There's nothing better than a well-done plan on Better Call Saul's mid-season finale
Season 6, Episode 7: "Plan and Execution"
I’ve always liked Howard. Ever since he sat with Jimmy in his office and admitted that “I always liked you,” I liked him. When I see a character that clearly isn’t the villain but not one that we’re necessarily supposed to gravitate to—take, for instance, Chuck McGill, whose presence looms over “Plan and Execution” like his portrait stationed in the HHM conference room—my interest is piqued, even if Howard tends to blend in with the background next to other new characters like Kim or Nacho. But I’ve always had my eye on him—when he was forced to remove Chuck as a partner at the end of season three, and when he reckoned with the effects of Chuck’s suicide throughout season four, including a personal favorite scene from that season where Jimmy provokes him into cursing him out. When Kim revealed at the end of season five that she intended to go after him, I was disturbed—not just because of her progression in character, mind you, but because really, was he that bad? Jimmy was the beneficiary in the Sandpiper case, not her, and yet she encouraged it because…why? Why not?
If there’s one thing to be learned from both Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad, it’s that actions always have consequences. Plot threads do not go unresolved across these shows, whether they get wrapped up within episodes or through seasons. Mike can rob a truck and go out of his way to not kill anybody, leading both the driver and a guy nice enough to pull over and call for help mowed down by the cartel. Or, alternatively, Walter White can leave a collection of Walt Whitman poems with a rather personal note inside on his toilet, and then his brother-in-law can so happen to open that book while on said toilet. The plot to wreck Howard Hamlin has continued throughout this season, an elaborate web of hoaxes designed to finger (you fandom-savvy readers of mine are permitted to laugh at this reference—use it wisely, you get to only once) him as an untrustworthy addict, and they’ve been equal parts fun and unnerving. In other words, they’ve been designed to put us in Kim and Jimmy’s perspectives, to experience the thrill of a scheme well pulled. But as time went on, we saw more and more of Howard’s life, and while I wasn’t counting the minutes, I would say he has equal or even more screen time in “Plan and Execution” than the dynamic duo.
And that’s not unintentional. If this had been the first episode to give us some good scenes with him, I would have understandably felt “Plan and Execution” to be a ham(lin)-fisted way of getting us to feel bad for Howard, but by giving him more and more time in the sun every episode, it becomes a culmination of all the doubt we’ve been feeling. Howard himself highlights the reasons Kim, Jimmy, and ourselves may dislike him—he’s privileged, outwardly stuffy, he sequestered Kim in the mailroom and put her in a spot where she had to fight for her position back, he, at Chuck’s urging, kept Jimmy out of HHM and took the heat for it. He’s been built up as the guy we should hate, the guy we want to hate, because he just is, okay? Schemers like Saul need their Chucks and Howards to provide obstacles in their path of trickery, because then where would the challenge be? And, more importantly, where would he find his target?
It’s interesting that the undoing of Chuck, a character the fandom loves to hate, felt like a nightmare, but the permanent stain on Howard’s reputation and the effort it took getting there feels like a thrill ride when he’s a character that’s become somewhat beloved. The reveals of just how deep Jimmy and Kim’s plan went and how willing they were to sink their time and money into it are astounding, from paying off Howard’s “private investigator” the entire time to redoing their photo shoot after learning the man they were impersonating broke his arm. Seeing the scheme that’s been laid out in front of us all season finally come together is exciting beyond belief, and it’s been built up so well that there’s almost a question of whether or not it will go off.
But it does. It does when they finish the photos at the last minute, coat them in a substance that will make Howard’s pupils temporarily dilate, and call in to listen to it all go down. It goes as exactly as planned, of course—Howard erupts in front of his peers, and the Sandpiper case (which I completely forgot about in favor of the plot against Howard, which is likely intentional on the part of the writers) goes down in a way that benefits Jimmy. When it’s all over, he and Kim have sex while listening to the aftermath, and it evokes the ending of Breaking Bad’s first episode when Walter White goes home to his wife after a day getting to live as his true self and is unusually assertive in bed. “This is where I need to be,” Kim assures Jimmy as he protests her ditching the luncheon to help reshoot the photos, and that’s all that really needs to be said, isn’t it?
And it leaves Howard alone. Before the conference starts, he preps himself in the conference room and witnesses an intern drop a few cans of soda. Howard shows him how to depressurize a shaken can, (a tactic that I keep forgetting to test out for myself) something that he picked up from Chuck as the portrait of the man himself watches from the wall. The kid doesn’t know who he is, and murmurs that he’d like to be regarded with the admiration Howard clearly displays for Chuck. “Maybe there are more important things,” Howard muses. One scene later, he’s in his office, frantically trying to convince Cliff Main that he’s not on drugs. The scene where Howard reflects on the possibility that Chuck wasn’t as infallible and perfect as he thought is the one right before he has the exact same fate befall him, and when it’s all over and the excitement has faded, it’s miserable.
