How Gus Overcame Every Salamanca - Better Call Saul & Breaking Bad

gus took down the salamancas often indirectly a far different approach to someone like nacho say who had to act on a timer and mostly face them head-on directly hiring hits on the salamanca members or directly inflicting them gus was forced to play the long and indirect game with him being the main target to blame if salamancas suddenly went missing he required a strategy for each that wouldn't create suspicion gus operates on his own terms and typically takes advantage of given situations as they arise he doesn't so much have a timer for the solar monkeys to be taken down like nacho does he just wants it to be done and done successfully as revenge for his murdered business partner and lover max there wasn't that necessity to get out of the game like there was for nacho leaving gus with the opportunity to wait for the best moment over being pressured to make a move at first chance let's go chronologically so starting off with lalu salamanca debatably gus's greatest opponent lalu was a character that caused gus to fall into an almost unrecognizable state from how he's usually depicted a paranoid mess surrounded by hundreds of guards living in a house across the street and monitoring his neighborhood as well as any possible location that lalo might pop up in he constantly had a gun strapped to his ankle and wore a bulletproof vest and even stationed some of his men within his poyus restaurants that's a lot for one guy lala required a lot of prep going so far back as hiring two very important players into his employ nacho varga and mike germantrout the two of them had previously been responsible for the imprisonment of tuko and mike had received great salamanca pressure as a result ending in him nearly sniping hector out in the desert after causing great disruption to their operation gus first appealed to mike by way of threat leaving a don't note out in the desert an event that shocked mike causing him to pull apart his car finding a tracker after hours of searching and leading him to a los poyos restaurant from here on gus appealed to mike by means of revenge after initially offering to launder his money so that his family can get it an interesting thing to appeal to and it suggests greatly that gus was aware of what went down in philadelphia it acts as a threat a scare technique what with knowing about his shady past but also a show of the sharing of a mutual goal of taking down the salamancas mike later proves himself valuable in setting up the lab operation when mike spirals after killing werner gus takes him to a secluded village to recover from his stab wound where he confesses they both understand revenge finally solidifying their partnership gus first gained control of nacho vaga a salamanca associate responsible for putting hector in his wheelchair after nacho switched his hot meds for sugar pills an action he took after hector attempted to use nacho's honest working father's business to move drugs across the border using his shop as a point of operation natura's plan went successfully but unluckily for nacho gus saves hector's life gus then threatens nacho he will reveal the truth unless he does everything he says and reports back salamanca plans nacho is forced to dig deeper into the salamanca operation becoming the top guy in the north by the time lalo arrives and so making him a key piece for gus to move to take down lalo gus put in place quite an elaborate scheme the first thing he did was get lalo placed in prison with use of mike posing as a pi and informing one of the bystanders of the travel wire murder in 510 of the car lala was driving a sure way to get him imprisoned and forced to return to mexico leaving nacho in charge under gus's finger from here mike then provided jimmy with the necessary information that the witness had been coached allowing lalo sorry jorge de guzman to be put up for bail at 7 million the reasoning behind this was to force lalu back to mexico where he would be unable to interfere further in gus's business and allow him to continue construction on the lab a murder in the south raises far less suspicion to fring than a death in the northwood when jimmy sets out into the desert to pick up the 7 million dollars juan balsa sees his opportunity to keep lalo in prison unaware of gus's own plan so he sends a team to kill him and take the money mike was further important to the plan here being a capable sniper who likely served in vietnam making him able to take out three cars full of guys and make sure the money was returned to lalo for bail an important step in making sure he returned to mexico where his death wouldn't raise as many red flags having capable people like mike are really important to gus's plans pretty much always to be honest if he didn't have these people around him he wouldn't be able to cause nearly as much damage i mean it when i said lalo was really the biggest threat out of the salamancas it really puts into perspective in fact after the events of better cool soul just how much easier it was for him to take the rest of them down in breaking bad it makes it all the more sinister too with them not posing much of a threat really despite this gus deciding that he has to wipe them all out before he can rest just makes him all the more terrifying a spanner is thrown into the works when lalo brings nacho with him to mexico ready to introduce him to eladio as his new guy in the north a result of kim's words after lalo's interrogation of what happened in the desert this was a very unforeseen circumstance for gus here i think but at the very least mike does overhear the conversation the one benefit of this was that nacho was now on the inside of lalo's wooled compound gus used that to his advantage and had him let the mercenary team in they failed to kill lalo though with him escaping through a tunnel returning to kill them all quickly nacho is hunted in the south lalo faking his death and planting a body double there's a clear parallel here between lala and gus what with gus's own tunnel and body double being revealed in season six it's meant to show anything that lala was truly gus's closest peer as an opponent in the cartel gus then gets mike to set up nacho for