This was a kind of "reflect, reconsider, reset" episode after the resolution of the Lalo and Howard affair. All major characters have time to mull over what happened, figure out how they are feeling about it, and then adjusting their life path accordingly as desired.
Mike is maybe the only one still eaten up by what went down with Nacho; and he cared about Nacho enough that the fact Nacho cared so much about his father leads Mike to go visit him. But they are from different worlds, even if both have lost a son. Among criminals, Mike is gold-hearted; but he can't see himself as the external world sees him; he has lurked in the criminal world too long and he also still thinks in terms of police / justice. Nacho's father sees it all as just revenge and turf protection. Mike's arc here is less about the possibility of reset and more about becoming acutely aware of how damned he is already, having lost the game already simply by playing it. His only consolation has been in doing his job as professionally as possible and using what power/resources he has for provide to the people he loves. (It makes Walt dicking him over even worse, later, because of how it impacts Cayley; although I think at that point it is just the death Mike knew was coming for him, because of everything he's done.)
Gus has two mini-events. One is the meeting with Eladio, which goes down as expected -- and it has that beautiful terrible irony BCS is known for, that one reason Gus escapes with his life is because Lalo's attempts to cover up his death are so immesnsely successful that even the cousins vouch that Lalo died in the compound attack. (Lalo would be laughing at this.) It also just deepens Hector's hate. He is a loaded nuclear weapon by the time Walt visits him and proposes his devil's deal in BB. In some ways, Eladio completely meshes with Gus' view of him expressed on video last week (the video no one will ever see); and yet here he tells Gus (another sign of confidence or maybe just heading off plots that might flower in the dark?) that he could see hate in his eyes, and warns him that a little hate is okay but only if he remembers who is in charge. Of course, we know how that works out... as Gus stares down at the pool presumably remembering Max's body there years ago.
That moment is not much of a reset for Gus, but we see him go out and try to live a "normal night." I was trying to figure out what was going on with that scene, and I think it is mainly that we see Gus outside of his role as a boss and drug lord and just a man who is a bit lonely and looking for human connecton and possibly something deeper -- and he has a truly wonderful conversation with a man who he connects with and seems to really enjoy talking to him... but he can't live in that world and chooses to button up his social armor again and leave even if he could have stayed. If he had stayed... what then? Could he even leave the world he was creating for himself? Maybe... but only with a drastic full measure, no half-measures.
Which leads us to Kim.
Jimmy despite it all is trying to button himself up and press forward with Business As Usual. Even if his heart currently seems only half-invested, he is even pushing that line Mike fed him about forgetting trauma. But Kim is not buying it. This is finally the Kim we remember, after the bucket of cold sobriety got tossed on her with Howard's death. Maybe Jimmy can ignore everything, but she can't. I think the celebration for Howard at HHM only accelerates it (where we find out HHM as a company also will no longer exist, they've destroyed THAT too), she would have reached the same decision regardless -- but she sees what she does when Jimmy falters a bit with conning Howard's wife over his addiction and steps in with a cruel lie without batting an eye, and seals the ruse. She's efficient, cold, calculating, and totally duplicitous, and pulls it off flawlessly.
It is just the clincher for her internal compass. She realizes no matter how hard she tries, as long as she is with Jimmy, they are in a devolving destructive orbit to everyone around them. She loves Jimmy but we all know that Kim is ruled by her head; what is good enough for Jimmy's heart can't satisfy Kim, she will typically always do the hard right thing versus the easy wrong thing. She is taken aback by what she was capable of doing to Howard when paired up with Jimmy. Despite all her protestations of how Jimmy was affecting her and claims by others that he was running her down, she sees now they were true... just on a different level. Jimmy eroded her boundaries not to protect herself but to protect others from herself, and there was something in her that enjoyed that level of power and manipulation. [heck, she's a lawyer.]
The kiss in the parking garage feels off, like a last goodbye and not just a sign of love. There's also the new trash can that was replaced. You can't go back, only forward.
In hindsight, Kim's choice seems inevitable and perhaps the most likely reason she never appears in BB. Nothing as tragic as her death, but definitely the tragedy of realizing that love is not enough and that the two of them together is too destructive to be allowed to endure. Kim has typically been a "superego" person rather than running off ID like Jimmy, although lately she's been running with him. She steps in now not just as a lawyer prosecuting herself but as her own jury and judge, and removes herself from the law and from Jimmy's life to protect everyone else and to provide recompense for her crimes. She decides she cannot be trusted after what she has done and takes the liberty of correcting herself (just like she did when she got confined to the basement, she takes on hard burdens and slaves endlessly to earn her way forward) rather than waiting or expecting others to do it for her. Here is where Jimmy and she differ; Jimmy takes the least difficult way, he might feel horrible guilt over something but also doesn't see the point in punishing himself. If he is caught for the crime, he'll do the time (if he can't wiggle out), but otherwise doesn't have the discipline to punishing himself without other's involvement.
It's just heartbreaking as they both revert to type -- Jimmy trying to find a way to avoid the pain, Kim sticking to her guns and doing what she knows is right and balancing the scales as much as she can. They're both wrong and both right in some ways. But it's clear that bad things happen when the two are in proximity.
So out of everyone, Kim evaluates, judges, and punishes herself as much as she solves a problem here. She walks off into the sunset, with us (or Jimmy) having no idea of what happens to her. I wonder sometimes if she went back to the area she grew up in, that she talked about wanting to get out of and never being like the people who stayed. Is that how she resolved her flaws? Abandoning ambition? Reseting back to start? (But it is also an area like where Jimmy went. You wonder if they are in proximity to each other in some ways now.)
Jimmy meanwhile is devastated and stops caring about anything. he becomes utterly cynical and now he's where we've always known him at. After loving Kim, he's done. The one person he wanted to be with left him because they are bad together, making his "taint" obvious, and instead of denying it, he just embraces it. He is a ruined man with the veneer of success at least from what he owns but with no core left. he's hollow inside. His heart has walked out on him.
EDIT: Also, the show has been amazing in terms of wooing us to care about Jimmy and showing he does have a good heart -- and yet what Chuck said about him is true, everything he touches seems to get tainted and "he just can't help himself" -- I think the deal is that Chuck was contemptuous towards Jimmy, which was cruel and unfair, but the core of what he was saying was actually correct, and Jimmy just slowly drifts that way. He also creates a resonance with Kim that is too tantalizing for her to resist; so again, what HOWARD said about Kim that was so insulting (that Jimmy was dragging her down) to her personal agency was actually correct as well, he had a negative influence on her in terms of lowering her boundaries / tempting her, and it took her a lot to walk away. I think it is the hallmarks of a great show where the people who are somewhat villainous are right in their ideas even if not their delivery, and where the heroes are villainous in some ways.
I have no idea where the series is going in its last four episodes. I would love for Kim and Jimmy to have a happily ever after, but would that just ruin them both again? I don't know.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
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