There have been plenty of smooth-talkers who have come and gone from Vince Gilligan’s meth-addled kingdom of dramatic perfection since 2008. Words play a significant role in the Gilligan-verse, from the machine gun sales pitches of that one arms dealer in Breaking Bad’s Season 3 episode 7 to James McGill’s always-ready performances as Saul Goodman throughout Better Call Saul.
Even more measured personalities like Mike Ehrmantraut and Gus Fring use their words in combination with their reserved dispositions to intimidate their intended victims. But it is the mysterious Salamanca Cousins and two other people who have turned silence into their most lethal weapon.
When Leonel and Marco arrive wearing matching, skull-tipped boots and dazzling suits, you know something evil is going to happen. It is a true credit to your acting abilities if you can win over a large audience with fewer than a dozen lines of conversation over two different TV series.
But who are they specifically? Why are they so feared not only in Mexico but also elsewhere? This movie, The Cousins’ Origins – Explored, will address all of those concerns and more.
Prior to explaining further, we have a very minor request.
Please subscribe to our channel if you enjoy our work. It may seem like a tiny gesture to you, but it means a lot to us.
The perfect silent assassins – The Cousins in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul
We knew Marco and Leonel would be something unique from the moment they were introduced in the Breaking Bad season 3 opener. Our concerns were verified when they joined a spooky group of people crawling to the shrine of the Mexican Goddess of Death. They spent the entire episode uttering no words, letting only their gestures and expressions do the talking. These were sinister to begin with.
The universe of Breaking Bad’s Cousins is literally riddled with mysteries. They rarely spoke in the 6 episodes they were featured in, if at all, and only when it was absolutely necessary, which conveys the kind of conviction you need to have to be an effective cartel hitman who also manages to come out of most conflicts alive and well. The twins are nephews of the notorious cartel boss Don Hector Salamanca, and were called in by their uncle to take out the man they held responsible for the death of their cousin Tuco- Walter White.
After offering him up to Santa Muerte as a tribute, they blow up an entire truck filled with illegal immigrants as they cross over into the States to find their mark. If it wasn’t for the extraordinary stroke of luck that Walter White possessed during his time as Heisenberg, he would’ve been chopped up like timber in his own bathroom. When Mike Ehrmantraut visits Walt with a bit of an off-the-record lecture on how to navigate in the world he has chosen to venture into, he notices an axe symbol made out of chalk on Walter’s curb- a cartel symbol that indicated he was a marked man.
He relays this information to Gus, who arranges for a meeting between himself, cartel mediator Juan Bolsa and the Salamancas to protect his own interests whilst safeguarding Walter’s life- for the time being, anyway. He gets The Cousins off of Walter for a time but as Bolsa had warned Gus after the meeting, he wouldn’t be able to control those boys for too long.
Marco and Leonel show up at Walt’s house, axes in hand, and wait for him to finish enjoying his B&E shower time so they could finally enact their vengeance, but they are once again drawn away by Gus Fring, who calls them to Los Pollos Hermanos for a meeting.
At that meeting, Gus once again diverts their attention from Walter White by giving them permission to go after the man who actually killed Tuco Salamanca- Walt’s brother-in-law and DEA agent Hank Schrader. The only thing keeping them from hitting Hank was Bolsa, who told them that the DEA was off-limits for obvious reasons.
But Gus knew the Salamancas and their disgusting creed of “blood for blood”, and he wasn’t going to pass up this golden opportunity to bloody both sides. He gave Marco and Leonel his blessing to take out Schrader, even saying “May his death satisfy you”, and then informed Hank about the hit a minute before they arrived at the scene. The shootout that ensued was gruesome, and did indeed leave both sides bloody.
After a tense stand-off between the three men, only two of them were left alive, and neither of them would be the same anymore. Marco Salamanca died thanks to a hollow-point bullet shot straight through his head. Leonel Salamanca survived the attack, though he needed to get his legs amputated, and was murdered clandestinely by Mike Ehrmantraut after he recognized Walter White as an associate of the DEA at the hospital where he and Hank were being treated.
And speaking of Hank, while his body miraculously survived, his spirit didn’t. The shootout sent him spiralling into depression, and he broke down when he was given an administrative leave. But this instance also showed their dedication to their family. In a flashback from season 3 episode 7, we see that Marco and Leonel were raised by their uncle Hector and that as children they were much more open to conversation.
But when two boys of the same age play with each other, conflicts are bound to occur, and that was also the case for Marco and Leonel. Whilst at play, Marco accidentally broke one of Leonel’s toys, and it sent him into a rage. The young Salamanca boldly declared that he wished his brother were dead, to which Hector responded by trying to grant his wish on the spot.
