Better Call Saul’s Final Season “Likely” To Broadcast Early 2022

AMC Networks chief operating officer Ed Carroll announced on an earnings call that the sixth and final season of the Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul is “likely” to return in 2022. According to The Hollywood Reporter, this information was mentioned in passing while discussing other network business–though it is no small bit of intel.

Season 5 of Better Call Saul aired its finale in April 2020, which at a glance even folks who aren’t fans can deduce meant the series was heading immediately into delays due to COVID-19. In a Deadline virtual event taking place in August of that year, series co-creator Peter Gould shared, “We were hoping to go into production by the end of the year. It doesn’t seem likely that it’s going to happen with the situation that we are in.”

Even if the coronavirus pandemic hadn’t broken out, it was entirely possible for Better Call Saul would have followed its predecessor Breaking Bad’s trajectory in tackling its final season. Season 5 of Breaking Bad was split into two parts, each consisting of eight episodes–the first eight premiered in July 2012, and the second premiered in August 2013. As Gould and his co-creator partner Vince Gilligan have remarked many times on both series’ companion podcasts, the most important resource on their shows isn’t money, it’s time. But ultimately, delays hopefully mean a better product in the end.

Better Call Saul star Bob Odenkirk, meanwhile, has an upcoming action movie, Nobody. As with Better Call Saul, this film has endured many delays. Nobody’s current, fourth, and recently announced release date is March 26.