Between criminals in Saul's Rolodex, the real hero of Breaking Bad, and Heisenberg himself, Better Call Saul's cameos were more than just fan service.

Better Call Saul has become one of the greatest prequels ever, whether it's TV, movies, or anything else, but now the finale had a definitive end to Jimmy/Saul/Gene's story, and it's an end of an era. It's unlikely that they'll be any more Breaking Bad-adjacent shows or movies, at least in the foreseeable future, but the prequel/spin-off at least brought back a lot of Breaking Bad characters to soften the blow.

Whether it was before the events of Breaking Bad or in a depressing post-Heisenberg Alburquerque, so many fan-favorite characters showed up, and sometimes more than once. Between several criminals in Saul's Rolodex, the real hero of Breaking Bad, and Heisenberg himself, Better Call Saul's cameos were more than just fan service.

Every character is so fleshed out in the Breaking Bad universe, and there are only a handful of characters who weren't given a second name. One of those characters is the arms dealer Lawson. But that surely isn't because the writers had no interest in making him as three-dimensional as other characters.

Lawson is always elusive and careful about who he conducts business with, and that might be why he's one of the few characters who Mike has shown respect. Lawson had two brief scenes in Better Call Saul in season 2, and he's speaking with Mike about rifles in both of them. What makes it so interesting is that it's oddly professional and courteous, despite one of them being a sketchy arms dealer and the other being an assassin and fixer.

If it weren't for his shocking death in the appropriately titled "Boxcutter," which kicks off season 4 of Breaking Bad, fans probably wouldn't remember Victor, as he was just another one of Gus' minions. However, he left an impression on viewers after he watched Walter and learned how to cook the blue stuff.

The henchman returns in Better Call Saul not just once but a few times, and it's interesting watching him on screen, knowing his brutal end. And as he's just as much of a jerk as ever, it only makes that scene in "boxcutter" even more of a payoff. Victor isn't the only familiar face in Gustavo's crew either, as Tyrus Kitt appears a couple of times in the later seasons of the prequel series too.

Like Victor, Lydia's death in Breaking Bad wasn't exactly one that fans grieved, as she had it coming for a long time. She was responsible for so many deaths, but was never willing to do it herself, showed absolutely no remorse, and was more coldhearted than even Walter. Lydia is one of the most hated supporting characters of the franchise, but she's still so much fun to watch.

It's almost comical in the way that she gives Mike a job at a Madrigal Warehouse, and she was possibly even more excessively orderly and fussy back then than she was in Breaking Bad. However, once again, it would have been interesting to see even more of her and how she got into the game, as she's vastly intelligent and obviously had a great education, but it isn't clear how she became involved in a billion-dollar criminal organization.

Ira's role in Better Call Saul is so subtle that fans might miss the connection to Breaking Bad. In the original series, Ira is a professional burglar and proprietor of Vamonos Pest, and in Better Call Saul, viewers are shown how Saul was able to put the criminal and Heisenberg in touch in the first place.

Saul hires the thief to steal a pricey ornament and then sell it at an auction, splitting the profits. And, as it turns out, there is honor among thieves, as Ira was honest about telling Saul that the ornament went for thousands more than expected and started a bidding war. It's a great example of BCS telling an isolated story but also cleverly explaining a future Breaking Bad relationship.

It's fascinating rewatching the first episode of Breaking Bad after viewers know everything that follows. When it first aired, audiences didn't think it could get much worse than Krazy-8, who was training his dog to take down intruders. He seemed evil and willing to kill Walter White with a broken piece of a porcelain plate. But, interestingly enough, after seeing sadistic villains like Gustavo Fring and Uncle Jack, Krazy-8 was never a threat to begin with.

That's no more true than in Better Call Saul, as he clearly lives in fear of the Salamancas. Seeing the character with his tail between his legs is refreshing, and it's a testament to how three-dimensional even the smallest characters are, as it leads to viewers questioning why he turned to drug dealing in the first place.

