Question
From Better Call Saul, season 6, Ep 7, Jimmy and Kim have unfolded their multi-step plan that is dedicated to undermine Howard in front of his colleagues, clients alike.
Throughout this TV series, Howard has been a good-mannered man, well educated and soft-spoken. Perhaps Howard has demoted Kim once during the city council embezzlement case but the decision is made out of merit rather than personal grudge. Perhaps Howard has been a good friend with Chuck or Howard has a rich dad.
What provoked Jimmy and Kim to spend so much effort and time in order to undermine Howard in such a way which unintentionally ends his life?
If it is part of character-building, I do not understand. We have seen Jimmy has been pulling pranks in his younger days and Kim is caught shop-lifting once, but what warrants such an animosity towards Howard?
Answer
The answer is in the season five finale.
It starts with Howard's talk to Kim:
After learning that Kim quit her job in a chance meeting in one of the courthouse elevators, Howard Hamlin confronts her. He thinks that Kim’s behavior might have something to do with Jimmy, and so Howard brings her up to speed. He explains what Jimmy did after Howard offered him a job at HHM: throwing bowling balls at his Jaguar, hiring prostitutes to embarrass him at a work lunch, and all but confessing to it in Bob Odenkirk’s Emmy-worthy tirade at the end of the seventh episode.
Kim responds like this:
“That’s it?” Kim says after cackling. “Howard, you really had me going there.”
And expresses how insulted she feels:
But Howard suggests that Jimmy is the one responsible for Kim’s erratic actions as if she doesn’t have any agency, which sets her off. “Do you have any idea how insulting that is?” Kim says
This plants the seed of revenge:
after reconvening with Jimmy at the hotel for a room service dinner, she lays out what happened, mocking Howard for claiming to have her best interests in mind. It’s hard for the viewer to stomach, but the tragic irony is that Jimmy doesn’t appear to like what he’s seeing in Kim either—a reflection of his own worst behavior. Kim starts brainstorming ways to get back at Howard, settling on drugging him(!) and shaving his head in his sleep.
And then it escalates:
Unfortunately, Kim only begins thinking bigger—and more criminal. She wants to get Howard into serious trouble—misconduct, misappropriating funds, witness tampering—with an eye toward Jimmy receiving a cushy financial settlement from the Sandpiper Crossing retirement home case.
Jimmy/Saul pushes back:
“Kim, doing this, it’s not you,” Jimmy says, again lighting a fuse by trying to tell her what she is and isn’t capable of. “You would not be OK with it. Not in the cold light of day.”
“Wouldn’t I?” she responds, a faint grin spreading across her face. [...] In a clever, devastating callback to the Season 4 finale—when Kim, horrified at the depths to which Jimmy plunged to be reinstated as a lawyer, was given shallow reassurance in the form of Jimmy pointing his fingers and saying his trademark “s’all good, man”—she pulls out the finger guns. Pew pew. The genius of “Something Unforgivable” is that it zigged where we assumed the finale would zag: Instead of Jimmy doubling down on his worst impulses, we’ve seen them manifest within Kim. Did Jimmy help create a monster?
The underlying psychology for her behavior is this:
As we learned from a flashback to her childhood at the start of this season’s sixth episode, Kim’s always been intensely stubborn and principled. When her mother picks her up very late from school after drinking, Kim disapproves. The moral imperative is obvious: drinking and driving is dangerous. But rather than simply chastise her mom, Kim literally refuses to get in the car—choosing to walk 3 miles back to her house in the middle of the night.
It’s an instructive scene that helps explain why Kim has repeatedly ignored all warning signs with Jimmy. Having already convinced herself that the good of Jimmy outweighs the bad, she will hold that conviction to its breaking point.
Answered By - BCdotWEB
