The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Better Call Saul' Season 6, Episode 3 Recap, Plus an Interview With Michael Mando

Episode Date: April 27, 2022

Joanna and Ben begin their conversation by talking about the amazing production design of the season so far. They then speculate on what Jimmy and Kim are planning, what the reappearance of Huell and Suzanne means for the rest of the story line, and where Lalo could be located (14:42). Next, they analyze each of Nacho's sequences in the episode and what his early exit means for his dad and for the future events of the series (37:33). Finally, Joanna speaks with actor Michael Mando to break down Nacho's character and what it has meant to him and for the 'Breaking Bad' universe in general (1:12:12). Email us at [e-mail]! Hosts: Ben Lindbergh and Joanna Robinson Guest: Michael Mando Producer: Chris Sutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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NARS, better together. Visit Sephora to shop now. You think I should do it? It depends. And what? Well, I guess it's basically, do you want to be a friend of the cartel, or do you want to be a rat? Hello and welcome back into the prestige TV podcast feed.

I'm Joanna Robinson and joining me because he did make it back from the desert in one piece. It's Ben Lindberg. Hi, Ben. Barely. Barely in one piece, emotionally at least. One piece for now. None of those men in the desert will last long, as we know. But here we are. Here we are a very special episode of Better Call Sala, a devastating episode. This is an episode where you're just really going to make sure you watched it before you listen to us talk about it. And once you have heard us talk about it, you will hear from actor Michael Manda who plays Nachavaga to talk about this big sort of showcase. episode for him. Before we get into Saul, some programming reminders that elsewhere in the prestige TV feed, we've got, of course, our ongoing coverage of Atlanta. We've got some winning time episodes. Bill and Mallory wrapped up. We crashed. And we're doing something very

special on Sunday nights. Sean Venise will be talking to Bill Hader ever heard of him about the new season of Barry. So you're going to want to listen to those episodes on Sundays if you're a a Barry fan. Ben Lindberg, are you a, are you a Barry fan? I am. Yeah, I mean, it's just a great, like, uplifting twofer, just watching Barry and Better Call Saul now back to back often. Love to start my weeks with some emotional devastation. So, yeah, so here we are covering the first half of the final run of Better Call Saul. As we mentioned last time, this season, this final season is split. We're getting, I believe, what, seven episodes. now and then the final six to run in July.

So this is for season six, episode three, rock and a hard place. That's what we're talking about here today. Written and directed by Gordon Smith, who also wrote season three, episode five. Chicanery. And he wrote in direct season five episode four, Namaste. Do you any thoughts or feelings about chicanery and namaste? Those episodes of Better Call Saul, Ben? Great, great ones.

Yeah, very Howard-centric. I mean, we have some namaste in this episode as well. That's true. So we're setting ourselves up for more Howard to come sometime soon. So I don't know if Gordon will be involved in that or not. But he's been the Howard Whisperer in the past. Chicanery, I think, is a really popular episode of people. That is the, you know, Chuck on the Stand trial episode, really huge, huge moment for Michael McKean.

And so I think a famous, better call us all monologue in that episode. So to bring him back to give this. moment for Nacho, this great monologue for Nacho. I think Gordon Smith is the perfect guy to tap. And something fun about him is that I think he's been in the Gilliganverse since, I think it's like season three of Breaking Bad. He was like, I think a PA or something like that or a writer's assistant. So he's just one of many people that they've sort of brought up the ranks over the years in their circle here. Yes. And they really handed him the reins to this episode. Just listening to other interviews with this. It sounds like he really kind of had free reign when it came to making this

thing. And I think he did a great job. I'm a big fan of, I don't usually like to give free advertising for other people's podcasts, but I guess the folks who make this show are worthy of an endorsement. I've been listening to The Insider podcast since the Breaking Bad Days. It's a really, really great show that they put out every week with all the people, all the creatives who are involved. And you can hear a lot of behind-the-scenes information. And just a couple things that I picked up from the Insider podcast, listening to the first three episodes. The fact that there are two DPs this season, which is very unusual for them, but it just meant

that they had more time to scout locations, bring the DPs in earlier in the process of each episode. And I think that is a really interesting thing to think about when we think about this season and the way that shots were set up. It shows. Not that it was like a slapdash production up to this point. But, you know, there's a lot of care, clearly, that went into really every scene of the series and the season especially, I think. One of my favorite tidbits is that there were two full-time windshield guys, just there to replace shot-out windshields over and over and over again.

Love that. And if there was any doubt, it was the exact same identical Lady Liberty inflatable at the Kettleman's trailer as the one that they used. They had to get it out of storage. I think they looked into buying another one, but they could not find. Another one like it. So it's the exact same one. And there's also a new production designer this season. I was wondering if you had any thoughts about that,

if anything looked different in terms of the layout of the show. Well, we've seen some pretty involved production design so far, right? I mean, just in this episode you had basically, and I listened to that insider podcast as well. And so I know that, for example, the cold open to this episode was sort of a specially built desert-like set, right? And then, of course, you had the pool of oil, which involved sort of like a Harry Houdini-like, you know, submersion box. So a lot of involved elaborate productions that we've

seen so far. And I guess a lot of variety in the terrain and the layout as well, lots of indoor locations, lots of outdoor locations, kind of claustrophobic and also nice, classic, better calls all sweeping landscapes and panoramas. So it's looked great. Whoever responsible. Kudos to them. I think the real coup this season so far, production design-wise, is the cold open of the premiere, right? That palace that they sort of repurpose an Albuquerque home, but also half-built.

They built what they're calling the Trump toilet, et cetera. But something that, you know, I was poking around the invaluable, better calls all wiki last night. And I noticed that the powers that be at the wiki have just been adding. to the Easter eggs of what's in that cold open as the season progresses. So the painting that we see all the post-its on in this episode that's in Kim's apartment that has their plan to destroy Howard's life and cheerful color-coded postlets on the back of it.

That was in the house. So I think we'll just see more and more. And I think Kelly Dixon on The Insider podcast sort of tease that that we'll just see more and more as we go back and rewatch that cold. open will be rewarded more and more with little items that we see. So I might make that a weekly routine. Just go back and rewatch that thing over and over again, poking around for new new things. And the last thing I want to say production-wise, I think is really interesting. This is, of course, I believe because of COVID. They had wrapped their writer's room before they started

physical production on the show, which is really unusual for them. You know, different shows do different things. Some shows write as they shoot. Some shows write everything before they shoot, but that's never been the case on a Gilligan Gould show that they write everything and finish the room that at least broken out all the episodes before they started production, which I think just speaks to maybe like a very sure hand on the tiller. Like they had everything mapped out. Does this impact the way that you think about how this final season is going to roll out? I'm curious about whether they adjusted anything on the fly, even if they did have everything written before they started, just based on what was working in the moment or not or input from the actors, perhaps. So I would guess that it wasn't completely set in stone.

But that's interesting because we know, as you've noted last week, I mean, they're constantly laying track in front of them as they go, right, story-wise. And so to know that they really had a plan for this final season, or at least they weren't doing it kind of, you know, as they were working. working on the production. I mean, not that I lacked any confidence in how this season would end or whether they would tie it all up in satisfying fashion, but it gives me even more confidence, I suppose. This is my favorite, my favorite kind of television, other than like a very promising first season, is a final season that is a planned final season in like the sure hand of good storytellers. Right. Like this is a real joyful time for us.

Going out on their own terms like our name Nacho. One last thing before we get into this episode, which is that as promised, I watched Days of Wine and Roses after we talked about it. Last week, tough sit, right? Tough watch. Yeah, which maybe prepares us for how the rest of the season is going to go. But did you glean anything about what might be in store here? A couple things. Number one, I've always been curious about, and maybe they've given interviews about this before, but I haven't seen them.

But I've always been curious about Kim Waxler's pony. tail, Ray Sehorns, the way that she wears her hair. It just looks very, like the little curly cue at the bottom. Anyway, watching the film, Lee Remick, who plays a female lead, who as you mentioned last week, sort of, she starts a teetotaler and descends into alcoholism. Her hair starts just so perfectly quaffed and then just completely, it's like the surest sign of her declining mind is her, the state of her hair. Her like perfectly, you know, hair, you know, hair, sprate shellacked, 1960s hair becomes just a mess. So I was just wondering if Kim's like bouncing little ponytail.

