Gus Fring and the 48 Laws of Power

hey everybody welcome to another episode here on Bully Whispers and we're here today to evaluate Gus Fring in the context of Robert Green's 48 Laws of Power unlike the other 48 Laws episodes where we evaluate one law in- depth for the entire Series in this episode we will be following only Gus Fring on his quest and evaluating his actions and strategies of course in order to evaluate his actions and strategies we kind of need to determine what his goals were first and although they seem pretty straightforward to us viewers he does a great job of concealing his intentions from almost everyone else basically he wants to set up his own independent drug distribution Network north of the border and dominate the drug trade in the southwestern United States now despite the fact that Madrigal was involved in the building of the super lab from the very beginning well it could work I don't think that Distributing in Europe became part of their plan until later but we'll get to that in a bit in order to achieve this goal he knows he will have to gradually build indep dependence until he's ready to take out the cartel which he will have to do all the while building both his super lab and his crew on the hush and along the way he ends up facing three main opponents Hector salamona loo salamona and Walter White quick side note while there are enough historical dates locations Etc to kind of sort of piece together Gus's past it would take us way off course so for the purpose of this episode we are sticking to what takes place during the better call saw breaking bad time frame with that in mind right off the bat Gus is working towards setting up his own thing however unfortunately for him he's not Mexican he's not a member of the cartel he never will be and he knows it so instead his first step towards gaining independence is to actually entrench himself deeper into the cartel and we start to see a tiny glimpse of his plan during his first meeting with Mike his goal is to make himself more valuable by decreasing Hector's value and he wants Mike to do it so that it's less traceable to him now during this conversation there is One exchange that is very significant on two levels you care to elaborate it's not in my interest for Hector salamona to die at this time who is he to you associate of an associate how very specific first not being specific is something that Gus is very good at it's part of the reason he's so good at concealing his intentions and he was very consistent with it up until towards the end which we will get to later but for the immediate future what is much more significant is that he doesn't want Hector to die yet and we will get to why in a second spoiler alert it's probably not what you think shortly thereafter we see his plan is working not only is he kicking up way more money but he is also upstaging Hector in terms of packaging as well now it could be argued that he is violating power law one by outshining the master but remember he's under Juan Bolsa not Hector so this is really the first step in making the actual boss dependent on him it could also be argued knowing that he needs Hector to mess up at some point that he is just employing power law 39 to get under Hector's skin your opponent is of cheric temper irritate him personally I think this was just a result of his OCD nature but either way it starts having that effect it upsets Hector so much that he immediately storms into Gus's Restaurant and demands that Gus start being his mule as well which is exactly what Gus wants he wants Hector to start overstepping his bounds may I ask did Donnie ladio approve this and it's working I approved this and Bolden by this Hector has his guys take six Keys instead of the five that they were supposed to and it's here that Gus really starts to demonstrate his Mastery of the art of timing when he lets them take the six in order to keep the piece for now and we see why shortly there after he is about to start the process of building the lab now that he's got the ball rolling on his lab he needs needs to expand his team and there are two main people that we see him do that with Mike and nacho although through entirely different methods in Mike he sees an excellent potential soldier who he can trust and he wants Mike to genuinely be on his side so he finds out what truly moves Mike the thing that means the most to him in the world and he plays to that would 20% overcome this difficulty I would not take money from your family of course nacho is a different story but we'll get to him in a bit moving back to his conflict with Hector his plan is working perfectly everything now moves through him it works so well in fact that if you look at Gus who usually has a pretty good poker face if you look at his left cheek which would be the right side of the screen you can see that he can't help but flash a slight half smirk of course he says he didn't ask for this and he doesn't want it but he does get Hector to officially step over the line which he does again shortly thereafter during the next meeting this time in the presence of an actual cartel member the B consu me I'd watch what I say if I were you however as well as his plan was going he was thrown a major curveball when Hector had a stroke and he immediately jumped in to save him in hindsight given that we know how he goes on to torment Hector I bet he wishes he had given Hector mouth to mouth I mean how much fun could he have had with that to taunt him with but see that's the thing there is no way he could have known Hector was going to be half a vegetable so that's not why he didn't want him to die yet which begs the question why did he save Hector's life now Gus claims it was just Instinct but he isn't the kind of guy whose first instinct is to Save a Life he's the kind of guy whose first instinct is to save himself as well as his clean public appearance which he does throughout both series and being caught with this crowd could be dangerous his first instinct would have been to leave like he told Bosa to do no he saved Hector because Hector going down would be very very bad for him you not only did Gus know Hector well but he also knows the next Salam Mona who will take his place and he knows Lo is much smarter and less easily manipulated than Hector so unfortunately for Gus he would soon be dealing with Lo but he did make good use