Better Call Saul 6.09: Kim Leaves
Jun. 17th, 2025 09:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerEpisode 6.09 of Better Call Saul, "Fun and Games", is not the last episode in the series. There are 4 more after it. But it completes a story arc I've been wondering about since the start of the series: How does Kim's story end?
We've known since the start that Kim's story has got to end somewhere in this series. That's because of what I've repeatedly referred to as The Star Wars: Rogue One Rule. A major character in a prequel who doesn't appear in the original series— Kim is not mentioned at all by name in Breaking Bad— is doomed. The writers had to get rid of her to maintain continuity with the original series.
Midway through the series I wondered if Kim's "doom" would be literal— i.e., that she'd die. That would certainly be a neat way to write her out of the story. It'd also be the kind of tragic turning point that could help motivate Jimmy's transformation from Jimmy the one-time conman who was trying to go straight, to Saul the shady lawyer who'd do anything for a buck. I quickly decided that was an odds-off possibility— i.e., unlikely— because it'd be too tragic. Such a loss could turn Jimmy a lot darker. He'd be not just unmoored without his ride-or-die but angry, vengeful, and quite possibly self-destructive. The Saul we know from Breaking Bad was merely an unethical profiteer, not a tortured soul willing to throw his life away.
Thus what happens in ep 6.09 is basically what I expected: Kim leaves. She tells Jimmy she's divorcing him. But her reasons aren't quite what I expected.
All along I'd basically assumed that it'd be something Jimmy did that prompted Kim to leave. Kim's marriage proposal to Jimmy (ep. 5.06) seemed off enough as it was. I figured Jimmy would do something too beyond the pale for Kim to abide, and/or do something that seriously harmed her blossoming law career, compelling her to leave him in anger and self preservation. Instead Kim tells Jimmy that she's leaving because she doesn't like who she's become.
A really interesting thing in this scene is that Kim becomes the one major character who's seen herself starting to get corrupted and decides to stop. A theme across both series, Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad, has been characters succumbing to corruption. Walter White started out just wanting to make just enough money to pay for his cancer treatment and not leave his family in the poor house. Instead he became addicted to power and killed his way to the top of a drug empire. His wife thought she'd just help hide a bit of money but became deeply involved as an accomplice. Here Jimmy enjoyed running little scams, nicking people for a few hundred dollars here or a thousand there; but with Kim it escalated to destroying a person's career. Jimmy's main misgiving about that seemed to be how Lalo escalated it to murder. Kim is the only person who's said, "What I'm becoming is terrible, and I'm out."
We've known since the start that Kim's story has got to end somewhere in this series. That's because of what I've repeatedly referred to as The Star Wars: Rogue One Rule. A major character in a prequel who doesn't appear in the original series— Kim is not mentioned at all by name in Breaking Bad— is doomed. The writers had to get rid of her to maintain continuity with the original series.
Midway through the series I wondered if Kim's "doom" would be literal— i.e., that she'd die. That would certainly be a neat way to write her out of the story. It'd also be the kind of tragic turning point that could help motivate Jimmy's transformation from Jimmy the one-time conman who was trying to go straight, to Saul the shady lawyer who'd do anything for a buck. I quickly decided that was an odds-off possibility— i.e., unlikely— because it'd be too tragic. Such a loss could turn Jimmy a lot darker. He'd be not just unmoored without his ride-or-die but angry, vengeful, and quite possibly self-destructive. The Saul we know from Breaking Bad was merely an unethical profiteer, not a tortured soul willing to throw his life away.
Thus what happens in ep 6.09 is basically what I expected: Kim leaves. She tells Jimmy she's divorcing him. But her reasons aren't quite what I expected.
All along I'd basically assumed that it'd be something Jimmy did that prompted Kim to leave. Kim's marriage proposal to Jimmy (ep. 5.06) seemed off enough as it was. I figured Jimmy would do something too beyond the pale for Kim to abide, and/or do something that seriously harmed her blossoming law career, compelling her to leave him in anger and self preservation. Instead Kim tells Jimmy that she's leaving because she doesn't like who she's become.
"You asked if you were bad for me. That's not it, we're bad for each other. (...) Jimmy... I have had the time of my life with you. But we are bad for everyone around us. Other people suffer because of us. Apart we're okay, but together we're poison."
―Kim explains why she's leaving Jimmy.
A really interesting thing in this scene is that Kim becomes the one major character who's seen herself starting to get corrupted and decides to stop. A theme across both series, Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad, has been characters succumbing to corruption. Walter White started out just wanting to make just enough money to pay for his cancer treatment and not leave his family in the poor house. Instead he became addicted to power and killed his way to the top of a drug empire. His wife thought she'd just help hide a bit of money but became deeply involved as an accomplice. Here Jimmy enjoyed running little scams, nicking people for a few hundred dollars here or a thousand there; but with Kim it escalated to destroying a person's career. Jimmy's main misgiving about that seemed to be how Lalo escalated it to murder. Kim is the only person who's said, "What I'm becoming is terrible, and I'm out."
