Better Call Saul Season 6, Episode 12 'Waterworks' Review: The Guilt That Crushes Us
Greg Ehrhardt, OnScreen Blog Columnist
With an episode titled ‘Waterworks’ I prepared myself for the worst. Had a box of Kleenex ready, prepared for multiple scenarios, multiple timelines where Jimmy and Kim would reunite and things would not go well.
I still wasn’t ready for it, because, well, Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould are manipulative screen-writing and directing geniuses.
Also, Rhee Seehorn is an acting mensa candidate, but we’ll get to her later.
This episode featured the returned focus to Kim Wexler after a two episode absence that felt like 2 seasons.
We see a glimpse of Kim’s new life in Florida, and as expected, much like Jimmy, she’s living a life unfulfilled. She’s making food with a mayonnaise substitute instead of the real thing, and you could say the same thing about her love life. Her boyfriend seems ok enough, but we know whatever she’s doing with him will never compare to what she had with Jimmy, even though it was poison for everyone they ever dealt with.
She’s forced to banter banally with the housewives of Titusville, Florida, and work at a job that doesn’t utilize any of her gifts as a lawyer.
Is Kim trucking through life unfulfilled due to her missing Jimmy McGill? Could be an element of that, but its more because of her new best friend, Guilt, is making her life miserable, and she’s not the type of person that can tuck it away like Jimmy/Saul can. And that brings us to this episode’s big idea, which is:
“Guilt Will Eventually Come For Everyone”
We knew Kim was crushed by Howard’s death from the moment it happened; the show was very deliberate about showing that. Once she moved on from Jimmy, she was able to tuck it away to a certain extent. After all, she could have gone to the police immediately when there was still a chance to do something.
The thing is though, even if you tuck guilt away, it never subsides. It lays dormant inside you and grows, until you either let it all out or kill it with something else.
The guilt lay inside Kim for years, growing bigger and bigger, until it finally erupted on the airport shuttle. It was painful and tragic for Kim and for the audience as well. Although Kim chose her fate, and had 100% responsibility, no one wants anyone to cry like that (and we probably have all had a crying moment like that, and Seehorn absolutely nails it on screen).
Notably, after that scene, we get back to Gene, who at this point is beyond the point of no return. He’s robbing a cancer patient, and isn’t satisfied with taking the man’s bank accounts. He wants his personal things too, something that hadn’t been done yet with this specific scam (and I think is a callback to his days with Marco).
Things are still going according to Gene’s plan when Jeff gets arrested by police and he goes to Marion’s house. When Gene realizes Marion knows who he is, we see some really impressive duality in his response.
First, we see the guilt. He sees the ‘Better Call Saul’ commercials on Marion’s laptop, and his old life flashes before his eyes (as captured by the shot Gilligan does of the commercials playing only as a reflection on his glasses).
We don’t see him crumble yet though; now he turns on his inner Heisenberg, and tries to intimidate Marion to bending to his will. This is a new side of Gene, Saul, or Jimmy. We’ve never seen any of them try to darkly intimidate a defenseless innocent quite like this.
And Gene indeed almost goes full Heisenberg on poor Marian, but he stops. He stops when Marion says “But I trusted you”.
After all, that is where Jimmy first started, in elder law, a practice he seemingly really enjoyed, and how he got rich from. It is interesting this is what uprooted Jimmy’s guilt; not Kim Wexler, not the cancer patient, not anything or anyone else.
It was poor Marion who was so excited to be able to watch cat videos on a laptop.
It was a painful moment for Gene, who had his previous humanity thrust before him, reminding himself that he once was a decent person, and everything he’s doing to bringing down his personal society is a choice, not fate.
His brother Chuck thought he was fated for this of course. People never change, he insisted.
But his wife Kim knew the truth. When she knew him, he was a good man.
Ultimately, guilt crushed the jimmy out of the man and left in his place Saul Goodman. Guilt can go to really low places, but it always, always, comes back to the surface at some point.
Sometimes, it comes back when you least expect it.