'Better Call Saul' Fan Theories with Bob Odenkirk & Rhea Seehorn

I'm now officially accepting theories

about Carol Burnett's character in Better Call Saul.

Okay, she is related to someone who you've met

in the show, a character you've met.

Wow, you're allowed

to say that? It would take-

Well, I'm saying it.

[dramatic music]

[footsteps clicking]

Hi, I'm Bob Odenkirk.

And I'm Rhea Seehorn from Better Call Saul.

We're gonna discuss fan theories

about Better Call Saul for Vanity Fair.

Watch out. Look out. Here comes spoilers.

I mean, maybe.

Okay, let's see what theories you all have come up with.

From @ericitaliano,

Incoming Better Call Saul hits bong theory. Okay.

What if Saul becomes the version we see in Breaking Bad

because he remains a cartel lawyer to protect Kim's life?

That is the price he pays for her safety,

like how Jesse was a meth cooking prisoner

but less literal chain.

That's a good-

That's not bad.

This guy a writer?

Why is there a bong involved in this?

There's no way- I'm not sure.

I kept waiting for the bong part.

Whatever kind of pot you're smoking is making you smarter.

So in other words, he becomes Saul,

the one you see in Breaking Bad,

and the backdrop of it all is he did it to protect Kim

as she carries on in life.

But isn't he already a cartel lawyer at this point

in the story? He is,

but the point is, I guess,

that he would commit to it. He becomes this dark.

And that's really what's driving him

is that he knows Very nice of him.

If he serves these guys

Very nice of him. They'll leave you alone.

I think that's kind of beautiful.

Sure. It's possible.

That's not what happens.

It says r/better- back slash betterCallSaul.

Maybe it's from the show.

Okay, so as we see,

when the people are emptying out Saul's house

at the beginning of season six, episode one,

there is, like, one reference to Kim,

the tequila bottle lid.

Nothing else.

And obviously there's no mention

of her whatsoever in Breaking Bad,

so is Kim dead?

No way! Kim is alive.

I think if Kim got killed by the cartel or whatever

then Jimmy, Saul would have pics of her all around

and wouldn't be scared of talking about

or even mentioning that he was married once.

However, I think what happens is the vacuum cleaner guy,

or someone similar,

comes and gets her like he does for Walt and Jesse

in Breaking Bad.

Her identity is erased, and she goes to Nebraska, Kansas.

That's why Jimmy can't talk about her.

Even in Breaking Bad to protect her.

Why else would she go unmentioned?

I bet the ending of Better Call Saul

is gonna be Jimmy and Kim reuniting after Breaking Bad.

Mmm.

There's a lot to take apart

in there. There's a lot.

You're pitching a lot.

You're trying to get the whole season in to one tweet.

Two things.

These two pitches both pitched that Jimmy

is gonna do something to protect Kim.

That's beautiful. Very smart.

Yes, and he's picking up on the whole Nebraska thing.

Kim says she's from a small town

on the border of Kansas and Nebraska.

And Jimmy goes to Omaha, Nebraska.

But he's saying Jimmy can't talk about her

because her identity's been erased,

and he doesn't want to get her into trouble.

Here's the deal.

In Breaking Bad, there was no reason to talk about her.

I mean, he was dealing with Walter White,

and he had a lot of problems.

Saul's personal life never came into it.

The assumption I had was he was just going to strip clubs

on Friday night and playing a little golf and-

Golf? Really?

Oh, yeah.

I don't think she's...

I know what happened.

Here's what's great about what you said.

The show started as, you know,

how is he gonna become Saul Goodman?

Why? And it became Kim Wexler and Jimmy together.

And why are they together? And what's driving them?

And how is that gonna go awry?

And in the end, I think the writers acknowledge

with the ending that they wrote

that it really is this relationship

was the real life of the show, inner life and outer life.

This is from THEYHULK@bizmichael.

That cabbie that recognized Saul

in the Gene stories may have been sent by Kim.

