Breaking Bad 4.10 "Salud" 9/18

Cafe Society
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All three of 'em, Gus, Mike and Jesse: Crowning Moments of Awesome.

As soon as Gus made sure the tequila wasn’t given to Jesse, I knew what was up. I could tell that Gus has spent the last 20 years building up an immunity to Iocane powder. :wink:

I loved the little looks of pride that Gus and Mike were shooting in Jesse’s direction. Juxtaposed their fatherly pride in him with Walt’s slip to Walt Jr. back at the ranch, that was interesting. Jesse has been searching for a father figure throughout this entire show. I think he was trying to make that be Walt (“Wanna go Go-Karting?”) and it appears Walt does see Jesse as a son, but too little too late. He’s lost trust and respect, which has been won over mutually with Gus and Mike. Walt’s toast in terms of having any power to make demands to Gus. Under pressure, Walt tends to crumble and whine and act like a little bitch. He’d probably sell out Walt Jr. to get himself out of trouble. Jesse, as we saw, stepped right up to the plate, took charge, and took care of Gus and Mike. Jesse’s a Bad Ass™.

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Brilliant!

And it looks like we got the answer to Gus’ question of a couple of episodes ago… “Will this be the day?”

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Like husband, like wife, eh?

I don’t think Mike is going to die, personally, but only because to me it looked like he was shot in the gut. Apparently, quite painful but not particularly deadly unless you can’t get help in time. We’ll have to see how that turns out.

The liquor that Gus gave to Don Eladio was called Zafiro Añejo.

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And a quick Google search on that name reveals only threads about this episode, so completely fictional. Nice art department job on the bottle.

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I’m assuming that it’s a very high-end tequila. Rare enough that a Mexican druglord would be impressed with it as a gift.

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Yes, rare and expensive, but still fictional I’m guessing. Getting clearance on alcohol usually involves script approval. Using the product to kill off a bunch of druglords probably wouldn’t go down so well as a product placement pitch.

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I liked the editing when Jesse opened fire on the dude that shot Mike. It was a nice call back to the opening a few episodes prior of Jesse playing that FPS.

Ted’s a greedy little idiot. I see death in his future. Are there any episodes coming up titled “I.K.T.”?

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You connected the dots faster than I did - I didn’t realize it until in retrospect. Same with the way Don Heladio waited for Gus to take the first shot when they were toasting.

Also, you gotta love the way how in the bathroom Gus, despite facing potential imminent death, still took the time to neatly fold his jacket and set it on the counter. What a boss.

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I figured the poison angle out as soon as he opened the box and revealed the tequila within. It made taking the pills logical. Saving Jesse’s ass only confirmed it.

And I would love to see Skyler put a gun to her old boss’s head to make him sign a check! “It puts its name on the check, or it sees its brains blown blown out its neck!”

I doubt they will have Mike die. The only reason to do that would be to ostensibly make Jesse the head hit-man and he doesn’t have the chops to perform in that role for Gus.

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Well, the writers originally had a version using salmon mousse, but it turns out that’s already been done.

Some of you say you’re rooting for Gus now over Walt. I sympathize, but I’m still rooting for Walt — not that he will regain power or esteem in the organization, which looks impossible at this point, but that he’ll find redemption and a way to secure his family’s future, as was his original goal.

Besides, Gus and Walt are probably headed for another deadly battle of wits, and I can’t wait.

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see, I took a completely different angle from this.

  1. The pills, I thought were for Gus’s nerves. While they were flying down it seemed as if he was shaking a little.

  2. I KNEW it was poison but I thought that he sacrificed himself in order to convince the cartel to take the poison to.

  3. He only decided not to die after the cartel’s leader (Dom or Don?) told Gus that he had to put him in his place. The look on his face before he went to the bathroom was pure fire and brimstone.

I mean, if his plan was to avoid the poison, why wouldn’t he have thrown it up almost immediately after drinking it? Do your shot and then excuse yourself to the bathroom. Why push it as close as he did if he didn’t have a change of heart?

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Would look too suspicious. The pills were definitely for the poison - they wouldn’t just throw them in there as some random thing that has nothing to do with the plot.

