#personal speculation

Sometimes they help the situations and sometimes they’ve royally fucked him over. And Mike has messed things up for them as well. So to be fair, that’s a two way street. Nacho and Jesse totally have the capacity to be disrespectful little shits if they want to be.

All on top of Mike being a veteran from Vietnam; and let’s not forget the guilt and remorse he feels surrounding the death of his son, having to cope with Post Trauma and heartache. Etc.

And when either of them first met Mike, I doubt they would have had many nice things to say.

Both have a great amount of knowledge, intelligence and experience in certain areas of their fields and beyond that in skills they might consider mundane; while also lacking foresight and information in other aspects that matter just as much. If not more so. Over time, though, we see Nacho and Jesse come to the value interacting with Mike and they realize themselves what he can teach them.

BCS/BB has a theme of what could have been, which still holds true when we’re talking about Nacho and Jesse. “If only they hadn’t needed to go down the paths that they did?” type thing. Grant it, we haven’t seen yet how the rest of Nacho’s story is going to play out. Both are trying to find their voices, and they want to have freedom to live life and make money in a difficult world that looks down on them.

So having a father figure with Mike’s values is someone who Nacho and Jesse could look up to, to some extent. And Mike, I think, needs that in his life too. With his son gone, he has a piece of his soul that misses having that connection. To pass what he knows on.

But Mike doesn’t forget that it’s still business, and Nacho and Jesse are going to keep doing what they need to. So maybe that is why he is very abrasive and grouchy with Jesse at first, if some of the actions Mike took in the past with Nacho led to destruction. In some instances, even accidentally making the situation worse out of actions of his revenge and hurting Nacho in the process.

Now, I think it’s safe to say at this point that there is an intertwining of the story, connecting Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman to Nacho Varga. And as the story progresses, we’re getting a better picture of their pasts, information and meeting people they know and associate with, but also where that is leading them. In Jimmy’s case, we’ve met his father, his mother, and Chuck. All of which have had key effects shaping Jimmy throughout his life into Saul. Chuck especially. And now, with Nacho we’re getting more development with him. We’ve already met his father, Manuel. We might find out what happened to his mother too.

But there seems to be, at the very least, a third ribbon to this. Tuco. And along with him, the Salamancas and the Cartel. Even while off-screen entirely, in prison, Tuco Salamanca is still a threat. He will eventually get out. Not only that, but Tuco is a danger to both of them, whether he has openly intended to show it or not. He was going to kill Jimmy before Nacho talked him out of it. And in Nacho’s case, he is more than aware of what Tuco is capable of. That is part of the reason for why Nacho and Mike went through all that trouble of putting him away. Because despite Nacho seeing the value in continuing to work with Tuco, he realized that sooner or later the pattern of his superior being a loose cannon was going to put him in one of two places. A prison cell or the morgue. And just as with Pryce, he made a difficult decision.

Just from Breaking Bad, we’ve met a number of his family members. Hector, the Cousins, Joaquin; and even Gonzo, who is his brother-in-law. And in the first season of Better Call Saul, we met one of the only people Tuco seems to care about: his Abuelita. So who’s to say that there isn’t the likelihood to eventually see more relatives of his? Even in Breaking Bad, it was mentioned he had (to whatever capacity) a girlfriend. We never met her or others, but at this point we still don’t know who Vince and Peter could introduce us to next.

So how could all this possibly connect to the mysterious “Lalo”, mentioned by Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad?

Well, along with Lalo on the roster of people we haven’t been introduced to, including Nacho’s mother, is Tuco’s mother and father. Hector took Tuco under his wing. Teaching him about the business and treating him like a son of his own, with the hopes of Tuco taking over when he’s gone. But where in all of this is Tuco’s dad? What is his relationship with Tuco like? What was he like to him as a father and how does that factor into transforming Tuco into the man that we see? And what about his father’s relationship with Hector?

If something were to happen to Hector Salamanca, it would only make sense there would be a contingency plan in place to make sure things continue to run. A successor, even a temporary one could fill in to keep the Cartel secure. With Tuco in jail, the job will fall to someone else. Nacho, unfortunately, isn’t up high enough and doesn’t have familial connection in that way to have an in. Especially when he wants to have that freedom to make decisions for himself, and the ability to make more money.

Based on other legal systems of inheritance, it could be assumed that that would be passed to the next of kin, to a brother or sister. Maybe they’re not someone with quite the level of experience as Hector or Tuco, but still, somebody who could handle it well enough? If Lalo is Tuco’s father, then he could be a perfect candidate for that. To just show up and fill those shoes. Oversee not only the distribution of product on their turf, but also look after Hector and eventually investigate what happened?