The stare. Like Medusa.
Everything below pertains to the character of Gustavo Fring on Breaking Bad. Forego the next paragraph if you aren’t up to the end of season four.
I steamrolled through the final three episodes of Breaking Bad‘s season four, with a sharp (and maybe nervous and twitchy) eye on Gustavo Fring, played by Giancarlo Esposito with alternating charm and chill – causing me to root for him or shudder at his sight, depending on the episode.
Babushka Gus Fring: by Irene
I avoided looking at the interweb to maintain the suspense and tension between Gus and Walt that had been building all season. When my mini-marathon ended, I began to seek out answers to my many questions, but the man remains a mystery.
In fact he’s been the mystery man of the entire season – even out-maneuvering Walter White as a diabolical genius whose veneer seldom cracked, and now that he’s been killed off, through the unholy partnership of Salamanca and Walt, I fear I will never get the answers to my many interlocking questions – for the showrunners, for the writers, and for Giancarlo Esposito. Who will be held accountable for giving me answers? I can’t let this go!
Most of my questions hover around one issue: the nation of Chile.
1. Who was Gustavo and what did he do in Chile that had to be hidden, yet was recognized, respected, or feared widely enough in the cartel world to prevent the Steven Bauer (Scarface, ¿Qué Pasa U.S.A?) Mexican drug lord don Eladio character from having him taken out alongside his partner? Was he already an established criminal, and if so, how did he come to running a fast-food franchise/phenomenal front in the Southwest?
2. Why Chile for a drug lord? It’s not exactly the epicenter of the international drug trade? Gus vaguely mentions the chaos of the Pinochet era during a police interview to explain away how his records virtually disappeared during his Chilean years. Was he actually involved in the 1973 Salvador Allende overthrow and/or the following Augusto Pinochet dictatorship? This might explain the combination of his upper-class, erudite manner coupled with a terrifying, methodical savagery. Gus also discusses Chile and keeping a lid on whatever transpired there with Mike. Earlier in the series, one cartel member refers to Gus derisively, saying something about never wanting to work with South Americans. They repeatedly make an issue about Chile and his past. Why?
Yellow really is his color.
3. Why Fring? I looked up surnames and it seems to be English. Could this be a clue to his connection to Chile and to solving the quandaries of my questions #4 and #5, or is the last name part of an alias, and if so, what is his real name?
Gus Fring in flashback.
4. Accent: Giancarlo Esposito speaks with Spanish with a notable U.S. accent. Some of his dialogue in Spanish sounds quite labored. Is there a back story to explain this? I would be less distracted during the scenes when everyone is speaking fluent Spanish except him if I had some kind of explanation. Was he an immigrant to Chile as an adult?
5. Ethnicity: Giancarlo Esposito has an African American mother and an Italian father. His appearance doesn’t really match the ethnic demographics of Chile. There is convincing evidence that the German corporation connecting Gale’s lab equipment orders to the meth mega-lab points to a possible German connection with Gus. (If he is German, I’ve got a whole host of new questions.) Anyway, why make him a standout in Chile when his ethnicity would match most other Latin American nations, including ones like Colombia that have histories entrenched in the drug trade?
Gus is immaculate and persnickety. Here he dons a haz-mat suit before slashing an underling’s throat.
There are many more pressing questions, but I need to know about Chile first before I can begin to approach what drove Gus Fring to become a fast-food enterpeneur AND a drug kingpin. How did he become so viciously violent, slashing an underling’s throat to make a point and threatening to kill children? Who taught him such impeccable manners, outside of slashing throats and threatening to murder infants? How did he rise to rival Steven Bauer’s cartel even though Bauer seemed to put a definitive end on any inroads into the game in the conclusion of the poolside flashback in the “Hermanos” episode? Did Gus like the gents and did he take a shine to Jesse? How did he manage his multi-million-dollar meth monopoly with mostly just Mike as his back-up?
Mike and Gus by Cameron K. Lewis
And, as I strongly suspect, did he press his own shirts?
But first: Chile. Then I might begin to understand drug lord, restaurant entrepreneur, probable homo, vindictive viper, gourmet cook, surprise throat-slasher, philanthropist, mass-poisoner, and perfectly tailored Gustavo Fring.
Gus Fring paper doll set by Kyle Hilton
Doris W.
mrlousy
Raúl Zingle
1630revellodrive 
I don’t know about Chile Raul. But at some point I would like to talk about Giancarlo Esposito. I saw him in three shows in the past year – Gus in Breaking Bad, the Magic Mirror on Once Upon a Time and Gilbert on Community. That is some trifecta. AND…how did the guy who played YoYo the cabbie in Night on Earth and the goofball in Do the Right Thins and School Daze get to this point?
