We were captivated by the notion of a man so terrible that he would inspire the fear of god in the world’s best “criminal” lawyer when Saul Goodman completely crapped his pants at the prospect of being hauled out to the desert by Lalo’s henchmen.
But once you get to know the man, you understand why Saul was right to be afraid: Lalo Salamanca is the only character in the worlds of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul who is both capable of preparing a delicious taco and inflicting harm in a variety of ways.
Thanks in large part to his flawless portrayal of a charismatic crime boss/genius with more than a dash of insane just lurking underneath his “warm” exterior, Tony Dalton, who was essentially confined to Mexican entertainment before landing this role, became famous overnight as the stylish yet dangerous cartel underboss that had been hyped for almost a decade. But why exactly has Lalo achieved such fame?
How does he later fit into the worlds of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul? And why is he in the first place such a dangerous man? This video, Lalo Salamanca’s Origins – Explored, will address all of these concerns and more.
From a throwaway line to TV’s Best Villain – How Lalo was introduced in Breaking Bad
We first meet Lalo Salamanca in possibly the most surprising way in Breaking Bad’s Season 2 episode 8— ironically enough, with the title Better Call Saul. Saul Goodman is initially perplexed when Walt and Jesse pull him out into the desert in order to persuade him to let Badger go without making a deal with the DEA. After all, the man they have picked up is screaming things like “amigo del cartel” and pleading for his life.
They believed their intimidation strategy was working, but as the man began to scream uncontrollably, they had to calm him down and make it clear that they were not with the person he had assumed they were with. Otherwise, he would have continued to yell that Ignacio, not him, was the culprit.
The relief on Saul’s face when he realises that Lalo did not send them is palpable, but it also manages to be just the right amount of humor, which is what made his character such an essential source of comic relief in the heavily dramatic Breaking Bad. We were left wondering, though, just who Ignacio and Lalo were because the former had apparently gone the Krazy-8 route at some time while the latter was essentially referred to as the cartel’s bogeyman in all but name.
And even though we discovered Ignacio’s identity very early after Better Call Saul premiered, we had to wait for the better part of 4 seasons to meet the other half of that well-known exchange. And while we were complaining at first all that turned into dust once we met Lalo Salamanca because he was, for the lack of a better word, different.
Different, yes, but a Salamanca to the core nonetheless, and you’ll find out just why different is more dangerous than you’d think it can be. Because even though his cast membership ran for about 2 seasons, the impact he made can be felt all across Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad without him even having to participate in the latter show. So without further ado, let’s get into the history of the other Don in the Salamanca family.
He’s a great cook, but an even better cartel leader – The introduction of Lalo Salamanca to the story
From the start of Breaking Bad in 2008 to the time the fourth season of Better Call Saul began airing in 2018, we had met a grand total of 4 Salamancas and all of them could’ve practically had the same personality with varying degrees of talkativeness and violence respectively. First we met Tuco Salamanca- the craziest member of the Salamanca family by far. Then, we met Hector Salamanca- the wheelchair-bound OG cartel don who helped blow up Gus Fring in Breaking Bad.
After that, came Marco and Leonel- the twins who are as lethal a pair of hitmen as the west has ever seen. And in Season 4 episode 8 of Better Call Saul, we meet the final member of this crazy family, and at first it looks like he’s nothing like the rest of them.
The guy is cooking breakfast burritos for the boys at El Michoacano restaurant, just imagine! But the moment Nacho asks him who he is, you realise that this guy might be the most dangerous Salamanca of them all; not because he’s violent or crazy, but precisely because he isn’t, at least not on the surface. If anything, he’s the most charming and charismatic cartel member we’ve seen since Don Eladio- and that is saying something.
But here’s the thing, Lalo Salamanca grew up just like the rest of his cousins and he’s older than them; in fact, he might be the oldest nephew of Hector Salamanca which makes him Hector’s first student. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a school we do NOT want to attend. And yet the fact remains that Lalo is a Salamanca, and all Salamancas and psycho killers.
So when Nacho enters El Michoacano after having put one Salamanca behind bars and leaving another paralyzed, and comes across this third Salamanca, he is understandably pissing himself because 1) these guys have way too many family members in the game and 2) no matter how many he gets rid of, someone else pops up immediately. By this point Nacho had seen The Cousins in action, too, so he knew how kind the Salamancas were to traitors and such, but after seeing Lalo manning the grill, he realised that this guy was an entirely different beast.
