Better Call Saul: Lalo Salamanca is the Worst Character

[Music] you can call me you can call me you can call me you call me this is the moment Better Call Saul died all right get those down votes and hate comments ready because I'm coming in with some hot takes I hate Lao salamona I think he is the worst part of better call saw and the storyline revolving around him is so bad that I have a hard time watching the final season because of it now I know that's going to piss a lot of you off L is considered a fan favorite character and people rank him up there as one of the best villains in the story but if we look objectively at what LO actually does we see the problems not only with his story but the whole cartel storyline in Better Call Saul now my objective with this video isn't to [ __ ] all over Better Call Saul despite how I might come off at times I really do like the show but I just don't see people talking about the plot and pacing issues that I see they just Heap Universal Praise on the series and I think it would be disingenuous to not voice the few criticisms that I have so in this video I'm going to be breaking down why I hate Lala Salam monka and why he almost ruined Better Call Saul for me don't even worry it's going to be like I'm not even [Music] here Lo salamona is an antagonist and Better Call Saul and a high ranking member of the Mexican cartel he was actually introduced all the way back in Breaking Bad in the season 2 episode called Better Call Saul Walt and Jesse kidnap Saul Goodman and take him to an open grave in the desert there Saul utters this line Lo didn't send you no Lo who oh thank God now now at the time the reference to Lo and Osio was just a throwaway line it was just an interesting thing for Saul to say and it hinted that he had dealt with the cartel and other dangerous people in the past when it came time to write the prequel show better call SA they use this line as the basis for Designing the cartel storyline L is introduced in season 4 and the show establishes that he's actually a member of the salamona family the main cartel antagonist throughout the series he's characterized uniquely compared to his family unlike Tuco who's crazy and the twins who are silently murderous L is charming putting on a friendly front despite this he's absolutely capable of coldblooded murder we also see that he's the most clever member of the family being able to strategize and see through other people's deceptions in Better Call Saul his storyline revolves around his family's rivalry with Gustavo Fring Lo knows that Gus hates his uncle Hector and realizes that Gus must have been planning something he begins investigating Gus's activities which puts a strain on his plans to build a meth super lab Gus then arranges for L to be arrested for his murder of an innocent civilian Lo hires Jimmy to be his lawyer and has him retrieve his $7 million for bail money while driving through the desert he's ambushed by rival members of the cartel who want to stop Lo from getting out Jimmy is saved by Mike and after getting back to civilization they clean up the mess so that L doesn't suspect anything after getting out he plans on fleeing back to Mexico to avoid prosecution he realizes that Jimmy is lying to him when he finds the shot up remains of his car he goes to confront him but Kim manages to convince him that they didn't betray him Lo then goes back to Mexico with ignasio his right-hand man however Osio is secretly working for Gus who is threatening his father to keep him in line Osio opens the gate to L's compound allowing mercenaries hired by Gus to attack Lo though his people are killed Lo survives and manages to take out the mercenaries rather than go public though Lo fakes his death so that he can Ambush Gus whom he knows is behind the attack he tries to find proof of his deception going all the way to Germany to track down the engineers who built the super lab when that doesn't work he goes back to Jimmy and Kim he kills Howard who's in the wrong place at the wrong time and then forces Kim to go shoot Gus at his house however this is all a diversion to lure Gus to the lab where Lo ambushes him he forces Gus to make a confession on video but Gus gets the drop on Lo with a gun he planted in the lab Lo then dies in the lab bleeding but with a smile on his face it's him oh God it's him just save us give it up Mexican junker you don't want to do this all right now why do I hate Lo so much after all most fans of the show really seem to like Lo and think he's one of the best antagonists of the series they think he's cool they think he's scary and they love the performance I will say Tony Dalton did an amazing job with the role he's obviously an incredible actor and the problems that I have with Lo have nothing nothing to do with his performance no the reason that I hate Lo is that he's almost completely useless to the story Lo is an antagonist and his role in the show is to be a threat for the other characters he does have a part to play in Jimmy's story of corruption and how he became involved with dangerous criminals the whole friend of the cartel bit that they got from that line in Breaking B they also really do hit that Lo's actions left psychological damage to Jimmy and and it's the Catalyst for why he and Kim had to break up it was that [ __ ] Lo salaman that psychopath came back from the dead and he walked through that door he did this not us him however the majority of Lo's storyline is not focused on Jimmy but instead on his rivalry with Gus and this rivalry just does not work to create tension because of Breaking Bad We Know That L does not kill Gus we know that he doesn't even succeed in exposing him as Gus still has a relationship with the cartel at the start of the show so when we see Lo trying to go up against Gus there's zero tension because we know that he fails this is a problem with the entire cartel story line they wanted to make a more action heavy storyline for better call solve similar to what we see in Breaking bath but the problem is that as a prequel there's just nowhere for the storyline to go it lacks the tension that Breaking Bad has because all of the main characters of the cartel story line line already have their Fates established the show doesn't introduce any new original characters for Gus to work with just the crew we already see in Breaking bat so again there's not even a threat that L will kill one of the side characters we've come to love I mean the only original character that Gus interacts with is ly and in fact if Lo had killed Lyle it would have created an emotional impact much more so than Howard whom Lo had absolutely zero connection with it would also explain why he wasn't in Breaking Bad and given how much Gus values his employees it would have really hurt him to have his assistant manager killed those men outside or my trusted employees it would have also made much more sense for L to have killed ignasio nacho worked with Lo for multiple seasons and the two developed something of a friendship or at least as much as two people in the cartel could the Betrayal of that friendship could have been an interesting character moment if Lo ever confronted him about it but there's no payoff to nacho betraying Lo they never interact again and it's a big missed