Carrot and Stick

"**Carrot and Stick**"
"Carrot and Stick"
Better Call Saul episode
	Promotional poster
Episode no.	Season 6; Episode 2
Directed by	Vince Gilligan
Written by	Thomas Schnauz; Ariel Levine;
Featured music	"Battle Hymn of the Republic"; by Chill Wills
Cinematography by	Paul Donachie
Editing by	Skip Macdonald
Original air date	April 18, 2022
Running time	61 minutes
Guest appearances
	Ed Begley Jr. as Clifford Main; Javier Grajeda as Juan Bolsa; Ray Campbell as Tyrus Kitt; Julie Ann Emery as Betsy Kettleman; Jeremy Shamos as Craig Kettleman; Jessie Ennis as Erin Brill; Jeremiah Bitsui as Victor; Luis Moncada as Marco Salamanca; Daniel Moncada as Leonel Salamanca; Katerina Tannenbaum as Amber; Poppy Liu as Jo; Mark Margolis as Hector Salamanca;
Episode chronology
← Previous; "Wine and Roses"	Next →; "Rock and Hard Place"
	Better Call Saul season 6
	List of episodes

"Carrot and Stick" is the second episode of the sixth season of Better Call Saul, the spin-off television series of Breaking Bad. Vince Gilligan directed the episode written by Thomas Schnauz and Ariel Levine. The episode aired back-to-back with "Wine and Roses" on April 18, 2022, on AMC and AMC+. In several countries outside the United States and Canada, the episode premiered on Netflix the following day.

In the episode, Nacho Varga comes face-to-face with the cartel while Jimmy McGill and Kim Wexler involve Betsy and Craig Kettleman in their plan to ruin Howard Hamlin's life. "Carrot and Stick" features the return of Julie Ann Emery and Jeremy Shamos as the Kettlemans, who reprise their roles from the first season, along with the first chronological appearance of an inflatable prop from Breaking Bad. Gilligan's approach as director to minimizing the dialogue and conveying information visually proved difficult to achieve. The scenes in the motel where Nacho is hiding required several stunts, a majority of which actor Michael Mando performed himself.

"Carrot and Stick" was met with critical acclaim for Gilligan's direction and Mando's performance as well as its tension, cinematography, and action sequence. An estimated 1.16 million viewers saw the episode during its first broadcast on AMC.