‘Better Call Saul’ Season 6: Rhea Seehorn Explains Kim’s Breakdown on the Bus
Better Call Saul Season 6 Episode 12 caught up with Kim Wexler in her new life in Florida. After a phone call from Jimmy, Kim returns to Florida to confess the truth about Howard Hamlin’s death. After visiting Howard’s widow Cheryl, she breaks down sobbing on a public bus. Rhea Seehorn discussed this emotional scene and how she pulled it off.
Kim breaks down on the bus in ‘Better Call Saul’ Season 6 Episode 12
The Better Call Saul Season 6 episode “Waterworks” revealed what Kim Wexler has been up to since leaving Jimmy and New Mexico. Kim moved to Florida and began working at Palm Coast Sprinklers. She entered a new relationship with a sweet but painfully boring man and partakes in the idle chatter that the other women around her enjoy.
Everything changed when she received a phone call from Jimmy McGill. Kim told Jimmy that he should turn himself in, then made an important decision. She traveled to Albuquerque to give her affidavit to Bernalillo County, then visited Howard’s widow Cheryl.
Rhea Seehorn explains how she pulled off the emotional scene on the bus
Afterward, on the way back home, Kim breaks down sobbing on a public bus. In an interview with AMC, Rhea Seehorn described planning this scene with Better Call Saul co-creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould.
“We decided that people will understand that she is crying for not just what happened in Episode 12,” Seehorn said. “She’s crying for everything that we have seen for six seasons and the tragedy of what she could have been, the tragedy of what Jimmy could have been, and the lives affected and the hurt and the relationship that was ruined. It’s everything.”
Seehorn also explained how she built up the emotion necessary to pull off this incredible acting moment. “The honest answer is that I took each of these things that I wrote down that make me personally grieve for this situation and these people and let it live somewhere in my body,” Seehorn said during an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!
“When I would go through those things, think the thoughts, remember where it lives in your body, then I just fought really hard not to cry, and that’s what you see.”
Why did Kim come clean about Howard?
When Kim visits Cheryl in Better Call Saul Season 6, Cheryl asks why Kim is coming clean. “I think she thought that was her penance,” Seehorn told AMC. She explained why the call with Jimmy pushed her to action. “She is not in a position where she is on the lam from the Feds or the law in any way, but it does make her stop and think, ‘Well, is there anything that I could do more to atone for what I’ve done?'”
Additionally, Kim was careful not to break down in front of Cheryl. “I think it’s very important in that scene for Kim to not fall apart or cry because she does not want Cheryl to feel sorry for her in any way, shape, or form, which is why she’s very dry in that scene,” the actor continued. “‘This is what I did and I’m here to tell you.’ And Kim giving any reasons for that or crying and begging for forgiveness would be the wrong thing to do.”
