Wait, is Carol Burnett playing Kim Wexler's MOM?!

Okay, let's get the spoiler alert out of the way up front - if you're a Better Call Saul fan and you haven't seen July 25th's episode "Nippy," I suggest you go track down some old episodes of Mr. Show with Bob Odenkirk, or here, check out Mike Ehrmantraut actor Jonathan Banks dancing on Soul Train in this fantasy sequence from his old 1990s TV series Fired Up - if you still scroll down past the lovely ad separating these paragraphs, you can't say you weren't warned ---

Okay, now then: Something about the way Carol Burnett's crusty old character Marion asked Jimmy/Saul/Gene about whether he'd heard anything about "Nippy" tipped me off to something - she knows "Gene" is scamming her. No dog lover would have gone so long without mentioning the missing doggie that brought them together. That was a weakness for Jimmy, something he never had and couldn't really relate to, being a devotional dog owner. His brother chided him for his childhood inability to take proper care of a pet, Jimmy was too selfish to be a good dog owner. But Marion knew what it's like to lose a dog. And "Gene" clearly didn't.

In fact, I'm gonna go way out on a limb here - I think MARION is the one running a scam. And it's because she's Kim Wexler's queen-of-the-scammers mom!

Both Kim and the cabbie who figured out who Gene really was have been seen with the same unique air freshener, it was particularly notable in the first scene of the cab. Now whether that's the same air freshener or two different ones, I don't know. But air fresheners were a big deal at the car wash in Breaking Bad, part of the patina of mundane normalcy the Whites were trying to present, so maybe Kim got hers at the same car wash back in the day, before the Whites forced the owner to sell it to them. And the cabbie most likely got HIS air freshener at the car wash AFTER the Whites bought it, either during or after the events depicted in Breaking Bad.

In any event, the air freshener indicates a connection between the cabbie, his "mom" Marion, and Kim Wexler.

My theory is that the cabbie, who was all over Walt's story because he'd been a customer of the car wash before news got out about Heisenberg, did indeed recognize the MIA Saul Goodman in his cab. And the cabbie somehow knew Kim Wexler's mom. And of course Kim Wexler's mom would have a LOT of reasons to hate Jimmy/Saul/Gene - whatEVER Kim's ultimate fate. Even a best case scenario like a ride from the vacuum man that erased Kim's trail for good but left her alive and well somewhere would be a bitter pill for her mom to swallow. Her mom, the original scam artist who instilled a love for "getting away with it" in her young daughter.

Marion's last name still hasn't been revealed. The cabbie may or may not really be her son - he might just be a tipster who was already well in on the "game" before "Gene" became their target, their sucker.

And of course Kim's mom would have more motivation than just hatred. She knows Jimmy must have a fortune in ill-gotten cartel gains stashed away somewhere. The ultimate score, taking Saul Goodman's own secret stash away from him, and leaving him to hide from all his enemies without the benefit of a financial cushion to fall back on.

Of course it takes a thief to know a thief. "Marion" knew that "Gene" wouldn't be able to resist running a new con with her alleged son. She's just like him, she would do the same thing. One con scamming another.

If I'm right, it will be kind of delicious to see!