Breaking Bad had no shortage of great villains throughout its run. The biggest of all was, of course, Gustavo Fring, before the Chicken Man was killed off in rather gruesome fashion in Season 4. That led Walter White and Jesse Pinkman to Jack Welker and his gang of Neo-Nazis, who offered some more thrills for the final season. But before those were introduced – and, later, running alongside the arc with Gus in ways both fascinating and shocking – were the Salamancas.
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Walt and Jesse had already started their involvement with the family in Season 1 via their work with Tuco, but it’s in Season 2, Episode 2, “Grilled,” where the groundwork is really laid for what would be an arc that spans all the way until the end of Season 4, and another of the show’s most chilling villains: Hector. This episode is the one in which he (played by the late Mark Margolis) and his bell are first introduced, and it’s a game-changing installment that sets up a lot of the drama that would follow.
Hector Salamanca Became One Of Breaking Bad’s Greatest Villains
The main plot of “Grilled” sees Tuco kidnap Walt and Jesse, initially because he thinks they’ve been snitching, before concocting a plan to leave for Mexico, taking them with him so they can continue to produce the blue meth. Worried about the DA, he initially takes them to the house of his uncle, or Tio, where we get what’s a stifling, unbearably tense, and yet occasionally funny situation in which he tries to get information out of them, he makes them burritos, they try to poison him, and Hector observes, ringing that damn bell: Ding, ding, ding.
The episode culminates in the death of Tuco. Hank, who had been searching for Walt and Jesse, arrives on the scene and gets embroiled in a shootout, fatally shooting him in the head. Up to this point, it had seemed like Tuco might become a much bigger villain, who could’ve carried at least the totality of Season 2, if not more. But we’d learn that things are much greater than him – something Better Call Saul would later show us, too – and Hector was an important part of that.
The death of Tuco and the introduction of Hector were pivotal turning points for Breaking Bad, plunging Walt much deeper into the Cartel world. Even just from “Grilled,” it was clear there was more to Hector than meets the eye, as he’s extremely perceptive and switched-on. Tuco dying sparked in him a furious desire for vengeance against Walt, which would rub up against Gus and his operation (and there was no love lost between them, either).
So much of Breaking Bad‘s drug world, and Walt’s involvement in it, comes from the Salamancas and the increased presence of Hector, one of the most ruthless, cruel, vindictive people in it, takes it to a whole new level. That would culminate in Hector actually assisting Walt in order to kill Gus in Breaking Bad Season 4, even at the expense of his own life, such is his hatred for him. It’s one of the series’ most shocking, explosive moments, and all goes back to that ringing of the bell. Ding.
Breaking Bad is available to stream on Netflix.
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