Better Call Saul Season 6 Episode 12 review: Run Jimmy Run!

4/5

Story: In the aftermath of Jimmy/Saul’s (Bob Odenkirk) phone call to her from Omaha, Kim (Rhea Seehorn) decides it time to set the record straight on certain things that transpired in Albuquerque, especially with regard to the death of Howard Hamlin. Back in Omaha, Jimmy/Saul has returned to the home of his latest con victim that Buddy didn’t want to go through with because it’s a cancer patient, with a not-too-good prognosis. As Jimmy proceeds to swipe all the stuff he needs for the identity theft and then maybe some more, his victim wakes up.

Review: Poor Kim! This is, honestly, not the life any of us would have envisioned for her after she left Jimmy. A clerk at company specializing in irrigation items, who returns home to mindless conversations with her new partner and potluck meals with ‘friends’. If this isn’t boring, I don’t know what is. But she’s been living that life for a while, bottling up everything from her past.

Then, she reaches breaking point and all it takes for her to get there is a call from Jimmy. Remember that phone call from the payphone last week, when Jimmy nearly wrecked everything around? Yeah, that one. Turns out, Kim didn’t even say that much – she was just glad that he’s still alive.

That call, flipped a switch inside Kim. Jimmy had just taunted her as to why she wasn’t coming clean on what had transpired in Albuquerque all those years ago. And so, she decides to do just that. She types out an affidavit, detailing everything that went into the taking down of Howard Hamlin and how that ended in his gruesome death at the hands of Lalo Salamanca. She drops off one copy with the DA’s office and another with Howard’s widow, Cheryl. It’s all Kim can do, because in the absence of physical evidence pointing to any of what she claims, there’s nothing the DA’s office will.

It is on her bus ride back home that the real terror of what all of this has been doing to Kim comes to the fore. It’s a heart-breaking moment - as she finally explodes – one in which you can almost feel her pain in every sob.

Jimmy, meanwhile, is falling into a deeper and darker abyss with his new con scheme. After Buddy refuses to go through with their scheme on their last victim – a guy with cancer – Jimmy takes it upon himself. He finds all he needs for their identity theft con, but then Jimmy feels the need for more and helps himself to some of the pricey items his mark owns. Trouble is, the guy’s woken up and Jimmy can’t make his way out undetected, unless, of course, he resorts to some form of violence. Thankfully, the victim passes out again, moments before Jimmy could go through with his plan of escape.

While he’s able to avert one problem, Marion, who was already beginning to have her doubts about Gene and his affairs with her son, Jeff, figures out that he’s not who he claimed to be. For a moment, it seems that any morsel of goodness that Jimmy/Saul/Gene had left in him is gone, when he towers menacingly towards Marion, with the telephone chord wrapped around his hands, for, well - we know what he wanted to do to her. Now that the cops know that Saul is in Omaha, all he can do is run!

Verdict: Next week, Better Call Saul comes to an end. Series co-creator Vince Gilligan directed this penultimate episode and he sets the course for the show to go out with a bang. This was quite an emotional hour and while I can’t wait to see how this plays out and hope that fellow writer and showrunner Peter Gould will close it in style. 

PS: After last week’s much-hyped but rather pointless Breaking Bad cameos, this week’s interaction between Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) and Kim was a lot better.