Unlike Hector or any of his other nephews, Lalo acted friendly and wore a big smile on his face at all times. When Nacho entered the kitchen, he acted all surprised and enthused by his presence, even offering to feed him the secret family recipe for burritos that he made himself. But the way he said “You’ve never had something this delicious in your life. You’re gonna die.”
Made it very clear to Nacho that this was a test. He refused, and he passed with flying colours, but things did not become easier for him because for the first time in his life, he had to start reading between the lines all the time. Nacho asked Lalo why he was in the north, and the latter told him that he was just here to lend a helping hand, keep the business running, he had a good head for numbers, you know?
It was going to be like he wasn’t even here, he told Nacho as he joined the rest of his men at the table. But Nacho’s desperate look told us the real story; Lalo was here to protect his family’s interests, and he wasn’t going to go away until he got the answers he was looking for. And sadly for him, he had just been “encouraged” to work as a double-agent and a mole in the Salamanca organization by Gus, who saw him switch Hector’s pills and now has leverage over him. This sets the stage for a showdown that eclipses the one Walter White had with Gus Fring because, for a change, Gus was actually scared of his competition.
As we’ve already made clear by now, Lalo is different from the other Salamancas. Where the rest of them use intimidation as a means of commanding “respect”, Lalo seems like the friendly guy who would understand your woes. His casual smile never leaves his face, and his loose demeanour will make you relax around him; that is before he chops your limbs off with an axe and draws information out of you because, after all, he is a Salamanca.
So Lalo is the perfect example of an intelligent psychopath; someone who understands and is able to put on the guise of friendliness till he gets what he wants. After that, it’s open season on you. And Lalo also seems to share another trait with his Uncle Hector that none of the other Salamancas seem to possess; a deep hatred for Gus. Their rivalry is what takes the centre stage in the latter half of Better Call Saul and cements Lalo as one of the best TV villains of all time.
Fring v Salamanca – Gus finds a worthy competitor
The next time we see Lalo is when he goes to visit his uncle Hector at Casa Tranquila with Nacho acting as his personal chauffer. Lalo has brought his beloved Tio a present, as he wants to talk to him about their next plan of action. He recounts a story from his youth about a hotel that he and his uncle visited. Hector asked the owner to give him a room but the stupid guy kept trying to get “these gangsters” off his property and ringing his concierge’s bell.
For that, Hector first nabbed him, then he tortured him, and he probably also violated his prized trophy wife, before burning the entire hotel down to teach his mark a lesson; you never say no to the Don of the Cartel. Lalo remembers it like it was yesterday, even recalling the scents of burning horsehair whilst reminiscing with his uncle. Then he confesses to him that despite Hector’s instruction, he went back inside and grabbed a souvenir to remember the lesson by.
He presents that souvenir to Hector and we find out that his bell was in fact a gift from Lalo. After confirming that Hector‘s mental faculties are as sharp as they used to be, Lalo and his tio have a discussion from which Lalo emerges saying, “Same old Hector, just wants to kill everybody” which stuns Nacho because obviously, he is teetering on the edge here, but also explains the actions that Lalo takes next.
After exiting Casa Tranquila, the pair arrive at a rather familiar location; Los Pollos Hermanos, specifically the main outlet where they know Gus will be. But unlike Hector’s overtly thuggish approach, Lalo takes the smarter route, ordering food for himself and Nacho and waiting for the staff to notice the latter and call Gus to the floor. And that is exactly how things play out because once Lyle- the acceptable assistant manager- spots Nacho in the booth, he calls Fring to the restaurant floor, who arrives with a look on his face that is more dour than usual.
Still, he sucks it up and immediately puts on his act of professionalism and aloofness, asking Lalo and Nacho how he could help them, and to our surprise, Lalo just plays into it. He says he’s “eager to franchise” as Gus’ chicken has impressed him thoroughly, which is a major contrast from Hector’s approach for a meeting with Gus.
Once inside his office, Lalo introduces himself and thanks Gus for saving Don Hector’s life; if Gus hadn’t given him CPR when the others were too stunned to make a move, he might have died, and so Lalo is only here to show his gratitude. But then suddenly, he switches his demeanour and his language of choice when he asks Gus if he thinks Don Eladio likes the bad blood between him and Lalo’s family.
