AMC’s Better Call Saul, the prequel series to Breaking Bad, has seen the return of many influential Breaking Bad characters associated with the criminal lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) and the Juárez Cartel, including the archenemies Gustavo “Gus” Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) and Hector Salamanca (Mark Margolis). Since season 4 began to explore Jimmy McGill’s descent into his criminal alias Saul Goodman, the timelines of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are beginning to align, which presents plenty of opportunities to explore other cameos in season 5.
Season 4 of Better Call Saul follows Jimmy McGill as he navigates his disbarment, develops a burner phone side-business to hold on to his dream of co-owning a law office with Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), and processes the death of his brother Chuck (Michael McKean), with whom he recently had a falling out after Chuck testified against Jimmy during his disbarment hearing. Since season 4 of Better Call Saul ended with an allusion to a forming gang war between the Salamancas and Fring, there is an opening for the series to explore more cameos from characters involved in the Juárez Cartel and the drug empire’s investigation.
The characters who have not yet made a cameo on Better Call Saul but are the most likely to make an appearance in season 5 are the DEA agents who investigated the Juárez Cartel on Breaking Bad, including Walt’s loud-mouth brother-in-law Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) and his DEA partner Steven Gomez (Steven Michael Quezada). In season 4, Fring successfully framed the Espinosa gang for stealing drugs from the Salamancas, which resulted in the gang being wiped out by cousins Leonel (Daniel Moncada) and Marco Salamanca (Luis Moncada). With the recent restructuring of the Juárez Cartel, the DEA is bound to get involved now that Fring has expanded the territory for his drug empire and the Salamanca’s have brought in the loose-canon Lalo (Tony Dalton) to lead the Salamanca’s operations after Don Hector suffered a heart attack.
Since the latest season of Better Call Saul began to explore the origins of Saul Goodman, some of the Breaking Bad characters that were his connections within the criminal underworld could reappear in the prequel series. One of those connections is Ed Galbraith, the fake vacuum salesman and “Disappearer” who procures new identities for criminals who need to skip town. Since Robert Forster, the actor who portrayed Ed, passed away in October 2019, it was announced that he would reprise his role posthumously for season 5 of Better Call Saul, possibly exploring how Saul and Ed first made contact. Patrick Kuby (Bill Burr), one of Saul Goodman’s henchmen from Breaking Bad, may appear in the prequel series as well, especially since his accomplice Huell Babineaux (Lavell Crawford) was recently introduced in season 4.
While Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) are clearly the most important characters from Breaking Bad who have yet to make an appearance in the prequel series, it’s possible, based off of the series’ trajectory, that series creator Vince Gilligan may be saving their return for the sixth and final season of Better Call Saul. While the actor recently made a surprise cameo as Walter White in Netflix’s epilogue film El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, Bryan Cranston has stated before that he’d be willing to appear on Better Call Saul if the protagonist’s return was naturally introduced and avoided coming off as a gimmick. Now that Walt’s brother-in-law Hank Schrader may return to the franchise, he could serve as a natural avenue to introduce the chemistry teacher in passing during his pre-Heisenberg days. Because Better Call Saul season 4 takes place in 2004, four years before the events of Breaking Bad, fans could even receive the added bonus of seeing Jesse Pinkman during his high school days attending Walt’s chemistry class.
While the cameos from major and minor Breaking Bad characters won’t be officially be confirmed until the fifth season of AMC’s Better Call Saul airs on February 23rd, fans will be comforted to know that whichever Breaking Bad characters do not make it onto the screen still have the potential to appear in the final season.
More: Why Better Call Saul Is Ending With Season 6
