r/breakingbad • u/Sharp-Point-5254 Drew Sharp’s Tarantula • 16h ago

Why would Gus… Spoiler

…threaten Walt in the desert? He has him tied up at gun point, and fires him. That’s fine. But why would he tell Walt that he is going to murder Hank? Gus can’t kill Walt, and is resorting to murdering Hank, which makes sense. But telling Walt about this (and then threatening his family), pushed Walt to get into survival mode. Gus knew what Walt was capable of after he undermined Gus’s plans on killing Walt and Jesse in season 3. If Walt is fired, and gets to live, and has no idea that anyone is about to get killed, he might be okay with retirement. He thinks he has hundreds of thousands of dollars stashed in the crawl space. Bit of a half measure from Gus. He then lost half his face. Very allegorical. Bravo, Vince.

Mods, I spent 5 minutes on this. Please don’t automatically take it down as soon as I post it!

8 Upvotes

79% Upvoted

29 comments sorted by

7

u/Sufficient_Sun2582 16h ago

My biggest Gus question is why would he ever agree to work with Walt and Jesse? For as careful and meticulous Gus is with his business, working with those two doesn’t seem in character. I guess if he didn’t, BB wouldn’t exist!

6

u/Sharp-Point-5254 Drew Sharp’s Tarantula 16h ago

Walt was the best cook west of the Mississippi. He didn’t know how volatile Walt would become

4

u/Sufficient_Sun2582 16h ago

Yeah I know Walt was the best- 99% pure. I think Gale could only guarantee 96%. That said, I still think Gus taking in Walt was very unlikely. I’m glad he did hire Walt…gave us a great show!

1

u/LBLKNT21 16h ago

Gus was selling Big Red Soda when Walter created Coke. He had two options: Destroy the competition... or make a deal and be the one selling Coke in the whole wide world.

But little did he know about Walt's mental issues. And even when Gus tried to help him, Walter became too unpredictable.

1

u/breakingbad1986 11h ago

Gus sold coke first...

5

u/Glad-Independence-24 15h ago

Gus did his homework and knew Walt was at deaths door.

Hire Walt, Walt trains fake, Walt cashes out rich after a few months and passes away from cancer shortly thereafter after. Gus has Gale now even better than before, and if Jesse hadn’t been dealt with to that point, would be easy enough once Walt was gone.

It sounds like a pretty low risk gamble if you assume Walt is happy with a couple million dollars and quietly walking off into the sunset.

2

u/faille 15h ago

BCS explains this more. But even from BB alone we learn how Gus is kind of an outsider for the cartel and Don Eladio / Bolsa and he was trying to set up an empire on his own to compete and get out. He wanted revenge on them for killing his partner.

Gale was not comfortable cooking on his own, and Walt had the superior product that everyone wanted. Gus put aside his better judgment because Walt had something he needed. Probably figured he could put up with him until his cancer did him in. But Walt was a chaos agent, and he underestimated how far the chemistry teacher was actually willing to go.

1

u/_OriginalUsername- 13h ago

Why was Gale not comfortable cooking on his own again?

1

u/faille 13h ago

I don’t think they ever made it explicitly clear, but I always got the feeling that he was always wary of Gus even if grateful for what he did for him. So he was worried about not meeting his standards (and what that would entail). Everytime he was asked if he was ready to cook on his own, he wanted more time. Maybe it was even just that he knew Walt would be killed at that point and he didn’t want to be responsible for that.

1

u/bigtownhero 15h ago

This has always been my biggest "issue" with the show, and I still rank BB as one of the best shows of all time. So, I dont have that big of an issue with it. Lol

He wouldn't have is the answer, and he only does so to move the plot forward. Also, its worth noting, Gus wasn't originally going to be on the show more than a few episodes.

So, the answer seems to be a combination of driving the plot and the character taking on a larger role than intended, but you are right that Gus never would have worked with them.

4

u/ChicaneryFinger 16h ago

Walt would have either figured out Gus was trying to kill Hank and try to stop him or gone apeshit when Hank died. Gus was taking a preemptive strike.

1

u/pianoflames Tuggie from Shania 13h ago

Exactly. Walt was smart enough to know that Gus's next move was to kill Hank, and Gus knew that Walt would know that. Gus needed to bring it up to threaten Walt's family if he intervenes, the only threat Gus felt might actually stop Walt from intervening.

3

u/Old-Tadpole-2869 15h ago

Gus does so very many stupid, ill advised things when it comes to Walter that it's amazing. Either it's greed, arrogance, stupidity, or whatever. I find it strains the credibility of the show in total, and especially Gus' character. It's just so unlikely that someone on Gus' alleged level of criminal activity and years of experience would put up with Walt's hijinks once the original 1.2 Million dollar deal was done.

1

u/Current_Tea6984 15h ago

Or put up with Jesse's hijinks. I'm not sure why Jesse wasn't eliminated as soon as he started threatening to talk after Hank beat him up

2

u/Floppal 15h ago

If Gus is going to kill Hank but not Walt it makes sense to tell Walt in advance so Walt doesn't fear for his life and rat to the DEA when Hank shows up dead.

2

u/faille 15h ago

Usually when you threaten someone the expected result is to make them back off. Instead Walt went nuclear

1

u/Sharp-Point-5254 Drew Sharp’s Tarantula 15h ago

Because Hank was about to get killed

2

u/pm_social_cues 14h ago

What I don't get is why does everybody (including Walter) acted like Gus said "no matter what I'm going to kill your family" when he said "back off or I'll kill your family" which was a threat hoping the result would be "back off" not "yeah I get to kill walters family!".

0

u/Sharp-Point-5254 Drew Sharp’s Tarantula 14h ago

He was going to murder Hank, and Walt didn’t want that to happen.

1

u/Lumpy_Coconut_2373 15h ago

Because even Gus had a bit of an ego. He thought he could brag to walt about going to kill his brother in law and threaten his wife and children and he'd do nothing.

1

u/CamaroDev 13h ago

Bro should have just killed both Walt and Jesse and just banked on Gale.

1

u/Sharp-Point-5254 Drew Sharp’s Tarantula 13h ago

That was the intention at the end of season 3. Unfortunately for Gus, Mike took another half measure.

1

u/Beginning-Good 13h ago

Gus wanted Walt to know exactly what was coming so he could control him through fear

1

u/Orange639 12h ago

It was a power move. Gus hated Walt and Hank for screwing up his plans, and felt like he was unstoppable after taking down the cartel. He could have just killed Hank without informing Walt, but he wanted Walt to know he was going to kill Hank and Walt couldn't do anything about it. He also didn't except Walt to actually interfere after his family was threatened.

1

u/OkArmordillo 10h ago

What I don’t get is he threatened to kill Walt there, but then later sends guys to his house to actually kill him? Why not kill Walt in the desert if you were planning on having him killed anyway?

2

u/Sharp-Point-5254 Drew Sharp’s Tarantula 10h ago

I assumed they were looking for his family. By that point the DEA had been tipped off.

1

u/OkArmordillo 9h ago

Oh right I forgot that Gus would probably assume Walt is the one that tipped them off.

1

u/Sharp-Point-5254 Drew Sharp’s Tarantula 10h ago

One thing I want to add…

If Gus actually did murder Walt Jr and Holly, two children (one being an infant), I can’t imagine Jesse would be okay with Gus.