Spoiler Warning: The following contains spoilers for the final season of Better Call Saul.
Despite only appearing in two seasons of the Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul, Lalo Salamanca has debatably surpassed Gus Fring as the show’s best villain. It is after Lalo’s introduction that the show switched from a slow-paced legal drama to a fast-paced drug drama like its predecessor.
Lalo is also one of the Better Call Saul characters who never appeared in Breaking Bad, although he was mentioned once by Saul Goodman. Initially, series creator Vince Gilligan had no intentions of including Lalo in the prequel series but his co-creator Peter Gould convinced him to do so. It turned out to be a good decision.
Updated on July 12th, 2022 by Mark Birrell: One of the top questions that Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul fans have been asking ever since he was first introduced into the spin-off is “how does Lalo Salamanca die?” Now, they finally have their answer. Lalo is shot to death by his rival, Gustavo Fring, who uses the gun that he plants in the superlab during the season 6 episode “Black and Blue.” While events in Breaking Bad essentially guaranteed Lalo’s death, the specifics around it had remained a mystery up until this point and the character delivered plenty of death and destruction during his time in the story, leaving quite a mark.
Murdering Howard Hamlin
After the failed assassination made against Lalo at his home in Mexico, he goes into hiding for some time as he plots his next move against Gus Fring. Deciding that he needs evidence to destroy Fring, he goes to Kim’s apartment to use her and Jimmy as pawns in his game.
This is bad enough as it is but Kim and Jimmy’s close legal colleague Howard Hamlin happens to be at the apartment when Lalo comes for them. To demonstrate his resolve, Lalo murders Howard in cold blood, shooting him in the head with a silenced pistol. It’s such an unceremonious end to a character who didn’t deserve it and it’s made all the more heartbreaking by the audience’s knowledge that Howard is buried, his body possibly lost forever, facing the corpse of the man who killed him.
Chopping Off One Of Casper’s Feet (And Presumably Murdering Him)
While Lalo is still trying to find evidence to use against Gus Fring, he tracks down Casper, one of the men who helped build the space for Fring’s secret superlab.
In one of Better Call Saul‘s more Game of Thrones-like moments, Lalo chases Casper into a barn before being knocked to the ground in a surprise attack. It seems for a moment that Lalo is seriously hurt by Casper’s attack, but the audience soon sees that Lalo’s just been feigning weakness to draw Casper in closer. After successfully lulling Casper into enough of a false sense of security, Lalo slices Casper’s face with a razor blade that he’d been hiding. Lalo then picks up the axe that Casper had been carrying and uses it to chop off one of Casper’s feet. With Casper gravely wounded, Lalo proceeds to interrogate him and the audience never finds out Casper’s ultimate fate, but Lalo is known to always tie up loose ends violently.
Murdering Sylvia And Mateo Ramos
After the hit squad that Gus Fring sends to kill Lalo in Mexico fails in its mission, Lalo attempts to trick Fring into thinking that the assassination was successful. in order to do this, however, he needs a dead body to act as his own.
While Sylvia and Mateo Ramos’ deaths aren’t shown on screen, it’s strongly implied that Lalo stabs both of them to death with one blade from a pair of scissors that he takes from their home. Mateo’s body is then burned beyond recognition to convince authorities that he’s Lalo. It’s also implied that Lalo had been grooming Mateo for this–or some other similar fate–for quite some time. People are not only expendable to Lalo, they mostly appear to just be objects to him.
Using Ciro As A Human Shield
During the hit squad’s attempted assassination of Lalo, the firefight is started when a member of the team takes a shot at Lalo through his kitchen window. Just before the shot, however, Lalo spots the assassin and pulls the young Ciro in front of him to take the bullet for him.
Even worse still, Lalo later uses Ciro’s death and the added tragedy of his young age as a justification for his actions in the aftermath of the assassination attempt.
Sending Kim To Murder Gus Fring
After murdering Howard Hamlin in the mid-season finale of Better Call Saul‘s sixth season, Lalo revealed his master plan to a terrified Jimmy and Kim. He instructs Jimmy to take a car that Lalo has waiting for him outside so he can go and shoot Gus Fring at his home.
Jimmy manages to convince Lalo to send Kim instead, essentially sacrificing himself in the hopes that Kim will escape. But regardless of what Jimmy and Kim decide to do, it seems like they’re helpless pawns in Lalo’s game.
Shooting Gus’ Men In Their Backs
After successfully diverting Gus Fring’s attention away from the site of his superlab by sending Kim to kill him, Lalo breaks in to get the last of the evidence that he needs to nail Fring. Fring manages to arrive at the site just after Lalo though, figuring out Lalo’s entry point into the building just before Lalo emerges from the shadows.
Lalo shoots and kills all four of the men that Fring is with, firing while they all have their backs turned. Only one has enough time to turn and fire back a shot back, but it’s of no use. Lalo then shoots Gus Fring in the chest just to torture him, knowing that his bulletproof vest will keep him alive. It’s Lalo’s last mistake though, as Fring soon finds the gun that he had planted at the site earlier and uses it to shoot Lalo dead.
Murdering Fred Whalen
In the Season 4 finale titled “Winner,” Lalo continues spying on Gus Fring’s operations. As Mike is searching for the missing Werner Ziegler, Lalo tails him. When Mike loses him, Lalo passes by the TravelWire branch that Mike went to and begins questioning the attendant, Fred Whalen.
When Fred becomes uncooperative, Lalo climbs into the ceiling paneling and manages to drop into the protected booth. Even though the act of sneaking into the ceiling and dropping on the other side is an impressively bold solution, the murder of Fred shows just how ruthless and unnecessarily violent Lalo is.
Burning Down A Hotel And Torturing The Owner
While this scene isn’t shown on screen, it is described in some detail during a talk Lalo has with Hector Salamanca. When Lalo and Nacho go to visit Hector at Casa Tranquila, Lalo reminisces about how he burned down a hotel and tortured the owner for simply being disrespectful.
Lalo tells Hector that he took a souvenir from the hotel’s ashes after it had burned down. The souvenir is a bell from the front desk which he ties to Hector’s wheelchair. Since Hector has lost his ability to speak, the bell ends up helping him to communicate in the future and becomes an important plot point in Breaking Bad.
Terrorizing Saul And Kim At Their Home
When Lalo gets released on bail, he plans to escape to Mexico but changes his mind after he stumbles upon Saul’s bullet-riddled car in the desert. He asks Nacho to drive him to Kim’s apartment where he begins interrogating Jimmy and Kim about what really happened.
All signs point to the fact that Lalo is about to kill them and despite Jimmy being the only one who lied, Lalo refuses to let both of them leave. Luckily, Kim steps up and is able to talk Lalo down, but it’s a tense situation.
Using Werner To Get Information About Gus Fring’s Secret Lab
Lalo doesn’t stop in his quest to try and make Gus the enemy in the eyes of Don Eladio. After Lalo murders Fred Whalen, he reviews the TravelWire branch’s security footage and tracks down the phone number of the hotel that Werner is staying in.
Not knowing what Lalo is up to, Werner ends up revealing crucial information about the SuperLab’s construction over the phone, with Mike showing up moments into the call to put a stop to it. But it’s too late. While Werner had already tested Gus Fring’s patience, speaking to Lalo over the phone may be the final straw that results in Fring disposing of him.
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