Why Gus Fring Killed Victor On Breaking Unhealthy

The final word evil of “Breaking Unhealthy” is our antihero, Walter White/Heisenberg (Bryan Cranston). But when anybody can match him and (virtually) overcome him, it is drug lord Gustavo “Gus” Fring (Giancarlo Esposito). A Chilean immigrant with a mysterious private historical past, Gus wears the smiling face of the pleasant, charitable fried rooster chain Los Pollos Hermanos — however that is only a masks, plastered over a ruthless grasp prison. Then buried even additional beneath Gus’ iciness is vengeful rage; he is not solely within the meth enterprise for the cash, however to finally kill the cartel management that way back murdered his boyfriend Max (James Martinez).

As a result of success of “Breaking Unhealthy” and typecasting, Gus is the character who Esposito can be enjoying for the remainder of his profession, whether or not his title is Stan Edgar (“The Boys”), Moff Gideon (“The Mandalorian”), or actually Gus Fring once more (in prequel sequence “Higher Name Saul,” after some early reservations to revisit the character).

Except for his two-faced loss of life scene within the “Breaking Unhealthy” season 4 finale “Face Off,” Gus’ most well-known second is in season 4 premiere “Field Cutter” when he slices his personal henchman Victor’s (Jeremiah Bitsui) throat with the eponymous knife device. The second is so notorious {that a} much-later “Higher Name Saul” viral brief has a joke about Gus’ “razor sharp” gown sense:

The scene is in fact arrange like Gus is about to kill Walt and Jesse (Aaron Paul), making it further surprising when he as an alternative kills his loyal lapdog and makes them watch. It is to the present’s credit score that it does not spell the motivations out for you with some hand-holding exposition — “Breaking Unhealthy” really was one of the best of each worlds, with writers who knew the best way to plot for tv however by no means talked all the way down to the viewers, and with clever route and visuals befitting a movie.

In the event you’re solely passively watching or scrolling your telephone (simply as Netflix intends!), although, you may be as confused within the second as Walt, Jesse and Mike (Jonathan Banks) are. So why did Gus kill Victor? Needless to say “all the above” is a potential reply right here, too.

Here is the obvious and implicit interpretation of the scene, a minimum of inside “Field Cutter” itself. In season 3 finale, “Full Measure,” Gus was planning to have Walt and Jesse killed for disobeying him. So, Jesse killed Gus’ different meth cook dinner Gale Boetticher (David Costabile, who needed to struggle for the half). That manner, Gus could not kill them as a result of they’re too-essential staff.

They usually have been proper, Gus cannot kill them. However he can also’t allow them to get away with defying him. So he kills Victor, brutally, as a proxy punishment, making them stare at his sluggish and painful loss of life conscious that it needs to be them dying — and in the event that they preserve stepping out of line, they are going to.

Gus Fring was launched again in “Breaking Unhealthy” season 2 episode 11 “Mandalas” as a cautious prison, one who has stayed hidden for many years by understanding to maintain a protected distance from his enterprise. Victor’s homicide comes with the impactful symbolism that Gus is lastly getting his fingers soiled. (Being a mastermind and neat freak, he slips into an orange clean-up swimsuit to forestall any blood/proof from getting on his garments.)

By seeing their boss kill Victor, Walt and Jesse know what he is absolutely able to; not solely of ordering deaths however of carrying them out along with his personal fingers, whereas making them fast, environment friendly, and painful. That manner, they’re much less prone to get cocky about feeling invincible attributable to their meth-cooking expertise.

However wait, does not killing a loyal henchman like Victor appear wasteful for somebody like Gus? It may likewise ship the flawed message to Mike, who’s additionally watching the homicide, that his loyalty will not be rewarded. Effectively, it’s important to do not forget that Victor did not have a spotless document at that second.

Earlier in “Field Cutter,” Victor rushes to Gale’s residence, arriving too late to cease Jesse from killing him. He is noticed by three different tenants working into the scene, bursting by means of Gale’s door after which working again out as soon as he confirms Gale is useless. That is positively a memorable and suspicious sight, one which the witnesses would certainly report back to the police. Worse, Victor additionally leaves his automobile on the scene, as an alternative driving again to the lab in Jesse’s by holding him at gunpoint.

When Victor brings Jesse again to the lab, Mike questions him. When he asks Victor if anybody noticed him, Victor appears down and does not reply, as if conscious he is screwed up. Mike presses the query, so Victor says sure however brushes it off. All he was on the scene was “simply one other looky-loo.” 

Gus and Mike are each meticulous operators, so one should assume that Mike included Victor being seen in his sitrep to Gus. Victor staying alive was too huge a danger for Gus’ operation, as a result of if he is recognized, the police may nail him and, in flip, Gus. So Gus killing Victor is ridding himself of a legal responsibility.

Is that excessive? Completely, however Gus does not take pointless dangers. A sketched needed poster of Victor is later seen in “Hermanos” when Gus goes in for questioning about his connections to Gale. So, from against the law boss perspective, he made the precise name reducing Victor out of his operation.

However did Victor additionally signal his loss of life warrant with one other misstep? Walt thinks so.

Whereas Walt, Jesse, Mike, and Victor are ready for Gus, the latter tries to show the 2 are expendable by cooking a batch of the Blue Sky meth himself. (He is realized by observing Walt and Jesse’s cooking course of a number of instances.) 

Then, Victor’s loss of life will get one final point out in “Breaking Unhealthy” season 5, after Walt and Jesse are rid of Gus and the previous has turn out to be the drug don of ABQ himself. On the finish of the season’s third episode, “Hazard Pay,” Walt, Jesse, and Mike have completed dividing up the primary spoils of their new drug empire. However there is a competition over the “Legacy price,” or shopping for the silence of his now arrested henchmen from when he was working for Gus. Mike subtracts it from their collective haul, whereas Walt thinks it ought to solely be subtracted from Mike’s take. 

Mike wins out, and after he leaves, Walt muses that maybe Victor “flew too near the solar” by “taking liberties” in cooking the Meth; Gus killed him to bolster himself because the boss. On this context, it is Walt threatening Mike (particularly since he does kill Mr. Ehrmantraut in the long run). A part of the dialogue can also be to counsel that Walt understands Gus higher now that he is working the identical job. To cite Tony Soprano, “You bought no thought what it is wish to be primary!”, besides now, because the boss, Walt does have an thought — {that a} boss must ruthlessly implement his authority and punish formidable upstarts to remain the boss.