Better Call Saul · A Viewer's Companion
Before Saul Goodman: two brothers at war, the woman who out-conned him, and every last Salamanca.
This is the story of how Jimmy McGill talks himself into becoming somebody else — while three separate worlds tug at his sleeves. Manila borders are the McGills and Kim Wexler, blue is HHM, the respectable law firm, dusty sage is Mike Ehrmantraut's little family, and desert red is the cartel — the same Salamancas, Fring and friends who will torment Walter White a few years later in Breaking Bad.
Spoiler-safe mode is on: death markers, secret-reveal labels and finale outcomes are hidden on this chart and in the notes below. Use the “Spoilers” button in the top bar to show everything again.
Why you need this chart
Half the cast never says their own last name out loud, one man goes by three, and the villains are all related. The essentials:
Chuck vs. Jimmy is the whole show
Chuck is the brilliant McGill — co-founder of HHM, housebound by a mysterious allergy to electricity. Jimmy is the ex-con-artist little brother who fetches his groceries and passes the bar. The gut-punch: Chuck secretly blocked Jimmy's career at HHM all along — “You're not a real lawyer” — and Jimmy's courtroom takedown of him in “Chicanery” destroys them both.
Jimmy → Saul → Gene
All one man. Jimmy McGill is the striving lawyer; Saul Goodman is the garish alter ego he builds; Gene Takavic is the mustached Cinnabon manager in the black-and-white scenes, hiding in Omaha after the events of Breaking Bad. In the finale, Gene is caught — and Jimmy talks an 86-year sentence onto himself, on purpose, to be Jimmy McGill one last time in front of Kim.
A field guide to the Salamancas
Hector is the patriarch — “Tío” to everyone. His nephews: Tuco (the volatile one, season 1), Lalo (the charming one, from season 4), and the silent twins Marco and Leonel. The wheelchair and the bell you remember from Breaking Bad start here: Nacho secretly swaps Hector's heart pills, and the stroke follows in the season 3 finale.
HHM is not Jimmy's firm
Hamlin Hamlin McGill: the Hamlins are Howard and his father; the McGill on the letterhead is Chuck — never Jimmy. Jimmy worked its mailroom; so did Kim, who put herself through law school from it. Howard runs the place, and spends the series paying for the McGill brothers' war.
Kim is not the girlfriend
Kim Wexler is Jimmy's equal and then some — a scholarship kid from Nebraska who loves the law and loves running cons as “Giselle” to Jimmy's “Viktor.” Their scheme against Howard is hers as much as his, and the series' last confession — years later, in Florida — is hers too.
The night everything collides
Mid–season 6: Lalo Salamanca walks into Jimmy and Kim's apartment and shoots Howard Hamlin dead over their heads — the two halves of the show meeting at last. A night later, Gus Fring kills Lalo in the dark of the half-dug superlab. Both bodies share a grave beneath it.
Names people mix up
A show where the aliases have aliases. Keep these straight:
McGill vs. Goodman vs. Takavic
Same man, three eras: Jimmy McGill the striver, Saul Goodman the strip-mall shyster, Gene Takavic the nobody in Omaha. The show runs all three in parallel.
“It wasn't me — it was Ignacio!”
Saul's very first scene in Breaking Bad begs an unseen “Ignacio” and asks “Lalo didn't send you?” This show is the answer: Ignacio is Nacho Varga, and Lalo arrives in season 4.
Hector vs. Tuco vs. Lalo
All Salamancas, in escalating order of scary: Hector the old boss, Tuco the unhinged nephew who opens the series, Lalo the grinning nephew who closes it.
Marco vs. Leonel
The Cousins — identical twin enforcers played by real-life brothers Luis and Daniel Moncada. The show never helps you tell them apart. Don't feel bad.
Mike vs. Matty
Father and son, both Philadelphia cops. Matty is already gone when the show begins — everything Mike does in the desert traces back to him, and to Kaylee.
HHM vs. Davis & Main vs. S&C
The three law firms: HHM is Howard and Chuck's; Davis & Main is the Santa Fe firm that briefly gives Jimmy a cocobolo desk; Schweikart & Cokely is where Kim lands her banking client.
Don Hector, Don Eladio, Don Juan
“Don” is a title, not a name. Eladio owns the pool and the cartel; Juan Bolsa manages the franchise; Hector runs the border territory and answers to both.
Black-and-white ≠ flashback
The monochrome Cinnabon scenes are flash-forwards — Gene in Omaha, after Breaking Bad ends. Everything in color happens years before Walter White ever cooks.
Not family — but always in the room
Huell Babineaux
Saul's featherweight-fingered pickpocket and “security consultant,” on loan from Breaking Bad's future.
Francesca Liddy
The receptionist. Starts sunny at Wexler McGill; watch a decade of Saul Goodman clients grind that smile away.
Werner Ziegler
The gentle German engineer digging Gus's secret basement. His homesickness gets him killed — and Mike is the one made to do it.
Betsy Kettleman
Half of the chipper county-treasurer couple sitting on $1.6 million they absolutely did not embezzle. Jimmy's almost-clients, twice.
Marion
Jeff's mother in Omaha — the sweet scooter lady of the Gene timeline. One Ask Jeeves search from her kitchen ends a decade of hiding.
Chart covers the complete series — all six seasons (2015–2022), including the black-and-white flash-forwards, so spoilers run through the finale. Portraits are stills from the Breaking Bad wiki (the two shows share one universe and one encyclopedia), cropped and served from this site. The other half of the story is charted on the Breaking Bad page.