Better Call Saul: Howard Actor Responds to Saul’s End Redemption

Better Call Saul is undoubtedly one of the best television shows ever created.

The series, which is a Breaking Bad spin-off, features Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk), an earnest lawyer and former con artist, who takes on the identity of an egocentric criminal-defense attorney, Saul Goodman.

Jimmy interacts with all kinds of criminals as the show progresses and he starts drawing on his conman past. At the same time, his work as an attorney goes from questionable to unethical to outright illegal.

Some of the things he does over the timeline of the show include ruining people’s careers, suggesting murder as a solution to problems, working with the Mexican cartel, and directly causing his brother Chuck’s (Michael McKean) death. And although he wasn’t directly responsible for Howard Hamlin’s death, he and his ex-wife Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) did play a part in it.

Not to forget, he committed several misdeeds while he was part of Walter White’s empire during Breaking Bad, which takes place after the events of Better Call Saul.  

As a part of the flashforward scenes shown in black and white, the last episode of Better Call Saul shows Jimmy “killing” his Saul Goodman identity by confessing to all his crimes and accepting that he has hurt many people. He also does this to tell Kim not to lose hope in him yet.

Patrick Fabian, the actor who plays Howard Hamlin, was recently interviewed by CinemaBlend to promote his new movie Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham, where he was asked about his thoughts on Jimmy finally getting punished in the finale. Here’s what he said:

I’ll tell you what, I have a lot of feelings about that, both personally and professionally, but I think story-wise, without a doubt, yeah, Jimmy and Kim did have it wrong. They just did. And the only good that comes of it is that since I was literally laid at their feet as the manifestation of unintended consequences of your actions, even though it took a while, at the end, Jimmy makes a choice in jail to spend the rest of his life in jail and do the right thing, as opposed to scamming the system one more time. And in that moment, he regains his humanity. Any humanity that he lost along the way that he was giving away all through the storyline of Breaking Bad, I believe, is redeemed by him saying, ‘I can’t let Kim take the fall, and I’d rather spend the rest of my life in jail.’ And in that moment, I’m like, “Oh, redemption is possible even for somebody like that.’ So I guess it’s working, and you can’t ask for a better exit for a character, so I got no complaints.

Patrick Fabian

We can’t help but agree with him. Both Jimmy and Kim made Howard’s life miserable and his death was a reminder of how serious the consequences of their actions could be.

Jimmy may not have regretted his actions at first but Kim showed how guilty she felt by divorcing him and admitting she couldn’t be with him anymore because of all the crimes they committed together.

It’s not possible for a character like Jimmy to get complete redemption with just a few scenes. But by the end of the show, we’ve gotten so attached to the character that even the smallest act of remorse is enough to convince us that he has redeemed himself.

This one-episode-arc accomplished much more than what other anti-hero crime dramas like The Sopranos, Ozark, or even Breaking Bad did.  

Better Call Saul did a fantastic job of finishing the series, and we honestly could not have asked for a better ending.

About Better Call Saul

Better Call Saul is an American crime drama television series created by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould. It is a prequel and spin-off to the popular award-winning franchise “Breaking Bad”.

Set in the early to mid-2000s in Albuquerque, New Mexico, ‘Better Call Saul’ follows former conman Jimmy McGill’s journey to becoming a sleazy criminal defense lawyer under the moniker of Saul Goodman.

The series premiered on February 8, 2015 on AMC. The series finale aired on August 15, 2022 after a successful run of six seasons.