In Better Call Saul, Nacho befalls everyone and arranges his own end on his own terms. A very satisfying end despite its sadness. Yet the takeaway I had seems to be much different from the classic interpretation. Spoilers ahead, of course.

The classic interpretation is that Gus, Mike, and Nacho aligned on him running at Victor so he could be shot in the back, avoiding torture at the hands of the Salamancas. After rehearsing at the chicken farm, Mike requests to be there as an insurance policy, which Gus accepts. While staying overnight at the farm, Nacho notices glass shards in the trash can, which he keeps so that he can stab Bolsa in the shins, grab his ankle pistol, and shoot himself. He succeeds thanks to each party’s reluctance to shoot Nacho and Mike’s apparent negligence in not patting Nacho down before the transfer. Nacho gets his own end and screws over everybody.

That’s not the interpretation I had during my first watch. Given that Mike had a secretive conversation with Nacho over drinks in their dark secret lair, out of earshot of Gus and his henchmen, I assumed they aligned on an alteration to Gus’s plan: even though they would superficially agree in front of Gus to do the Victor run, Nacho would retrieve a glass shard from the bin, stab Bolsa in the shins to get his gun, and take out Bolsa before being gunned down.

There are multiple signs I interpreted as indications of exactly this plan. First, Gus always wanted to take out Bolsa, which he does in Breaking Bad, even though Bolsa was nominally a lukewarm partner of his. Bolsa was an obstacle to be brought down before the rest of the family, and Mike was likely aware of this plan. Bolsa was also a participant in Max’s execution alongside Hector and Don Eladio. Having Nacho take out Bolsa would be of great advantage to Gus and Mike. Even though we may assume that it would have been disastrous for Gus given the circumstances, in Breaking Bad Bolsa’s death is shown to be a nothingburger to the Salamancas.

Second, Mike likes revenge and thought it would appear reasonable to Nacho. Mike as a revenge-taker is shown thoroughly in Better Call Saul, starting with his avenging of his son’s murder. “The Salamancas are going to kill you, you might as well kill one of them.” An eye for an eye, which is also Gus’s philosophy, one that further strengthened Mike’s vengeful resolve despite his cynicism. Also, it is clear to me that Mike saw much of his son in Nacho, and because his son didn’t have the opportunity to fight back, he wanted to give Nacho that out.

Third, I don’t see Nacho “stumbling” upon the glass in the bin. He pours himself a glass of water, walks exactly to the counter where the bin is, and looks down into it. There is some visible hesitation, but nothing I find indicative of a discovery and subsequent plan-hatching. It appears to me that Nacho was told where the glass was and he immediately committed as soon as he was left alone at the chicken farm. The hesitation seemed to simply be a reflection on what he was about to do. Coincidentally, the mental reflection accompanied a physical reflection in the shards.

Fourth, while looking at the scene through his scope, Mike kept saying “Do it, do it” with a stern expression, not the surprise you would expect if Nacho had deviated so dramatically from the plan. Mike’s prayerful encouragement sounds more like there was one final step to take, a difficult step that would normally take a lot of willpower to execute. In this case, it was shooting himself. I don’t think it referred to him running towards Victor.

Fifth, Mike requested to be present at the scene, with Gus initially declining but then begrudgingly accepting after Mike’s argument. This is a further sign of the deviation: even though Mike truly wanted to be there as insurance, it was more insurance to protect Mike and Nacho’s plan than a general precaution.

Sixth and finally, Mike didn’t pat Nacho down before the transfer? Or he failed to? He would most assuredly have caught the glass shard given the sensitive circumstances; as thorough as Mike is, he wouldn’t have neglected this. If it got past Mike, it’s because it was meant to be there.

So this was the interpretation I held for many years, but after subsequent rewatches of the series I’ve refined it slightly. I still observe that Nacho and Mike aligned on a deviation, but Nacho brought his own deviation that Mike didn’t account for, as a kind of “fuck you” to him as well, since they were never on the best of terms despite Nacho having Mike in his corner.

