Bannon

We'll have to agree to disagree. Prominent people do not simply disappear in open and shut cases, even with heavy suggestions of cocaine abuse, and shoes and car found at the beach. Resources are expended, and lives are reconstructed.

One possible path is that Gus decides Kim knows too much, and has to go, and for Mike that's a bridge too far, and he introduces her to the wonderful world of vacuum repair, while telling Gus that her body has been disposed of.

For instance, if Howard's credit cards are used to buy gas on the way to California, or wherever, security camera footage is going to be sought. If cash was used, the law enforcement is still going to try to find out where the Jag was refueled. Howard's just too big a deal to have him disappear without a massive investigation, that would turn Saul and Kim's life upside down. I wouldn't think so.

Howard's "suicide" should cause Saul and Kim lots of problems, and his car being found several states away would likely bring in the Federal law enforcement. Saul and Kim ought to be under a microscope, along with Howard's activities over his last few days and weeks. I hope the writers just don't hand wave that away. I think we can rule out Kim going to jail for anything; she knows too much for Gus to risk her dropping a dime.

Oh, cooking a delicious meal for someone, especially as they watch, is an extremely powerful aphrodisiac.... The action scenes were extremely well shot, and it is greatly appreciated; watching poorly executed action sequences really takes me out of the world being portrayed. No, I don't believe a 65-70 year old man could fare that well against 30-35 year old highly trained professionally violent person, but the sequence was so well executed that I just flowed with it. Acting was terrific, as expected

There isn't a chance in hell that law enforcement is going to accept that the senior partner of one of a state's largest law firms killed himself with either a stolen or untraceable pistol, at the.apartment of two lawyers that he's had previous bad dealings with. That's before we get to the fact that bodies of powerful people with bullets through the head get thorough autopsies, which would mean it's proven that Howard wasn't taking drugs. If these writers have law enforcement buying Howard's death as a suicide, that'll be an incredible decline in writing quality.

Of course not, but it would be epic.

Can you imagine the contempt Mike will have for Saul, if Kim takes some sort of legal or professional fall for him, while he completely skates? Worse yet, if something violent befalls her?

I just cannot buy, under any circumstance, that law enforcement would believe for even a tenth of a second, that Howard killed himself in S&K's apartment, with a pistol that had zero previous connection to Howard. About two minutes after I watched the scene of Lalo shooting Howard, I thought, "How in the hell are they going to try to plot around the practical consequences of that murder?". A week later, I am more curious. Can't wait to find out.

If Howard's death is easily written off by law enforcement as a suicide, by way of a pistol without any previous connection to Howard, or worse, a pistol reported as stolen, that's just unforced bad writing. I can't believe the writers would fumble this so badly with 6 episodes to go. The body really has to vanish. They can't count on Howard's hair not being tested for drug use, which will establish the ",Howard was a drug addict" story as a lie. Frankly, even vanishing the body is a problem in this respect. Howard's wife might of considered the marriage over, but a disappearing husband is still a huge oroblem for her. Hell, she even still might love him on some level! When people try to inform her that Howard was using drugs, she's not going to simply swallow that story hook, line, and sinker, and she has access to a hair brush that will contain Howard's hair follicles. She's not a dummy. I really hope the writers don't try to make it look easy to get away with murdering, or concealing the murder of, prominent people who you didn't plan on getting murdered, because you had some white stuff in an envelope fall out of his locker, and managed to get his eyes dilated.

The senior partner in one of a state's largest law firms is by default much more than a relatively important figure. His body turning up with a bullet through the brain, or if he simply vanishes, would be huge, huge, deal within the state. Lawyers like that are inevitably politically connected. Every aspect of his personal life over the last few months would be subjected to minute examination, and the "hey he was a strung out junkie" trope would only prompt further digging. Every call that Howard made in the last 6 months would he looked at, which likely brings in the guy who ran the boxing gym. Even Howard's therapist might have to talk to the police, if the police seek a court order to do so. I just can't buy somebody of Howard's stature having his gunshot body, or his vanishing, dismissed like a typical murder victim's, with a " Hey, he was a junkie, amiright? We don't have to go the full distance on this one."

I wasn't suggesting that evidence exists that would result in Saul and Kim being indicted for Howard's murder. They wouldn't be indicted for that, in good measure because they are in no way legally responsible for Howard's murder.

Agree completely.

The phone number change was executed by a secretary, by the prompting of a phone call. Howard's wife will have seen no evidence of drug-induced erratic behavior. Obviously, we, in the viewing audience, can choose to buy whatever we want. I see a plot of "Hey, Mike just disappeared the body, and planted some drugs, so there was no large scale investigation into a person of Howard's stature vanishing, which looked hard at Saul and Kim's relationship with Howard", as being every bit as ridiculous as BB's simulteaneous mass assassination of witnesses in seperate prisons plot device, except less understandable, because it was less necessary. In BB, the writers had simply written themselves into a corner by then. There was no corner here. Howard didn't need to be killed off in this manner, for dramatic purposes. If the writers do so, and then just hand-wave away the official consequences of the murder of a person of Howard's stature, that'll be kind of a disappointment to me. YMMV, of course.

