Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
Jimmy McGill scrapes together a living in Albuquerque as a public defender, working from a nail salon’s back room while his older brother Chuck, a celebrated lawyer, stays home with an illness he believes electricity causes. A botched attempt to sign the wealthy Kettleman family as clients pulls Jimmy into the orbit of Tuco Salamanca and Nacho Varga. He talks Tuco out of killing two skateboarders, then helps Nacho after the Kettlemans disappear, discovering that the family has staged its own kidnapping to protect Craig Kettleman’s embezzled money.
Jimmy’s hustles bring clients and attention, but they strain his relationship with Kim Wexler, a fellow lawyer at Chuck’s firm, HHM. He resists the Kettlemans’ attempt to buy his silence and helps Kim secure a plea deal for Craig, while Mike Ehrmantraut’s parallel story reveals why he left the Philadelphia police: his son Matty was killed after Mike encouraged him to take bribes, and Mike later killed the two corrupt officers responsible. Meanwhile, Jimmy’s work for elderly clients uncovers Sandpiper Crossing’s systematic overcharging. Chuck helps him build the case, then insists it is too large for them and transfers it to HHM.
Jimmy expects the Sandpiper discovery to earn him a place at HHM, but Howard Hamlin refuses to hire him. Chuck privately admits he was the one who blocked Jimmy’s job, believing his brother’s shortcuts make him unfit to practice law. Hurt, Jimmy leaves Albuquerque for Chicago and reunites with his old partner Marco for a string of cons. Marco dies during their final Rolex scam. Jimmy returns to New Mexico and turns away from the straightforward career he had briefly imagined, leaving the season with his legal ambition intact but his trust in Chuck badly damaged.