Breaking Bad: Tuesdays with Tio

Hey guys. It’s a backstory episode! Here’s the quick rundown:

Hank gets closer to Gus, sending Walt into a tizzy. Skyler does stuff with the money. There’s also a little bit with Jesse which I’m sure will get a bigger treatment in a future episode. But who cares about that right now? We get to learn some of the Great Gus Mystery. Let’s get DOWN.

COLD OPEN

We start out with a flashback—not with any new information, just a replay of a scene we from last year. (Season 3, episode 8). We’re at a hospital, where Mike has just induced a cardiac arrest in Leonel, a Juarez Cartel assassin who came to America along with his twin brother Marco to kill Walt. They wanted to kill Walt in retribution for Walt’s betrayal of their cousin Tuco. But Gus wouldn’t let them kill Walt, instead offering them Hank, who actually pulled the trigger on Tuco.

Marco and now Leonel are dead because Gus wanted it that way. Gus tipped off Hank before the assassins reached him, allowing Hank to get the upper hand to kill Marco and seriously wound Leonel. While this was going on, Gus also arranged to have the current leader of the Juarez Cartel, Juan Bolsa, killed in a Federale raid on his hacienda.

At the time, all this seemed like a massive power-play on Gus’s part, a coup to weaken the rival Juarez Cartel. But this week we get a new piece of information. After Gus had Marco, Leonel, and Juan Bolsa whacked in one fell swoop, he paid a visit to an elderly man named Tio Salamanca. Tio is a former bigshot in the Juarez Cartel, the uncle of Tuco, Leonel, and Marco. However, now Tio is in bad health. A stroke has taken away his ability to speak, but all the rest of his mental capabilities are there.

You did know that every seemingly harmless old man in America has a horrific criminal past, right?

Why has Gus come to visit Tio? To insinuate that he’s responsible for all of the day’s bloodshed. It’s even a little gloat-y. (He tenderly pats Tio on the knee after telling him he had everybody killed). Which…doesn’t really sound like Gus, does it? Mr. Cold and Calculating Criminal Underlord? He’s won the battle. Why rub the enemy’s nose in it?

It miiiiiiiight be because there’s more to this than just a war between two criminal organizations. Maybe it’s a little more…personal. Which we know for a fact because Gus tells Tio immediately after that this is what a blood feud produces. Or as Gus puts it, “Sangre por sangre”.

Well, Gus has spilled some blood. So what’s he retaliating for? Read on. Or skip to the end of the recap. Either way works.

ACT ONE

HOSPITAL

Back to the current timeline. Walt is in the recovery room at a cancer treatment center, changing into a hospital gown. He’s here to get a body-scan to check his cancer’s progress. Seated in the room is a young man, who’s obviously here for the first time. He’s much earlier in the cancer treatment process and doesn’t know what he’s in for. The guy, trying to sound like he’s making small-talk, asks if this scan is “the loud one”. And Walt, not picking up on the guy’s anxiety, (or, picking up and not giving a shit), simply gives him some factual information. This is a PET scan, which is quiet and not a CET scan, the noisy one that the guy is thinking about. Then Walt takes out his phone and makes a business call, cutting the guy off.

Unfortunately the call goes to voicemail, so Walt can’t use it as an out and is forced to listen to another human being’s thoughts and feelings. The guy tells Walt a pretty familiar-sounding story about what it felt like to get a cancer diagnosis: everything was going great in his life, and then wham, cancer. “Just when you think you’ve got it all planned out, God comes in and tells you otherwise,” or some other cliché. I didn’t go back and get the quote.

Here Walt speaks up. He thinks this is a bullshit attitude. A man should NEVER give up control. Just because you get cancer doesn’t make you any different than anybody else. We all have death sentences, it’s just some people are more aware of it than others. So: live life on your own terms.

THE SUPERLAB

And then the show cuts, hilariously, to Walt in the lab, getting ready for work, zipping into his hazmat suit/body glove that doesn’t even leave all of his face visible.

LOS POLLOS

Gus, meanwhile, watches this on his desktop computer, which is displaying the surveillance camera feed. Then he goes out to the kitchen to answer a phone call. It’s a police detective. Cut to…

THE ALBUQUERQUE POLICE STATION

Gus has been summoned. He sits in the hallway, looking pretty at-ease considering he’s in the lion’s den. He looks over to a bulletin board and sees a wanted poster for a guy who looks suspiciously like Victor. Then he looks through a doorway into a conference room and sees Hank. Maybe Gus is getting a little more wary.

