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Howard Hamlin is a fictional character who appears in the crime drama television series Better Call Saul, a spin-off prequel of Breaking Bad. He is portrayed by Patrick Fabian and was created by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould .
- Overview
- History
- Personality and traits
- Deaths
- Quotes
- Trivia
Howard G. Hamlin is an American corporate lawyer from Albuquerque, New Mexico, best known as the owner and CEO of Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill (HHM), a large and respected law firm that originally established by Howard's father George and Chuck McGill, who later added Howard as one of the managing partners. When George died and Chuck became housebound a...
Background Information
Howard Hamlin was born in 1960. His father George Hamlin co-founded the Hamlin & McGill law firm with Charles "Chuck" McGill when Howard was young. After being persuaded to become a lawyer by his father and being mentored through law school by Chuck, Howard joined the firm in July 1985 and subsequently changed the firm's name to Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill. ("Lantern") The firm grew to be one of the most successful law firms in New Mexico by the early 2000s. When George died and Chuck became housebound as a result of his supposed electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS), Howard became the firm's sole managing partner. Howard married his wife Cheryl at some point, and by 2003 their marriage had fallen apart. By the time of Howard's murder, he had been sleeping in the guest house and interactions with his wife had become cold and distant. ("Axe and Grind"), ("Plan and Execution") Chuck convinced his younger brother Jimmy, a former con artist from Cicero, Illinois, to move to Albuquerque and earn an honest living by working in HHM's mailroom. While Jimmy was working there, Howard and Chuck discovered that Jimmy was working on becoming a lawyer. In a flashback to 1993, Jimmy is delivering mail at HHM and talks to his co-workers about a betting pool for the Academy Awards he has organized. He crosses paths with Kim Wexler, who is also doing mail rounds. Chuck enters the office to a big round of applause, having just won a big inheritance lawsuit using his knowledge of obscure case law. When Chuck approaches the pair, he answers Kim's questions on case law, but is annoyed by Jimmy. After Howard collects Chuck, Kim continues her rounds, and Jimmy walks past HHM's law library. He turns around and steps inside, deciding to become a lawyer like Chuck and Kim. ("Piñata") After Jimmy passed the bar exam, Howard came to Jimmy's congratulatory party in the mail room and, speaking to him alone, revealed that HHM would not be hiring him. Jimmy would think Howard was solely responsible for this which led to their feud, although it was actually Chuck that was behind the decision for HHM not to hire Jimmy. ("RICO")
Howard Hamlin was a successful member of Albuquerque's legal community, and spoke and acted in a thoughtful and professional manner. However, due to his golden-boy image and position as a name partner of HHM, he sometimes came off as arrogant, a trait that vexed Jimmy as he considered Howard responsible for his station in life. Many of his decisions came across as unfairly strict, such as when he reassigned Kim to document review as punishment for losing the Kettleman case; giving him the image of an uncaring corporate overlord from Jimmy's perspective. He initially blocked Jimmy from working as a lawyer at HHM, although this was revealed to be at the behest of Chuck. For much of the first three seasons, Howard assisted Chuck in his attempts to prevent Jimmy from finding success as an attorney, though he took no pleasure whatsoever in it and simply did it all out of loyalty to Chuck.
However, it was shown that most of Howard's decisions were what he felt to be in the best interests of his firm and employees. Howard stood up to Chuck when his increasingly erratic behavior threatened the firm's future, going so far as to fire Chuck and pay his severance money out of pocket. He has also demonstrated compassion, such as when he forgave Kim's scholarship debt and attempted to give Jimmy a second chance at HHM. It is also hinted that Howard felt somewhat railroaded into his position by his father, George Hamlin, and felt pressure to live up to his position as name partner, particularly when HHM goes through financial hardship.
It is later revealed that he personally liked Jimmy, giving him the nickname "Charlie Hustle", and may have sympathized with him living in Chuck's shadow due to also being related to a successful lawyer, his father George Hamlin. Howard saw his unique personality as a potential asset to the firm, having considered hiring him before Chuck vetoed him. Howard instead put in a good word for Jimmy at Davis & Main. In Season 5, Howard offered Jimmy the chance to come to work at HHM, although Jimmy - now Saul at this point - bore too much of a grudge to accept and viewed himself as being above such a position, and later attempted to sabotage Howard by smashing his car with bowling balls and humiliating him by sending prostitutes to his business lunch.
Howard was devastated and felt personally responsible for Chuck's suicide, having fired him just days before his death - unaware that Jimmy was responsible for the insurance hike that precipitated those events. In the aftermath of Chuck's death Howard went into debt and HHM was forced to make layoffs in order to stay in business, and during this period Howard was plagued by insomnia and began seeing a therapist. One year after Chuck's death, Howard seemed to have recovered mentally and financially along with his firm and seemed to have made peace with himself, as exemplified by his license plate NAMAST3. He was even shown searching for forgiveness for his past actions of denying Jimmy a job at HHM by generously offering him a position at his firm.