Yeah, I just disagree. Having one of the largest criminal investigations in the history of a state, as this certainly would be, focused on Saul and Kim's relationship (the stuff with the phony PI, which would certainly be uncovered, wouldn't set off anybody's spidey sense; it'd be a 100 decibel alarm in one of the biggest homicide cases in state history) to Howard, over the past few weeks of Howard's life would have a huge sidetracking effect. People having their lives put under a microscope by a huge criminal investigation really can't live normal personal or professional lives, even assuming they are completely innocent. When they are up to their necks in shady acrivities, it gets even worse. There were ways to kill off Howard, that morally implicated Saul and Kim, that didn't entail nearly as many complications as Lalo shooting him in the head in Saul and Kim's apartment. I don't think writers of this caliber are going to write that end for Howard, to simply have Saul and Kim do a good job of cleaning the crime scene, to tie up that loose end in the plot.

Of all their cons, deceiving people into thinking that a person assaulted women, and then covertly drugging that person, really struck me as particularly vile, so their reaction to that vile act, that it was a great time for schtupping, for me, doubled down on the gross.

We disagree as to what would be a reasonable suspension of disbelief. These writers aren't perfect (like I said elsewhere, Walter White pulling off, with the help of the Aryan gang, simulteaneous assassinations of witnesses, in multiple prisons, was a rare bit of plotting ridiculousness in BB), but I think it's possible to write a better resolution in the last 6 episodes where Saul and Kim aren't trying to sell the idea, with phony calls/electronic communication, to HHM, Howard's wife, Cliff, and others, that Howard left unannounced for an extended time. We'll see.

I didn't write it would be easy to convict Saul and Kim of being guilty of a crime. That's a high standard of evidence, and they really aren't criminally guilty, in any way, with regard to Howard's death. I wrote that credible investigation into Howard's death is going to hugely upend Saul and Kim's personal and professional lives.

Senior partners at largish law firms do not go on extended vacations without telling any other partners where they can be contacted, and two people who are not employed by the firm are not going to be able to provide a satisfactory explanation. Any partner who did accept such an explanation, without independent verification, would be terribly irresponsible with regard to their duty to clients and employees of the firm. These are terrific writers. It'll be below their normal standards if the killing of Howard in this manner doesn't cause gigantic, life altering problems for Saul and Kim.

Gus is proof of what? That a violent criminal with access to gigantic resources can protect himself from the likes of Lalo, especially if the head of a cartel, that Lalo belongs to, has told Lalo that Gus is not to be attacked? What does that have to Saul and Kim? When important people are shot in the head, or simply vanish, people who have the job of investigating crimes tend to dig very deeply.

Howard's secretary knows that somebody called, identified himself or herself as representing the PI firm that HHM usually uses, to tell HHM that the PI firm was using a new number. That number is going to a burner. This would be a matter of intense examination in the investigation into the murder of an important person. If the senior partner at one of a state's largest law firms simply vanishes, the investigation is going to be just as energetic.

When very important people either vanish, or turn up with a bullet through his head, the fact that he was using a supposed PI, who was contacted through a burner number that was planted at HHM, in the last few weeks before Howard's death, would be looked at, hard. Which mean that Jimmy would be looked at hard, given the weird pictures of Jimmy in the park, supposedly given to Howard by the PI. Which means Kim gets looked at hard. Which means phone dumps for both. Now we have Jimmy and Kim being together at a park where the pictures were taken, being together where Howard was supposedly shoving a woman out of a car. It goes on and on. The way that Howard was killed just causes lots of problems.

Maybe Saul and Kim's plot coming unraveled will play no role in the end of this story, and if that's the case, it won't really harm my appreciation of the show. I'll just see it as a bit of a plotting misstep, which is how I saw the simulteaneous witness assassinations in multiple prisons, in BB. Hey, nobody's perfect.

There is no way for Saul and Kim to continue to work as lawyers, without Lalo being able to physically attack them, at a time of his choosing. They can't hide, nor are they rich enough to really protect themselves, from violent criminals who have access to millions of dollars.

Howard's secretary can confirm that someone called HHM to change the phone number for the firm HHM used for investigations, that turned out to be a burner phone, that was used to call for a PI that Howard used, which resulted in weird pictures of Jimmy handing a frisbee to a guy (who is a UNM film student) with what looks like a fake mustache, that looks like a caricature of the mediator's mustache. A cellphone dump of Saul and Jimmy would place both of them close to the park where that picture was taken, at the same time, and given the murder victim, yeah, Saul and Kim's cellphones would be dumped. This isn't like trying to crack The Zodiac Killer. It wouldn't be super easy to convict Saul or Kim of anything, but there would be plenty for them to have their plot unraveled.