The episode’s final minutes attached consequences to the moral arc of the one character whose corruption for so long seemed least assured.
Vince Gilligan loves processes, as shown by the lovingly crafted and meticulously detailed sequences of manufacture that often open episodes in both “Better Call Saul” and “Breaking Bad.” (As an aside: “Vince Gilligan’s How It’s Made” needs to happen on Discovery Plus.) How does nature achieve an outcome? How does a human being achieve corruption? Gilligan is obviously interested in these questions, but his characters and shows up until this point have evinced a somewhat deterministic view of the answers. Editor’s note: Major spoilers ahead. The opening moments of Season 6, Episode 7 of “Better Call Saul,” “Plan and Execution” (more on that wickedly fitting title below) depict two processes: the first, a methodical look at how Lalo has been conducting his reconnaissance of the laundry, and the second, Jimmy’s characteristically less controlled attempt to salvage his and Kim’s broken plan to destroy Howard. It is a testimony to the quality of this show that, over the course of the first forty-seven minutes, it was able to dissipate the foreboding that might have settled upon someone familiar with this universe. If this episode resembled anything (other than a slightly darker, but no-less-funny-in-its-own-way “Leverage” episode in which an elaborate con is perpetrated), it was the excellent “Breaking Bad” Season 5 episode, “Dead Freight,” a heist episode that, for much of its runtime, played like a neo-western “Ocean’s Eleven,” until the devastating final minute, in which the viewers were reminded of just what moral universe they were in. In both that episode and this one, the characters engage in corrupt processes geared toward corrupt outcomes, and the innocent ultimately pay the price. This episode’s final minutes attached consequences to the moral arc of the one character in this universe whose corruption for so long seemed least assured: Kim Wexler. The punchy nature of the show’s title notwithstanding, perhaps a better name for this season of “Better Call Saul” might have been “Kim Too Shall Fall,” for that, when all is done, may well be what we are witnessing. Unlike Walter White in “Breaking Bad” or even Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman, Kim Wexler is not a character whose fall seems inevitable after the fact, and that makes its occurrence even more tragic. Walter White and Jimmy/Saul’s fatal flaw was, for both men, their pride, which manifested itself differently in each man. For Walter, it appeared as a kind of petulant arrogance mixed with viciousness that was perhaps most memorably displayed in his statement that “I am the one who knocks,” although it was also subtly evident even in the first episode of “Breaking Bad.
