Why Celebrate Howard Hamlin Instead of Nacho Varga?

[@UDreviews]

Giving away an Amazon gift card at 100 subscribers! Let's goooo!

[@swastikpatel4736]

For me Ignacio Nacho Varga is the best character in entire Better call Saul and even breaking bad series. Because I really admire his attitude and character. Instead of being depressed and pathetic like Jessy Pinkman. Ignacio Nacho Varga always tried to figure out things. I want that type of Personally in my life.

[@peterpirate8163]

What you said about Howard being "Chuck's errand boy" is the key to appreciating the character. On the surface he appeared to be a scion of privilege. but in reality he had to follow the directives of someone else. So there was more complexity and nuance to his story.

[@chrishintz1077]

Couldn’t agree more. I think it’s a case of saying nice things about someone ( the character; reaching for it, really) after they die.

[@ominousjerry703]

So facts though. The entire show pointed towards Nacho helping his Father and wanting out and he eventually made it out, but the cost was his life. Howard has always been the antagonist of the show, whether or not he was doing bad things. The first half of this season made him look like someone we should feel bad for. Really weird how they just flipped the script like that

[@nont18411]

I sympathized more with Nacho than Howard. Howard might had a shock value to it but he wasn’t as well developed as Nacho throughout the course of the show. We know where Nacho is coming from. We understand his motivation to save his father. Meanwhile, in case of Howard, the show managed to force feed the information about him in just only one episode before he was killed. It feels cheap and a bit manipulative and Howard might became a smarter person but he didn’t ascend the same way Nacho did. He still have a bias against Jimmy (which I kind of understand) while totally ignoring Chuck’s contribution in most of his life’s problems (debt, depression, marriage falling apart) and still blindly idolizing Chuck until the very end.

[@courtneysreviews438]

LOL I love that you made this. I think the Talking Saul thing has less to do with Howard than it does with the fact that it was the mid-season finale. *BUT* you know how I feel about Nacho and Nacho *definitely* deserved his own Talking Saul episode lol. Nacho was way more of an important standalone character (who drives A LOT of the plot), whereas Howard is there just to to further the Kim/Jimmy's story line. His death is a plot device. And as I said to you privately, we got to spend a lot more time with Nacho and care about him. Seeing one short scene where Howard's wife is cold to him doesn't move me to feel for him as much as I do for Nacho. That said, I do feel bad for Howard and think he does deserves our sympathy, but people saying that Howard's death was more affecting than Nacho's... yeah, don't relate to that.

[@kell_checks_in]

You saw Howard for years fighting to keep HHM afloat and dealing with the ongoing abuse from both the McGill Brothers. We saw him continually trying to do the right thing when being abused by others on all sides. There was nothing remotely sudden about our connections with him.

[@courtneysreviews438]

@@kell_checks_in We got more way more screen time with Nacho, saw his personal struggles and journey. I found his arc to be one of the most compelling in the series. I don't blame anyone for having a connection to Howard. He was a sympathetic character but I just didn't have the same connection to him that I did with Nacho. It's not a contest though. They were both well written characters. I am speaking only to my personal feelings here.

[@nont18411]

Howard’s backstory should have been explored since season 4. It would have made his death even sadder and more effective. The way they forced fed the information in one episode before he died was quite cheap.

[@jasonbyas4335]

For me, there are three reasons that Howard's death was more impactful. 1. Nacho has kind of felt fated to die for most of the show. He's in the cartel and constantly under threat. I actually thought he'd probably be the first person to use the disappearer, but part of why I thought he wouldn't die is because it seemed to obvious for him to die. (Just because the show tends to subvert expectations.) By contrast, there's no reason to expect Howard to die (until the Season 5 finale). He's not involved in the criminal underworld, and it's not a plot hole for him to not be in Breaking Bad. Him and Saul just moving past the point in their lives where they saw each other regularly makes sense. So, it's unexpected. 2. I've honestly been a lot more invested in the Saul-Kim-lawyer world of the show than the Mike-Gus-cartel world. This is mostly because it feels like the former is something new that's constantly going on directions that surprise you, and the latter feels like premonitions of Breaking Bad in a way where you kind of already get the deal. So, since Howard is in the part of the show that I'm more invested in, I'm more invested in the scene with his death. (Especially since it's kind of symbolically killing off that side of the show, or at least collapsing it in with the cartel side!) 3. And then I think it's also heavier precisely *because* of a lot of what UD brings up in this video about how hateable Howard has been for most of the show. For various reasons, I personally identify with Jimmy in much of the early show on a deep level. At a lot of points in my life, I've found myself resenting people with vibes like Howard's, often for reasons that don't really add up when I stand back and try to think through that resentment rationally. It's often just their elite vibes and unreflectively reading that as them being an asshole, no matter how reasonable or good they actually are. And in BCS, the best reasons to dislike Howard are basically eliminated at the end of Season 1 when it's revealed that was basically just Chuck. I totally get why Jimmy and Kim get so mad at Howard in Season 5, even though I have eyes and so can see that Howard is doing absolutely nothing wrong to them (and even trying to do right by them.) So, when I see their resentment result in Howard literally getting murdered, it's devastating because it's showing how awful things can go if you let yourself get wrapped up in motivations that I very much see myself in danger of getting wrapped up in. So it's not quite as much about sympathy for Howard per se as it is imagining myself in Jimmy and Kim's shoes, and feeling the same horror and shame they're feeling in that instance.

