Gus Fring's Mysterious Backstory! Better Call Saul Breaking Bad Breakdown

[Music] do you remember santiago the two of us our backs to the wall i will never forget what you did you are still the same man you will do what is necessary i grew up quite poor we live in the hills in the place my brothers built from things they found metal sheeting plywood and it rained it smelled like hay we were always hungry no what about chile if i can't find any trace of you before 89 i seriously doubt schrader can seems to me the bigger problem is the cartel is in chile hey guys kiwi here in this video we'll be breaking down gus fraying from breaking bad and better call saul but more specifically his mysterious chilean backstory as we're still waiting for better castle season 6 i figured that we should create a discussion including everything we know about gus's past from breaking bad and better call saul including all the new information from better call saul season 5 or her lack thereof warning of spoilers for breaking bad and better call saul season 5 and let's jump right into this now we all know gus fraying as the infamous chicken man but what was his life before then how did he acquire this type of status why is gus the way that he is we're gonna read between the lines here and point out any potential hint of his past that we can gus friend's backstory has only been given to us in teeny pieces and i believe that there's still more to come but for now let's break down discuss every piece of information that we know about gus's past i will be looking heavily into the breaking bad wiki for information as well it's a really good source for collected information on the gilliverse now gus fring was born in chile during the late 1950s early 1960s according to gus he spent his childhood living in extreme poverty and hunger living in a shack with his siblings in the hills near a village i grew up quite poor we were always hungry but there was a lucuma tree my family had given up on it years before when i was seven i became fixated on it it took a long time but the buds grew into green fruit i was so proud at first we ate the fruit ourselves and then i began taking it to the village to sell now due to a story that he told hector while he was in a coma and better call saul season 4 episode 6 we know that he apparently grew and sold local chilean fruit in order to survive that might sound all nice and sweet but the point of his story was much more menacing it was that when an animal ate his fruit plant gus was determined to wait for hours to capture it so that he could kill it in a slow suffering manner and he did exactly that one day much of the fruit was gone from my tree pieces were scattered on the ground half eaten it was probably a kuati i built a snare but the kawati thrashed so hard it broke out of the snare broke his leg as well he ran under the house so i waited for hours into the night yeah it's actually a story that gus has confessed at one point the point being that well not only that he's been a crazy psychopath since he was a child getting satisfaction out of murdering animals and making them suffer but also that he's loved revenge ever since he was a little kid and he'll prolong the satisfaction of getting revenge for as long as possible hector i knew it would show itself sooner or later finally it came out he knew i was there but he was hungry this time i was ready i caught it it fought me but i was stronger the merciful thing would have been to kill it i kept it it lived for quite some time i believe anyways gus immigrated to mexico in 1986 along with obtaining an entry visa to america in 1989. gus had his history before 1986 completely wiped from existence but why this thing with his name what do you think in there sure the uh record keeping in south america is hit or miss i mean we run into that all the time right we usually find something maybe 486 this guy's a ghost the state department wasn't satisfied with his records they want to naturalize it no maybe but uh he emigrated from mexico in 89 you know state just wasn't as tough on background checks pre-911 what about chile if i can't find any trace of you before 89 i seriously doubt schrader can seems to me the bigger problem is the cartel well the leading theory is that he was a military general for the chilean government specifically under augusto pinochet now pinochet was the president of chile from 1974 to 1990 along with many other titles including commander-in-chief for the chilean army from 1973 to 1998. during the reign of his power he persecuted leftists socialists or really any political critics in general this resulted in him being responsible for the execution of 1200 to 3 200 people the internment of upwards to 80 000 people that means internment camps and he had tens of thousands of people tortured as well excuse any naivete or ignorance i may have i'm not exactly familiar with chilean history but it's fair to say that this guy is starting to sound a lot like a mini hitler so after stepping down from power in 1990 pinkisha still continued as commander-in-chief for the chilean army until 1998 which is eight more years when he started to run into legal troubles from 1998 to 2004 he evaded trial due to illness by the time of his death in 2006 he had over 300 criminal charges for violating human rights tax evasion along with corruptly accumulating over 28 million american dollars after learning all that it makes sense why gus would want to hide his past if he was associated with any of that now since better call saul and breaking bad is happening during the 2000s 2004 breaking bad starts at 2008 