While Breaking Bad is primarily about Walter White’s transformation from nebbish chemistry teacher to ruthless drug baron, even Walt is out of his depth when he first comes face-to-face with Giancarlo Esposito’s Gustavo Fring. Seemingly gentle and softly spoken, Gus Fring is, in fact, a cold-blooded killer whose Los Pollos Hermanos restaurant chain is a front for his meth empire. And one horrifying scene in Breaking Bad season 4 shows just how terrifying Gus can be. This scene tops even the worst actions of his fellow villain and nemesis in Breaking Bad’s spinoff Better Call Saul.
Due to his prequel fate, Lalo Salamanca never appears as a character in the original Breaking Bad series, which seems like a missed opportunity in retrospect given what a formidable villain he turns out to be. However, despite how brilliantly evil Lalo is as a character, he ultimately can’t get the better of Gus, who proves he will stop at nothing to protect himself and avenge his dead partner, Max Arciniega. Gus’ own Breaking Bad death scene still shows him calm and collected until his last breath, which only makes him more terrifying.
Lalo Salamanca Is A Great Villain, But He Can’t Compete With Breaking Bad’s Gus Fring
Lalo And Gus Have Similar Characteristics, But Gus Has More Time To Prove Just How Evil He Is
There’s certainly a good argument for considering Lalo Salamanca the Breaking Bad universe’s best villain overall, but it’s telling that Gus eventually gets the better of Lalo in the final season of Better Call Saul. While the two characters share an almost psychopathic indifference to the killing of others, Lalo’s cruelty is masked by an upbeat, jovial facade that still comes across as creepy in its own way. Gus, on the other hand, perfects the image of a stoic and legitimate businessman, who never loses his cool — at least, until he really does.
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Due to this front, Gus treats everyone with the same well-mannered sense of respect that belies his capacity for extreme violence. Meanwhile, there is a sense that Lalo Salamanca gets a sadistic kick out of his terrible actions. This ultimately proves to be a weakness, whereas everything Gus does is carefully calculated. He’s completely apathetic to the feelings of others, in both positive and negative terms, and cares for no one but his former partner, Max, whose death apparently made vendetta Gus’ sole aim in life.
Breaking Bad’s Most Horrifying Gus Scene Proves The Villain Could Never Be Topped
He Killed Don Eladio’s Entire Cartel And Poisoned Himself Without Flinching
In “Salud”, the 10th episode of Breaking Bad season 4, Gus Fring visits the villa of Don Eladio, the drug cartel boss for whom he reserves a special hatred, since Eladio was the one who ordered Max’s killing. Gus is supposed to be Eladio’s distributor in Southern California, but he has other ideas. He generously presents Eladio with a special bottle of Zafiro Añejo tequila, which has been laced with poison. Gus is so committed to poisoning Eladio that he even drinks the tequila himself, hoping to convince the cartel boss that it’s safe.
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What happens next proves just how villainous Gus Fring really is. He never even flinches as he goes to the bathroom of the villa, chokes up as much of the poison as he can, and calmly returns to Eladio’s pool terrace, just in time to watch him and his entire cartel die. Without a moment’s hesitation, Gus reaches around Eladio’s neck and unfastens the don’s necklace, as he drowns, face-down, in the pool.
The total lack of emotion Gus expresses throughout this five-minute scene is spine-chilling.
The total lack of emotion Gus expresses throughout this five-minute scene is spine-chilling. Even Lalo would have laughed, or done something vindictive to his victims. But Gus seems to be wholly unaffected by human suffering in this Breaking Bad scene, along with many others.
He’s Not As Scary, But Better Call Saul’s Lalo Is The Only Character Who Could Compete With Gus
The Pair’s Showdown Is One Of The Breaking Bad Spinoff’s Best Moments
In a sense, Lalo Salamanca isn’t quite as scary as Gus, whose unflappable demeanor is deliberately intended to be the exact opposite of Lalo’s cousin, Tuco Salamanca, who serves as Breaking Bad season 1’s main villain. Yet Lalo is just as fundamentally evil as Gus, and he ends up being the only character capable of going up against him in a direct confrontation in Better Call Saul. Although Gus is the survivor of their final showdown, the moment before he kills Lalo is one of the few times Gus Fring shows any sign of fear or nerves.
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Meanwhile, Lalo Salamanca’s final act in Better Call Saul is to laugh maniacally as he dies from the gunshot wound Gus inflicted. If only he’d been created as a character during Breaking Bad’s original run, their brilliantly malicious rivalry would have lasted longer, and Lalo could have come up against Walter White as well as Gus Fring.
10/10
- Release Date
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2008 – 2013-00-00
- Showrunner
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Vince Gilligan
- Directors
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Vince Gilligan, Michelle Maclaren
- Writers
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Peter Gould, Gennifer Hutchison, Vince Gilligan, George Mastras, Moira Walley-Beckett, Sam Catlin, Thomas Schnauz
10/10
- Release Date
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2015 – 2022-00-00
- Showrunner
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Peter Gould
- Directors
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Vince Gilligan, Thomas Schnauz, Peter Gould, Michael Morris, Adam Bernstein, Colin Bucksey, John Shiban, Michelle MacLaren, Melissa Bernstein, Larysa Kondracki, Terry McDonough, Gordon Smith, Minkie Spiro, Jim McKay, Daniel Sackheim, Andrew Stanton, Norberto Barba, Rhea Seehorn, Scott Winant, Michael Slovis, Keith Gordon, Deborah Chow, Giancarlo Esposito, Bronwen Hughes
- Writers
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Ann Cherkis, Marion Dayre, Ariel Levine, Jonathan Glatzer
