Better Call Saul left a big question hanging in the air between Mike (Jonathan Banks) and Nacho (Michael Mando) at the end of its latest episode, "Gloves Off," and the answer to that "why?" isn't going to be coming any time soon.

The partnership between Nacho and Mike, though, is probably going to last a bit longer than just this episode. Mando got on the phone to talk about the open-ended final scene, whether Nacho is a good man and what he makes of the many parallels between Nacho and Jimmy. The Orphan Black alum also discussed the non-traditional way he got hooked on Breaking Bad, and whether he's aware of the many, many Easter eggs connecting that series with Better Call Saul. Continue to read the full interview.

Bob Odenkirk and Michael Mando on Better Call Saul

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That's a great question. Of all the interviews I've done, you're the first person to bring that up. It's funny, it actually leads me up to that thing about Mike when he says "no half measures" on Breaking Bad, and here's a guy who is taking half measures. There's a saying that "real recognizes real," and Nacho immediately recognizes that Mike could be that guy to help take him from prince of thieves to king of thieves.He trusts Mike because of timing and it's a pressing situation. He does a judgment call, and he thinks maybe Mike is seeing something that I'm not seeing and agrees to go with Mike's plan, but when he sees the way that it turned out and he sees Mike's face, theres a little bit of regret. I think Nacho regrets agreeing to that, because there's this man that he respects that seemed like a good man, that's doing this to save his granddaughter, and here he is completely pummeled.The other thing I think Nacho is asking is, "Is this really the best way to have done it? It this a half measure that could come back and bite us in the a--?" So that's a good question, and I think hopefully we'll have to wait and try to figure it out.Wow, I've never heard it phrased just like that. That's a good question, because you're asking me to do a moral judgment on him. If you were to ask me, "Is he abiding by the law?" the answer to that is "no." But if you ask me if he was a good man, that's a very complicated question to answer. In the business that he's in -- in this criminal, very, very violent world that he lives in -- he definitely has an honor among thieves. He keeps his word. He pays people on time, every time, the exact amount that is supposed to be paid.He is respectful to those who are deserving of respect and who are respectful to him, and he definitely has love for his father and he definitely is capable of empathy, as we notice with Mike and even with Tuco and Krazy-8. That's a very tough question to answer, but I can tell you that of course he is doing very bad things because he is selling drugs and hurting people and all that stuff. Is he a good man? I think that's an existential question that I can't answer. [laughs] Because also, is Jimmy a good man?I think the major themes are definitely running deep within those characters, and I think they're running within all those characters in the show. That's what makes the writing so great is you've got all these rivers leading to the same ocean. I always looked at Jimmy and Nacho as the two kids in the sandbox no one is playing with. No one is playing with Jimmy because their parents told them Jimmy is not good enough, and no one is playing with Nacho because their parents simply told them not to. [laughs]You get these two kids who are sort of looking at this society from a completely different perspective from the people in it, and that's because they've been marginalized and they've had the good fortune of looking at it from a completely different and unique perspective, and the bad fortune of trying to rewrite the rules.It's funny, I hadn't seen Breaking Bad. I had seen only the last two episodes two weeks before I got the audition. It was a crazy thing. I was at my brother's house and they were all gathered together and were catching up, binge-watching the last two episodes. I just happened to be there and catch the last episode and half of the one before, and thinking to myself, "Man, this is really great. This is as good as anything I've ever seen." And I remembered the name "Vince Gilligan," because it was there in the credits.Then, two weeks later, I signed with my agent, Amanda Rosenthal, and the first audition I get with her when I was in Toronto is Better Call Saul, and I recognize the name "Vince Gilligan." So I put myself on tape, we sent it to LA thinking that they're not going to see it, and during that time something in me says, "You need to catch up on this Breaking Bad thing, because this serendipity must mean something. There's something there that's sort of destiny." So I'm catching up on Breaking Bad and my agent calls two weeks later and says, "You're not going to believe this, but they want to fly you to LA and they actually want you to screen test with Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould in the room."It was like one of those things where you're kind of like, "Oh wow." They've seen this Canadian guy's audition out of Toronto for what's like the hottest ticket, and I couldn't believe they were actually, without anything else, flying me over to screen test. I came in, and they had seen Orphan Black and were fans of my work on there, and I immediately fell in love with those guys. I went back and I finished watching the whole [Breaking Bad] series, and when they called back and made an offer, my immediate answer was, "Yes," because I knew I was working among the most amazing minds in the business.You know, it didn't bother me at all. I think when you're watching something that you could possibly be a part of, you watch it with extra attention because you're paying attention to the way they tell the story, the acting, the way they rev up the story -- so you're watching all these technical things, and I was so impressed by how much attention to detail Vince Gilligan put, and how much respect he had for every single character. That was such a heart-warming thing.I remember there was a scene with this janitor in a high school who was accused of smoking weed, and they shot him with such dignity. He wasn't just a background performer; he was a three-dimensional character. Even if he had a minute of screentime, it was still a human being that was being respected as a human being. It was such a breath of fresh air to see that on television, that it wasn't just stereotypical black-and-white characters.Oh yeah, absolutely. We know they're like treasure hunts, and we're totally aware of that as actors. We get so excited to discover them, to research them, to understand what they are. For example, Dog Paulson, the guy whose skull Nacho has in his skin, that murder is mentioned in Breaking Bad when they mention Tuco.Of course, Domingo is Krazy-8, and he works at a furniture store, which is also what Nacho's father does. He's got a little tag and he works at a furniture store, or some kind of a store like that, and that's what Nacho's father does. They know each other by first-name basis, and maybe they know each other from that kind of work -- I don't know, I'm just speculating. But that's other interesting points.I've always felt like Vince Gilligan bought this piece of land, and he built this great, beautiful building called Breaking Bad. Then he got the right to build another building right next to it, and that building is called Better Call Saul. Better Call Saul is on the second floor, whereas Breaking Bad, they've already built six floors. And there's secret tunnels, underground pathways, shared rooms, shared elevators of these two buildings.They're completely standalone, they have their own foundations, but they have all these interconnected pathways that are being built. Hopefully, when Better Call Saul comes to its final season, those two buildings will stand beautifully next to each other and you can get lost inside of them and go from one to another and back and forth without ever feeling that you're losing a thread of what's going on.Mike and Nacho definitely have an interesting relationship. There's a huge generation gap between the two. There's about 35 years difference, and completely different socio-economic backgrounds. But what brings these two together, I think, is their sense of honor among thieves, their sense of practicality and their courage.For Nacho, this season is very much a coming-of-age story. Here's someone who's been an observer all of his life, who's been marginalized because he doesn't have the cartel bloodline, and who's realizing that the people in authority aren't always making the right decisions. It's leading to the point where he feels he has to go his own way and his own life is in jeopardy, and maybe he needs to be in total control of his own life.Now, in how does that deal with Davis & Main, I can't say if it does or if it doesn't because that would be a spoiler, and I really want the fans to enjoy it as much as we have making it. What I can tell you is that things get so exciting, and we had such a blast shooting it. I can't wait for people to see the Easter eggs coming up and the tension being built and all these new questions that are being asked. It's really an uphill, downhill roller coaster ride with so many surprises.

Better Call Saul airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on AMC.Terri Schwartz is Entertainment Editor at IGN. Talk to her on Twitter at @Terri_Schwartz