Showrunner Peter Gould discusses the plan and the execution in “Plan and Execution.”
Still, the most dramatic moments on theBreaking Badprequel have often been less physically brutal than emotionally nasty.
“Plan and Execution” marks a decisive turn, for reasons that are bothSPOILER-tastic and demolishingly sad.
Rhea Seehorn on ‘Better Call Saul’.Greg Lewis/AMC/Sony Pictures Television
For, alas, we have reached Howard’s end.
It’s a thousand-point strategy that climaxes during a mediation hearing gone hysterically wrong.
Some falsified photos and a bit of bad medicine make Howard look like a raving, drug-addled lunatic.
In the episode’s final scene, Howard comes by the Goodmans' apartment.
Rich Schweikert, Clifford Main, Howard Hamlin: all these super-lawyers in one room, finally!
After Howard’s breakdown, he talks to Cliff about his theory that Jimmy was responsible for framing him.
What Cliff takes from all this?
It’s really hard to know.
OnBetter Call Saul, different characters have always inhabited different worlds that are often loosely connected.
In this episode we move from this amazing Sandpiper showdown to Lalo hunting Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito).
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.
[Laughs] The consequences are just beginning, let’s put it that way.
Our perspective of Howard Hamlin has changed so much from season 1.
At what point in the process did the writers decide that this is going to be his death?
Maybe I’m admitting too much, but we did not plan for this several seasons ago.
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.
Is this the first time that Kim has really had to think aboutwhyshe was doing this?
There’s a lot more to say on this topic, and we’re definitely not finished.
But Howard has a point of view that really makes an awful lot of sense.
Boy, he’s definitely right about that.
You realize it’s more about the relationship than it is about the money.
But more than that, he took responsibility for his death, and then he did work on himself.
He’s gone to therapy.
you might see that he’s grown quite a bit.
He punished her by having her do menial legal work, and it felt terribly unjust.
But I don’t think he would do that now.
It’s a fascinating thing to see the character grow.
He grows, and Jimmy and Kim are both kind of fighting against growing.
They don’t really want to think about their motivations.
They certainly don’t want to talk about them.
Howard, I think, really irritates Jimmy and Kim because he’s telling the truth by his lights.
One thing I love aboutBetter Call Saulis that literally everyone on the show is much smarter than me.
When that happened, in my stupidity, I thought he was immediately going to attack the laundry.
What’s the pivot that takes him from the laundry to Jimmy and Kim’s apartment?
But Lalo clearly was surprised by the fact that Mike was there waiting for him at the laundry.
He had no idea how well-defended the laundry was.
He’s been at a disadvantage.
He now realizes, “They’re waiting for me.
They know that I’m still alive somehow.”
But through knowing that,henow has a little bit of an advantage.
He knows what Gus Fring knows, and Gus Fring doesn’t know that he knows it.
There’s a whole level of 4D chess going on.
What’s he up to?
Is he just settling old scores because he can’t get to Gustavo Fring now?
Or is there something else going on now?"
Answers will be forthcoming.
