‘Better Call Saul’ Season 6 Midseason Finale: Major Character Dies in Shocking Episode

Better Call Saul just delivered one of the most shocking cliffhangers of its run in the Season 6 midseason finale, and it spelled the end of Howard Hamlin. Patrick Fabian’s character fell victim to the cartel dealings of Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) and Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) when he was at the wrong place at the wrong time in Monday’s episode, crossing paths with Lalo Salamanca at his former colleagues’ apartment. In an effort to keep his whereabouts a secret, Lalo executed Howard while Kim and Jimmy watched, shocked.

“[Executive producers Vince Gilligan, Peter Gould, and Melissa Bernstein] said, ‘We’ve cracked something that we’re going to hinge the whole season on, and we’re really excited about it,’” Fabian told The Hollywood Reporter of his character’s death. “And like we do over here on Better Call Saul, they also said, ‘You’ve heard this, and now you forget it.’ So that’s exactly what I did. I didn’t talk about it with anybody. I didn’t talk about it with my wife. I didn’t talk about it with Bob and Rhea, and we lived together.”

Fabian noted that while Lalo ultimately killed Howard, his character’s journey came to an end much sooner, when Kim and Jimmy humiliated him and forced the Sandpiper Crossing class-action lawsuit into an early settlement. “Jimmy and Kim have undressed him in his own office and exposed him. It’s a humiliation of untold proportions, and then the final scene is just a real gut punch,” Fabian reflected.

Howard’s death was a definitive crossing of the legal and cartel storylines of Better Call Saul, which Fabian joked to PopCulture.com ahead of the Season 6 premiere rarely came in contact with one another. “It’s a lawyer show for me. Matter of fact, I sit down and watch it just like all the fans on Monday nights at AMC at 9 p.m. on AMC and I’m like, ‘What are we doing in the desert? What are all these guns going on here?’” he said at the time. The actor added, “[But] I was like, ‘Where do paths cross? Where’s the intersection of those two things?’ And the great thing about the writers, about Peter and Vince, is that they don’t do anything just for show or just as a splash to be like, ‘Ooh, wouldn’t it be great if this happened?’ All the things that we find out that happen in Season 6, whether they cross or they don’t cross, are in service to the story that they set up.”

Fabian teased that he was “very confident” that fans of the show will be “absolutely satisfied with how it all resolves” by the end of Season 6. “It really delivers on all the things that you want it to deliver and it answers questions and it’s exhilarating, it’s a rollercoaster ride, but nobody wants a rollercoaster to end,” he said. “They want to go again.” Better Call Saul returns with the final six episodes beginning July 11 on AMC.