TV - Movies
Chuck and Howard
Almost Had Very
Different
Storylines In
Better Call Saul
By C.M. CROCKFORD
In “Better Call Saul,” Jimmy McGill's trajectory in life is permanently changed by his relationships with his brother Chuck McGill and Howard Hamlin, Chuck's partner in their law firm. However, the show’s co-creator Vince Gilligan has said these two characters were originally very different.
When Gilligan was asked by The New Yorker about which characters have changed the most on "Better Call Saul,” he immediately cited Chuck McGill and Howard Hamlin. Gilligan, who co-created the show with Peter Gould, explained that at first, Chuck was a "Mycroft Holmes kind of character" who would support Jimmy and that "Howard Hamlin was going to be the bad guy."
However, with more time and the casting of Patrick Fabian and Michael McKean as Hamlin and Chuck, the writers shifted the storylines, adding more moral ambiguity to Chuck’s character. They noticed that "there was an edge to the way Michael McKean was playing Chuck McGill,” and his relationship with Jimmy became more like a modern Cain and Abel story, while Hamlin met his tragic fate in Season 6.