Submission 320

Warning: this entry contains major spoilers for the television series Better Call Saul.

Kim Wexler Breaks Down, also known as Kim Wexler crying or Kim Wexler bus breakdown, refers to a memorable and tragic scene in the penultimate episode titled "Waterworks" in the sixth and final season of Better Call Saul in which Kim Wexler breaks down on a public bus on her way back to the airport to return to Florida after confessing to her involvement in the scam she organized with her husband at the time Jimmy McGill to gain the Sandpiper settlement faster by defaming Howard Hamlin as a drug addict, a scheme that would result in his unintended death at the hands of Mexican cartel drug distributor Lalo Salamanca. The episode that the scene appeared in aired on August 8, 2022. The video would soon be turned into an exploitable reaction gif meme that would be used in a very similar manner to the Walter White Breaks Down memes.

Origin

On August 8, 2022, the twelfth and penultimate episode of the final season of Better Call Saul titled "Waterworks premiered on AMC. The episode revolved around the life of deuteragonist Kim Wexler after the events of Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad. In the most memorable scene from the episode, Kim struggles to not break down and cry on a public bus as she makes her way back to the airport to return to her vapid Florida life. She initially succeeds at holding back her tears but it isn't enough and she breaks down sobbing uncontrollably.

Spread

In the following weeks and months since the episode's premiere, the gif would be turned into a very similar meme to the aforementioned Walter White Breaks Down memes. The video of Kim crying would often be sped up and used as a reaction gif to bad news on Twitter. Some of the memes added text on top of it as well, the most memorable being "There Never Was a Nippy" in reference to the episode "Nippy" in which Jimmy McGill under his new alias Gene Takavic pretends that he has a missing dog named Nippy in an attempt to be able to conduct his latest scam.