Better Call Saul: Kim returns in Breaking Bad Timeline before the finale

SPOILERS ALERT: Do not read if you have not seen Better Call Saul Season 6 Episode 12 entitled Waterworks.

Kim Wexler is back!

After she and Saul (Bob Odenkirk) had a shocking breakup three episodes ago, Better Call Saul fans have gone through Wexler withdrawal. Thankfully, that all changed in Monday night’s penultimate episode, and we got a lot of answers about where Kim (Rhea Seehorn) was in the world of and after Breaking Bad.

The episode begins during the Breaking Bad timeline with Saul hitting his office wall with a stress ball. Francesca (Tina Parker) informs him that everyone in the waiting room can hear him through the wall and he has a special visitor: Kim. Although we don’t see Kim at the time, Saul tells him to let “her” in and they prepare to sign their official divorce papers.

Before we see Kim for the first time during the main Breaking Bad era, let’s look ahead to where she is after Breaking Bad, and that’s far from the arid deserts of Albuquerque in boring, mundane Florida. Her life changed radically after she left Saul; She’s dating a new guy, rocking a new haircut, trying out a new mayonnaise and watching The Amazing Race. She now works at Palm Coast Sprinklers in the catalogs and brochures department, away from Saul’s morally exhausting exploits. That is, until she gets a call from him, which we saw on last week’s episode with no sound.

In tonight’s episode we finally hear what was said between Saul and Kim and, wow, things are messy! Saul, very much in the Saul Goodman persona of “Breaking Bad,” jokingly says he’s calling to catch up after six years and brags that he’s still alive and getting away with it all. Kim holds back and simply says not to call her and turn himself in. Saul doesn’t take her words well and says the pot calls the kettle.

“We’re both too smart to throw our lives away for no reason,” he tells her while also revealing that Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) and Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) are dead. Almost in tears, Kim tells Saul she’s glad he’s alive and then hangs up. Afterwards, a co-worker bursts into Kim’s office, and she’s forced to participate in the most embarrassing “Happy Birthday” in the history of the workplace.

Still in the black and white timeline, we follow Kim from Florida back to good old Albuquerque. She revisits the courthouse and some key Better Call Saul locations, such as Mike’s ticket booth and the outdoor table where she and Saul made plans. She then goes to Howard Hamlin’s (Patrick Fabian) house and sits down with his wife, Cheryl (Sandrine Holt). Kim confesses everything and I mean all.

She spills her and Saul’s plan to ruin Howard’s reputation, the fake cocaine addiction, Lalo Salamanca’s (Tony Dalton) murder of Howard and his staged suicide. Kim made her confession outside the courthouse but admits there is little physical evidence to uphold charges. On the way back to the airport, Kim collapses and sobs hard, finally breaking out of years of guilt. After a season full of Emmy-worthy moments, this heartbreaking scene tops the list.

The next time we see Kim in this episode, it’s back in Saul’s office during Breaking Bad. Saul doesn’t care that she’s moving to Florida and reveals she didn’t take her share of the massive Sandpiper payout. But the big moment comes when Kim leaves Saul’s office and lights a cigarette… which catches the attention of none other than Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), who is sheltering from the rain and smoking a cigarette.

It’s one of the strangest pairings of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul characters, but one that works surprisingly well. Jesse recognizes Kim from one of his friend’s legal battles and commends her for getting his friend off scot-free. He then asks if Saul is “the real deal,” and Kim reluctantly but truthfully replies, “When I knew him, he was.”

Speaking of Saul, he spends much of the episode snooping around the home of the cancer patient he met in the last episode, looking for valuables. During his quest, Saul’s victim wakes up from his drug-induced sleep and it appears Saul’s luck has run out. Just as Saul is about to KO the man with a vase of his dog’s ashes, he passes out again.

However, Sauls is not yet free. Outside, Jeffy (Pat Healy) notices he parked his cab in front of two cops, but the officers are too distracted with their food to notice Jeffy – until he panics, accelerates, and crashes into a parked car in the street . Saul’s reluctant accomplice ends up in jail, but Saul promises over the phone that he’ll easily buy him out.

But will Saul get the chance? When he returns to Marion’s (Carol Burnett) house to tell her about Jeffy’s arrest, he discovers that the elderly woman has stumbled across some of his old Saul Goodman commercials. When Marion realizes that “Gene” is not who he says he is, she condemns him as a fraud. Amidst the black and white scene, there is a hint of color in Saul’s glasses from the Saul Goodman commercials, forming a mix of the black and white and in-color timelines. Suddenly, perhaps channeling his inner Walter White, Saul drops the act and approaches Marion threateningly, holding her phone cord as if strangling her. Before anything can happen, Marion presses her life alert button and says she is being attacked and Saul Goodman is the culprit.

How will Saul get out of this? Will he and Kim ever reconcile? Better Call Saul fans only have to wait a week for everything to be settled in next week’s series finale.