[@gary20o]

Great channel. Subbed. :)

[@UDreviews]

Thank you so much!!

[@julianne089]

One thing we know that Howard did was that he used his personal money plus a personal loan to pay out Chuck’s multimillion buyout, when it was not is responsibility but the firm’s. He put the firm first before himself, but that also maybe means above his wife and family. People often forget about this because BCS doesn’t often repeat information, or hit us over the head with things. That alone can cause a rift in a marriage and like you said, we don’t know what else could’ve happened.

[@firewoman2863]

I think Howard's personal debt to cover the payout may have been the final straw for Cheryl in a marriage that was already grinding down. On the surface, they look so perfectly matched and seem to share interests, but may have gradually just lost heart.

[@nont18411]

And that kind of made Howard became an even more flawed character because the whole debt, depression and his marriage falling apart were all the consequences of Chuck but even after that, he still blindly idolizing Chuck and kept saying “Chuck is right” blah blah like that. Jimmy’s unhinged scam was just a cherry on top of his problem yet Howard chose to put all the blame on Jimmy (and Kim after he had some time of thinking) while ignoring the real culprit and even praised that guy as “the greatest legal mind I’ve ever known”.

[@julianne089]

Additionally, I think this plays in to the new Kim hate. It’s really frustrating. Great video. Another example of how AMC really drops the ball. A talking Saul featuring MichaelMando after 603 would have been so watched.

[@krisweinschenker598]

Kim hate??? I haven't seen any of that

[@julianne089]

@@krisweinschenker598 I haven’t been on there for a bit, but I’ve seen it on Reddit, and then a few here and there on youtube comments.Not quite the level of Skyler hate, but comments that overly blame Kim, overly find her evil etc...

[@krisweinschenker598]

I don't do Reddit (Its a cesspool) but I've been to a lot of KZbin channels and haven't seen this "Kim hate" to which you speak. On Talking Saul, they even quoted a tweet "If Kim dies, we riot" Reminds of how AMC milked the Walking Dead

[@courtneysreviews438]

@@julianne089 yes! I've seen so many comments blaming Kim for Howard's death and a ton of comments about what a b**** Sheryl is. Reddit is a cesspool but even worse is Facebook. The misogyny is *rampant.*

[@julianne089]

@@courtneysreviews438 sometimes it feels like there are lots of men who are mind blind when it comes to women. Like really can’t empathize, or understand, at all. I don’t have to be a man too in order to empathize or understand even the bad guys. I don’t really get how you can go your whole life and still not understand anything about half the people in it.

[@pedrofilippa1729]

"In the end, you're gonna hurt everyone around you." _Chuck That's the point of Howard's death. To show that Jimmy will always be Slippin' Jimmy. I also hated Howard on the 1st season, but after Chuck's death he really changed. You can see it on the court bathroom scene. He changed and offered Jimmy a job, but Jimmy has become so ruthless that he literally ruins his career just for fun. Howard's death is Jimmy's Ozzymandias, and you can see it on the way he falls next to Howard's corpse in Point and Shoot, just like Walter with Hank and Gustavo with Max. And his body ends up under Gus' lab, so every time we watch Jesse and Walter cooking meth there, now we know that Lalo and Howard are under there.

[@rkerlin]

I think I've seen them bring Michael Mando on the Talking Saul show two or three times over the past few seasons. But Michael was just being his regular self, and not pretending to be Ignacio.

[@Samuel....]

7:58 there's your answer

[@krisweinschenker598]

Oh, I agree. Nacho was a more interesting character. I think the reason they did a Talking Saul on Howard is because it was mid season finale. The writers have said they didn't plan a mid-season break but evidently the suits at the network made one to help generate 'buzz'. Everyone hopping on the Howard bandwagon is a result of the break. All the spam bots and social media influencers have to say SOMETHING to keep generating views and likes, and thus the almighty KZbin algorithm creates an altered view of reality.

[@krisweinschenker598]

Oh...and I said it somewhere else about Nachos death.... BEST SUICIDE EVER!!!!

[@AdoreYouInAshXI]

For me, Howard was more important to Jimmy and Kim's side of the story, and while I like Nacho better as a character, he was really serving to show the setup of the stuff with the Cartel and Fring, and we all know how that ends. But ultimately the show is trying to tell Kim and Jimmy's story. And Howard was a much bigger part of that. Or who knows, maybe Nachos actor just wasn't available at the time to do a Talking Saul episode.

