The shock end of episode 7 was not actually planned

Warning, massive spoilers follow for Better Call Saul Season 6 Episode 7: Today the midseason finale of Better Call Saul season 6 is streaming on Netflix. Following Episode 7, Plan and Execution, the Breaking Bad prequel will go on 7-week hiatus and play dead before resuming on July 12th. But in this final episode, trio Jimmy, Kim and Howard get down to some shocking action again.

This is the big Better Call Saul death in the midseason finale of Season 6 on Netflix

After season 3 of Better Call Saul shocked with a character death in episode 6, now the next important figure dies: Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian). For Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) and Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), in episode 7 of Better Call Saul Season 6, everything goes like clockwork: you long-planned humiliation projectto drag the reputation of lawyer and ex-colleague Howard into the mud, works: Because Howard’s private detective turns out to be Jimmy’s ally, gives Howard fake photos of a money transfer and thus makes him believe that the mediation judge took a bribe in the important Sandpiper case.

Howard makes a fool of himself then with his allegations (against a person who is in truth upright) and has to agree to a court settlement on worse terms. Jimmy and Kim also prepared the fake photos with a liquid that makes Howard’s pupils dilate when it comes into contact with skin, making him look like a drug addict.

Although the blonde legal rival eventually sees how he’s been duped, he can’t convince law firm partner Clifford Main (Ed Begley Jr.) otherwise. So all he has left is in the evening knocking on Jimmy’s door after his defeat and to confront him with his knowledge. Unfortunately, Jimmy and Kim get another visitor that night: Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton), who Jimmy thought was dead, comes in.

Lalo roused Gus Fring with a (knowingly) bugged phone call. Mike’s men assigned to protect Jimmy are then pulled away to protect the drug empire from a (fake) strike. We don’t yet know exactly what Lalo wants to talk to his lawyer Jimmy about. But the uninvited guest becomes collateral damage: Lalo kills Howard with a headshotbecause he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. The “execution” in the episode title “Plan and Execution” becomes a literal execution.

Different than planned: Howard’s death in Better Call Saul is a “lucky coincidence”

As a cliffhanger, the midseason finale couldn’t be more dramatic. Better Call Saul’s series creator Peter Gould, however, revealed to TV Line that while writing the final season of the Breaking Bad spin-off, even it was not clear that the season was divided into two would become:

That’s really funny… I mean: In the story of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul we were very lucky – and I don’t want to call Bob Odenkirk’s heart attack and the corona pandemic “luck”. But facing those awful things and what they did to the finale gifted us a good breaking point for the squadron: Because, as luck would have it, Howard’s death was right in the middle.

The fact that the shooting of Better Call Saul was interrupted and delayed by both the corona pandemic and the heart attack of leading actor Bob Odenkirk were definitely hurdles for the long-awaited series finale. But Howard’s death was by no means certain from the startPeter Gould explained further:

We didn’t always know Howard wouldn’t survive. I would have guessed he wouldn’t make it, but I didn’t know for sure. All we knew for sure was that Jimmy and Kim’s plans against Howard would lead to something terrible. There must be dire consequences for their actions. We played through different scenarios: for example that alternatively caught Kim and their license was revoked. But as the story took shape, it felt right: The two separate stories of the cartel world and the court/fraud world of Howard needed to collide.

Howard’s shocking death was not what Jimmy and Kim intended, despite their elaborate plan for revenge against him. But his death stands at the same time symbolic of the fact that there is no turning back after their scams. With the conclusion of this story arc, the last 6 episodes could focus entirely on the Breaking Bad connection. The second half of the season will start on July 12again with weekly episodes.

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What are your thoughts on Howard Hamlin’s death in the midseason finale of Better Call Saul?