Lacho

Lacho is the slash ship between Eduardo "Lalo" Salamanca and Ignacio "Nacho" Varga from the Better Call Saul fandom.

Season 4
COUSHATTA

Lalo Salamanca is first introduced in Season 4, Episode 8 of Better Call Saul, titled "Coushatta." He is seen cooking in the kitchen of trade spot El Michoacano and offers Nacho a plate of tacos he explains he made special in preparation of Nacho's arrival.

Nacho turns the food offering down and instead questions Lalo, learning that he is a member of the Salamanca family and has been sent from Mexico to help run things after Hector Salamanca is paralyzed. He explains that he has already heard about Nacho and knows his name, and he compliments Nacho's intelligence. He jokingly tells Nacho that business will go on as usual, like he's "not even here."

Nacho is visibly upset and frightened by Lalo's presence, yet he then must work with alongside him in daily duties for the business.

WIEDERSEHEN

Nacho accompanies Lalo to visit Hector at his nursing home to give him his bell to communicate. Lalo asks to speak to Hector without Nacho present to discuss Gus.

Later, Nacho and Lalo visit a Los Pollos Hermanos establishment and are seen eating together before Lalo leaves the table to speak to Gus in his back office about the current cartel arrangement of Fring and the Salamancas working together. When he finishes, he leaves the restaurant with Nacho and asks him to drive him to one of Gus's chicken farms.

Season 5
MAGIC MAN

After Lalo speaks to Werner Zeigler trying to track what Gus is building under Lavandaria Brillante, Nacho and Krazy-8 inform him that there may be a rival gang trying to encroach on Salamanca territory. Lalo makes Nacho drive him back to the previously visited chicken farm and looks through the packages of cocaine ready for distribution, where he tells Nacho that some of the product is not to Salamanca standard.

50% OFF

Gus's men kidnap Nacho in the middle of the night and threaten him with his father's death if he does not become a double agent for Gus. Gus forces him to earn Lalo's trust so that he can inform Gus of everything Lalo plans and then take down the Salamancas as Lalo's right-hand man.

Later, Lalo and Nacho are playing poker with a few other dealers, including Krazy-8. Krazy-8 receives a call in the middle of a game that some low-level dealers need help at a stash house. He leaves with Lalo and Nacho close behind, and they watch from afar with the dealers of the stash house as Krazy-8 is caught by police with the stash and arrested. They watch more police get called in to break into the stash house as one of the dealers tells them that a full load is still inside. As Lalo sighs in frustration, Nacho sees his chance to get Lalo's trust and leaves the car. He secretly gets into the stash house and is able to remove all of the product and escape before the police break the door in. He returns to the car sweaty and exhausted, and when he shows Lalo that he was able to save the entire stash, Lalo smiles and calls him a badass before driving away from the scene.

After Krazy-8's arrest, Nacho explains to Lalo that he could have him "taken care of" in prison, but Lalo proposes a different undetermined fate involving Nacho picking up Jimmy.

THE GUY FOR THIS

Nacho drives Jimmy to a garage, where Lalo is fixing his car. He sits next to Nacho as the two of them explain that they want Jimmy to give Krazy-8 a message in prison as his lawyer, and that Lalo heard about how good of a lawyer Jimmy was from Nacho and Tuco.

After setting up Krazy-8, Jimmy and Nacho meet with Lalo at a race track, where Lalo demands more of Jimmy's cooperation in the future. Nacho explains that Jimmy is now in "the game," and he cannot back out.

JMM

Nacho calls Jimmy to tell him that he is now the lawyer for "Jorge de Guzman," an alias for Lalo as he is in the Metropolitan Detention Center for the murder of Fred Whalen.

While in MDC, Lalo calls Nacho and instructs him to burn down a Los Pollos Hermanos restaurant for him to show Gus that he is still in control, even from prison.

BAD CHOICE ROAD

After being bailed out by Jimmy delivering his $7 million bail from the desert, Lalo visits Hector at his nursing home to tell him that he will be returning to Mexico to avoid further trouble, and that he trusts Nacho to take his place in watching operations while he's gone. Nacho then drives Lalo to the border to drop him off, but Lalo changes his mind last-minute and tells Nacho to drive around the area to look for Jimmy's abandoned car after the events of "Bagman." They find the car and it has bullet holes in it, disproving Jimmy's false cover story he told Lalo, and Lalo and Nacho drive back to Albuquerque to confront him.

