Artnewspress: Better Call Saul season 6 director and executive producer Michael Morris breaks down Kim Wexler’s monumental decision from episode 9, “Fun and Games.”
Better Call Saul season 6 director and executive producer Michael Morris breaks down Kim Wexler’s monumental decision from episode 9, “Fun and Games.” After an extended hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic and star Bob Odenkirk’s health scare, the beloved Breaking Bad prequel returned to small screens on AMC in April. The first half of the season follows two separate storylines which converge in dramatic fashion during the Better Call Saul midseason finale, when Lalo Salamanca enters Jimmy McGill and Kim Wexler’s apartment and shockingly murders Howard Hamlin.
Written by Ann Cherkis and directed by Morris, the recently aired episode 9 picks up soon after the Better Call Saul season 6B premiere, which finally saw Gus kill Lalo in the underground superlab construction site. The morning after, Mike Ehrmantraut and his men clean up after Howard’s death while Jimmy and Kim resume their regular lives as lawyers. The couple later attend a memorial for Howard at HHM, where they continue to push their cover story for his death. Throughout the episode, Kim does not appear to be handling the guilt very well and during its final moments, she surrenders her law license and leaves Jimmy, deciding they are too destructive as a couple.
During a recent interview with THR, Michael Morris breaks down Kim’s big decision from Better Call Saul season 6, episode 9. The “Fun and Games” director discusses the development of Kim’s psyche throughout the episode and the exact moment she made the climatic choice to leave Jimmy. Read what Morris says below:
What I like to think is that she doesn’t make any climactic choice until the parking lot, or at least until just after the scene with [Howard’s wife] Cheryl. That’s when I was imagining it, that that kiss signifies that something has happened and that after that, in a very Kim Wexler way, everything unspools very fast. She’s a person of action. She’s not a person of agonizing. I wanted the kiss to be ambiguous in the moment and something that you would look back on later and go, “Oh, of course. That’s what that was.”
But Rhea being Rhea, you always want it to play on Rhea’s face. She’s never ever going to give you a shot where nothing’s happening. Never. It’s not possible. We talked at length about what was happening and the way that we imagine Kim’s psyche to be developing in the course of the episode. There’s ways that we talked that I think are really productive, but there’s no way that I would say to Rhea, “I want to see this on your face in this moment,” because it’s all there.
It’s interesting to hear the director’s thoughts on the precise moment Kim decides to leave Jimmy. The kiss in the parking garage was certainly not a good omen for their relationship. The proverbial kiss of death occurs moments after Kim gaslights Howard’s grieving widow, Cheryl, into believing the lie that her late husband was a drug addict and sends her off in tears. This, in all likelihood, is the moment that causes Kim to realize how destructive she and Jimmy are as team, propelling her to make the decision to leave Jimmy moments later. The Better Call Saul creative team was smart to think through the exact moment, and actor Rhea Seehorn certainly played it perfectly.
Now that Kim’s climatic choice has caused the proverbial death of Jimmy McGill and ushered in the full birth of Saul Goodman in the Breaking Bad timeline, it isn’t yet clear if audiences have seen their last glimpses of Kim Wexler. There is a slight chance Saul had some interactions with Kim during the events of Breaking Bad, which could be explored during the final four episodes. If not, Gene Takovic could reunite with Kim in her home state of Nebraska during the post-Breaking Bad timeline. The next episode, titled “Nippy,” is sure to be equally dramatic considering that Morris passes the reins off to Michelle MacLaren, known for directing many standout episodes of both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.
By Adam Bentz
