Don Eladio in BCS looks really rough. I know that we cant fault the actor for aging but you would think some make up and digital deaging would have been good for immersion. This is applied to most actors from both shows but Eladio is easily the biggest offender, while the others you could sort of mentally ignore.
I think I've mentioned this before but the reveal that the Gene flash forwards were only happening a couple of months after BB ended really bugged me. Had it been even a few years later I would have preferred it, but having Saul immediately jumping back into crime the first chance he got despite knowing he's still hot made him look like a fucking moron.
"he could never keep his hands out of the cash drawer", I think thats the point they were trying to send. Saul wasnt doing this for money but because he liked it, he was good at it, just like a certain someone.
It stopped being about money and power after a certain point and it became about self gratification and validation. Doesnt help that Gene lives a very lonely and pathetic life, the sort of life Saul despises. If we are taking just BB in consideration, it may seem out of character but BCS is all about Saul's self destructive patterns getting worse and worse until they climax when Walt walks into his office and losing everything still wasnt enough to exorcise that desire out of him.
I think murdering Mike was possibly the vilest thing Walt did in the whole series, not because it was objectively the worst or Mike, to some degree, didn't have it coming for all the bad shit he'd done, but because it was so pointless, stupid, and evil. Doing it served absolutely no purpose, and you can see even Walt realized that after doing it. "Shocked by the foul, evil deed I had done" comes to mind (from the Marty Robbins song the last episode is named after which is incidentally also an anagram of "finale").
Im sure Walt justified it in his mind as necessary to remove a possible loose end. As Jesse said it, Walt would never accept that he would need to keep constantly looking behind his shoulder for Mike after he kills his 9 guys in prison. It was a kill done out of spite, sure, but if Walt is good at something, is justifying things to himself and others as "necessary".
This was something that bothered me. Gus, this supercool, uberrational businessman, threw away his nine-figure drug empire because he decided he had to keep it real. Seems like a calm and rational businessman would’ve tossed Walt and Jesse a few million each to fuck off forever. That wouldn’t have made for interesting TV but the nonstop mistakes him and Mike made at the end of their lives are complete contradictions with their personalities.
My point is that the drug dealers were replaceable and IF its true that Gus didnt order Tomas's death (tho thats ambiguious if he did or not), they did began to act behind his back so its like he would have ordered them to be killed either way so Walt did him a favor. All he had to do was let the death of these two nameless idiots go and just let Walt return cooking with a warning to not do something like that ever again. Ironically, he saw the situation too clinically and didnt consider the human aspect of it and that maybe its best to let one or two things go.
I will say tho that Jesse didnt help the situation whatsoever and Gus only saw an impulsive methhead that would threaten the whole operation...and he did unironically threaten to expose the whole thing to Walt and Saul if he got caught when cooking on his own. Man, S3 Jesse was just an annoying shit and it took him killing Gale to start to humble himself.
The outdumbing each other from BB actually makes more sense and is more like real criminals. Walt could have been a billionaire but fucked it all up because of an insult that for all we know was completely imaginary. At least Elliott and Gretchen were completely confused by what pissed off Walt and still willing to help him out any way they could when he got cancer.
Vince did say that Walt left GrayMatter because Gretchen's family was rich and thus he wouldnt be the breadwinner. His ego couldnt stand that so he probably thought he could strike up something on his own, thus the reason he left.
Not that Walt didnt build an unhealthy resentment over that and literally made up a whole narrative over how they "cut him out" or something like that when they were probably a phonecall away from receiving him back into the company with open arms.
My point is that Walt is a prick even before the series started. An engaging prick but still a prick.
Gus could have concentrated entirely on his chicken franchise and made as much money as he wanted with his international connections at Madrigal without even doing anything illegal or ending up dead. He decided to be a crime lord and seek revenge instead.
Same applies to Walt with the car wash. They were apparently doing enough clean money to comfortably pay for any expenses so the dirty money was practically useless, especially since they couldnt use it and laundry it would take forever.
