Gould and Gilligan did a brilliant job casting and writing Howard Hamlin. They picked a handsome blonde man and gave him a backstory that could have easily set him up to be a cliché. He's the prototypical jock with a rich daddy who gets everything he wants. His looks and backstory shape him up to be the villain of an 80s stoner movie. They even lean into this archetype a bit, but as a misdirection. They lead you to believe that he is the one who is keeping Jimmy down. Only later do we find out that Howard was only complying with Chuck's wishes. Looking back on the series, it's hard to find anything that makes Howard villainous at all. The few things he did to Jimmy and Kim were minor. He even listed them off when he visited them at their apartment shortly before being killed. We are conditioned to want to see characters with his looks and backstory fail. But the show gave us no actual reason to want his demise. I've read recaps of various episodes and writers are always trying to find reasons to justify Kim's schemes. But I think Howard speaks the truth when he said the only reason Kim and Jimmy did it was because they get off on it. Gould and Gilligan have a good way of making fans root for the wrong people only to have people then question those rooting interests.