I was re-watching, is it fall, the episode where she crashes her car, I think, or anyway, you know, the way that Kim looks in those episodes where she's just completely battered and bruised and her hair isn't done. And it's just like, that's, it's all part of it. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think they have talked about that, I think, just like the tightness. of the ponytail mirrors her mental state maybe, and as it kind of comes undone, you know, she's coming undone as well. So I think there's definitely something thematic there. It's like

with the outfits and the color scheme of the wardrobe that we talk about all the time. Like they've thought about all this stuff. So nothing has really left a chance. Thank you so much for backing at my wild hair takes of actual facts. And the last thing is this idea, you know, as you mentioned last week, the plot of Days of Wine and Roses, you know, Jack Lemon, Lee Remick, and Jack Lemon, I think, is a perfect little mirror for a Bob Odenkirk, right? This sort of likable every man with the capability of real meanness in him, if need be, and real pathos and drama in him, if need be. But both essentially comedians, you know, and I think that's a really interesting parallel. But this idea that, you know, Jack Lemon and Lee Ramek, these two characters fall in love, both descended to alcoholism.

He is able to pull himself out sort of for the sake of their kid. And she is not at least by the time the film wraps, spoiler for Days of Wine and Roses. So that makes us very worried for Kim, obviously, right? But also this character by Jack Klugman, who plays his sort of sponsor, says this thing where he says, the bottle becomes God in that like it starts about being their relationship but then eventually the thing that you're addicted to supplants the love you don't have love for your partner you have only love for this one thing love of the game perhaps for Kim so if at the end of this Jimmy is appealing to Kim using sort of like their relationship their love their future

together and if she chooses the game over him like is that is that where we're going. I don't know. What do you think of that? It's a heartening thought. Thank you, Joina. Yeah. Ublifting. Yeah. I mean, I doubt that they're just going to follow that movie beat by beat just because they're more creative than that when it comes to their influences. But I could certainly see something like that happening. And I do want to ask you a little later on what you think about whether the demise of Nacho pretends something in either direction for Kim. But we can get to that shortly. Yeah, we got a lot of great emails this week and, you know, last week as well. Kim Wexler lives at gmail.com as our email. And one of the emails we got was from a listener named Chris who wrote in to say, you know, looking at your email, is the life or death of Kim Wexler? And this is the question we've asked ourselves actually before, but I think it's worth

pausing on it. Now, is the life or death of Kim, like, is the death of Kim the worst outcome or would a worse outcome be, you know, the fall of Kim, the vilification of Kim? something like that. Where are you feeling here in episode three about that? I think I mentioned that last week that it's not even so much that I'm worried about her dying at this point. It's worrying about whether by the end of it we will even be sorry if she dies or at least we'll feel that it's not merited, right? I mean, if she's not the Kim that we've known and loved all of these years, that I think would be the real tragedy more so than going out like

Nacho did this week, right? Where obviously we're sad to see that happen, but he went out true to himself, right, on his own terms, at least to an extent, in a way that did justice to the character, made us appreciate the character even more. So what I really fear with Kim now is not necessarily that she won't survive, but just on what terms she'll survive. Or, yeah, will the Kim we know survive? Right. All right. So let's talk about this episode specifically. We, I think, ended last week's episode with a promise from, from co-creator Peter Gould that episode three would be shattering. Ben, are you shattered?

How are you feeling? You know, emotionally I'm battered and bloodied, but like Nacho, not broken, not broken yet. I'm more broken in by everything that led up to this episode. Like, at this point, watching the series, I'm just, I'm like a pair of pre-distressed genes. We've been through so many spin cycles with Nacho, so many near-death experiences that I was, to some extent prepared for this, even though I didn't think it would come so soon. But as we'll discuss, I think the death did do justice to the character.

Plus, Nacho hasn't known a moment's piece at any point in this series. And I haven't known a lot of peace while watching Nacho. So it's one of those situations where you're devastated, but also you say at least he's not in pain anymore. But we have 10 episodes to go. So I'm guessing there's plenty more pain ahead for us. Yeah. Speaking of that, writer, director of this episode, Gordon Smith is interviewed, I believe,

by Intertimer Weekly. They asked him for a word to describe the rest of the season, and he said darker. Great. Great. It started off so late. I was wondering when they'd get to the dark parts. Don't, don't float on your light and fluffy nacho feelings, because it's going to get worse. Yeah.

And I think, you know, the show is earned that. Absolutely. We'll talk about this a little bit towards the end of our discussion, but a lot of folks online I saw React in this episode comparing it to the Breaking Bad episode, Ozambandias, which is a masterpiece, which is sort of three from the end of the season. So I was like, well, heck, why don't I just rewatch Osamandia? It's a great episode of television. And then I just watched the final three episodes of Breaking Bad because I couldn't stop. So I watched Granite State, then I watched Helena. just one of those. It took me way back. You know, it's been over a decade. I remember I was podcasting about breaking out.

I was, I was recapping it for like slash film. I remember, I looked up my old recap to sort of remember where I was how I was writing about the show. But I don't know, just thinking about the way that that show ended, I think is a really good exercise when we think about the way this show might end. Right. If anything, just because you'd think that they'd want to mix things up. It's like I mentioned last week, you know, if they, they. end out with someone bleeding out on the floor of the mall while a song plays, you might feel like I've seen this sort of ending before. So you'd think that there will be some echoes and some

callbacks, unintentional or otherwise. I never know if we're giving them too much credit when it comes to like, oh, this is just like in that Breaking Bad episode. Sometimes it's, you know, we're obsessively watching this stuff. They may not have, they may not have thought about these things for a while. So we're making these connections that they might not be making. It's just kind of a happy accident, right? But I think there will certainly be some parallels and also probably some departures from the way that that series ended. I learned that lesson back when I was doing Osamanias because I think we did like an audio commentary. I was podcasting with my friend Dave Chen at the time. We did an audio commentary of the episode with Ryan Johnson who directed the episode.

And we asked about that like really famous shot of Walt's face sort of in the tragedy mask, you know, grief pose as he falls down into. the sand in the desert, very famous breaking bad shot. And a lot of people compared it to what Gus looked like when he watched his lover die or what a statue of Osmondius

looks like in the sand. And Ryan's like, yeah, I wasn't referencing any of that. I'm like, oh, okay. I see. We're doing a little too much work here. Subconsciously, maybe. Maybe. All right, let's start with Dumi and Kim before we get to Nacho.

the post-its, like delighted to see the post-its from Doc Review come roaring back to life at the back of this. I don't know. Do you feel like the back of this picture is a perfect hiding space for this plan that they have with like cryptograms for Howard? Or is it exactly the kind of thing that looks like it's going to be discovered and exposed later in the season at some point? Yeah. I mean, we've seen people break into apartments and screw open safe. So I wouldn't say this is necessarily the most airtight ironclad location. Maybe it's like so obvious that you wouldn't think to look there.

But I wonder, because, you know, they're basically breaking Howard's story arc here. Like they're the showrunners of his life, right? Oh, wow. They're just like arranging scenes and planning plot points. And you know this has to be a case of pride coming before a fall here, right? Like they're feeling themselves. I mean, literally at this point, right? This is one of those classic Kim and Jimmy scenes that are very intimate and tender,

but also twisted because of what they are bonding over. I mean, one second they're dressing each other, the next second they're undressing each other because planning Howard's end, so to speak, puts them in the mood, right? I mean, like, this is their kink, kind of. It's like, it's very tender that, you know, they're like, you know, buttoning each other's cufflinks and tying each other's ties and so forth, putting on the necklace. But also they're doing that just, you know, over some light, casual breakfast time conversation about ruining someone's life.

Whatever the plan is, we don't know the full plan yet, but we do know that next week's episode is called hit and run. Yes. They need either a precise replica of Howard's car or they decide maybe we'll just steal Howard's actual car with a valet. the old valet con, according to Jimmy. That old standby. Yeah, people have done it. Yeah, like a week does not go by that I don't do a valet con. But, well, here's my question. And maybe we need Albuquerque expert Andy Greenwell for this.

But I can understand pulling the valet con in L.A. I wonder how much valet there is in Albuquerque. Like, where are they at the club? Is that where Howard drops his car off? I got the sense. Yeah. I didn't think they were at the kind of. I thought maybe they're at that restaurant that Howard frequents where he he has his punch card for his frequent dining appearances.

That's like where Jimmy sends the sex workers, right, to accost him during a meal and various other interactions that we've seen. So maybe maybe that's the place. I don't know if he's still frequenting that place after some of the encounters he's had there. But he's someone who likes to dine out, right? He likes to entertain clients. I'm not besmirching Albuquerque, by the way. I actually hate giving my car to valet, so I'm vehemently anti-vali, and I hate when I go to L.A. That I have to give my car over everywhere I go.

