Editor's note: The following contains major spoilers for Better Call Saul Season 6, Episode 7, "Plan and Execution."Well, those crazy kids did it. After months of meticulous planning, plus a last-minute adjustment, Bob Odenkirk’s Jimmy McGill and Rhea Seehorn's Kim Wexler pull off the most devastating scam seen in the entire run of Better Call Saul, managing to convince Patrick Fabian’s Howard Hamlin of a different plot that didn’t exist and getting him to completely embarrass himself and tank mediation on the Sandpiper case in the process. To do so, at the end of the prior episode, Kim turns away from the opportunity to expand the good work she is doing for clients trapped in an unjust justice system. It isn’t about the money or setting things right such as half-hearted justifications long gone. Kim throws it all away so that she and Jimmy can get back at Howard. In this week's mid-season finale, simply titled “Plan and Execution,” the audience is left with a persistent knot in our collective stomach as we remained uncertain about whether this will all come together.
After realizing how he had been played, Howard shows up at their apartment. It is a visit motivated by confusion, rage, and desperation to find out why they had done this to him. He knows he has been cruel in the past, though it seems he has turned over a new leaf and is attempting to better himself. Much like Nacho Varga before him, Howard is one of the few characters who has been doing his best to try to go down a better path that was fast narrowing. It is therefore unsurprising, though no less brutal, to see him meet his end. While he is confronting Jimmy and Kim, an unexpected visitor walks into their apartment: Lalo Salamanca, who has come looking for answers, willing to do whatever it takes to get them. To demonstrate this, Lalo pulls out a gun and shoots Howard point-blank in the head. As his now-lifeless body falls to the ground and smashes into the living room table, snuffing out any possibility of redemption for him, the finality of the moment does not just have consequences for the former lawyer. It also shows how Jimmy and Kim must now reckon with what they have done in setting the events in motion that led to Howard’s untimely demise.
While neither Jimmy nor Kim pulled the trigger, had they left Howard alone he would still be alive. He never would have bought into their misdirection and showed up at their apartment. He would have never seen Lalo and ended up dead on their floor. He would have been sitting at home, reflecting on what he wanted the rest of his life to be. While neither intended for this to happen, his blood is on their hands. They brought doom on him through their own unrelenting callousness and cruelty. All the conscious choices they made have built to this. The final monologue that Howard gave, the last he is ever going to give, lays out their culpability. He calls them “soulless” and “sociopaths,” pledging to show the world the truth of who they really are. He is vindictive, but he isn’t wrong. The resolute expression and confidence of his tone soon melt away when Lalo walks in. As he hears the fear in Kim’s voice and sees the immediacy with which Jimmy recoiled, he tries to remove himself from the situation. It is too late, both for him and the people he came there to confront. His death marks not just the end for him, but the beginning of the end for all the characters of this world.
It is no accident that one of Howard’s final scenes sees him looking at the painting of his departed friend, Chuck, and reflecting on how there are more important things besides being a good lawyer. Whereas Jimmy seemed largely cold to Chuck’s death, it clearly took a toll on Howard. After being a frequent antagonist in the show, he soon became one of the few characters who were most enduringly human. That Howard, a deeply flawed man, was a figure who represented the best of the people still left remains a tragic reflection on how far everyone has fallen. Now that he is gone, we are left with a void that will only be filled by more darkness. However much we hope for the better natures of Jimmy and Kim to overcome their descent, the destruction they wrought on Howard is a new low. Despite multiple chances to pull back from the abyss, they leaped right into it. Even when we saw brief glimpses of Jimmy looking less than enthused, like the moment when he is confronted by Howard right before his death, he still goes along with it. The way Jimmy and Kim continue to exact cruelty on others reaches a breaking point, culminating in a man dying on the floor before them. It is at this moment that any chance at salvation has slipped away, leaving them with nowhere to go but down.
Yes, we will still see how Jimmy and Kim have to figure out what to do with the murderous Lalo in their apartment. Such a cliffhanger, while certainly effective, is not what makes Better Call Saul so thoroughly compelling. It is in seeing two people, capable of doing good, become so completely caught up in their own selfish acts that makes it one of the best shows on television. The agony of seeing their steady decline over the past six seasons has all been building to this. It is a tragedy of the highest order, made all the more painful because it didn’t have to be this way. We have seen glimpses of the good they could do if they turned away from this life, ensuring a profound loss is felt as these moments have become rarer and rarer.
With Howard’s death, Better Call Saul has laid bare the cost of their plans. It is not just that there is no bringing him back. It is that the sense of goodness that Jimmy and Kim were once clinging to is gone, a blip of hope that has been smothered in the depravity of their own actions. Even if they both manage to find a way out of the remainder of the series with their lives, there is no reclaiming their souls now they have been so utterly and completely corrupted. They have given in to the darkness, something they will now be defined by for the rest of their existence.