this would be right around the time of all the drama with the former chilean president with everything coming to light with what went on during his reign of power no wonder gus would want to erase any association with it who knows how many people gus could have captured tortured enslaved led to their deaths or even killed himself we aren't sure about the exact position that gus had in all this all we know is that he was a general of some sort as in breaking bad hector once called him a generalissimo now we're not sure if hector was being literal like he actually was a general if he's just making fun of the fact that he was in the military in general no pun intended that's the best that we have to go off of considering what we know about gus just how he is as a person and considering what we learned from his fruit story as a child gus would have fit right in as an officer under pinochet gus loves capturing torturing murder revenge revenge but all jokes aside he could have seen those chilean people as animals as well he could have enjoyed their suffering just thinking about all the dark horrible things that gus could have done in his past is horrifying especially when you consider the fact that he probably liked it and supported it he's not one of those characters where oh he had to do a horrible thing because he was forced to no he actually wanted to he probably enjoyed it and he was probably disappointed when he had to stop this explains why gus is such a ruthless calculated powerful menacing cold-hearted killer after what he's seen and done in chile no wonder he's so serious all the time no wonder he doesn't flinch taking human life or even making the order it's also worth noting that gus left chile in 1986. that's a very important year at least for pinochet and the chilean government because 1986 is the year that pinochet had a failed assassination attempt apparently five of his men were killed in an ambush and an rpg rocket was shot at his vehicle but his vehicle didn't actually blow up so he survived that sounds like something straight out in narcos is it safe to say that gus left for his own safety gus wiped his history clean for multiple reasons the first i would have to say would be to guarantee his safety with a failed assassination attempt against pinochet the same year that gus left chile it's likely that gus actually fled chile due to worry of an assassination attempt on himself or maybe there was an assassination attempt on gus as well but just like pinochet's it failed gus fring is believed to be an alias with his original chilean-born military name being unknown this is so that he doesn't have to worry about anyone from chile ever finding him as he's probably worried about his past always catching up with him now the second reason why gus erased his history was so that the mexican and american governments wouldn't find out primarily the dea at least currently although gus is hiding his past from the public we know that the cartel is aware of gus frames passed in chile as both hector and donald laudio allude to it we already mentioned that hector calls him a generalissimo but also after donald audio tells hector to kill gus's partner max which is a big moment in gus's life donald tells gus that the only reason why he isn't dead too is because he knows what gus did in chile but that he needs to understand that he's not in chile anymore this is donald audio implying that gus overstepped his ground with the cartel due to being used to having such authority in chile so somehow donald audio knows about what gus has done in chile but why would that stop alladio from killing us is he scared of gus surely he can't be in this situation so does gus have powerful connections that could come after the war is cartel if alladio would have killed gus or are they just keeping him alive because they think he's useful since they know what he's capable of i'd have to go with the latter as that's the entire reason why eladio and bulsa even work with frank lalo constantly questions why the cartel would even want to work with fring as the cartel is a close family business built on trust and well family friend is the furthest thing from salamanca family he's the last man that they trust but they're risking it all to work with him just because of how successful and profitable gus is during better call solve season 5 when lalo questions bolsa and why they work with frank bolsus states that as long as the money keeps coming in that's all they need to care about and friends contact i also love the way that lala walks away from bulsa here there is a lot more to say actually but lalo decides to keep his mouth shut towards bolsa because either lala won't be able to get through to him or bolster just doesn't care all boso wants is to kiss eladio's ass and make him happy regardless of if they trust fring or not lalo knows that will go south with gus eventually and it must bother him that everyone else within the juarez cartel acts like everything's fine [Music] the cartel needs gus his distribution network they're not looking to kill them gus worked with the cartel solely to sabotage and destroy it as revenge for the murder of his former partner max killed by hector alongside donald laudio's order i also find it really interesting how gus is standing in the exact same spot where hector killed max all those years later when he returns to eladio's pool with jesse and mike obviously paying respects of some sort most likely thinking this is the day i get revenge max was killed in 1989 three years after gus first immigrated to mexico in 86 and around the time that gus was