of this event in two ways first he pre BSA for the idea that someone will attack the salamona sensing Hector's weakness essentially setting the stage for someone else to take the blame when he starts disrupting the supply up from Mexico it's important to note here that even though he Now controls distribution North of the border at this point he can still only sell cartel product second he notices some shadiness around nacho and after following him he discovers Nacho's role in Hector stroke now unlike with Mike who he genuinely wants to be on his side he doesn't trust nacho so when nacho shows up trying to take six instead of five again Gus kills the other guy and lets nacho know the deal you are mine of course later he switched is the threat to Nacho's father but either way he now has an inside man in the salamona crew he then uses this incident to fake a robbery SL attack on the Salamanca guys which BSA had already been prepped for and since he now has nacho in his pocket he is able to blame the Espinosa but by far the biggest impact of this whole incident as far as Gus's long-term plans are concerned is that for the first time he is given permission from the cartel to use outside suppliers find a local supplier on your side of a order which he will use as a precedent later on and even though he says he always has we know that's not true ddio forbids buying from Outsiders it's been very clear after all of this construction gets going Gus toys with Hector's health and his top engineer going awall throws a monkey wrench into the whole plan now in and of itself this wouldn't have been too bad just take care of Zigler and move forward but unfortunately for Gus this all happens around the time of L's arrival in their initial meeting even though though they had never met face to face before it's clear that they are both quite familiar with each other and right afterwards we see one of the main differences between Lo and Hector which is probably the reason why Gus wanted to keep Hector around Lo is very Hands-On show me so it's no surprise that Lo begins following Mike and when Gus realizes that Lo knows about the engineer and a construction project he knows he's in a tough spot for starters things were just starting to get going the lab was under away he finally had permission to sell non-cartel product and had Hector still been in place he could have been able to continue forward because Hector lacked the thoroughness and attention to detail to ever catch him but Lo on the other hand is a different story with Lo he attempts to explain a recent shipment of lower quality by making Zigler the scapegoat and then attempts to explain Ziegler's mere presence as well as the construction project by showing him a construction project just not the right one of course B of believes him because B wants to believe him since he's making so much money but Lo isn't convinced and arranges for one of his guys to start feeding information on Gus's operation to the DEA fortunately for Gus he finds out about it from his Inside Man nacho and is able to prevent the raids from doing too much damage but he knows he has to get rid of Lo and he knows it can't be in the US so he has Mike arranged for Lo to get arrested for the murder he had committed and then give Saul Goodman everything he needs to get him out on bail knowing that he would then have have to go back to Mexico before they figure out who he really is in this capacity Saul Goodman was the Perfect catspaw Since L knew of him because of Tuco and chose him on his own so he would have no reason to think Gus was at work behind the scenes and the same can be said about nacho who will find himself at the center of the next phase of Gus's plan when Lo takes him back to the salamona ranch in Mexico however when the hit on Lo failed we see the danger in using the catspaw if you are found out there is no denying it and you may even find yourself your being accused of things that you actually had nothing to do with fortunately for Gus Lala only told Hector that he was still alive and nobody believed him so while this particular instance didn't end up being so bad for Gus this sort of thing will come back to bite him later who do you know who's okay with using children also fortunately for Gus he knows both Hector and lo well enough to sort of piece together what was going on and not be caught totally off guard he knows Hector well enough to know that this would never ever happened unless L was alive and there was something in the works I mean he might as well have given him The Godfather Kiss of Death it was so obvious and he also knows Lo well enough to know that Lo isn't the type of person to get talked out of things so when he finds out how easily Lo was talked into sending Kim to his house to kill him instead of Jimmy he knows that his house isn't the real Target and he knows what is from here Gus puts on his plot armor and heads to the lab where he manages to kill Lo which quick side note is probably the best thing that could have happened for Crazy 8 if L had killed Gus and survived then Crazy 8 would become a useless cats spall to him since he no longer has to feed info to the DEA on top of that not only would he be useless he would be dangerous because if the cartel ever found out that Lo uses other people to feed info to the DEA regardless of the circumstances he would never be trusted again and probably be killed immediately at this point with Lo dead Gus's only real loose end is nacho and he uses Nacho's dad to get nacho to take the blame which pretty much clears Gus as far as anyone not named Salam Mona is concerned from here we don't really see anything from Gus until a man named Walter White enters the picture with Walter Gus treats him much differently than he does most people now I'm not going to get into it too much here because I cover it more in depth in another episode but if Gus was just finalizing the details of European distribution before he died despite the fact that magal has been involved since day one one if this is such a slam dunk then why didn't you pitch it to frame I did he said yes we were in final stages of working it out and somebody killed him then Europe wasn't part of the original plan which does make sense the product is chemical not largely plant-based to the degree of cocaine or heroin so its production isn't geographically limited they have their