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This Magnificent Baddie was Headlined on June 2023. | ||
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"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | 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 to Walter White, upon revealing his true identity. |
| “ | When you have children, you always have family. They will always be your priority, your responsibility. And a man...a man provides. And he does it, even when he's not appreciated. Or respected. Or even loved. He simply bears up and he does it. Because he's a man. | „ |
| ~ Gus manipulating Walt into working with him by exploiting his motivation for dealing meth. |
Gustavo "Gus" Fring, mockingly referred to as the Chicken Man, is one of the two main antagonists (alongside Hank Schrader) of the crime drama series Breaking Bad and a major character in its prequel series Better Call Saul.
He is a Chilean national and respected Albuquerque restaurateur/philanthropist who owns a successful chain of chicken restaurants, Los Pollos Hermanos, and uses it as a front for an extremely successful methamphetamine distribution network in the southwestern United States. He's also the arch-nemesis and business rival of Hector Salamanca, due to the latter murdering his lover and partner Max Arciniega, and the arch-rival and former boss of Walter White.
He was portrayed by Giancarlo Esposito.
Quick Answers
What are Gustavo Fring's goals?
Gustavo Fring's goals were to kill Lalo Salamanca, take revenge on the Cartel, keep his meth operation running and make more money, and kill his archenemy, Hector Salamanca, in order to avenge Max's death.
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What crimes did Gustavo Fring commit?
Gustavo Fring committed organized crime, drug trafficking, mass murder, mass poisoning, kidnapping, torture, psychological abuse, abuse of power, blackmail, conspiracy, smuggling, animal cruelty, arson, treason, vigilantism, death threats, sabotage, corruption, racketeering, and corpse desecration.
Provided by: Fandom
What makes Gustavo Fring magnificent?
Gustavo Fring is considered magnificent because of his charismatic performance, his genuine sense of honor and pragmatism, and his reputation as the craftiest and smartest character in the Breaking Bad franchise.
Provided by: Fandom
What makes Gustavo Fring a baddie?
Gustavo Fring is considered a baddie because of his involvement in organized crime, drug trafficking, and his willingness to commit heinous acts to achieve his goals.
Provided by: Fandom
What is Gustavo Fring's tragic background?
Gustavo Fring grew up in poverty and witnessed the death of his lover and partner Max in front of him by the Cartel, which serves as motivation for him to destroy the Cartel.
Provided by: Fandom
What Makes Him Magnificent?[]
In General/Background[]
- Esposito gave him a charismatic performance, with Gus always dressing fancy and never speaking to people in a rude manner, even if his affability is mostly a facade, not to mention his genuine sense of honor and huge pragmatism.
- Even his most despicable acts can be viewed as awesome given that a good chunk of his victims were more viciously cruel than he was.
- He ultimately stands out as arguably the craftiest and smartest character in the whole franchise. The only person who could compete with him was Lalo Salamanca and even him Gus was able to defeat, while Walt only defeated him because of the information he obtained at the very end.
- He had a genuinely tragic background of growing in poverty, before witnessing the death of his lover and partner Max in front of him by the Cartel, which serves as motivation for him to destroy the Cartel.
- According to him, when he was only 7 years old, he was the only member of his family who never gave up on dying lucuma tree and was able to save it, providing his family with lucumas, just showing how patient and hard working he was.
- He ran a successful chain of fast food restaurants that were in 16 states as a front for his huge drug empire for 20 years, but at the same time he kept the restaurants themselves clean of drug dealing, showing his utter lack of needless harming. He was rich and influential enough to even own a hospital.
- He was disgusted at Hector for supposedly snitching to the DEA, showing he was honorable in his criminal enterprise.
Better Call Saul[]
- He is able to quickly convince Eladio to let him handle his distribution instead of Hector.
- Immediately figures out that Nacho switched Hector's pills and uses it to turn him into his mole.
- Successfully tricked the Cousins into wiping out a gang for him so he could take over their territory.
- Carefully managed the construction of the superlab by accounting for the Cartel's investigation and Werner's defection.
- Convinced Bolsa that he was building a chicken chiller instead of the superlab, and told him Werner was smuggling cocaine to which he swapped meth to fool them.