MEETING ROOM

Moments later, Gus sits down with Hank, Gomez, DEA ASAC Merkert, and Tim the Homicide Detective. The first thing we learn is, Gus has no idea why they haven’t brought him in. That most likely means they just haven’t told him why he’s here, but it’s also probable that, as calculating as he is, Gus really has no idea.

But he manages his to put up his usual, cheery “Pollos Gus” front, asking the guys how their various family members are doing, mentioning them by name, joking with Hank about his recent Los Pollos visit with Junior. All part of the act.

Everyone sits, and Tim turns on a recorder. Before they get started, Merkert asks if Gus would like to have a lawyer present, and Gus politely declines. Then they get right to the point. Gus’s fingerprints have been found “at a crime scene”. The only specific is that it was a drug-related homicide.

Gus thinks about it for a second, but he’s already way ahead of them. They must be referring to Gale Boetticher’s apartment. Bingo. That’s exactly what they’re referring to. And Gus admits that, yes, he was at Gale’s apartment.

This means two things…one, Gus, thinking over all the places he’s been recently, has almost instantly deduced, correctly, what “crime scene” they’re referring to. And two, because Gus freely admitting he was at Gale’s, he must have some strategy to get himself out of this pickle.

Actually it means three things. The third thing is that Gus is a computer

And here it is. He spins a yarn: a dozen years ago or so, Gus tells them, he set up a scholarship at the University of New Mexico. It was a chemistry scholarship in honor of an old friend of his named “Maximino Arcinega” who, Gus says, died too young. (Sounds like an Important Detail for us to file away…who was Maximinio Arcinega?)

Gale, naturally, was the recipient of the scholarship. And what Gus isn’t telling them, and what we can all pretty much deduce on our own, is that the scholarship was a means for Gus to train his very own high-caliber meth cook. Which explains perfectly how someone like Gale could have wound up with someone like Gus.

So that explains the relationship. Gus further explains how he came to be at Gale’s apartment. The two hadn’t seen each other for a decade until Gale ran into Gus at Los Pollos Hermanos recently. Gale invited him to dinner and Gus accepted.

Hank’s definitely more suspicious than his colleagues, and he presses the issue. Why, after such a long time apart, would Gale invite him to dinner? Isn’t it a coincidence that right after their ten-year reunion Gale suddenly dies?

Gus has an answer for that, too. At dinner, Gale indicated wanted Gus to invest in a new business opportunity. Gus adds that Gale was talented but took shortcuts, implying that Gale needed the money to start up his meth cook. Which not only clears his own name but pins Heisenberg on the now-dead Gale.

And to top it all off, Gus is able to produce an alibi for the night Gale was murdered. He was at a meeting that night. He pulls out his appointment book to corroborate it.

And that looks like the end, but Hank has one more question for Gus…is “Gustavo Fring” his real name? Gus looks (genuinely) taken aback. Hank’s done some digging into Chilean records and hasn’t found any mention of a Gustavo Fring. Specifically, Hank knows Gus immigrated to Mexico in ’86 and then the US in ’89, but no record before that exists.

Gus chalks this up to the Pinochet regime, which was terrible at record-keeping. If Hank were to keep digging, Gus is sure he’d find something.

The meeting ends. Everyone gets up except Hank, and Gus hands Hank his cane in one last conspicuous gesture of cooperation.

Out in the elevator, alone now, Gus stands perfectly still except for a slight twitch in his fingers.

That gets my vote for best scene of Season 4 so far.

ACT TWO

POLICE STATION

After the break, the guys discuss the meeting with Gus. Hank finds the issue with Gus’s name especially weird. He’s seen similar documentation issues, but usually they find something. To him, Gus’s story was just a little too neat. One by one, Hank asks each cop what he thinks.

Gomez doesn’t see what Gus’s past has to do with the current case. Merkert admits to some bias because Gus has been such a visible supporter of DEA over the years, but he too doesn’t find anything suspicious about Gus. Neither does Tim.

ANDREA’S APARTMENT

Or, I should say, “house”. A couple episodes ago, Jesse sent Andrea and Brock some cash so they could get a new home away from their dangerous neighborhood, and it looks like she’s put the money to good use.

She and Brock are unpacking their things when Saul shows up. He’s here to give Andrea an envelope full of cash which, it turns out, is actually just a weekly allowance Jesse is now giving her voluntarily. Saul makes small talk with Brock, (and is surprisingly adept at talking to kids), while outside his muscle, the mute, asthmatic giant, eyes the neighborhood. (I found out his name is “Huell”).

