‘Better Call Saul’ season six episode 12 recap: Kim comes clean

Kim Wexler is back! Last seen packing her things in episode nine of this season of Better Call Saul, crooked lawyer Jimmy McGill’s wife/legal partner returned this week for her own 58 minutes in the spotlight.

Yes, this penultimate episode is all about Kim – and we finally see what happens to her in a post Breaking Bad world. She might as well not be Kim Wexler anymore. Taking place concurrently to her now ex-husband Jimmy’s misadventures as Cinnabon Gene, her new life is a more mundane one. Gone is the blonde hair, replaced by a mousy brown, the power suits have been thrown out for frumpy mum clothes, and the rush of lawyering replaced by the monotony of working for a sprinkler company.

The phone call we saw but did not hear between Kim and Jimmy last week is now played in full. It’s not pretty. He comes crashing back into her life as a completely different man to the one she fell in love with. Jimmy brags about being a fugitive at large, the police no closer to catching him for his part in Gus Fring and Walter White’s drug empires. Naturally, Kim tells Jimmy to turn himself in which does not go down well – he hangs up.

There is one good outcome from their reunion though. So upset by the event is Kim that she goes back to Albuquerque to come clean for past crimes. She sits down with the widow of her and Jimmy’s former associate Howard Hamlin, who was murdered in the season six midseason finale. In letter form, Kim admits to purposefully destroying the reputation of her ex-boss, his execution at the hands of Lalo Salamanca in her apartment, and the subsequent ruse to frame it as a suicide. Rhea Seehorn has long been one of TV’s best actors, but this scene is a masterclass. The camera lingers on her face as Kim rides the bus back to the airport. She grows slowly more distressed until the waterworks of the episode’s title appear. It is deeply moving.

Where Kim chose to try and right some wrongs, Jimmy instead uses their row to fuel his new scheme of stealing from wealthy marks. He breaks into the house of the cancer patient from last week. In another stunning display of iniquity, he goes to knock out said cancer patient with the urn holding the remains of his beloved dog Rusty. Luckily, the victim passes out and he doesn’t need to.

Later, in the episode’s penultimate sequence we’re gifted another Breaking Bad cameo from Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). Timeline-wise, it comes immediately prior to the start of Breaking Bad when Kim bumps into Jesse as he’s coming out of Saul’s famed strip mall office. He needs a lawyer, and is about to hire Saul. She’s just signed the divorce papers to emotionally and legally part ways with Mr Jimmy McGill. They are at two very different points in their respective Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul journeys. His is just starting, and hers has seemingly just ended.

Meanwhile, Jimmy (as Gene) has a new mess to clean up when his crime buddy Jeff gets locked up. He enlists Jeff’s mum Marion to help get him out on bail but she does some digging online and discovers Gene’s real identity. Marion alerts the police and Saul Goodman is on the run again. Next week’s finale should reveal his ultimate fate.

Most WTF moment: Kim’s confession

The ghost of poor Howard Hamlin continues to haunt Kim Wexler, but confessing everything to his widow goes some way to exorcising any guilt she may feel. It’s a rare moment of closure for one of Better Call Saul‘s characters.

This week’s biggest question: where does Saul run to?

‘Waterworks’ ends with Gene Takavic exposed as fugitive attorney Saul Goodman. He dashes into the snow, on the run once more. So where can he go and who to? He has no friends, no wife, no family and barely an identity. Surely there’s no happy ending on the horizon?