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You wanna be a friend of the Cartel? Time to get yourself a new motto. "Just Make Money."
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~ Lalo discussing with Saul about what the acronym JMM should be.
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Okay... Let's talk.
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~ Lalo's relaxed reaction to Saul and Kim after murdering Howard in cold blood.
Don Eduardo "Lalo" Salamanca is one of the two main antagonists (alongside Chuck McGill) of the crime drama series Better Call Saul, the prequel series to Breaking Bad.
A charismatic yet relentless psychopath, Lalo is a member of the Salamanca Family who is affiliated with The Cartel and is also the eldest nephew of Hector Salamanca; in addition to being the cousin of Tuco alongside both Marco and Leonel, as well as an uncle to Joaquin altogether. Originally coming to New Mexico to run Hector's business for him, he eventually flees back to Mexico and begins a crusade against Hector's sworn archenemy Gus Fring following a failed assassination attempt.
While it's possible that he had a tragic background of being abused by his own uncle, not only did it occur wholly off-screen and no sympathy has been given, but there is nothing to legitimately reaffirm this facet of his biography, with Lalo himself at most nonchalantly mentioning how Hector "Taught him to hurt people", which does not excuse his actions nor makes him tragic or indicate any agency issues, moreover so, as he is the most intelligent and calculating member of the Cartel.
He was the right-hand man of his uncle, Hector Salamanca, in the Salamanca Family and ended up becoming one of the higher ranking Dons of the Cartel.
Like most members of the Salamanca family (and perhaps even more prominently) he is a very cruel and dangerously ambitious person who lacks any basic morality.
He was hinted to be homophobic like his uncle, although it is not as extreme.
Even when he acts all charming and charismatic, other characters around him seem to be somewhat unsettled and creeped out by him, proving that he has a dangerous aura around him.
He also acts in a bullying and jerk manner to those he views below him, best showcased on how he viewed Nacho in the beginning.
Coinciding with this, while his charisma gives him some comedic moments, they are funny only for the viewers, and he's treated deadly serious in-universe. It also mainly serves to highlight how contradictory he is in terms of presentation compared to his ruthlessness.
While most of the characters throughout both shows consider the criminal life "the game", they only view it in name only and handle it with serious business, however Lalo is one of the few characters who actually lives the criminal life like a game, enjoying hunting down and taunting his rivals, making him all the more inhumane and psychopathic in general. It is also hinted that he has a complete disregard for human life in general, as he even laughed at his own death.
Although he acts friendly and loyal to Eladio, like his uncle, he somewhat views it as a burden and is only acting like that for pragmatic reasons, knowing how powerful Eladio is.
This is best shown when he curses out both Eladio and Bolsa and carefully looks around to make sure nobody heard him, probably fearing what Eladio might do as payback.
Although he had some genuine affability towards Nacho at first, being friendly around him and congratulating him for being "halfway to being a Salamanca," this is ultimately subverted after learning he participated in Gus's plan to assassinate him.
In the Past[]
He and Hector Salamanca tortured a hotel proprietor to death while his wife was listening for disrespecting them, and then burned his hotel down. It is also possible they killed all the other guests as well due to burning down the place,
The proprietor being snide and cruel to them and not likely repentant about treating them or other people this way in no way makes this deserved or an appropriate action of retribution.
According to Eladio, at some point in the past, when Lalo was captured by the Mexican police, he managed to break out and quite possibly murdered some of the guards.
Better Call Saul[]
Season 4[]
He manages the drug deals after Hector's stroke.
When visiting his uncle inside the nursing home, he nostalgically reminds him of the time when they tortured the hotel proprietor together, proudly claiming that he took the guy's bell as a trophy and gave it to Hector as a gift and a way to communicate. When Hector uses it and starts to annoy everyone around them, Lalo just laughs maniacally.
Tried to take down Hector's sworn archenemy Gus Fring and his drug empire without the latter teasing him, although to be fair this is because Gus is the competition to the Salamancas and because he might be trying to kill them all.
He tries to track down Mike, though Mike manages to get rid of him.
He rear-ends a driver in the parking lot to follow Mike's car when the ticket machine at the tollbooth is jammed by Mike.
