After a nearly two-year hiatus, Better Call Saul‘s Season 6 premiere is just days away! But as audiences settle in for the final chapter of Jimmy McGill’s transformation into Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) of the Breaking Bad universe, there has been evidence that his partner and now wife, Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) is also making her own changes. Picking up from the Season 5 finale where Kim starts theorizing ways to torture their joint nemesis Howard Hamlin — played strikingly by Patrick Fabian — while also settling the Sandpiper case, Kim is a changed woman. Not to mention, the dramatic character shift redefines the nature of the series amid her face-off with Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton), proving she is a force to reckon with.
With fans wondering how far Kim is willing to go and her eyes now targeting Howard with Jimmy’s help, Fabian tells PopCulture.com exclusively it will be an interesting journey for the three, especially as his character, who is also the senior partner at Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill, has no idea of the couple’s scheming against him. Let alone, does he see either as a threat. “I don’t think Howard has either, other than seeing the idea of, [Kim’s] really not taking his advice and as much as he’s let go of helping Jimmy, I think he reaches a point where he feels that Kim is all also far gone,” he said. “At some point in order to move on with your life, you have to let people go. They’re going to do what they’re going to do. You really aren’t going to change their behavior.”
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However, Fabian posits that there is also “bitter disappointment” stemming from Howard with Kim, more so than Jimmy. “Jimmy’s of a different elk and I don’t think he ever thought he was a serious lawyer anyways,” he said. [But] Kim’s a different animal and he says so when Kim decides to leave the firm that he admires her, and he wish he had put up his own shingle. He tries to pay for a college education and then she shoves it back in his face, and that’s wounding. I think he always thought it was going to be HHM and W. I mean, as much as he could be in the early aughts in Albuquerque wearing a tie bar, Howard was kind of a feminist. He was looking to add her granted that they were publicity, but he wanted to because he cared about her. So it hurts.”
When asked if the care he has for Jimmy is genuine, Fabian believes Howard has always been a “surrogate father” for Jimmy. “This goes all the way back to that great scene where Jimmy gets his law degree, and he’s in the break room,” he said, recalling the day the team shot that “wonderful” scene together. “It encapsulated everything that Howard feels about him. He wanted people to be removed. He didn’t want to embarrass him. He wanted to take him aside and then we found out later, of course, the only reason Howard is even doing that is because of Chuck [Michael McKean].”
With Howard acting as a buffer as “best he can” because he is beholden to Chuck, Fabian says it’s when he gets Jimmy a job at Davis & Main that things come to a head. “That’s a good place. Cliff [Ed Beagley Jr.], a great guy to work for, and then Jimmy throws it away and then Howard comes back again. Howard has tried to help him again and again and again. But at this point, that last episode where I leave the courthouse and Jimmy is coming unhinged, it’s beautiful.”
The episode, directed by Better Call Saul executive producer Melissa Bernstein, sees Jimmy taking it out on Howard for the job offer. The “unhinged” moment with an immaculate performance from Odenkirk comes after Jimmy in a fury throws bowling balls at Howard’s car outside his home and sends prostitutes to his lunch meeting with Cliff Main.
“What I love about that is it pulls back with me as I leave the courthouse and Howard has set his jaw,” Fabian tells PopCulture. “He’s also not going to be publicly drawn into that kind of nonsense and he leaves the courthouse and then [Bernstein] flips around and shows this silhouette of Saul unhinged, literally crazy man. And at that point, Howard has not washed his hands of Jimmy-Saul as a person, but he’s let him go. He’s let go of any responsibility at that point of trying to help change him or turn him around. And I think there’s a difference.”
Better Call Saul Season 6 premieres April 18 on AMC at 9 p.m. ET with two back-to-back episodes. All episodes of Better Call Saul are available to stream on AMC+ and Netflix. For more on the series and all your favorite AMC shows, keep it locked to PopCulture.com for the latest.
