The following article contains major spoilers for Better Call Saul's series finale, "Saul Gone," which debuted Monday, Aug. 15 on AMC.
Better Call Saul's six-season run focused on the titular Saul Goodman as he became the character audiences knew from Breaking Bad. As the AMC series came into its own, it developed the world surrounding Saul through atmosphere and adding new characters. One of those characters was Rhea Seehorn's fan-favorite Kim Wexler.
Kim was introduced to audiences as Saul's partner in crime and later went on to become romantically involved with him. As Saul's story unfolded, creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould quickly realized the untapped potential in Kim as a character. With much of the underwhelming finale "Saul Gone" focusing on Kim and her connection to Saul, the whole series has been re-framed as her story of personal change and the influence she had on the events that transpired.
Better Call Saul chose to focus primarily on characters that appeared in Breaking Bad, only adding in a few originals. Kim quickly proved to be the stand-out through her complexity and charisma. As the series progressed, Gilligan and Gould gave Kim more plotlines -- such as her involvement with Mesa Verde starting in Season 2 -- to flesh out who she was and who she was becoming. Slowly, Kim's psyche was explored and fully realized as she split her life between indulging her "fun" side with Saul and maintaining the more professional side of herself.
Kim's influence on the show and its formative events began at the end of Season 5. She decided to begin the infamous plan of discrediting Howard Hamlin with Saul. During the course of the scam, audiences also got to see Kim return to her passion of helping people when she bacame a public defender. This push and pull between her love of good countered by a drug-like fixation on scam artistry made for the most compelling part of the series. Her ultimate decision to give up that negative part of her by leaving Saul is what made Kim the perfect foil for him.
Kim Wexler represented everything that Saul Goodman could never be. She was able to strike a balance between her life above the law and her activities bending the rules -- and when that balance was pushed too far, she left the scams behind. When Saul was pushed too far, he went over the edge and became the despicable character audiences know from Breaking Bad. Seehorn delivered a spellbinding performance that conveyed self-doubt, subtlety and degrees of confidence throughout the series, ultimately earning an Emmy Award nomination.
The finale of Better Call Saul followed Saul's incarceration as he used leverage to bargain his way down to a lesser sentence, until he confessed in order to reveal his humanity to Kim. The creators' choice to focus that final episode on Saul's perception of Kim and end the story on her leaving him shows that the series was more about Kim and her journey in regard to Saul. With the show now over, it's clear that Kim Wexler was the star all along.
Better Call Saul is now streaming on AMC+.