He highly suggests an alliance with Gus to cut Eladio out of the picture, but Gus calls his bluff and says he is satisfied with the current arrangement. Lalo understands that Gus has made his play to get him to show his true feelings towards the cartel, which Hector and he himself are fully aware of, so he just says Gus would be crazy to go after Eladio and that if he needs anything, Lalo is his man.
After conducting what is possibly the calmest meeting a Salamanca has ever had, Lalo’s perpetual smile breaks as he gets into Nacho’s car because he couldn’t get what he came for. So he just asks his new driver to take him to Gus’ chicken farm, so he can scope it out and dig up some kind of proof of Gus’ betrayal of Eladio’s trust. Because that’s really why Lalo is here; he’s here to help his uncle expose this cartel-hating S.O.B. before he can finish making his move.
So Lalo brings sandwiches to a hill overlooking Gus’ chicken farms and spies on everything that goes on there, making detailed notes of each person’s comings and goings. He gets a lucky break thanks to the idiocy of one Werner Ziegler, because while Lalo was spying on the farm, the call came in that the German engineer had escaped. Mike scrambles his men to try and get a hold of Werner before anyone else does because he and his men are painfully aware of Lalo’s presence in Albuquerque.
By a stroke of luck or sheer genius, we won’t be able to tell you which, Lalo manages to tail Mike’s car all the way up to the Travel Wire, where he waits to learn what will happen next. He’s put together the fact that something has gone horribly wrong with Gus’ operation; but depending on what it was, he could use this to his family’s benefit. After Mike exits the Travel Wire, Lalo continues to tail him but Mike manages to give him the slip at a parking lot by jamming the booth gate before Lalo’s car pulled up to the scene.
So Lalo goes back to the Travel Wire, murders the innocent clerk by literally dropping in behind him, and reviews the security footage to deduce that Mike’s target is at a spa somewhere in New Mexico. Lalo manages to get a hold of Werner Ziegler and also coaxes details of the meth super lab that Gus is creating out of him though he is unaware of exactly what the Chilean is planning to do.
Before he can get more information out of him though, Mike arrives at the scene and Lalo knowingly taunts him, deducing that if he can figure out Gus’ secret, he can force him out of the cartel. So he asks all his subordinates about knowing a bald gringo in the game and Werner Ziegler but none of them can come up with any credible information.
As if by yet another stroke of luck, Lalo then receives a report that some of the product his guys picked up from Gus was “stepped on”, which he personally confirms, giving him the chance to set up a face-to-face meeting with Fring and Bolsa. And this is where the final chess game between Gus and perhaps his most-formidable opponent begins.
Not even an assassination attempt can stop him – Lalo goes on the offensive
Using the bad product and the conversation he had with Werner Ziegler as evidence, Lalo gets a meeting between himself, Juan Bolsa and Gus Fring arranged at his chicken farm. Gus proceeds to give them a story that explains everything Lalo is aware of; he tells them Ziegler stole cocaine from Gus and escaped, so he had his men take care of the situation and dilute the product with locally-acquired meth and had hoped that none would be the wiser. He also reveals that Ziegler was making an industrial chiller for the farm, and that Michael is the supervisor of his crew.
Lalo, seemingly happy with the explanation, exits the premises promising peace to Gus’ face. But outside, after Bolsa is done chastising him for his messiness, Lalo questions him as to why the cartel trusts Fring. Bolsa says Gus is a good earner and that he doesn’t involve emotion into business. This prompts Lalo to bring up the mysterious Santiago incident and ask Bolsa if that was also just business. Bolsa simply tells Lalo that as long as the dollars keep coming, Eladio is happy with keeping Gus on, which tells Lalo that unless he gets some hard evidence against Gus’ treachery, he can do nothing about it.
So he just tells Bolsa he has nothing to worry about and gets to work on his next move against Fring. Lalo visits Hector at Casa Tranquila and after sharing a drink with his uncle, tells him he doesn’t believe a word of what the Chilean said at his chicken farm.
Hector points out that the cartel won’t move against Gus as long as he keeps earning, which seems to give Lalo an idea. Later, while playing poker with his men, he ends up giving Krazy-8 his nickname when the latter folds despite having a good chance of winning just to avoid disrespecting his Don. Domingo gets called away to solve a dispute but that ends up leading to a bigger problem as some cops show up while he is trying to unclog a pipe with coke stuck in it, and now his entire operation is at risk.
