Better Call Saul Reveals Lalo's Fate in Breaking Bad
Warning: this story contains spoilers for Better Call Saul Season 6 Part 2. "It was Ignacio! He's the one," a panicked and pleading Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) exclaims in Breaking Bad Season 2 Episode 8, titled "Better Call Saul." Kidnapped by masked meth cooks Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), who threaten the criminal lawyer over his client Badger (Matt Jones), Saul sighs in relief: "No Lalo? Lalo didn't send you?" 13 years and one spinoff series later, Monday's mid-season premiere of Better Call Saul, "Point and Shoot," reveals the fate of Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton) during the Breaking Bad era.
In the Season 5 finale, "Something Unforgivable," rival drug lord Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) uses double agent Ignacio "Nacho" Varga (Michael Mando) to set up cartel player Lalo at his compound in Mexico. Lalo survives Fring's failed assassination attempt, but Saul Goodman (née Jimmy McGill) believes his former client-turned-personal boogeyman to be dead.
Until "Plan and Execution." Like a cucaracha, Lalo returns from the grave to surprise Saul and wife Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) at their Albuquerque apartment in the Season 6 mid-season finale. Unfortunately for defamed HHM lawyer Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian) — who arrives at the apartment to confront the Goodmans about their elaborate plan to ruin his life — Lalo turns up at the same time, executing Howard with a bullet to the head.
In the mid-season 6 premiere, "Point and Shoot," Lalo's plan for revenge is simple: send Saul to assassinate Fring at his suburban home guarded by enforcer Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) and a small army. But when Saul talks Lalo into sending Kim — her only chance to escape the apartment alive — Lalo shrugs, sending Mrs. Goodman away with a point-and-shoot revolver.
Mike intercepts Kim before she can shoot her target, but it doesn't matter. Lalo plans to draw the protected Fring out of hiding for a showdown at Lavandería Brillante, the industrial laundromat sitting atop Fring's underground meth superlab built by Werner Ziegler (Rainer Bock) and his team of German engineers.
Lalo ties up Saul, who pleads his case: "I barely know Ignacio! Whatever he did, he did alone! Not with me! Listen, you've got to believe me. Hand to God, I had no part in this. It wasn't me. It was—" as Saul is gagged, he spits out muffled blame: "Ignacio!"
At the laundromat, Lalo leads Fring into the superlab to film his execution for cartel boss Don Eladio (Steven Bauer). Using the gun he planted at the excavation site back in "Black and Blue," Gus manages to shoot and kill Lalo, another victory in his war against the hated Hector Salamanca (Mark Margolis).
In the end, Mike elaborately stages Howard's death as the tragic suicide of a drug-addled cocaine addict whose body will never be found. It won't: Mike's men dump Howard and Lalo's corpses into a hole in the ground, burying them beneath the meth superlab where Walt and Jesse will manufacture thousands of pounds of Blue Sky methamphetamine for Fring in Breaking Bad.
As Better Call Saul slips closer to the Breaking Bad timeline, Cranston and Paul will reprise their roles as Walt and Jesse in the final episodes airing Mondays on AMC and AMC+. Better Call Saul concludes with its series finale on August 15.
Here's how to watch Better Call Saul Season 6 Part 2.