I don't have a car, so I'm immune to the old valet trick. Jealous. All right. So if Hewle comes to town, you'll be safe. How did you feel about seeing Hewle roll into this episode? I love how Hewle provides perspective on just how far Jimmy and Kim are careening off the road. Like, He was not someone who's afraid of getting his hands dirty, yet even he is kind of dismayed by these two. Like, last season, when Jimmy and Kim get married, he was the witness. And he is so disappointed by just like how sad that ceremony is.

Like, he wants to get them rings. He wants to book a B&B for their honeymoon. And Jimmy tells him that this is just a marriage of convenience that they're just getting married so that they can't testify against each other. although it's not entirely true, but here he's like, hey, you could just be lawyers. You could just make good money above board. Why are you doing all this? Which is something that Jimmy and Kim don't really ask themselves anymore at this point. They're just so deep in it that they need the perspective of someone like Hewle,

who's like part of that same unsavory underworld. But even he is, you know, he's doing it for the money. Like that's it for him. and Jimmy responds to him by spinning this story about, well, actually, we're helping people, right? And Huell doesn't buy that. And I don't think Jimmy buys that either. Like, you can kind of tell. He just doesn't even have a conviction in what he's saying.

They're doing this for the thrill of it. It's like when I watched those final three episodes of Breaking Bad, which involves digging up $80 million worth of cash out of the, out of the Tajli Desert, right? I was just like, how do we get here, Walt? Like how do we get, how do we get somewhere where you have $80 million in cash and you're still going for some reason, right? And of course the answer for that comes in the finale of Breaking Bad, an episode that I love, where Walt finally admits that he's not, he says over and over again, I'm doing it for my family. And then eventually he says, I do it because I like it. It makes you feel alive. I'm good at it.

Right. And so I think that's the reckoning that's coming for Jimmy as well. He's sort of like, he and Kim are able to dress up their ambitious. here and a few things, this sort of righteous indignation at Howard and his, like, actually fairly low-level manipulations. And Kim's pro bono aspirations, again, is this really nice dressing to hang around this sort of dark, sticky addiction that they have to the grift. So, yeah, I love that Hewell is the one to call them out. Hewle, you know, along with the kettle, Hewle has been, has come back a couple of

times in the in as you mentioned in in better calls all but he'll along with the kettleman's is is one of what um kelly dixon on the insider podcast promises a parade of returning characters in this final season love a parade love a parade of familiar faces uh peter gould said that and this this is really fun for me to hear because this is exactly how the marvel tv people do their stuff and so that and on the MCU in general, so I was happy to see that it wasn't just like a Marvel quirk. But basically, Peter Gould said they have a board of characters that they've kept from the beginning of characters that they would like to have come back. And they're not able to bring everyone back, but they keep those players up on the board

so that when you need someone to run a valet con, you can just look to the board and say, let's call Hewle, you know, or you need some people who are, who can help you with your Howard Gryft and who have questionable morals, let's bring the Kettleman's back. And so, you know, it's not let's bend the plot to see where we can fit Hewler the Kettleman's in. It's

we've got a hole here. Do we have an existing character that we can bring in to plug it? To make this all feel like a cohesive story, we talked about this last week, like bringing the Kettleman's back, makes you feel like you really have been watching one sure arc of a story

from season one to season six, even though that's not the reality of how they've written this show. And I don't know if this audience necessarily has that same board of season one characters. I mean, it's been a while. Yeah. So that's what we're here for. That's what the Better Call Saul Wiki is here for. But they're not holding our hands at this point. And I did go back and rewatch season one, which I would recommend if you have the time. For one thing, it's just nice to see how far these characters have come and how much of where they are now you can see the seeds of even at the start. But also, it means that you remember who the cattlemen's are when they pop up again, and you don't have to do a deep dive on the wiki to figure that out.

So they are kind of making this show to reward the longtime viewers now, or those who have invested the time in this as opposed to holding your hand more or kind of courting a bigger audience that maybe has not been paying as close attention to this series. So this is always a series that rewards close viewing, I think. But at this stage, rewatching. I think if you have the time, I know it's a crowded TV landscape right now, but if you do have the time to go back,

that may be rewarding in other ways to come during the season as well. Speaking of plugging in one character from something into another, District Attorney Suzanne Erickson shows up here to talk to Kim. She is, I think, one of two characters, according to the Wiki, one of two characters who's appeared in El Camino, the, you know, Jesse Pinkman-centered spin-off movie and Better Callsell, but not breaking bad. So there's that other little, like, corner of the web to fill out. But so she comes here to talk to Kim, tells her that Lalo's dead.

I'm wondering what you, how you read the way that Ray played Kim's reaction here. Yeah. I love that she sort of no-cells this revelation. She's like, oh, Lalo, dead, you don't say? What a pity. This man I just heard of for the first time. I mean, you can kind of see that she is trying to clamp down on the emotion she's feeling in that moment, like the relief that she feels, presumably, about the fact that as far she knows Lalo is not still on her tail, but she's just immediately able to compose herself in kind of that lawyer face. And we've seen that so many times and what makes. Seahorns acting so great. It's not that she is like super expressive. Often it's like the subtlest little thing that you see on her face. It's like the little smile that she had in season one when she's looking at Jimmy. Just this half smile, I think, is what the creators have said, convince them to really expand her role the way that they did. So often it's very subtle because

she is so controlled, at least on the outside, but you can sense that there is this whole sea of seething, roiling emotions just playing out directly under the surface. And I think that surface is closer to the outside than it used to be. And maybe at some point it will break out there. But she's able to, I think, not give away that, oh, this is actually very meaningful information here. And she doesn't want to give away that she knows about Lalo, right, that she heard about this from Jimmy. because even though Jimmy let slip last week when he was talking to the prosecutors that he knew Lalo's name, which probably made it easier for them to connect the dots here and figure out that de Guzman is Salamanca. But Kim is pretty determined not to make the same sort of slip up here.

Yeah, if you had any doubt as to whether or not those things are connected, I would say the fact that they included that slip from good old Jimmy in the previously on tells me. that that's how the prosecutors figured out who Lala was. So, you know. Right. And then, you know, Erickson, I mean, she wants Jimmy to do the right thing here, right? And Erickson says under all of his showiness, he's a lawyer and a human being. And I think he knows what's right.

And Kim is basically saying to where he's not even Jimmy anymore, right? He practices under the name Saul Goodman. So he has shed that skin that he used to have. though maybe he hasn't yet entirely. And I think Erickson in this scene is misreading Kim too, right? Because she thinks Kim is this upstanding lawyer, right? I mean, she's the one who handed over this file for discovery for another case that prompts this conversation. So she thinks, okay, I'll appeal to Kim and Kim will convince Jimmy to do the right thing.

But that's not who Kim is anymore. And as we see later, if anything, she is going to do the opposite of convincing. Jimmy to come forward with the information he has. Yeah, and it's interesting to me that it feels to me that Erickson is right about who Jimmy is at his core. And perhaps Kim is the one misreading who Jimmy is at his core, you know, that she thinks maybe like Chuck, that she thinks that there is, you know, just nothing but darkness at the center here or enough darkness that meets her darkness or something like, I don't know.

But I think that I do think that eventually the rubber is going to meet the road when it comes to like a moral line for Jimmy and his moral line is going to end up being in a different place than hers. That seems just so obvious, obviously where it was going, which then it makes me second guess it because the show is never obvious. So who knows. Exactly. Yeah. Kim, of course, goes to tell Jimmy then that A. Lala was dead and that the DA wants Jimmy to inform on him and then. And then she says this thing, the thing that we used to cold open this episode, are you a friend of the cartel or are you a rat?

And that's just like a little hard even for, like that, you know, we were talking about the incremental slippage and how they've been so precise in the incremental moral slippage of Kim Wexler. But are you a rat? Like with such a wild thing I feel like for her to say. How did that say with you? Yeah. Counselor is leading the witness here.

Yeah. I mean, she's not wrong, right? She doesn't even know how right she is because she thinks Lalo is dead. And of course, Slalow is still at large somewhere out there. But the way she puts it, it sounds like she is putting her thumb on the friend of the cartel side of the scale here. And if you think back to, I think it was the episode when they get married, season five, episode seven, when Jimmy first uses that phrase, friend of the cartel with her, at that point, she sounds sort of appalled. And she says, but do you want to be a friend of the cartel? And Jimmy says, no, no, absolutely not, even though he is tempted to be.