opportunity to actually have a real impact with Lo's character it's not even like with Jimmy where there's an emotional consequence to his actions neither Gus nor Mike are changed at all from their encounter with him I've seen people argue that Lo made Gus more cautious with his plans or he made Gus realize that he can't have people in his life because they would be at risk and that's why he didn't get with David the wine guy in his final scene but one Gus was already extremely cautious with his plans he was operating in secret for years for his revenge going so far as to even have his neighbor's house outfitted as a secret base to monitor activity and protect himself and that was before Lo even entered the scene so I don't buy that Lo made Gus into the cautious and patient man that we see in Breaking that I also don't buy that L was the reason that Gus didn't have love in his life it's not like he had a relationship with David before this and he broke up with him because he realized that guys like Lo might use that to hurt him he was already committed to living alone and focusing on his revenge long before Lo became involved if anything the final scene with David was just reinforcing the Gus chose revenge over any chance at happiness and it had nothing to do with Lo do you get that um that meaty it's almost bloody [Music] flavor I understand Blood for Blood I don't think this was the writer's intentions but they also inadvertently make La look really stupid take the scene where he's laughing because he thinks he had Los poos Hermanos burn burn down if you can focus on anything besides his sexy feet you'll see that he's being played for a fool Gus knew about his plan and burnt down his own restaurant to keep deceiving him and lo doesn't even realize he's being played he just comes off like a clown in the scene oh you wouldn't get it or take his confrontation with Kim I swear I'm not trying to go all Sigma mail on you or anything but allowing himself to get talked down to like that by a woman just makes him look weak now Kim's a girl boss and I love it but he's a cartel guy they're supposed to have maimo and to just Scurry off after Kim yelled at him when he knows in his heart that Jimmy betrayed him just makes him seem unintimidating no offense but you need to get your house in order oh really yeah really and finally I just cannot get over how stupid he looks when he's trying to film The super loud one he's crawling around a sewer like a rodent popping out of the storm drain like Pennywise it's just ridiculous in two the whole filming himself thing makes him look like a vlogger and we all know that people who Vlog are cringe as hell and on top of that he [ __ ] up his entire plan by calling his uncle on a tapped line sure he comes up with another plan after that but it just seems sloppy it's just one non-stop failure after the other now I'm sure people are saying but Kino what about the mercenaries he took them all out and got away sure I guess he finally gets a win in the contrived situation the writer set up for him but again this victory has no impact because these aren't characters on the story they're essentially just extras the same thing is true of his fight with the German engineer Lo managing to take him down has no emotional consequences because this isn't a character that we know or care about speaking of the Germany Arc not only is this sequence an incredibly boring tangent because the character is trying to find out information that we the audience already know it also inadvertently makes him look like a loser again in Germany he tries to seduce wner Ziegler's Widow but she ends up turning him down at the end of the night when he wants to come in now I know that what he actually wanted was information about what wner was building but the framing of the scene just makes him look like a dweeb who can't score we never see Lala with a woman which means that canonically this dupus has gotten more [ __ ] than him maybe there is something to the whole Lo Howard shipping after all Lo is like the Boba Fett of Better Call Saul people like him because he seems cool on the surface but he actually fails at everything he tries to accomplish that's not a good way to set up a villain if you want him to actually be intimidating or to have actual cont consequences for the series now I know it must sound like I have some kind of personal Vendetta against Lo and that I'm looking for anything I can to make him look bad to many viewers stuff like this probably doesn't matter they're just along for the ride and enjoying the show Lo in particular just really gets under my skin because he represents where the show Lost Focus before his introduction the series was much more heavily focused on Jimmy's character development and while they did continue to do that the whole cartel storyline just felt like a distraction from that and a chance to do more Breaking Bad fan service originally Vince Gilligan did not want to include Lo saying that they didn't need to answer every single question left open for Breaking Bad however Vince took a step back from the show after season 3 and Peter ghoul took the leadership moving forward he was much more insistent that they include details from Breaking Bad which is how he ended up with Lo and the cartel storyline in later Seasons I don't think Peter G is a bad writer but I do think that the show became more referential and less original under his watch than when Vince had the lead and that's really the reason why I made this video I don't like making negative content I much prefer to talk about the aspects of the show that I love but for better call Sal in particular I feel like not enough people discuss the flaws of the show the series is incredible don't get me wrong but it has flaws and those flaws should be discussed if we're going to truly appreciate the show for what it is the final season is very poorly paced being too long in parts and rushed in others and I blame Lo and the cartel storyline for that pacing which is why for me Lo is the worst part of better call song both because of his character and for what he represents but that's just my opinion and I know it's an opinion a lot of you are going to disagree with it's totally possible that I'm wrong about certain aspects of this too but it's just how I feel about the show if you disagree with me at all let me know in the comments but I hope either way you've enjoyed this video and stay tuned for more better call Sol content coming soon yoy kardo but you can call me Kino obscuring media Daz jit Sam Cedar Celery Man jenim Marie Johnson Brad Smith Studios Uncle Mike Matt Joyce count as Von zarovich and Luke [Music] p

Channel: Pure Kino

Views: 31,442

Keywords: pure kino, kino, better call saul, lalo salamanca, better call saul lalo salamanca, hector salamanca, better call saul theme, the best or worst of hector salamanca, better call saul analysis, better call saul video essay, lalo salamanca character study, lalo salamanca character analysis, better call saul characters ranked, lalo salamanca edit, better call saul tony dalton lalo salamanca, better call saul review, better call saul the guy for this, better call saul lalo

Id: TK6B4TgDtVE

Length: 15min 45sec (945 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 04 2023