#i could really go on about the treatment of Howard and Kim's characters at the end of the story

[strawberryclementine]

still upset we didn't have a parallel to "I watched Jane die" in BCS where Howard learns how Jimmy affected Chuck's insurance. I don't necessarily mean that Jimmy should have to straight up told him, but Howard shouldn't have died without knowing the full truth. Kim should know too but mostly Howard.

[hollenius]

What are the things you think people tend to overlook with Howard Hamlin?

Ooh, great question! For me, the issue with Howard is that some folks take a rather reductive view of him. Prior to the big reveal in “Pimento”, there was a TON of Howard hate floating around the internet (some of which is even still visible, e.g. in older tumblr posts), which got completely transferred to Chuck after that. The thing is, Howard was always sort of a “designated villain” in those early episodes, rather than a genuinely bad person. He’s hateable because he’s an overdressed rich guy, and he’s hateable because Jimmy hates him, but he isn’t actually seen doing anything particularly nefarious within the show. (Since he was originally intended to be an antagonist, it’s possible the writers had been planning on revealing something more damning about him at some later point that wound up getting scrapped.)

After all the fan loathing found a new target, things started to go a little too far in the other direction, with some people saying that Howard is/was essentially blameless, and is the most decent person on the show. Howard isn’t a bad guy, but he’s got flaws just like anyone else–I bring them up not because I dislike him as a character, but because I think they tend to get overlooked or whitewashed. The biggest problem I have with Howard is his treatment of Kim, which always seems completely disproportionate to what she has actually done. This is present to a certain extent in season 1, when he saddles her with the blame for losing the delusional/incompetent Kettlemans (who would be an impossible client for even the most diplomatically talented lawyer to handle), and is really rude/snippy to her on other occasions (“next time you want to come in here and tell me what I’m doing wrong, you are welcome to keep it to yourself, because I don’t care!”). I think his behavior toward her gets worse in seasons 2 and 3, though. (Season 4 Hamlin is a different animal altogether, and probably merits a separate post.)

Kim’s biggest recurring fault, which Chuck correctly pegs in season 2, is the extent to which she allows her fondness for Jimmy to cloud her judgement. If Kim had known that Jimmy hadn’t cleared the commercial with Cliff and had concealed that knowledge from HHM, then she absolutely would be in the wrong, and Howard would be right to punish her. The fact that Jimmy misrepresented the situation to her complicates matters; she’s still lying (or at least not telling the full truth) to cover up for him, but she’s not as complicit in all parts of the situation as Howard and Chuck believe, and Howard goes on the warpath to a degree that even Chuck finds excessive. (And when Chuck, of all people, thinks you’re being overzealous in punishing somebody, hoo boy…) Kim is fully cognizant of her wrongdoing, and lands Mesa Verde for HHM as a penitential gesture, and Howard is still unmoved. I’ve seen some people argue that Howard is hard on Kim because he sees potential in her, and this is true to a certain extent, but this is a dangerous line of reasoning, as it can veer pretty close to condoning abusive behavior. I still am not sure, in-universe, why he seems to have it in for her in particular. (Does he treat other employees like this? We’re not given enough information to be able to tell. Is she treated like this because HHM financed her education and thus has greater expectations of loyalty from her?) From a storytelling perspective, I suppose his harshness towards her gives Kim an analogue to Jimmy’s adversarial relationship with Chuck, but the problem with that is that it’s never going to match the intensity of the McGill brothers’ feud. Kim and Howard have known each other for, at most, a decade or so, and purely in a professional context. It’s not the same as having 40 years or so of emotional baggage and familial dysfunction. Regardless, Howard doesn’t seem to appreciate his own role in driving Kim away from HHM. His behavior with her in the restaurant in season 3 over her remaining law school debt is another example of him being petulant and bitchy towards her–while having the gall to accuse her of ruining his firm’s reputation!

Speaking of Howard-Kim being an analogue to Chuck-Jimmy, I think there are some mild echoes of the Kim-Jimmy relationship in terms of Howard’s dealings with Chuck, in that loyalty to a McGill brother is always going to wind up hurting you. Kim suffers constantly because of her feelings for Jimmy, but Howard also has to suffer a lot because of his feelings about Chuck, which leads to his unwillingness to confront him or push him about anything until it’s too late. I don’t blame Howard for deferring to Chuck on the Jimmy issue, because he probably assumed a man’s brother would be a better judge of his character than a stranger, but the handling of everything else related to Chuck’s condition and the operations of HHM seemed questionable. Howard, like Jimmy, was completely willing to be an enabler, and was willing to play along with everything until his firm’s reputation started suffering and its financial situation started getting affected, when he dropped Chuck like a hot potato. (A baked potato?) All sorts of damage could’ve been caused to the firm’s clients in the meantime. I can see not wanting to upset your mentor–Howard seems to have a great deal more affection towards Chuck than he has towards his actual father (why WAS Chuck the one tutoring Howard for the bar exam? Daddy too busy?)–but at some point, you’d think he would have to admit that his partner wasn’t really recovering in any meaningful sense, and in some ways was actually getting worse. On the one hand, you could argue that Howard didn’t really realize how bad Chuck was, but on the other hand, we know Howard visits him at his house sometimes (even delivering him groceries at least once!), so he’d have seen the bizarre living conditions. Unfortunately, it’s hard to know what Howard could’ve done better, because Chuck likely would’ve objected to everything, and the end situation would’ve wound up the same. At some point, he would have needed to confront Chuck about something in a more forceful manner (“I am not paying for this private detective to sit around the house so you can scheme against your ne’er-do-well brother”,“I am not letting you appear at the bar hearing”, etc.), and he would’ve needed to be prepared for the fallout.

In terms of Howard’s dealings with Jimmy, I do think he’s pretty blameless there. He treats Jimmy fairly when he’s allowed to, and is rightfully angry when Jimmy abuses the faith he placed in him. Arguably he could’ve done a little more to reassure Jimmy after he was turned down from HHM, but since Jimmy would hardly have been receptive to that, there was probably little he could do.

One minor thing that bugs me about Howard is that he doesn’t seem to be particularly talented as a lawyer. Jimmy says as much in season 4, but even before then, we never get the sense that Howard actually does much lawyering. He’s a pretty face with a very expensive suit, but that just makes me think of him as a parallel universe GOB Bluth, garbed in Hamlindigo Blue. A better analogy might be Roger Sterling from Mad Men, who is not the original Sterling of Sterling Cooper, similar to how Howard is the second Hamlin of Hamlin Hamlin McGill. Another poor little rich boy, who seems to mostly coast by on his family’s name, his company’s reputation, and his ability to schmooze among the upper classes while the other employees do the actual work. Of course, being a schmoozy member of the elite is a skill in its own right, and it’s certainly not a role one could imagine Chuck taking on within HHM, but it’s not exactly the same thing as being good at your profession. Howard tells Kim he wanted to work as a solo practitioner before his dad talked him into becoming the second “H” in his firm, but it’d be interesting to see where that would’ve got him after a decade or two.

(This is all very disorganized, sorry. I was trying to write it during downtime at work.)