His childish anger quickly dissolved into a desperate attempt at saving his brother, and when he finally managed to do it, the twins learnt a lesson that every Salamanca would remember until their last breath- Family is all. Leonel lost his legs early on in the fight against Hank, but instead of asking his brother for help, he told him to “finish the job”. Marco could’ve easily shot and killed Hank but he claimed it was “too easy” a death for him, and went for the axe instead, which ended up costing him his life.
This shows that no matter how ruthless they might be to others, they valued their family connections more than anything else in the world, and their ruthlessness was often directed towards those who messed with their family. This was expanded upon brilliantly in the Better Call Saul prequel series, where The Cousins are first introduced when Mike Ehrmantraut refuses to play ball with Hector Salamanca, and then their involvement in the family business only escalates from that point forward.
After Mike refuses to get Tuco’s possession charges dropped, Hector calls in Marco and Leonel to intimidate him into doing it. They show up at the motel where Mike and his granddaughter are living and threaten his entire family, which forces Mike to negotiate with Hector.
When Hector goes down with a potentially fatal heart stroke, The Cousins are the first people who come to see him, showing a somewhat tender side to them whilst conversing with Dr. Bruckner. When Lalo is arrested for the brutal murder of Fred Whelan from Travel Wire, they instantly bag up the $7 million- plus an extra 100K for Saul- and bring it to the drop point the very next day, no questions asked.
And The Cousins are the first ones to go investigate Lalo’s death after hearing about it, and it is their suspicion that leads the cartel to hunt for Nacho Varga. Though they manage to corner him in his hotel, Nacho uses his ridiculous survival instinct to escape a fate that might have been worse than death; and this is after Leonel donated his own blood to keep the traitor alive, back when his treachery had not yet been discovered!
The Cousins are treated like Spectres of Death in most of the scenes they appear- just watch Season 4 episode 4 of Better Call Saul where they take out an entire rival gang by themselves- but their interactions with the people they consider to be close to them are the most-interesting to observe, because Marco and Leonel have somehow mastered the art of quiet intimidation and affection and we can’t wait to see how they figure into the final few episodes of Better Call Saul.
Interesting Facts about Daniel and Luis Moncada – The Real Life Brothers Who Play The Cousins
If you’re one of those people who saw The Cousins and thought that they were a bit too over-the-top for a franchise so grounded in reality, then we’d like to inform you that Daniel and Luis Moncada put in the most-realistic portrayal of cartel hitmen that could’ve possibly been committed to film; partly because they used to be gang members themselves.
Born in Honduras and raised in the gang-addled neighborhoods of Hollywood and Echo Park, the brothers actually have a 3-year age-gap- with Luis being the older of the two- and they found themselves becoming part of a rather unsavoury lifestyle early on in their lives; but given that it was the only way they knew how to survive, they went with it for a number of years.
Luis even found himself in prison at one point in his life, and that’s where their lives took a turn for the better. He would later tell the Los Angeles Times in an exclusive interview that while he wasn’t thankful for going to prison, he was grateful for the fact that it seriously made him re-think his life decisions, and helped him and his brother get off of the path of violence.
Luis began working as a bodyguard and eventually found himself in the world of acting, having been signed to a deal with Suspect Entertainment- a company that helped ex-cons reform their lives through the medium of art. Luis has had a prolific career as an on-screen bad guy, having appeared in shows like Dexter and Brooklyn Nine-Nine outside of starring in the Breaking Bad universe.
Daniel wasn’t into acting before Breaking Bad, but given the fact that the casting call for the role of The Cousins asked for brothers to audition for the role, it created the perfect storm for him to become a part of the show. And we’d argue that he has even more natural talent for acting than his brother, because he does most of the talking for The Cousins when they’re both in-character.
Today, both brothers have left their past lives well behind them. Luis is a motivational speaker, who makes regular appearances at prisons, schools and youth programmes, helping the people, who have made some rather unfortunate decisions in their lives, see that becoming a better person is a conscious choice they have to make. Luis himself had to be talked into acting by the head of Suspect Entertainment, and it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
Daniel, on the other hand, is a trainer who teaches boxing and Muay Thai at the 818 Boxing Club in Pacoima, CA. Besides being mainstay bad guys in the entertainment industry, they are real-life inspirations as well, and their story is one that organically made their acting performances that much more believable. But that’s the story of the actors behind The Cousins. Let’s look at the people who inspired their characters; that being the actual Juarez Cartel.
Possible Real-Life Inspiration for The Cousins – The Juarez Cartel, La Linea & the Cult of Santa Muerte
Though Don Eladio’s Cartel is not named as such, it is heavily implied to be an adaptation of one of the most-notorious Mexican cartels to have ever existed. From the 1970s, the Juarez Cartel has ruled over North-Western Mexico with fear and blood. Stories coming out of Chihuahua seem more like nightmares- there was a point in time when nearly 10 people were dying daily in that region, and the rate at which the women of Juarez have been disappearing/being abused is far beyond alarming.