I actually am going to rewatch the last three episodes of S4 of Breaking Bad before S5 starts so I should be able to comment on the rest soon.
One note about his Spanish – he’s not Hispanic, he’s African American and Italian, born in Denmark. Get your head around that.
Plenty of Latinos speak okay Spanish with gringo-fied accents. Gustavo could have been one if they were set on him being Latino. But his accent and occasional mispronunciation require explanation for me.
I remember when Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon came out, and Chinese audiences felt distracted by four competing Mandarin accents in a single story. Chow Yun-Fat: Cantonese; Michelle Yeoh: English/Malay; Chang Chen: Taiwan-inflected; and Zhang Ziyi: standard mainland Mandarin.
I couldn’t pick up on any of it, except maybe Michelle Yeoh being slightly hesitant, which sort of fit her character anyway. I’m guessing they also had time to dub their own voices to fix missed tones or chancy vowel sounds. I don’t know that they have that much luxury with a series, or maybe they did and this was still the best they could get out.
Anyway, it didn’t bother me at all. Can you get your parents to watch it with you and ask for their input? I will come visit if necessary. I have seen the film 1000 times but will welcome any excuse to see it again.
Back to Gus: he seriously stands out when he’s the only one in the scene speaking Spanish, and on top of that, they made him Chilean. What the fuck?
Giancarlo Esposito said (in one of the videos interviews I watched after I wrote this) that he had talked with Vince Gilligan about Gus being deep in the shit with the Pinochet regime. But then, nothing.
I’m 100% in favor of Giancarlo Esposito, but I want his character to make sense.
I am counting on Mike to pull through down in that makeshift ER in Mexico so that he can come up and clarify everything for me. I won’t get in a car with him, though.
Chile before the early 1970’s was in fact one of if not the largest coke smuggling country in the world it borders bolivia and peru and in some parts the coca plant can and does grow there.!!! When Pinochet took over the Government he deported or jailed most drug dealers so maybe Gus saw the game was changing for the worst around him and got out.
Also, Gus Fring may have been half exploded, but he hasn’t vanished:
http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2012/06/the-fifth-and-final-season.html
Also, I’ve since read that BB was going for a sixth season. I’m not sure how I feel about this since I like five-year runs. And I already want Jesse to kill Walter, excuse me, Mr. White.
Also, let me know what you think of the last three episodes of season four. To me, it became operatic, which I enjoyed, but the last one then got silly; e.g.: Ted breaking his neck and Gustavo being half exploded.
I also called Walt as the child-poisoner as soon as he had the confrontation with Jesse in the hideout. This isn’t a complaint. I like how Walt gets badder each season. Pretty soon he’ll be worse than Gus. Or maybe as crazy as Tuco.
Did you stick with Once Upon a Time? I quit after the third episode or so.
Giancarlo Esposito seems to have fallen into a type, though the range is rather wide.
I was afraid of him on Community.
Just rewatched all the seasons and it seems like there’s something important about Fring’s past. In the flashback where we see his original partner (who he put through college) getting killed, Fring is pointedly spared because… they *can’t* kill him… because of his mysterious past and, I’m assuming, some larger repercussions that would rise out of his death…
Then there’s that “Terminator” moment where the cartel sends a sniper to play target practice with Gus’s men, and Gus just walks out into the fray because he knows the sniper can’t kill him.
Why can’t they kill him? What happens when Gus is killed…?
I am assuming that Mr. White is going to find out when this new season begins. I hope it involves shedding some light on Fring’s mysterious past. Not that the writers should get too far away from the central story of Walter White, but I think it would add a lot to the narrative. And just as we saw a little more of Gale after his season ending execution, I’m guessing we haven’t seen the last of Giancarlo Esposito’s performance as Gustavo Fring.
I hadn’t thought so much of Gale’s return (via Major Tom karaoke) as a precedent for re-introducing Gus. I now have hope!
And though he got a very quick exit from s3, Gale was very much a presence through at least the first half of S4. Wasn’t there also a flashback with Gale telling Gus that he could do okay himself in the underground mega-lab, but only Heisenberg could make the meth so magic, thus unwittingly sketching out his own murder-by-proxy from the very man who he was glorifying?
Gale’s ghost also hung heavily over Jesse and the murder sent him into that nihilistic tailspin, when his deceased auntie’s home was transformed into a no-holds-barred drug den with lots of sex and pizza. Gale may have had a very abrupt exit, but got to linger.
I’m not sure that Giancarlo Esposito has done a flashback for S5. If he did, they’re keeping it under wraps.