him to be found and hopefully killed blamed for lala's murder mike convinces him of a better plan and nacho takes the fool voluntarily in exchange for his father's survival this is maybe the only moment gus is really forced to do something he wanted to threaten manuel but mike refuses offering up a cleaner solution ultimately gus entrusts his cleaner to clean up the mess that has been made of gus's own need for lalo's death allowing his men to play to their strengths and also partly because at this point he's left with very little other option despite the seeming success of the operation gus becomes suspicious once more when he sees a certain joy in the eyes of hector or a cunning maybe is a better word similar to gus's own downfall later on hector basically got lardo killed her by wanting so badly to brag about his survival and briefly we see gus panic a move that likely made hector never look into the eyes of gus again gus's relationship with hector was important in the overcoming of lalo if he wasn't able to read that similar hatred and need for revenge so well he would likely be on the same page as everyone else and believe lalo is dead but that look he would know anywhere and he falls into deeper paranoia he surrounds himself with guards has heavy surveillance on his street and lives in a home that isn't his own extensive measures to try and stop lalo who is really in germany looking for info on the half finnish lab gus gets sick of the paranoia and plants a gun in the lab a place he is sure lala will investigate at some point measuring the steps to reach it preparing for a fight in the dark he knows he isn't as skilled as lalo so i imagine this is why he decided if he had to he would need to create the advantage environmentally and in the moment kind of make a lalo move something sudden and in the moment that completely throws you off and in this case leaving you quite literally blindsided once lalo is back in albuquerque and ready to make his move his plan is stifled when he finds gus's bugged hector's phone line in the nursing home lalo baits him with a false plan and goes to jimmy and kim kim acts as a distraction going to gus's house to kill him while lalo goes to the laundry and films the lab as evidence for eladio lalo's downfall here really comes in the form of gus's own estimation of lalo as a person and an opponent he hears from kim that jimmy convinced lalo to send kim instead of him he a fact that ultimately confuses gus and makes him realize that no one would be able to sway lalo's mind unless it was necessary or didn't change his plan resulting in gus going to the laundry with a small team of men on the suspicion that lala was going there meanwhile mike raids jimmy and kim's apartment and gus is captured and actually utilizes a move nacho made earlier in the season a speech that will rile up the cartel members and keep them captive whilst he maneuvers over his preset lab trap gus is good at this kind of stuff seeing how his enemies or opponents succeed and taking that on board for himself it's further important for lalo to get as much information as possible which gus knows insulting eladio is just the cherry on top and gus knows it and so lalo lets him speak allowing gus to reach his desired position he cuts the lights and shoots lalo this was i believe the only time gus ever directly got his hands dirty every other salamanca he had to take down without any trail leading back to him gus then does what he does best exploiting lalo's perceived death and amazing cover-up of said death to his advantage allowing his strategy to be closer to that of lalo's own hands on approach that had made him appear as such a threat prior exploiting lalo's perceived death and amazing cover-up of said death to his advantage he takes the given situation and rolls with it making hector's accusation ultimately seem unhinged to the point that even the twins don't really seem to believe him further solidifying gus's control over the solar monkeys okay so now on to the breaking bad days jessie pinkman fine tuku salamanca is a character that doesn't necessarily make gus nervous i don't think tuko often operated on the street level of things and never seemed like he would ever be around the top level guys all that much without lots of supervision i'm not even sure how aware tuka was of gus as a person or how logical he would be in understanding him as a threat he doesn't seem to listen or translate hector's dings in season 2 when he brings him out to his desert home aside a few yes or no's so i kind of doubt that he's aware of gus as a threat particularly in his jumped up state he seems far more concerned with the acquiring and distribution of meth over anything going on in the upper levels i imagine gus did have some form of plan for tuko possibly to make him overdose in some way or for him to die in a prison fight it wouldn't be out of the ordinary really we see and hear about his constant reliance on drugs and how messed up he can get on them the best account coming from nacho we see him erratically murder his own men and indirectly causing the death of his own brother-in-law purely out of paranoia and the feeling of being disrespected we don't have a definitive plan for tuko on gus's part but i think he was probably informed by mike and his own encounter with him and gus simply decided that tuka would essentially cause his own death eventually one way or another which is basically what happens again if he had died by overdose or prison fight north of the border i don't think there would be any red flags raised with hector compared to say the risk of lalo being killed in prison in the north hector knows lala is smart if he gets killed in a prison in the north he blames gus so does balsa probably if tuko does the same it seems normal almost we see this in hector's reaction after finding out to go knife the guy extending his was six sentence he'd be there forever for once he doesn't blame gus he's just angry that tuko has extended his sentence he knows what tuku is like so i think gus's plan was purely to leave him to his own devices and if he happened to live longer than expected gus would have stepped in and created a believable situation that hector wouldn't even blink at likely