Caution: spoilers ahead for Better Call Saul season 6
Kim Wexler fans should feel heartened by others' misfortune after Better Call Saul season 6 drops two major deaths - neither of which involve Rhea Seehorn's character. Better Call Saul's final season promised blood and violence on a previously unseen scale and, frankly, over-delivered with two absolutely massive kills. Episode 3 ("Rock & Hard Place") brought an end to Michael Mando's Nacho Varga, who took his own life after falsely confessing to the assassination attempt on Lalo Salamanca. Then, in Better Call Saul season 6, episode 7 ("Plan & Execution"), a returning Lalo creeps from the shadows of Kim's apartment to put a bullet through the brain of a wrong-place-wrong-time Howard Hamlin.
Very few viewers would've expected Better Call Saul's end chapter to go this heavy on bloodshed. A quartet of character fates remained unanswered heading into season 6 - Nacho, Howard, Lalo, and Kim. None of the above feature in Breaking Bad (set only 4 years later), leaving Better Call Saul to explain what became of this missing foursome. Two of those boxes have now been ticked, leaving question marks over just Lalo Salamanca and Kim Wexler, but do the deaths we've witnessed so far prove Kim will be okay?
Lalo Salamanca remains alive and kicking in Better Call Saul season 6, but all signs point toward Tony Dalton's character following Nacho and Howard into the afterlife. Gustavo Fring knows Lalo's beady eye is fixed upon the superlab, and episode 5 ("Black & Blue") saw the Chicken Man secretly plant a firearm inside a parked construction vehicle at the site. Gus looks to be planning his final showdown against Lalo Salamanca at the superlab in Better Call Saul season 6, part 2. Since there's a hidden gun in play and Lalo isn't present throughout Breaking Bad (Gus actually claims all the Salamanca men are dead), there's a very good chance Better Call Saul season 6's third major character exit is reserved for Lalo. The all-important question then arises - would Better Call Saul really be so bold as to kill all four of its Breaking Bad absentees?
If Nacho Varga had made a triumphant escape from New Mexico, maybe Better Call Saul would take the brave step of killing Kim Wexler. Or perhaps if Howard Hamlin had landed a cushy job in the city, found a new lover who appreciated his latte foam art, and skipped town whilst flipping the bird to Jimmy McGill, then Kim's death would make sense. But for Nacho, Howard, probably Lalo, and Kim to all perish over the course of Better Call Saul's final run would risk feeling like overkill. The Breaking Bad universe thrives on hope as much as it does sadness (Jesse Pinkman's ending, for example) and it's hard to see where that hope will come from if every single one of Better Call Saul's unaccounted characters is left lying in a pool of blood. Killing anyone and everyone who doesn't feature in Walter White's timeline also feels like a less-than-innovative solution to figuring out where characters like Kim and Lalo are during Breaking Bad.
Nacho and Howard dying isn't the only reason Kim Wexler fans have to be hopeful. Better Call Saul season 6's "Axe & Grind" included a subtle scene where Kim took extra-special note of a business card belonging to the Disappearer. We also know Jimmy obtains this card because the same black book is shown during the house clearance flashforward of season 6's premiere. These little signs indicate that while Lalo will very probably be shot by Gus Fring and buried underneath the superlab - reuniting with Nacho and Lalo in the afterlife - Kim will be forced to spend all that Sandpiper money on having Ed Galbraith spirit her away under a new identity. While not exactly the most joyous ending to Better Call Saul's prequel timeline, Kim's survival offers a glimmer of light that a 4-in-4 death toll very much would not.