Laloward

Laloward is the slash ship between Eduardo "Lalo" Salamanca and Howard Hamlin from the Better Call Saul fandom.

Plan and Execution
Howard and Lalo only ever encounter one another once, in the mid-season finale of season 6.

When Howard enters Kim and Jimmy's apartment to confront them, the candle sitting on the coffee table flickers, signalling his entrance.

At the end of his monologue  regarding Kim and Jimmy's actions, the candle flickers again, signalling Lalo silently entering the apartment. Kim and Jimmy, (particularly the latter) are stricken with fear and shock at seeing Lalo, but Howard doesn't see him yet since he came up from behind. Howard finally turns and sees Lalo, with Kim stuttering and telling him that he needs to leave.

Howard asks Lalo who he is, to which he responds "nobody" and that he just needs to talk to his lawyers. Howard scoffs and suggests that Lalo finds better lawyers. Kim tries to get him to leave again, but Lalo interrupts and says that they can take their time. Howard asks what this is about, while Lalo slowly pulls out a gun, and screws on a silencer to it. Howard looks between the pair and Lalo, confused, and Kim asks if Lalo could just tell them what he wants, to which Lalo says that like he said, he just wants to talk.

Howard's breathing becomes more shallow as he realises more or less what situation they're in. He attempts to deescalate, saying that "there's really no need to-" before being shot in the head by Lalo, killing him.

Point and Shoot
Howard's body lays in the living room while Lalo talks to Kim and Jimmy. Later, Lalo gets killed by Gus in the superlab, partly because he let Gus keep talking until he was finished, unlike him cutting Howard off by killing him.

Gus instructs Mike and his crew to clean up the scene at Kim and Jimmy's apartment, and to make Howard's death seem like a suicide. In order to hide both bodies and make sure they're never discovered, Mike has Gus' men dig a hole in the superlab, and put both bodies inside, and then cover it up.

Construction of the superlab would then be completed, sealing the bodies up together for ever.,

Live Free or Die
DEA agents Hank Schrader and Steve Gomez survey the damages caused by the fire Walt and Jesse started in the superlab. Amongst all the debris, two bodies were uncovered that were burned beyond recognition. Originally, these were known to be the bodies of two guards that Walt had shot beforehand. Now, it is possible to interpret these two charred corpses as either those of the guards or those of Howard and Lalo.

Similarities
Better Call Saul has established two sides of the world the characters live in: the lawyer, legal side, and the cartel, illegal side. Howard was born on the far end of the legal side, and was born in a high position in the lawyer hierarchy, with his father and Chuck already being well established lawyers with an established legal practice, (a famous family name essentially). Lalo was born on the far end of the illegal side, being a cartel prince, with his family name being renowned in the cartel world. This places the two on opposite ends of a spectrum, but also like mirrors of each other, with their upbringings being remarkably similar.

Fanon
Prior to season 6, the pairing was practically inexistant. Then, with episode 7 approaching, some discussion of the two as a crack ship spawned, but when episode 7 was released, more people began to jokingly pair the two during the mid-season hiatus, especially with most fans theorising that Lalo would soon die as well. Once episode 8 was released, and the pair were buried together beneath the superlab, the ship grew exponentially.

Fans noticed how the two were buried with their hands touching, almost as if they were holding hands. Many fans joked about Howard and Lalo going off to Belize together, imagining that they either faked their deaths, went there in the afterlife, or a "fix-it" of sorts where they escaped there together and had met before their canonical meeting. Another version of them becoming close involves them in the afterlife, where fans would either imagine them as undead and zombie-like in their grave, or some sort of location after death where they're bound to each other.

Although originally referred to as a crack ship, many fans have begun legitimately pairing them together for a number of reasons, possibly the biggest being how the two are both very similar but also two sides of the same coin.

Fandom
FAN FICTION
 * Shoot Your Shot by VillaKulla on AO3
 * Shoot Your Shot by VillaKulla on AO3

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