Now she is encouraging him to accept that temptation. So again, we have had kind of a reversal here where she is the one leading him toward temptation. We're going to talk about this line again, I think, when we talk about nacho, but I was rewatching that first scene where Saul is introduced to Breaking Bad, right? This is the crucial scene when Walt and Jesse have kidnapped him and have him in the desert. And he says, it wasn't me. It was Ignacio. And he says, I've always been a friend of the cartel, but he doesn't say it in English.

He says it in Spanish. And he says, so I always an amigua de del cartel. And I just think that's really interesting. I don't know that they're hanging a lot on the Spanish use of Saul Goodman here and how he's navigating it. But he says soy instead of estoy and soy is like you would use a story and like a sort of like I am, these are the things I am versus soy which is like I am inherently this is who I am. So yeah. So he's saying like I am a friend of the cartel is grammatically incorrect but also maybe telling and also maybe I'm reading too much into Ozymandia. So you know, but we're going

to come back to that. But I just think that idea that they're leaning on that phrase front of the cartel, just points to, I think, these writers very carefully leading us on a breadcrumb trail towards that introduction of Saul in another show. And it's interesting because I'm sure that when Gilligan and Gould wrote that line, they had no idea who Ignacio and Lala were, right? I mean, they're figuring that out after the fact. And so on the one hand, I almost don't want them to be bound by something they wrote years and years ago before they understood these characters at all. And yet because they're not the type of

storytellers who leave loose threads, you know that they're probably going to set up that line in some way. And so we can talk about what Nacho's death means in relation to that line. But it's interesting that this line that they wrote before they had any idea what was to come in Breaking Bad, let alone Better Call Saul, that line now takes on this totemic importance as we're trying to figure out, What does that mean for Nacho? What does that mean for Lalo? What does that mean for Jimmy? We had an email from a listener, Alan, who said, among other things, because we talked about

last week about the fact that when we meet Saul in Breaking Bad, he suggests killing Badger, right, which is a very morally dark moment. And Alan said, I never really thought it was fair to judge Saul based on his suggestion that Walt and Jesse killed Badger. It was his first appearance before they, meaning the writers, really got to. a handle on the character and he was out in the desert facing mask drug dealers who were threatened to kill him. So he suggested that they killed the other drug dealer instead of him was practical and oriented to self-preservation, not malice. I mean, I kind of agree with Alan Allen's

saying, is it fair for us to really hold the writer's feet to the fire for a characterization? No, not necessarily, but I think I, what I think is that Gillian and Gould are such perfectionists that they're going to want it. They could say, hey, man, we wrote that before we knew. They could go that route, but that's not who they are as writers, right? So I feel like they're going to aim the ship in a way that it's all going to make sense, you know? Right. And we still, we don't know for sure what that means because Saul will say anything to save himself that much is true.

And maybe he's dropping Notcher's name because he knows a dead guy can't contradict him. So it's hard at this point to parse exactly what his motivations were there. But I agree. It's not just going to be like, how do we? we square this with what Saul said when we first met him. There will be a clear through line there. All right. We're going to do the nacho story in a second.

But I really quickly just want to check in on Lalo, who we have not seen since episode one, who headed south. I saw a fun theory on the Reddit that maybe he's going to Chile to dig into Gus's backstory there. Maybe he's going to Peru to ask the rival game. Did you really plan this hit? Sure. Maybe Lala will just go in a full South America tour.

Yeah, sure. I love that for him. He should get you a McGregor in a motorcycle and just like film the whole thing. I'd watch it. But yeah, you have to wonder what's in store for him because he's not going to get any proof about Fring from Nacho now. That's kind of where I assumed that this was going, that he was going to be on Nacho's trail too. Maybe he was. But if so, he's going to have to pivot to some other method of obtaining proof.

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Feeding America led by neighbors. Give now to end hunger at feedingamerica.org. All right, let's talk about por nacho. He's on the run. The cousins are hunting him. He hides out in some really disgusting looking goop in the base of an oil. anchor, hoses himself off, sees a mechanic who offers him some, some clemency, you know, some, some, you know, something to wash himself off with, et cetera, et cetera.

Someone, someone suggested that the mechanic dad might have reminded notch of his own dad. His dad, of course, is like an upholster, but the upholstery that he does often goes in cars. So maybe he's thinking of his dad's shop. his dad who said in season five I always thought I was saving the shop for you I went back and watched all of his dad's scenes they're like each more upsetting than the next so Nacho calls his dad

what'd you think of this scene Ben? Oh man I mean this whole sequence like you know first of all I'm happy Michael Mando gets one more beefcake scene before he exits stage left right he works hard he works hard man right he doesn't get a lot of chances to show it off so it's true I mean he's he's washing

off the darkness, right, like figuratively and literally when he comes out of the oil canister. He's washing off the poison of his criminal life. He's leaving his blood money behind for the mechanic. He's accepting what he has to do. So this is like sort of his agony in the Garden of Gassimini moment before his last supper, right, where he's hoping he can escape this fate, but he realizes that he has to go through with it. And I think he realizes that on the call. And what kills me about this call is that these guys are not having the same conversation. I mean, they are not on the same wavelength. And they haven't been at any point since this series started. And maybe that's because one of them is in the game and the other is not. And they just can't

communicate across that divide. So Nacho's calling to say his final farewell here or maybe hoping he can finally persuade his dad to run away with him. And his dad's just like, are we done here? because I have some seats to upholster. Like, he's either so oblivious to his son's pain that he doesn't hear his voice catching, or he doesn't care. He's beyond caring at this point. Like, there's a version of this scene in a lesser series where they have a cathartic heart to heart, right? And Nacho apologizes for not becoming a car seat upholsterer.

And his dad's like, you know, I may be a humble law-abiding builder of refurbished leather interiors, but I've always loved you and I forgive you for your drug dealing. But that is not what this is. Like, Nacho knows what he has to do, but there's not a lot of closure here. His dad's just like, what else is there to say? And the even more tragic part, I think, is that we don't know if his dad will ever know what Nacho did for him. He may just be buried in the desert. He may never know what happened to Nacho. And if he does know, would he even be proud or grateful for that sacrifice or Would he just be grief-stricken or guilt-written or just be like, well, I kept telling him to call the cops? Like, what did he expect to happen here?

So it's just sad. It's not even clear that his dad deserves the kind of devotion that Nacho gives him. We don't see that in this series, right? He's perpetually striving for his respect and affection and not getting it over and over again. And it still speaks well of Nacho that he is trying to repair the relationship and spare his father from the consequence of his son's actions, but it's just such a one-sided show of emotion. It's like, have a heart here. Like, your son may have turned his back on your business, but he's in a tough spot here. And there's a naivete, I think, when it comes to Nacho's

dad that he thinks that calling the cops is actually ever a way out of this. And to be fair, Nacho hasn't really read him in on the situation either. Like, he hasn't necessarily said, here's what's happening. Here's why I can't call the cops because you're going to get got. So neither side is really disclosing anything here. And even in this final conversation where all of these emotions are there, at least on Nacho's face, it's just not coming to the fore. They can't bring themselves to talk about it, which I guess is emblematic of maybe a lot of father-son relationships

where you don't say the things that you should say, but it's really heartbreaking, especially just to see how Mando acts out of this scene. I think they, I don't see in the email, so they must have just tweeted at me, but someone was like, is Jonathan Banks Emmy Real this season, him talking to Nacho's dad in the shop,

about them trying to save their sons or something like that? And I'm getting upset, just thinking about it. Because, of course, Nacho extracts this promise from Mike that, you know, he'll protect his dad. I think it is interesting that pivotal moment that it's not, as you say, it's not in the language of the script. It's all playing on Michael Manda's face in terms of we think about the fight that Nacho has

in him, even up to the point of like, you know, putting himself, I mean, I would just be like, cousins take me away before I put myself in that oil coop. I'll tell you that right now. But up to that, but all like all the fight that he exhibited. in episode two. He did have so much fight left in him. But if his father wasn't going to go with him, which is what he felt like he learned in this phone call, then this is the only thing he can do to save his father. His father has repeatedly turned down Nacho's other attempts to get him to go with him. He says in season five, episode three, he says, you know, you want me to go with you and I'm not

going to go. You can go. I'm staying is what he says. And Nacho says, no. that that means death for his father. Yeah. So this is the only thing he knows that he can do to protect him. Put Mike on the case. I mean, I would feel confident with Mike on the case watching someone that I loved. So, um, though I have some questions about some of his choices here in the final moments about whether or not that that was the safest thing for his father for him to do.

It also makes Nacho the opposite of, of, you know, the rat. Like, I guess Slip and Kimmy would be proud of Nacho for, Not going to the cops, no matter what. So he's smuggled back north inside the fring truck. He has the last meal with Mike. They have a drink. Mike has to work him over to make it look more convincing. It's all very devastating.

