He picked up the money that Hector laid out just to placate Nacho, who had practically begged him to do so. But he never really accepted the deal. In fact, I got the impression that the bills he laid out for Nacho were the exact same bills Hector had left. He never had any intention of spending it, and had not touched it since.
Am I the only one who recalls there being a feeling of urgency, that Nacho had to move up the timetable and get rid of Hector ASAP or his dad was going to fight back and get himself killed?
I’m sure he felt that the longer it went on the more likely dad would get into it with Hector, but I didn’t get any solid hint that the clash was imminent.
I rewatched the plastic bag scene, and it’s pretty obvious that it wouldn’t be hard to film. The whole plastic bag part that you see on film is under 2 minutes long, and the closeups on Arturo with the bag on his head are quite short. They could just put a plastic bag on him and take it off between takes and/or have a hidden tube that they push air into. He’s not going to be hurt by half a minute of breathing recycled air, most people can hold their breath that long. For the longer cut, long shot scenes, like when Gus is talking to Nacho, he’s not in frame enough that they need to do any tricks.
I also think that there are “trick” bags that look like a regular plastic bag, but that actually allow airflow. Maybe not enough for the actor to last for a very long time, but enough to ensure they won’t actually suffocate during filming.
As said above, no, it’s not easy. You’d have to wait until the bag started pressing into the mouth, at which point your brain is already oxygen starved and your body is on full drown-response instinct. I doubt he’d have any conscious motor control at all by that point. He was in full fish out of water mode.
Gus’s cold viciousness was something to behold as well. He is royally pissed at having his revenge interrupted, and just for a moment, we see why people are terrified of him.
Oh yeah. I had to look away. We’ve said a lot about Nacho’s performance, but the actor playing the dying man was superb. Actor’s in the 70’s used to go on about having a good death scene to their credit, but that was the first really raw one I’ve encountered.
One thing I forgot to ask before, did anyone find the hospital scene hilarious? They’re doing the cliched “OK relatives, talk to the coma patient, it will help him come back” but the only relatives Hector has are the cousins, who mostly don’t talk, and his two underlings, who only talk awkwardly about how they’re keeping the streets in line.
It’s also interesting how many major characters in this series don’t really have people close to them - Hector has cartel connections, but no loving family. Jimmy and Kim have each other, but apparently no other really close friends or family (Jimmy had his brother and Marco, but they’re both dead now). Chuck had basically cut himself off from everyone but Howard and Jimmy. Gus is similar, we don’t even know if he actually has the family he talked to Walter about in Breaking Bad. Howard Hamlin may be similar, we know he’s married but that may be just because he’s supposed to be happily married and not out of real closeness (that would help explain him talking to Jimmy about Chuck’s death). Mike and Nacho both do have close connections, though apparently just one or two, and those connections end up being a weakness for them.
Also, what they used looked pretty heavy duty. Out of curiosity I tried taking a bite out of a regular gallon freezer bag and even with putting the bag into my teeth (which, if you watch the scene, wasn’t happening until the end) the best I could do is get little pinpoint holes in the bag from the tips of my teeth. No way it was getting enough holes to breathe, and poking a tongue on the bag is just going to move the bag. It’s easy to bite a chunk out of a bag if you bite it and pull with your hands, but you can’t do that with a bag zip tied to your neck and your hands zip tied behind your back. (if you experiment with biting bags, FFS don’t put a bag over your head as you can die that way). And that’s just a regular bag, not the heavier bag they had (which is probably a commercial food bag, given their location).
Also, while he’s pissed you can see that, like in Breaking Bad, he’s not just lashing out. The plastic bag isn’t for the person who disrupted his plans, it’s to intimidate that person into obeying him, keep him from temptation to finish the job if/when Hector recovers, and probably to hurt the Salamanca organization. He’s ruthless, but unlike Tuco, who just lashes out almost randomly when he gets irate, or Hector, who likes to push people around but doesn’t really calculate the effects, he wields it like a scalpel to suit his plans.
Definitely. As they were walking away after giving Nacho’s dad the money Nacho was trying to assure Hector that his father would come around. Hector just said, “I don’t trust him.” Death sentence.
I’m a little cheesed off that it’s impossible for us to see Mike and Gus go mano a mano against each other for reals. I’m honestly not sure who’d win that one. Dammit, Walter, you fucked it up!
Funny, I saw a father being torn in two by conflicting emotions: anger at his son for getting into the mess, but also fear for his son’s life.
It can be all those things–I know from personal experience what it’s like to have a kid do something so mind blowingly reckless and stupid that you have to just walk away for a minute before your abject hatred of what they’ve done, your anger over just how fucked up it is and your affront over having raised such a blithering idiot overcomes your love for your child. One of those “Dammit, I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it!” moments.
I always thought Kim’s high, tight ponytail reflected her discipline. Not a hair out of place, for sure. AND it was her trademark, she would be known as ‘the attorney with the ponytail’. … I also thought she was good looking, but not a knockout beauty. Mr. Salinqmind informs me I am full of it as Kim is indeed, a knockout beauty!
This is the way I saw it too. That single word “Mijo” held a chasm of angst and love.
Ima go with knockout beauty. 
Oh, right—that’s it. Thank you!
ETA: Kim is a moderately good looking person made very attractive by her personality.
There’s a great interview with Rhea Seehorn about this episode, and especially the scene with Howard, here. In some of it she goes into so much detail about what Kim is thinking re. Jimmy and Chuck that it might almost count as spoilers for those of us who like speculating about characters’ interior lives.
On Kim losing it with Howard:
Only that it was exactly the same way Hector laid out the cash when giving it to Papi last season.
It all looked like fifties, and not big stacks either. We’re looking at, what, $600? Is that all Hector thinks it costs to buy an honest man’s livelihood and turn it into a drug front? I’d be deeply offended too. Tony Soprano wouldn’t have pulled something that low.
The Salamancas really are awful at this crime thing. At first I thought Tuco was just a bad apple and Hector was the more competent brains of the operation. But after getting a better look at how Hector does business, it seems the nut didn’t fall far from the tree after all.
Love Seehorn, but I cringed at her saying “committed suicide”: The words to say -- and not to say -- about suicide | CNN
This is why I didn’t see any specific threat to Papi from Hector–because asshole Hector is just generally a threatening asshole to everyone, all the time. He’s weak, to have to put up all that front in order to maintain his authority, while Gus can be out sweeping the parking lot of trash and freeze you with one level stare. While continuing to sweep. THAT is power, THAT is authority. Hector is well named, that’s really all he does. Lots of bark, has to outsource the biting to the cousins.
I think they intended the audience, and Nacho, to see a real, clear and present danger.
ETA:
I meant to comment on this earlier. I am puzzled by this. Where I live, park benches face into the park, not out toward the street. If your kids are playing, you need to be able to keep an eye on them. Or if you are just in the park to relax or eat your lunch, you want to look at the greenery rather than the cars out on the street.