So did my wife. She keeps referring to him as “boyfriend”. I don’t even remember any of those details from BB. Never paid much attention.
I only mention it because I heard Giancarlo Esposito on Terry Gross within the last 2 weeks, describing Gus’ BCS incarnation as someone who you might see “going on a date with a woman.”
I gather Gus is very concerned with keeping up appearances. He wants the public image of a cop-friendly local businessman and restaurateur and it wouldn’t surprise me at all for him to date women as “beards”.
Actually, I kind of consider him the idealized character in Breaking Bad - he was the guy Walter White tried to be, but Walter was too prone to bouts of pettiness and ego to be the disciplined mastermind Gus was.
It was strongly implied that the ‘partner’ killed was more than just a business partner, but never outright stated. Hector calls Gus gay multiple times in BCS but it might just be a general insult, or a specific insult that doesn’t actually hit but Gus doesn’t see a reason to correct.
The fact that Gus was with a guy doesn’t mean he’s strictly gay, he might be bisexual or the guy might have been an exception to his pattern or something else along those lines. If he was with a guy at one point, he’d be gay as far as Hector is concerned, even if his actual orientation isn’t strictly to men. Also he could be dating women for appearances or for building alliances, he is the type to be good at it.
In one episode of Breaking Bad, Walt visited Gus at his house, where Gus was preparing dinner. I thought Gus mentioned children (and possibly a wife?).
Gus’s partner was more than a business partner but men can be very close without being lovers. I also recall the mention of his children in that BB scene. Which does not rule out being gay. Hector’s assessment I’d place little value on though.
Occasionally, though, the guy’s as clear as a bell.
Chuck got fired twice this episode.
**I think it hurt Jimmy deeply when Chuck said he’d never really cared much about him. For all the bad blood there’s been between them, Jimmy loved his brother and went out of his way to take care of him. It may have been a love/hate relationship but he did love Chuck.
Later when he visits Irene and finds out she is still being ostrasized by her former friends, he sees how hurt she’s been by his actions. Irene’s friends were essentially her family. I don’t know if she had any actual family but they were apparently not a big part of her everyday life like her friends were. Having just lost the only family he had, I think it finally really hit home with Jimmy how much pain he’d caused Irene.
I agree with the poster who said that Jimmy was not a guy who really thought out what the consequences of his actions would be, outside of getting the results he wanted. He seemed to think it was okay to pull the shenanigans he did because he’d say he was sorry and it would all work out in the end.
I don’t think he would have staged that bit where he “accidentally” exposed himself as a manipulator and therefore exonorating Irene if Chuck had not cut him so deeply with that remark–a remark, incidentally, that I believe Chuck chose deliberately, knowing it would hurt Jimmy more than anything else he could do to him.
As an aside, I was watching this episode again after reading some of the commentary on this thread and noticed something I’d missed before. When Jimmy goes to Chuck’s house, the stereo is playing some instrumental song.
I didn’t recognize it the first time around but this time I did. It’s a Jimmy Durante song called Make Someone Happy. Part of the lyrics (I believe this is a small enough sample not to cause any trouble) go “Make someone happy/ Make just one someone happy/ And you will be happy, too.”
Considering how unhappy he was when he left Chuck’s, then finally fully realized how badly he’d screwed up Irene’s life, the song choice seemed rather appropriate to how he would later sacrifice himself to try to fix her unhappiness.
**
<Once again I’m very late on this…just saw episode 9>
I thought it was terrible what Jimmy did to Irene, and now means whatever happens I can’t have any sympathy for him going forwards.
For those people saying “the end justified the means”, if Jimmy really thought he was doing a good thing, why not just be out in the open about it? Talk to all the old ladies collectively, and lay out why he thinks they should settle? (yes it’s risking the terms of his disbarment perhaps, but I’d bet so is what he’s doing already)
This is not actually a criticism of the show though: who said he was the good guy?
I didn’t like Mike’s scene. The normally stoic Mike explicitly asking about drug dealing and other unnecessary details didn’t sit right for me.
Hector’s scene was great, and I like that he placebo’d out for now, and of course Kim stole the show with great scenes all round.
Will be interested to see what you think after the finale.