There's a lot of Jesus baptism. I'm so glad I rewatch Jesus Christ Superstar on Easter so that I could understand your Gassani reference. You forgot the Jesus story, little known tale. A little obscure, dusty story. By the way, like we get another. image of Nacho emerging from a confined space where he hardly has any air, right, when Mike pulls him out of the concealed smuggling compartment. So that's kind of another mirror of him coming out of the goop. And it's funny, like, normally Better Callsall just painstakingly explains everything.

But as we're nearing the end game, it's kind of cutting some corners, like not in a way that I mind. But last week, for instance, we don't find out how Lalo transports the body of Mateo back to the house where he starts the fire. We just know that. somehow that corpse got back there and similarly we don't know somehow palpatine returns similarly we don't know how nacho gets to this truck right we don't know what instructions he received but at this stage we have so much more to worry about than how this character or that character gets from point A to point B and it's not like late Game of Thrones where suddenly characters are kind of teleporting around in distracting ways like this is just yada yada and some stuff that we might have seen them walk us through in early seasons, but we can just accept this now. We have enough confidence in the storytellers to feel like, okay, this is plausible. They could have come up with some explanation that made sense here. So let's focus on the characters. And I think it's something that I think Andy brought up on the watch where he was just like, this is something we know Mike can do.

So like we don't need to watch them do it. Though that being said, better call selling, breaking bad, rarely miss an opportunity to just let us slowly watch someone do something we already know that they can do. but that's okay. Right. So there's a plan and then there's what Nacho does. So to be clear, right? The Fring plan is we're going to zip tie you. We're going to bring you in front of these guys.

You're going to confess. You're going to say that this other cartel paid you, etc., etc., you're going to take the blame off of me. And then you're going to run off into the desert and our guy, Victor, here, is going to shoot you dead before the salamuncas have a chance to work you over. with the assembly of rusty tools that we saw briefly in an establishing shot in that shack. So to spare you from that slow death and torture, we're going to do you a favor and pick you off ourselves. So that's the plan.

Gus leaves Nacho alone in the trailer. And then Nacho spies the broken pieces of glass from the previous episode in the trash can and decides to write his own. ending his own story, which we love for him. I mean, we don't love that it ended, but we love that he got to be the master of his destiny for once. Yeah. I did not expect the broken glass to come back. And it's so funny because I can't remember if you and I dwelt on it, but Chris was

really dwelling on it that he thought it was a really bizarre move for to watch Gus that out of control breaking the glass and then cleaning it up and sweeping it away. Right. So to plant it for this episode. episode makes it make a little bit more sense. And for that to be, because the way it all turns out in the end, where Nacho takes the glass that he is smuggled, cuts the zip tie himself, grabs bolso with the gun, and then shoots himself, all of that, including what he says, really shakes Gus up in a major way, in a way

that I don't think we've ever ruffled in a way. I don't even think he was in his own death, right? He was very nonchalot when his face blew off. So, yeah. You know, I like that it's sort of connected to this temper tantrum that he throws this sort of fracture. He left himself vulnerable to this moment and Nacho grabs the opportunity and takes it. What do you think? Yeah.

I mean, even I think in the first or second shot of the episode after the cold open, you see the shot of the shattered windshield, right? That one of the two windshield people had to replace, I guess, that it's sliding around in the bed of Nacho's truck. So even at the start there, you get the foreshadowing and the sense of. of impending doom, but Nacho despises Gus, right? I mean, he has faced off with any number of villains to this point in the series, but he doesn't even respect Gus, right? He has that great line where he's like, you're not the one I need to hear this from, right? Put me on speakerphone. I need to hear this from Mike. And, I mean, you can understand there's a lot of mutual animosity here because

Gus doesn't like his plans being disrupted. He doesn't like depending on someone like Nacho for his whole just operatic revenge scheme to be preserved. And, you know, Nacho can't even savor his last chicken dinner without Victor barging in to give Mike the message that Nacho has to be beaten up. And you know on some level Gus enjoyed issuing that order. Right. So there's no love lost here. And so you see him out in the desert with all these characters we know are going to survive at least for a while. So you're thinking which of these characters is not like the others, right?

things are not going to end well for Nacho here. And yet, because we have seen so many characters on Breaking Bad in Better Calls-all work themselves out of seemingly inescapable situations, when he grabs that glass, there's some small part of you or at least some small part of me that's thinking, how is he going to get out of this, right? There's at least that possibility preserved. I love that you have that hope in you. For me, I mean, I think it's a good question for people to ponder, like,

when did you know this was it for nacho you know i kind of i will say this someone i try to watch this episode as early as i could because i was watching it live that night uh on the emce app and i watched it really early uh on west ghost time but still someone tweeted me like devastating and i was like oh no devastating but uh so that was sort of hanging over me but from the moment that i knew that it was going to happen especially kind of late it wasn't even even just the calculus of every single person in this scene is still alive in Breaking Bad, that that's a really good indicator. Well, it was when I realized that he was grabbing the glass.

I was like, I figured that he took the glass out of the thing and that he was going to do something. And then I thought about the cold open where you see the glass in the desert. And I was like, oh, that's, we're not just buried. Okay. Right, right. Yeah. And, you know, Nacho arguably gets the most painless exit of everyone in the scene because we know how they're all going to go out. I mean, I would take this way over, you know, a box cutter to the throat in Victor's case or any of the other ways that these other guys meet their ends eventually.

But even though he goes off script in this scene, I mean, he still under Gus's thumb to an extent, right? Because he knows his dad's life is hanging in the balance. He's not totally free. but he does get to speak freely, finally, and tell them all what he thinks of them. Even Gus, because when he says he is a soulless pig and I wish I'd killed him with my own hands, ostensibly he's talking about Lalo, but he's looking right at Gus. That's who he meets that for, I think. And one reason maybe why he doesn't go out guns blazing in an attempt to just take out the entire Salamanca clan in one go

and beat Gus to the punch is that while he is a killer, he isn't get off on killing. You know, he's not like Walt who did it for himself and liked it. He did it for his dad and he didn't really like it at all. So he's going through with this. He knows what he has to do. But, you know, there was just that part of me that's thinking, like, is he going to MacGyggard himself out of this?

But most of me was thinking, okay, he has accepted this. Like, you've seen him. He's had the toast. he's had the last supper. Like, he is resigned to doing this, but he's not going to do it completely following orders. He is still, like, dancing on the puppet strings to some extent, but he is going to cut those cords at least enough to just vent and get all of his actual emotions out there before he takes himself off the stage. There's a couple things going on here. One, I have questions about how wise it was to provoke Hector this way.

Like, satisfying for sure. but Hector, you know, just driving bullets into Nacho's lifeless body makes me worried about what Hector's going to do to his dad, right? And he knows his dad, he's met his dad, right? So I feel like in provoking Hector there, he put his dad in danger even though the whole thing was he was trying to protect his dad, right? Yeah, I'm hopeful that Mike will be able to protect poor Manuel Varga, but I'm worried about it. Yeah. I hope so too. Not because I have such a for Manuel, but, you know, out of my affection for Nacho, I hope that his sacrifice is not in vain. But there is that moment where we see Mike from afar whispering, do it to himself, right? And the question is,

what does he mean? Do what? Yeah, what do you think he meant there? So that made me think of when Mike was planning to snipe Hector back in season two and Gus left the note for him that said, don't. So here you have Mike saying, do. And some part of him must want Nacho to just. just take out everyone and get away, right? Because he loves Nacho. Notcho's like his surrogate son. And Mike has no great love at this point for a lot of the other characters in the scene. But I think he knows that's not going to happen.

And he also knows that Nacho's dad would pay a price. So I think he's hoping that Nacho will hold up his end of the deal and die as agreed upon. Yeah, I go back and forth because the do-it could mean like shoot Bulls, you know, I'll pick off the salamancas. you know, et cetera. But like I, there's a part of me also that just feels like do it meaning like shoot yourself because at least then you will, you know, have done it on your own terms. And that seems to be maybe in line with Mike's moral code.

We did get an email from a listener sort of about, you know, they predicted something and they were kind of wrong, but kind of not wrong at the same time. They predicted that Mike would have to kill Nacho in order to save men well. And I thought that that was interesting. this came from Kellyn. And I thought it was interesting. It didn't pan out. He sent that before this episode came out.

