History Characters / BreakingBadMadrigalElectromotive

[[Characters/BreakingBadWaltsFamily Walt's Family]] ([[Characters/BreakingBadWalterWhite Walter White]]), [[Characters/BreakingBadHeisenbergsEmpire Heisenberg's Empire]] ([[Characters/BreakingBadJessePinkman Jesse Pinkman]], [[Characters/BreakingBadSaulGoodman Saul Goodman]]), [[Characters/BreakingBadDEAAndPolice DEA and Police]], [[Characters/BreakingBadJuarezCartel Juarez Cartel]], [[Characters/BreakingBadSalamancaFamily Salamanca Family]] ([[Characters/BreakingBadHectorSalamanca Hector Salamanca]]), [[Characters/BreakingBadLosPollosHermanos Los Pollos Hermanos]] ([[Characters/BreakingBadGustavoFring Gustavo Fring]], [[Characters/BreakingBadMikeEhrmantraut Mike Ehrmantraut]]), '''Madrigal Electromotive''', [[Characters/BreakingBadAryanBrotherhood Aryan Brotherhood]], [[Characters/BreakingBadOtherCriminals Other Criminals]], [[Characters/BreakingBadOtherCivilians Other Civilians]]-]]]]]

* CalmingTea: Lydia's signature drink is chamomile tea with soy milk and Stevia sweetener. Subverted in that the tea does not seem to help the high-strung Lydia relax. If anything, it shows her as rigid and inflexible - it ''must'' be chamomile and the sweetener ''must'' be Stevia. [[spoiler:Walter takes advantage of her predictability to switch a Stevia packet with ricin.]]

* DirtyCoward: She has no problem with ordering hitmen to murder anyone who she feels is inconveniencing her (such as [[spoiler:Gus' henchmen, Declan and his gang, Skyler, Walt]]); however, when her own life is in danger, she panics and begs for mercy.

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Upon sitting down at a diner booth, Lydia tersely asks the waitress for Chamomile tea with soy milk and then acts passive-aggressive towards her when informed that none is available. This establishes her cold, petty demeanor and her obsessive-compulsive tendencies. When she moves to sit at Mike's booth, she puts on an unconvincing show about Mike being her old friend "Dwayne," which fails to convince the waitress because she knows Mike's name. Mike then draws attention to the fact that she's wearing sunglasses indoors in the fear that someone will see her even though she's just talking to him in a restaurant. This stands in contrast to Mike who is so confident and professional he not only doesn't try to disguise himself but uses his own name and comes to a place where he is known. The purpose of this exchange is twofold: firstly it shows that Lydia is paranoid, but also that she's not as attentive as she ought to be, which leads her to underestimate the intelligence of the people around her by casually lying to them and treating them like idiots as well as showing how she completely misunderstands the world of drug trafficking and thinks she's being clever when she's actually calling far more attention to herself than if she treated it like a casual meeting, showing she isn't as savvy as she thinks she is. Her demeaning attitude doesn't cause any problems when she's taking advantage of a dimwit like Todd, [[spoiler: but underestimating Walt ends ''very'' poorly for her.]]
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Played with. Lydia's love for her young daughter is the ''only'' good trait she has. When Mike comes to try and kill Lydia, she's horrified at the prospect of her daughter being traumatized by discovering her body or thinking she abandoned her. [[spoiler:Even more so after she learns that Walt has successfully caused her imminent death by ricin poisoning, realizing her girl will be left motherless]]. But ultimately she would rather have her daughter dead than imagine Lydia abandoning her; how Lydia ''looks'' to her daughter is more important than her daughter's life itself. This fits with Lydia's overall obsession with her own image and makes an interesting contrast to Walt's ultimate decision to [[spoiler: leave his remaining money to Flynn even though his son will never know where it came from.]]
* FaceDeathWithDespair: [[spoiler: When Lydia learns that she has been poisoned and is going to die really soon, her expression is that of complete terror as she awaits her impending death]].