getting a visa to move into america maximino arsinigas was a close friend and associate of gus and he was the co-founder of the los pues hermanos franchise they were the chicken brothers so to speak gus saved max from the santiago slums put him through school cared for him and was deeply invested and interested in developing his potential max had advanced degrees in biochemistry and chemical engineering it's also possible that gus and max had a homosexual relationship and although it's not confirmed it's widely believed and better call saul wallow makes fun of gus for hector killing his boyfriend but it's still unconfirmed whether lalo was being literal or if he was just making fun of him now max and gus having a homosexual relationship was a theory before lalo ever existed so this is just adding to that theory in breaking bad season 4 episode 8 hermanos during the famous flashback of gus and max meeting donaldio at the pool when hector first walks out he urinates in eladio's pool mocking gus and max saying that they probably like to watch him peeking another more recent example of something like this is during better call saul season three episode four cyberceto when hector calls them the butt brothers due to being angry that los poyos hermanos keeps one-upping the salamanca business now it's unfortunate that we have to interpret their relationship and sexuality based off of the cartel making fun of them but it's also noted that vince gilligan has implied on multiple occasions that they were romantically involved although he has stopped himself from confirming it better call cell season 5 episode 5 was titled a dedicato a max which in english translates to dedicated to max this was hinting at gus frank's past and we were hoping for more than what we got i guess this was just for the better call saul audience kind of rehashing the same ground without being too redundant with it i feel like they just wanted to acknowledge that gus wanted revenge for something against the cartel of course breaking bad viewers already knew that but they wanted to put that in better call saul just so that that piece of information is in better call saul itself again i'm rambling here the point is that the episode title was hinting at gus frank's past and we were hoping for more than we got the episode title is referencing to the fountain that gus had built in dedication to his former partner max in their original mexican home village fun facts max amino arsenica was actually named after the actor who plays crazy 8 the first man that walt ever kills so my apologies max amino if i'm pronouncing your name wrong and if you've seen my it wasn't me it was ignacio video you know that i'm great with spanish just to stand on the episode 505 soapbox for a moment wasn't it a bit disappointing in regards to hints about gus's past i mean yeah the episode itself was fine and maybe we got our hopes up too much or something it's not like we were expecting all the answers we just wanted some sort of new information and instead all we got was pretty much something we already knew that gus wants revenge against the cartel in the salamancas for max's murder and also that gus is dedicating various good acts towards max's name the fountain isn't the only example of this in 1994 gus established a chemistry scholarship at the university of new mexico in max's name and one of the people who got the scholarship was none other than gail it seems as though gail was going to be frank's new protege similar to max but as we know that all changed once gus met walt and jesse let's not get too ahead of ourselves there's still more to this another aspect of the mystery is how and when did gus get his german connection such as with the magical company at some point in his career gus fostered a connection with the german conglomerate called a magical electromotive receiving financing for his meth distribution network from his close friend and associate peter schuler in better call saul season 5 episode 7 gus has a secret meeting with peter schuler and lydia and we get some juicy dialogue between them in order to convince schuler to not back out of funding gus's projects mainly his underground lab and gus also mentions that in santiago chile they had their backs up against a wall but schuler saved them causing gus to be forever indebted to him could gus possibly be referencing a failed assassination attempt on both himself and schuler considering that gus fled chile due to his own safety that aligns perfectly with this story okay maybe not perfectly but pretty dang close now we know that schuler was with him during whatever he experienced to get out of chile so it was shuler who somehow saved both of their lives by getting them out of that terrible situation that they should have probably died in i can't i can't they will catch me and then it is over peter i can't beer gustavo please i can't listen to me listen to me do you remember santiago not much is known about schuler but it's likely that after they set up new lives they stayed in connection with each other across waters and eventually collaborated in gus frank's drug empire bringing lydia on board at some point this also means that gus met peter schuler back when he was still a general in chile in that schuler and leah are included in the few who know about the truth of gus's past now i've seen a few theories over the past few years bringing up how it's well known that a bunch of nazi germans illegally fled to chile after losing world war ii due to fear of prosecution for their crimes and allegiance as you may know world war ii ended in 1945 which is at least