(Season Five, Episode 1) – Saul tries to quit
As the first episode of the final season, Live Free Or Die sets the tone for the last chapter of the story. Walt has gradually become a deeply intimidating and dangerous character, and Saul has found himself increasingly out of his depth. With the added complication of also representing Walt’s wife, Skyler, in matters that she required him to keep confidential, Saul finds himself literally in a corner.
It is a scene of two halves, played out between the two men, in Sauls’s office. The first half sees Saul verbally tap-dancing around an almost silent Walt – trying to explain to him how it came to pass that Saul gave $622,000 of Walt’s ill-gotten gains to a man that had previously been having an affair with Walt’s wife.
Saul’s level of irritation rises throughout the scene – bubbling over when Walt refers to him as a “two-bit bus bench lawyer,” who works for him. The impact of this, from the audience’s point of view, is huge. By now, we know the warning signs – Walter White has got his Heisenberg face on, and that never ends well for the other converser. At the same time, the implications for their relationship – one of the most beautifully crafted on the show – are irrevocable. These two men have travelled a dangerous road together, and survived it together, but this latest development has all the hallmarks of an insurmountable obstacle. There is an emotional undercurrent that brings with it all the pain and drama from the previous seasons, and it is right there in the room with them.
As Saul continues to verbally boil over – referencing all the ways in which Walt has crossed every moral boundary there is – he declares that their client-attorney relationship is over.
“You and me, we’re done.”
Walter White rises from his chair, stalks round Saul’s desk, slings his office chair out of the way and backs the lawyer up against one of his faux-pillars. Getting right in his face, Saul cannot make eye contact and looks down and to the side – thoroughly intimidated. Walter growls at him slowly and deliberately.
“We’re done when I say we’re done.”