Spying on Werner Ziegler and manipulating him into telling things he shouldn't have which causes his death at the hands of Mike, on the orders of Gus and almost causes his wife to die.
Killed a TravelWire worker called Fred by bludgeoning him to death and then burns down the entire building.
Season 5[]
During a meeting with Gus and Bolsa following Ziegler's death, Lalo shamelessly taunts Gus by hinting at his bluff.
While explaining why he and Hector don't trust Gus to Bolsa, he makes fun of the death of Gus' lover.
After realizing how horrible the Jell-O tastes which is given to Hector, he gives his uncle alcohol which is hinted to be illegal or at least against the nursing home's policies.
While playing poker with his men, when Nacho tries to give him an idea, Lalo rudely tells him to shut up.
It's implied he would have killed or otherwise harmed Domingo Molina if he defeated him while playing poker, given how Domingo was scared of him.
While Nacho Varga was risking his freedom to get his cocaine, Lalo was simply laughing while having some snacks in his car, sadistically enjoying the sight, creeping out Mouse and Arlo in the process.
He was planning on killing Domingo before Nacho convinced him not to.
With Saul's help, he turns Domingo into a DEA informant so he could take down one of Gus' business operations.
Uses his connections in prison to smuggle a phone into his cell and has Nacho Varga burn down a Los Pollos Hermanos restaurant after getting jailed, and it is also hinted later this season that he used similar connections so that Tuco can be set free from prison 11 months later.
During his trial in court, when Saul tells him that Fred's family was present, Lalo just shrugs it off as it was nothing to him. In fact, at first, he didn't even remember who Fred was until Saul had to clarify that it was the guy that Lalo murdered.
Has Saul pick up the money needed to bust him out of jail, which almost led to his death and Mike's death added to damaging the image of Saul.
He menacingly asks Kim who she is after she demands to know where Saul is and after finding out that she is his wife, Lalo begins to creep her out.
When Saul comes to bring him out of prison, Lalo gives him a veiled threat by commenting on Kim being his wife.
After realizing something went wrong when Saul went to pick up his money, he enters his house and tries to intimidate him into telling the truth.
He runs away to Mexico so that the police will forget about his actions.
Despite caring for the people in his house, he's not above insulting and intimidating them.
During a meeting with Don Eladio at his pool, Lalo begins to mock Bolsa for Gus not bringing as many cash as he used to, when Lalo was the indirect reason for that being the case.
When Eladio asked him whether Lalo killed some people back in Albuquerque, he proudly claims that he had his own "pound of flesh" referring to Fred proving that he did enjoy some part of this deed.
Uses one of his henchmen Ciro, a 17 year old boy, as a human shield, resulting in his death.
Although he brought up Ciro's death later, showing his consternation, Lalo is the reason he died to begin with.
Kills every single assassin sent after him, and also burns the face of one of the assassins and forcing him to stage that the assassination was successful, when he apparently got rid of that one later. While all of those kills were in self defense, the last assassin was already disarmed and unable to fight back, making it straight up murder.
Season 6[]
Fakes his own death to buy himself more time while trying to hunt down Gus. Although to be fair, this was entirely in self-defense.
Kills Sylvia Ramos to get rid of witnesses.
Kills Mateo Ramos, after manipulating the man into unwillingly being his body double, just to fake his death before burning the corpse.
Kills the two coyote drivers who wouldn't give him his money back.
Defrauding Margarethe Ziegler and then infiltrating her home to look for Ziegler's employees and he would have killed her if she found him in her house.
After being confronted by Casper for trespassing on his land, Lalo slashes his face with a razor blade after letting his guard down and then chops off his foot with an axe before torturing him to find out what Gus has been hiding (he's also heavily implied to have killed him off-screen).
Tried to kill every single one of Gus' men to get into his secret meth lab.
Tricked Gus and his men into thinking he's going straight for Gus, when instead he's going to Saul and Kim Wexler, before heading to the laundry.
Kills Howard Hamlin in front of Saul and Kim just for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. This would go on to traumatize both of them for years.
The circumstances of Howard's death forced Saul and Kim to lie about him, which ruined his good name even after his death and hurt his widow.
Has Kim attempt to kill Gus, despite knowing she might not survive.
Ties up Jimmy in his house and makes it clear that he will return to torture him to find out what happened when he went for his money.