Before Saul leaves, Andrea asks him how Jesse’s doing, and Saul looks taken aback. “Busy,” he answers, exiting the situation.

Outside, it turns out that Jesse is sitting in Saul’s car this very moment, lacking the nerve to go into the house himself. Saul returns with the errand completed, and Jesse asks him how Andrea and Brock are. And Saul replies that if Jesse really wants to know, he should get out and see for himself. So he does, and tells Saul not to wait up.

(If you were waiting for a big Jesse thing this week, don’t bother because this is the last beat in this story).

THE WHITES’

Then we get a quick check-in with Skyler. Walt’s brought out nearly all the money he’s earned and she has piles and piles of bills to hide somewhere. Right now she’s burrowing it inside clothes, then putting the clothes inside vacuum-sealed dry-cleaning bags. She hangs them in the closet, and their combined weight brings down the closet rod.

So instead, she just chucks them all under the house. Gacy-style.

Right on top of the teenage boy torsos

AT THE WHITES’, LATER

Some time later, the whole family has gathered for another dinner—so it looks like Walt and Skyler are continuing their charade for a while to avoid suspicion. Skyler is talking about some day-to-day business at the car wash or other, and Marie’s impressed with how well her sister is taking to management. She’d like to move up to management herself at her job.

Junior asks Walt if he’s heard the results of his PET scan, and Walt has. The news is good. Cancer’s still in remission. Everyone’s happy. Hank is healing well, too, but he doesn’t want to talk about work even though Marie prods. Instead, Hanks asks Walt for a favor. There’s a big mineral showcase at the state fairgrounds tomorrow and he needs a ride. What’s Hank up to here…?

WALT’s CAR

The next day, Walt drives Hank to the mineral show. He mentions he used to have his own mineral collection when he was a teenager, then goes on to describe it at length.

Breaking Bad should win the Emmy for Best Production Assistant Research.

But Hank isn’t taking Walt to a mineral show. There is no mineral show. It was all a ploy to slip the trip past Marie. And now, officially, every character on this show is deceiving everyone else.

Instead, Hank takes Walt to…the Los Pollos parking lot.

Gaaaaah, what the hell is going on?!

Walt’s a significantly poorer liar than Gus is, and he’s much less able ot mask his surprise and bewilderment when he’s caught off guard. He has no idea why Hank’s brought him here. Neither do we. So let’s get to it.

Hank begins to lay out all of his suspicions about Gus to Walt. Good Walt, aka the ex-science teacher with cancer and not the meth-cooking emotionally crippled jerkass, has only met Gus once, and has to pretend like that’s the case.

Some of what Hank thinks is correct, other stuff is wrong. Here’s the run-down. Hank thinks…

-That Gus is a drug dealer (right!)

-That Gus is Heisenberg (wrong)

-That Gus killed Gale, or at least ordered someone to do it (wrong)

Walt is nearly freaking out, but because Hank seems to have NO suspicion of him whatsoever he doesn’t even notice. Walt keeps interrupting Hank every time he hears something terrifying. Like…

-Hank found Gus’s fingerprints at Gale’s apartment (uh-oh)

-Hank had Gus brought in for questioning (double uh-oh)

-Hank is telling Walt all this not because he thinks Walt has anything to do with it, but because he’s officially not allowed to be investigating this and needs Walt to please put a tracking device on Gus’s car (uh-oh AGAIN!)

Hank lays out what he’d need Walt to do—walk towards the restaurant to buy a Coke, kneel down by Gus’s car to tie his shoelaces, and stick the thing on. While Hank’s doing that, Mike just happens to pull into the parking lot. He and Walt see each other.

Now then. Even without Mike sitting right there, we know Gus has the parking lot covered with security cameras. He’d easily spot Walt spying for Hank, and that seems like enough justification as any to finally blow Walt’s brains out. So Walt tries to get out of it. But Hank insists. Very nearly begs.

Walt slowly gets out of the car. Is he really going to do this? He walks over to Gus’s car, kneels at the front-left wheel, and places the bug. Then he goes inside.

LOS POLLOS

He gets to the counter and Gus appears instantly, in full “Pollos Gus” mode. (And remember, this is the first time Walt’s even seen Gus since the Victor murder. No wonder he looks fucking terrified right now).