own normal quality product over there so it wouldn't be worth the risk or expense to ship it across the ocean this deal came about because the purity of their new product made it valuable enough to take that risk so considering how Gus may have incorrectly felt his European Venture depended on Walt at least for the time being it's easy to see how he might feel he has joined at the hip with Walt on this one either way for whatever reason we can see Gus acting differently with Walt from their very first real meeting I don't think we're alike at all Mr White you are not a cautious man at all your partner was late and he was high Gus is usually very good at keeping his mouth shut and does so at first saying he doesn't know what Walt's talking about but for some reason he eventually acknowledges who he is for a man who at least at that point he doesn't want to work with eventually Gus decides to test Walt and see if he can deliver in one hour which he does so Gus decides to offer him a job unfortunately for Gus Walt no longer wants to cook so he pulls out all the stops to try and get him back into the business first he knows Walt's thumb screw is his pride and he effectively gets Walt to start talking again by showing him that Jesse is cooking his product now Walt claims to see through Gus's attempt to stir him up and that he has no proprietary Pride although he clearly does but then Gus shows him the lab that combined with a little more ego prodding and a man a man provides gets Walt back into cooking unfortunately for Gus his long-term plans hit a bit of a hiccup when Walt says that Gail isn't a suitable assistant it's as if I'm classical but you are are more Jazz don't really care for jazz though a lot of unnecessary notes so Gus allows Jesse to be Walt's assistant in order to keep him happy which ends up being a very big mistake all the while this is going on Gus still has the cartel and the DEA to worry about BSA demands answers as to why he stopped the cousins from getting revenge on Walter White but then he unwittingly opened the door for Gus to use the cousins as a cats paw to solve multiple problems of course Gus offers them Hank then warns Hank so there's a shootout with one cousin dead and the other critically wounded he knows that if Lio lives to tell his story to the cartel he's a dead man and BSA saying that it's innocent until proven guilty in the United States probably reminds him of Lo except he can't let Lionel get back to Mexico so he sends Mike in to finish off the job and make it look medical by now BSA pretty much has figured out what's going on but due to the friction Guster up he would soon be killed by federales leaving no one to tell the story to the cartel this means smooth sailing from here right wrong Jesse is about to create some problems after Jesse confronts Gus over the use of children Gus agrees to take care of it if Jesse agrees to keep the peace but when Tomas is killed shortly afterwards things come to a head when Walt saves Jesse by running over the dealers Gus meets with Walt and Walt lays out the options and so if I may I would like to review options with you it seems to me you have two option A you'll kill me right here and now what is option b i continue cooking Gus agrees to let Walt keep cooking but with Gail as his assistant which was his plan all along however he also lets Gail know that he will be taking over very soon when Gus sends men to kill Walt Walt turns the table and has Gail killed knowing Gus would still need him to cook now again I'm not really going to get into why he killed Victor because I cover it in another episode but by this point from a 48 law standpoint Walt thinks he knows Gus well enough to think that he can manipulate him through practicality you're too smart you can't afford to do this but his killing a Victor quickly put an end to that impression with Walt Jesse and Mike from here Gus begins the process of separating Jesse and Walt until he faces his next big threat the cartel after robbing one of Gus's shipments without keeping the product Gus agrees to meet with them and offers a severance package but he says he is done with the cartel the problem with that being they aren't done with him so when they start shooting at Gus's operation he agrees to capitulate and take Jesse down there to teach them how to cook now this is where his concealing of his intentions really pays off because remember they don't know he has a lab at this point they know he uses outside suppliers but not that he has a lab if they did then they would just take it over and there would be no reason for this trip so as far as they know Jesse is just the outside supplier being brought down to teach them how to cook but of course Gus has different plans in an act that risks his own life as well Gus manages to kill almost the entire cartel leaving him right where he wanted to be he had his own lab distribution Network and now he no longer have the cartel on his back unfortunately Jesse's affinity for Walt prevents Gus from killing him before he can capitalize on Gus's two main shortcomings first as mentioned earlier Walt is able to use Gus's reputation for using kids as cat paws to turn Jesse against him which leads to the exploitation of Gus's biggest weakness one that's actually fairly surprising given his personality for someone who is known for their efficiency keeping Hector alive for so long seems very counterproductive more like something the Salam Monas would do now it's very easy to overlook how out of character this seems with the rest of his personality since Breaking Bad aired first so we see the side of him pretty early but it doesn't fit well with the rest of his personality and it ended up costing him his life had he killed Hector long ago or even just not shown him to Jesse then Walt wouldn't have had any real means to get to him without going to the DEA which would destroy his family well thanks for watching this episode here on Bully Whispers as always like comment subscribe especially if you like this different format and I'll see you at the next score

Channel: Bully Whispers

Views: 18,537

Keywords: Gus Fring, 48 laws of power, robert greene, Hector Salamanca, Lalo Salamanca, Walter White, Heisenberg, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul

Id: CWdcCjpF06c

Length: 18min 20sec (1100 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 22 2024