I wonder how the new woman connected to him will be used for some missing expository on Gus:
http://spinoff.comicbookresources.com/2012/06/28/breaking-bad-gets-new-trailer-new-cast-member-for-season-5/
Mike appears in the trailer in at least one scene to tell Walter that he’s a ticking time bomb. I hope he tells Walter some things that he (and we) don’t already know, like EVERYTHING about Gus. But Mike is not the chatty type. He’s more pistol-whippy.
Will we get a glimpse of the Ghost of Gus, just as we did the Ghost of Gale?
And you reminded me that Gus marching angrily and directly into the hailstorm of sniper fire was one of my favorite “Gus” moments. There has to be an explanation!
Yes, Gale was granted a nice post-death flashback scene where he talks about the purity of the new blue candy that Heisenberg is producing. I haven’t read anything about it but I have to imagine that there will be at least *some* flashback to shed some light on Fring’s past. And Mike was pretty violently against Walter’s suggestion that Fring should get replaced — I have to imagine he’s not going to be too pleased with the new paradigm. I haven’t read much speculation about Fring’s Chilean ties but it seems like it needs to be explored. Walter has no idea what he’s done.
There’s also the suggestion that he has his own family and kids. I think he alludes to them in conversation with Walter, though we never see pictures or any other evidence of their existence. What happens to them? Are they part of the key? So many questions about this one character — but all these mysteries, I think, connect to what Walter will be up against when the new season fires up.
They’ve got sixteen more episodes. They’ve decided to milk it a little and split it into two abbreviated seasons of eight. (Since they’ve been referring to them as two seasons — instead of one split in half — I’m hoping they’ll structure it so that each season has its own arc so it doesn’t end too abruptly.)
Anyone remember Giancarlo Esposito’s appearance in MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE…?
He’s been around for a while. His rendering of Gustavo in BREAKING BAD is by far the most impressive work I’ve seen of his. (Seeing him wasted on ONCE UPON A TIME is painful, but that’s just a very poorly written and conceived show.) I do hope he gets some more compelling roles beyond his BREAKING BAD time.
Wow. I have been cheated by fate not having seen Maximum Overdrive. I vaguely remember Stephen King trying his hand at directing. Giancarlo Esposito’s electrocution scene helps me better understand why he insisted that if Gus were to be killed off, it would have to be “big.” I believe he got his wish. I’m glad I steered clear of Breaking Bad news online, because after finishing the season I came to realize that Gus’s exit – walking primly out of the room and straightening his tie before we get to see that the other half of him had been more or less incinerated – was a phenomenon. It inspired so many rich works of art. I think someone out there must have a diorama of the scene.
AMC is rerunning all of season 4 so I am rewatching it all. It’s so good, this show is so good I cannot wait for it start again. I am in the middle of season 4 so we’ll talk when I’m done. I will say, I am eager to see how Walt behaves now that he has everything he’s always wanted. Walt always thinks he’s the smartest, coolest, hardest guy out there but really he’s a coward, reactionary, and he is desperate for recognition. It will be so very interesting to see what happens now – this is what he wanted, now what?
I thought Walt reached a self-serving nadir when he watched Jane convulse and choke on her own vomit while she lay passed out next to Jesse, as removing her from Jesse’s life would not only possibly get him straight again, but also make him an efficient partner.
Walt seemed to do some soul searching after that, especially since it set off a chain reaction that ended in a plane crash, though he certainly never came close to any sort of cathartic confession where he took real responsibility. All he had to do was turn Jane over.
Then came Gale. This time there really was no remorse, just calculation. I want to write about Gale – his character and how he affected Walt and Jesse. Gale to me was the point of no return for Walt, and in an entirely different sense, Jesse.
Then came poisoning Brock. He certainly didn’t want to kill the kid, and I believe his relief expressed at the news that Brock would recover was only partly genuine; the child’s recovery would simplify matters and not toss a cog in the wheel of Walt’s schemes.
And what do all these selfish acts that harm innocents (well, Jane and Gale weren’t exactly innocent, but they were better human beings than Walt) have in common? They really, really hurt and manipulated Jesse. Walt’s loyalty to Jesse seems admirable on the surface, but despicable in its execution.
I just heard an interview on NPR with Aaron Paul that he did at the end of season four.
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/13/156494601/aaron-paul-playing-a-meth-dealer-on-breaking-bad
Looking forward to the new season. NB: I don’t have cable so I will be a bit later in viewing. I plan to create a media blackout around BB until I have caught up. The media blackout will include you, so watch your communication until I give you the safe word: Car Wash.
