The third episode starts with an almost-silent beer bottle scene and ends with a completely silent one. And in the first one, there is what you were witnessing: She’s looking at him like a specimen and kind of holding back, and he’s trying to reach her and she’s unreachable. But then you see that there is great love in the silent scene at the end. At that moment, she’s thinking, “I still know the man that’s under whatever this is.” And she’s still in love with that. It’s like, your partner has decided a very bizarre different road to take. I think we’ve all been in situations where you’re not ready to throw out your whole relationship, but you are closely watching what this change means.

For Kim, the romantic side of their relationship seems to come alive when being with Jimmy allows her to rebel. At the end of the finale, they start coming up with this plan to ruin Howard (Patrick Fabian), and then the next shot they’re in bed together.

I have enjoyed tracking over the seasons this idea: I don’t think it’s just that she loves the dangerous side of Jimmy — I think she enjoys also being dangerous at times, and to let go a little bit. And it’s happening more and more at the same time she is learning that following the rules does not seem to get the righteous result, either. She was trying to follow the rules so that the good guy won, so that she could help people. But there was also a level of control that I think Kim seeks constantly, to be able to decide who gets what.

She has a lot of idealistic thoughts about the little guy getting stepped on. She doesn’t like the Kevin Wachtells of the world and the Howard Hamlins. She has serious problems with people who haven’t earned their own way. You could say a lot of things about Jimmy, but he has definitely worked his ass off. Everything he has, he got himself, and she has too. I think that they connect on that.

One of the things that was really fun to play was when she ends up doing an imitation of Kevin Wachtell [Rex Linn]. That, to me, was him trying to encourage her to enjoy what she’s doing. She is struggling mightily with the fact that she knows it is legally wrong, and Jimmy is asking her to enjoy it, that it’s fine as long as the result is the right thing. It doesn’t matter how you got there. I liked that scene so much for what it says about them as a couple. I think they do know each other in ways that they’re afraid to say out loud.

The very last scene with the two of them turns their dynamic on its head. Jimmy is the one who always takes things too far, and when it becomes clear that Kim is willing to go further than he could have ever imagined, he’s scared by it.