five to ten years before gus was born we don't know the age of schuler or how young he would have had to be in order for this to work out maybe some of you can help me out in the comments but my point is that the leading theory states that there were many nazi germans hiding and taking refuge in chile during the time that gus lived there eventually becoming a general so is that how gus is able to establish german connections i suppose that's how gus knows schuler it's been confirmed as of better call saul season 5. either schuler himself or his family could have been high-ranking officials fleeing germany and gus became a high-ranking official in chile so somehow they must have joined up and gained each other's trust to the point that their life depended on it the doors are backs to the wall i will never forget what you did you are still the same man you will do what is necessary considering all the awful things that gus supported during his military years in chile it makes sense that he would befriend fleeing members of nazi germany gus used schuler's money to fund his underground meth lab and schuler also assisted in forming and operating gus's math distribution network by investing in los pollo's hermanos schuler would have to be much older than gus although i'm not sure by how much as schuler's age is never confirmed hell i'm pretty sure neither is gus's age but we do know that he's in his mid-40s to early 50s during better call saul and breaking bad please stay strong my friend we have come so far we are so very close now to circle back to augusto pinochet how did he acquire all of that corrupted american money well that's a long answer i'm not going to get into it but a few examples would be tax evasion embezzlement of government funds but the ones that interest us specifically for this video would have to be the illegal drug trade and a legal firearms trade it's confirmed that pinochet helps smuggle drugs to europe and the usa mainly cocaine and also black cocaine which is easier to smuggle due to it being harder to detect learn something new every day i guess but this cocaine was actually created by the chilean army at the order of pinochet along with chemical and biological weapons so was schuler smuggling drugs and guns with pinochet and was gus helping as well it would be interesting to learn that gus was in the drug and smuggling business in general during his chilean past before he became the drug lord chicken man knowing that gus smuggled drugs and possibly guns for the pinochet regime would make sense because that's probably how he's so good at smuggling drugs across the american mexican border everything that he currently does is gus fraying he probably did in his previous life in chile some people never change i guess is it possible that schuler and gus were backed against a wall due to their chilean drug smuggling business falling apart and applying to my other theory is it possible that they fled chile because of a failed assassination attempt because their smuggling business fell apart and to one more time circle back to the lalo and balsa conversation during that conversation bolsa is trying to make a point that gus fring doesn't take things personally and lalo responds with saying oh yeah then what happened in santiago wasn't personal so lalo knows what happened in santiago and he knows that whatever gus did whatever he probably had to flee chile for it was personal it's something that happened to him that he did something back and he had to run away from it i'm not sure if we'll ever get a clear answer for gus's backstory and as cool as it would be i doubt we'll ever get a gus chili prequel better call saul is already enough of a gus prequel to be honest and with the actor aging it wouldn't look very realistic i think that i'd have to agree that gus's past being mysterious is what makes it so much more intriguing the mystery is always what gets you hooked and sometimes the mystery is even more intriguing than just learning the answer now that's not a good thing in storytelling you always want the answer to be just as good as the mystery as well but it seems more than not a lot of these tv shows and movies get you hooked on an interesting premise oh what's this gonna be and then when you find it out it's kind of stupid underwhelming lame i don't know for example look at the tv show lost enough said right i mean i absolutely love lost but you can't help but admit that the mystery is more interesting than the answer or another example is how the concept of a haunting or a monster hiding in the dark in a horror movie is way scarier than when you finally actually see the shitty cgi monster in the last 20 minutes likewise gus spring's mysterious past will continue to become more and more intimidating the longer it stays a dark mystery and by all means i'm not saying that vince gilligan and the whole writing crew doesn't have a good answer that they wouldn't be able to create a satisfying answer i'm sure that they would but i'm just emphasizing on the fact of how intriguing it is because it's a mystery and to loop around to what i was saying earlier i'm not sure if we'll ever fully get an answer to gus's mysterious chilean past i think that it's something that they may allude to again in better call saul season 6 possibly to give us a few more pieces to put together such as the whole shuler situation we got in season 5 but i don't think they will get any sort of concrete finalization i feel like they're purposely wanting us to theorize and put pieces together ourselves instead of them eventually just giving us the whole answer gus wanted