I may have a little clue that makes all the difference, i’m sure you’ll thank me for noticing : Chile slowly became a democracy in the end of the eighties, when Gus started his franchise in mexico…
And if you watch back to season 3 episode 7, when it starts, you see Hector “Tio” Salamenca “young”, answering the phone about a meeting, saying “i don’t care who he knows, i don’t like him, big man, big generalissimo, the chicken man…”
I think he’s probably talking about the meeting with Gus and his brother…So Gus is more than probably an ex-general from Pinochet’s army…
You’re welcome :)
Oh the heady days of the young, pre-bell Salamanca! I need to review a number of episodes; that one is near the top of my list. I do remember that scene, though I don’t remember the military reference. What I don’t get is exactly who has Gus’s back. They had it then and they had it when he marched into a storm of sniper fire that was picking off his men. So I will keep a keen ear for Salamanca’s disparagement of Gus. We’re going to have to part ways on Gus’s poolside partner being his brother. I think there’s a dimension to that relationship that we’re going to be left to make of ourselves. But those Hermanos Pollos were not biological hermanos, of that I feel certain. And did the chain start in Mexico? I got the impression that they were border-hopping when they made their proposal to don Eladio. I need to do a complete series review before it starts up next summer. And thanks again!
This was taken from wikipedia:
Air General Gustavo Leigh Guzmán (September 19, 1920 – September 29, 1999) was a Chilean general, who represented the Air Force in the 1973 Chilean coup d’état and, for a time, in the ruling junta that followed. Leigh was forced out of the military government in 1978.
Maybe this is where the name and inspiration for teh cahracter came from?
The general introduces another quandary: How old was Gus? He certainly aged since the pool flashback, but even there his age is hard to guess. He was definitely not in his nineties, as Gustavo Leigh Guzmán would have been in 2007 – when Gus’s storyline took place according to my understanding of the Breaking Bad timeline. Maybe he was a top general’s son? Maybe a bastard heir to frightful military power and wealth with influence that stretched so far and deep that even after Pinochet was indicted and ready to stand trial after his supposed senility was questioned in 2006, organized crime bosses and their thugs feared the name Gus Fring? Don Eladio could threaten and terrorize Gus by the poolside both in the flashback and in the 2007 Breaking Bad slowed timeline, but he couldn’t actually touch him. I’m still struggling with a Pinochet henchman wielding such power in contemporary drug cartels, but I’m guessing we’re supposed to create our own backstory at this point. They could have lifted Gustavo Leigh Guzmán’s name and history and created a Gus Fring, leaving us to figure out why and how!
Further reading on Leigh´s Wikipedia file states the following:
On March 21, 1990 members of the leftist guerrilla group, the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front, broke into Leigh’s office and opened fire at him. Five bullets hit his body. Other than the loss of an eye, he was able to make a complete recovery.”
I read elsewhere on the internet that the burnt teddy bear on Walt´s swimming pool that is missing an eye and has half its face burnt is connected to Gustavo Fring. More food for thought…
Leigh could most certainly have provided the inspiration for Gus. He certainly had no fear when don Eladio’s men were popping the ground beneath his feet with sniper fire. I’m not sure that the teddy bear was foretelling Gus’s terrible fate, especially since I’ve read they hadn’t really set a plan for him (and when Giancarlo Esposito found out that he was being killed off, he asked for a big death scene, which we must all agree that he got). But such an indelible image – of Gus straightening his tie with half of his face missing – certainly does merit foreshadowing. See the link below for some info on the Pinochet regime’s involvement in the international drug trade with endpoints in the U.S. and Europe. This may help to explain a lot, though I may never be satisfied until I have a complete Gustavo Fring prequel series.
I see an intentional link between the final image of Gus and the pink teddy bear, although a tie to the real-life Guzman may be stretching it, and I wouldn’t consider the scorched bear to be foreshadowing, technically speaking.
At first I was confused by Gilligan’s assertion that the writers typically plan only four or five episodes in advance, with the exception of season 2, which they knew they would end with the plane crash from the beginning. (I only recently noticed that the four flash-forward scenes depicting the aftermath appeared in the same four episodes whose titles combined are “Seven Thirty-Seven Down Over ABQ.” Caught the title-sentence a few years ago, but didn’t note the spacing of the teasers until viewing again in preparation for the final episodes. In retrospect, that foreshadowing seems almost heavy handed, yet I missed it completely on first viewing.) We’ve all seen how seamlessly even the tiniest details–often overlooked, like the Madrigal mention in the Los Pollos commercial–from previous episodes are woven into the fabric of new seasons. Eventually I realized that instead of planting such clues for us in advance, the writers often look for ways to tie the evolving story line back to previous episodes. I dare say, they do so with remarkable skill and panache, and it probably passes for foreshadowing more often than we realize.
