Jimmy & Kim’s Howard Scam Secretly Began In Season 5

As Jimmy and Kim continue their Howard Hamlin scam in Better Call Saul season 6, it becomes clear they laid the groundwork back in season 5.

Better Call Saul reveals that Jimmy McGill and Kim Wexler unknowingly began their grand Howard Hamlin scam back in season 5. In the final episode of Better Call Saul season 5, Rhea Seehorn’s Kim suggested bringing professional ruin to Howard Hamlin, believing a big enough stain upon his reputation would force a settlement of the lucrative Sandpiper case, and everyone (Jimmy included) would get paid much sooner. That plan has officially begun in Better Call Saul season 6. For stage 1, Jimmy planted fake drugs on Howard and ensured they were spotted by fellow legal bigwig Clifford Main. Next, Jimmy manipulated the Kettlemans into reporting Howard for practicing while impaired by an illegal substance, solidifying his fictional drug habit.

The third stage of Jimmy and Kim’s wild scheme commences in Better Call Saul season 6, episode 4. Dressed as a crude caricature of Howard (complete with a fake tan), Jimmy steals his target’s precious Jaguar using the key he got from Huell in episode 3. He then races over to pick up Wendy, the sex worker from Breaking Bad. Kim, meanwhile, has arranged a lunch with Clifford Main and chosen an outside table with a perfect view of the road. Given the go-ahead by Kim, Jimmy swerves Howard’s car violently into the restaurant’s view, making sure the personalized “Namaste” license plate is clear for all to see. He then kicks Wendy onto the street (don’t worry, she’s in on the deception) and speeds off, leaving Cliff Main stunned.

The intention here is to further convince Cliff that Howard is genuinely on a downward spiral – that not only has he developed a drug habit, but he’s cheating on his wife and acting abusively toward sex workers in broad daylight. Quite by accident, Jimmy actually laid the groundwork for this stage of the con back in Better Call Saul season 5. Growing increasingly irritated with Howard’s smugness and newfound spiritualism, “Wexler v Goodman” saw Jimmy hire two sex workers (Sally and Honeydew) to accost Howard during an important lunch meeting in an expensive restaurant. As the women pretended to be intimately familiar with him, Howard awkwardly brushed them away, reassuring his lunch companion he had not solicited the services of these women. The lawyer Howard was with at the time? That just so happened to be Cliff Main…

The sex worker scene from Better Call Saul season 5 was nothing more than a frustrated Jimmy playing a practical joke to ruffle Howard’s feathers. He had no designs of a larger con at this point, and Kim was still episodes away from suggesting they target the HHM chief for real. Nevertheless, Jimmy’s gag sowed the seeds of an idea in Cliff Main’s mind – Howard pays women for sex. When Cliff later sees “Howard” kick Wendy out of his Jaguar in Better Call Saul season 6’s “Hit & Run,” he’s far more likely to believe the performance is real because it’s not the first time he’s seen Howard frequenting with women of this particular profession.

Better Call Saul doesn’t address whether the callback is a coincidence or whether Jimmy recalled his restaurant prank and deliberately decided to up the ante. Employing Wendy for the next stage of their Howard Hamlin scam is either a happy accident or a stroke of genius on Jimmy and Kim’s part. However it came about, the foundations for season 6’s big Howard con were laid long before Jimmy entered that golf club carrying a bag of baby powder.