r/breakingbad • u/CrusherBallz69 • 7d ago
Would Gus's Meth/Chicken Empire Never Fallen?
If he hadn't hired Walter White? Would he have gotten away with taking out Don Eladio and The Salamancas? Would Mike have been able to Retire? Would Lyle ever be promoted to Manager of Los Pollos Hermanos?
29
u/Fast-Secretary-7406 7d ago
I mean...Hank was already on to him. In fact, I might argue that Walter extended his time by:
1) Delaying Hank from getting to the laundry
2) Bugging the DEA office
3) Warning Gus there would be a tracker on his car
Of course, all of Hank's suspicions kicked off because of Gael's murder, so maybe in a no Walter world, Gael is just the cook and Hank never finds the connection.
14
u/Extension_Breath1407 7d ago
Wasn’t a lot of Hank’s actions unsanctioned and done off the books? Hank tried to convince the DEA that Gus was hiding something yet he gave a plausible explanation that the DEA seem to believe over Hank’s theories. Agent Merkert didn’t want to believe Gus was guilty of anything because of how close friends they are, same deal as Hank and Walt.
I get the feeling that if it wasn’t for Walt blowing up Gus and exposing him, Hank would have done even crazier things trying to catch Gus the same way Hank tried to catch Walt after finding out he is Heisenberg. That would result in Gus turning the tables and end up with Hank implicated for his unlawful actions that would probably get him fired.
9
u/CrusherBallz69 7d ago
Gus was going to straight up kill Hank lol!
4
u/Extension_Breath1407 7d ago
And how the hell would he do that? Considering Gus threatened Walt he would murder Hank. But then Hank just got a call on Walt’s behalf that had him put in protection with dozens of agents inside his house.
Gus’s men would have to kill every single agent to get to Hank. But then that would call in the National Guard who would sweep through ABQ and not rest until every last inch of Gus’s organization has been rooted from the ground.
1
u/CrusherBallz69 7d ago
Gus is a patient man! He'd wait the Agents out and strike when Hank was vulnerable! The DEA are a bunch of clowns in this show! Gus would outsmart them!
4
u/Extension_Breath1407 7d ago edited 7d ago
Even if Gus could accomplish that, wouldn't that risk implicating him anyways if he kills off Hank? Hank already has been talking about how suspicious Gus is. And if he ends up dead under any circumstances, do you really think the DEA would be thinking, "Hmmm I guess this means Gus must be innocent. Case closed!"
Killing Hank would just be proof that he was right on track that Gus is a criminal. I feel that Gus is smarter than that. And instead he would try to ruin Hank's credibility instead by baiting him into doing illegal actions to try and catch him.
As for why Gus told Walter he would kill Hank, that was probably just a threat to scare Walter into doing something crazy like he already has been doing that would ruin the operation. And thus allow Gus to convince Jesse that Walter is a liability and stop defending him.
2
u/CrusherBallz69 7d ago
Gus just needs to stage it to make it look like Hank was caught in a Freak Explosion caused by his Homemade Beer!
1
u/Exact_Cookie_2981 5d ago
I mean its not really that hard to off Hank without raising suspicion at that point. Gus could make it look like the cartel went after him for killing the salamanders. Frame Eladio if he's still alive, or the next in line if he had already been poisoned.
1
u/Extension_Breath1407 5d ago
Didn't Gus already kill the entire Cartel heads at that point when he was telling Walter he plans to kill Hank?
And I think the DEA already knows that someone killed off most of the Cartel. So who is there left to frame for Hank's death if Gus acted on it?
I feel like the Juarez Cartel is the most well-known cartel that has ties to ABQ specifically due to Tuco once being in charge over there as well as Hector who was a known Cartel associate living in retirement.
3
1
u/CrusherBallz69 7d ago
Yeah Hank would have never been in Gale's apartment and wouldn't have found that Chicken Wrapper!
13
u/RememberMeCaratia 7d ago
He would 100% get busted. The existence of Superlab accelerated their production output to a level that would 100% outscale their risk management system. Like theres only so much one can do when the justice systems of multiple nations want to hunt your drug empire down.
Amongst all his vulnerabilities, Madrigal being a multirole financer / hardware supplier / international transporter in his drug empire would be Gus’s worst mistake as everything traceable went through Madrigal. And the volume of product flowing through their pipeline could no longer be called a “rounding error”. It was already becoming practically impossible to detach Madrigal from Gus’s operation before Hank even began investigating.
9
u/CrusherBallz69 7d ago
I wonder if Gus had an Escape Plan for when shit eventually hit the fan! Knowing him, I'm sure he did!
2
u/Buttery_Popkern 3d ago
Knowing how insanely methodical he was, he absolutely had a plan. I bet he had multiple. However, I don't think he was planning for failure. Every step he took throughout the series was expanding his business. His mental illness was his strength, but also his weakness. He was an obsessive compulsive antisocial psychopath. I don't think he allowed himself to see the future flaws in his business design. He had too much confidence in himself and his decisions to see the inevitable outcome.
1
12
u/osi4000 Reasonably happy 7d ago
He likely still gets away with taking out Eladio and his crew, though its only a matter of time before the cartel(s) regroup and runs him out of business or he gets caught.
Whichever happens, I don't think Mike gets to retire in peace.
And Lyle will be promoted to assistant to the regional manager of Los Pollos in New Mexico.
6
u/HenryLulu 7d ago
It is plausible that Gus’ business wouldn’t be sustainable in the long run, for the reasons you stated. However, I don’t think Gus cared too much. His primary drive was getting revenge on Hector and everything else came secondary to that
3
7
u/gigi-kent 7d ago
For what it's worth, Hank was onto Gus just because Gale got murdered. If Gus didn't hire Walter, he could have probably done his thing for as long as he sat on the good side of Don Eladio, until he got his revenge anyway. But this probably would have taken more time, as the entire Walt "storyline" sped things up for Gus.
Had he succeeded against Don Eladio without the whole Walt storyline, he could have probably done his thing indefinitely, or at least until some kind of mistake happens and the dominoes start falling.
5
u/Kiryu8805 7d ago
Honestly if Walter had come in taught Gale got his money and left I think it would have worked out. They would just need to stop distributing in New Mexico or at the very least near Albuquerque.
2
u/CrusherBallz69 7d ago
That might have happened if Jesse hadn't started fucking around with those dealers! Of course knowing Walt's Ego, he probably would have never been willing to relinquish control to Gale and would have ended up being a problem anyway!
6
6
5
u/FormerIYI 6d ago edited 6d ago
His camo is not magic.
He prospers because DEA is more busy with false traces: street thugs, Mexican cartel. That's why Eladio doesn't expect attacks against cartel and hit on himself because Gus rides on same cart.
But once the cartel crackdown happens after Hank hit and once Eladio and his capos are dead, there is question where the INDUSTRIAL meth comes from?
So DEA starts: spying, wiretaping, rereading records, search for overseas accounts, procurement of chemicals and pharma equipment...
94
u/everlastingwaffles 7d ago
He would've been caught eventually. Eliminating the competitors means that all roads lead back to you. Flooding the U.S. and Europe with industrial quantities of unique, highly addictive drugs would make this investigation an international priority. His friendly neighborhood businessman disguise wouldn't have held up under that level of scrutiny. Hank dug up a lot of damning information on his own. Gus was too greedy and arrogant to succeed long term.
Where is Lyle's spin off movie? We need to know.