While finding the final reveal of Gus–not to mention the straightening of his tie–to be over the top, personally, I understand this was partly intended as a shout out to AMC’s The Walking Dead, showcasing the talents of their make up artists. Ultimately, it became one of the most popular iconic images from Breaking Bad, and it was forgivable for me thanks to the call back to the teddy bear’s missing eye. (The eye is another thing I hope to see in the coming weeks. I imagined it as Walt’s conscience, carried around in his pocket, ever watching. Could he possibly find it in himself to honestly confront all he’s done before its too late?)
No need to create a backstory. The Pinochet government was a huge part of the international drug trade, using milititary and diplomatic channels to smuggle. Directly tied to the Colombians and supposedly to US funding of the contras. Pinochet fell in 1990, so The timing was right for Gus to have gotten out before the end. Since Gus would have been in his 20s in the 80’s, I’d guess he was supposed to have been a younger member of some prominent Chilean Narco/Secret Police/Military family.
Unusual for a tv show to have such a deep back-story for a character, but not feel the need to have someone “discover” it on screen.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2000/dec/10/chile.pinochet
It is indeed unusual. Only an OCD viewer like myself would require such a detailed backstory. I did not know that the Pinochet regime was fueling itself with drug money, let alone moving drugs and money through the embassies of Stockholm and Madrid via its network of secret police. It makes some of the Breaking Bad storylines a bit more plausible in comparison. Plus, the European drug trade (via Iraq & Iran!) even suggests logical connections spanning Chile, Gus, Los Hermanos Pollos, Germany, Madrigal, and Lydia… and now the Czech Republic. Of course I still want it all spelled out for me, but I was raised on exposition. Thanks for the link!
Forget the timing in history, My family is from Chile and I lived there for 10 years myself from the mid 80’s through the mid 90’s people in Chile do not have Giancarlo Esposito’s ethnicity for one thing, there are no black people in Chile who are Chilean, unless they are recent residents, the children from mixed marriages of Chileans who married abroad and returned from exile in the 90’s The only black person I ever saw in the 80’s and I lived in Santiago (the most cosmopolitan area) was a tourist from Brasil and everybody was starring at her as she walked through the downtown.
I’ve lived there, also. In the late ’60s, until before Allende took office. Then, later in the 1980s and in the 1990s I spent some time there, again. I, too, can vouch for the fact that a black man walking around the city would have incited stares and people would have come out of shops just to look at someone who looked like Gustavo Fring.
On another note, and something I’m sure you know, Chileans don’t speak SPANISH, but CASTILLIAN (CASTELLANO). Chile is the only nation, outside of Spain where Castillian is spoken everywhere. The accent of Chileans makes them stand out EVERYWHERE they go in Latin America. Gustavo Fring can barely speak Spanish, to say nothing of Castillian.
Chile was and to some extent, still is, very stuck to the old caste system. The shade of one skins matters (perhaps not so much now, but it would have whenever Gustavo was supposed to have been living in Chile). There were no black ‘Generals’. I know that in these politically correct times it is hard for people to fathom, but not so long ago, color would have disqualified Gustavo from any position in Chile other than as a servant (and only in a liberal one, at that). The darker Chileans, the ones of indigenous-mixed parentage, become ‘nanas’ (servants), or field workers.
It boggles the mind, as to why BB would have cast Gustavo Fring as Chilean, though we may find out why, in the final episodes.
great comment!
Warning : I’m only up to season 4 and have not watched season 5 yet.
At first I thought that Gustavo might have been a Panamanian or a Columbian. I found it very odd that he was deemed a Chilean.
Is it simply american ignorance on display ? As you’ve rightly remarked, there is no black population to speak of in Chile as far as I know.
If Gustavo is a chilean and is connected to the times of Pinochet in anyway, he’s most likely a lefty who had to flee at some point. I can’t imagine the right wing Pinochet people having a black guy in their team along with the former german nazis etc lol.
The Fring name is no problem. I’ve noticed that a lot of Chileans have English, German or even French names.
Chile is not a racially “pure” european country at all, but they do have a very strong *self image* of europeanness, in my opinion.
This is not a criticism, just an observation.
Casting Gustavo as black could be just american idiocy,but I notice that the Mexicans seem well cast. An idiot american would have cast all brown mestizos, but a lot of the rich cartel people are basically whites or light mestizos and that makes a lot of sense and shows some knowledge of mexican ethnic reality.
I noticed that Gustavo spoke spanish with an accent that was “different”, but i thought that might be what the chilean accent sounds like.He seems to pronounce his -ion in a brazilian way.
Lastly, would you recommend Chile for a black person to visit ?
I’m aware that it’s a very eurocentric country, but I have a (black woman) relative who lived there for a year in the 90s and who had the time of her life. She fell in love with the country and the people.