But “Plan and Execution” isn’t just about the lawyers—it’s about Lalo, and learning what his plan was the whole time. The entirely silent cold open reveals that Lalo has spent his time back from Germany in the Albuquerque sewers, quietly observing the laundry and learning its ins and outs. He’s got the lay of the land at this point and is ready to storm in there under the cover of darkness and wreck it—but the Salamancas seem to live by a code that he can’t break, one that transcends the cartel. Family is everything. So he calls his beloved uncle, likely to inform him of his plan and tell him to get ready for one hell of a victory—and then he realizes the lines are tapped. Gus’ paranoia worked out for him in the end, and now Lalo can’t not continue the call or Gus will be even more certain that he’s alive. But then Better Call Saul does what it does best—it doesn’t give us everything. Like Kim and Jimmy’s plan, we really have no idea what Lalo is thinking, but it’s clear he’s got an idea, inspired by the roach he notices skittering along the pipes. What is it? Well, we don’t know.
But what I love about “Plan and Execution” is what’s it ultimately about—it’s about two plans, one that succeeds and one that seemingly fails. Watching Kim and Jimmy’s plan work is one of my favorite capers that Better Call Saul has ever put together, but watching Lalo’s seemingly fail and him being forced to improvise is just as invigorating and awesome. Or, it is for a while, I guess.
Then Kim and Jimmy’s plan is over, and they’ve won. They’ve won. The event that has been building up all season has come and passed, and the aggressors walked away with a victory in hand. They’re curled up in Kim’s apartment, watching Born Yesterday, a movie about an unhappy woman who becomes her true self after meeting the right man for her, when Howard comes knocking, something they were both expecting. And so they let him in, because what else are they going to do? What can he do? I mentioned in my review of the season opener that words speak louder than actions on this show, and this entire season has been proof of that—the proof itself standing before its two main characters.
“What do you tell yourselves?” Howard asks the couple when they try to play dumb, and it’s a good question. Have we, in a way, become interchangeable with Kim and Jimmy? Did we also fall into the trap of having this odd dislike of Howard that we can’t explain or justify? “Jimmy, you can’t help yourself. Chuck knew it. You were born that way.” The reason why Chuck unshook every soda he had, even if there was no reason to believe it was tampered, was because of Jimmy. Jimmy has something in him, nestled deep inside ever since he watched some guy con his dad, and that’s what drives him to take down Howard. But Kim is the one he underestimated, the one he always did—and that was his problem, that he thought Jimmy was working alone. “You have a piece missing,” he tells them, and maybe he’s right. Maybe all they needed was each other to push themselves over the line they couldn’t cross alone.
But then Lalo—Lalo, who is supposed to be dead—appears from nowhere, and now Howard, like a shaken soda can, is a risk, a security measure that needs to be taken care of. So Lalo casually rotates a silencer onto his gun while Howard stammers and glances back and forth between the three people around him, ending when Lalo finishes his work and blows Howard’s head open all over a painting on Kim’s wall. If you’re eagle-eyed, you may catch that this is the same painting they had their plan laid out on as shown in “Axe and Grind”, perhaps signifying the scheme is over. It’s Lalo’s turn now.
Now, I don’t know if anyone expected Howard to die. I certainly didn’t—the legal side of this show feels untouchable, like it’s in a plane above the cartel, but now it’s not. It’s not. And anything could happen from here. When Chuck was on this show, he was the one who felt like he held all the cards, like Gus did in Breaking Bad. He always seemed to know a little more than Jimmy until he didn’t, and that was the end of him. But with him gone, Better Call Saul has scattered itself, and now we know as much as the characters, being placed into their heads yet again. The only one who seems to know what they’re doing is Lalo—and, as suggested by the fact that he uses his words instead of his gun after Howard is dealt with, maybe he always held that power, and, like Howard, we just didn’t see him coming.
Rating: 10/10 (A)
Considering Lalo clearly wasn’t expecting Casa Tranquila’s lines to be tapped and was fully intent on executing what I assume was his initial plan, he had a shitload of confidence in being able to kill all of those laundry guards.
Didn’t Lalo call Jimmy a cockroach at one point? Am I just making that up?
The instant I saw Lalo’s face appear on that handheld camera, I knew it would become a meme. And I was right!
Patrick Fabian was really outstanding with this episode. I think he’s been doing great work for the past three.
I can’t remember where I saw this, but both Howard and Chuck spend their last conversation with Jimmy telling him who he really is.
“I just need to talk to my lawyers.” “Oh, is that right? You want some advice? Find better lawyers.”
“Is this how these usually go?”
“You’re paying for the best.” “The best ass reaming.” “That’d be extra.”
“Professor Tanis does not represent the views of the equipment center. I represent the views of the equipment center.”
“I think I’m in the middle of something. Uh...there’s really no need to–”