“Do you know what the definition of insanity is?” Oh, that sounds like the wrong character. “You think I’ll be caught dead driving that thing? It looks like a school bus for six year old pimps.” That would be the one, yes. Without a question, one of the greatest actors working today is Michael Mando.
We would be lying if we said we were not going to remember him forever as Nacho Varga, but his performance as Vaas Montenegro in The Far Cry Experience elevated both the game and his career to new heights. His character is crucial in starting the circumstances that would inevitably bring all the characters for Breaking Bad together, from a throwaway sentence in Breaking Bad to the unmistakable highlight of Better Call Saul.
Who is this man, though? Why is he initially so significant? And how precisely does he assemble all of these participants? This video, Nacho Varga Origins – Explored, will address each of those concerns and more.
He’s the calming voice for Tuco Salamanca – Nacho in the early part of Better Call Saul
Yes, the most insane Salamanca of them all once had something approximating a voice of reason behind him. This is hard to believe given what we saw of Tuco in Breaking Bad. Nacho Varga, a dependable companion and ally of Tuco, was the voice that was heard. You could wonder how he ended up in that position. Although there are few details, he has known Tuco for a very long time according to a story he tells Mike; nevertheless, we will get to that in a moment.
Tuco brings Jimmy and the twins who defraud skateboarders to the desert to determine their punishments, and that is when we first meet Nacho. Tuco is acting like his normal self, which entails threatening to kill everyone in the most gruesome manner imaginable. Nacho cuts off Jimmy’s story as soon as he realises his predicament and begins telling Tuco that he is a special agent— clearly realising that Tuco is a member of a gang— and Nacho warns him to get genuine or else.
Jimmy, who had not anticipated this, acknowledges that he is a lawyer and that they were attempting to con one of his rejected clients, but that his staff were unsuccessful because they chose the wrong vehicle, leaving them at Tuco Salamanca’s mercy.
Tuco first rejects it and threatens to use pliers to amputate Jimmy’s fingers, but Nacho intervenes, takes charge of the questioning, and convinces Tuco that killing a lawyer would put them in “serious trouble.” Then, knowing how difficult it is to get Tuco out of a rage, he watches as Jimmy successfully talks Tuco down from Columbian neckties to one broken leg for each of the twins. Recognizing the criminal element within him, he approaches Jimmy with a deal: he points Nacho to the Kettlemans, Nacho rips them off, and they split the loot 50-50.
Jimmy refuses and acts all shocked but Nacho tells him that he’s “in the game” now and that nothing he does can change that. Jimmy correctly assumes that Nacho will pull off the heist anyway and alerts the Kettlemans who spot Nacho and call the cops on him. Now arrested, Nacho requests Jimmy as his personal defendant and makes it clear to him that if his connections to Tuco are revealed, Jimmy will end up dead because Nacho can place him and the twins at the desert in connection to Tuco, thus taking them down with him.
Jimmy panics and figures out where the Kettlemans are hiding and manages to get Nacho out of jail, but he is no ordinary thug. So far, Nacho has displayed intelligence that no one- certainly no one connected to the Salamanca family- shows they are capable of. He works as Tuco’s right arm because he has his ear and knows Tuco listens to him. He likes ripping off criminals because they have no recourse.
He even deduces that Jimmy was the one who tipped the Kettlemans off, so he warns him that snitching on Nacho is a raw deal he does not want to be on the bad end of. But Jimmy simply tells Nacho he brought it upon himself for being sloppy and Nacho, having no response to the correct statement, silently retracts his threats and leaves the scene. This short engagement with Jimmy portrays Nacho as a man who knows what he wants, knows how to get it, but also knows when to give up, which is more than we can say about his boss Tuco.
So it only made sense that he was the “buyer” for Daniel “Pryce” Warmolt’s stolen prescription pills, because Nacho has clearly shown the ambition to “do more” and the wherewithal to pull it off with a certain degree of cunning. But that all changes when he comes face to face with Pryce’s bodyguard, because he happens to run into the one guy no one can scam: Mike Ehrmantraut, the former “cleaner” and personal hitman for one Gustavo Fring.
But this is pre-cleaner Mike and he’s also looking to avoid casualties as far as is humanly possible, so he simply tells Nacho to pay Pryce in full or the deal was off. Nacho is understandably taken aback by this- who is this old man who’s telling him his business, eh- but he knows he can’t blow the deal so he forks over the $20 in the most disrespectful manner possible and leaves with the drugs.
Unsurprisingly, Pryce is shocked at Mike’s efficiency and asks him how he knew things would go down the way they did, which is when Mike reveals that the guy Daniel had just dealt with was called Ignacio Varga- revealing, for the first time, that this is the Ignacio that Saul was referring to in Breaking Bad Season 2 Episode 8 when he said, “It wasn’t me, it was Ignacio!” Though it becomes clear to us now how Saul knows him, we still don’t know why he would bring up Nacho in the first place. Well, that would become clearer from season 2 onwards, because that is when Better Call Saul starts putting all the pieces into place.
