Better Call Saul

[Legato]

Junkies, no. But Gus did to keep those junkies.

The shit Gale was making would have sufficed.

 

[Iron Hamster]

The shit Gale was making would have sufficed.

True and it cut into Walt's ego hard.

 

[HodgePodgeRogerDodger]

I do think @AnOminous is correct that ultimately criminals are fucking retards. Anyone smart realizes they can make money legally, the retards make an overly complex system that threatens to collapse if a butterfly farts on it.

Gus probably could’ve just managed a successful restaurant chain. He had a passion for cooking and sucking cock, he probably could have been the James Beard of New Mexico.

Walt could’ve left Grey Matter to be an adjunct professor somewhere (he’s an X-Ray Crystallography expert, it makes no fucking sense he became a HS teacher) and possibly becoming an associate professor doing research.

Saul ultimately was good being a scummy defense attorney.

Jesse was the only retard smart enough that realized being a criminal sucks.

In regards to Kim, I feel like she’d of been better off as a lawyer for some charity who’s mildly brain broken by work and anxiety meds. I feel like that would have been the better post-BCS for her. Doing some act of contrition for her life and ultimately a burnt out husk.

 

[AnOminous]

The shit Gale was making would have sufficed.

And Gale would have been better off making the ultimate cup of coffee. And the world would have been better off for having it. But noooo, he had to cook meth instead.

 

[The Hardest R]

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.

I’m curious when he said this because it feels like something he made up years after the first season. Walt was a lot more sympathetic in the first few episodes and didn’t seem like they’d have this aspect of him as part of his character until well into the show, likely around the time he told Jesse he was in the empire business.

The inference throughout was they were the only ones that could cook the blue.

Gus’s crew eventually started to figure it out, like Victor. The quantities of chemicals they ordered, the numerous security cameras filming them cooking could time everything perfectly, etc. they’d have been able to figure it out quickly. A drug kingpin with a nine-figure drug business plus a chain restaurant plus a laundry service would’ve taken that approach rather than just killing everybody.

 

[AnOminous]

I’m curious when he said this because it feels like something he made up years after the first season. Walt was a lot more sympathetic in the first few episodes and didn’t seem like they’d have this aspect of him as part of his character until well into the show, likely around the time he told Jesse he was in the empire business.

If you watch the first two seasons after having watched the whole show, it is a lot more obvious that Walt was always an asshole.

I don't think this was one of those things (like Jesse not getting killed early on) that they changed.

 

[Cave Fisher]

S4 Walt was mostly acting out of self defense because Gus just couldnt the deaths of two nameless drug dealers go. If anything, Walt was pretty passive in S3 and only lashed out because Jesse was about to get himself killed.

It's funny that with how erratic he usually is, Walt was arguably at his most well behaved when he was working for Gus, and it's only when Gus tried to kill him over 2 no-name dealers and his junkie sidekick did he realize this whole thing wasn't gonna work and he had to kill him first.

 

[UnKillFill]

If you watch the first two seasons after having watched the whole show, it is a lot more obvious that Walt was always an asshole.

I don't think this was one of those things (like Jesse not getting killed early on) that they changed.

Gus being a homo seems like something they added after the fact. When we first meet him he's talking about his wife and kids.

 

[TheHarbinger]

Gus being a homo seems like something they added after the fact. When we first meet him he's talking about his wife and kids.

It's a retcon. He's obviously supposed to be like Walt with a wife and kids and a secret life. They needed fag representation and didn't want to write a new character so they just used Gus as the token faggot. They also had Gale being a fan of traveling to asian countries and hanging out with little kids singing karaoke. Plus his mugshot and criminal past. But they didn't want to follow through on that plot line either.

 

[AnOminous]

Gus being a homo seems like something they added after the fact. When we first meet him he's talking about his wife and kids.

Except the only time Walt actually interacted with Gus in his own home, there were no signs whatsoever of a wife or kids. He used that bullshit to manipulate Walt. "A man provides."

And it was also pretty obvious his whole revenge plan was because of Don Eladio murdering Max. Gus's incredible anger about that was not the anger of someone who had a business associate killed, Max was his lover.

 

[The handsome tard]

I’m curious when he said this because it feels like something he made up years after the first season. Walt was a lot more sympathetic in the first few episodes and didn’t seem like they’d have this aspect of him as part of his character until well into the show, likely around the time he told Jesse he was in the empire business.

I think the point of Walt's character is that he slowly began to show who he really was. I legit think this whole thing started out of legit need to leave good money for his family after his death (because he loves them but because he wants to be remembered) but the moment he refused Elliot's offer for him to return to Graymatter (where he would get to use his underappreciated skills AND get the best medical care money could buy) is when its clear he is doing this for his ego too.

Walt just learned to hide and block his resentment over the years but things kept pilling up, he lost his shot at being a billionaire, he is working in a place that doesnt appreciates his skills, they are tight for money, his son has cerebral palsy and would never be a full on healthy adult and they are waiting a daughter that they arent financially ready to have. And everyone looks up to Hank as the "alpha" of the family. And the cancer diagnosis was the final straw. Some of this stuff was his fault, some of it wasnt but in his mind, he deserved better no matter what.

