The Two Unsung Villains Of The 'Breaking Bad’ Universe

TV & Film

May 23

Saul Goodman — Image Source: wallpapersden

Breaking Bad is undoubtedly one of the most critically acclaimed shows ever. With sixteen Emmys over five seasons, it frequently comes near or tops the list of best TV shows ever. Part of the reason it’s so memorable is that it has some of TV’s all-time great villains. Gus Fring, the neo-Nazi gang, Saul Goodman and yes, Walter White himself. There are very few truly good people in the show. Even those on the right side of the law have their big faults. There are two villains that I feel don’t get enough attention. Without these two, a fair portion of Breaking Bad and its spinoff, Better Call Saul wouldn’t have happened. Both of them are in the spinoff, and have to do with the protagonist, Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman.

I’m talking, of course, about Chuck McGill and Kim Wexler.

Without those two, we don’t get Saul Goodman. Saul is arguably Walter White’s most important asset, save for maybe Jesse Pinkman. Saul helps launder Walt’s money. Saul gets Walt and Jesse out of major legal issues that would have easily derailed Walt’s drug empire. Saul has contacts that move things forward. Saul is an indispensable part of Walt’s criminal activities, and without Chuck McGill and Kim Wexler, we don’t get Saul Goodman at all.

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To figure that out, let’s go to the very beginning of Better Call Saul and examine Jimmy McGill, the man who would eventually become Saul Goodman.

He’s a small-time defense attorney who is so broke that his “office” is in the back of a nail salon. He’s not one hundred percent moral, but he generally means well and is fairly good at his job. He works hard to care for his brother, who believes he’s allergic to electricity, whose approval he craves. His best friend is Kim Wexler, another small-time attorney who started in the mail room of Chuck’s law firm, Hamlin, Hamlin, and McGill, just like Jimmy did. Jimmy was a former con artist, but he’s genuinely trying to turn things around. He’s flawed, but overall a good man. Nowhere near what Saul Goodman was in Breaking Bad.

The issue is that he has two people who push him toward becoming Saul Goodman.

The first and most obvious one is his brother, Chuck McGill.

Chuck is everything that Jimmy is not. He’s straight-laced, one hundred percent by the book, well-liked, respected, and successful. In their younger years, Jimmy and Chuck were closer, but time and resentment, especially on Chuck’s part, who was never their mother's favorite child, have caused them to drift apart slightly. Jimmy still loves his brother enough that he brings Chuck everything he needs, every single day, for years. Outwardly, the love Jimmy has for Chuck seems to be mutual, even if Chuck is a little bit aloof and self-righteous. However, it’s revealed that Chuck has been sabotaging Jimmy’s career from the start. He insists that Jimmy isn’t a real lawyer because he got his degree from the University of American Samoa as opposed to somewhere like Harvard.

What Chuck fails to keep in mind is that, highly accredited college or not, Jimmy worked very hard to pass the bar exam, and he is still a good lawyer who is passionate about his job. He didn’t think “eh, this might be fun” then take a week-long online course to get his degree, he studied for years. A large part of that is he wanted to form a real connection with Chuck, and finally find himself on equal footing with him. Instead, Chuck became more distant. Jimmy craves Chuck’s approval, and to be seen as an equal by him, but it never happens. All Jimmy really wanted was to hear “I’m proud of you” from Chuck. Finally, their relationship has deteriorated to the point where Chuck (falsely) tells Jimmy that he never meant that much to him. It’s a real turning point for Jimmy. He adopts the mindset that if he can’t be a respected lawyer, he’ll dive fully into doing things his way, even if those things aren’t fully legal.

So much of Jimmy’s downward spiral could have been avoided if Chuck had fully acknowledged that Jimmy was trying to do better. If he’d gotten off of his high horse, seen that Jimmy was trying to change, and worked with him, even saying that he was proud of him, then Jimmy would have turned out much better. Maybe not perfect, but his imperfections make him a fun character. Chuck’s insistence that people never change helps prove him wrong. He says Jimmy will never change, pushes him away, and that causes Jimmy to change into someone far worse than even Slippin’ Jimmy, who stole thousands from their father’s store. There is understandable resentment from Chuck because of everything Jimmy had done, and that sometimes Chuck had to help deal with the consequences, but is there a Saul Goodman the way he is in Breaking Bad if Jimmy has the support and respect of his older brother? Don’t think so.

That also brings us to the other unsung villain: Kim Wexler.

Kim is the person closest to Jimmy. He’s closer to him than his brother because he can be one hundred percent relaxed around her. At first, she tries to be the more straight-laced lawyer, a person who does everything by the book and doesn’t cut any corners, and tries to nudge Jimmy down that path with her. However, as the series continues, she finds herself running cons with Jimmy and having very few reservations about doing immoral things, to a point. The death of Chuck fully gets Jimmy going down the path of becoming Saul Goodman, and Kim eventually skips down it with him. She may not fully approve of everything that he does, but she more or less gives up trying to prevent Jimmy from fully embracing Saul Goodman and enables him in most of the things he does.

Now, Kim doesn’t do all of this because she’s a terrible person. There are no guarantees that if Kim had been fully moral Jimmy would have avoided becoming Saul, but her enabling his actions seals the deal. If his best friend, and eventual wife, doesn’t fully protest the things he does, then what’s the issue? And the ends justify the means, right? Of course, Jimmy is a functioning adult who makes his own choices, but the help from Kim solidifies in his mind that what he’s doing isn’t all that bad. Kim certainly isn’t a villain on the same level as Gus Fring or Walter White, of course, but she had just as much of a hand in creating Saul Goodman as Chuck did. And like I said in the beginning: no Saul Goodman, a lot of Breaking Bad couldn’t and doesn’t happen.

While neither Chuck nor Kim are drug lords, assassins, or anything like that, their actions do help mold Jimmy McGill into the villainous Saul Goodman. Chuck’s resentment toward his brother, and ironclad belief that people don’t change, ironically change Jimmy into a much worse person. Kim’s enabling of Jimmy’s behavior pushes him down a bad path faster. Still, regardless of what they do, they’re fascinating characters in a great show.

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