While Huell became as much of a regular character in Better Call Saul as he was in Breaking Bad, his first appearance was one of the most fun and surprising cameos in the show. It was one of the earliest examples outside of Gus and Mike where Jimmy was building his Rolodex of sketchy criminals-for-hire, as he hires Huell to plant a cell phone on Chuck.

On top of that, though fans didn't see Huell in the post-Breaking Bad days, it's revealed that he went back home to New Orleans, killing the biggest Breaking Bad meme. But while viewers saw Huell in all his glory, his partner in crime, Kuby, was nowhere to be found, and that leaves a gaping hole in Saul's background as to how he came into the fold and got on the payroll.

The writers knew they had to have some big surprises in the very first episode of Better Call Saul, as fans were expecting something, but they also knew that they couldn't go all in with Jesse or Walt. They had to find a good middle ground that got fans excited and surprised them. It had to make sense in terms of the narrative too.

That's no easy feat, but they pulled it off perfectly by introducing Tuco Salamanca. The character is typically violent and has a short temper, just like he did in Breaking Bad, as he was willing to murder Saul out in the desert at the drop of a hat. But the show ingeniously played into his hotheaded personality, as his low-key iconic pistol was comically big.

The last time viewers saw Hank, he didn't even get to finish his sentence before he was shot dead. It was such a disservice to the character, as he was the hero of the series and the only character who had a consistent moral compass to the very end. And because fans loved Hank, it made audiences hate his killer, Jack Welker, even more than they could have imagined. If anything, Hank's cameo appearances in Better Call Saul are great because that means his brutal murder wasn't the last thing audiences saw of him.

And along with Hank was his trusty sidekick, Steven Gomez. What made the appearances so fun is that they confirmed how close of a bond the two partners have clearly had for years. They were no different than they were in Breaking Bad season 1, which was no different from how they were in Breaking Bad season 5.

Fans were waiting for a lot of big cameos in the final episode, and it completely delivered. But there was one cameo that wasn't expected but managed to be the greatest part of the entire finale. The camera focuses on a female character with her back turned to it, only for her to turn around when Gene walks passed her and reveals herself to be Marie.

Marie gives an impassioned speech to Gene/Saul about how he's responsible for Hank's death. It was a fierce side of Marie that fans haven't seen all that often, and it was one of the best performances of the entire series. On top of that, as Marie has some great one-liners, another one can be added to the list, as she tells Saul, "I heard they found you in a dumpster... that makes sense." However, the speech was unfortunately undermined by Saul when he laid out how he plans to pretend to be a victim of Walter White too, and it was the only part of the finale that didn't sit right.

Walt and Jesse showing up at some point in Better Call Saul were like Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire's inevitable appearances in Spider-Man: No Way Home; it was the worst kept secret ever. However, even though everyone knew it was coming (the episode is even called "Breaking Bad,") it was no less exciting.

All three scenes that the two characters feature in add a new dimension to Breaking Bad and force viewers to look at the situation through a different lens. Whether it's when they kidnap Saul, Jesse's conversation with Kim, or Walt's argument with Saul in the vacuum repair store, they aren't simply pieces of fan service, even though they seem like it on the face of things.

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Currently residing in Madrid, Stephen Barker has been a staff writer at Screen Rant since 2020. Since graduating from Manchester Metropolitan University with a bachelor's degree in Film, Television, and Cultural Studies in 2014, he has written for numerous movie and music websites. Stephen has been obsessed with movies since he first watched Jurassic Park on VHS, and with a deep interest in screenwriting, he loves 70s character-driven movies. But he's just as much of a defender of Batman & Robin, The Fast and the Furious, and Small Soldiers. Visit Stephen’s personal blog, Quaranste, where he writes about guilty pleasure movies, his latest musical discoveries, and how he stays creative during global pandemics, or contact him directly: Quaranstine@gmail.com.