Lalo Salamanca

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## Magnificent Baddie

### Alias

Lalo
Jorge de Guzman
Don Eduardo
Ben

### Allies

Hector Salamanca
Tuco Salamanca
The Cousins
His men
Don Eladio
Juan Bolsa
**All Formerly:**
Nacho Varga
Saul Goodman
Kim Wexler

### Powers/Skills

Exceptional intelligence
Manipulation
Leadership
Marksmanship
Strategic thinking
Charisma
Combat prowess

### Goals

Get Saul Goodman to bail him out of jail.
Take down Gus Fring's drug operation.
Trying to ascertain what happened during Saul's retrieval of the bond money.
Prove to the Cartel that Gus is working against their interests.

### Crimes

Mass murder
Assault
Kidnapping
Blackmail
Theft
Vandalism
Torture
Arson
Breaking and entering

### Type of MB

Charismatic Mastermind

**Eduardo "Lalo" Salamanca** is one of the main antagonists of *Better Call Saul*, the prequel to *Breaking Bad*. He is the nephew of Hector Salamanca and his successor after Hector was crippled for the rest of his life. Suspecting Gus Fring due to his history with the Salamancas and the Cartel, Lalo eventually begun investigating and tried sabotaging Gus's enterprises, coming into conflict with Los Pollos Hermanos which led to a failed assassination attempt.

He is played by Tony Dalton.

## What Makes Him Magnificent?

* Despite being a high-ranking member of the Cartel and a head of the Salamanca family, Lalo isn't as insane as most of them.
* Lalo is clearly one of the most competent Salamancas in the series. While still being raised by Hector into becoming ruthless and sadistic, he is a skilled planner and capable strategist with a charismatic, cheerful and friendly demeanor, unlike the rest of his family who are hot-headed and impulsive.
* He continually shows himself to care for his uncle, including gifting him a souvenir from their past, sneaking him in alcohol, consulting on him on almost all his plans and telling him he is alive (notably being the only one Lalo trusts enough to do so).
* After Hector suffered from a stroke (actually caused by Nacho Varga swapping his heart medicine with sugar tablets), Lalo decided to take over his businesses while Hector spends the rest of his life in retirement.
* Tried to get into Gus's good grace to let his guard down.
* Understanding Gus's secret contempt towards the Cartel, Lalo decided to investigate his operations to find any weak link.
* After seeing Mike Ehrmantraut at Los Pollos Hermanos and deducing he can lead him to Gus's secret operations, he decided to follow him, eventually learning about Werner Ziegler.
* Skillfully tracked Mike into TravelWire and learned about the hotel Werner is staying in by noticing Mike and Fred.
* After learning about the hotel, Lalo impersonated Gus's henchman and tried to get Werner to spill about the superlab built beneath the laundromat, only being stopped by Mike's timely arrival at the hotel.
* While he was bested by Mike, he didn't break down and instead humorously entertained Mike as Werner's secret ally.
* By careful observation, he found out that Gus is investigating in drugs other than the cocaine specified by the Cartel.
* While Gus lied that the meth was a precaution against Werner's betrayal and he is actually building an industrial chiller, Lalo didn't buy it and tried to make Bolsa see reason against Gus's extremely strong motive to betray the Cartel.
* After Nacho erased proof against Lalo's involvement by infiltrating the compound and stealing the cocaine, Lalo sincerely compliments him on his skill.
* He's well aware of when he's outmatched as when he sees a police car come, he initially tries to use a gun to escape but when he sees more cars come and that he's been cornered, he puts the gun down and allows himself to be arrested without a fight.
* Even when imprisoned, he doesn't let it get him down and calmly focuses himself on revenge against Gus. His plan went so well Mike had to sabotage his own earlier plan to let Lalo walk free again, just to stop him attacking Gus's properties.
* Suspecting that Jimmy was lying to him regarding the full details of the money transaction between him and the Cousins, Lalo investigated the area and found his destroyed car, thus realizing someone was behind Jimmy's transaction in the desert.
* Single-handedly fended off all the assassins sent after him by using intricate knowledge of his home to his advantage.
	+ Forced one of the assassins to relay information to Mike that Lalo was killed so that they won't come after him for a while.
* He deduced that Nacho allowed the assassins into his compound by noticing that the liquor glasses were undisturbed.
* Presented himself as a helpful friend to a local couple all the while covertly setting up the husband as a body double so he could fake his death in an attempt to lull Gus into a false sense of security.
* Traveled to Germany under a false identity and befriended Werner's widowed wife Margarethe to learn more about what Werner was building.
* Tracked down one of Werner's employees, Casper, through Margarethe's lucite block which had a label for the manufacturer.
* He nearly exposed Gus as a traitor to the Cartel, managing to capture Gus himself and coming dangerously close to killing him in his superlab, ultimately only losing due to Hector foolishly tipping off Gus he was still alive.
* Even after having been shot in the throat by Gus, he accepts his death with a smile.
* He is overall one of the few characters to ever unnerve the normally composed and calculated Gus, driving him into paranoia over when Lalo would strike.
* While he does have a couple of moments where he has a villainous breakdown, he manages to regain his composure shortly afterwards and those moments aren't as prominent to his character.

## What Makes Him A Baddie?

* Aided the Cartel in their drug-running operations.
* When a hotel owner disrespected Hector, Lalo tortured the owner and burned the hotel down alongside his uncle, even gifting him its bell as a souvenir of their sadism.
* Killed Fred Whalen and burned down the TravelWire to cover his tracks.
* Was ultimately responsible for Werner's tragic death at the hands of Mike, all because Gus was paranoid that Werner said something damning to him.
* Ordered Nacho to burn down Gus's restaurants as revenge for his imprisonment.
* Killed a local couple who thought of him as a friend in cold blood to fake his death.
* Sneaked into Margarethe's house to look for information on her husband's (Werner) crew.
* Attacked Casper, slashing his face with a razor blade and cutting off his leg, before forcing him to tell him about the superlab. It is also heavily implied that Lalo killed him afterward.
* Killed Howard Hamlin in front of Jimmy and Kim, traumatizing both of them for years.
* Tried to get Kim killed by Gus's men, all as a diversion.
* Threatened Jimmy that he would talk to him after returning, thus leading to massive trauma for him as Jimmy as Saul will live the rest of his life paranoid that Lalo will come to kill him.

## External Links

* Lalo Salamanca at the Villains wiki
* Lalo Salamanca at the *Breaking Bad* wiki
* Lalo Salamanca at the Near Pure Evil wiki

## Navigation

*Heisenberg's Empire*
Patrick Kuby | Mike Ehrmantraut

*Los Pollos Hermanos*
Nacho Varga

*Others*
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