The more he tries to get out, the more he’s drawn in – Nacho’s tragic life “in the game”
In Season 2 of Better Call Saul, the first time we see Ignacio is at an unexpected place. Well, not the first time, that would be when he realises Pryce is no longer working with Mike and decides to rip him off after figuring out his identity, but we’re not talking about Nacho Varga the criminal here. See, Mr. Varga has more shades to his personality than simply being the intelligent gangster; he also happens to be a very loving and loyal son! After Nacho rips off Pryce, the latter goes to the police which sets Mike’s brain on high alert.
He deduces that Nacho must’ve broken ties with Pryce like he did and then ripped him off just for kicks, but he forgot to account for Pryce’s stupidity which could lead to trouble for both of them. So he tracks Nacho down to his civilian job and that is where we see the other half of Varga’s life. Ignacio Varga is the son of a hard-working Mexican immigrant called Manuel Varga.
His father opened the A-to-Z Upholstery business when he was a kid, and Ignacio has worked with him ever since. You can see from the way he talks to his dad that he truly loves him. It’s not about grand gestures; it’s about the subtle ones that convey more than he could using words.
And that makes his family his Achilles Heel as well, because if there is one thing we have learned from Breaking Bad, is that once you’re in the game no one you know is safe. Which is why when Nacho notices Mike at his dad’s shop, he incorrectly assumes he is there to intimidate him by threatening his family. Nacho cops to stealing Pryce’s cards and keeps trying to get rid of Mike until he brings up Tuco’s name as the “stick” that he kept referring to.
That’s when Nacho realises just how deep Mike’s resources really run, and he agrees to work with him to placate Pryce because at the end of the day, Mike was right; if Tuco found out about his side-business, Nacho could end up like Dog Paulson from way back in the day. He still remembered that guy through the piece of his skull that was still lodged in Nacho’s shoulder till this day.
So, after he settles his Pryce problem and makes a neat $50K profit from it while he’s at it, he decides to put the money to use in service of eliminating his own problems. Because as far into the game as he is, Nacho isn’t necessarily inherently a bad guy; he does bad things to fit in with the bad guys and keep his skin safe, thereby assuring his father’s safety as well. But as soon as he realises that Mike is right in saying that Tuco is his real problem, he moves to hire him via Dr. Caldera and contracts him for a hit on Tuco.
The two case El Michoacano, and while Mike does suggest that sniping Tuco from a distance would be the safest option, he ultimately backs out of killing him and arranges a scenario where he will end up in prison instead. Cooperating with Nacho, who puts on a perfect act here by the way, Mike enters El Michoacano and orders takeaway, intentionally clipping Tuco’s car on his way in to get his agitated.
Once Tuco starts going to work on Mike, Nacho initially helps him intimidate Mike but bounces as soon as the cops show up. If Tuco were smarter, he’d have questioned by Nacho only tried to convince him to leave once instead of making him leave insistently, but he is too caught up with re-arranging Mike’s face for him and ends up going to jail for it. Nacho meets Mike later and pays him for his troubles, but he takes only half of it, telling him his problems were going to be coming back sooner than he thought.
Because Nacho assumed getting Tuco out of the picture would’ve been the end of his problems, but his Uncle Hector replaced Tuco, and he was an entirely different beast. Hector wasn’t like his nephew; in fact he was the teacher of all his nephews and was too dangerous to make a move on openly.
Nacho though he was getting rid of the Salamancas, but he ended up trading one for three as the Cousins showed up as well to assist Hector in intimidating Mike. Nacho is present at the meeting, sitting right behind Mike, and as the meeting concludes, Nacho himself comes to a conclusion; he has to get rid of Hector as well. So, he contacts Pryce once again and gets him to bring him some hollow capsules resembling the ones Hector takes for his heart condition.
Pryce contacts Mike, who upon hearing Nacho’s request, realises what he’s about to do and decides to check out his plan in earnest. Because Hector Salamanca not only threatened him, he threatened his entire family, and Mike would’ve personally seen to his demise if it hadn’t been for a certain Chilean’s interference.
After listening to Nacho’s plan, he tells him he won’t interfere, but advises him to switch the pills back in case he ever gets caught. Nacho takes his advice and prepares to assassinate Hector Salamanca by practicing how to throw a pill bottle in an open coat pocket from a distance for days on end. He meticulously plans every step, sabotages the air conditioner in El Michoacano and deliberately acts like a bumbling fool around Hector to make him drop his guard as low as he possibly could.
