After a seven-week break, Better Call Saul Season 6 returns to Jimmy and Kim’s apartment, where Howard Hamlin was already dead and Lalo Salamanca was clutching the murder weapon.
We quickly find that the most charming psychopath, the Silkiest Salamanca, has arrived with a complex plan that he has likely spent days perfecting while hidden in Albuquerque’s sewage system.
To ensure that the cavalry is sent to Jimmy and Kim’s apartment, he will send an unwilling assassin across town to shoot at Gus Fring. Heavy hitters like Mike were forced out of the way, which allowed Lalo to enter Fring’s superlab.
It was a reasonable plan that just once made sense. Lalo enters the laundromat that houses the superlab while avoiding the surveillance system set up to stop exactly what he is doing.
Mr. Salamanca, who doesn’t appear to be aware that he was almost caught on camera, is sold on this as good timing.
Then, four milliseconds before Lalo begins shooting Gus’ armed protection, Gus ascertains that Lalo is inside the laundromat. Gus then uses a monologue about the treachery and stupidity of the Salamancas to postpone his execution.
This strategy gives him time to kick a lighting cable, completely darken the lab, and retrieve the handgun he had hidden during a previous visit.
Gus does locate his weapon and shoots Lalo. If it weren’t obvious that we were dealing with a High Noon-style duel, one could wonder how a skilled murderer like Lalo missed Gus given the circumstances. Before Gus even got close to his rifle, he managed to fire off a couple of shots.
In this fight, Gus enjoyed a huge advantage that had nothing to do with his shooting prowess.
He is still alive for “Breaking Bad,” therefore he couldn’t pass away. He needed to live out his future. Since the beginning of “Better Call Saul,” genuine suspense has been, at best, infrequent.
Jimmy has experienced some close calls, such as when Tuco Salamanca almost kills him in the show’s pilot episode and when he almost passed out from heat stroke while hauling millions of dollars in a sack in the desert last season, but the tension in these existential moments is not of the nail-biting variety.
Everyone is aware that Jimmy will survive. This is why Lalo’s passing is so intriguing. The main plotline, Lalo’s quest for vengeance, is no longer driving with five episodes left. What remains?
Only Hector is aware of Lalo’s existence. The reason why the rest of the family is persuaded that Lalo perished in the home invasion is largely due to how convincingly he faked his death, right down to leaving a corpse that resembled him and almost matching dental records.
Recall how the Mexican peasant’s wife thanked Lalo for paying for her husband’s dental work? Yeah. Before he ever needed it, Lalo had a strategy for disappearing.
Fring will undoubtedly encounter some obstacles, but the writers have a great amount of creative freedom.
More than that, they can focus on Gene Takavic, the miserable schlub Saul turns out to be after seeing “Breaking Bad.” Takavic was last seen managing a Cinnabon in Omaha, convinced that his cover had been revealed.
Takavic doesn’t have the “future problem” that limits Jimmy/Saul, regardless of what happened to him. Nobody knows what will happen to Jimmy, Saul, or Gene.
Kim experiences the same. “Breaking Bad” never makes any mention of her. However, “Lalo” and “Ignacio” are real names, and both of those men have passed away.
One of the major unanswered questions in this novel is what will happen to Kim, and the intriguing potential that it would involve the Omaha version of Jimmy/Saul is intriguing.