** To Gustavo Fring. Both are consummate businesspeople, who dress perfectly and try to approach the meth trade with a degree of professionalism not normally seen in the "game". However, while Gus was calm, unflinching, and relatively reasonable, Lydia is paranoid, erratic, and unwilling to accept the brutality of the drug world. The contrast is best illustrated in Gus' massacre of the cartel and her [[spoiler:disposing of Declan's crew]] -- he moves between bodies without fear while taunting the remains of his enemies, while Lydia plugs her ears not to hear gunshots and later [[spoiler:has to literally be guided by hand with her eyes closed through the carnage]].

* VillainousBreakdown: Suffers these quite often thanks to her NervousWreck nature, [[spoiler: with her final one being a wide-eyed look of despair at Walt revealing what he put in her tea in "Felina".]]

* MysteriousPast: Vaguer than even Gustavo's. His involvement with Gustavo isn't elaborated upon much, save for [[NoodleIncident a brief mention]] that he pulled something that got the two of them out of hot water in Santiago before; all that's known is the [[VillainousFriendship respect Fring and Lydia have for him]] and his role in Madrigal's operations.

* VillainousBreakdown: After Madrigal's connection to Gustavo Fring's drug empire is revealed, Peter spends the last day of his life internally freaking out and solemnly taste-testing condiments from his fast-food company.

* WeHardlyKnewYe: He has three scenes across both series' (one in ''Breaking Bad'', two in ''Better Call Saul''). His scene in ''Breaking Bad'' combines dark humor with genuine pathos, and it's pretty beloved within the fandom.

* DrinkBasedCharacterization: Lydia, the prim and professional corporate executive, always orders to the point of obsession, Chamomile tea with soy milk, with Stevia sweetener mixed in. [[spoiler:This predictability ultimately gets her killed by Walt.]][[note]]Laura Fraser noted that the fact that Lydia puts milk in something that's already as bland as chamomile tea was a clue to how uptight and "deranged" Lydia could get. Then {{Jossed}} by Creator/VinceGilligan, who explained that ''he'' drinks his chamomile tea with milk and simply threw it in, being well-aware of how weird his taste is.[[/note]]

* HighHeelPower: She is always seen wearing a pair of blue or black pumps. They receive a lot of focus when she's walking through the New Mexico desert or tiptoeing around dead bodies, showing how at odds her OCD businesswoman side is with the more brutal side of her business.

* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Chamomile tea with soy milk, with Stevia mixed in.

* CalmingTea: Lydia's signature drink is chamomile tea with soy milk and stevia sweetener. Subverted in that the tea does not seem to help the high-strung Lydia relax. If anything, it shows her as rigid and inflexible - it ''must'' be chamomile and the sweetener ''must'' be stevia. [[spoiler:Walter takes advantage of her predictability to switch a stevia packet with ricin.]]

** For how paranoid and careful Lydia is for the most part, her decision to sit at the exact same public place and order the same specific drink every time she meets a criminal associate makes her a sitting duck for someone to analyze her otherwise unpredictable actions. Predictably, it also makes it really easy for Heisenberg to poison her without her ever in the know until it's far too late.

* DrinkBasedCharacterization: Lydia, the prim and professional corporate executive, always orders to the point of obsession, Chamomile tea with soy milk, with Stevia sweetener mixed in. [[spoiler:This predictability ultimately gets her killed by Walt.]][[note]]Laura Fraser noted that the fact that Lydia puts milk in something that's already as bland as camomile tea was a clue to how uptight and "deranged" Lydia could get. Then {{Jossed}} by Creator/VinceGilligan, who explained that ''he'' drinks his chamomile tea with milk and simply threw it in, being well-aware of how weird his taste is.[[/note]]

A foreman for the El Paso warehouse of Madrigal Electromotive.

* FallGuy: Lydia has him arrested by the DEA when they come to El Paso.

* LegitimateBusinessmensSocialClub: She helps Madrigal function as one of these for Gustavo. She's the one who suggests using Lavandería Brillante for their meth lab's cover.

* LegitimateBusinessmensSocialClub: He's the CEO of Gustavo's parent company, which helps cover up his illegal activities and launder money.

* CalmingTea: Lydia Rodarte-Quayle's signature drink is chamomile tea with soy milk and stevia sweetener. Subverted in that the tea does not seem to help the high-strung Lydia relax. If anything, it shows her as rigid and inflexible; it ''must'' be chamomile and the sweetener ''must'' be stevia. [[spoiler:Walter White takes advantage of her predictability to switch a stevia packet with ricin.]]

