You are correct - he blames Ignacio and asks if Lalo had sent them
Howard’s End will likely be a suicide by drowning. Cliff might know about Kim & Saul’s plot and their part in pushing Howard that far. If he has any doubts or Howard telling him it was Jimmy who set him up (with the drugs he seemed to be on)
He actually didn’t, though–remember, Gus was left with armed bodyguards and was also expected to remain in the safe house, remember Gus wasn’t even in his home, he was in the safe house that no one even knew he had, that attaches to his main house by a secret underground tunnel that crosses property lines.
Mike was obviously still suspicious of what exactly Lalo was setting up–but he had reliable intel that Lalo was at Jimmy’s, and he had Gus protected in his safe house anyway. The worst-cast scenario in Mike’s mind is he shows up at Jimmy’s to find Jimmy dead and Lalo gone, which isn’t really much of a threat to Gus, Lalo is still one guy, Gus is still guarded, and on top fo that in a secret house Lalo couldn’t know about.
I do find the clear explanation for why Gus decided to go to the laundry a tad elusive…that was a ballsy and reckless decision that seemed at least heavily influenced by Kim’s random comment that “Jimmy convinced Lalo” to send her. Gus is often portrayed as a tad superhuman and enigmatic, but it’s definitely pushing the boundaries of belief that he would realize Lalo was at the laundry and recklessly go there with a light guard. I can sorta buy Gus having a eureka moment of realization (based on the totality of what he knows Lalo has been up to–for example I think they did know Lalo had been looking for the “Germans”) that Lalo was really interested in finding out his secret construction project, and realizing that if Lalo returned to Eladio with such evidence he was as good as dead–but I do question a bit why Gus wouldn’t have called Mike at that point and brought in all the troops to the laundry to catch Lalo in the act with overwhelming force.
I know it’s kept deliberately vague, but how many troops are there, exactly? When Mike left, it seemed like he took two guys, and told two to stay with Gus. But Lalo killed at least four at the laundry. Maybe Gus was using every guy he had, and he’s just running low? Which required him being shrewd and wily when a more reliable plan would have been to go scorched earth with a whole army against Lalo.
We know at least one guy was left at the laundry (he missed Lalo on the camera).
I’m thinking because Gus wanted to kill Lalo himself. I mean, he tells Mike he didn’t know Lalo would be at the laundromat, but he did set up his trap there.
I think a lot of characters underestimate Gus’s abilities and ruthless killer experience, included Lalo but also Mike, he’s covered by guards and the assumption was he was helpless. But he wasn’t. I’m wondering if there’s plans for a future prequel involving the times of Gus from before this, back in Chili, a country with a very dark history in the 20th century.
If so, it won’t be Esposito playing him, that’s for damned sure.
My big disappointment here, I think, is that Mike didn’t anticipate it/know better. It shouldn’t have come down to that standoff.
He was planning for it in an earlier episode and calculating how many steps to where he stashed his gun so he could find it quickly in the dark.
I’m surprised to hear that. The premise of Lalo sending Kim off with the gun was a very promising start - tense and unpredictable. But for me it just fizzled out into Mike being out-of-character dumb and Gus implausibly reckless in order to set up the totally predictable end of Lalo. Gus was hugely reckless in Breaking Bad to take out Don Eladio, but that made sense - that was the dramatic masterstroke of his long game of revenge. This time with Lalo, not so much.
I’m quite pleased Lalo and Howard are gone with plenty of episodes still left. They were both great storylines, but they had run their course.
There are three things working against Mike here:
Lalo and Gus are essentially the same person but one is pure superego and one is pure id. Other than that, they’re both fiercely intelligent, ambitious, focused, single minded and capable of holding a grudge from well beyond the grave. Also fiercely protective of their people, whether that’s family or employees. They’ve been playing a cat and mouse game ever since Lalo showed up, each only realizing the other’s moves based on what is essentially the sound the dog didn’t make in the night.
