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| “ | Who said anything about barrels? I'm talking about an ocean of this stuff! | „ |
| ~ Lydia striking a deal with Walter White. |
| “ | She's saving herself. She's a loose cannon. I am telling you, she will turn a gun or a badge on us the first chance she gets. The woman put a hit out on me. | „ |
| ~ Mike Ehrmantraut accurately describing Lydia. |
| “ | You are tying up loose ends, and I don't want to be one of them. Once I give you that list, I've served my purpose, and then maybe I'm just one more person who knows too much. | „ |
| ~ Lydia to Walter White. |
Lydia Rodarte-Quayle is a major antagonist in Season 5 of Breaking Bad and a supporting character in Better Call Saul.
She is a deeply cautious executive of Madrigal Electromotive GmbH, working out of the company's office in Houston, Texas. As such, Lydia became a distributor of methylamine for the Los Pollos Hermanos meth operation; after the death of her former employer, Gustavo Fring, she became allied with Walter White's drug empire, and later with Jack Welker's White Supremacist Gang.
She was portrayed by Laura Fraser.
Personality[]
Lydia is a paranoid and cautious woman who is overtly afraid of many things in her business and normally likes working to the side. She is particular in her things, up to ordering food at a restaurant. She completely cares for her appearance and doesn’t not like looking bad in front of anyone. Lydia’s paranoia is a very telling trait, as she is willing to sell out her co workers for her own safety. Lydia deeply cares for her young daughter, and is afraid of the thought of abandoning her, as she practically begs Mike Ehrmantraut not to move her body away and wants her to find her body in order to think she didn’t abandon her. She also is good friends with Peter Schuler and offered to take him to a rodeo, and it’s implied she cared for Gus as well.
Biography[]
Lydia Rodarte-Quayle appears to be nervous most of the time and acts snobbish, ordering specialty teas in a diner. She played an unspecified role in Gus Fring's criminal empire, helping him distribute drugs throughout the American southwest. When the DEA begins investigating the link between Gus and Madrigal, Lydia becomes anxious and asks Mike to eliminate eleven people who were involved with Gus. When he refuses, Lydia makes the same offer to Chris Mara, one of the eleven on her hit list, and adds Mike to those she wants killed. However, Mike deduces her plan and dispatches the new hitman, but not before Duane Chow is killed. Mike breaks into Lydia's home, ready to execute her, but allows her to live contingent on her providing him with methylamine.
After Lydia gives them the first shipment the DEA visits Madrigal and Lydia is forced to give up her guy in the warehouse, Ron Forenall, to the DEA. Lydia calls Mike to tell him she no longer has a guy in the warehouse who can get the methylamine and Mike assures her he will get her a new guy. Mike sends Jesse Pinkman to Houston to pick up the methylamine, and he and Lydia find a GPS tracker at the bottom of one of the barrels. Mike later deduces that the DEA is not responsible for the GPS tracker and that Lydia is, because she wants out of the business. Mike vows to kill her again and mentions that operations may have to lay low for a bit without her as a source for the methylamine. Jesse, not wanting her to die, tries to intervene on the pretense that maybe the DEA really did plant the tracker. Looking to Walt to break the tie about the decision to kill Lydia, Walt sides with Jesse but only because he refuses to cease making meth. The three give her one last chance to prove she did not plant the device.
After bugging Hank's office, they force her to call him and ask about the device. Hank tells her his office did not plant any trackers, and the three are about to kill her until they hear Hank, through the bug, call the Houston DEA office. The contact there tells Hank they placed trackers on every barrel, preventing the three from using any of them to make meth. In an effort to save herself, Lydia provides Walt, Jesse, and Mike information about a freight train that carries "an ocean of methylamine", thus giving them a new source of the chemical. Later, in order to make herself useful and therefore make Walt less eager to kill her, she provides Walt with a new market for Blue Sky in the Czech Republic, using her resources and network to distribute the meth in large quantities. After Walt kills Mike after the later is discovered by the DEA, Lydia gives Walt the names of the 11 men in prison-allowing Walt to have them murdered by Jack Welker's men in prison.
After Walt quits, Lydia inherits the meth business. One day, she shows up at the car wash and pleads for Walt to return to cooking, confiding her meth product has become less chemically pure without his expertise, but Walt refuses. Then Skyler coldly dismisses Lydia, warning her to never come back. Lydia later meets with Declan and his crew in the desert, tours their underground meth lab, and unsuccessfully tries to persuade Declan (who is unconcerned that his subpar quality product jeopardizes her $50 million deal with the Czechs) to hire Todd Alquist as his cook. When Declan refuses, she orders Todd and his uncle's crew to kill Declan and his crew.
Months later, with Jesse being held a slave as their cook, Lydia meets with Todd to discuss distributing the meth, and Walt barges in offering to sell her his formula. She politely refuses, and then orders Todd to kill him once he leaves. Shortly after this, Lydia falls gravely ill with what she thinks is the flu. She calls Todd to make sure that Walter is dead - unaware that he had massacred Jack’s crew and that Todd had been killed by Jesse. Walt answers Todd’s phone and tells her matter-of-factly that he poisoned her tea with ricin when he interrupted her meeting with Todd, before giving her one last goodbye.
In El Camino, news media reports claim that an unnamed Houston woman, assumed to be Lydia, had been poisoned by Walter White and was being investigated by the police. The report also stated that she was critical condition and not expected to survive.
Trivia[]
- Lydia is the last character in Breaking Bad to die, albeit off-screen and only confirmed in El Camino.
- As such, she is the last victim to be killed by Walter White.
- She was originally supposed to make an appearance in season 6 of Better Call Saul. This was scrapped because COVID-19 restrictions prevented Laura Fraser from travelling to the United States.