with use of mike and his men ultimately tuko dies after being shot in the head by hank he was searching for jesse tuko had been injured prior when the captive jesse and walt had escaped leaving him with a likely already deadly gunshot wound ultimately the smart play with tuko was to simply leave him to his own devices and to the surprise of no one end up dead both waltz and hank's involvement in touga's death played a big part in gus's plan for taking out the next salamanca opponent the twins to take down the twins gus utilized the salamanca's blood for blood motto to his advantage and further his position as the greatest earner of the cartel to his advantage the twins originally come north with the goal of killing walter white for the murder of tuko they get as far as his bedroom waiting for him to leave the shower to axe him a question when they receive a text that simply says poyos it's interesting they do honour this too a sign of gus's overwhelming influence at this point what with it being his territory after the death of lalo and the initial weakening of the salamancas gus meets them at sunset and confesses he needs walter and directs them to hank instead it's worth noting too that he was only probably aware that it was hank you killed tuko due to his close ties to the dea to begin with there's some resistance from the twins with hank being a dea agent and some concern over what balsa would say ultimately though gus clears the hit with a proclaimed respect for the salamanca's need for revenge a minute prior to the twins approaching hank gus calls him as a warning he did this likely to ensure that there was more of a fight put up increasing the probability that one or both would get injured and at the very least making the fight messier and more drawn out alerting the rest of the dea and heightening the possibility of the twins arrest he kind of lucked out in the sense that hank actually got the better of both of them the twins hit on the dea north of the border also acted to weaken the salamanca influence on the cartel with them seeming more unreliable and erratic one of the only rules that balsa had being that dea don't get hit gus used the salamanca's own motto against them and in many ways the twins own lack of care or thought prior to walking into a gunfight they love to just stroll in and make a scene and gus clearly knew that one of the cousins survives however so gus uses his public image as a supporter of the dea bringing chicken for all of them distracting them whilst mike sneaks in and poisons lionel this ultimately resulting in the death of balsa too after he receives considerable pressure from the dea attack quite the play joaquin salamanca is someone i thought i should mention he was pretty much an afterthought and appears for about 3 seconds before jesse blossom his main purpose is to act as a final gut punch to hector gus didn't seem to see him as a threat really less so than tuko even i presume he was actually meant to drink the zephyro also and so him appearing on their escape and shooting mike it was maybe a bit of a curveball it's pretty lucky jesse was there really if the sofiro hadn't killed him here he could have easily been tracked down later on though i'm sure through mike and they could have gotten rid of him without any trouble what would the cartel pretty much be wiped out in salud i think jesse's involvement is kind of just so he can witness gus's hatred for hector jesse's witnessing of this interaction resulting in gus's downfall with it being a key piece of information that walter preys on finally hector salamanca was overcome by gus pretty much through the defeat of all the other members of the salamanca family he didn't want to simply overcome him that's made clear by the fact that he gets to overcome him really early on into the storyline in 310 when he actively saves his life in order to prolong his suffering he provides him with treatment but only so much that he is mentally aware of what is going on yet incapable of taking any action gus has full control really at this point this situation is pretty much handed to him too by nacho once again he takes advantage of the given situation antectis state leaving him in the most advantageous spot where he's incapable of really expressing the true threat that gus poses we see that from this point on hector isn't respected nearly as much after nacho's pill switch lalo is the only one who really listens to him eladio mocks him and even the twins although loyal to the salamanca name seem to think he's a little delusional when it comes to gus's involvement in lalo's death with hector being the only salamanca alive gus seemed content in leaving him to rot in his nursing home only when he's alerted that hector had spoken to the dea does he fall into walter's trap and is killed in a mutual death with hector ultimately the need for revenge that caused him to dedicate his days to taking down salamancas was his main flaw if he hadn't been so dead set on revenge and seeing hector in pain jesse wouldn't have witnessed their interaction he wouldn't have been there in the first place after killing joaquin but gus wanted to show heck to joaquin's killer a rare case where he could do so walt wouldn't have been able to deduce hector's potential usefulness when planning to take down gus either gus overcame the salamancas but his desire for revenge overcame him leaving him in a state of victory for no longer than a few seconds overall lalo was really the main obstacle here the others pretty much took themselves out with the twins balsa set up being the most complex play that to be quite honest gus lucked out with in many ways it was a great plan but lots of things did fall into place very well with good fortune though gus always knows how to make the most of it and exploit the given situation using his role as a public figure and the skill of his men to finish the job

Channel: Adam Movs

Views: 1,188,673

Keywords: better call saul, breaking bad, bcs, bb, nacho, salamanca, nacho varga, lalo salamanca, hector salamanca, the twins, tuco salamanca, joaquin salamanca, gus, gus fring, los pollos hermanos, eladio

Id: Zun3KvE6av0

Length: 19min 2sec (1142 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 30 2022