“Better Call Saul” is in the middle of a victory lap as it airs its final season on AMC. The “Breaking Bad” spin-off has been building up a solid fanbase throughout its six seasons (via Variety), and with characters dying left and right as the series approaches its endgame, “Better Call Saul” has never felt more unpredictable.
The legal drama follows Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) as he creates and embraces his Saul Goodman alter-ego. Of course, his main line of support throughout the series comes in the form of his fellow lawyer and wife, Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn). However, Jimmy’s influence on the once straight-and-narrow Kim has had repercussions neither one could have predicted.
As the show has gone on, Kim has slowly grown from being the angel on Jimmy’s shoulder to being the devil and egging him on in his cons. While the character once encouraged Jimmy not to cut corners or scam his way to the top, she now actively participates in his schemes and even helps to concoct them herself.
Kim should have warned Jimmy about Lalo
As Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian) was murdered by Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton) in the apartment Jimmy and Kim shared in the shocking finale of Season 6, Part 1, it’s worth looking back at the road that got these characters here. Midway through Season 6, Episode 4 (“Hit and Run”), Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) decides to warn Kim that Lalo is still alive, and that’s why he’s having her followed. While Mike remarks that he came to Kim because she’s “made of sterner stuff” than Jimmy, her decision to keep this information to herself is detrimental to their safety in “Better Call Saul.”
While viewers can naturally infer that Kim kept Lalo’s survival a secret so that the Howard plan would keep going, it also led to his demise. Jimmy is on the cusp of pulling the plug on the plan more than once in Season 6, and had he known their lives were in danger, he definitely would have called it off.
In fact, Jimmy almost binned the plan anyway in Season 6, Episode 6 (“Axe and Grind”) and only kept it going because Kim was so insistent that she canceled her trip to Santa Fe to keep the ruse going. Unfortunately, she’ll have to grapple with her choices regarding the information she had, as Howard wouldn’t have come to their apartment and been murdered by Lalo had they called the plan off earlier.
There’s no time for do-overs on “Better Call Saul,” and the ramifications of Kim and Jimmy’s scamming have brought the chickens home to roost. Now, with the characters in more danger than ever, fans will have to wait and see how things shake out for the pair and what consequences follow Howard’s death in the remainder of the final season.
