Warning: This will contain major spoilers for Better Call Saul Season 6, Episode 8, “Point and Shoot"BeforeBetter Call Saul’s mid-season premiere started, many wondered what the fate of charming sociopath Lalo Salamanca would be. The show’s final season had been building up the final showdown between Tony Dalton’s Lalo and Gus Fring, which they ultimately delivered, but they surprisingly did not wait until the very end of the show to do so.
In a stunning subversion of expectations, Lalo and Fring came to blows in the very firstBetter Call Saulepisode since its mid-season hiatus. Because fans knew Fring would be alive and wellwhenBreaking Badstarts, most figured Lalo’s death was coming but didn’t know when or how.
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In light of his character’s shockingly early death, Dalton, who stood out in his role as Salamanca, reflected on Lalo’s fate with Entertainment Weekly. According to Dalton himself, he knew his character was going to die shortly after season 5 had concluded in 2020. “I got a call during the height of the pandemic, before they started filming. And it was Vince [Gilligan] and Pete [Gould, who created the show with Gilligan] and it was kind of the death call, where they say, ‘Okay, at [episode] 608, that’s far as you go.’ And I go, ‘How do I die?’ and they didn’t want to tell me,” he explained. “I was like, ‘Come on.’ They’re like, ‘I’m not going to tell you.’ I was like, ‘Tell mesomething.’ They’re like, ‘All right, you kill a bunch of guys before you die.’ I was like, ‘That’s awesome!'”
It may have been better for the writers to get right to the point concerning Lalo’s conflict with Fring instead of dragging it out. Since Fring is alive and wellduringBreaking Badand Lalo only gets one ambiguous mention by Saul, it was pretty easy to put the pieces together that something “final” happened to him beforehand, whether it be that he died or was in hiding. By not waiting until the end to reveal Lalo’s fate, the show not only removes the one predictable aspect to it but makes its upcoming conclusion very hard to predict from here on out.
This is where the writers should get props for how they handled Lalo’s death. The viewers knew to some degree what Lalo’s fate was going to be, but what kept them invested was speculating how it was all going to unfold. Since they knew that Lalowasn’t in the picture inBreaking Bad, they wondered how it would all happen. By making Lalo as intimidating and unpredictable as possible, they took what would usually be a predictable plotline and made it gripping enough that his death would shock them nonetheless.
Compare that to another prequel likeRevenge of the Sith. Remember those final fights between Anakin/Obi-Wan and Yoda/Palpatine? The movie tried to make those fights as entertaining as possible, but what takes viewers out of the element when they watch those fights is that they know all four of those characters will be inthe nextStar Warsinstallmentregardless, so knowing that they survive automatically removes all sense of tension from those fights. Because Lalo Salamanca established himself as a master manipulator and brilliant criminal, what made his inevitable confrontation with Fring compelling was that viewers were wondering how Gus was going to make it out on the other side when it was all said and done. Because it happened sooner than viewers expected, it made his sudden death somehow more shocking even though they figured that’s how it would all end. Kudos to the writers, and kudos to Dalton for pulling off such an amazing villain.
Better Call Saulis currently airing its final five episodes on Mondays at 9:00 p.m. EST on AMC.