Lalo shows up to the scene with Nacho and laments the loss of an entire haul of product because the feds had already started swarming the place by the time they arrived, but he didn’t expect Nacho to take the initiative and try to save all their asses and the product. After Nacho manages to make a death-defying loop of the house, save all the coke, and not get spotted by the feds, he earns Lalo’s trust who begins clueing him into his plans.
Lalo has Nacho call Saul Goodman for him, because he plans to hit Gus where it hurts; through Saul, they coach Domingo into becoming a snitch for the DEA and have him rat out all of Gus’ dead drop locations which causes him a significant loss. Lalo’s logic is that if he renders Gus useless to the cartel, they’ll get rid of him. But he doesn’t expect the retaliation from Gus to be so quick, because within a few hours, he is picked up for the murder of Fred Whelan, thanks to a bit of clandestine PI work by Dave Clark.
Lalo once again turns to Saul for his new “legal problem”, and he gets him to represent him in court. At the hearing, Saul is able to argue that the case against Lalo has been built on flimsy grounds with a tampered witness and bail is warranted. His argument stands, thanks to the info Mike gives him beforehand and the actors he hires to play Lalo’s fake family, but the judge sets the bail amount at $7 million.
Saul hopes that the ridiculous amount of money required to get out of jail will get Lalo off his case, but the latter simply replies he can do that, but he’ll need Saul to pick up the money and that he will call him. He’s confident in Saul’s greedy nature, and he’s proven right when Saul agrees to do it for $100K. But after Lalo gets out of jail, he becomes suspicious; why did it take Saul so long to get him the money?
Why did he look like he was ready to die at any moment’s notice? Why did his wife seem to think he was dead? Something didn’t add up, so Lalo went to the desert with the intention of going back home but ends up going to Kim’s apartment after he finds Saul’s car with bullet holes in it. Lalo is right to suspect him, of course; we know that Saul only made it out of the desert thanks to Gus’ operatives.
But he ends up going back to Mexico with Nacho after Kim tells him off for doubting Saul’s integrity. Once he’s back home, Lalo puts his real plan into motion; regaining Don Eladio’s favour for the Salamancas. You see, other than Hector, Lalo is the only Don in the Salamanca family, which means he has influence. And with his charisma and knowledge, he is sure that his status will be enough to get Eladio’s ear.
He takes Nacho to his own home in Chihuahua and introduces him to his staff, whom he thinks of like family. Then, he takes Nacho to the same place where the cousins got their 7 mil from in a deleted scene where he explains that they need to “grease the wheels” with the boss to gain his favour. And turns out, he meant that literally because not only did Lalo bring Eladio a sizeable tribute, he also brought him a sports car which really pleased the Don.
You can tell that Lalo doesn’t just know how to play the game, but he enjoys the thrill of it; when he arrives at Eladio’s hacienda, he goes around fraternizing with everyone there before giving his boss a big playful hug and getting him in the right mood to talk to him about their new man up north: Nacho. Lalo’s ploy works out for the most part. Eladio likes Nacho and approves of his plans and his appointment, and now Lalo has the time to really poison his mind against Gus thanks to his proximity to the Don.
But he ends up getting betrayed the very same night but Varga, who opens the doors for the assassins hired by Gus to take out Lalo before escaping from the same gate. The assassins manage to kill everyone present except Lalo, who realises that the snitch in his organization was Nacho all along. He made the guy burn down a Pollos Hermanos not aware that Gus was right beside him the whole time.
Lalo manages to take out all the attackers and gets the last one to send a message to his handler; he wants him to tell the guy that their mission was a success, just as his life gives out. Lalo exits the burning compound with a look of black rage stuck on his face, while the rest of the world- including Gus- thinks that he is dead. Free from the shackles of restriction, Lalo plots the endgame of Fring v Salamanca which ends up being even more explosive than their Breaking Bad ending.
Fake Bodies, Confessions, and a Trigger Pulled Too Late – The Fate of Lalo Salamanca
After escaping to the countryside of Chihuahua, Lalo kills a couple he had helped earlier in his life and uses the husband’s body as a fake for his own, having asked him to shave just like Lalo does. After burning his body beyond recognition and setting things up in such a way that even dental records wouldn’t be able to prove otherwise, Lalo takes his newly-deceased status and attempts to cross into the US to carry out his vendetta against Gus and now Nacho as well.
