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LOS ANGELES, April 15 (UPI) — Rhea Seehorn said the final season of Better Call Saul, premiering Monday on AMC, shows Kim Wexler (Seehorn) and Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) perpetrate darker cons.
“There’s a darker and darker edge coming up around these shenanigans that both Jimmy, and now Kim, are doing,” Seehorn told UPI in a Zoom interview. “But then the shenanigans themselves are fun.”
The Breaking Bad prequel shows how Jimmy adopted the persona of Saul Goodman, who became Walter White’s money-laundering lawyer in the original series. Kim is his wife and a lawyer herself.
Both Kim and Jimmy seek revenge on Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill partner Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian). Kim resents Howard for sabotaging her career, and Jimmy blames Howard for enabling his brother Chuck’s (Michael McKean) mental illnesss and ultimate suicide.
Season 5 ended on a cliffhanger in which Kim commits to plotting against Howard. This leaves even Jimmy wondering if he’s corrupted her, but Seehorn said both nature and nurture are at work in the criminal couple.
“I definitely do not think Kim is who she is solely because of Jimmy,” Seehorn said. “And I don’t think he’s who he is solely because of Kim, but I do think that they magnify certain things in each other that can be very, very good or very, very bad,”
As the target of their Season 6 scam, which the cast won’t spoil, Fabian said he roots for Kim, too. However, he said he also sees Howard’s side.
Fabian said Howard had a long-term plan to make Kim a partner. But, when he relegated her to document review in Season 2, Kim left and started her own practice.
By Season 4, Howard was also dealing with the aftermath of Chuck’s. Fabian said it’s easy to put himself in Howard’s shoes.
“What I see is Howard Hamlin trying to run a law firm and those meddling McGill brothers and that crazy Kim Wexler doing everything they can do to undermine it,” Fabian said.
Seehorn said both she and Fabian stand by their characters on Better Call Saul.
“He does what he’s supposed to do as an actor: He defends Hamlin’s decisions and I defend Kim’s,” Seehorn said. “We have very good-natured joking arguments about it.”
As the prequel catches up to Breaking Bad, Season 6 scenes also show Kim giving Jimmy advice on how to better portray Saul Goodman. Seehorn said this also demonstrates Kim’s commitment to any task.
“She’s definitely somebody who’s committed and dedicated to a goal, for sure,” Seehorn said. “It’s not that she was ever trying to make him something he wasn’t, but she kept following what he said he wanted to be. So she gets all on board.”
As Jimmy got further entwined with the criminal enterprises of Breaking Bad characters Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) and Mike Ehrmentraut (Jonathan Banks), Kim became exposed to the drug dealers in Albuquerque, N.M.
Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton) came to Kim and Jimmy’s home in Season 5. Seehorn said Kim may have gotten a false sense of security from standing up to Lalo.
“It’s almost like a false feather in her cap,” Seehorn said. “Kim thinks, erroneously, that as long as you can control all the elements and have all the knowledge, she can get out of anything.”
Season 6 also picks up with Nacho Vargas (Michael Mando) on the run after helping Mike attempt to assassinate Lalo. Mando said that although his story is entwined with the Salamanca crime family, who play a major role in Breaking Bad, the season still focuses on his relationship to Jimmy and Lalo.
“We’re doing season 6 of Better Call Saul, not Season 7 of Breaking Bad,” Mando said. “We trust the writers to merge these two worlds together. We’re still going down our track.”
Lalo survived the attack and turned the tables on the assassins. Dalton said Lalo will not react rashly, but rather patiently bide his time.
“It’s a slow burn,” Dalton said. “He’s got a plan. He’s trying to stick to it and see if he can follow through and get his vengeance.”
The cast of Better Call Saul also faced a real-life crisis on the set when Odenkirk had a heart attack on July 28, 2021. Seehorn and Fabian were in the scene with Odenkirk when he collapsed.
“Everyone should know CPR because CPR absolutely saved his life and there’s no doubt about that,” Fabian said.
Seehorn said she and Fabian called set medics who saved Odenkirk’s life and rushed him to the hospital. It took three defibrillator shocks to restart Odenkirk’s pulse.
“As soon as we realized how much distress he was in, we just started screaming bloody murder for help,” Seehorn said. “As Bob has said, we’re very fortunate he didn’t go to his trailer that day.”
Mando said he was not on set when Odenkirk collapsed. However, Mando said he had a dream about Odenkirk inviting him for ice cream.
Odenkirk was able to return to production in September. Fabian said the near loss of Odenkirk’s life reminded everyone on the crew to appreciate each other while they’re together.
“The miracle of that happened and within six weeks, we’re back on set and we’re completing this show,” Fabian said. ” It’s that whole don’t sweat the small stuff kind of idea. Enjoy every sandwich.”
The ice cream dream was significant to Mando, who had gone to Odenkirk’s house for ice cream previously. Mando also said the incident reminded him to appreciate people while they still are here.
“It was a very tragic thing,” Mando said of the heart attack. “But it was a gift in a way because it made us realize all good things end and to really appreciate things.”
Better Call Saul airs Mondays at 9 p.m. EDT on AMC and streams on AMC+.