Walt slowly pulls the tracking device out of his pocket—so he didn’t place it! He can’t bear to let Gus think he’s working against him, so he’s coming right out with what’s going on and proves he’s still loyal. Gus just smiles and, to Walt’s surprise, tells him to put the bug on his car. (Only he doesn’t say that, he just says “Do it!” cheerfully).

BACK IN THE PARKING LOT

Walt comes back out with the Coke, and Hank watches him kneel back at Gus’s car and place the bug—which Walt explains was just him double-checking that he placed it correctly the first time. Satisfied, they drive away under Gus’s watchful eye.

You know who we haven’t seen in a while? Tyrus. He doesn’t show up right now. I was just thinking about him for some reason.

I learned his full name is “Tyrus Kitt”. He is related to Eartha and the car from Knightrider.

ACT THREE

SUPERLAB

We come back to some typical pulse-pounding beats, so something is up. Walt’s racing into the superlab. He walks right up to the surveillance camera and pleads his case. He insists, again, that he had no idea Hank wanted him to spy for him. He promises that Hank has no solid evidence on Gus, and that the rest of the police don’t share the same suspicions.

But the lack of response from the camera must put Walt on edge, because he keeps going. He pleads for Gus not to kill Hank because that would be bad for both Gus and Walt. And in exchange, Walt promises he will make sure Hank discovers nothing new.

Oops.

JESSE’S HOUSE

Keeping Hank in the dark is pretty difficult, so it’d probably be easier if Walt just tried harder to kill Gus, which his what he decides to do next. That night hammers Jesse’s doorbell and barges in when Jesse opens up.

Walt comes right out with it. They need to accelerate the timetable on Gus’s murder. Walt’s pretty pissed Jesse hasn’t done anything about it so far, and even asks Jesse if he’s lost the ricin. Jesse angrily throws his poison-holding cigarettes into Walt’s chest.

Walt tells Jesse why he needs to accelerate the timetable, namely because of Hank, and they argue whether they really need to do anything. Jesse thinks Hank and Gus could just take each other, but Walt reminds Jesse that if Hank caught Gus, they’d be cooked, too.

Jesse isn’t convinced. If Hank were remotely close, Gus would be far underground by now. The fact that Hank is even alive means he’s harmless.

Besides, Jesse says, he couldn’t arrange a meeting with Gus even if he had to. Walt tries to think of a way Jesse could force a meeting. Maybe Jesse tells Gus he’s worried about Hank’s investigation and needs to figure out what he would say if Hank brought him in for questioning.

Jesse doesn’t buy it—if he were brought in for questioning that’d make him a liability, and Gus would most likely just kill him in that case. He leaves Walt to take a piss.

Alone, Walt hears Jesse’s phone chime. A text. Walt picks up the phone and reads it. It says, “Meeting with boss tonight is off”. Proof Jesse’s lying.

Walt hears the toilet flush and quickly replaces the phone, turning so that his back is to Jesse when Jesse comes back out. He tells Jesse the phone chimed, and after Jesse’s had a look, asks if it’s anything important.

No, Jesse lies. Again.

ACT FOUR

POLLOS

Gus is sitting in his office again, watching Walt and Jesse at work at the superlab. His phone vibrates, and it’s Mike.

Mike has been working his contacts inside the DEA and the APD. Neither consider Gus a person of interest, meaning Hank is working on his own. What’s more, if Hank were to bring Gus up at work again it’d be “career suicide”

So now all they have to worry about is what Hank could possibly find when he’s limited to just himself. There won’t be any skeletons rising from Chile. Mike himself can’t find any record of Gus’s past life, so Hank won’t. Mike’s confident keeping Hank in the dark will be easy.

A bigger threat, Mike thinks, is the Juarez Cartel. That complicates things. If Hank happened to be surveilling Gus when the Cartel made a move, the jig would be up. It seems to Mike they’ll have to deal with either Hank or the Cartel soon

The call ends. Gus goes outside, removes the tracking device from his car, puts it on a metal newspaper box, and drives off.

RETIREMENT HOME

Then he heads over to the retirement home, the same one where we saw him in the flashback to start this week’s episode. Tio is still here watching TV. Gus pulls up a chair.

He’s come to have a one-sided chat with Tio, in a twisted Tuesdays with Morrie kind of way. He relates the latest news to Tio…he’s declined the Cartel’s ultimatum from last week, (we still don’t know exactly what that was), and now there’s a pesky DEA agent investigating his past.

Then the show intersperses a clip of a swimming pool.