It didn't pan out, but something that Kellyn said was this idea that Mike does have a very firm code, which is that the target must be in the game, right? And he had to kill Werner, and that was tough for him, but Werner's in the game. And notches in the game, but his father is not. So, you know, that's a guiding principle for Mike. Listener, Stephen also wrote in to ask a question about this final scene, which is, he said usually, you know, the writers on Saul and Breaking Bad are pretty meticulous when it's characters who speak Spanish, they all speak Spanish to each other in a scene. And in this scene, it's all Spanish speakers in that little crowd, but they're speaking English. And Steve was like, do you think that's just so that Michael Mando could have a better Emmy reel?

And probably. Honestly, probably true. Like, I was going to clip for this episode, I was going to clip a snippet of him talking to his dad, but they're doing it in Spanish. And I didn't know if that would be, you know, useful for some of our listeners. And so I kept it to English only clips. And I think, yeah, if Michael Mando's final, like, you don't think of me being Edvin in Spanish. I mean, actually, I think it would have been just his boss. But, you know, maybe the Emmy voters would have a harder time nominating him with that.

What do you think? I wish Mike could have heard this, you know. I wish that Mike had been listening in on the cell phone like he was when Lalo visited Saul and Kim. I want to hear him. You know, he should be able to hear the exit that Nacho gets here. But yeah, that's as good an answer as any probably. He also got to say fuck on AMC, which is a tough, it's a very rare one. So good for you, Michael Amanda.

Okay, let's just circle back to the cold open really quickly, this beautiful shot of the flower, the glass, the rain in the desert. also someone pointed out probably on the wiki that this episode doesn't end with the theme it's only the second episode in better call cell to not end with Dave Porter theme and so the different piece of Dave Porter music and the only other episode to do that was Lantern which is of course when Chuck dies so it's like Requiem for noncho requiem for Chuck at the end of their death episodes what do you make of that like how do you thinking about that cold open do like the way it was used a little bit of of like spooky foreshadowing. What do you think? Yeah. You know, while we were watching, my wife pointed out that so many shows do that thing where they show you the climactic moment at the beginning and then they give you the 48 hours earlier. Right. Right. Jump back in time to explain how it happened, which is pretty overplayed and also sap some of the suspense for me. And Better Call Saul sort of does that, but the glimpse it gives you is just so oblique that it doesn't spoil anything. You don't know.

know what this is. And it's only at the end that you think back to the beginning and go, oh, that's what that was. And it's such a satisfying moment. And I think this moment signifies that his sacrifice, I mean, it brings the rain to the scorched earth, right? It brings the rain. It brings the renewal, the new growth with the flower. It's a more respectful and sentimental ending than most characters get in the Gilligan verse, which is maybe representative of how much. much this character meant to the series and to most of the audience. Let's talk about the placement of this death here. The fact that it's only the third episode of the final season, I think people are, it does two contradictory things. It gives them license to be as risky as

possible, right? Everyone who is not alive in Breaking Bad could die here, right? This is your Ned Stark, your red wedding. Yeah, exactly. Not just dead. It's episode three. We've got so much room to go, is everyone going to die or is everything going to be just really extreme and terrible for the rest? On the other hand, it also, I think, gives them license to not kill literally anyone else. They could get away with not, I mean, not that life or death is the only stakes you can put on characters, as we talked about before with Kim. But like, I think if Kim lives and Lala lives and Howard lives and all of that, and Manuel lives, they can't, they will not be accused of not doing anything high stakes in the final season because they killed

Nacho here in episode three. So they could either go very safe or very wild and dangerous with the rest of the episodes here. Do you have any instinct one way or the other? Yeah. It surprised me that it happened so soon. I mean, mid-season finale, sure, but three episodes in is earlier than I expected them to take that important piece off the board. Although, in a sense, it's an upset that Nacho made it this far, right? He wasn't supposed to. And at times, he was kind of disconnected from other threads the rest of the series. I mean, he never met Kim, right? Which is kind of incredible. I mean, the two most important original characters in this series, I don't think they ever shared a scene, which I guess is a testament to just like how well written this show is, that they

can just kind of exist in parallel timelines and never really cross over explicitly. And, you know, the fact that this happened, I mean, this is clearly the Kim and Jimmy show now, right? And it needs to be because we have to understand Jimmy's final metamorphosis and DeSalle and the role that Kim plays in that. The fact that they killed Nacho, I was trying to decide whether that makes me more or less worried about Kim or at least Kim's death, if either, because these are the two biggest characters who don't appear in Breaking Bad and whose fates we've been wondering and worrying about since the start. and one dies in a surprisingly predictable way, if that's not an oxymoron. I mean, it's surprising how predictable it is that Nacho just kind of goes down the road, right? That Mike talks about where your choices lead you just one step along the path. And poor Nacho, like every time he gets out from under the thumb of some drug dealer, like he ends up, you know, just doing the bidding of someone even worse. And on the one hand, they've shown once again they have the willingness to go there.

But on the other hand, will they want to go back to that well? Not that I think Kim is heading for a happy ending, but Nacho's death makes me think maybe it's a different ending, at least for Kim. Yeah, I think it's also, not to use a nasty metaphor, but it puts a bullet in the theory of that Howard would commit suicide, which I think was a pretty popular theory. you know, and I think if you have one character, major character kill himself, maybe they're less likely to have another major character kill himself. I feel like Howard is just going to be wrecked in another way. I think that what's interesting about all of this is the question of what's still going on to keep me invested in the cartel story, because does notcho make it was a big part of that? Maybe does not just dad make it? will Mike be able to save Nach's dad is something, you know, because because as we talked about

last week, the power dynamics that we see currently are the power dynamics. So nothing is going to change in the hierarchy of this drug cartel. So Lalo is a question, I guess. And Lalo is something I am very invested in because I love Tony Dilton so much. I want to go back to that line that Sull says in his introduction in Breaking Bad really quickly, where he says it wasn't me, it was Ignacio. I've always been a friend of the cartel, and then Lalo didn't send you. And so the question is, it wasn't me, it was Ignacio. It was Ignacio who did what, right? Is the question there? What, what is Jimmy or Saul think he's being blamed for him that Ignacio did? And there's like two really good options. I don't think, I don't think it's that hard to walk to that line right now, which is that

it was Ignacio who put Hector in the chair. It wasn't me who put Hector in the chair. It was Ignacio or it wasn't me who opened the doors and let everyone in to kill Lala's family. It was Ignacio, you know, and Lalo might send someone on both of those. Lalo might send someone for vengeance for Hector. Lalo might send someone his vengeance for what happened at his compound. And Saul says it wasn't me, it was Nacho, basically. And that doesn't require Nacho to be alive for him to say that. He's like, it wasn't me.

Nach did it and he's dead. So what more do you want for me? It does hopefully require Lalo to be alive. And I hope he is, honestly. But yeah. Yeah. Or at least alive as far as Jimmy slash Saul knows, which is not necessarily the same thing, right? Because right now Jimmy thinks Lalo is dead.

So this does suggest that at some point he is going to discover that Lalo is not dead, but you could be deaked again. Who knows? Lalo may have a whole line of corpses lined up here or just plain D. Yeah. You know, he may have other getaways, other compounds. Lalo farm. Yeah. That's really interesting.

I think what I'm going to be questioning until the very end of this show is what exactly is the morality of this universe? And this is something I asked Michael Mando, but I just think it's interesting, this idea that like, why does it Jesse Pinkman get to live but a nacho doesn't? We understand why a Walt dies. But if a Jesse Pinkman lives and a nacho doesn't, and did they really do, you know, aren't their paths sort of similar, this like striving to get out? Aren't they both sort of pseudo-sun figures to Mike, all this sort of thing?

Like, why does Jesse Pinkman get El Camino and Nacho gets the desert? And I think that question is what keeps us wondering, which is where we want to be, about Jimmy and Kim and their futures. Right. Yeah, I think the difference it could be just partly because Jesse got to go first, right? His series was made earlier. And maybe they don't want to repeat the same beats as. breaking pad. But also, yeah, the contrast that stands out to me is Nacho versus Jimmy because one dies and the other lives, but at what cost, right? Nacho stayed true to himself and to the

person he cared for, and he did pay a price for that, but Jimmy pays a pretty steep price too for his survival, presumably because he betrays whatever he once stood for and shape shifts into someone who has no principles, right? And potentially just has some falling out with Kim as well. So I think that's kind of instructive as well. And one more thought about Lalo, by the way. Like he, you know, we think of him as as hunting down nacho and being opposed to Fring, but that also potentially puts him in conflict with his family with the Salamancas, right? Because they still trust Fring to some extent other than Hector, of course,

but we know that that relationship is going to be intact into the future. And so if Lalo is convinced that Gus is the one who turned on him, whether he can prove that or not, if he can't convince his family of that, that potentially sets up a scene where, you know, who knows, maybe the cousins are coming after him next. And meanwhile, he's going after Jimmy and Kim. I mean, I guess what happens to Lalo is the most intriguing remaining storyline about the cartel. So we know that that doesn't shift the balance of power in any major way. But we still care about Lalo at this point. We care very deeply about Lalo. So I think just seeing who is, is going to be against him and what his vendetta is going to be because I doubt he's going to be

satisfied by Nacho's death, right? I don't think he's going to say, all right, that closes the book on that. To that and we still don't know exactly why Saul went on the run at the end of Breaking Bad. And this is something that I didn't realize until I was like rewatching those episodes. It's like, we can extrapolate this idea of like, well, if Walt has been exposed by the DEA and Saul is, you know, in league with Walt, then Saul is exposed. So it makes sense that he would leave. But like, who is most invested in finding him?

