Gus took Jesse because he wants Jesse to trust him and give him Walt’s formula. Building a relationship with Jesse is the only way for Gus to get Walt’s formula after Walt dies.
He didn’t take Walt because the original plan was to get Walt to teach Jesse the formula so that Jesse could cook it in Mexico. Once that didn’t work out there was no other choice but to do it with Jesse. Walt would never agree to cook for another chemist after what happened with Gale.
The chemist. Because, as a few people have mentioned, he’s unstable. Walt would completely lose his shit in that situation, whereas Jesse has proven he can hold it together and step up. Plus, Walt’s pride is so ridiculously out of control, he’d flat out refuse to give away his formula IMO. He’s said it time and again, “It’s MY formula”. Gus needed someone who would just do it, not argue and demand to know the whole plan up front. Walt would have been a much bigger liability under the circumstances.
And of course it’s true that Jesse was never Gus’ vision of an ideal employee (that was supposed to be Gale), but the fact is that Gus has to play the hand that he has, not the hand he wished he had. And he’s doing it quite well, I must say.
Does Walt actually have a special formula? In one of the early seasons, when Hank was at the DEA, I though they called Walt’s product “biker meth” as in the sort of stuff that used to be produced by motorcycle gangs, before everyone started to make product from pseudoephedrine stolen from drugstores. So I thought the formulation was well understood. I got the impression that the quality of Walt’s product was the result of using top-quality ingredients mixed in precisely measured amounts in a scrupulously clean facility. (And actually I was surprised that the chemists in Mexico who were so arrogant had a facility that wasn’t similarly clean.)
Yes, sometimes I wonder just how special Walt’s formula can be. But it’s not the same as crappy biker meth. That’s just a reference to the use of the psudo replacement and the resultingly distinctive blue tone. There are a few other variables, some of which you listed, that set Walt’s product apart.
That’s Carlo Rota, who played a Russian-speaking British guy on 24.
He is actually a British guy of Italian descent.
In the Canadian show Little Mosque on the Prairie, he plays a Lebanese-Canadian Muslim guy with a British accent.
Here he’s playing a Mexican guy who speaks Spanish and English.
Carlo Rota…Chameleon of our time!
Gale had high praise for Walt’s meth (without knowing anything about Walt yet) in the flashback scene where the lab was being assembled. Gale also had a lot of doubt that he’d be able to reproduce it, or produce anything so pure.
The sample of Walt’s product that Gale evaluated, and that Gus had taken from the street, would have been made in the RV, or perhaps Jesse’s old basement — in any case, not in the big shiny lab. So Walt knows how to cook well even in adverse circumstances.
I’m sure the ingredients in Walt’s meth have long since stopped being a secret, but that knowledge by itself isn’t all there is to making it. Unless Gus is planning on enrolling Jesse in college to earn a chemistry degree, or two, I foresee trouble if the operation is eventually supposed to depend on Jesse’s cooking skills.
Do you think there was any significance to Tyrus correcting Walt’s measurements? He was off about 0.2 oz on a 40 lb. batch if memory serves, and clearly wasn’t skimming and it’s not like he gets paid piecemeal so long as he makes X amount (200 lbs. per week IIRC) so I was wondering why he bothered to re-weigh it unless it’s just to humiliate Walt.
I might not be remembering correctly, but that was when Jesse was going pretty hardcore, wasn’t it? Perhaps it was to ensure that there was no skimming going on or, at the very least, let them know that they’re being scrutinized.
That’s how I remember it. Jesse had, in fact, been skimming, so it was pretty tense.
We barely got any Walt in this episode, and frankly I didn’t care. He’s not only become unlikable, but he’s becoming less interesting than the other characters. I did miss Hank though.
Going a few episodes back - the one where the DEA interviews Gus - I watched again last night. I may be reading too much into a scene, but Gus is talking to Mike about Hank. Mike is essentially saying Hank’s investigation is a solo operation completed unsupported by the DEA, and that he’d probably ruin his career if he went to Merkert about it again.
He specifically said “went to Merkert”, not “went to his bosses” or “went to the DEA”. It suggests Mike and Gus have a familiarity specifically with Merkert, which plays into some of the speculation that Gus might have someone inside the DEA. The show is generally very carefully crafted, so I don’t think this was an accident. On the other hand, Gus is good at knowing who he’s going up against, so he may have just made Mike write up a profile about all of the DEA agents that may be involved. But it was something that caught my attention on the second viewing and I thought I’d bring it up.
FWIW, when Hank was warned before the twins attacked, I thought the voice sounded like Merkert.
Indeed - and I think that’s what made this episode so fantastic. Gus, Mike, and Jesse as the Dream Team.
Or “Brains, Brawn, and… Jesse”.
C’mon now. GTFOOH. The Dream Team is advancing the story and racheting up the tension, sure, but the ongoing White family tragedy is what sets BB apart and keeps me riveted. Alienation, regret, fallible foible-ridden humanity - all depicted masterfully by Cranston et al. The scenes with Junior and Senior were fucking heartwrenching.
Where’s the baby these days?
She was eaten for breakfast.
Where’s Tiger?
Maybe they’ll do it like a soap opera, and next season she’ll be 19 and Jesse’s new love interest.
Probably same place everyone’s baby is these days, day care.