If I’m visiting the southern cone one day I really wanna stop by!
I live in Chile right now (I was born there) and the writers have made a mistake in Gus’ background. They thought that chilean people are like another Latin countries lsuch as colombia, ecuador, panamá or maybe brazil, suriname or guyana. But no, in the south of south america are not a lot of black people like in the north, most of the slaves in Chile and Argentina are Indian people (Original, not from India), and that people are brown, not black.
The black people in Chile in the 70’s and 80’s was less than 0,0001% of the total. Now (2013) are the 0,1% at least (Haitian, Colombian and Brazilian inmigration). Even if Gus has a lot of money (’cause he paid for his mate education) is not really a posibility for being chilean, because he escaped in ’86 and the people escaping (at that time) from the country was communists or from the Frente Patriotico Manuel Rodríguez (communists too), is not a Chilean General either (Military Racism).
Maybe Gustavo was THE black chilean in the 80’s, but in that case we have the accent issue. It’s not the tipical english-chilean accent, even if he is in the states for 25 years.
Sorry for comment too late
I agree 100% on his accent.. it is simply awful… This show is written so intelligently I can’t believe tey wouldn’t explain why he sucks so bad at the language!
Agree 100%. I was bothered by his accent from the beginning. It doesn’t even sound like a native English-speaker who learned to speak Spanish. Rather, it sounds like an actor who memorized some Spanish dialog and doesn’t speak a word of it. It really took me out of the show, and made me wonder why they didn’t get a true Spanish-speaking actor to play the part. Everything else about the show was nearly perfect, they really could have done so much better with Gus.
“they”
First of all, we must recall “operation Condor”, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor) that was to eradicate communist from southern america (communist regimes left no room for any uncontrolled criminality, so Don Eladio would not be happy if mexico became peoples republic), that involved several countries, and of course chilean secret police DINA. Operation included assasinations, commado troopers attacks long story short vanishing any communistic or soviet influence from south america. Also it is important to mention, that DINA took part in producing sarin gas, and cocaine, they had famous biochemist working for them. Whats more funny, the narcotic produced by DINA was called “black cocaine”. Secret police was included not only in repressions, tortures and assasinations. but drug dealing as well. That makes likely that Gustavo could be high DINA officer, maybe still operating in mexico (“he always took care of business”). To be explained why he left Chile in 1986, and why he is black. Maybe it is allegory to black cocaine produced by chilean regime
Further research Casa degollados http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caso_Degollados
a brutal murder that spread into nationwide scandal in Chile, that ended with resignation of chief of the police and sentencing six chilean police officers, in 1985. To be more funny, Casa degollados means case of slit throats, Considering that Gustavo slit the throat of Victor, it’s highly probable, that the had been involved in the case, and that’s why he had to flee from Chile in 1986. To me the most likely solution to the Gustavo secret
Theory: “Gus Fring” is CIA. Worked in Chile supporting the dictatorship’s smuggling operations; spirited away into Mexico as the CIA saw Pinochet’s regime going out of style; then either fucked up in Mexico/went rogue, or was bought into the US specifically to start a meth operation. CIA is well-known for doing things like this (cocaine/crack, anyone—if this is new to you look up stories in the San Jose Mercury).
This would explain the bad Spanish, the inconsistent accent, the untouchable-ness, the affiliation with a sham foreign corporation, etc.
For me, Gus Fring = CIA.
I am late to this discussion but since the show is coming up in a month and a half or so let me weigh in here. Gus Fring could be from South America, but certainly NOT Chile. My Mother is Black and spent a year in Chile many years ago. She lived in Temuco and there was not a Black person to be found in that city of over a hundred thousand people at the time (early seventies). Gus’s poor Spanish accent CAN be explained. Look at his name. It is a Germanic or English surname. He could be from SURINAME!!!!! That place was colonized by the Dutch and they imported slaves. They had a mulatto class as well. He could fit that bill! There is also Guyana where they are the only English speaking country in South America! And the people there have English and other surnames and there are Black people there too! I think that he could be from either of those places IF he must be from SA;)
Sorry so late – I missed some comments! I love the Suriname suggestion. Plus, the Dutch connection tilts him slightly closer to Germany and the Madrigal corporation. He can be South American but not Chilean after all.
Less than a week away from the final eight episodes, I’m still obsessing over Gus’s backstory and how it may tie in with the finale, which is what led me here.
