Better Call Saul season 5: Pontificating Kim Wexler’s future
We say that, of course, knowing that season 5 will not be a dance amidst tulips. Instead, it’s probably more akin to Jimmy coming in and trampling on said tulips. He’s becoming Saul, and a part of that probably means him kicking to the curb all of the parts of himself that were once there. That includes, potentially, many of his closer bonds … and Kim Wexler is one of them.
From the very beginning — at least since we’ve started to have an attachment to her as a character — one of the larger questions that we’ve pondered is simply this: What in the world happened to her? How did she be plucked out of the world of Breaking Bad? We’ve heard all of the theories and tossed a few around in our head like a salad — it’s possible that she could die in some horrible manner, but to us, our favorite theory is a simple one: That Kim somehow just finds a way to get out of Albuquerque, possibly due to an expanding job opportunity, and due to Jimmy’s behavior as Saul, she decides to never look back. Maybe that’s not a happy ending per se, but it’s certainly a bittersweet one. That is her recognizing that there may not be anything within this world that works for her properly and she’s better off just taking a step back and letting the chips fall where they may.
Could this mean that there’s still hope that somewhere in Omaha, the two reconvene? The idealist in us imagines that, though very little in the Vince Gilligan world tells us that he’s a big fan of serendipity. Bad things happen to bad people. That’s been the way of a lot of this world, though you could argue that he’s not entirely opposed to the idea of redemption either. Jesse Pinkman did survive Breaking Bad, and while there’s no guarantee he flees the scene still in one piece, it’s definitely something that we choose to believe.
As of this point, you gotta think that Rhea Seehorn has heard all of the theories about her character and what could transpire; rather than buying into a single one, though, she’s willing to trust the writers and figure out what they want. This is what she tells IndieWire, and she certainly still seems to have a shred of hope that there could still be happiness coming:
“Whatever’s going to happen down the road is going to be the perfect story for Kim … But that doesn’t mean that it won’t be a tragic end! Sometimes I think, ‘There’s a lot of things that are more tragic than death for Kim. Completely losing who she is could be worse than being dead.’”
By the end of the fifth season, we think that we’re going to have a better idea of what goes down — Kim didn’t seem to be around in the era of Breaking Bad, unless she only turned up in the times in which Jimmy failed to turn up on-screen. We gotta think there are more answers coming on her shortly … and that’s when we’re crossing our fingers for Gene’s redemption. We’ll be holding out for it until it either does or doesn’t happen.
What do you want to see when it comes to the future of Kim Wexler on Better Call Saul? What do you think is going to happen to her? Be sure to share in the comments. (Photo: AMC.)