Warning: spoilers for Better Call Saul season 6, including episode 7.
Better Call Saul showrunner Peter Gould breaks down that jaw-dropping death from the mid-season 6 finale titled "Plan and Execution." Co-created by Vince Gilligan and Gould, the Breaking Bad prequel series centered on Bob Odenkirk's titular lawyer returned to AMC on April 18 after a long hiatus. So far, the sixth and final season has predominantly followed two disparate storylines — the violent chess match between Cartel members Gus Fring and Lalo Salamanca, as well as Jimmy and Kim's carefully constructed plot to sabotage Howard Hamlin and force an early resolution in the Sandpiper case.
The first few episodes of season 6 saw Gus attempt to clean up after his failed assassination attempt against Lalo by having Nacho Varga take the fall, who went out with a blaze of glory in episode 3, "Rock and Hard Place." While Gus and his head of security Mike Ehrmantraut await Lalo's return to New Mexico, Jimmy and Kim's plan to frame Howard as a hysterical drug addict comes to a head in episode 7 during the Sandpiper mediation hearing. Afterward, Howard confronts Jimmy and Kim about their actions, but is wholly unprepared for who arrives next — the cold-blooded psychopath Lalo Salamanca who nonchalantly murders Howard and demands a tête-à-tête with his lawyers.
EW spoke to the Better Call Saul showrunner about the shocking death from the mid-season 6 finale. Gould explains how Howard's death acts as the convergence between the Sandpiper and Cartel storylines which had remained separate up until that fateful point, which serves to set up the remainder of the final season. Read his full breakdown below:
They would not have been fused if it hadn't been for what Jimmy and Kim did. A lot of this story is the story of unintended consequences. The consequences are just beginning, let's put it that way.
Maybe I'm admitting too much, but we did not plan for this several seasons ago. We didn't really understand this is where it was going to go until we started talking at the beginning of this season. A the end of last season, Kim Wexler shocked us all by suggesting, "Hey, maybe we should scam Howard and get the Sandpiper money now, instead of waiting three years." In this season, we started to talk about, "What is the plan that these two are going to put into action, and what effect is it going to have?" The more we talked about that, the more we realized that Jimmy and Kim are sort of the bridge between these worlds, the legal world and the world of the cartel and Gustavo Fring and the Salamancas.
Being a bridge has a lot of different aspects, and some of them are pretty terrible. In some ways, you know, they've opened the door to hell. They didn't fully understand what they were doing.
Before episode 7 aired, writer/director Thomas Schnauz attempted to downplay the severity of its cliffhanger ending, claiming that it wasn't originally conceived as a traditional midseason finale. As a result, fans tempered their expectations, which only made the impact of Lalo's arrival and Howard's death in Jimmy and Kim's apartment even more shocking. Interestingly, Lalo actor Tony Dalton took the opposite route and openly teased a jaw-dropping cliffhanger ending. While much of season 6 had been hinting at Howard's death, many theorized it would be as a result of the psychotropic drug with which Kim and Jimmy dosed him. Instead, it happened in a much more brutal and shocking way.
Ultimately, Jimmy and Kim's devious plot to ruin Howard resulted in the worst unintended consequence imaginable, as he was murdered for merely being an innocent bystander to Lalo's arrival. As Gould explains, this horrific moment effectively converges the two storylines and will now propel the plot forward for the second half of the season. After a few weeks' break, Better Call Saul season 6 will return to AMC on July 11 to air its final episodes.
Source: EW