Lalo is the Perfect Mirror for Saul Goodman.

Lalo Salamanca is the perfect mirror for Saul Goodman.

 

He’s detached and cavalier, ambivalent to consequence and implication. He is extraverted, jovial, and charismatic, hiding his depravity behind a smile. He warms up to his adversaries, putting on a show of genuine enthusiasm even as he plots against them. He endears himself to them through favours, all the while employing them to serve his ends.

While other characters employ some tactics of this nature, they are often “strong and silent”, “Stoic” types. Gustavo Fring is clearly meant to mirror Walter White: a calculating man of principle and an idealist who insists on quality and order. Lalo Salamanca is the polar opposite. His passions are not principles. He is not motivated by an underlying sense of Justice or ambition; all of that is merely rationale for instinct.

Similarly, Jimmy does not care about the Law nor what it means. His brother Chuck embodies the ideal of Law, and Jimmy only flatters Chuck in an attempt to get ahead before destroying him. For Jimmy, what he did to others in the past is of no present bearing. Other men’s vendettas are *their* problem and *their* choice, not consequences of *his* actions. He does not accept responsibility, but dodges it, despite the clear and present danger that this represents. He has no rationale in principle; he acts on instinct and then uses rhetoric to justify it.

Ordinarily, I don’t assume that we are most afraid of something in ourselves. External threats are far more terrifying, since they’re unfamiliar. For Jimmy, though, the lack of integration in his character produces a projection upon Lalo, just as Walter sees in Gus an image of his own ambitions, and in Jack he sees a mirror for his failings. Lalo Salamanca represents what Jimmy could become if he does not repent. 

There is a reason that I never will regard Gustavo Fring as villainous. Revenge is not an act of villainy. Revenge acknowledges the value of the life that has been taken by injustice, and it seeks to glorify that life by giving it a consequence beyond the grave. Revenge is based in honour and integrity, the willingness to see some form of justice done, though heavens fall. Gustavo dies avenging Max, destroying Hector Salamanca in the process. This makes him a hero, just like Spyke from *Cowboy Bebop*, for precisely the same reasons.

Lalo Salamanca is the perfect antithetical antagonist to demonstrate this point by contrast. He does not avenge, initially. He kills out of convenience. The deaths of Fred, of Werner, or of Caspar do not faze him. Representing Lalo in a court of Law, Saul Goodman witnesses a part of Jimmy dying, to the sound of Charles typing in the background. Jimmy represents the Salamanca Family because he lacks the courage to own up to his own failings in the past. Instead of turning over a new leaf, he takes the money in the episode that follows and becomes the Bagman. He evades responsibility at every corner, since the consequences of his actions seem to be an obstacle and not a value to be recognized.

The psychopath regards a death as being practical; if you are not alive, you do not matter, since you are no longer in the way. The man of principle, conversely, sees it as a tragedy to be acknowledged based on merit. Chuck and Gus regard it as the latter; so do Mike and Jesse. Yet the Salamancas kill for profit; this is why Gustavo’s claim that they do not believe in Blood for Blood is so impactful: that he has the moral high ground. Blood for Money is a lesser value, a corruption of true Justice. So, revenge remains the only antidote against this criminal corruption. Lalo Salamanca’s death then represents the death of criminal psychopathy.

Yet just because he dies does not mean that he’s dead within the heart and mind of Jimmy. Saul lives on in fear of Lalo Salamanca, since that set of tendencies, to weasel his way out of retribution, still remains until the final episode. It’s only when Saul Goodman takes responsibility for what he’s done that Jimmy is reborn, and so the brothers reconcile, though death divides them from each other. Jimmy recognizes that vendetta is not “bullshit”; everything that Chuck had done was Jimmy’s fault, since it was necessary to the ends of Justice, that which truly Matters Most, though Lalo laughs upon it. Just as Gus kills Lalo, thus establishing that Justice matters more than money, so Saul Goodman kills himself by choosing punishment instead of privilege. He too acknowledges that Justice matters most and that the Law is sacred. So, he goes to jail as Jimmy, though he is remembered as Saul Goodman, “Salamanca’s guy”, a slave to his own greatest fear.

**[({R.G.)}]**

**This Page has been Optimized for Discord.**

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First Response to Hazmat: Absolutist Ethics.

Image
Yes: I value the opinions of others, insofar as I can vouch for their integrity. Yet that requires that they fervently believe that what they say is true, that they can stand beside it, put it into practice, and uphold it as a sacred principle, as though it were a Higher Power which compelled them. It thus follows that, so long as an opinion is valid, one must validate it not by merely practicing that view within one’s own life, but by holding others to it. One cannot impose morality on anyone, because morality is binding on us all, in equal measure, and one’s only burden is to fathom it, to the extent one can, and to uphold it. That is not an imposition; it’s an obligation, and, without it, we have nothing. You once asked me: “At what point is it an evil to impose one’s views of righteousness on someone else?” I’ll answer with the obvious: at no point, whatsoever, since it is impossible. Where Righteousness is what’s at stake, one can’t “impose on someone else”, as though one posed a
Read more

Justice for R. Kelly: a Reflection on the State of Eros. (Dedicated to the Lady Jerri.)

  I've been reading, recently, about the life of Robert Kelly, whom you'd recognize from *Space Jam*'s soundtrack, the "Ignition" remix, and his many other hits, such as "Trapped in the Closet". It just breaks my heart to see how he was treated, not just as a child who had to grow up much too fast, but also as an adult, even after having given us such heartfelt, soulful music. I could never reconcile those sweet and sentimental, loving, sometimes mystifying tones with the entire image of a sex offender; he was a Don Juan, but not Don Giovanni.   Clearly, that same mainstream media that made him famous had betrayed him, while the legal system, which was never there for him when he himself most needed and deserved it, in the tenderness of youth, went well beyond its obligations in defence of "children". The hypocrisy is not the part which angers me, as it is so ironic that it's laughable, and that alleviates some of the sadness of this gr
Read more

The Early Death of Any Future Peace:

  The biggest problem with the issue of abortion seems, at first, to be that no one wants to talk about it *as* a controversial issue. All the major arguments which either “side” reiterates have been around for roughly half a century at least, and we have made no progress in resolving them in the last forty years. This does not stop idealogues from acting like the matter’s settled and that *their* side won, however.   Yet beyond the moderate, “politically correct” and “civil” surface of the issue lies the deeper issue: Hardly anybody wants to talk about abortion *in itself*, and those who advocate for “choice” (and, by extension, for abortion, as it has to be a choice) are those least willing to discuss *the act itself* and whether it is good or evil to commit.   Instead, we hear from advocates for “choice” a slew of beautiful ideals, impassioned speeches, and redundant platitudes: -    the value of one’s bodily autonomy, -    the need for women to receive protection in a m
Read more