Even early on he showed signs, like straight up telling Jesse to go into risky territory, which the latter told was a bad idea (but Jesse does seem to have a problem with saying "no", especially to Walt). That got Combo killed...and Walt didnt even know which one of Jesse's friends he was.

It's funny that with how erratic he usually is, Walt was arguably at his most well behaved when he was working for Gus, and it's only when Gus tried to kill him over 2 no-name dealers and his junkie sidekick did he realize this whole thing wasn't gonna work and he had to kill him first.

Walt was exiled from his own home by his wife who barely allows him to get close to the children. All he truly has now is the money making goal and, all in all, Gus was being a benevolent boss. All he wanted was Walt and Gale to produce the quantity required at the quality required until the deadline arrives and he even allowed them to decide their own work hours. All he wanted was results and Im sure Walt appreciated someone that allowed him a place where he could get away from it all while earning millions.

The problems began when Jesse was beaten up to a pulp by Hank and Skyler demanded that Walt make Jesse drop the charges. Which led to him bringing Jesse into the operation, then Tomas gets killed and Jesse just cant fucking let go of that, causing Walt to save his ass and then Gus decides HE cant fucking leg of the deaths of two nameless dealers he easily could have replaced (and were acting on their own if he didnt order them to kill Tomas).

Before that, Walt was more than satisfied to just do his job and walk off with 3 million by the end of the 3 months. And yes, I do think Gus would have just let Walt go after the period was up, maybe asking him to teach Gale the formula (which Walt may or may not have been ok with) and he was free to go (with the unspoken agreement of him never cooking again and obviously keep his mouth shut about all of this). Gus has shown he can be benevolent when you are useful and does what you are told. He just can be very punishing when you DO step out of the line too much.

It's a retcon. He's obviously supposed to be like Walt with a wife and kids and a secret life. They needed fag representation and didn't want to write a new character so they just used Gus as the token faggot. They also had Gale being a fan of traveling to asian countries and hanging out with little kids singing karaoke. Plus his mugshot and criminal past. But they didn't want to follow through on that plot line either.

Its like the writers werent sure if they were going to have Gale be truly an overly innocent but harmless weirdo or have some dark twist about him. I think they ultimately decided to settle on the former as to make his death feel impactful and not something he had coming.

Im kind of glad that BCS didnt recon him into being some pedo or something, it would just be a pointless retcon for the sake of a twist that hurts S3's finale.

Gus’s crew eventually started to figure it out, like Victor. The quantities of chemicals they ordered, the numerous security cameras filming them cooking could time everything perfectly, etc. they’d have been able to figure it out quickly. A drug kingpin with a nine-figure drug business plus a chain restaurant plus a laundry service would’ve taken that approach rather than just killing everybody.

Victor did say that he "knew every step" after watching Walt but its kept vague just how much he knew. He seemed to know the steps but not really understand them. Walt straight up throws some chemical nonsense that he may or may not have made up on the spot to test Victor's understanding and he clearly had no idea what Walt just said. Walt was the only one in there that understood the whole process to the very chemical core, with Jesse maybe understanding more the steps themselves rather than integral details.

The only three people that could properly learn and do the blue meth were either dead or sitting at the lab at their moment, waiting for "veredict".

 

[Arthur Morgan]

If you watch the first two seasons after having watched the whole show, it is a lot more obvious that Walt was always an asshole.

I don't think this was one of those things (like Jesse not getting killed early on) that they changed.

No they've said that the original plan was for Walt to go much darker much quicker, which is why he starts to dial things back in season two. He was supposed to torture Tuco for Jesse's death, then kill Tuco for killing Junior. I'm glad they didn't go that way, the slower progression of his descent works better for the show and makes him more sympathetic. Also, where the fuck would you even go after turning Walt into Jigsaw?

But I agree with you, it feels like this version of Walt was always there. There's that flashback to when he and Skylar are first shown their house while she's pregnant with Junior, and he doesn't want it because it's too small and his ego believes his family needs something bigger. He rejected the job with Gray Matter before Jesse gave him the money from selling their first meth batch despite him having cancer with another baby on the way, and never even entertained the idea of asking them for help. Hell, he didn't even tell his mother he had cancer. Now that's shitty.

 

[AnOminous]

Which led to him bringing Jesse into the operation, then Tomas gets killed and Jesse just cant fucking let go of that, causing Walt to save his ass and then Gus decides HE cant fucking leg of the deaths of two nameless dealers he easily could have replaced (and were acting on their own if he didnt order them to kill Tomas).

And this is an example of Gus being dumb, frankly. He should have been completely on board with Jesse getting rid of a couple loose cannons because both using and killing kids is seriously bad business that brings down heat on your operation. There was no way Gus meant "kill that kid" when he said stop using kids.

Almost all the dumb things characters in the show do are based on misunderstanding or underestimating someone else. Gus had already written off Jesse as a junkie fuckup (not entirely without merit), to the point he wasn't willing to entertain that he wasn't the one who seriously fucked up here.

No they've said that the original plan was for Walt to go much darker much quicker, which is why he starts to dial things back in season two.