Of course, whatever the hell was in that tequila was strong enough to knock a 400-pound bodyguard (as well as everyone else) dead within minutes, so it’s no surprise that even with the pills and the throwing up that Gus is really sick. This is getting rather Godfather-esque. I can see Jesse becoming the Michael Corleone here while Gus goes into the hospital.

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Guns work faster than poison. If Gus had immediately made himself throw up the tequila, I don’t think the three of them would have lasted long enough to see the cartel guys drop dead.

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I also thought it was sweet that Gus tried to comfort Jesse twice while they were enroute. First, when he said “You can do this.” and again later, there was a shot of Gus gently tapping Jesse’s hand – a comforting gesture.

I think he didn’t excuse himself to the restroom immediately for plausibility. If he’d done the shot and ran right off to the restroom, the jig would have been up and that might have given the cartel guys enough time to purge. I think he was already feeling the effects a bit poolside. He must have known the cartel guys were about to start dropping like flies and excused himself as soon as seemed reasonable. I thought he’d decided to sacrifice himself, but now that doesn’t make sense. Without Gus, there would be no reason to kill off the cartel. He’d have simply sold Mike and Jesse to them and that would be that. No, Gus had to live.

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This is the second time we’ve seen Gus neatly fold his jacket before doing something disgusting. I’m guessing he looked really sharp in whatever uniform he wore under Pinochet.

The neatest thing about Jesse being a badass is that he wasn’t during the first seasons. First season Jesse would have pissed himself three times before getting on the plane, let alone not taken command of getting Gus and Mike to the car and taking out a henchman.

I loved Gus’s composure to tell the girls and others present “Fill your pockets and run”. You get a lot further by appealing to people’s greed than to their logic- they may not have even thought of the “Oooh, there’s good stuff here and it’s all gonna be looted if I wait another minute” angle had he not planted it. If he’d called for the evac of Cloud City Boba Fett never would have gotten Han onto his craft.

I seriously doubt that after this Gus will ever be invited to any of the finer homes in Mexico again. Also ironic that if Jesse had slipped the ricin into Gus’s food it might have only given him a tummy ache.

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If he excused himself too soon, I think Don Eladio would have been suspicious.

The part that impressed me the most was Gus acting like he was still afraid of Eladio, and then keeping it together while he watched Eladio die. He wouldn’t let Eladio see that he was also in pain. That’s winning.

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And how poetic that he eats it in the pool just a few feet from where he had Gus’ partner killed all those years ago.

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With the same classic Breaking Bad underwater shot.

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Did anyone else notice the dent on Walt Jr’s car?

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I want everyone who whined about the early episodes to 'fess up to the fact that this season’s arc and pacing have been, in fact, perfect. No, you didn’t get the thrills every single week, but the fact is that if you HAD, it wouldn’t have been as brilliant or believable.

Breaking Bad has been one of the most well-told stories of all time, and continues to be. It’s like a gorgeous, sprawling novel you want to get lost in and never emerge from, and it wouldn’t be so brilliant if they pushed everything at you just to keep it “exciting”.

I revel in every frame.

And I would hate to be an Emmy voter next year: Giancarlo or Aaron? Actually, I think the time has come to put Aaron beside Bryan, that way Giancarlo has a clear path to the Emmy and Aaron gets proper respect for the fact that he’s actually a true lead this year.

But I do love the idea of Cranston getting another one, and then another for the last season…it would be such a cool record to set: 5 seasons, 5 emmys, over & out.

And if anyone hesitates at the idea of Giancarlo’s acting being awesome, watch the guy in interviews. He’s astonishing.

The beauty in all the core performances is the subtlety. All of them are excellent at conveying an enormous amount of information with the tiniest looks, expressions, flickers of the eye. Just masterful, and so many of my favorite moments have no dialogue from the character making the impact with their performance. In this episode, Gus and MIke’s faces watching Jesse were way more thrilling than Jesse himself (even though he was great). Gus’s face as Eladio died.

But the master of masters, of course, is always Cranston, who inhabits Walt so thoroughly, well, it is a master class in acting.

God I love this show. Can you tell?