"If Breaking Bad showed us what entitled toxic masculinity looked like when it ran rampant in the life of the most milquetoast protagonist imaginable, Better Call Saul is about a slower, sadder thing: a man who learns that having feelings is for suckers," says Joshua Rivera. "It’s a show for the irony-poisoned and extremely online where nothing is assumed to be genuine, and everything is probably a scam. Better Call Saul is concerned with what happens when people decide that scamming is the only way to win, and the immense harm inflicted by people who have convinced themselves that anyone behaving earnestly is just playing the game wrong. In Saul, this is illustrated by Kim Wexler, Jimmy’s longtime friend and girlfriend / partner, a damn good lawyer in her own right with a bit of a grifter’s streak in her. Kim, however, is a character of integrity with a sense of justice and lines that she only crosses when that notion of justice is violated. She’s a vigilante scammer where McGill is an equal-opportunity swindler. At the end of the day, she believes in the system and in Jimmy’s capacity to be an honest man. This means, in Better Call Saul’s universe, she’s doomed."
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TOPICS: Better Call Saul, AMC