Better Call Saul returns tonight on AMC and after an edge-of-your-seat Season 5 finale two years ago, the Breaking Bad spinoff has fans wondering what comes next in this last hurrah for the beloved crooked lawyer played by Bob Odenkirk. While Odenkirk delved into Saul’s problems for Season 6 with PopCulture.com, fans learned last week that Breaking Bad alumni Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul will be making their debut on the AMC series this season. Though not much is known at the moment, it’s no secret the return will have audiences in absolute awe.
In addition to Cranston and Paul reviving their characters, Walter White and Jesse Pinkman, respectively, it begs the question of whether there is another life beyond Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad for many of its characters. After all, Nacho Varga and Lalo Salamanca were first mentioned in Breaking Bad, yet the two never appeared in the show’s five seasons. While talking to PopCulture about the Season 6 premiere airing Monday night at 9 p.m. ET on AMC with a two-episode drop, series stars Michael Mando (who plays Nacho) and Tony Dalton (who plays Lalo) revealed they are unsure what the future holds for their characters even if their characters come off very present in Breaking Bad — the flash-forward of Better Call Saul.
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“That’s a question you ask the bosses [Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould] because these guys are masters,” Mando said. “They’re masters and whatever they do, they’re masters of these characters and of this world. Whatever they do, we’re with them. But I would say before we even think of that far, Season 6 is by far our best. It’s operatic. It’s tragic. It’s heroic. It’s bigger than life and I can’t wait for you guys to see it.”
Sharing how the cast, writers and crew “poured” their hearts into the final season, Mando expresses his hope for fans to “really have fun” while watching these last episodes. “All the diehard Breaking Bad fans and the diehard Better Call Saul fans can sit on the same couch and eat from the same popcorn and watch the same screen, and everybody’s going to be happy.”
While Dalton remained tight-lipped about his character, Dalton credited his performance to the writing superseding all expectations of what it means to have such fully fleshed-out characters. “It all starts with the writing, to be honest with you. Gordon [Smith], who created the character of Lalo and obviously, Peter and Vince,” he said. “The first time you see Lalo, he’s cooking in the kitchen when Nacho shows up, and he’s already dancing and he’s already got this happy-go-lucky kind of grin to him, so I just worked with that. You’re just at the mercy of the creators.”
Admitting how he had proposed stuff due to his own curiosity about seeing where the character goes, Dalton adds he wanted to do something that had “some charm” because it was an aspect of a character he had never explored before. “I wanted to throw in a little bit of charm into this sort of villain, just to make it different also and then we were just working on that, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, until we get it right.”
Better Call Saul Season 6 premieres April 18 on AMC at 9 p.m. ET with two back-to-back episodes. All episodes of Better Call Saul are available to stream on AMC+ and Netflix. For more on the series and all your favorite AMC shows, keep it locked to PopCulture.com for the latest.