to be kept a secret and for the most part it is no one knows about it and the ones who do rarely tease any information it's actually one of breaking bad's best kept secrets to this day it still hasn't been answered and unlike the it wasn't me it was ignacio mystery i honestly don't think that this one will ever be completely solved i mean i'm pretty sure i have it solved with everything i've said in this video but who knows season six could come out and it could change or season six could finish and then a few years down the road they could do a netflix special and it could change then who knows now as always if we do get any more information i will make an updated video discussing it and if we ever did hypothetically get a solid finalized answer i will definitely make a full definitive gus frame chilean backstory explained a video currently the show isn't over yet and we still don't have the full answer to the mystery just a rough outline in this video we've discussed everything that we currently know about gus's chilean past including the new information that better call cell season 5 brought us and i also just wanted to jump back to an earlier point and emphasize just how disappointed i was with the lack of gus backstory information that we got in episode 505 did icado a max but i'm happy to see with what we got between gus and schuler in episode 507 it's almost like they faked us out they gave us what we wanted two episodes later don't give us what we want what we expected and then give it to us right after when we don't sure i'll take it okay so we now know that gus was a highly ranking military official most likely a general and during his time in the chilean army he most likely partook in enslavement torturing and executions so acts against humanity he was most likely loyal to the chilean dictator at the time augusto pinochet with gus fled chile in 1986 after a failed assassination attempt on not only pinochet but possibly himself as well at one point or another he befriended possible former nazi germans and together they escaped whatever terrible chilean situation they got themselves into fleeing the country for their lives in order to keep a safe face and hide in plain sight once moving to mexico and getting a visa for america gus had his chilean records completely wiped in order to start fresh under a new identity and not have a large target on its back with gus frank being a new alias and his original identity is unknown so how do you like my gusfering backstory theory is there anything about his chilean past that i've missed do you have any theories to add on to all of this or maybe you have more information than i could find in regards to the germans fleeing chile or even a gusto pinochet let me know in the comments down below or maybe just correct how i've probably been pronouncing everything completely correctly right but in all seriousness if i did pronounce any names wrong or chile or whatnot apologies there i go apologizing too much again eh but i hope you enjoyed my video breaking down and discussing the mysterious chilling past of gus frame this video was supposed to be all about gus spring before he became the chicken man but if you'd like me to do a full video on gus frank explaining his arise as the chicken man kingpin we all know and love to hate let me know down in the comments too during the creation of this video i was getting so wound up in the gust-frank rise to power facts that i kept wanting to ramble on more than i already have so i can definitely see myself doing a full how gus fraying rose to power video in the future or something like that i'd appreciate a like on the video if you've enjoyed anything that i've said today and if you're new here or just haven't yet already please subscribe and hit that bell notification thing for updates on whenever i do post new content for breaking bad and better call saul liking commenting subscribing and watching the video until the end it truly does help in the best possible manner this is because the more engagement that you all give this video the more youtube will support and recommend my video to other better call stall and breaking bad fans so once again thank you in advance for potentially helping me out with the youtube analytics if you'd like to help financially support the channel for more content please consider checking out becoming a member of my patreon i've updated it i'll be working on it more in the future link on screen and in the description since i haven't done live streams or anything like that patreon is currently one of the only ways to directly help financially support the channel thank you to anyone who goes to check it out and thank you to the ones who have joined but regardless of any of that as always i thank you all so much for being here for watching the video until the very end and until next time i'll talk to you guys later peace out why me because i believe that you understand understand what revenge [Music] oh

Channel: TheVividKiWi

Views: 149,652

Rating: 4.7917094 out of 5

Keywords: gus fring, gus fring death, gus fring kills cartel, gus fring hector salamanca, gus fring don eladio, breaking bad gus fring, breaking bad gus explained, breaking bad gus fring's past theory, gus fring chile, sabrosito, hermanos, salud, better call saul season 5 breakdown, better call saul season 6 predictions, better call saul season 6 episode 1, better call saul season 1 recap, better call saul recap, saul goodman, breaking bad, better call saul, gus fring theory

Id: OUT5nwQLCqc

Length: 29min 0sec (1740 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 08 2020