Howard is actually a pretty stand up guy.

I think this holds especially true in the first season, but it seems to me that Howard was actually always a pretty stand up guy, while Jimmy was the immoral one. The difference between the two is that Howard was not a likable person: stiff, corporate, loyal to Chuck. Jimmy on the other hand is totally likeable and has a good heart, but his moral compass was always off.

He clearly admired Jimmy's work ethic and probably would have even offered him a job as a lawyer but his loyalty to Chuck precluded that, and he essentially played the "bad guy" for Chuck by being the one to directly clash with Jimmy.

Howard was never a bad guy, never did anything unethical, only wanted what was best for the firm and by extension what was best for Chuck. He clearly wanted to do good by his clients and follow the rules. Running the firm well meant good things for both clients and employees. He does come off as a dick a little bit to Kim in season 3, unfortunately, but definitely in season one he is clearly a good guy being painted very bad to great effect by the shows creators.

Vince Gilligan seems to be a master at toying with the audience's attitudes towards characters-the evil characters are sympathetic, the good characters are sometimes unlikable, and in Chuck's case he is duplicitous but suffering from a horrible mental illness so in some ways deserve our sympathy.

Submitted June 30, 2018 at 09:34PM by hornwalker https://ift.tt/2tTdmDn