Glad to others have mentioned Gustavo Guzman. Although I’m confident Gus’s character was not inspired by Guzman, or any other Chilean figure, Gus may have taken his first name from Guzman, and I hope we’ll get at least a clue as to why before all is said and done. (IMO, Guzman stands out as an interesting figure, being the first to sign on to the idea of a military coup in Chile, fiercely dedicated to violent eradication of socialism from his country, and yet just as strongly opposed to Pinochet’s dictatorship. It also seems important to note, since no one else has, that Pinochet wasn’t exactly overthrown, as has been implied, in 1990. Rather, he complied with the majority vote for democratic elections, and stepped down, still retaining his role as the head of the army for nearly a decade.) Gilligan has made contradictory statements, saying that all loose ends will be tied up in the end, yet previously claiming he wanted to leave an air of mystery surrounding Gus, comparing it to the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. Apparently, we will be left to fill in many blanks for ourselves. Still, I agree with M. Alice; if the cartel feared killing Gus because they knew who he really was, it seems likely that Walt will suffer severe consequences, and this seems the most likely reason for his purchase of the M16 to me. This keeps my hope for a Gus flashback, or at least more information, alive. While I was disappointed not to get that last year, if indeed this is the climatic ending for the show, I must say, I’m glad we were distracted from these questions when it returned following Gus’s demise. Walt thinks he’s home free, and I look forward to his comeuppance, whether it stems from Gus, Hank, Jesse, the cancer….
As to Gus being inspired by Guzman, that’s not possible. Gilligan says they intended simply make Gus as different from Tuco as possible, and that the pieces of Gus’s backstory were created later, so clearly, no such plans were laid. But it seems obvious to me that Gustavo Fring is not the character’s real name. The only point during the interview with Hank, his PD buddy, and other DEA agents where Gus hesitated was when Hank asked if Gustavo Fring was his real name, leading me to believe it’s not. How much of the rest of his past is fictional remains to be seen, but the many thoughts as to how and why someone other than a native Chilean could be nonetheless connected to the Pinochet regime are appreciated. Obviously, there are many possible explanations for the seeming discrepancies concerning his ethnicity and accent. While I assume the problem with the accent actually should be attributed to Esposito not speaking the language, the show touched on this in an oblique manner at least once. Juan Bolsa asked something to the effect of “Spanish isn’t good enough for you anymore?” in their phone conversation just prior to the one where Juan is killed by the Federales, as Gus is answering him in English only. Perhaps this is another clue for us.
You raise another important question about Gus’s past and his eventual fate: If the cartel was afraid to knock out Gus, what kind of response did Gus’s murder elicit from whoever was behind keeping even merciless drug kingpins in line? Surely Gus’s extremely high-profile killing would have drawn some sort of retaliation. Granted, maybe Gus burned some bridges after his poolside coup, but the existence of Lydia suggests that there are still powerful and unseen forces – be they Pinochet bankrollers or international corporations – that still constitute a menace. And Lydia would be the first place for them to start their work. Maybe we’ll get a little more on Gus through her. Maybe.
The CIA stuff is interesting.
It’d sort of explain why Gus had money to finance the studies of chilean students!
A black chilean having enough money to play philanthropist with promising chilean chemists, in the 80’s ? That seems very unlikely. Maybe Gus is a usa american.
Or a south-american from another country like Panama, Hondura, Columbia or even Peru.
Or maybe him being black means nothing but it’s a major distraction for a chilean character lol.
Go wikipedia gus fring…look under notes. Then follow the name given to the attempted assasination of chilian leadership in 1986. Pinochet…. His name is augusto the great “generalissimo”. You should have all u need to put one and one together.
Hey, I’m from Chile and was very intrigued about Gus past. This is my idea of maybe an model for this, Michael Townley was a CIA agent working in Chile to disable Allende government, and later in the pinochet dictatorship, he works in the assasination of Orlando Leteleir(senator) in the states, carlos prats( general before pinochet in the Allende goverment) and so on. A very sinister guide in the recent chilean history.
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Townley
Foreigner, very untouchable guy with connections to the CIA and the DINA(national direction of inteligency, a Chilean agency that chased left wing persons) and the CNI(the later DINA agency). Also the Pinochet government is also known to smugling drugs and firearms, the “pasta” that is the thrash of Cocaine Cook is very popular around these times and the beggining of the 90’s.
Sorry so late. I missed this comment before, and wow, Michael Townley really had dirty hands. CIA assassin extraordinaire. I had considered Gus as a possible ex-CIA agent before. That might have helped him establish more international connections, to Germany, for example. However, I’d never heard of the “pasta” before. Was the Pinochet regime making Chile a midway point for smuggling drugs and weapons? I don’t know that it’s a major producer of either. Maybe part of a Bolivia-to-Europe/US pipeline going back and forth?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenio_Berr%C3%ADos
This can be another model also for Gus, biochemist of the DINA, he cook drugs for Pinochet dictatorship that later they sell in Europe, and also sarin gas, antrax.