** For how paranoid and careful Lydia is for the most part, her decision to sit at the exact same public place and order the same specific drink every time she meets a criminal associate makes her a sitting duck for someone to analyze her otherwise unpredictable actions. Predictably, it also makes it real easy for Heisenberg to poison her without her ever in the know until it's far too late.

* FaceDeathWithDespair: [[spoiler: When Lydia learns that she has been poisoned and is going to die really soon, her expression is that of complete terror as she awaits for her impending death]].

** She is perfectly happy setting up and ordering Declan and his gang be betrayed and brutally murdered by Jack's thugs. Afterwards she then insists Todd leads her through the corpses blind because she apparently finds the carnage she ordered offensive to her sensibilities.

* ItsAllAboutMe: Implied. When Mike sneaks into her house and prepares to kill her due to her putting a hit on him, she doesn't beg Mike not to kill her, but not to kill her in a way that would disfigure her face, and that her body would be found, because she didn't want her daughter to see her mutilated appearance nor wanted her daughter to think she suddenly abandoned her. How she is perceived by others was more important to Lydia than even her own life. Any time anything even remotely threatens her success or life, she is quick to find some way to weasel out as soon as she can, such as outright begging Walt to cook meth again when the quality of the supply goes down, or immediately deciding all of Mike's former employees need to be assassinated to prevent them from snitching despite Mike's assurance that they are well paid.

* NervousWreck: Lydia is forever on-edge and terrified of being found out. At any given time, she's convinced that the [=DEA=] are closing in, Walt is planning to kill her, Mike is planning to kill her, someone is going to talk. You really have to wonder how someone this high strung ever got involved in the drug trade to begin with.

* NotInTheFace: Invokes this when Mike threatens her with a gun because she doesn't want her daughter seeing her like that.

* ParentalAbandonment: Defied. Lydia begs Mike to leave her body behind so that her daughter will know she didn't willfully abandon her, even threatens to scream if he doesn't promise to. Probably the only time she shows any moral convictions in the show, and even then it comes across like she's using her daughter as a bargaining chip to guilt-trip Mike.

* TheSociopath: If you're not Lydia or her daughter, then this woman simply does not give a rat's ass what happens to you and has no qualms betraying you to your possible death. Even Laura Fraser [[https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-news/breaking-bads-lydia-shes-a-clean-cut-bonkers-sociopath-196474/ describes her]] as a "clean-cut, bonkers sociopath".

* DrivenToSuicide: Knowing that the death of Gus means he'll be found out, arrested, subjected to a lengthy trial and then imprisonment, Schuler decides to opt out of all that hassle.

* WeHardlyKnewYe: He has three scenes across both series' (one in Breaking Bad, two in Better Call Saul). His scene in Breaking Bad combines dark humor with genuine pathos, and it's pretty beloved within the fandom.

* BigBadDuumvirate: With Jack Welker in Season 5 as the new heads of Heisenberg's empire.

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Upon sitting down at a diner booth, Lydia tersely asks the waitress for Chamomile tea with soy milk and then acts passive-aggressive towards her when informed that none is available. This establishes her cold, petty demeanor and her obsessive-compulsive tendencies. When she moves to sit at Mike's booth, she puts on an unconvincing show about Mike being her old friend "Dwayne," which fails to convince the waitress because she knows Mike's name. Mike then draws attention to the fact that she's wearing sunglasses indoors in the fear that someone will see her even though she's just talking to him in a restaurant. The purpose of this exchange is twofold: firstly it shows that Lydia is paranoid, but also that she's not as attentive as she ought to be, which leads her to underestimate the intelligence of the people around her by casually lying to them and treating them like idiots. Her demeaning attitude doesn't cause any problems when she's taking advantage of a dimwit like Todd, [[spoiler: but underestimating Walt ends ''very'' poorly for her.]]

* NervousWreck: Lydia is forever on-edge and terrified of being found out. At any given time, she's convinced that the [=DEA=] are closing in, Walt is planning to kill her, Mike is planning to kill her, someone is going to talk...