Is it the DEA or is it the cartel for some reason? And if it's the cartel for some reason, could it be Lalo? Like, I do like an idea that Lalo could survive into the gene storyline, not the least of which is Tony Dahlton would look great in black and white. But I just think that giving us something that exciting. in the Jean storyline, rather than just like depressing cinnamon buns, um, right would be some,

an interesting way to wrap everything up, you know. Yeah. And there was a New Yorker piece a week or so ago that Andy cited on the watch. The thesis of that piece is that Gilligan and Gould were so frustrated by fans rooting for Walt in spite of how evil he was that they've now given us a protagonist who's not really becoming his true self the way that Walt was, but is actually turning his back on who he is,

as Jimmy does by transforming his. to Saul. So I guess the question is whether the flash forwards are going to tell a different story than the end of Breaking Bad did and whether that could flip the script. Maybe because Jimmy wasn't embracing his true self. It wasn't like the evil Heisenberg that Walt became was kind of lurking there all along. In Jimmy's case, he's kind of burying who he is. And maybe he's lost that part of himself forever, but maybe not. Maybe there's a path to redemption for him that wasn't open to Walt. funny though because um you know and we'll get to we'll get to wrap me on a second here but i i just think it's i i love the conversation that chris and and andy had about this this idea that

better call sol is a corrective to some of the things with breaking bad but i also see a repeat of some of the same patterns you know what i mean i think the way that i see people talk about kim reminds me of the way that people talked about skyler and i just think that's so interesting because i do see kim as them trying to really zag on the skyler narrative and and be like, okay, but what if someone, like, actually is into it and gets sucked in that way? I still see Kim as a sympathetic victim. Not that, like, Jimmy's the villain and she's, like, blameless and has no agency. But just at the end of the day, I'm not going to be like, oh, this evil woman came in and she's the reason why Jimmy turned into Saul.

Like, that's- Corrupted our innocent, Jimmy. Such a banana's read on the story, but it is a read that I'm seeing. And so I just feel like that stuff is still sticking around the fandom of this universe in a way that that is frustrating to me. But yeah, but there's there's there's there are a lot of really interesting corrective ideas. Anyway, we'll talk more about the end of breaking bad in the future. I do recommend an Osamadius rewatch. I think it was really rewarding for me.

In a granite state and felina. Yeah. Yeah. But I. just the way that that all ended, the parallels of Walt saying, like, I watched Jane die to Jesse versus Nacho being like, think of me. I'm sorry, I just can't get over his amazing Batman voice in that moment. You know, death in the desert, an emotional phone call to a loved one, all that sort of stuff.

So I recommend that as a rewatch. Anything else? Like, so I did all my homework, right? Days of Wine and Roses, some Breaking Bad Rewatch. recommended a season one. Better call Saul. We watch. Any other homework assignments for folks this week, Ben? Yeah, maybe one, because we know what the next episode is called, right? Hit and Run, which makes me think back to the very first episode of this series, Uno, because really this whole saga started with a hit and run. Because if you remember, Jimmy pays the skateboarders,

Cal and Lars, to take a dive to help him get the Kettlemen's as clients. And instead, Tuko's grandma hits them and drives off. And that's how Jimmy meets Tuko and then Nacho and the rest is history. So, hey, the Kettleman's came back. Maybe it's time to bring back Cal and Lars to get hit by Howard, right? They've had time for their broken legs to heal. Taking a dive. Yeah, could be.

Maybe that's the whole car scheme. Wow. I would, I, you know, Jimmy loves bringing back his old tricks. I am. I was watching the episode where Jimmy meets Lalo. And he's like, oh, how is your lovely Alboilita? And he was just like a perfect Bob Odenkirk line read. I loved it so much.

All right. Well, let us now hear from the great Michael Mando about his curtain call on Better Callsall. I opened Lalo's Gate and I would do it again and I'm glad what they did to him. He's a soulless pig and I wish I'd kill them with my own hands. And you know what else, Hector? I put you in that chair. Oh yeah, your heart meds. I switched them for sugar pills.

You were dead and buried and I had to watch this asshole bring you back. So when you are sitting in your shitty nursing home and you're sucking down on your jello night-a-night for the rest of your life, you think of you fuck. When I was listening to the interview you gave the Insider podcast, you said you hadn't watched the episode yet and you weren't sure if you were going to. Did you wind up watching it? I haven't. Last night, I posted a video on Instagram thanking all the unbelievable, beautiful people for their support. I went for a walk in the park and I came home, turned off my electronics and just spent the day on the couch. As silly as that sounded, I just felt there was so much energy going through me at the time.

I felt the best thing to do is to, you know, just relax and be grounded. Where are you sitting right now as I talked to you in this moment about whether or not you're going to watch it? I haven't really thought about it really honestly. I just know that I won't watch it today. I'm taking it day by day. My life just seems to be changing in such a huge way with these past three episodes. And there's so much beautiful and energy coming my way. It's really important for me to just stay grounded and humble and grateful. Well, let me ask you this question. You said something really beautiful. on The Insider podcast where you said you feel like you don't know

who a character is until the end or maybe very specifically you don't feel like you know who Nacho is until the end. So when you know how he ends, do you then as the person who has inhabited him for so many years go back through the story you've played so far does it change in your mind?

Is there anything you see differently as you think about the character and the way he ends? You know, it's like a canvas. And you can't ever erase the things that you've put on. But you can change and inform. And it's only at the end after you've put your final coats of primer that you actually see the colors sit. And you can go back and watch the iconography of the character.

And to me, it's a very, it's a heroic, it's a romantic and unusually brave. character. That's what I got from it at the end, you know, a transcendent figure, which is kind of weird in this kind of very, in this world around greed and power, in this kind of universe around Greek and power, that this guy kind of is allowed to transcend into another kind of another state of mind. Throughout this show, we've been on tenter hooks about various characters, your character, the character of Kim, various characters that we know haven't appeared in bringing back. We weren't sure what was going to happen to them. And I think part of that stress or apprehension for us involves us trying to understand the morality of the breaking bad universe, if that makes sense.

Does a nacho deserve to die? Does a nacho who's been striving to leave this criminal world for so long? Does he deserve to die? When a Walter White dies and a Jesse Pinkman lives, where does a nacho sit in all of that? And so I was just wondering if you have any thoughts about, I don't know, the overall morality of this world or even if it's about morality at all. I think of, I mean, it's a show about, you know, morality and justice at the basis of it. It's about the law. I approach the character of Nacho not as a real person, but as a symbol in culture.

And when you approach it like that, he becomes almost like, I mean, I'm not. I'm trying to think of a better word than like saint type figure. I guess the only word I can think of is an icon. In the pure sense of the word, an image, you know, when you see the character, you think of something. It's not just like a character, it's something. The icon of Nacho at the beginning was that of the career, smart career criminal. The iconoclastic symbolism of Nacho at the end is that of the tragic hero, the prodigal son. who is breaking good. And that journey to me is in many ways kind of revolutionary to American

television for a character of that ethnicity in a world like that to be allowed to be all those things and to be allowed to transcend the pressures of the environment that he's being given in his most final and most difficult moment. So hats off to Peter and Vince and Gordon, Smith who did an incredible job writing and direct. I do want to talk about Gordon in a second, but I wanted to ask you this, you've used this word a couple times in various interviews about Nacho in the end here as a, you think of them as a romantic character. And, you know, what I think of when I hear a romantic character, I think of like a Don Quixote,

you used Orpheus as an example. I was wondering if you had any other examples of romantic characters that you were thinking about when you characterize Nacho this way. That's a really smart and question that is making me think, and I want to better understand it myself too. So the fact that he strives for an ideal and that the ideal that he strives for experienced through him is morally incorruptible is what makes him romantic. Now his father, you would ask many fathers and mothers, they would never leave son to in a situation they would never abandon their sons the way nacho's father has abandoned him

but what's what makes him so romantic is that his love never falters you know it's very romeo and juliet it's very kind of it's it's innocent despite the monstrosity of the tragedy you talk about this idea of icons iconoclass figures. Obviously, there are these images of baptism in this episode. There's the oil baptism and then the water, the hose baptism afterwards. But it seems to me, and maybe please correct me, my interpretation is wrong, that it isn't until Nacho calls his father that Nacho, there's a version of this story where Nacho feels like his father would go with him, would go on the road with him. And when he calls his father and he hears that his father is still hardlining something here,

that there's only one way forwardness to go to the police and Nacho knows that's not an option. But that's when Nacho makes his final decision of, okay, I got to go back into hell and die. Absolutely. You nailed it. I mean, that's exactly it. He's essentially, he essentially won. He got, he gets his happy ending at the gas station. And, you know, he's free.