He has a very particular air freshener

that she was seen holding in court.

I totally missed that when I was playing that scene.

Were you? Were you holding that air freshener?

He's talking about when she's defending the guy

and Cliff is watching her help this PD client,

and they're talking about...

Is it really the same air fresher?

I bet it is.

Are you holding that air freshener?

I gotta watch this show.

I totally did not know

that was the same I gotta watch this show.

Air freshener.

Obviously, I can't spoil it if she sent the cabbie,

but clearly I didn't do my air freshener homework.

I like that you recognized that the cabbie

that recognized Saul in the Gene story-

Right. That question has to be answered for sure.

Yeah, that guy IDs Saul,

and then you don't know what happens,

but something happens.

This is from Ann S.

I noticed Kim didn't have the perfectly curled ponytail

at the end of the finale.

For me, it's always been a symbol

of how she puts up a front for the world.

I wonder if she's been playing the perfect lawyer all

through the series and now the real Kim is showing through.

Mm. I'll tell you this, Ann.

They are very particular about when her hair is down

and very particular about when that ponytail loosens

or gets tighter.

You are not wrong to connect that

to her psychological state. Inner state.

Yeah, so watch what happens.

Watch what happens to the ponytail.

I'm not saying it dies,

but the ponytail is not long for this world.

You'll see.

Patrick Scott Patterson.

Kim Wexler doesn't die at the end of Better Call Saul.

She actually screws Jimmy over

and disappears via the vacuum cleaner man.

There he comes up again.

Robert Forster.

I know.

Great guy, part of Breaking Bad and-

Unfortunately passed away. Part of El Camino

and did a little recording too

for Better Call Saul, right?

It would've been great to see him come through for Kim.

There's not an easy out.

There's no easy dissembling of this relationship.

People don't just escape from it

'cause it's not a business relationship.

They're in love with each other

and in love with being together.

So there's just no easy way out of like,

I'm gonna pay a guy and disappear.

That's too easy.

That's a good point

'cause there's the legal issues they're in

when we end the season.

But then there's the relationship,

which is much more complex

about what does it mean to get out of that?

What does it mean to get away from that?

Is this ojman? From ojman.

Ojman654.

I'm gonna pretend it's about orange juice.

I really like the theory

that it'll end with Gene doing nothing.

He never finds Kim.

He never goes back to ABQ.

The taxi driver was never any threat to him or his identity.

The cops will never find him.

He's just doomed to live the rest

of his life as a lonely Cinnabon manager.

I like the muted nature of it where they just-

And the very existential nature.

It's like he wandered off into Kamooland.

The problem with the theory

is that what I think we've seen so far

is that Gene, Saul Goodman, Jimmy McGill,

can't remain in hiding.

It's killing him.

So he can't carry on in that way.

I totally agree with that.

I would say that who you really are,

question they constantly bring up.

That idea of that simmering lid that Kim and Jimmy have.

This suppression of something.

It's almost like they can't deal

with the energy just ceasing.

It's gotta go somewhere.

It can change, but it can't just stop.

Posted by u/PostyMcPosterson.

At the end of intro to season six, episode one,

it took place after the events of Breaking Bad.

The scene ends with a wine top Kim has taken as a trophy.

It's actually a tequila top.

[Rhea] Yes, Zefiro Anejo.

Where we see the wine top fall into the gutter,

and the camera zooms into it and rests on it.

I'm thinking at a certain point,

we will cut back to that stopper

and a post Breaking Bad Kim will pick it up.

And after the events of season six, episode three,

I think they want us to believe she won't live until the end

of the McGill story timeline.

I understand the idea that Kim would die

in a show where there's life or death stakes.

I get it.

It would also be

a huge catalyst. You should be concerned

about that.

On the other hand,

because some major characters just were slaughtered,

it feels like everybody can't die

all at once. There's that.

Unless it's an apocalyptic, you know, scenario.

Delaney Jordan.

Okay, Delaney.

