The cast and writers of Better Call Saul detailed how they managed to keep the final season's most shocking moment hidden, even from lead stars Bob Odenkirk and Rhea Seehorn.
There have been plenty of twists and turns in the final season of Better Call Saul, chief among them being the murder of civilian Howard Hamlin. Of all the characters in the show, Howard's death would have served as the most unexpected and shocking fate that the show could have churned out, which is why Patrick Fabian and those who worked on the show did their best to prevent its leads from knowing what his fate would be.
In a recent interview with Variety, writers and actors from Better Call Saul detailed what it was like trying to keep Hamlin's death a secret leading up to when it all unfolded. Fabian was told not only that he wouldn't be needed past a certain point of filming, but to keep his character's doom on hush-hush, which he kept from other actors on the show. "I only talk about the show with people on the show, but even in this case, I didn't tell anybody on the show. I would get the scripts, and I would be like shh-shh-shh-shh-shh-shh!" Seehorn, who plays Kim Wexler, praised Fabian for keeping it to himself for so long. "Patrick was so convincing in not telling us that I thought that it was possible he didn't know it was coming," Seehorn said. " It was a big surprise to me." Even Tony Dalton, who played Hamlin's murderer Lalo Salamanca, was flabbergasted by what was to come. "I was kind of just off on the sidelines for the first half of the last season, so to just jump in there to go into their apartment and shoot Howard was just, wow, insane."
Lalo murdering Howard in cold blood was a pinnacle point in the show for multiple reasons. One, it was the first time we saw both worlds of Better Call Saul collide seeing how Hamlin had never met anyone in the criminal underworld, let alone an all-around terror like Lalo. Two, it served as the breaking point for Kim because the plan to ruin Howard was all her idea, and even if it was neither her nor Jimmy's intention for him to die, Hamlin would have still been alive had it not been for her. It was reality, finally slapping her in the face after the damage she had caused.
It makes sense why everyone who knew ahead of time wanted to keep Hamlin's death on the down low. Hamlin was no saint, but he had the best morals out of all the characters in the show. There was nothing malicious in him as a person. To see him die for being in the wrong place at the wrong time on top of having his legacy be ruined for no reason other than his co-conspirators having some fun makes his death so effectively tragic. At least, in the end, his death will presumably get the justice it deserves.
It's even more tragic following the penultimate episode of the show earlier this week. For years, Hamlin's wife believed he wandered off and killed himself because of his "cocaine addiction," only to find out that he was murdered and that his drug issues were a facade. Even worse, Howard thought the world of Kim as a lawyer, who ultimately planned his downfall. Such an awful fate deserved both the perfect execution and keeping all of it secret. Better Call Saul pulled it off.
Better Call Saul airs its series finale on August 15, 2022, on AMC.
Source: Variety