It wasn’t unneccessary - Mike doesn’t know Lydia or Madrigal at all. He was trying to figure out what exactly she’s doing, what makes her tick, and why she’s doing this for him. Remember back when he first took on the job for baseball card guy? He was able to find out that Nacho worked for Tuco and was doing this deal on the side, so he knew that Nacho needed things to go smoothly and wasn’t going to strong-arm the squat cobbler specialist. He doesn’t have any background on Lydia beyond ‘Gus likes her’, so he wants to get some idea of why she’s laundering money for Gus (and to clear up misconceptions, like the idea that she’s laundering for a lot of guys).
Mike is out of his element here. He knows what he knows based on experience. Now he’s getting into a situation where somebody he doesn’t know is going to do something he doesn’t understand. He does know that what they are about to do is illegal, and he may end up in prison. Or worse, he’s going to owe a favor to a really powerful bad guy.
Questions will be asked before he decides to risk his money and his life.
Yeah, that was what I thought too; but I guess I assumed too quickly. It’s entirely in keeping with the show’s treatment of Gus for his sexuality to be yet another mystery.
(I would sure like to know what happened in Chile!)
Marvin the Martian wrote: “Gus is absolutely trained in CPR. The latest Los Pollos Hermanos training video makes that pretty clear (plus a ton of BB Easter eggs - hilarious).”
Surreal.
Maybe “unnecessary” was not the right word.
What I mean is, there are various ways to use the knowledge of what Gus does, and various ways to pull info out of Lydia without just putting together a string of extremely incriminating sentences.
For example, there’s no reason for him to say Gus is a drug dealer, he just needed to make reference to Gus’ “private business” (though I guess it wouldn’t have set up her line).
He sounded like squat cobbler, not the Mike we’re familiar with.
Why is Norma shouting at us?
You’re not the only one. That really was one of the ugliest houses I’ve ever seen. Making it even worse is how lovely and well-decorated the inside was - so jarring!
You guys are killing me here. 
That’s one of the things I like about this show and “Breaking Bad” - the ongoing ambiguity and complexity of the characters. Walter White is one of my favourite characters of all time (and not because he was good in any particular way - he was simply fascinating!). Jimmy McGill is rapidly becoming another one - is he good? Is he bad? Yes. I think Jimmy’s biggest problem is that he just can’t get out of his own way.
I dunno. 
In BB, I kept rooting for Walter up until the very end because it always seemed that there was always a badder bad guy - Tuco, Gus, Todd, Declan (maybe), Uncle Jack. Well, there was that thing about ordering ten guys in prison killed, and killing Mike, but nobody’s perfect.
Right now Jimmy is not a particularly good guy, but to many of us Chuck is worse. It will be interesting to see if there is going to be a badder bad guy to replace Chuck.
I think Mike will find out before he goes all-in with Gus, and then we find out too. After all, the cartel knows (definitely Don Eladio, so probably also Hector and Bolsa).
There’s a scene in BB series 5 where Mike and Lydia meet in the diner to discuss how to limit their exposure now Gus has been killed and the DEA are finally on the case.
Lydia attempts to be clandestine - sitting in the next booth to Mike with her back to him, using a fake name for him in front of the waitress who then say’s “Hi Mike”. It’s laughable. Mike by contrast tells her just to sit and talk to him, use his name etc. He doesn’t use coded language. Just a quiet one-on-one conversation that doesn’t look in any way remarkable and that no-one is paying attention to.
His behaviour in the office was similar. There’s a point, when you’re discussing a criminal conspiracy, when you actually have to discuss the crimes you’re conspiring to commit. A one-on-one conversation in Lydia’s office is low-risk. If her office is being bugged by anyone, then everything is fucked anyhow because by the time Lydia is under suspicion Gus’s operation is exposed. Mike isn’t incriminating himself - the only person who could report the conversation is Lydia and again, if she takes it into her head to turn informer then Mike is always going to be fucked whether he talks about money laundering or honey haundering, to borrow Jimmy’s subtle technique.
If anything, having a blunt conversation with Lydia helps Mike because it establishes trust. He’s giving her his money - if the two of them can’t be upfront with each other, then Mike has a problem. It fits exactly with Mike’s “if you’re going to break the law, you have to admit to yourself you’re a criminal” speech he gave to squat cobbler guy.