And when the time is right, Nacho makes the switch, replacing Hector’s heart medication with Ibuprofen- which would have actually accelerated his condition in theory. He then sits on his deeds and waits for Hector to drop dead but to his horror, he doesn’t; for like two days, Hector Salamanca goes on with life as usual which makes Nacho paranoid enough to try to kill him personally. But when he turns up at the warehouse where Hector makes his HQ, he witnesses his pills kick in, and Nacho dashes to the scene, trying to follow through on Mike’s advice and clear himself entirely of any fault.
Sadly for him, he wasn’t as careful as he should have been, because Gus notices that Nacho turned up to the meeting when he wasn’t supposed to and immediately casts suspicion at the pill bottle he hands over to the medics. Having gotten rid of his second Salamanca, Nacho feels pretty good about himself, and even muscles Victor and Tyrus into giving him and Arturo 6 keys of cocaine instead of the regular 5, now that they were running things, but of course, that would turn out to be the beginning of the end for him.
Gus’ new snitch and the Third Salamanca – Nacho’s downfall begins
No sooner had Nacho and Arturo left the warehouse that Gus sabotaged them from behind personally, bumping Arturo’s head against the hood of a truck- hard- and then suffocating the life out of him while staring a hole through Nacho. Gus tells him that he knows what he has done and the Salamancas don’t. From now on, Nacho was his man, and he would do everything Gus commanded of him. To make Arturo’s death look “real”, he has Tyrus and Victor take him out into the desert and shoot up the car, staging a drive-by from one of the other rivals of the Salamancas.
After they relentlessly shoot up Arturo and his sweet ride, Victor and Tyrus shoot Nacho twice to “make it look real” and leave him to bleed out; he barely gets a call through to the cousins, who find him and take him to Dr. Caldera, with the veterinarian saving Nacho’s life thanks to a blood donation from one of the twins. After he explains to Nacho how he must take care of his wounds, Dr. Caldera cuts all ties with him, telling him with cartel stuff was too hot for him, and that is the last interaction that these two long-time business partners would end up having.
Nacho tells the cousins that the Espinosas arranged the attack on him and Arturo, and they immediately launch a frontal assault on the entire gang. An injured Nacho has to make a decision here: he hates the Salamancas and could care less if they died in there.
The Espinosas had more than 20 members in their gang, all it would’ve taken was 2 well-placed bullets. But Nacho realises that these were the Salamancas and killing them was not easy, as he knew now from personal experience. Besides, another van was entering the compound for backup so his decision was pretty much made for him; Nacho enters the Espinosa hideout, takes out an attacker preparing to kill one of the cousins from behind and helps them clear out the entire place.
This not only earns him the Cousins’ respect, but it also gives him effective control over the Salamanca territory in New Mexico, which plays perfectly into Gus’ hands. Over the course of the next few months, we see Nacho solidify his power by fulfilling the same role Hector and Tuco had. Earlier, Hector had made him beat up his childhood friend Domingo to teach him a lesson about coming up short.
Nacho was so disturbed by it that he injured himself later working at his father’s shop. Now, he doesn’t hesitate ripping a man’s ear in half and telling him what he owes, he owes with interest. He’s living the big life, in a big house, with plenty of women to cater to him, but what he really wants to do is get out and away, which is revealed by the safe he keeps in his room which has a stack of cash and two fake Manitoba IDs- one for him and the other for his father.
He’s clearly got an exit strategy but all his plans come to a halt when he enters the restaurant one day and finds the third Salamanca that he will eventually try to kill- Lalo. From the very beginning, he figures out that Lalo is not like the other Salamancas; in that he is nowhere nearly as stupid as them. Sure, Tuco was intimidating as hell, and Hector had his own street cunning to assist his decision-making, but Lalo was like a combination of all the Salamancas that existed and then some.
He was just as smart as Gus and more ruthless than Marco and Leonel, which is why when Nacho meets him he realises just how deep the crap he is in really runs. He ends up becoming Lalo’s chauffer and starts reporting to Mike directly, with whom he brings up his concerns; Gus had threatened to kill his father if he didn’t play ball, and Nacho just wanted out. So they came up with the perfect storm: Nacho gave Mike the info he needed to get Lalo thrown in jail, and then arranged his release because Gus knew that Lalo would now have to flee back to Mexico.
When Nacho was unexpectedly asked to join him, he ended up becoming the lynchpin to Gus’ plan; he was to open the gate to Lalo’s Chihuahua fortress and let Gus’ assassins enter and kill Lalo. Though Nacho pleaded for the gunmen to spare Lalo’s innocent employees, he knew the trap was set and he could do nothing about it, so he kept playing his part in the ploy. Nacho met with the Cartel boss Don Eladio Vuente and in their subsequent meeting, revealed his plans to grow the business and what he really wanted from life.
