Michael Mando's Better Call Saul showcase episode is a reminder why Ignacio "Nacho" Varga was kept around

Rolling Stone

"The writers of both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are proud to admit how much each show has been made up as it has gone along, and how many aspects of each were happy accidents," says Alan Sepinwall. "Jesse Pinkman was supposed to die within a few episodes of introducing Walter White to the ABQ drug scene, for instance; then Vince Gilligan got to watch Aaron Paul at work. Few characters in either series are more symbolic of that improvisational quality than Nacho Varga. Nacho only exists at all because in Saul Goodman’s first appearance on Breaking Bad, he mentioned the names 'Ignacio' and 'Lalo' to Walt and Jesse when they dragged him out to the desert to scare him. So when they decided many years later to do a Saul prequel series, Gilligan and Peter Gould had to come up with an Ignacio to explain why Saul would name-check him in such a tense moment. The funny thing is, that never quite happened. The initial plan was for Nacho and Jimmy to be frequent antagonists in Season One — but then, the initial plan was also for Jimmy to turn into Saul Goodman before the end of that first year. As the creative team fell in love with Jimmy McGill, Nacho became an early storytelling casualty, disappearing from most of the season’s second half before he and Mike briefly crossed paths in 'Pimento.' But Gould and everyone else liked Michael Mando’s work, for obvious reasons, and they clearly liked having someone on the cartel end of things who didn’t fit neatly into the franchise’s pre-existing archetypes."

ALSO:

• Bob Odenkirk interviews Tony Dalton for Interview magazine
• Between Nacho and Jimmy, this week's Better Call Saul featured two men faced with questions they think they have answers for
• Better Call Saul writer-director Gordon Smith discusses writing and directing this week's episode