‘Better Call Saul’ Season 5: Bob Odenkirk Thinks He Knows Why Kim Stays with Jimmy
The Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul is closer to the end than the beginning. After four seasons, there are only two more to the story of Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) and how he became Walter White’s lawyer Saul Goodman. AMC announced the sixth season would be its last, but Season 5 is just beginning.
Odenkirk spoke with reporters on Jan. 16 and Showbiz Cheat Sheet was there to talk about Season 5 of Better Call Saul. We’ll have more with Odenkirk’s costars this week on Showbiz Cheat Sheet. Better Call Saul airs Sundays at 9:00 p.m. on AMC.
Bob Odenkirk’s big question for ‘Better Call Saul’
Central to Jimmy’s evolution into Saul has been his relationship with Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn). She stands by him through all his schemes when she certainly has greater prospects of her own.
“One of the things I think about more than anything is: who is Kim?” Odenkirk said. “I think Howard Hamlin is a guy who secretly thinks Jimmy’s anger towards him is justified so he tolerates Jimmy’s difficult behavior. But Kim, why does Kim? Why is Kim okay with him in an overall way? She kind of is.”
Bob Odenkirk has his own ‘Better Call Saul’ fan theory
Better Call Saul creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould will have the final word on Kim Wexler. Until he sees those scripts, Odenkirk has his own backstory on what keeps them together.
“Don’t think I’m giving you a spoiler because I don’t know but I just think that she in her past had somebody like him,” Odenkirk said. “That’s my gut is that she gets who he is and that’s from something before we ever met her, or maybe before she ever met Jimmy. Somebody else in her life was like that or people were like that and she goes, ‘I know who this person is. I can deal with this.’ That’s my theory.”
What Jimmy was doing outside the office on ‘Breaking Bad’
Better Call Saul will eventually catch up with Breaking Bad. It’s already jumped ahead to when Jimmy has assumed the identity of Gene. Odenkirk has changed his thoughts on what Saul might have been doing after he helped launder Walter’s money.
“I don’t know what his life is as a person alone,” Odenkirk said. “When I did Breaking Bad I figured he just went to strip clubs and got hammered and that was it. Maybe that’s what he does.”
Odenkirk leaves open the possibility that Kim was with him that whole time. Breaking Bad viewers just never saw her.
“Maybe that’s what’s going on,” Odenkirk said. “Maybe he goes home and she says, ‘How’s your day?’ and they just live in separate worlds in the legal world of Albuquerque but two different universes in there, hers on the upper floors and him on the lower floors. Could happen. I think it could happen. People do these things.”
If Kim and Jimmy break up, it still fits
Most likely Jimmy and Kim do not stay together past the events of Better Call Saul. Fans just hope Kim’s fate isn’t tragic. Odenkirk also theorizes a bad breakup, and clarifies it’s only his fan theory, not confirmed at all.
“I said to Vince, ‘If they were to split up’ and again, if she were to leave him, all the more reason to have a big billboard that she has to drive by every day. And he knows she’s looking at me every day. She rejected me. She has to see me and how I’ve debased myself to succeed and she knows I did this for the right reasons. I did this because I was hurt and it’s what people wanted me to be so I gave it to them.’ But I don’t know what they’ll end up doing.”
Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul roundtable interview, 1/16/2020