Though Vince Gilligan cautiously chooses to depict the kind of violence that Eladio’s men inflict upon people, the things that he does show fit the M.O. of the Juarez Cartel perfectly. Case in point, the death of Tortuga. The appendage that the cartel traitor ends up losing, and the subsequent explosion of the said appendage, are two things that Juarez Cartel members are notorious for doing to their victims.
The kind of senseless violence that The Cousins themselves perpetrate are influenced by the activities of La Linea; the enforcer wing of the Cartel which currently finds itself in the position of power. The Villas de Salvárcar massacre of 2010 is one of the blackest instances of cartel violence, and is eerily similar to the extermination of the Espinosa Gang in Season 4 of Better Call Saul. How, you ask?
Because in both cases, the order of the day seemed to have been “kill them all”. The difference is that while the Cousins took out a rival gang, La Linea murdered innocent teenagers under the guise of hitting a rival gang; and that is the kind of flimsy moral logic that both the fictionalised and the real-life cartels seem to share so perfectly with each other.
In Season 3 episode 1 of Breaking Bad, we meet Olive Oil, a prolific car mechanic who has crossed the border multiple times and even knows how to tell when they’re in Texas by counting the bumps in the road. He boasts that he used to fix up the bikes of Michoacán gangsters back home, but he freezes as soon as he gets a glimpse of The Cousins’ boots because he recognizes who they are; this is made even clearer when Lalo visits Hector at Casa Tranquila and asks him who has the biggest huevos North, East, West or South of the Michoacán, and the now-paralyzed Hector starts beaming with happiness.
Another indicator that shows these guys are members of the Juarez Cartel is the fact that Lalo’s estate is located in Chihuahua. Chihuahua is the base of operations for the Juarez Cartel. It’s where they were created, and where they continue to operate, nearly half a century into their existence.
The Salamancas in particular could be inspired by La Linea, though we must admit that this wing of the cartel became publically known only around the time Breaking Bad was being created. In contrast, the Salamanca Family is one of the founding members of the cartel, allegedly THE founding members of the cartel, who have been reduced to the role of enforcers.
What’s more likely is that this sect of the cartel inspired the imagery that Vince Gilligan associated with his portrayal of the cartel, because if you do a quick Google search of La Linea’s logo, you’ll see the all-too-familiar motif of two skulls flanked by wings, flanking their official sigil. The Cousins, specifically, invoke this image with their signature boots, which is also how Olive Oil was able to deduce their identity.
And to give their characters more depth than simply having them co-opt cartel imagery and mannerisms, Vince Gilligan seems to have made Marco and Leonel fervent worshippers of Santa Muerte- aka the Patron Saint of Death in Mexican Neopaganism. The reason that the cousins are so unsettling from the very onset isn’t entirely contingent on their stoic nature; it’s the fact that they got out of a Mercedes, in very expensive suits, and joined a throng of seemingly downtrodden people in a pilgrimage to the altar of the Death Goddess.
For them, Walter White’s death seemed to transcend simple vengeance; Heisenberg- and later Hank Schrader- felt more like offerings to their Holy Patroness. The Cult of Santa Muerte is highly influential in 21st century Mexico, and Marco and Leonel’s actions can definitely be considered to be more of a symbolic act than a ritualistic one, but go back and watch that scene knowing what you know now and come back and tell us you didn’t find it a bit too cult-like for your taste. We’re waiting for your comments. But how does this connect to the cartel?
Well, Santa Muerte finds her most-devout followers in the prisons of Mexico, and that should give you enough of an idea of the kind of spiritual connection she shares with members of the cartel. We don’t think that Vince was trying to establish this relationship between The Cousins and Santa Muerte, but once he realized what he had on his hands, he leaned into it, and the results were frankly phenomenal.
Without speaking for more than, say, a minute across their 15 appearances in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul combined, Marco and Leonel have become one of the breakout characters of the franchise; and that is a testament to both Vince & Co.’s creativity, and the Moncada Brothers’ dedication to their craft.
Marvelous Verdict
The Cousins haven’t been seen since having helped their uncle Hector unload an entire clip into the cold body of the traitor Nacho Varga, but that isn’t to say they might not show up in the last few episodes of Better Call Saul. Sure, Lalo might not be around anymore to deal with Gus Fring, but Hector is, and we might just get to see Marco and Leonel’s menacing faces one last time.
In a world of trickery, elaborate scheming and winded lecturing, The Cousins represent a simpler, more brutal, almost primal form of villainy, which makes them our personal favourite secondary characters from the entire Breaking Bad Universe. What do you guys think of them? Let us know in the comments below!