This week Better Call Saul is the last script in the series written by Gordon Smith. After joining the Heisenberg-verse as an office assistant and then Vince Gilligan’s assistant at Breaking Bad, he graduated to full-time writer for the prequel, penning some of its most memorable installments. His first script was the disastrous Mike Ehrmantraut flashback episode “Five-O,” and in this latest season he’s written episodes that killed off both Nacho Varga and, on tonight’s “Point and Shoot,” Lalo Salamanca. The “Point and Shoot” recap is here, and below, Smith discusses the surprising timing of Lalo’s death, because Saul Goodman was still scared dead in his first appearance in Breaking Badthe challenge it Saul The writers have dealt with making sure their stories fit with what happened on the parent show, and more. Many people will be surprised that Lalo died with so many episodes left in the season. Why did it happen now?We had no interest in losing Tony Dalton, obviously. He is unbelievable. He is so much fun on set. We didn’t want to lose character either. But we felt like we had set those forces in motion, and these two titans of our story were colliding, and unfortunately, we knew Gus had to come out the other side. I suppose there was a world where Lalo limps off and Gus has to chase after him, but that felt like ground we’d already covered. We were happy to give him a big, big, big out. And he gets what he wants. He’s been searching since the end of season four for something he thought was happening. He was looking for Werner, chasing all these guides. So we gave Lalo the gift of taking everything—his heart’s desire—and it destroys him. Is that why is he laughing as he bleeds?I think some of them. And it’s that look of his, “Oh, you bitch! I he had you! I got you and you were lucky when you walked out the door.” What can you do but laugh? It’s obvious that you all enjoyed writing about Tony and this character. How much time did you spend in the last few seasons figuring out if there was a way for Lalo? not to die, given what Gus is doing Breaking Bad?There was a bit of time, especially because we wanted to make sure that Jimmy/Saul’s fear of him could live on if he died. What we came up with was that Jimmy is very afraid of him and is not going to believe—unless he sees the body himself—that Lalo is dead. The guy has already risen from the dead as far as he’s concerned. We were more concerned with making sure the scare survived than the character. We would like to keep him close, but we also know that until his end Breaking Bad, Gus says he killed the last Salamanca. So one way or another they were all getting out before Gus could talk to Hector. In that desert scene in the first episode of Saul Breaking Bad, Saul seems genuinely relieved that Lalo didn’t send Walt and Jesse. So he’s still afraid that dad is out there and coming for him?Yes. I think that’s the idea. The last thing he says before that gag kicks in [in this episode] is, “It wasn’t me, it was Ignacio!” And when the gag comes off [on Breaking Bad], that’s the first thing he says. So I think there’s a sense of feeling about Jimmy/Saul, and he’s never going to get over that fear. No rational part of his mind or logical information is going to make him feel anything other than that Lalo has sent something out there that might take a long time to crush him. There was a long stretch of this show where Jimmy and Nacho didn’t interact at all, and it seemed like “It was Ignacio!” the excuse wouldn’t match what we did or didn’t see in their relationship. How conscious were you all to explain that line?There was a difference of opinion as to whether we should explain it. Some people were more firmly on his side: “No, we really want to get to an explanation.” And others felt, “Hey, if we’re going to make it, we’re going to make it. No big deal. It won’t kill anything as long as we’ve done the dramatic work we’ve been trying to do.” Obviously, the people who wanted to be there won. Or I hope we win. I hope we convinced the naysayers in the room, [who] it will remain anonymous, which deserved to be done. At this stage in the writing process, how difficult was it to balance the needs of the story you’re telling on this show about Jimmy and Kim while making sure things fit with what’s going on? Breaking Bad? I’m not sure the difficulty has increased. It was always very difficult to understand all the pieces and where they fit into each other. There was definitely a heightened awareness that we were running out and we wanted to land the plane as gracefully as we could. I’m probably forgetting pieces that were out there. We had three stories, basically, that all had to come to a crisis and end, and hopefully we brought some of them to the crisis and the end. Saul Creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould have talked a lot about the difficulty of fitting everything between shows. What was the worst case scenario on this show where you wonder why you chose to get into such a mess? I can tell you there is something, but I can’t tell you what it is yet. There are some things in the back half of this season, after this episode, [where] we planted a flag. Some people felt we shouldn’t, and we had to struggle to figure out how to pay for it. And it caused some concern during this final season. You also wrote “Rock and Hard Place” this season, where Nacho, like Lalo, died earlier than many viewers expected. Were there discussions about him staying beyond that?Nacho probably could have wiped a little more. But there’s that diminishing return of seeing him come out of scratch. Vince directed this incredible sequence on Tom [Schnauz] and Ariel [Levine]The episode of Nacho drifting away from the cousins when he is trapped and almost certainly doomed in the hotel. And it’s like, how many times are you going to do this? It felt like we had to build it up to a crescendo or we’d start treading water. It was a sad situation, because we loved having him as a character to play in our toolbox and we loved having Michael Mando on the show. But we felt it was better for the character to really take control in that moment and direct the course of his destiny, rather than just being banished from existence. If you go back to Saul saying, “It was Ignatius!” in his first appearance, you can probably imagine a version of the story where Nacho survives and still sometimes works with Saul on the outskirts Breaking Bad. Was this ever discussed as a possibility?We had many versions. We were talking about that, if there was any version where Nacho was [on Breaking Bad] and [the audience] he didn’t know it. There were versions we talked about where he clearly plans to try to get his dad to Canada, and he does. But he felt wrong to realize this dream, and he felt an injustice to his dad and many other things. In the end, we felt like everything had a false note in it that kept him alive, so we felt like blaze of glory was the best way to go. There was a long period during this series where it was easy to believe that [on Breaking Bad] Saul believed that Mike was just a guy who worked for him from time to time and was unaware of Mike’s main occupation. At this point, he obviously knows a lot more, even if he doesn’t specifically know that Gus is Mike’s boss. Over the years, what conversations have you had about this question?We definitely tried to split those hairs very nicely. We know Gus and Mike aren’t friends, right? They are very close and have a close working relationship, but Mike is willing within a few days to go work with the guy [Walter White] who blew him up. There is no love there. There is only respect. Similarly, his relationship with Saul is not very close. There is an arms length to it. Some of it has to do with what he knew Jimmy. He knew Jimmy McGill as Jimmy McGill. I think he respected him more and has [developed] less and less as [Jimmy has] Saul-ified – as he fulfilled Chuck’s prophecies about him. But we definitely tried to make sure Jimmy meets Gus at Pollos Hermanos, but he doesn’t know who he is. Also, I think there is a willful ignorance on Saul’s part. After everything she’s been through, up until this episode, I wouldn’t want to know who the puppeteer was that put all this stuff in motion. That Mike works for him, great! But if he gets to know more than that, he’s deeper than he wants. I think he’s learned that he’s in a bit over his head in this part of the world. Jonathan Banks as Mike Ehrmandrout Greg Lewis/AMC/Sony Pictures Television When you put it that way, I’m trying to imagine the scene where, after all of this, Saul thinks to himself, “You know what a great idea is? I should call Mike and ask him to do a job for me now.”They are somewhat related by blood. That’s the point [we’ve] I always felt, even when there were separate strands of the show weaving into each other, that these two characters felt integral to each other’s journey and transformation. I think it would give him pause to call Mike the next time he wants to pick up the phone. I don’t think it will be an unweighted circumstance. But they were there and they took each other out at certain times. Even Mike would reluctantly admit that Jimmy has done things that helped him. Jimmy is the one who sets the conditions for Mike…