He is also accused in the assasination of the ex-president Frei Montalva with the intoxication of an nervous gas.
Biochemist would make a lot of sense since Gus was into drug production way back in the Don Eladio days, maybe just as he got booted out of Chile. Eugenio Berríos reminds me of shady Russian assassins, like the ones who orchestrated the attempt to kill Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko about ten years ago. Gus would have excelled at something like that.
About the accent-question. I am from Germany and unfortunately the Germans in BB aren’t native speakers. They have a strong US accent which is very disappointing. It shows, that in some points the authors haven’t been very precise. I am sure, that Gus bad accent in his Spanish has no deeper meaning else than a lack of great care.
So just sloppy casting? That’s disheartening to me, especially because the German characters had a very short shelf life, especially Peter Schuler, who defibrillated himself to death almost immediately after being introduced to us! But for Gus it’s about both accent and ethnicity. If Peter Schuler had been Japanese or Nigerian, I’d have even more questions. But I looked up the actor who played him, Norbert Weisser, and he’s from Germany, though I can’t vouch for his accent. He’s really the only German who left a lasting impression on me, primarily by his abrupt and inventive departure.
I think you guys are wasting too much energy arguing about Gustavo’s ethnicity.
Most of the chilean population is composed by aboriginal and european descendants, specially in the south, meaning there is no such thing as “ethnic demographics of Chile”, as the post says. You will find all kind of skin and hair colors.
I´m from Chile, and I can confirm the fact that there is a rather small black population. However, if I see a guy looking like Gus in the street my first thought would be: “maybe he is mapuche descendant”. My own father looked a lot like Gus, and i’m white with green eyes.
Hi.
I am Chilean, living in Chile. My family comes from… I don’t know. As everybody here, a mixture of original Mapuche people and Spanish. Some german, and some late XIX century Spanish inmigration.
My grandfather looked pretty much like Gustavo Fring, while my son looks pretty much like Jesse Pinkman. My grandfather’s brother (now 96 years-old) has his same skin color, and not a drop of African blood… ¿or does he? In the early XIX century there were people from African descent, either as slaves or, later, as descendants of the “Pardos” armies who fought the war of independence. “Pardo” means literally “brown”, but basically they were African-descendant slaves who lived in Argentina and fought the Chilean war instead of their white-skin masters, won their freedom as soldiers and stayed here. Chile banned slavery in 1813. The African blood was more common in my country than it is assumed, and it has merged into the standard mapuche-Spanish ethnicity since then.
Chilean occupation of Peruvian territory in the late XIX century (and the African-descendants slaves who lived in that territory) added a little more of African DNA to the mixture.
Anyway, Mapuche people could have either very “white” skin or very “black”. This is not because any African connection, it is just the way it is.
“Negro” –a terrible insult in the U.S.– is a matter-of-fact friendly nickname for Chileans with dark skin –nobody makes a fuzz about it. I remember Carmen “Negra” Lazo, a famous left-wing politician from the 70’s and Miguel “Negro” Piñera –a Chilean night-life figure, businessman, womanizer and singer, and former President Sebastian Piñera’s brother.
As for Fring’s background, I don’t see the relationship with Gustavo Leigh (who later became Pinochet’s rival in the military, lost and just went home). It is more likely to have been a member of Pinochet’s secret police. I certainly cannot stop thinking about Michael Townley, a Chilean-American who planted a bomb in D.C. during the 70´s and later went into witness protection in the US. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Townley
Look at picture description: not ‘babushka’, better to write ‘matryoshka’. Babushka means grandma )
I think Gustavo Fring’s character is loosely based on Gustavo Leigh, a high ranking officer and an enforcer of sorts in Pinochet’s government. He was crucial to implementing the coup that saw the overthrow of Allende’s government but fell out with Pinochet because Pinochet obviously had no intention of handing over to a civilian president…or any president at all. Attempts were made on his life by Pinochet afterwards (this would explain Fring’s having to emigrate from Chile, although the real Gustavo did not emigrate). As for the meth connection, i think Fring had no intention of becoming a drug lord until Don Eladio killed his partner (we know that Fring is gay from the comments Hector Salamanca made as he relieved in Don Eladio’s pool). The meth business was a means to an end – he’d been planning the death of Don Eladio and the rest of the cartel chiefs for 20 years! Anyhow, he’s my favourite character from Breaking Bad and it just broke my heart to see him killed off.
Gustavo Leigh a black man? Yeah, sure jaja
[…] total transparency is often seen as a virtue, Fring’s character illustrates that a bit of mystery can be advantageous. His enigmatic past not only made him an intriguing figure but also allowed him […]
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