FACE-OFF: Jesse (Aaron Paul, left) has gotten a taste of what corporate snake Lydia (Laura Fraser) is on “Breaking Bad.” (Sony Pictures Televison/Ursula C)
Sunday night’s episode of “Breaking Bad” shined a revealing light on Lydia Rodarte-Quayle — the heretofore jittery corporate suit played by Laura Fraser since the middle of last season.
“BB” fans might have suspected that Lydia was hiding a ruthless streak. After all, she was Gus Fring’s boss at Madrigal, responsible for running a worldwide meth-smuggling operation worth billions while knowing that Walt (Bryan Cranston) and Mike (Jonathan Banks) were knocking people off in their pursuit of the brass ring (read: lots of untraceable cold, hard cash).
But Lydia’s bloody double-cross of Walt’s former partners Sunday night — in an elaborate desert ruse aided and abetted by Todd (Jesse Plemons) — was a side of her “BB” fans hadn’t seen up to that point.
“She took care of business, then totally cracked up in the end,” says the Scottish-born Fraser, alluding to Lydia’s orchestrating a massacre — then being unable to look at the bloody bodies she dispatched to kingdom come as Todd led her away with her eyes closed.
“With that scene, I was like, wow, she’s really getting in there . . . I felt she was so cold and cutthroat, the way she got involved in the conversation with [Walt’s ex-partner], saying to him, ‘Why don’t you just use Todd’ — like if he said yes, Lydia would send Todd a text message cancelling the massacre,” she says, laughing.
“But she totally crumbled in the end being unable to walk through the bodies without looking at them.”
It’s mentioned to Fraser that Lydia is always impeccably dressed in fancy corporate attire (a smart business suit), including Sunday night’s episode, when she clambered down a ladder into an underground meth lab wearing very expensive designer shoes (with red soles).
“It’s important to dress for these occasions,” she says, tongue planted firmly in cheek. “I think we were going with the red underneath for a Lady Macbeth feel there [with the red shoes]. The blood of the massacre, which is kind of on Lydia. She pretty much ordered that and was then walking through the blood she couldn’t look at.”
Fraser says she was given no advance warning by series creator Vince Gilligan regarding Lydia’s big scene, which is in keeping with how the show operates, even with series stars Cranston, Anna Gunn (Skyler) and Dean Norris (Hank).
“I knew nothing at all, although I did ask before I realized you’re not supposed to ask. It’s not done on that show,” she says.
“Each episode I get is like opening a present — it’s like, ‘Oh my God, what’s it going to be this week?’
“I feel like her greed is trumping her fear,” she says of Lydia’s evolution. “Fear is always with her — she’s in a ‘fight and flight’ mode with a high-pitched frequency.
“But her brutal, cold side is now coming through more,” Fraser says. “She’s a calculating businesswoman and she’s mildly sociopathic.”
And with six “BB” episodes remaining, Fraser says the show’s writers will give Lydia a big sendoff.
“I love it,” she says of her character’s fate. “It’s the perfect ending for Lydia.”