* HostByHerOwnPetard: [[spoiler:Walt uses Lydia's dedication to her daily routine against her in the finale. Knowing which table she'd sit at, what time she'd show up, and that she'd put stevia in her tea. More specifically, he takes advantage of that last part by lacing her stevia with ricin, thus condemning her to death.]]

[[Characters/BreakingBadWaltsFamily Walt's Family]] ([[Characters/BreakingBadWalterWhite Walter White]]), [[Characters/BreakingBadHeisenbergsEmpire Heisenberg's Empire]] ([[Characters/BreakingBadJessePinkman Jesse Pinkman]], [[Characters/BreakingBadSaulGoodman Saul Goodman]]), [[Characters/BreakingBadDEAAndPolice DEA and Police]], [[Characters/BreakingBadJuarezCartel Juarez Cartel]], [[Characters/BreakingBadSalamancaFamily Salamanca Family]], [[Characters/BreakingBadLosPollosHermanos Los Pollos Hermanos]] ([[Characters/BreakingBadGustavoFring Gustavo Fring]], [[Characters/BreakingBadMikeEhrmantraut Mike Ehrmantraut]]), '''Madrigal Electromotive''', [[Characters/BreakingBadAryanBrotherhood Aryan Brotherhood]], [[Characters/BreakingBadOtherCriminals Other Criminals]], [[Characters/BreakingBadOtherCivilians Other Civilians]]-]]]]]

* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Gustavo Fring. During their one scene together in ''Better Call Saul'', it's clear that Schuler was genuinely close to

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: [[spoiler:His own boss Lydia allowed his murder to happen to prevent him from ratting her out in prison.]]

* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:Lydia was such a {{Jerkass}} that it's hard not to cheer when Walt informs her of her impending slow, painful death over the phone. At the point of the phone, the only other alternative left is suicide.]]

* BigBadDuumvirate: With Jack Welker in season 5 as the new heads of Heisenberg's empire.
* BigBadEnsemble: With Jack Welker and Heisenberg during season 5 as a whole. Walter White's arc is largely disconnected from his alliance with Lydia and the Neo-Nazis.
* BigBadWannabe: She could have been the BigBad of the series overall, having the capabilities to turn the Cartel's meth-making operation into an intercontinental empire, but she's so craven and spineless that Jack is able to operate as her DragonInChief, while her personality keeps her from delving too deep into villainous acts herself. This is particularly the case in season 5B, where she's part of the BigBadDuumvirate with Jack Welker, motivating the Neo-Nazis to stay in the meth game, but actively avoids having to do any dirty work. [[spoiler:Even when Walt takes the time to poison her, she only finds out on complete accident when she tries to call Todd and he picks up instead, meaning it's possible he wasn't even going to bother telling her.]]

* RememberTheNewGuy: Was introduced in season 5A as a major associate of Gus' organization despite not having once been mentioned in seasons 3 or 4. This is justified to a certain extent as Lydia managed the civilian/distribution elements of Gus' operation, meaning Walt and Jesse wouldn't have crossed paths with her working as chemists. Averted with her reappearance in ''Better Call Saul'', which gets to explore Gus and Lydia's business partnership.

* HateSink: In a show filled with crime lords and drug dealers, few of them manage to be quite as...''unpleasant'' as Lydia. Constantly condescending, [[MurderIsTheBestSolution quick to resort to murder even when it's unnecessary]], and defined by her [[DirtyCoward extreme cowardice]], Lydia is simply a corrupt and pathetic woman [[spoiler:whose death won't be mourned by many]].

* ObfuscatingStupidity: She comes off as a paranoid, crooked executive with a very naive view of the game, but she plays both Mike and Walt through [[spoiler:some emotional blackmail, connections, and ego-stroking]].

!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Series/BreakingBad''

!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Series/BreakingBad'' | ''Series/BetterCallSaul''

->'''Portrayed by:''' Creator/LauraFraser

!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Series/BreakingBad'' | ''Series/BetterCallSaul''

->'''Portrayed by:''' Creator/NorbertWeisser

->'''Portrayed by:''' Creator/RussDillen

* ForgoneConclusion: Peter is legitimately shocked that he somehow hasn't been caught for all his crimes when he airs out his stress with Gustavo in ''Better Call Saul''. As viewers of ''Breaking Bad'' will know, he eventually ''does'' get caught, and is DrivenToSuicide because of it.