- Blew up one of his restaurants with the help of Nacho to hide the fact that Nacho was working for him.
- Figured out that Lalo survived the assassination attempt by Gus through sheer look at Hector's face, knowing it wasn't the look of someone who just lost his nephew.
- Tricked the Cartel into thinking Nacho wasn't working for him, but for a Peruvian cartel, thus making sure he won't be investigated for betraying them.
- While originally fearing Lalo, Gus successfully managed to kill him by tricking Lalo into letting his guard down before cutting off the power and then rushing into a gun he left in the room several weeks ago to shoot him in the throat, showing his long-term planning along the way. He later managed to use Hector's paranoia towards him to hide his role in it from the Cartel.
Breaking Bad[]
- Was friends with ASAC Merkert (who had no idea of his true occupation), just so that he can stay ten steps ahead of the DEA.
- Put up a Xanatos Gambit by setting up a confrontation between Hank Schrader and the Salamanca twins: if the Cousins killed Hank, then the DEA would investigate the Cartel instead of his restaurants, and had Hank killed the Cousins (the latter case happened), the Cartel would lose two of its best hitmen.
- He nearly succeeds in turning Jesse against Walt, starting when he tests the former's competence by putting a fake hit out on him while he and Mike are doing a delivery. Walt only turned the tables after poisoning Brock and pinning the blame on Gus, something he couldn't predict.
- When Gaff tried to shoot him, Gus fearlessly challenged him to do it, fully knowing that Gaff still couldn't kill him due to needing Gus's products.
- He successfully killed the remaining Cartel members by tricking them into drinking poisoned tequila, and even poisoning himself after taking some pills so he'd have enough time to puke it out in the bathroom so as not to raise any suspicions. He also brought Mike and Jesse as his only bodyguards to garrote/shoot any offensive gangsters, with no casualties on his side in the end.
- When Walt attempted to assassinate him with a car bomb, he quickly deduced that something is off about the situation and avoided using his car.
- Despite panicking upon discovering Hector turned himself into a suicide bomber, Gus quickly regained his cool, as when the right half of his face was blown up, he calmly put on his tie for the last time before dying without fear. His death scene has also become one of the most iconic moments in TV history.
What Makes Him a Baddie?[]
- According to him, he captured coati, that was eating fruits from his tree when he was 7 years old, and chose to let it starve instead of killing it right away.
- In general, he leads one of the southwest's biggest drug empires.
- He has quite a few Bad Boss moments, such as:
- Ordering Mike to kill Werner after the latter leaves just to see his wife, even nearly having her killed too.
- Threatening to kill Nacho's father for his inability to get information out of Lalo.
- Taking his frustrations on Lyle, the assistant manager of Los Pollos Hermanos, by forcing him to clean the fryer repeatedly and when he lets him go home, he says it in a passive-aggressive way.
- In general being incredibly ungrateful towards Nacho despite the sacrifices he did to help him, making it so that he will die in the end.
- Implicitly ordering the murder of Tomas Cantillo, an 11-year-old, after Jesse orders him to be cut loose.
- Attempting to kill Walt and Jesse after Walt kills the drug dealers who murdered Tomas, and manipulating Gale so that he could learn Walt's recipe.
- Slitting Victor's throat with a box cutter for being at the crime scene of Gale's murder.
- After Jesse supposedly betrayed him, Gus dropped all pretense of care for him and had his men chain him in the superlab, coercing him to cook meth.
- He suffocates Arturo to death with a plastic bag in order to enforce Nacho's subordination.
- He was willing to put Hank in a very dangerous situation for the slightest chance of him killing even one of the Cousins.
- He tried to kill Hank after firing Walt, threatening to kill the latter's wife, son, and infant daughter should he intervene.
- He sent two hitmen to the White residence to kill Walt and his family, which was only prevented because Walt warned Hank earlier.
External Links[]
- Gus Fring at the Villains wiki
- Gus Fring at the Breaking Bad wiki
- Gus Fring at the Inconsistently Heinous wiki
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Heisenberg's Empire Los Pollos Hermanos The Cartel Jimmy McGill's Contacts Others | ||