Summary
- Better Call Saul depicts the doomed romantic relationship between Jimmy and Kim, highlighting their individual character flaws and how love can drive them to their worst tendencies.
- In the earlier seasons, Jimmy and Kim's connection is focused on their career goals as lawyers, with their romantic spark only hinted at, showcasing their ambition and dedication to their professions.
- As Jimmy fully embraces his Saul Goodman persona and Kim becomes more involved in criminal activities, their paths diverge, leading to their eventual separation and divorce, with Kim realizing that their toxic relationship prevents her from fulfilling her ideals.
Over the course of six seasons, Breaking Bad, which did not include Kim, the ultimate fate of their relationship always seemed destined to fail, succumbing to their differences rather than rise above them. Better Call Saul uses this hopeless relationship to emphasize the individual character flaws of Jimmy and Kim while demonstrating how love can motivate people to resort to their worst tendencies.
Both Jimmy and Kim possess natural proclivities for bending the rules and scamming the system, chasing the thrills of evading societal norms from their schemes of instant gratification. While Jimmy's talent for dishonesty appears obvious if not expected given his Saul Goodman future, Better Call Saul eventually delves into Kim's upbringing which recontextualizes her attraction to Jimmy from a corrupting force to an exposing window into her faults. Jimmy and Kim's centripetal pull on each other circles the drain of committing truly destructive crimes as opposed to low-level pranks, where their split proves the only way for them to potentially avert course.
Season 1 - Jimmy and Kim's Friendship
- 'Alpine Shepherd Boy' (Season 1, Episode 5) - Kim encourages Jimmy to practice elder law.
- 'Bingo' (Season 1, Episode 7) - Jimmy invites Kim to his practice.
- 'RICO' (Season 1, Episode 8) - In a flashback, Kim kisses Jimmy after he es the bar exam.
Better Call Saul introduces Jimmy and Kim's relationship as platonic with hints towards a romantic spark, establishing them as colleagues at HHM who each other's aspirations to become partners at the firm. Throughout the season, Kim continues to encourage Jimmy to discover new avenues to grow his career in law, inspiring him to take on the lucrative Sand Piper case while disapproving of his illegal workarounds. While they share brief, flirtatious moments outside sharing cigarettes or even a celebratory kiss once Jimmy es the bar exam, their focus remains on individually achieving their career goals over any real exploration into their romantic connection, hoping to actualize their dreams as respected lawyers.
Season 2 and 3 - Jimmy and Kim Partner Up
- 'Switch' (Season 2, Episode 1) - Jimmy convinces Kim to him in a scam.
- 'Inflatable' (Season 2, Episode 7) - Jimmy and Kim start separate firms in a shared office.
- 'Sunk Costs' (Season 3, Episode 3) - Kim urges Jimmy to let her help him handle Chuck.
- 'Lantern' (Season 3, Episode 10) - Due to Kim's injury, Jimmy agrees to close the office to save money.
After collaborating on a scam, Jimmy and Kim begin openly dating, eventually leading to them living together as Kim attempts to maintain her clean record while Jimmy starts dipping his toe into a criminal clientele. Besides their romantic relationship, Kim also agrees to share an office with Jimmy while keeping a clear distinction between their two law firms, highlighting her willingness to further invest in a life with Jimmy within clear boundaries. As the legal conflict between Jimmy and Chuck escalates, Kim intercedes on Jimmy's behalf, and after a car accident leaves Kim bedridden, Jimmy closes their shared office to save money and accommodate her, displaying how the two willingly make sacrifices for each other. Their connection proves genuine in these earlier seasons, where Jimmy's self-destructive leanings remain slightly quarantined by Kim's insistence on working within the law.
Season 4 - Jimmy And Kim's Paths Diverge With The Introduction of Saul Goodman
- 'Something Stupid' (Season 4, Episode 7) - Jimmy's cell phone scam and Kim's pro bono work drives them apart.
- 'Winner' (Season 4, Episode 10) - After Kim vouches for Jimmy in his appeal, Jimmy reveals his full adoption of the Saul Goodman persona.