[@firewoman2863]

RE no Talking Saul for Nacho. Not to excuse AMC for this oversight, but their streaming & marketing divisions don't seem to be up to the task! All the good marketing for BCS comes from Vince Gilligan/Peter Gould production company and BCS's distributor SONY + fan-created content. Personally, I've enjoyed thinking about Howard in recent episodes because of the emotional-void left in the wake of Nacho's death. Nacho really became the heart of the show. But, now that the question of why Nacho and Howard aren't in BB has been answered, I can feel myself pivoting emotionally into what happens with Kim. As for what happens to Lalo, I'm interested, but he doesn't have my heart like Nacho did and like Kim always has. ... I do wonder if I'll emotionally turn against Kim the colder and more hard she becomes.

[@krisweinschenker598]

Hey, one of usual suspects did show up!

[@UDreviews]

Yes, I am nervous if they will try to make us dislike Kim! I’m worried for her fate, overall!

[@UDreviews]

And 100% AMC doesn’t know what they’re doing when it comes to marketing and their app! 😩

[@kell_checks_in]

False dichotomy. 1) I don't know anyone who has argued FOR this idea. And, it's not as if mourning Howard takes anything away from any other character. There isn't some sort of zero-sum attention budget that gets depleted. "If you cheer for Dorothy it means you don't care about the Tin Man." Uh, no. 2) People can't choose what impacts them emotionally. It happens on the basis of personal history + storytelling. My life story is a mix of Kim+Howard, so that story hits closer to home. I can pity the criminals on the show, but what happens to them simply isn't as personal. 3) I have cheered Nacho's redemption. He probably got into crime as a dumb kid who wanted access to drugs and especially money for things like sports cars. We know that it wasn't because his family neglected him. Once in The Game, you can't get out. We can cheer for Nacho because he went from being someone who selfishly exploited the community and specifically drug addicts (sexually and financially) to being someone willing to die to keep someone else safe. He died a hero. Howard, also on the path to needed self-actualization, was murdered, period. They are entirely different deaths. One, we could see coming from 101. Anyone in the Game lives in, swims in, profits from, perpetuates death. That the Game eventually killed Nacho is no surprise. Tragic, yes, but predictable. Howard was very much striving for life. That the criminal death monster also swallowed him is terrifying.

[@UDreviews]

1) but why is there LESS “mourning” for Nacho vs Howard? Why is there a whole special for Howard when Nacho is more deserving? That’s my question. So you either don’t want to answer it and falsely label it a “false dichotomy” or you just don’t like the question 2) People feel how they wanna feel, it’s just an observation 3) Can’t remember if I edited this out or not but “being in the game” is another explanation but I don’t feel it’s a good enough one

[@kell_checks_in]

@@UDreviews The Talking Saul show is usually pretty stupid. They didn't create a special show out of whole cloth to talk about Howard. There have been numerous other episodes. I think it depends on when the actors are available when episodes get produced. I haven't owned a television for almost two decades and haven't done anything to do with cable for longer than that, so I've only heard about that show secondhand and seen a few snippets. They all struck me as pretty standard Hollyweird cringe. At any rate, because the audience is so small (only people who still do cable) its impact on the fandom is pretty small. (The Better Call Saul insider podcast is far more important.) I have no idea what that show did after Nacho's death and don't care. Most people worth listening to spend a lot more time talking about The insider Podcast than anything on Talking Saul. However, again, the death of a career criminal is not nearly as tragic as that of an innocent person. That's the answer to your question. Criminals are always committing suicide with every crime they commit. This is true in real life and certainly in fiction. We always knew Nacho would not be dying of old age. The only question is when would the inevitable happen. As for who's more "deserving," for much of his limited life, Nacho was a vampire who sucked life and cash out of the veins of entire communities and vulnerable addicts. He even sexually exploited two self-destructive addicts as sexual servants. No, he wasn't as pathetic a disgusting, failed human being as a full-on pimp, but he was pretty close. That he somewhat redeemed himself in his sacrifice is admirable, but he had a great deal to make up for. He contributed to and profited from the suffering and death of probably hundreds of people. Perhaps one reason he hated the Salamanca so much it's because they put the selfishness, cruelty and destruction of his own actions into sharper relief. Howard Hamlin never killed anybody. He never profited from anyone's self-destruction. He employed hundreds of people, he didn't terrify and exploit them. He helped educate people. He helped build and rebuild the community. Any normal, law-abiding, honestly-employed person would be by definition more worthy of admiration than any criminal, and Howard was far more than merely law-abiding. And yet, you're claiming a drug dealer somehow is more "deserving" of attention?

[@krisweinschenker598]

With all the talk on Courtneys channel about moving Howard's body, the thought occurred to me.... What if Kim gets arrested for moving Howard's body??? Doyathink all the Howard fanboys and girls will change their tune then???😏😏😏😏😏😏😎😎😎😎😎😎