Breaking Bad: Every Major Death Ranked

While other actors receive the greater acclaim, Mark Margolis puts in one of the most underappreciated performances in Breaking Bad (and Better Call Saul, where he’s even better). As wheelchair-bound former cartel Don Hector Salamanca, Margolis is rage personified, an old timer who’d be kicking in heads were it not for a debilitating stroke.

Salamanca is fuelled solely by hatred - for Walter, for Gus - and it’s fitting that he leaves the world carrying out an act of spite for a man he loathes in order to kill the only man he loathes even more.

Yes, the wheelchair bomb is borderline cartoonish, and the sequence of events leading Gus to a showdown with his old foe relies on further farfetched human chess from Walter. When it leads up to a grimacing old gangster blowing himself up in order to kill his greatest enemy, though, you can look past a lot.

Margolis’ face as he detonates his bomb is a picture, a lifetime of wrath expressed in one triumphant sneer. A character as vile as Hector didn’t deserve such a triumphant death, but when it’s delivered with such panache, we can allow it.