Once Jimmy is barred from continuing his practice as a lawyer in Better Call Saul, he and Kim begin to dramatically drift apart as he works a new con selling cell phones, and she returns to her roots with an uptick in pro bono work. While Kim feels more and more fulfilled in her pursuits to apply the law in a way that serves and benefits those in need, Jimmy likewise feels ever more invigorated as he brushes up closer and closer with the criminal element through his burner phone business, and as the two's ambitious work ethics continue to push them to invest further in these paths, they wind up incorporating each other less and less in their respective lives. Driving the wedge further between their separate directions, Jimmy's legal name change to Saul Goodman and subsequent full adoption of that persona comes as a shock to Kim, who honestly did not believe Jimmy would stay committed to his criminal behavior.
Season 5 - Jimmy and Kim Get Married Leading To Slippin' Kim
- 'Namaste' (Season 5, Episode 4) - Kim brings in Jimmy to help scam her employer.
- 'JMM' (Season 5, Episode 7) - Jimmy and Kim get married for spousal privilege.
- 'Something Unforgivable' (Season 5, Episode 10) - After Kim stands up to Lalo, she begins planning a con against Howard with Jimmy, actively asserting herself in the world of crime.
While tolerating Jimmy's Saul Goodman pursuits, Kim attempts to continue her career clean until she leans on Jimmy for help to scam her employer in a case she believes is immoral, reigniting her spark for operating outside the confines of the legal system. Jimmy's criminal cases and its subsequent deception eventually cause a rift between the two that culminates in Kim expressing her frustration, not for Jimmy's illegal activity but for being left out of the loop. However, instead of resulting in a break-up, Kim doubles down, and the two marry to allow for complete transparency between the two with the legal protection of spousal privilege. By the end of the season, Kim defiantly defends Jimmy to Lalo, cementing her stake in the criminal world, while enthusiastically planning revenge on Howard with Jimmy. Jimmy begins to realize that his life choices have unintentionally enabled Kim to abandon her prior lofty ideals.
Season 6 - Jimmy and Kim Separate
- 'Point And Shoot' (Season 6, Episode 8) - Jimmy and Kim's con results in dire consequences.
- 'Fun And Games' (Season 6, Episode 9) - Kim splits from Jimmy.
- 'Waterworks' (Season 6, Episode 12) - Kim tells Jimmy, now known as Gene, to turn himself in.
- 'Saul Gone' (Season 6, Episode 13) - Jimmy throws his case to spare Kim from being prosecuted.
Jimmy and Kim's ultimate scam to permanently ruin Howard's professional and personal reputation succeeds on every level, destroying Howard's livelihood entirely, but their celebration abruptly halts as Lalo's re-emergence results in the death of Howard. Finally crossing the line past the point of no return, Howard's death shakes Kim's faith in her own judgment and causes her immense regret, which leads to her split from Jimmy on the grounds that they are poisonous when together despite their care for each other. Jimmy and Kim finalize their divorce and disengage from each other's lives, with Jimmy completely inundated with the wealth his criminal lifestyle affords and lacking any understanding of Kim's objections.
As the finale looms, Jimmy, now under the new identity of Gene, attempts to reach back out to Kim where she argues that he ought to surrender to the authorities rather than continue outrunning the consequences. Indignant, Jimmy remains focused on continuing his criminal antics while Kim decides to come clean to Howard's wife surrounding the defamation campaign they launched against him and the details of his death. In the end, the authorities eventually capture Jimmy, but he manages to rely on his Saul Goodman charm to evade serious sentencing while learning that Kim's honesty has drawn her into the legal cross-hairs.
To absolve Kim of guilt and protect her from further prosecution, Jimmy decides to take full responsibility for his role in Howard's death, finally itting his negative impact on her life. Jimmy's gifted sensibilities that allowed him to work a courtroom remain on full display as he, for the first time in the series, utilizes them to selflessly benefit another to the detriment of himself. Better Call Saul's concluding sequence depicts Kim visiting Jimmy in jail, sharing one final cigarette before parting ways, leaving audiences to question where Jimmy and Kim's post-Better Call Saul relationship could go. As Breaking Bad seems to indicate, they do not repair their previous romantic feelings fostered in Better Call Saul, instead achieving a healthy closure and remaining apart.
