Loretta's Scars

Isn’t that a beautiful way to go out, painlessly as a happy child? Trouble with dying later is you’ve already grown up. The damage is done, it’s too late. 

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But one of the most compelling and complex new characters to be introduced into the ABQ universe has been Kim Wexler, Jimmy’s partner in law and love. Over the course of season three, she’s dealt with the fallout from season two, when Jimmy sabotaged Chuck’s Mesa Verde files on her behalf (without her knowledge). Since then, she’s helped Jimmy defeat Chuck in court, only to find her relationship with Jimmy collapse under the weight of guilt and moral decay.

“Those moments, and the con scene when him and Kim try to re-enact playing around with cons and stuff at the bar and he goes so dark…and it isn’t that he just goes dark, he’s unavailable to Kim in that moment in a way that’s very lonely. It’s sort of like, “Where did you go?” And that scene also broke my heart because Kim, who has extreme trouble showing any vulnerability, it’s a load to ask for help for anything, barely starts to say to her only confidant, “I’m struggling with this, I’m struggling with how I feel about this.” And would she have gone on, I think she would have said, “I just snapped at a client.” Paige, the Mesa Verde client. I think it was abhorrent to Kim for her to lose control like that. But she doesn’t get that far because Jimmy cuts the conversation off. He is not willing to have a conversation about the consequences of actions, about his conscience.

And there’s such deep sadness and tragedy to what that says about him and what that says about us. It was sad. Bob and I called each other and I was like, “Why am I so sad that Saul is arriving, it’s not like I didn’t know that Saul was arriving.” And Bob said the same thing. We’ve come to really love Jimmy and it forever alters how I see Saul. I feel like if I were to re-watch Breaking Bad right now there would be this weird meta thing happening where that show is now informed in a different way because I’m watching this show, and wondering how much of that is a mask. Is there any conscience left in that person? Is he suppressing it, or is he entirely a different person?”

“I thought that the fallout from the trial in the second half of this season has been particularly tragic, because Kim was the one who willingly helped Jimmy with Chuck. Jimmy was kind of trying to keep her at a remove from all that, but then there was that beautiful moment where she grabbed his hand at the end of episode three. And she said, eyes wide open, “I’m going to help you with this, I’m here for you.” And the consequence has been that even though they won the case, they have fallen apart before our eyes, it seems. Is Kim overworking out of guilt, is it as a distraction from her relationship, or is it just so she can control something in her life? I think it’s all of the above.”

“And by the time we get to the penultimate episode that just aired last Monday, in the car crash scene, it’s everything that you said. It’s physical exhaustion, it’s emotional exhaustion, it’s intellectual exhaustion. I imagine she stays up at night not just doing her work, but trying to make sense of how do you keep your head up? What does it mean to be a good person and where does this road lead? And I think that it’s just eating away at her. 

And I liked the idea too that this once was probably a saving grace to her. We don’t know entirely where Kim came from, but you get the idea that when we meet up with her when Better Call Saul starts, she started in the mail room not as an intern out of high school, so she came from somewhere else and desperately needed to believe that if you keep your head down, and just work hard enough you can save yourself. And people just keep poking holes in that.”

“This reminds me of my favorite episode from last season, the “Rebecca” episode, when she says, “You don’t save me, I save me.” It also feels as if this is an area where Kim and Jimmy have a lot of similarities. They both are so hardworking and dedicated to making sure that they are carrying their own weight. And there is a certain amount of pride that comes with that.”