TV is often only as compelling as it is confounding. Westworld, Game of Thrones, Mr. Robot -- you name the prestige drama and odds are it's willfully disorienting and designed to feed the massive message-board ecosystem that thrives on decoding hidden meanings and de-shelling Easter eggs. None of which does any service for the throngs of viewers watching at face value without signing up for a virtual community of critical sleuths.

Refreshingly, AMC's Better Call Saul (which returns for its fourth season on August 6, at 9pm ET) and its parent series, Breaking Bad, are each minor epics that, necessary flashbacks notwithstanding, chart a very deliberate and mostly linear course. Still, when viewed as being part of a single, larger franchise (which they very much are), BCS and BB attract their own cult of forensic analysts looking for any clues that offer the rush of continuity, a compliment to how successfully series creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould have teased out anticipation for when the two shows overlap.

For a handy reference sheet to how the events of Better Call Saul fit relative to Breaking Bad, we've put together this broad, selective timeline of plot points across the two series (according to the show's real-time perspectives), starting with our introduction to Saul Goodman, aka Jimmy McGill, in the Season 1 premiere, and continuing to our most recent sighting of him as the mustachioed Gene, collapsed on the floor of the Omaha Cinnabon where he works. We'll be sure to fill in any important gaps and ambiguities as Season 4 -- and hopefully subsequent ones -- move forward. Or backward. Or sideways. Whichever.