Lydia serves as Madrigal’s Head of Logistics in the Houston-office giving her great control over crucial aspects of the company’s operations. Lydia is an anxious and prim single mom who would be the last person one would think would be a business associate of Gus. Still she ends up being an important ally to Gus and later Walter White, Declan, and Jack in mass-producing meth. It is unknown when she first decided to use that control to begin dabbling in the meth business but by the time she is introduced in Breaking Bad season 5, she is already well-entrenched in the drug business through Madrigal.
As a conglomerate, Madrigal operates 14 divisions across many sectors of the global economy. It’s the fast food division, however, that proves to be among its most successful…thanks to the work of savvy businessmen like Gus Fring. In addition to providing the world yummy snacks like “spice curls” and Los Pollos Hermanos’ delicious fried chicken, the fast food division at Madrigal is also a front for the meth business. One day Madrigal will be the mechanism through which new drug kingpin Walter White will try to take his meth business global. For now, however, “JMM” is nice enough to gather together the three most important parts of that meth division for the first time onscreen in Better Call Saul or Breaking Bad’s history.
Following his legitimate business update meeting with the heads of Madrigal Fast Food’s many partners, Gus holds the really important business meeting in a hotel room with Lydia and division head Peter Schuler. Lydia has always been one of the more high-strung and anxious characters in the Breaking Bad universe but here it’s Peter who needs the most reassurance. Peter reveals that he has sunk nearly 5 million Euros into Gus’s sprawling meth project and is worried that European regulators will soon catch on to their illicit schemes. He becomes even more despondent at the news that Lalo Salamanca can still harm their business from within prison.
“I know it’s not my area of expertise but don’t people get killed in prison all the time? Shanked, shivved – that kind of thing?” Lydia asks, foreshadowing her future on Breaking Bad in which she’ll give Walter White the names of Mike’s men to be killed in prison.
Gus, Lydia, and Peter’s conversation is more than an interesting Easter egg acknowledgement of Breaking Bad’s future. It’s a dramatically heavy example of how the best laid plans of meth and men often go awry. The meeting with Gus, Lydia, and Peter is essentially a meeting of three ghosts, as all three individuals will eventually meet their untimely demise due to their work via Madrigal. Gus will be killed by Walter White via Hector Salamanca’s exploding bell. Lydia will also be killed by Walter White via ricin placed in her Stevia packet. Peter Schuler will take his own life via defibrillator when the DEA catches on to Madrigal’s scheme.