Gus asks, “Is today the day, Hector?”

Is today the day, what? Read on!

MEXICO, 1986

Cut to, a flashback…for real this time, a flashback to something totally new. A much younger Gus is sitting next to a  waiting for a meeting. Overall Gus is much more nervous and deferential than we’ve ever seen him before.

His partner is reassuring him. The partner’s name is Max, so it’s likely the “Maximillion Arcinega” Gus named the scholarship after. And since Max “died too young”, things aren’t looking too good for him right now.

A much younger Tio comes out and pisses in the pool right in front of them.

And I have trouble using the urinal when another man is in the men’s room

Then a much younger Juan Bosca joins them, and tells Tio to knock it off, because the boss will rip his balls off—so neither of them were the bosses back in the 80’s.

Tio zips up and blows Gus and Max a kiss, threateningly

Tio then brings over a bottle of tequila and two glasses, and Juan Bosca asks why he didn’t bring glasses for their “guests”? Tio retorts that if the boss wants them to drink, he’ll serve them.

Juan compliments them on their cooking skills. So back then they were running the Los Pollos operation, serving their specialty chicken in Mexico. Tio questions whether they’re really brothers, because their complexions are totally different. If not brothers, what are they?

And then the boss comes out. He greets them grandly. His name is Don Eladio.

Don Eladio makes small talk about their chicken and we learn a little bit about their operation—Max is the chef. Max modified the recipe from his Chilean one to one more pleasing to Mexican palates, with more of a kick. Don Eladio compliments them, and they sit.

He asks Gus what his role in the enterprise is, and Max says that Gus is the businessman. Don Eladio likes it. Then, Don Eladio asks them a question—besides the chicken, what else do they have on their menu?

They answer honestly. Some side dishes, some carnitas. Don Eladio presses the issue—don’t they also serve…drugs? Boom! He knows his men have been coming back high. This is not good. It’s usually pretty dangerous to encroach on a drug dealer’s turf. I know that for a fact.

But Gus is from Chile. They get American movies like ten years after they come out. Thus, he hasn’t seen Scarface, so he couldn’t know that.

Gus clarifies. They haven’t been selling to his men. They’ve been giving out free samples so that Gus could introduce them to their product. They meant no offense.

Don Eladio knows all about methamphetamine. He refers to it as poor man’s cocaine, for bikers or hillbillies in the US. There’s no money in it—why would he ever want to sell it?

They go into their sales pitch—what they make is way better than biker crank. They make pure meth, of a high-quality crystal structure. It’s way more addictive than biker crank and could triple Don Eladio’s profits. Even quadruple them. They call it the drug of the future.

Juan Bosca and Tio laugh at them, but Don Eladio allows them to continue.

“Stop laughing! Like YOU’VE never peed your pants before!”

Gus and Max lay out their vision. Coca can’t grow in Mexico, so the Mexican cartels can only get their product from Colombia, making the Mexicans no more than intermediaries between Colombia and the US. They only get a fraction of the profits and assume way more risk.

Pure meth is more potent and addictive than even cocaine is, which means it will move at a higher volume. And the best part is it’s synthetic, meaning you can make it anywhere.

Eladio admits that his men do like their meth. He orders Tio to bring Max and Gus over some glasses. So everything’s cool, right?

While Tio walks over to the bar, Don Eladio asks Max where he learned how to cook meth. Max fills him in—studied at the University of Santiago, got degrees in biochemistry and chemical engineering, and Gus paid his way through school. Max goes on. If Don Eladio hires them, he will train Don Eladio’s men in how to make large quantities of meth.

Don Eladio likes the sound of that. He just has one question. If Max has the know-how, why do they need Gus around? Furthermore…why should Don Eladio negotiate with a man like Gus, who clearly doesn’t respect him, which he knows because Gus manipulated him into a meeting right in front of his own men. (Alpha dog behavior right there if I ever saw it).

Gus goes pale. Max insists Gus is a great guy. Honorable, loyal, and he even rescued Max from the Santiago slums. Max starts to plead. Gus is his partner. They come as a pair. He’s even Max’s companion.

And there’s a gunshot.

Max’s expression goes blank and blood sprays out the left side of his head. Tio is standing over him with a pistol in his hand. Max slumps over and falls out of his chair. Gus looks shocked and horrified. But only for a moment. He springs out of his seat and lunges at Tio. Somehow Juan Bosca manages to hold Gus back.

