Better Call Saul‘s best final season cameo wasn’t Bryan Cranston’s Walter White, or even Aaron Paul’s Jesse Pinkman – that honor belongs to Betsy Brandt’s Marie Schrader. Better Call Saul could hardly have handled Walt and Jesse’s long-awaited returns better. Breaking Bad‘s iconic odd couple feature in three scenes across Better Call Saul‘s last episodes – one together during Breaking Bad season 2’s desert kidnap, one with Jesse before Breaking Bad, and one with just Walt set during Breaking Bad season 5’s “Granite State.” All three are poetic in their relevance to Jimmy McGill’s ending, and add a sense of occasion to his closing chapter without wallowing in nostalgia.
But the Breaking Bad reunion doesn’t stop there. Better Call Saul‘s series finale (“Saul Gone”) brings back Betsy Brandt as Marie Schrader. Fighting for closure after her husband’s murder, Marie wants Jimmy McGill to spend the rest of his days behind bars. Everyone else involved in the operation behind Hank Schrader’s death is either dead themselves or missing without a trace, so the disgraced attorney represents Marie’s best shot at justice. Jimmy callously insults Marie during his sentencing negotiation, but she later returns during Better Call Saul‘s courtroom climax, and watches as Heisenberg’s lawyer talks his way into a life sentence.
Though maybe not as “blockbuster” as Walter White and Jesse Pinkman, Marie Schrader actually gets the best cameo in Better Call Saul season 6 – and the element of surprise is a big reason why. Not only were Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul’s cameos confirmed before Better Call Saul‘s final season even began, Cranston also revealed precisely how many scenes they filmed. Walt and Jesse’s Better Call Saul cameos were great…but imagine how much better they’d have been if the audience hadn’t known they were coming. Announcing Cranston and Paul ahead of time might’ve helped Better Call Saul‘s marketing campaign, but the audience’s foreknowledge dulled the impact… if only by a little. When Marie Schrader first appears in Better Call Saul, however, audiences get the jolting split-second blend of excitement and shock that any good cameo should elicit.
Better Call Saul Season 6 Finishes Marie Schrader’s Story Perfectly
Surprising viewers isn’t the only reason Marie Schrader’s cameo comes up trumps. Just as Breaking Bad‘s final episode perfectly concluded the ballad of Walter White, 2019’s El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie brought Jesse Pinkman’s story to a poignant and complete end. From that point onward, nothing more needed to be said for either member of the infamous RV cooking duo, so while Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul’s Better Call Saul cameos may affect Jimmy McGill, none of the new scenes meaningfully change Walt and Jesse’s own arcs. Their stories had already been finished and perfected long before Better Call Saul season 6 came along.
The same can’t be said for Marie Schrader. The last episodes of Breaking Bad show Betsy Brandt’s character distraught upon learning her husband has been killed by Heisenberg’s associates. “Felina” then skips ahead a few months, and the widow is warning her sister that Walter White is back in New Mexico. That’s how Marie’s Breaking Bad journey originally concluded – a fearful widow, paralyzed by tragedy.
Better Call Saul season 6 completely changes how Marie’s story ends. She’s doggedly pursuing justice on behalf of Hank and Gomez, her grief now transformed into a steely determination. Having been denied a crack at Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, and Nazi Jack, Marie stares into the eyes of Saul Goodman and demands payment for her husband’s death. When Jimmy McGill blows the dust off his conscience in court, Marie finally gets her wish. Betsy Brandt’s Better Call Saul cameo is almost like Marie’s epilogue, bringing her story (and, as a consequence, Hank’s story) a sense of closure and justice that Breaking Bad didn’t have time for. No other cameo in Better Call Saul season 6 improves Breaking Bad quite as much as Marie Schrader’s.