But before he does so, he calls his uncle to inform him that he is still alive, knowing that this is their best possible play. He tells Hector that they were right; Fring is a traitor and needs to be dealt with as quickly as possible, but his Tio convinces him to gather solid proof of Fring’s treachery, because he knows that Eladio will need more than words to part with his beloved money.
So Lalo cuts short his trip to New Mexico and goes in-land instead. We find out in a later episode that he travelled to Germany in an attempt to find the proof his uncle asked for, and after spending some time with Margarethe Ziegler, Werner’s deceased wife, he gets it. He finds a gift that Werner’s construction crew gave to him when he breaks into the Ziegler home and he uses it to track down Casper, one of Werner’s trusted men.
After, let’s say, coercing Casper into divulging the information he needed and silencing him so he couldn’t repeat it to anyone else, Lalo goes back to America and starts spying on Lavanderia Brillante; aka the future sight of Walt & Jesse’s meth lab. Lalo stakes it out over several days, noting down the movements of the guards and such, making a funny recording for Don Eladio to discover Fring’s treachery through.
But when he calls his uncle to tell him all this, he realises that Fring somehow knows he’s alive. After placing the call, Lalo can detect the tell-tale signs of tracing, which causes him to hang up and break his chair out of frustration. Of course, we at home know that it was Hector’s fault that Gus realised Lalo was still alive, but he never found that out. He called his Tio again and told him he was going back to plan A and that Fring would be getting a surprise that night, knowing full well that his words will spur his men into action.
And after they’ve departed, Lalo too gets up to leave when he spots a cockroach and gets a better idea. He makes his way to Saul Goodman’s house, casually kills a drunk and rambling Howard Hamlin telling him he himself was a nobody, and goes to work on the scamming couple. Lalo tells Jimmy that he knows Nacho ratted him out, and he will be back to discern Jimmy’s innocence later, but he has bigger fish to fry right now. He gives him step-by-step directions to Gus’ house including a little map that helps him locate it better and tells him his task is simple; he just has to Point & Shoot.
First, at Gus using the gun Lalo has planted in his car, and second, at Gus’ dead body using the camera he left as well. Jimmy manages to convince him to let Kim do it instead, and Lalo just gets fed up with them and asks them to get on with it, which is probably something he shouldn’t have done because with victory so close at hand, Lalo starts slipping.
He goes back to the laundry just in time for Gus to arrive, and once he does, Lalo executes all the men he brought with himself. He proceeds to force Gus to show him the lab’s location while he films it on his camera, even going so far as to shooting Gus in the chest to compel him to comply, knowing full well he is wearing body armour. Once down there, he puts on a show for his boss by kicking around Gus and dictating the info he had acquired from Casper.
Lalo even lets Gus finish his acidic rant towards the cartel and the Salamanca family in general before asking him if he was done with his big talk. Gus coolly responds “no” before throwing the entire pit into darkness with a well-placed kick to an electrical line and shooting Lalo through the neck using a gun he had previously concealed there just to be on the safe side. It’s not like Lalo doesn’t connect with Gus; even in the darkness, he manages to get two bullets to graze Gus’ side heavily.
But in the end, Lalo is unable to finish what his Uncle started, and he dies with a maniacal smile on his face. Gus wins, but at a terrible cost. He had to beef up his private security to the levels they were probably at when he was back in Chile to counter one man.
The very thought of Lalo being alive terrifies Gus in Season 6 episode 1, and he starts losing his composure around his men, which is very rare for him. All of these details show that not only was Lalo Salamanca Gus’ most-worthy adversary, he was also the cause for his downfall in Breaking Bad. Because after taking out one of the most-notorious cartel bosses in such short order, no wonder Gus was overconfident in dealing with Walter White; he had quite literally fought against worse odds and won not 3 years ago.
But where he didn’t underestimate Lalo, he did underestimate Walter, which is what ended up getting him killed. Even in death, Lalo Salamanca’s actions have shaped every character that crossed over from the Better Call Saul timeline to the Breaking Bad one, because if it weren’t for his actions, Saul would never become a “criminal” lawyer and Jesse and Walt would be in jail by now thanks to Badger, if that even happens in the first place. But that’s not all when it comes to his influence on the show.