You know, whatever that means, he's free. He's free to go. He's no one's chasing him. He's got a moment to, he could do whatever he wants. He can go anywhere he wants in every direction. But he chooses to look back and, and says, and I think the subtext of that is, I love you, come with me. And when he realizes his father won't,

and that if Nacho leaves his father as a dead man, he makes the sacrifice during that call. Is that the Orpheus moment for you, the looking back is the phone call sort of thing? The Orpheus moment is the fact that he can, by the beauty about Orpheus, the tragedy and beauty and romanticism about Ophus ascending is that he descends into hell to bring back the woman that he loves. But the deal is he can't ever look back. So in other words, he can't savor the things he love or it turns to stone. The Orpheus part with Nacho is that he never tells his dad.

what he's going through. In other words, he never takes the glory of his exploits. He never complains. He never shares his reality because he is not allowed to burden his father. And that is that is the orpheus part of the character. You talked about how when you filmed this scene, the big final scene for Nacho, that there was this big sandstorm so you guys had to break. break and come back and finish it.

And that between the storm and the break and the return that Gordon gave you a note that made you change your performance 180 degrees. But I don't think you said, or at least I haven't found you say specifically what that note is. Can you say what that note is? What do you remember? He made me realize that it wasn't about revenge, that even in that moment it was about love. In other words, he reminded me that Nacho's archetype never falters, even when the appearance

of it is that he becomes incredibly dominant and powerful and puts fear into all these other men who've been putting fear into him. The underlying of it is that he's still motivated by love and that he's still doing the, in his mind, he's still doing the right thing. And I have to put a note here, you know, I've saved. the character's breaking good, but don't get me wrong. This is a flawed character who's made mistakes. But the importance of it is that he genuinely tries at every chance he can to do the best he can. That's the major difference is that he really always tries in every situation to do the right thing.

You might have turned off your electronics last night, but I was feverishly pouring over the message boards, trying to see what people thought or what questions they might have about this episode. And one thing I saw crop up over and over again, which is, I think, the highest compliment I could see from fans who have been here since Breaking Bad was comparing this episode to the final season, Breaking Bad episode, Osamandias, which is where Hank dies in the desert, right? And Walt says this thing to Jesse where he tells him, I watched Jane die, you know, something that he tells Jesse that he thinks it's the last time he's going to see Jesse. And, you know, people love that episode and they loved this episode and they were sort of trying to find. the parallels, which I've experienced in this world are often unintentional. Is that the episode where Brian calls his Anna Gunn and tells her bad things because he knows they're listening?

Yeah, exactly. Oh, wow. Moira Packett wrote that episode. Yeah, just an incredible episode. Oh, my God. I rewatch that episode last night after I... That is an unbelievable compliment. I feel very happy and grateful for that comparison.

Were you thinking at all, I mean, I would imagine not, but are you thinking at all of the ending of Breaking Bad as you're being a part of the ending of Saul here? You know, honestly, I didn't have a chance to think about these things when we were shooting. I was so immersed into the character. And the character of Nacho was really heavy to bear. It was a really heavy cross to bear. It was a character who had been through so much that I cared about. so deeply. And I felt for him, you know, I really felt for him. I was at times very angry at the reality, his reality, you know, and asked myself, you know, how do I, how do I keep doing this?

And I realized that he is, he is, he, that is what sacrifice is. That's why he's so beloved, because he has to carry that burden and the audience knows, they see it in his heart that he's trying to do the same thing, the right thing. And I realized, I said, you know, as organically, like, it's hard on your organs, you know. At the same time, it's the most rewarding position to be. And I felt I wouldn't trade that for the world, you know. What was it like for you to lay that down?

What was it like for you to put nach away? You know, honestly, I don't think I have completely. I think that's why I'm unable to open social. media yesterday or today or read about the reviews or I think I think it you know he's still kind of in my gut and I can feel him a little bit in my kind of area where my heart is you know it kind of like there's like this kind of stress a little bit and there's also this at the same time this unbelievable amount of release I wanted to ask you about something you said um which is about obviously the shadow that Breaking Bad and Brian Cranston would cast over

the beginning of working on on this show right this is this is a big big shoes to fill big thing to pick up but something that's so interesting about doing a prequel series is and you know the creators have said this over and over again it's really going to flavor the way that we watch breaking bad in the future we're going to rewatch breaking bad thinking about the events of saul so i'm wondering even if you haven't thought about it before if you want to think about it now what kind of shadow do you see Nacho casting over Breaking Bad as people watch that show in the future? I heard of fan theory that the relationship between Mike and Gus and Jesse and Walter was the way it was because there's a line where Mike says, Jesse, I had a guy and you're not that guy

and that Mike was referring to Nacho and that the reason why they are handling handling them a little bit in a more fragile way was because they realized, you know, the, I guess in a way, the, and I'm just, I'm just talking as a fan, you know, and I'm talking about what fans have told me. I, the way I, from what I understanding is that there's a sense to that, but that's for for John Carlo and Mike to answer whether that's true or not. And for Vince and Peter to confirm, I guess. But to me, they're, you know, I can't think of a moral, of a person who. understands morality like Mike and it not have an impact on him, especially given that his son was dead. And then here comes another young guy who's also trying to do the right thing. And, you know, so I can't. And then the one before him, you know, it was in a horrible track. You know, so I'm sure there's there's got to be something. But that's question for them, I think. I think also certainly every time we see Hector in the future, we'll be thinking about the fact that he's probably thinking about

nacho. So there's that too, right? That's cruel. That's cruel. He's an actor said. I want to ask you the last thing because I know you haven't watched the episode yet. I'm I'm interested to see what you'll think of it when you watch it. But I think the opening, when you talk about iconography, the opening, and I know you've talked about this flower that's in the opening, this purple flower. The reads kind of blue. I was interested to see that you, that the script said it was purple. I hadn't seen it. I hadn't seen it. I thought it was purple in the script. Yeah. Purple in the script. It might have just been the coloring of my monitor or something like that. But it's a burial site for Nantio, right? There's this beautiful flower. There's rain in the desert. There's a shard of glass.

There's all this stuff. And we're watching this. I mean, it's just a gorgeous piece of imagery of classic, you know, Breaking Bad Saul imagery that will forever represent your character. What does it like to have that. Not every character who dies on television and certainly not every character who dies in this universe gets a moment like that. What does that feel like for you? Gratitude is a word that I can't repeat enough. Some fans think that that's a bluebell in the desert, whether or not it is, I don't know. I'll have to look at my bluebell. A bluebell flower. Yeah, I'll have to look at my flower guy. But they said that the bluebell represents humility, everlasting love, and gratitude. And I just think that's really beautiful. So.

Oh, man, now you're going to tear me up. My gratitude to you, my gratitude to you for this performance, for this role, and for this chat. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much. Thank you, Joanna. And you know what? That thing that we're feeling, I feel it with a lot of people with this character, it's a part of us. You know, it's the reason why we're feeling it, I think, is because we're identifying it in ourselves. And it's nice to go, you know what? That's what I feel.

I understand this guy and it makes me feel good because I know that it's real and I know that there's some crazy motherfucker like that who also feels that so that's cool. Do you know what I mean? I do. I do. That does it for us this week.

We'll be back next week maybe with some twins for hit and run and Ben, until then, where can folks find you? Well, they can find me writing at the ringer on Twitter at Ben Lindberg but yes, we'll be back here next week until then think of us you can't always email us

at kim wexler lives at gmail.com you can find me over the Ringerverse podcast and elsewhere on the feed and this episode was produced by the great Chris Rissettin do not tweet spoilers at him

he's doing his best all right bye