The Most Pause-Worthy Kim Moment In Better Call Saul
AMC's "Better Call Saul" might not be the successful legal drama and "Breaking Bad" spin-off series it is today if it were not for the creation of Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn). Kim, one of the few characters created solely for "Better Call Saul," does not appear in Vince Gilligan's original Albuquerque-set crime series but takes her place beside Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) as his close friend, wife, and occasional partner-in-crime during his journey from hardworking young public defender to criminal lawyer Saul Goodman. Kim has come a long way as a character since Vince Gilligan, Peter Gould, and the show's writing team first wrote her for the series' debut season. Gilligan told Vulture in 2020 that they had little idea of what they wanted to do with Kim long-term when they introduced her as a vague love interest for Jimmy in Season 1.
Kim is introduced to audiences in "Uno," the "Better Call Saul" series premiere, where she and Jimmy smoke a cigarette together shortly after his frustrating meeting with Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill. As Vulture's 2020 feature points out, Seehorn expertly uses this simple scene to establish Kim as a character who intimately cares for Jimmy, helps him clean up his problems, but refuses to let his messy life get in the way of her squeaky-clean legal career. This sets the foundation for the character's arc through the series: Kim tries to pave herself a successful legal career in Albuquerque while balancing a romantic relationship with the less-than-ethical Jimmy, and even she can't stave off his worse impulses for long.
Kim's first taste of pulling a con betrays her legal and ethical codes
The most pause-worthy Kim Wexler moment on "Better Call Saul" to date comes when her professional demeanor cracks for the first time in the Season 2 premiere, "Switch." She tracks Jimmy down at a hotel bar to try to convince him to continue working as a lawyer, but instead, he reels Kim into one of his cons. The pair pull an unwitting stockbroker at the hotel into paying for a ludicrously expensive bottle of tequila with incredibly detailed lies. Kim is initially reluctant, but she clearly gets a thrill out of running the con; she kisses Jimmy afterward and spends the night with him, a sign of her evolving feelings. She even admits it would be fun to perform similar schemes with Jimmy before diving back into her work as a lawyer at HHM.
"[Kim] keeps trying to get out of it," Seehorn told Vulture in 2020 about the scene. "And then, once she participates, she doesn't just participate — she excels at it."
This scene sets Kim's character up for a continuing battle between staying ethical as a lawyer and the pure joy she gets out of helping Jimmy pull off these scams. As Jimmy delves further and further into blending his knack for scams with his legal career, she finds herself blurring the same lines as their relationship grows. Gilligan told Vulture that the "inherent drama" surrounding the duo lies in the fact that Kim's influence does not make Jimmy a better person, but Jimmy's influence on Kim is "unlocking things in her that potentially make her worse."