Better Call Saul
Smoke
TV Flash files “Smoke” as the first listed hour of season 4 — Better Call Saul (2015–2022) on AMC, season 4, episode 1, aired 2018-08-06, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S04E01: listed hour 31 of 63 in the Better Call Saul guide, first listed hour of season 4. It aired 2018-08-06 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Lantern” (S03E10). Next is “Breathe” (S04E02).
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Jimmy struggles to cope with Chuck's tragic death; Mike ponders his role at Madrigal; Howard makes a startling confession.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Smoke sit in the Better Call Saul guide?
S04E01 is listed hour 31 of 63 — first listed hour of season 4, season 4 episode 1.
When did Better Call Saul S04E01 air?
Smoke aired 2018-08-06 and is listed at 60 minutes.
Do I have to watch Breaking Bad first?
Recommended, not required. Knowing the destination changes the irony. Starting here is legal; you will just meet some names as strangers that the other show treated as weather.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Watch it for the walk, not the Easter eggs: a hustler becoming a brand, Kim Wexler as the moral engine, and framing so patient it makes combustion look easy. The rare prequel that is a better argument than a warmer catalog title.
Watch the silence after a con. Not the punchline — the parking lot, the overhead, the man who has already started telling himself a story about why this was technically fine. Better Call Saul is a prequel in the way a moral is a prequel to a crime: you already know the destination, so the show is free to care about the walk. Bob Odenkirk's Jimmy McGill does not enter as a bit. He enters as a man whose hustle still thinks it is charm. The series has six seasons to explain, without shouting, how charm becomes a…
Filed against
- Bob Odenkirk as Jimmy McGill / Saul Goodman
Bob Odenkirk turned Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad comic relief into the aching center of Better Call Saul — a prequel that often out-crafted the mothership. Sketch-comedy roots (Mr. Show) fed a transformation into prestige-drama royalty.…
- Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler
Rhea Seehorn’s Kim Wexler is Better Call Saul’s moral engine — not the girlfriend, the argument. Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould built a prequel that cared about the walk; Seehorn made competence look like a question of complicity. TV…
- Jonathan Banks as Mike Ehrmantraut
Jonathan Banks made Mike Ehrmantraut the deadpan professional of the Breaking Bad universe — parking-lot wisdom and quiet ruthlessness across Albuquerque. Better Call Saul deepened the backstory without soft-pedaling the gun. On TV Flash…
- Giancarlo Esposito as Gus Fring
Giancarlo Esposito's Gus Fring made chicken-chain politeness more terrifying than any meth-lab explosion on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Whisper-quiet menace became prestige villain gold across both Albuquerque runs. TV Flash never…
- Michael McKean as Chuck McGill
Michael McKean’s Chuck McGill is Better Call Saul’s brother as law and wound — brilliance with the lights off, a rival who makes Jimmy’s hustle look like a family story. Gilligan and Gould’s Albuquerque coda needed an antagonist who could…
- Patrick Fabian as Howard Hamlin
Patrick Fabian’s Howard Hamlin is Better Call Saul’s polished name on the door — Albuquerque law as a smile, a billboard, and a man the prequel would not let stay a punchline. Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould built moral architecture. TV…