Despite the tremendous critical success of Vince Gilligan's dark drama Breaking Bad, few would've guessed as much for the subsequent prequel series Better Call Saul. The sleazy criminal lawyer, Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), was little more than comic relief during his run as a side character on Breaking Bad. But the slow-burning development of Better Call Saul over the first five seasons has turned it into a beloved success story of its own.
A big part of that success is that, while Better Call Saul is ultimately a show about Jimmy McGill becoming Saul Goodman, the more compelling plot development surrounds his partner, Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn). Despite the exceptional acting from Odenkirk and several other key characters in the series, the most fascinating aspect of this Saul Goodman TV show has been Kim's “breaking bad” origin story.
Given her absence during the entirety of Breaking Bad, her fate at the conclusion of Better Call Saul has long been a hot topic of debate. Many have assumed that she, like Jimmy's fuss-budget brother Chuck McGill (Michael McKean), would be another unfortunate victim left in his wake by the time Goodman first appears in Breaking Bad. Regardless of how her story concludes, Kim has evolved beyond her early role as an innocent bystander in Jimmy's schemes.
Better Call Saul frequently reminds the audience that Jimmy has always been “Saul Goodman” at heart, going back to him stealing out of the register at his parents' store as a child — but Kim is the one who helps Jimmy refine the edges of his alter-ego. When the series begins, Jimmy is a try-hard attorney working out of the back room of a nail salon. He even does a fake British accent on the phone to convince prospective clients he has a secretary. The backstory we're provided is that he worked his way up from the mailroom alongside Kim at HHM, the law firm run by Chuck and the egocentric Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian). It's during his days at HHM when Jimmy earned his law degree in secret, also earning the endearing nickname “Charlie Hustle.”
At this point in the story, it's hard to put a finger on Jimmy and Kim's relationship. They clearly have some sort of history, as anyone willing to share a cigarette with another person would attest. But they don't live together, and they don't go on dates. Kim is non-committal, at best, on the status of their relationship. However, that changes as the series progresses.
In the Season 2 premiere, “Switch,” Kim pleads with Jimmy to reconsider an offer to work at the prestigious law firm, Davis & Main. Her argument falls on deaf ears with Jimmy, who instead convinces her to sit and have a drink with him at a hotel bar. It's there where we first meet Ken (Kyle Bornheimer), the stockbroker bro who some years later would annoy Walter White (Bryan Cranston) enough to get his car torched.
As "Viktor" and "Giselle," Jimmy and Kim work a con together for the first time, duping the unwitting Ken into buying a $500 bottle of tequila. Kim saves the brass topper from the bottle as a souvenir from the occasion, which brings out an entirely new, previously-unseen side to her. She and Jimmy spend the night together, which is their first instance of primal intimacy — at least, to the viewer's knowledge. In short, running a con with Jimmy really turned Kim on.
Gradually, over the next several seasons Kim continues to cozy up to Jimmy, despite all the big red flags. She knows about Jimmy performing illegal solicitation on the Sandpiper case, yet she's less concerned about the legality than how it could potentially blow back on her. Despite being angry about Jimmy sabotaging Chuck to help her retain the client Mesa Verde, she continues to enable him by playing a key role in helping publicly humiliate Chuck in Season 3's “Chicanery.” It doesn't matter that Jimmy had, in fact, swapped the addresses on documents, as Chuck had attempted to prove. Really, is there a limit to what Jimmy could do without alienating Kim? The more trouble he gets into, the more she puts the blinders up and continues to enable him — sometimes for her own personal benefit.
In “Wiedersehen,” they pull a fast one on a sweet old bureaucrat in Texas to switch out approved plans for a new, Mesa Verde bank branch for plans with different dimensions. Not only is this dangerous to Kim's career and reputation as a lawyer, but Jimmy was nearly done with his one-year hiatus from practicing law. Her stunt could've cost him his career, had they been caught. And what good, right-minded attorney risks losing everything over a new bank branch?
In “Wexler v. Goodman,” she conspires with Jimmy – now practicing law as Saul Goodman – to pull a fast one on Mesa Verde and force a settlement with a pesky property owner. Forget the ethical concerns about what they did for a moment. It's worth asking once more: what good lawyer even considers ruining their career over property rights for building a bank branch? Kim completes her transformation in the penultimate and final episodes of Season 5. She saves Jimmy's life by standing up to Lalo Salamanca, who had come into their home intending to kill him. Then, when confronted by Howard with serious accusations about Jimmy's behavior, she immediately writes it off as Hamlin's ego. Not even the slightest consideration to the idea that sending prostitutes over to his table at lunch sounds a lot like something Saul Goodman would do.
After the two have a good time joking about ways they could get under Howard's skin, Kim and Jimmy end up naked under the sheets together. In this intimate setting, she proposes her most absurd idea yet: What if Howard does something terrible? Meaning, what if they framed Hamlin for something bad enough to force the Sandpiper case to settle, bringing Jimmy over $2 million in the process? Even Jimmy seems appalled that she would entertain the idea. He's all about throwing bowling balls at Howard's car, but ruining his career? It's a bridge too far, even for Jimmy. But Kim flashes him the mischievous finger guns, mirroring his victorious “s'all good, man” from the Season 4 finale.
How the final season will wrap up their story is anyone's guess, but it's clear that Kim Wexler won't go down as just another sucker for Saul Goodman. She is already far more involved in the dark dealings of the drug trade in New Mexico than anyone would've imagined at the beginning of the series, which speaks to the true brilliance of Better Call Saul. It's less about Jimmy McGill going down the wrong path than it is about how Kim willingly held his hand and walked there with him.