#bcs s1

KIM WEXLER

'Upon this rock, I will build my church.' Do you think he's looking back, and realising how right that was? About how his success was defined by, and built from, from the very beginning, duplicity and fraud? About how he was doomed from that moment? His foray into the wilderness that night, and, as far as he was concerned, his death by exposure out in the desert that day? Both with a huge bag of money? It would be impossible for him not to see the parallels there. He's come full circle. Maybe Lalo was the beginning of the end - or maybe the end has been waiting for him from the very, very beginning.

Sure, he had so many other choices along the way, but that was the turning point, really. That moment when he decided to take their bribe, when he lied to himself that it was justified, that he could take a 'retainer' instead. That it wasn't a crime, not really, if he could talk his way out of it. And that's what's made him such a great lawyer, over the years - 'I believe that, until proven guilty, every man, woman and child in this country is innocent.' - he can talk his clients out of anything. And if he can talk his clients out of anything, he can talk himself into anything. It's no surprise that he represents himself in court every time we see him on the other side of the bench - he's always been his own client, justifying his actions to a jury of one. He plays his own judge, his own jury, and, in the end, his own executioner. A man who represents himself in court has a fool for a lawyer. He doesn't know how to play anything but the fool. Half idiot, half crook.

And in the end, he went back to the Kettlemans. They were one of the key pieces of evidence in his and Kim's case against Howard, which lead to Howard's death, and Kim's exit, and the emergence of the Saul Goodman character we see in Breaking Bad.

Do you think that's what he was thinking when he asked Walter White that same question, years later? What was your bribe, huh? What did you trick yourself into believing was right, was just? What do you regret? And Walter sees right through him. Sees his regret, in his story about the slip 'n' fall. This is where he was always going to end up. This is who he's always been - and, ironically, it has always been his desperation to prove everyone wrong about him (with Detectives Dunst and Russo, leading to him tracking down the Kettlemans; with Chuck, leading to his entire career; again, and again, with Kim, Howard, Nacho, everyone), that lead to him proving them all right. 'So... You were always like this?'

For Walter, it was Grey Matter; for Mike, it was a bribe; for Jimmy, it was the Kettlemans. Everyone's got something they regret, the thing that got them in the Game.