That's partly because they realized getting rid of Jesse would just have been a huge mistake, and the early dark turn more or less required something like that. Also if they went right there, where else was there to go after that?

They wanted the audience to stick around and to some extent keep rooting for Walt. So at first, his killings are a lot more morally ambiguous. For instance Krazy 8 needed to die. There was no way out of that. If he didn't kill those two drug dealers, they would have killed Jesse. If he didn't let Jane die, she'd have blown up his operation.

So we're going from absolute necessity, to protecting another, to just protecting his personal business interests.

But by the time Todd shoots that kid (Drew Sharp), he's whistling at work the very next day. This is a long way from agonizing over killing a thug who had tried to kill him and he realized was planning to kill him anyway.

 

[Xerxes IX]

At least Gus being gay was years before capital W Woke entertainment, and even before the Supreme Court ruling on same sex marriage. It also does a good job explaining why Don Eladio just hated him and Max. From his perspective, these homos sold his men meth behind his back and tried to manipulate him into a business partnership where they got to sell their product instead of the coke he was dealing. He can't let a couple of faggots disrespect him, so he has the meth cook shot to teach the surviving one lesson. No drug lord wants to be known as the guy who got played by a couple of underhanded homos who now get to make millions off of what they did.

 

[TheHarbinger]

No they've said that the original plan was for Walt to go much darker much quicker, which is why he starts to dial things back in season two. He was supposed to torture Tuco for Jesse's death, then kill Tuco for killing Junior. I'm glad they didn't go that way, the slower progression of his descent works better for the show and makes him more sympathetic. Also, where the fuck would you even go after turning Walt into Jigsaw?

The original plan was to make Walt the bad guy like Scarface. And have him die in a shootout of a heart attack or cancer. The FBI or DEA finally track him down with a huge SWAT team and Walt's just dead in his office chair from cancer. In the end they couldn't even have Walt kill Hank or Jesse. They had to introduce Nazis to make Walt as sympathetic as possible. So that audiences could root for him and Jesse to defeat the final Nazi bosses of the franchise.

If you want shows where the protagonist descends further into darkness watch stuff like The Shield, The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire, or even something like Oz. And most of those shows treat their version of Jesse just as poorly. Look at Christoper from The Sopranos or Shane or Curtis from The Shield. Even a comedy show like Veep has the main character embrace darkness to gain power.

 

[AnOminous]

In the end they couldn't even have Walt kill Hank or Jesse. They had to introduce Nazis to make Walt as sympathetic as possible.

Tbh I don't really think that and if so it didn't work. Jack was more sympathetic and honorable than Walt was by that point. Even Todd the psycho prevented them from fucking up Walt's goofy exterminator scheme and getting caught the first time they cooked.

He even only stole most of his money and didn't kill him (a huge mistake) just because Todd had a soft spot for him still. Then Walt turned over the only friend (estranged or not) he had left in the world to him to torture to death (instead he ended up a meth slave).

Jack is just a better person than Walt. Walt is even worse than Jack. They're both mass murderers and somehow Walt manages to be even more pig disgusting.

Walt got off easy the way he died.

It's also not like it was a tortured reach for it to be a white prison gang Walt dealt with. Who else would he deal with that could kill a bunch of guys simultaneously in a bunch of different prisons?

 

[TheHarbinger]

Walt got off easy the way he died.

Walt had comic book hero plot armor. Gus leaves him alive multiple times. Mike leaves him alive several times and once ties him up with plastic cuffs where he can easily escape. Walt kills them both. Hank confronts him without backup and Walt's backup saves him. Jack leaves Walt alive with millions of dollars instead of killing him. Saul doesn't flip on Walt to the DEA.

The writing on Breaking Bad constantly puts Walt into a jam only for his antagonists to act retarded at the last minute allowing Walt to kill them.

 

[The handsome tard]

And this is an example of Gus being dumb, frankly. He should have been completely on board with Jesse getting rid of a couple loose cannons because both using and killing kids is seriously bad business that brings down heat on your operation. There was no way Gus meant "kill that kid" when he said stop using kids.

Its rather ambiguious if Gus ordered them to kill Tomas (he legit seemed to be offended when Walt later on implies he did so) or if the thugs acted on their own. The side that says he ordered so claim he did so with full intention of getting Jesse killed as he imagined "the junkie" would snap and do something stupid, getting himself out of the picture. It really depends how much good or bad faith you are willing to have in Gus.

 

[Flagstaff AZ]

Its rather ambiguious if Gus ordered them to kill Tomas (he legit seemed to be offended when Walt later on implies he did so)

I WILL KILL YOUR INFANT DAUGHTER.

 

[The handsome tard]

I WILL KILL YOUR INFANT DAUGHTER.

I mean, sure, but considering the context of the scene, you can make the argument that Gus just said it to intimidate Walt into staying out of his way. This whole kidnapping and then threatening was only something he did because Jesse refused to cook otherwise.

"Fire him, pay him off or something, just dont kill him."

Jesse did become useful enough and Hank too much of an annoyance, so these two events combined led to Gus deciding to threaten Walt and he knows threatening a dying man is rather pointless so his family was the best second thing.