walt and Jesse could appear in Better Call Saul
Ever since Better Call Saul premiered, fans have been calling for cameos from Breaking Bad's Walter White and Jesse Pinkman.
Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul are both up for reprising their iconic roles and creator Vince Gilligan has recently said he's "desperately" trying to get the two characters on the prequel show. "I would suspect... we would be sorely remiss if these characters didn't appear on the show before it ended," he later added, confirming that they won't be in season four.
However, there is one massive hurdle to get over if the cameos were ever to happen and it's all to do with continuity.
In Breaking Bad, the first time either Walt or Jesse meet Saul is after Badger is arrested for dealing drugs. After Saul offers his services to Badger, Walter and Jesse go to Saul's office to persuade him that Badger shouldn't give up Heisenberg's identity to the DEA and – following a failed kidnapping to intimidate Saul – the three of them go into business to lead the DEA away from the real Heisenberg.
So it just won't make sense if Jimmy McGill has any significant interaction with either Walt or Jesse (one of Jesse's friends knew Saul, but not Jesse) – but that doesn't completely rule out a cameo from the duo in Better Call Saul.
How, you ask? Let us outline every way the pair could (legitimately) appear in the prequel.
1. Walt's not dead (yet)
Each season of Better Call Saul has started with a flash-forward to Saul's post-Breaking Bad life as Cinnabon manager Gene Takavic – but maybe the scenes aren't set as far in the future as we think.
"Do we even know in our Omaha sequences, our Gene sequences... I mean, has it [Walt's death] happened yet?," Gilligan recently teased, with Better Call Saul co-creator Peter Gould adding: "We haven't defined that. We haven't said how long Gene has been in Omaha."
The last time we saw Saul in Breaking Bad was in the penultimate episode when he was waiting with Walt to start his new life. Saul went off to Nebraska, while we followed Walt as he hid out in New Hampshire before a time jump of a few months. So there is a chance that Better Call Saul could feature a scene set during this time jump (before Walt rescued Jesse and killed a bunch of neo-Nazis), where Walt talks to Saul.
However, while the setting for the Gene sequences hasn't been confirmed, it's hard to believe that only a few months have gone by, given how much older Saul looks.
That doesn't rule it out, of course, but it's hard to see what could be gained from a scene set during this time jump. Unless it's shown that Walt and Saul unexpectedly bonded over their enforced disappearances, with the two helping each other through the difficult days.
But Walt isn't the only one who could meet Gene...
2. Jesse meets Gene
After Jesse escaped from the neo-Nazis, Gilligan noted that he could have run into "police right around the next corner", but he hopes that the future was brighter for everyone's favourite reformed drug addict.
"I personally would like to think he got away, because he paid his dues tenfold," he told Digital Spy and other press. "I don't really know in terms of what he should be doing as a career. I just hope he would get away, and meet somebody nice, and not be a criminal anymore and not face those horrors that he faced."
So it's feasible that Gene and Jesse could cross paths during the Better Call Saul flash-forwards if either of them decide to seek the other out. It would be a nice way to reassure fans that Jesse is now doing better.
It could even serve as a nice finale to the prequel show with Saul and Jesse reunited. (Cue second spin-off show.)
3. Gray Matter lawsuit
As we know from Breaking Bad, Walt co-founded Gray Matter Technologies with his friend Elliott Schwartz, but after splitting up with lab assistant Gretchen, he decided to leave the company behind, selling his share of the company for only $5,000.
The company went on to be worth more than two billion dollars, Elliott married Gretchen and Walt was bitter about the whole thing, believing that his work was stolen from him. So, what if in Better Call Saul, we see Walt decide to file a lawsuit against Gray Matter, maybe going to either Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill or Wexler McGill for it? Similarly, Gray Matter could hire either of the two to fight their case, coming into contact with Walt that way.
With Jimmy currently out of the law game, this storyline could happen independently of him and he wouldn't meet Walt. It could be explained away that Walt never mentioned the lawsuit in Breaking Bad because he lost the case and his pride means he wouldn't talk about it. It's also not impossible that the storyline would have an effect on Jimmy's, even if he's not working for the law firms any more.
This option would be a bit unsatisfying for fans if Jimmy doesn't ever meet Walt, but at least it retains the show's continuity.
4. Doing an Alfred Hitchcock
The easiest option for an appearance from Walt and Jesse in Better Call Saul is a background cameo where they're seen briefly in one scene, much like Alfred Hitchcock used to do in most of his movies.
Both shows are set in Albuquerque, so it's possible that Jimmy and either Walt or Jesse could be in the same place, say a supermarket, at the same time. This would be little more than fan service, but has the potential to be fun and could be a bit more significant than a background appearance, according to Cranston.
"We've come to know people who we've seen before but we don't know that we've seen them before, because we were in the store and we just passed by them. Or we might even have a word or two – 'Oh no, please go ahead', 'Thank you for holding the door'. And then five years later, you would never remember that," he outlined.
"So something as minuscule as that could be very interesting in the fabric of the whole thing. We have those kind of encounters every day, and I think that would be fun for the audience - and the most honest."
It doesn't sound like Gilligan would want Walt and Jesse's eventual appearances in Better Call Saul to be a small thing though. "It wouldn't feel as satisfying if it was just a cameo or an Alfred Hitchcock walkthrough," he noted.
"I think we've waited long enough. We damn well better have a good reason for them to show up. I just hope we figure it out because I've got to hear, 'Yeah, bitch!' one more time."
5. Hank vs Saul
Like with the Gray Matter storyline, there's a way for Walt to be indirectly involved with Saul and never meet.
Enter Walt's brother-in-law Hank Schrader. Gilligan has been teasing that the first time we saw Saul in Breaking Bad, it appeared as those he had previous experience with Hank. "These guys seem to have a healthy dislike for each other the first time they're on camera together," he noted.
Bob Odenkirk added: "Something bad happened. Maybe we'll find out what it is."
So it could be that Hank and Saul find themselves on opposing sides in a case and the show features scenes where Hank is moaning about a dodgy lawyer to Walt, Skyler and Marie during a family dinner.
6. Walt's ALIVE
Technically, this could happen and Walt was successfully saved by the police in the Breaking Bad finale, but just imagine how frustrating this would be for Walt to suddenly rock up in Omaha and meet Gene.
Better Call Saul airs on AMC in the US and Netflix in the UK.
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