Lalo sent Kim because from his point of view whatever happened would be something that worked in his favor–either he gets his diversion and nothing else or he gets crazy lucky (and let’s face it, Lalo is one lucky motherfucker) and she actually takes out Gus. Gus and Mike both signed off on the attack on Kim and Jimmy’s condo because again, maybe they get lucky and catch Lalo at Jimmy’s–but Gus and Mike basically got hipped at the same time independently by Kim’s and Jimmy’s account of what was happening that Lalo had another target and the logical conclusion is that he’s been on the laundry site ever since they caught Lalo chasing Werner around. Hence Lalo telling Gus that they had about thirteen minutes until Mike showed up to get the video made for Don Eladio and also hence Gus wearing body armor of the gods.
That literal Chekhov’s gun was well set up–I remember Gus being really weird in affect as he was prowling around the laundry hole, like he was a million miles deep in his own brain. Pretty sure a second viewing will show him paying insanely close attention to the exact placement of the lights, the electrical cords, the switches, placement of the gun, etc. He didn’t know for certain that there would be a showdown in the meth hole but he couldn’t relax until he had covered every aspect of every possible permutation of every possible scenario. Cuz that is how Gus rolls–he’s controlled to nearly autistic savant levels, that’s what makes him so scary. He’d make a great Vulcan.
They can use the actor in his entourage that Kim was going to shoot 
How did Gus hit Lalo?
Point and Shoot.
Yes, as I recalled in Ep 5 (about 14m in) Gus picks up and checks out the junction of the power cables on the ground (in this episode there is a closeup of them just before we see Gus standing atop them ready to kick the connectors apart) and he paces out 6 steps to the backhoe to plant his gun. He was able to get to the connectors in the minute Lalo gave him.
At first when I heard Gus clicking his gun repeatedly I thought something had gone wrong. But then we see the bullet hole in Lalo’s neck and it’s clear the ruse worked.
I enjoyed the episode. But it was based on a very flimsy plot device. Whoever was chosen to go, should heed what Lalo just did and suppose the one left behind is dead whatever they do. Lalo isn’t going to clean up one dead body, so no qualms to add another. So clue in the cops.
But I was really pleased in how that plot device played out more slyly. Lalo was playing some complex moves. Even if they were very tenuous.
Fring figuring out that option was also a bit of a stretch, but he is a real chess player, so I give it a pass. Another brick in building his character.
I am still wondering how bad a fate awaits Kim. It feels like they have been taking her character more to the dark side. Setting her up for just deserts? Jimmy obviously talked Lalo into trading his death for hers. All of them knew it. True love.
Maybe they can use the young actor who played a younger version of Esposito in The Boys Season 3 a few weeks ago. Young Stan Edgar
Did Gus work at Chili’s before opening Los Pollos Hermanos?
I’m curious if anyone else read what I did into the dialogue between Gus and Mike near the end of the episode. Mike is chiding Gus for being reckless and says something to the effect of “this could have gone down differently”, Gus looks at him and says “it could have.”
I almost read that to mean Gus was saying “hey, you kinda fucked up here as my chief of security, if you were thinking on my level you’d have realized Lalo might be at the laundry, I could be holding you responsible for the fact that I ended up held at gunpoint by Lalo, but I’m not–remember that.” It seemed like a muted threat towards Mike.
Something I also note that’s a bit of a divergence between BB and BCS–in BCS Mike is a reluctant hire of Gus’s, and even up to this point shows a lot of backbone in “standing up to” Gus when he disagrees with him. In BB Mike is much more subservient and not prone to standing up to Gus at all–remember the scene when Mike is taking Walt down into the lab to kill him and Walt is begging for Mike to let him go, and Gus basically insists that not only can he not let him go, he can’t even ask Gus about it. That’s a big difference from their current relationship where Mike does feel free to at least try and push back on Gus’s orders he disagrees with.