When it happened in Breaking Bad, it struck me as odd. Like, why did he feel the need to go into hiding? If I recall, it had'n t even broken that two DEA agents were dead. And if it was, Saul was ostensibly still just Walt's lawyer. It never made sense to me that he felt the need to go on the lam. The only reason the scene seemed to exist was to give him and Walter one last interaction and show how sick Walt was.

Which is my way of wondering if they aren't trying to retcon why Saul ends up as Gene from Cinnabon. Like, if he really did end up stealing from the cartel (hence, the diamond stash in the first episode of this season) and there was something going on in the "off-screen" during that final Breaking Bad season that led him to order a Hoover MaxExtract PressurePro model 60.