Since “Better Call Saul” is a prequel to “Breaking Bad,” there was always going to be plenty of character overlap. Jimmy “Saul Goodman” McGill (Bob Odenkirk) and Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) are obviously “Breaking Bad” mainstays, but the show is also rife with other familiar figures from Albuquerque’s underbelly, from Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) to Tuco Salamanca (Raymond Cruz). Even Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) turn up, though the show wisely keeps them out of the picture until Season 6, by which time “Better Call Saul” was a long-established prestige show that didn’t have to worry about the central “Breaking Bad” duo stealing the spotlight.
It’s only natural for a spin-off series to feature a combo platter of familiar faces and new characters like Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), but “Better Call Saul” also employed another template for character introduction. Two of the show’s most interesting breakout characters were already introduced on “Breaking Bad”… and in the same scene, no less. In Saul Goodman’s very first “Breaking Bad” episode, he name-drops two people who are otherwise conspicuously absent from the show: Ignacio and Lalo. “Better Call Saul” finally reveals the faces behind the names, to the point of making them main characters: Ignacio “Nacho” Varga (Michael Mando) and Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton).
We first meet Saul Goodman in “Breaking Bad” Season 2, Episode 8 (fittingly titled “Better Call Saul”). Here, Walt and Jesse clumsily abduct the lawyer in order to convince him to cooperate. At first, Saul is genuinely terrified. “No, it wasn’t me. It was Ignacio. He’s the one,” the lawyer blurts out in a desperate bid for survival. Once realizing that the captors aren’t cartel people, Saul is visibly relieved. “Lalo didn’t send you?” he asks Jesse. “Oh, thank God.”
Better Call Saul turns two random name drops into pillars of the franchise
After that scene, Ignacio and Lalo are never mentioned on “Breaking Bad” again. However, both characters are major players in “Better Call Saul.” Nacho Varga is an ambitious small-time crook, affiliated with the Salamanca family and constantly scrambling for new ways to climb the criminal ladder. He and Saul cross paths early in the series, after which Nacho gets caught in a complex web of lies, treachery, and cartel infighting that ultimately leads to his doom — but not before he deals some devastating blows of his own.
Lalo enters the picture in “Better Call Saul” Season 4, taking over the family turf in Albuquerque after Don Hector Salamanca (Mark Margolis) has a stroke that puts him in a wheelchair. Charming, smart, and remarkably dangerous, Lalo is the closest thing “Better Call Saul” has to a late-game primary antagonist, and Nacho soon becomes his de facto right-hand man. This soon becomes a problem because Nacho’s the one who secretly tampered with Hector’s medication and caused the stroke, and Lalo is the next Salamanca in his sights.
Since Saul bumps into Lalo and Nacho comparatively rarely, the increasingly criminal lawyer never really finds out what happens to either man during the endgame of “Better Call Saul.” However, he has a truly terrifying experience with a vengeful Lalo in Season 6, and heads to “Breaking Bad” with the knowledge that Nacho has double-crossed Lalo, who holds Saul at least partially responsible for the deceit.
Fortunately for Saul, Lalo is dead by the time Walt and Jesse take him into the desert… but the lawyer doesn’t know this, so it makes sense for him to assume that arguably the most dangerous Salamanca is still after him. In the end, a mere throwaway line on “Breaking Bad” somehow became an essential building block for its celebrated spin-off.
This story originally appeared on TVLine