[[quoteright:280:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/schuler_peter_2400.png]][[caption-width-right:220:''"[[TemptingFate It's a miracle I haven't been caught!]]"'']]

* BadBoss: Her first impulse whenever something goes wrong is to kill a subordinate. This is so ingrained in her personality that she expects it constantly from the people she works with.[[spoiler:When Walt comes up to her in the café in the finale, despite Walt's believable act of being destitute, Lydia wants Todd to kill him.]]

** When she hears from Gustavo that Lalo Salamanca is still able to cause trouble while in jail, she immediately suggests arranging a prison shanking for the man. Gustavo immediately points out the problem with such a plan: Lalo dying in an American prison under ''any'' circumstance would make the Cartel believe Gustavo arranged it, which would spell further trouble for everyone involved

* ProperlyParanoid: According to Lydia, everyone is out to get her. While it may seem like much at first, this paranoia is not unfounded. At one point, she refuses to give Walt the information he needs out of fear he'll [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness kill her once she's no longer a necessity to his drug empire]]: "You are tying up loose ends, and I don't want to be one of them." Walt scoffs at the idea he'd have her killed in broad daylight in the middle of a public cafe, but [[spoiler:not only is he later revealed to have the ricin with him, suggesting he ''was'' intending to kill her; but when he actually does, this is exactly how he does it]].

* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Nearly everyone who has to work with Lydia absolutely hates her. Mike constantly belittles and threatens to kill her because of her paranoia, Walter considers her to be an inefficient and unintelligent woman, and even Gustavo Fring's stoic exterior cracks a bit because he finds her so irritating.

An executive of Madrigal Electromotive [=GmbH=], working out of the company's office in Houston, Texas. She originally worked with Gus Fring as a supplier of chemicals required for his drug business in the American southwest.

* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler: Lydia was such a {{Jerkass}} that it's hard not to cheer when Walt informs her of her impending slow, painful death over the phone. At the point of the phone, the only other alternative left is suicide.]]

* CalmingTea: Lydia Rodarte-Quayle's signature drink is chamomile tea with soy milk and stevia sweetener. Subverted in that the tea does not seem to help the high-strung Lydia relax. If anything, it shows her as rigid and inflexible; it ''must'' be chamomile and the sweetener ''must'' be stevia. [[spoiler: Walter White takes advantage of her predictability to switch a stevia packet with ricin.]]

* CorruptCorporateExecutive: She helped Gus scout out the laundry as an ideal place for his superlab, and later works with Gus, and then Walt, to run the international distribution of crystal meth.

* DidntThinkThisThrough: For how paranoid and careful Lydia is for the most part, her decision to sit at the exact same public place and order the same specific drink every time she meets a criminal associate makes her a sitting duck for someone to analyze her otherwise unpredictable actions. Predictably, it also makes it real easy for Heisenberg to poison her without her ever in the know until it's far too late.

** To Gus. Both are consummate businesspeople, who dress perfectly and try to approach the meth trade with a degree of professionalism not normally seen in the "game". However, while Gus was calm, unflinching, and relatively reasonable, Lydia is paranoid, erratic, and unwilling to accept the brutality of the drug world. The contrast is best illustrated in Gus' massacre of the cartel and her [[spoiler:disposing of Declan's crew]] -- he moves between bodies without fear while taunting the remains of his enemies, while Lydia plugs her ears not to hear gunshots and later [[spoiler:has to literally be guided by hand with her eyes closed through the carnage]].

** To Saul Goodman, of all people. Both depend on others to do their dirty work for them, while using their own personal connections to make money in the drug trade, and both become increasingly paranoid by the end of the series due in part to their connections with Walt. But while Saul by and large never betrays a client and prefers to use murder only as a last resort of sorts, Lydia's primary characteristic is betraying people and using murder as an immediate answer for all problems. This key difference is crucial to their final fates; [[spoiler:Saul's refusal to betray a client makes him a non-threat to Walt and thus he gets out alive, but since Lydia's first solution to any problem is to [[MurderIsTheBestSolution kill it]], Walt makes sure to get rid of her first.]]

* {{Hypocrite}}: A triple dose of it.