Bosca wrestles Gus down to the ground and shoves him next to Max’s body, looking straight into Max’s lifeless eyes. Evenly, Tio tells Gus to look at Max, that he did this to Max.

Don Eladio bends over to speak in Gus’s ear. The only reason Max is dead and Gus isn’t, he says, is because he knows who Gus really is and where he comes from. But Gus has to be careful, because this isn’t Chile any more. Presumably Gus was a someone important back home, or at least related to important people. (Begging the question, who the hell did Gus used to be that Don Eladio wouldn’t just whack him?)

Don Eladio walks away. Tio gives Gus a friendly piece of advice: stick to chicken. Gus sobs, and Max’s blood seeps into the pool.

TIO’S RETIREMENT HOME

Gus leans forward, present day now, and tells the stroke-stricken Tio to look him in the eyes. Tio won’t.

So Gus gets up, pats him on the shoulder, and walks off. “Maybe next time”, he says.

THE END

-This one was basically a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode. Most Curb episodes go something like this…Larry points out someone’s social faux pas like a total asshole, then for the rest of the episode he inadvertently makes the same faux pas and everyone jumps on him for it. Here, Walt kicks off the week by bragging about how in control of his life he is to a stranger, and the rest of the episode is just the opposite. Love it.

-My favorite joke from this episode: the flashback scene. Max says he modified his Chilean chicken recipe for a Mexican palate. Present day, when Gus is running the latest iteration of Los Pollos Hermanos, they sell fried chicken. So that’s how you modify it for an American palate, eh?

-Gus’s interrogation scene was super-duper complicated as far as what was true, what was a lie, what Gus prepared going in and what he didn’t. The one thing that seemed to genuinely catch him off guard was when Hank asked Gus if Gus was his real name. For all the other questions Gus had something to say, but on this one Gus was confused. Hank had to repeat himself and explain what he was driving at. I don’t think Gus was expecting to be asked about that. And, unlike all his other answers, which included alibis or explanations, this one was way more vague. Gus could have given them somewhere to look to find a record of him but he didn’t. We knew Gus had some dark shit in his past, so I guess this pretty much confirms it.

-Gus’s characterization totally knocked me on my ass. It was so easy to assume that he was a natural cold-blooded killer, but the flashback tells us he became that—or, that entering into the drug trade turned him into that regardless of his intention. He used to be a seemingly normal guy who felt stuff like, you know, fear and love.

-WHAT WAS GUS DOING IN CHILE?!?!?!

-Does anyone know if there’s a real-life inspiration for Gus’s character? Some real Chilean guy who snuck into the US and started a drug empire? I’m sure they could have totally made him up, but it just sounds so realistic.

-A lot of the show has dealt with the consequences of Walt’s actions indirectly affecting his family, especially Hank, but this episode to me related yet another bad consequence of Hank’s PTSD and now paralysis…Gomez got promoted and he didn’t. In this episode Gomez couldn’t care less about Gus as a suspect. He never struck me as all that sharp, but he got the job because Hank was out of commission.

-One recurring story in Gus’s life, which starts with the flashback, is the fact that he, the businessman, has always had to find talented chemists to make meth for him. Before Walt, Gus had to train them from scratch. That’s what he did with Gale, establishing a scholarship named for Max. And we learn, because Max tells Don Eladio, that Gus brought him out of the Santiago slums. Does that mean Gus was running the same operation back in Chile? Did something bad go down in Chile that forced him to come to Mexico?

-I’ve written a little bit about Gus-Walt parallels before and this week is full of ‘em. I wouldn’t say Gus and Walt themselves are similar, but they have had many similar experiences. Here’s another one. The flashback scene with Gus and Max is a similar kind of scene we’ve seen with Walt and Jesse—two small-timers trying seeking an audience with the kingpin to expand their business…it’s what they did first with Tuco and later with Gus himself.

Another example is the cover story aspect of Gus’s and Walt’s lives. Unlike Walt and Skyler’s bullshit poker cover story, Gus’s cover story is actually true. There really was a University of New Mexico scholarship and he has the dates to back it up. If Walt and Sky ever had to prove they were poker mavens they’d be screwed.

-And finally, here are a couple fun links for the week…

-One is from an interview with Vince Gilligan. He explains about why you hate Skyler so much.

-And the other is from the Breaking Bad wiki. It’s not really relevant to anything, but it does goes into the chemical process of how Walt’s blue meth is made. Which means that someone sat down and figured that shit out. Have a look.

That’s it for me this week. Thanks, team!

Meth,

SCOA