Nacho tells Eladio he wants to be respected, go his own way, and become so notorious no one ever thinks of playing him. Eladio tells him he might be in the wrong business for that, but approves of him, his plans and his appointment as the cartel’s new man up North. When Nacho and Lalo get back to the compound, they share a late-night drink, where Nacho discovers he will have to cause a distraction to draw him away from the gate he needs to open.
He sets a cast-iron pan on the stove under the pretence of getting better liquor to share with his boss, and lures him into the kitchen while he himself goes to open the door to let the assassins in. Nacho picks the lock and escapes the Salamanca compound, confident in having played his part to a T. He never finds out that Lalo had escaped his fate, and that is the last piece of comfort his soul would ever receive.
He goes out on his own terms – The Last Stand of Ignacio Varga
After running for 2 hours nonstop, Nacho calls Gus’ people and is told to lay low at a motel and wait for them to pick him up. He makes it to the motel and finds a gun and some cash waiting for him, so he doesn’t immediately question Tyrus. But when no one comes to pick him up for an entire day, Nacho gets paranoid as hell, and turns out it’s with good reason. For the entire duration of his stay at the motel, he was being spied on by a man hired by Gus, who had set up shop right opposite Nacho’s room.
He silently makes his way out of his room, away from the spy’s line of sight, and confronts him after entering his lair, demanding to know who sent him. When he refuses to answer, Nacho calls Tyrus and fakes a panic attack, claiming he was going to try to cross the border by himself. He cuts the call and sure enough, the spy’s phone starts ringing immediately after. Nacho realises then that Gus had no plans to get him out; he intended to let Nacho die a painful death.
Determined to live and see things out his own way, Nacho escapes the motel when the Cousins show up; the fact that they don’t want to kill him because they want to question him first also helps. He goes as far as the truck would carry him and then hides out in an oil tanker once the cartel’s men track him down. After successfully evading them, he reaches a mechanic’s garage where he tidies up and makes the last 2 phone calls of his life.
The first goes to his father; Nacho is wearing coveralls like the ones he would’ve worn back home, he realises, and gets emotional as soon as he hears his dad. He checks up on him and gets him he called to say his goodbyes and that he loves him. Manuel simply asks his son to go to the police and hangs up, not realising that that would be the last time he ever spoke to him. Then, Nacho calls Mike, who is being held at gunpoint by Tyrus for openly defying Gus; who has ordered him to bring him Nacho’s dad.
Mike picks up and Nacho enquires why he didn’t tell him he was going to die in Mexico, to which Mike simply says it wasn’t his call to make. Nacho then speaks with Gus and tells him he is willing to play ball with him and make the story go whichever way he wants, but he wants one guarantee; nothing happens to his father.
After making Mike promise him that that would be the case, Nacho is effortlessly transported back to New Mexico, and given his last meal before being told the plan; he was going to tell Juan Bolsa that a rival gang from Peru had been paying him off for a year and he killed Lalo on their orders. Gus also asked Victor to beat up Nacho because he looked “too pretty”, but Mike takes care of it himself after sharing one last drink with him. In the midst of all the tension, no one notices Nacho pick up a shard of glass from the cup Gus broke earlier in the day.
Once they are out in the desert, Nacho is presented to Bolsa, and at first it seems like he refuses to answer the cartel’s questions. But then, he starts reciting the story Gus prepared for him, and takes things into his own hands without ever implicating him; he says he opened Lalo’s gate and he is glad what they did to the “soulless pig”; he calls Gus The Chicken Man and a joke, completely clearing any suspicion off of him; he tells Hector he put him in that chair and then breaks out of his bonds, taking Bolsa hostage.
Nacho points Don Juan’s gun at his neck, before pointing it at his own skull and pulling the trigger. In his final moments, Nacho Varga refused to play ball with a bunch of soon-to-be-dead men and went out by his own hand, which is possibly the kindest fate that any cartel member has met in the course of this series.
His character went from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows in such short order that it becomes a testament to Michael Mando’s acting skills. He portrayed every facet of Nacho’s character- the drama, the intimidation, the fear and the hopelessness- with such nuance and precision that you couldn’t help but emotionally connect with the guy.
Marvelous Verdict
Nacho Varga started out his criminal career alongside his childhood friend Krazy-8; but during his rise to the top, he lost everyone he cared for, and eventually ended up becoming the blackest spot on the cartel’s operative history. He brought together Gus & Mike, was responsible for Hector ending up in a wheelchair, and was also the reason why Saul Goodman would be unable to forget Lalo Salamanca nearly half a decade following his death, because till this day, Saul thinks Lalo is alive and out to get him; and it’s all because the traitor Ignacio Varga introduced him to the criminal lawyer. Nacho is the unseen thread that connects all the dots and sets up every major player in Breaking Bad, and his very existence validates the creative genius of Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould.