Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Better Call Saul season 6, episode 3, "Rock and Hard Place."
The opening scene of Better Call Saul season 6, episode 3 sees it rain, a rare weather occurrence in the Breaking Bad universe that connects to Nacho Varga’s (Michael Mando) fate. One of the biggest shocks of the show so far is delivered in Better Call Saul season 6, episode 3, as Nacho takes his own life. Having been boxed into a corner by Gus Fring’s (Giancarlo Esposito) plotting and the Salamancas’ need for revenge, Nacho was going to die regardless, but went again Gus’ plan and took matters into his own hands.
The episode’s opening scene gave some hint of what was to come, as it was actually set after the rest of the events had transpired. Set at the same spot where Nacho died, it showed the shared of glass he used to stab Juan Bolsa (Javier Grajeda), as well as blue flowers growing and, perhaps most notably, rainfall. With Breaking Bad and its spinoffs set mostly in New Mexico, it’s unsurprising that it hardly ever rains, which makes the choice to show it at this specific moment feel more symbolic.
Notably, it never rained onscreen in Breaking Bad, whereas in Better Call Saul season 6's “Rock and Hard Place” the rain comes down heavily and takes a prominent placement in the cold open. This gives Nacho something of a connection to Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) in El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, another spinoff where rain played a meaningful role in the story of a well-meaning character trying to not only escape his fate, but secure his parents’ freedom and safety outside of his own life of crime.
In El Camino, while Todd Alquist (Jesse Plemons) earlier comments on the chances of rain that doesn’t appear to come (at least not as viewers see), it is raining by the time Jesse has escaped and makes an emotional final call to his parents. It continues raining and there are clear signs of it later that night, when he has the final shootout that will eventually see him leave Albuquerque for good. For Jesse in El Camino, then, the rain symbolises a sense of freedom or rebirth, that it can wash away some of the sins of his past and gives him a chance at a fresh start, which then makes Nacho a dark mirror of that story.
Nacho has long been Better Call Saul’s Jesse: the low-level criminal with a good heart, pulled into a much bigger, more dangerous game than he ever anticipated and struggles to break free from, right down to the father-like bond with Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks). Unfortunately for Nacho, he can’t escape his fate the way way Jesse did, but he does get to go out on his own terms, saving his father in the process. The rain that comes after Nacho's death in Better Call Saul further links him to Jesse, symbolising, like it did in El Camino, that his old life has been left behind, that those he cared for are ok, that he is no longer trapped, that he can move on.
Better Call Saul season 6 releases new episodes Mondays on AMC.