It's heavily implied that if it was Jimmy who was sent to kill Gus and not Kim, he wouldāve killed Kim to get rid of witnesses.
Ambushes Gus and kills four of his henchmen, three of whom were instantly shot dead whilst one was mortally wounded before Lalo casually finished him off.
Tries to kill Gus, but not before having fun with him through shooting him in the stomach and then kicking him down the stairs.
While recording the footage he makes about Gus and his betrayal, Lalo expresses how much more fun it would've been to skin Gus alive at the pool with Eladio.
In his last moments before his death, he laughs, further demonstrating his utter lack of remorse for everything he's done.
Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul 6x09-6x13[]
He is overall one of the main causes as to why Saul became the crooked man he is during Breaking Bad. By enlisting him as his lawyer, he shaped his reputation into that of a "criminal" lawyer who will make even the most dangerous and guilty man go free. His murder of Howard is what causes him to suppress his emotions and embrace the Saul Goodman persona as a coping mechanism to avoid the trauma, while leaving him paranoid about the possibility that one day Lalo will come back and kill his loved ones. As such Lalo is also responsible for Kim breaking up with Saul to avoid people from being harmed again and leaving Albuquerque to move to a depressingly quiet and rather boring suburban life in Florida.
In addition to Saul's downfall, Lalo making Saul a criminal lawyer leads to Walter White and Jesse Pinkman hiring him as his lawyer, kicking off the majority of the events in Breaking Bad, leading to Walt becoming even worse than before and expanding his drug empire even further, as well as eventually ruining his entire family and Saul getting exposed and forced to hide in Nebraska as Gene Takavic, which ends with him being forced to spend the rest of his days in prison. Also, Saul was confirmed to suffer from serious PTSD thanks to Lalo's actions in Better Call Saul's sixth season, as when he was kidnapped by Walt and Jesse in 2008, he kept speaking Spanish and asked them if they were sent by Lalo, despite Mike telling him four years prior that Lalo was dead for good, confirming that Saul always believed the possibility that he might still be out there.
This paranoia and fear of Lalo continued on up until his days as Gene Takavic in 2010, when he called Kim Wexler, Saul said that "Lalo is probably underground" while mentioning that both Gus and Mike are dead, 6 years after Lalo's actual death.
Sometime during Better Call Saul's fifth season, he managed to reduce Tuco's sentence in prison through his connections, which enabled Tuco to take over the Salamanca Territory in Albuquerque as seen in the first two seasons of Breaking Bad, making Lalo posthumously responsible for Tuco's heinous actions in Breaking Bad and the consequences of his cousin's actions.
What Prevents Him from Being Pure Evil?[]
He possesses very genuine care for several people, including:
His family: Like the other Salamancas, he believes in a "family is all" motto, has great care of Hector, is enraged when Gus bugged his phone line, tried to cheer him up by reminding him the time they burned down a hotel and gave him the bell (that survived the fire) as a gift; called Marco and Leonel good boys; speaks fondly of Tuco; and during the scene which implies Abuelita died, is shown to be sad at the mention of her.
He was also shown to be upset about the fact that Tuco is an addict, knowing how volatile his cousin is when he is on the stuff.
His henchmen: Despite his rather cruel treatment of them, he's enraged when the bodyguards in his hacienda were killed by the assassins, and even says they were people he cared about, including that of a 17 year old boy he knew who had never hurt anyone.
Although his rant about Ciro is hypocritical because Lalo himself is the reason the boy died, it still proves regardless that he bears at least small affection to some people around, therefore it isn't a subversion.
He has a Pet the Dog moment when he lets a truckload of immigrants live after killing two coyote drivers and gave all their money back despite having no reason to do so.
Trivia[]
Lalo Salamanca is the only Near Pure Evil from the Breaking Bad franchise who originated from the prequel Better Call Saul instead of the original show. He is also one of the two Near Pure Evils who appears in only one instalment of the Breaking Bad franchise, the other being Jack Welker.
He is the only Near Pure Evil from the Breaking Bad franchise to also be a Magnificent Baddie.
Ironically, he previously was joined by his arch-nemesis Gus Fring, before Gustavo was removed from NPE wiki.
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Near Pure Evils
