‘Better Call Saul’ Stars on End of Jimmy & Kim’s Love Story
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 6, Episode 13 of Better Call Saul, “Saul Gone.”]
Better Call Saul has closed the long-open door to AMC‘s Breaking Bad Universe, and it didn’t shut with a deafening din but instead with a hopeful silence for Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) and Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn).
Ultimately, everyone’s favorite criminal lawyer couldn’t evade the law forever as he was caught in an Omaha dumpster by authorities following Marion’s (Carol Burnett) Life Alert call. While it appeared that Jimmy was going to pull off the deal of all deals in a guilty plea to his mountain of criminal charges, he shocked everyone in the Albuquerque courtroom as he went on to confess his guilt in collaborating with Walter White (Bryan Cranston). He also expressed remorse for Howard Hamlin’s (Patrick Fabian) death and his brother Chuck’s (Michael McKean) demise.
Jimmy’s stunt destroyed the carefully crafted deal, putting him behind bars for 86 years as his sentence is revealed in a conversation between him and Kim when she comes to visit him in prison. While in the courtroom, Jimmy made it clear that he had lied about certain things so that Kim would be there to hear everything.
(Credit: Greg Lewis/AMC/Sony Pictures Television)
And while the finale concludes with her walking out of the prison yard as he shoots her finger guns from behind the chainlink fence, there’s both heartbreak and hope in the air as they let go of their trauma and baggage in this final chapter. The question is, is Better Call Saul a redemption story for Jimmy McGill, or is it the love story of Jimmy and Kim Wexler?
“I think it’s both,” Seehorn tells TV Insider during the show’s series finale press conference. Her costar and onscreen love echoes her sentiment as Odenkirk adds, “I’m going to say both as well.” As the actor describes it, the two ideas are slightly dependent on each other.
“It’s that thing of getting past all your illusions or ways in which you’re hiding,” Odenkirk muses. “It allows you to feel and share your love the most. And so these two people really let everything drop away, all the ways in which they were trying to avoid the consequences of what they’d done. And they just honestly presented themselves to the world.”
(Credit: Greg Lewis/AMC/Sony Pictures Television)
While Jimmy’s moment of honesty came in the courtroom, Kim’s came in the penultimate episode when she visited Howard’s widow Cheryl (Sandrine Holt) to confess her involvement in the innocent lawyer’s death. “In doing so,” Odenkirk says of coming clean, “They’re able to really share their time here on Earth and really get to fully be with each other… so in other words, I think it’s both, and I think the redemption comes first.”
While this might be happening behind bars, Odenkirk acknowledges that at this point in the story Jimmy and Kim are “really able to look each other in the eye and know that they shared their experience on planet Earth together in a full way. It makes their love more meaningful and more full.”
Seehorn agrees, adding, “Yeah, letting go of your upbringing and the baggage that you bring into a relationship, to be a more authentic you, and to make decisions based in the present… is where they are truly existing in the last scene, I think.”
For showrunner and co-creator Peter Gould, he points out that Jimmy and Kim’s love story hasn’t always been a smooth one, and sometimes love isn’t enough. “Love is interesting because love is one of the strongest human forces,” Gould says. “And I think you see two people who I think they’ve always loved each other, but love isn’t always the answer. And I think maybe that’s the thing that Kim says in Episode 9. He says, ‘But I love you,’ and it’s the first time he’s ever said that. And she says, ‘I love you too, but so what?'”
“And so love is central to our souls and to our beings, but it’s like any other volcanic force. It can be used for good or for bad.” While Gould agrees with Odenkirk and Seehorn about the love story element, he’s not as sure about Jimmy being a redemptive character by the end. “I don’t know if he’s redeemable,” Gould admits. “It’s hard to think that he could make up for what the things he’s been part of. I don’t think he really can. That’s the time machine part of it. But he’s got his soul back. And Kim has her agency back. And that’s pretty cool.”
While Jimmy and Kim may be separated by prison bars, one thing is clear by the end and it’s that they’ll always be connected.
Better Call Saul, Streaming now, AMC+ and Netflix