I owe this refined interpretation to the thematic of revenge that runs through Better Call Saul, which is especially apparent in the later seasons and is expressed most clearly by Nacho’s father, Manuel. When Mike goes to Manuel to tell him that his son is dead, he also states that justice will be done. Manuel is skeptical of Mike, berating him and equating him with all other gangsters, stating that what he talks of isn’t justice but revenge. This is a stab at Mike’s character, since he considers himself a cut above other criminals despite outward appearances: despite what you believe you are, you are still addicted to revenge, just like Gus. No justice is being done here, which Manuel spells out quite clearly to Mike.

In this respect I believe Nacho takes after his father. Nacho didn’t want revenge; he wanted all of this to stop. Nacho didn’t hold Gus in much higher regard than the Salamancas, and he certainly would have been skeptical of, if not outright rejected, the approaches given to him by both Gus and Mike. Gus’s approach was a no-go, but so was Mike’s, because it still worked to their benefit with Bolsa dead, and it would have been an act of revenge, another eye for an eye. Therefore Nacho deviated from Mike’s plan as, again, his final “fuck you” and shot himself instead of Bolsa. This way, he owns his fate, Gus gets nothing, the Salamancas get nothing, and Mike gets nothing. Nacho, and by extension his father, win because there is finally no revenge. This is the only way Nacho consistently gets the higher ground.

Adding to this interpretation is how we rank the characters of Better Call Saul on a moral ladder. At the very bottom we find the Salamancas, the worst of the worst. Above the Salamancas we find Gus, still quite immoral. Above Gus we find Mike, who has nobler intentions, and at the top we find Nacho. This moral ladder, however, becomes incongruent if we go with the first two interpretations. The “Nacho alone deviated from the Victor run” interpretation, the classic one, equates Mike and Gus in morality while putting Nacho on top. However, Mike and Gus are not on the same moral ground, so I reject this. Likewise, the “Nacho and Mike deviated from the Victor run to kill Bolsa” interpretation I first had still errs by equating Mike and Nacho in morality, even though it corrects Gus’s position on the ladder. Mike and Nacho are still not on the same moral terms.

Therefore, to keep the ladder fully separated, you have to separate Mike’s level from Gus’s level, and Nacho’s level from Mike’s level. Mike deviated from Gus to give Nacho a better end, and Nacho deviated from Mike to give himself his own fate. In this manner the moral delineation becomes clear: Salamancas, Gus, Mike, Nacho. It simply requires Nacho to screw over everyone else, including Mike, but also for Mike to screw over Gus, even if ultimately to Gus’s benefit.

Some more thoughts:

  • I reject that Nacho went into this blind. He did not pick up the glass shard just in case, to improvise. He was most likely told that Juan Bolsa had an ankle gun, that he would be kneeling, and that he could use the glass shard to stab him and pick up the gun. I don’t know how Nacho could otherwise have learned that Bolsa had an ankle gun. This doesn’t diminish his intelligence; rather, it reinforces his will to go down his own path. It’s highly symbolic.
  • Nacho most likely assumed that shooting Bolsa would get his father tormented, so that was a no-go as well. However, Mike cared for Nacho’s father, who isn’t in the game, and knew that action against Bolsa wouldn’t harm him, because Hector was the one who tried to deal with Manuel, and Hector disliked Bolsa anyway. We see this indifference towards Bolsa in Breaking Bad, when Don Eladio legitimately doesn’t give a shit when Juan is murdered by Gus.
  • Nacho does his best to appear accepting after Mike steps out of the van. He has big, wide puppy eyes and an implied grin, and he nods along towards Mike. This is unusual for Nacho, who disliked everyone around him, and the look turned to anger as soon as he left the van anyway. I interpret this as either (1) Nacho doing his best to hide his divergence by pretending to fully go along with Mike’s deviation, or (2) Nacho actually being happy, unusually happy, because he knows that he will have his own end.
  • Nacho’s suicide, which screws over everyone including Gus and Mike, further justifies and colours Manuel’s skepticism towards Mike at the auto shop. It makes Mike lie when he implies that Manuel’s son was killed by the Salamancas, even though Nacho took his own life. Mike’s claim of justice is then even more ridiculous, because there is truly no justice to be dispensed. Manuel seems to notice he’s not being told the whole truth, which costs Mike his sympathy.