WARNING: Spoilers ahead for Better Call Saul season 6, episode 8
Giancarlo Esposito's Gustavo Fring. Because both technically operate under the same cartel banner, one can't murder the other without upsetting powerful people. Instead of gunning for Gus directly, therefore, Lalo takes the smarter approach of seeking proof his nemesis is a traitor, and spends much of Better Call Saul season 6 sniffing out the secret superlab Gus built behind the cartel's back.
Gus realized this was Lalo Salamanca's intention earlier in Better Call Saul season 6 part 1. Under the guise of routine surveillance, Gus visited his superlab, carefully arranged the environment to his advantage, and hid a firearm somewhere easily accessible. One popular Better Call Saul theory suggested that Gus wouldn't just shoot Lalo Salamanca at the superlab, but that the cartel gangster's body would actually be buried under the construction site itself, perfectly hidden somewhere only a small handful of people know even exists.
Better Call Saul season 6, episode 8 ("Point & Shoot") confirms this theory... but with a morbid twist. As predicted, Breaking Bad. Subverting expectations, however, Better Call Saul goes one better by revealing Gus wasn't the superlab's only skeletal occupant. Howard Hamlin was under there too. This detail throws brand new meaning onto the superlab's role in Breaking Bad, because while gangsters burying gangsters under construction sites isn't completely unexpected, an innocent victim audiences know and love was also under that famous location the entire time. That's especially poignant for Jimmy McGill, who knew Howard for many years and was visibly traumatized by his murder, then worked with Walt and Jesse who were cooking meth directly on top of Howard's bones. Chilling.
Why Howard's Body Could Affect The Gene Timeline
As Breaking Bad viewers will know, Gus Fring's superlab proves an effective hidden grave for many years. Does this mean the fates of Lalo Salamanca and Howard Hamlin never become known? Perhaps not.
After assassinating Gus Fring in Breaking Bad season 4, Walter White destroyed the superlab by setting fire to it, incinerating the equipment and any evidence along with it. The very next season, however, Hank Schrader and the DEA began investigating the lab's remains, and found the actual structure intact, meaning any skeletons under the concrete floor were protected. Law enforcement almost certainly would've scanned for any nasty surprises underfoot, so the presence of two skeletons gets flagged sooner or later. While Lalo's loved ones are all dead by this point, the recovery of Howard's body might provide a slither of closure to the friends and family who always believed the HHM lawyer took his own life.
By the time police excavate, identify, and conduct a postmortem on Howard's corpse, the case might be reopened just in time to coincide with Better Call Saul's Gene timeline. And since Jimmy McGill's false identity has already been exposed by a nosy taxi driver (if, indeed, that is a taxi driver...) the authorities might discover a whole new reason to put Saul Goodman behind bars in Better Call Saul's ending.
Better Call Saul continues Monday on AMC.