Nacho stays in the car in the parking lot while Lalo speaks to Jimmy and Kim in their apartment, and when he is done Lalo finally tells Nacho to really drive him to Mexico.

SOMETHING UNFORGIVABLE

Lalo has Nacho drive down to Lalo's hacienda in Chihuahua, Mexico, where he warmly greets Nacho to his hacienda staff and he is invited into the wider compound as family.

In the compound, Nacho helps Lalo fix a car as they discuss that Don Eladio will be visiting them, and how Nacho should act meeting with him. Lalo tells Nacho that it is possible that he could be ranked up in the cartel if he makes a good impression.

Nacho gets a call later that night from one of Gus's men, that a raid will happen on the hacienda that Nacho needs to help with. Nacho explains that the raid would not be a good idea, as there are many innocent civilians working in the compound, but he is ignored.

When meeting with Don Eladio, Lalo warmly introduces Nacho to Eladio, and he watches fondly from afar as the two talk individually about Nacho's dreams of working for the Salamancas in the future. Hearing his plans, Eladio gives Nacho his blessing as a member of the Salamanca operation.

When Nacho arrives to the gate of the compound to open it for the raiders that night, he finds Lalo sitting at the fire pit, awake. The two speak briefly, where Lalo explains that he has insomnia, and Nacho lies that insomnia is also the reason he is awake so late. Lalo is drinking, and offers something stronger for Nacho, which Nacho then offers to fetch from the kitchen inside. Lalo seems pleased and waits for Nacho to return with stronger alcohol. When inside, Nacho sets up an oil trap to make smoke before coming back out with the alcohol. As he sets it down and they begin to drink, the oil smokes and Lalo goes inside to check it, allowing Nacho the time to open the gate for the raiders and escape quickly.

After being caught off-guard and fighting the assassins, he returns to the pit to look back at the glasses him and Nacho shared, understanding that Nacho had betrayed him and let the assassins in to kill him.

Season 6
WINE AND ROSES

Nacho is on the run from the compound, and Lalo leaves the compound soon after to find an old friend that he tricks into shaving so that he looks similar to Lalo, after which Lalo presumably makes the friend return with him to the hacienda and burns him inside so that it appears that Lalo died in the original attack.

His plan works, as he tricks almost everyone involved into believing that he died, including the Cousins and Gus. Eladio sends all available Salamancas to find Nacho and kill him for his betrayal. Meanwhile, Lalo calls Hector from the border to tell him that he is really alive and Gus is to blame for the attack, not Nacho specifically.

CARROT AND STICK

Nacho is hidden in a motel, but Bolsa is able to find where he is hiding and sends the Cousins to kill him. Nacho puts up a fight against them, and is able to escape alive, but with the Cousins also alive and uninjured following him.

Gus has also found out that Lalo is alive and after him.

HIT AND RUN

Nacho hides from the Cousins one last time in an old oil drum, and makes a final phone call to his father without telling him that he is in trouble. He then calls Mike to pick him up, and the two discuss that he cannot escape anymore and has to die without letting it be known that Gus sent him.

The Salamancas all gather outside a small remote shack, where Nacho is tied up and beaten, and he reveals that he was hired by a rival cartel in Peru, not by Gus, although Bolsa doesn't believe him. Nacho then reveals that he put Hector in the wheelchair by switching his pills, and that he was glad that Lalo was dead. After his monologue, he breaks free of his zipties with a piece of glass and grabs Bolsa's gun, pretending to hold him at gunpoint before shooting himself in the head instead.

Fanon
Fans found most tension and interest in Lalo and Nacho's classic "Enemies to Lovers" trope situation, and interest in their connection peaked after the scenes they shared in "50% Off" and "Something Unforgivable."

Fandom

 * FAN FICTION


 * TUMBLR

Trivia

 * On October 31, 2020, Tony Dalton, presumably unknowingly, quote retweeted Halloween-themed Lacho fanart on Twitter.
 * Similarly, in January 2022, Dalton unknowingly posted Lacho fanart again on his Instagram story, this time with the caption "I got you Nacho, I got you." He then deleted the original story and reposted with with an altered version of the caption, now changed to "I got you Nacho, I got you buddy."