How Lalo Salamanca draws from real-life cartels to lend more authenticity to Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad
As we’ve already mentioned in our videos about Don Eladio, Hector, Tuco and The Cousins- go watch those if you haven’t already- most of the characters in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul seem to be inspired by real-life cartels and figures within them.
While we can’t specifically pin down an inspiration for Lalo, we can tell you that out of all the other cartel operatives, he is the one that gave their operation the most real-world authenticity because of a scene that takes place in episode 1 of season 6. In it, Lalo turns up at the home of a rural couple called Mateo and Sylvia Ramos. While at first, you’d expect them to react to him like that one lady did to the cousins back in Breaking Bad, Sylvia actually addresses Lalo as Don Eduardo and invites him into her home for coffee and breakfast.
She thanks him profoundly for his help with Mateo’s dental work, and when the man of the house arrives, he too gives his thanks to the Don. While it is true that Lalo was probably only grooming the guy as a body double in case he needed one, it also shows that the Salamanca family weren’t all about killing and torture, which is also consistent with the parallels we’ve drawn between them and La Familia Michoacana as well as the Leyva-Beltran Organization.
In terms of the latter, Lalo is the 5th and last Salamanca to be shown as a part of the cartel and 5 brothers founded the LBO. In the context of the former, their leaders are basically the Salamanca family with a Bible obsession. Just like La Familia Michoacana, the Salamancas too are an unusually violent brand of criminal, who ironically enough put family values over everything.
But more than that, La Familia is also known to actually help the locals of Michoacán state. Many a time they will provide their services and resources to the most-deprived parts of Michoacán and in exchange gain the admiration and the loyalty of the disenfranchised. Nowhere is this fact clearer than in Lalo’s interaction with Sylvia and Mateo, who, up until the point Lalo kills them, are under the impression he’s just there on a visit.
This pretty much fits the modus operandi of La Familia like a glove, and as if to stress this connection, literally everything the Salamancas use to operate their business refers to Michoacán in some way, shape or form; Hector’s ice cream factories were in Michoacán, and the restaurant where they collect from their dealers is called El Michoacano, clearly hinting at the inspiration behind Lalo’s family. And while this is something we’ve said often, here’s something new for you guys; Lalo happens to share nicknames with one of the worst informants to ever be used by the United States government.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement used to have a mole called Lalo inside the Juarez Cartel who would provide them with regular intel on the cartel’s movements whilst simultaneously engaging in blatant criminal acts to keep his cover intact. When Lalo’s existence was leaked to the world, the ICE came under intense fire for it because he was also involved in the alleged House of Death case from 2004, where the bodies of 12 Mexican nationals were discovered mutilated and mangled thanks to the handiwork of the Juarez Cartel; whom Lalo was supposed to be spying on.
It’s possible that this incident inspired the hotel story that Lalo recounts during his first visit to a paraplegic Hector, because while he doesn’t come out and say it, torture was involved that day and the Juarez cartel has been known to indulge in that activity as a morbid form of pastime almost. Lalo’s actual name inspiration is the Argentinian composer Lalo Schifrin, but it is interesting to know that there was a counterpart for his name in the real-life Juarez Cartel as well; only not in the capacity he himself was in. All these facts only help solidify Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul as two shows with the utmost authenticity and realism when it comes to drama.
Marvelous Verdict
In the span of 2 seasons, Lalo Salamanca went from a throwaway line to one of the most-iconic TV villains in history, to the point that Tony Dalton’s portrayal of the guy made everyone think his Hawkeye character was going to be the big-bad of the series initially. It’s crazy to think that Dalton, who had only worked in Mexican films and telenovellas by this point, is the same guy who plays the stone-faced serial killer in St. Avila because the level of personality he brings to Lalo Salamanca is next-level.
Peter Gould said it best- Lalo is just like Jimmy except he’s on the side of the bad guys; and we for one are not at all disappointed he didn’t show up in Season 1 of Better Call Saul. Because if he had, the impact of his character’s actions would’ve been much less intense, and that is the selling point of the guy; he’s got Eladio’s charisma with Hector’s mentality and Tuco’s crazy stare. If that is not the definition of dangerous in your book, then you, my friend, need a new dictionary.