One of Howard's best qualities were his social skills, which led him to fix the image of HHM and its financial situation. Jimmy said that Howard was more a "salesman" than a lawyer, and in the latter seasons Howard had proven to be true, often using his communication skills to gain the confidence and professional respect of his peers. His good look and the image he portrayed was one of the main reasons for Jimmy and Kim to make the scam against him. Even lawyers from other firms strongly respected him, such as Richard Schweikart and Clifford Main, with the latter having a close friendship with Howard often having lunch or playing golf together, and both sincerely lamented Howard's demise, with Richard claiming that Howard truly cared about his clients and he never met anyone who was so dedicated to help them, not even Chuck.
Howard was extremely good at reading people and was one of the few to realize the inner pain Jimmy suffered from due to Chuck's suicide, even though he never admitted it and even appeared to recognize that Jimmy was jealous and enraged of how he had been able to move on from his grief over his friend's death while Jimmy obviously did not, hence his harassment of Howard. Even though Jimmy blamed him solely for Chuck's death and berated him for being a small man in comparison to him, Howard demonstrated patience and composure and simply walked away without a word while Jimmy humiliated himself and makes a scene, showing his unwillingness to fall for Jimmy's games. By the end of the fifth season of Better Call Saul it is evident that Howard had accepted that Chuck was indeed right all along about Jimmy being a dangerous crook. Despite her past treatment of him, Howard still showed concern for Kim and tried desperately to warn her of Jimmy's actions and that he needs help though she refused to accept it and instead found Jimmy's harassment of Howard amusing and claimed he is wrong and does not understand Jimmy. Howard however saw right through her and stood his ground and boldly told her Chuck best understood Jimmy.
Deaths connected to Howard
•Charles "Chuck" McGill: Out of spite for trying to get him disbarred, Jimmy discloses Chuck's mental illness to his insurance company which causes his malpractice insurance rates to increase ("Expenses"). This causes a rift between Chuck and Howard after their insurance agent subsequently informs them that Chuck will need to be supervised by another attorney or otherwise face a premium increase. Howard attempts to convince Chuck to retire for the good of the firm and Chuck retaliates by threatening to sue him for his share of the partnership, but Howard manages to force him out anyways. Pressured by this stress, Chuck relapses into his delusions and commits suicide. ("Lantern") •Himself: After the disastrous Sandpiper Crossing class-action lawsuit meeting due to Jimmy and Kim's character impeachment scam, Howard quickly deduces and figures out Jimmy and Kim's involvement in the matter. This causes Howard to travel to Kim's apartment later that night in order to confront Jimmy and Kim, and vowing to do everything he can to expose them and everything they have done. However, his decision to visit Jimmy and Kim at their apartment was coincidentally at the same time that Lalo Salamanca came to visit Jimmy and Kim for his own plots ("Point and Shoot"); shortly after Lalo arrives, Lalo murders Howard, presumably to either leave no other witnesses, stop Howard from investigating Jimmy and Kim (which may expose him), or to intimidate and terrify Jimmy and Kim and show them that he is serious. ("Plan and Execution")
Quotes by Howard
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•Howard never meets Gustavo Fring nor Nacho Varga. He met Lalo Salamanca very briefly, ending with Lalo murdering him.
•It is possible that Howard met and interacted with Mike Ehrmantraut off-screen, through Mike's previous job as a parking lot booth attendant at the courthouse; this is implied by Mike's regret at Howard's unnecessary death as seen in "Point and Shoot" (as Howard was never in "the game").
•On-screen, Mike only interacts with Howard's corpse, collecting his body from Kim's apartment before burying him and Lalo under the then-incomplete Superlab under Lavandería Brillante.
•Howard is the third main character to die, the third overall in the Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul universe, and the second in Season 6. However, he is the first main character to not die by suicide.
•Howard is the only main character in Better Call Saul to not go by a nickname, occasionally himself and others jokingly call him "Howie" but for the majority of the series, he goes by his full legal first name, "Howard".
•Jimmy is known as "Saul" during the events of Breaking Bad, though it's not his real name. And he goes under the alias of "Gene" which is a common nickname for the name "Eugene" though it's never confirmed if the alias is "Eugene Takavic" or just "Gene Takavic".
Jul 23, 2022 · Howard Hamlin was once an antagonist foil for Jimmy McGill on Better Call Saul, but developed into the show's most heartbreaking character.
- Features Writer
Patrick Fabian (born December 7, 1964) is an American film, stage, and television actor. He is best known for his role as attorney Howard Hamlin in Better Call Saul (2015–2022). His film roles include End Game (2006), The Last Exorcism (2010), Pig (2011) and Jimmy (2013).
YearTitleRoleNotes2023-2024Sam Bedrosian2 episodes2023Cooper's BarPeterEpisode: "The Cast"2023Dick LonerganEpisode: "High Season"2023David Wheeler2 episodesMay 26, 2022 · By always being himself for better or worse, Howard Hamlin came to stand out amid all the radical change on Better Call Saul.
May 24, 2022 · Season 6 has, so far, focused largely on Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) and Kim’s (Rhea Seehorn) plot against Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian), the staunch attorney whose reputational downfall could...
May 23, 2022 · It’s been six seasons and seven years since Patrick Fabian made his debut in Better Call Saul as Howard Hamlin, the perpetually pinstriped, über-alpha, vanilla-concentrate law partner who has...