Okay, I'm now officially accepting theories

about Carol Burnett's character in Better Call Saul.

I've seen people propose she's Howard's mother

or the replacement for the vacuum guy.

Oh, that's good.

But I think we gotta prepare for any contingency.

Okay, she is related to someone who you've met

in the show, a character you've met.

Wow, you're allowed

to say that? It would take-

Well, I'm saying it.

It would take you a while to figure that out,

who that is.

You'd never guess. You'd never guess it.

And yet it matters. And yet it matters.

It totally matters.

Thinking about her is a good thing to be thinking about.

Yeah, Carol Burnett is outstanding.

She's one of the great actresses of our time.

Okay, this is from Buck deSystem.

My theory is that Kim doesn't get killed.

Word travels fast in those circles.

It's unlikely that Saul would be able

to maintain a popular lucrative law practice for criminals

if everyone knew that a cartel boss just whacked his wife.

[Rhea] That's fair. Yeah.

So no one would wanna associate with Saul. Would you?

Maybe she just moves to another city

and runs the legal clinic.

I mean, she likes helping people, that's for sure.

She's kind of rejected life in a high-end law firm

to serve as many people as she can

in an almost manic, we could say-

It is a bit manic.

Behavior of- This constant

offsetting your carbon footprint kind of theory

about doing bad in the world of like,

I'll just help enough good people

and then this won't count. Now I can do some bad shit

when I feel like it.

The problem with your theory, Buck,

is that doesn't address what's gone on between these two.

And there's no way we leave the show

without looking at that and taking it apart a bit.

Okay, Brad Dukes.

My theory is Walt shows up

at Cinnabon on his way back from New Hampshire.

Wouldn't that be great?

I always loved the idea of Saul pulling his car

into that octopus car wash.

And those two sort of standing right next

to each other holding it in.

Obviously, I can say that because it doesn't happen.

Of course we know we're gonna see Walt and Jesse,

and we're gonna see them more than once

in the final six episodes.

And they're very well used,

very smartly and economically used,

not just to look what we got,

but to explore. As they said, I never wanted

to do a drive-by cameo.

It had to be for the purpose of the story.

I wouldn't have been against a drive-by cameo

because it's just fun.

Yeah, it's fun.

The notion that in a town like Albuquerque

you would cross paths with people.

It's a big town, but it's not that big.

Rohan Javet Beg.

Kim Wexler survives this series,

and we will see her awkwardly reunited

with Jimmy during the series finale.

Both of them transformed

and unsure of where to go from there.

You know, that's interesting.

That is interesting.

Because it suggests that the depth of character

is there of, like, maybe they have, I guess,

places inside internally to go still.

They're not just cornered by their personality type.

I found that interesting.

Most TV shows wouldn't go that deep, I think.

They really need their characters

to behave in the same way over and over.

I think we're on a show where they could-

They do let them evolve.

Grow and evolve in surprising ways.

I don't know.

I would like you to be in the writer's room next time.

Sarah has this to ask.

Young Jesse will be represented by Kim for dealing,

and we will see Walt as his teacher.

And that's how they both come back.

It'd make more sense given their first interaction

with Jimmy is in Breaking Bad.

Oh.

Oh, interesting. Wow.

So Jesse is represented by Kim for some issue he had.

And we see Walt is his teacher.

And that's how they're both in the next six episodes.

You know, Jesse kind of knew Saul, right?

And there's an assumption not just as,

Oh, there's a guy on TV in it, just in it.

But when we first meet Jesse in Breaking Bad,

has he already been in legal trouble?

I'm sure he has.

Well, it's possible. I like that one.

I like it, but we can't say no more.

We love reading these.

Can't wait for you to see what happens.

I don't think anybody has guessed.

No, but some people were close.

And thoughtful in a way

that is the right path. Thoughtful

in the way that the show is thoughtful.

Correct.

Like, yes.

You're paying attention to how the writers are thinking

about what the show is.

Thank you for watching.

[Rhea laughs]

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