Better Call Saul's Penultimate Episode Teases Kim Wexler Return

By Cameron Bonomolo

Warning: this story contains spoilers for Better Call Saul Season 6. Cue the waterworks. Gene Takovic (Bob Odenkirk) broke bad — and he just might need a lawyer. Ever since the Heisenberg empire of meth manufacturer Walter White (Bryan Cranston) came crashing down in the final season of Breaking Bad, the criminal lawyer formerly known as Jimmy McGill and Saul Goodman (Odenkirk) has been in hiding as Omaha Cinnabon manager Gene. But when Jimmy/Saul/Gene slipped into his old ways to rid himself of intruding cab driver and wannabe conman Jeff (Pat Healy), last week's "Breaking Bad" episode ended with Gene doing something stupid.

Better call Kim. Except Gene's ex-wife quit the bar at the same time she quit Jimmy/Saul, breaking up with him after their "Fun and Games" inadvertently resulted in the death of Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian) — and the birth of Breaking Bad era Saul Goodman. 

Back in the black-and-white post-Bad timeline of late 2010, Gene phoned former assistant Francesca (Tina Parker) and learned that the situation in Albuquerque was still "hot" with Walt dead and Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) in the wind. Gene then connected to Palm Coast Sprinklers in Titusville, Florida, asking whoever was on the line to put him through to Kim Wexler.

The unheard but heated conversation was enough for Gene to relapse and break bad with Marion's (Carol Burnett) son Jeff, scamming boozed and drugged-up victims in an elaborate identity theft scheme that threatens to expose Gene's assumed identity. Drawing a parallel between Saul Goodman pursuing "Cancer Man" Walter White in 2008, Better Call Saul's "Breaking Bad" episode ended with Gene going back down Bad Choice Road by going after the cancer-stricken Mr. Lingk (Kevin Sussman) in 2010. 

As hinted by the poster for Monday's penultimate episode of Better Call Saul, titled "Waterworks," Kim will appear for the first time in the monochromatic world of the post-Breaking Bad timeline. See the poster above. 

"I don't want to give anything away, but we don't hear the phone call," producer Thomas Schnauz, who wrote and directed last week's "Breaking Bad," told The Hollywood Reporter. "So we don't know exactly what Gene is told. It's something very upsetting. It's something that upsets him a lot. So I think we have to wait and see exactly what went down on that phone call, and we will hear the details of it in a future episode." 

That episode is "Waterworks," written and directed by Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan. The penultimate episode of Better Call Saul's sixth and final season premieres tonight at 9 p.m. ET on AMC; the Breaking Bad prequel/sequel concludes when the series finale airs August 15. 

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