Well, I’m in high school and I would say it’s the other way around. If you hang with Gus and Walter, you’ll continue to get invited to parties and get laid and get any product you want. Seen hanging out with Gale ? Social suicide. Gale is doing the best thing from a person of his position and social stature.
The difference between talent and hard work, I guess. You can be competent at almost anything you really put your mind to and sink your time in, but if you don't have that inborn talent that comes so easy to others, competent is as good as you're ever going to be. Very competent at best, but you'll always fall short of people who have that innate spark of talent that you just don't have. Talented people need to work too, but they start with an advantage. If they have both talent and passion, the sky is the limit.
Still, a major oversight, as future episodes would show. Gus not only had in Gale a very competent chemist who could syntetize 96% pure product. He had that and someone he could trust, who was involved in his plans from the beginning. Gale was part of the years-long plan to build the superlab from the beginning, someone he could trust to run it and not to bring trouble. Walt... Gus already mistrusted Walt before they met. He knew Walt's brother in law was DEA, and even voiced his concern over Walt's partner being a junkie. The difference in quality was negligible. Mr. Fring dug his own grave.
@@DarkLink606 There was a line somewhere in the show similar to this- "We're worried about purity when our average customer lives in a roach studio and survives mainly on Twinkies and Mountain Dew?!"
Yeah, those percentages are just arbitrary. Legal pharmaceuticals for ADHD that either contain amphetamine or methamphetamine is the gold standard for addicts when it comes to a "pure high", but, those pills are still at most like 30% pure by weight, the rest is pill binder, stabilisers, dyes and coatings. So the purity isn't really important.
@@ns7353 Gus just couldnt, the blue was the best at the time even before they started producing in their lab so his plans where doomed to fail for months in advance.
I love the little detail that, when Gus interprets Gale's nervousness as him worrying that the superiority of the outside sample threatens his position as cook, he responds as a boss firmly shutting down an insecure subordinate and refuses to talk about anything outside of Gale's "compartment". When Gus thinks it's a regular criminal power dynamic thing he uses his standard, cold, criminal managerial style. But when he realizes that Gale's nervousness is more that of a junior craftsman trying to talk his way into an apprenticeship with a hugely talented master, he instantly warms up a little, and explains, with an honest to god smile, the reasoning behind his decision. That's the sort of respect you'd give to a peer of intelligence if not authority, not some dumb subordinate you have to babysit to prevent from fucking up. The fact that Gale felt comfortable enough to actually push his point is pretty significant too. Gus must have had a lot of patience and quiet respect for people who focused on the work. I bet that's a big part of the reason he treated his non-criminal staff vastly better than all his other henchmen and seemed genuinely concerned over their well being. The lowly civilian burger flippers had the good sense and overall competence to do their job, properly and consistently, with minimal supervision; meanwhile, Gus constantly had his hands full meeting with delegators coming to him with problems caused by the rest of the dysfunctional maniac dipshits that worked FOR him instead of WITH him. I bet that after having to deal with Walters and Lalos and Sauls all the time, Gus came to cherish his loyal, simple, predictable little fry cooks/shift leaders/cashiers that just wanted to come in, get shit done on autopilot with minimal issues, then clock out.
It's actually sad, that Gale is the only one who really fully understood the genius behind Walter, who struggled his whole life underappreciated. And in the end Walt is the one who got him killed.
If gale is so smart he should have realized that the blue color is caused by Walter's use of those barrels of industrial methalazine or whatever its called, instead of Sudafed
This is a perfect example of the saying "don't let perfect be the enemy of good." Gus should have stuck with his gut bc pursuing that extra 3% ended up costing him (and Gale) everything.
well had Gus not hire Walter his entire plan would have been a flop as sooner or later Walt would get an offer from cartel directly making the Salamanca family unstoppable.
@@why9321 not really how the cartel and specifically the Salamancas do business. If you cross them, they will kill you. Slowly. But they will still kill you
Honestly Gale is really such a softspoken person, he dosen't see it as a drug but a science creation of a genious and it just makes him look like a giddy child as well.
That's exactly why he and Walt were so good at it. They loved and understood every aspect of the science behind creating it. WHAT they created was just coincidentally also getting them a lot of money.
@@twisted_nether373 After Walt watched Jane dye he stopped giving a fuck. He wouldn't have hesitated at all to kill Gale if it were him instead of Jesse.
I mean at the end of the day I think Walt saw it the same way. Perhaps not as intensely as Gale. But I feel like if you reach that level of purity, you almost have to view your craft as an art form in some way. Or you will not be that good.
@@HendersonHinchfinch it ain’t about the twist, you just feel bad for the guy. Because in the last episode he was shot in the face, which incidentally was Walters fault. So it’s ironic. Lol
Gus knew Gale was the smartest option, but unpurposely Gale did to Gus, what Gus did to Walt: he played to his weakness. Walt's being his ego and Gus' being perfectionism.
Yeah, but if Walt didn't go to Gus, then Walt would probably go to the Competition which wouldn't be good for Gus. Walt by himself managed to make a good amount of money without Gus in season 5 and before he met Gus. Of course before Gus he was working with unreliable distributors. But without Gus, Walt will look for another way since he needs more money.
@@drlukas4242 I really doubt that. As Mike said to Saul in the Season Finale of BCS, alone, Walter and Jesse would get caught sometime soon. Gus gave Walter more time before getting caught. And after Gus, we need to considerate that the Cartel was really weakened (Gus call do Bolsa), Lydia was desesperated and the other Cartel from the North (dont remember the name) was a mess. Walter, Jesse and Mike wouldn't last long after Gus.
@@raoulhery you're right that the end user would probably not notice unless said person was a connoisseur lol but if you're producing mass amounts it matters a lot because first less weight/volume/etc of what you're moving is not product and second higher purity product can be diluted more and therefore basically you need less product to make more money also Gus was a perfectionist and most likely had OCD and therefore it would have mattered to him to know that he was getting the second best especially when he could be getting the best PS ¡viva Allende! ¡viva la revolución! ¡hasta la victoria siempre!
Gus is a man of focus, commitment and sheer will. I once seen him kill a man with a box cutter, a fucking box cutter . . . "The bodies he buried that day layed the foundation of what they are now."
And thus began the Downfall of Gus fring. They literally had the entire world in the palm of their hand, and they chose to piss off a High school Chemistry teacher.
Walt was always going to explode at some point though. It's really nothing that Gus did. He should've never signed up for Walter White to begin with. He's too ambitious, too obsessed with his own power and ego to just stay in Gus' basement and cook for him.
During this point, in this season, it's where you begin to see in Gus' eyes that he realizes Walt is much more than a genius Chemist and you can see that it always bothered him. He was slightly intimidated by Walt. You can't blame him - as Walt had a numerous amount of tricks up his sleeve.
It’s funny because ever since I watched the video essay titled Gustavo Fring: The Better Walter White, I’ve always thought that Gus thought of Walt as a possible peer, but saw that he had too much flaws to be reliable so he turned to Jesse Pinkman.
I love that! There's so many that just see Walt as someone who was unreasonably lucky and there's an element of that in the story but truth is at the end of the day, he was a force of nature and everyone in the ABQ crime scene underestimated him and ended up paying a heavy price.
It’s honestly stupid because I’m real life being a good chemist of any sort hardly ever depends on being able to raise the yield/purity by a few percent. Those are technician crafts, not what you do a PhD for.
Yeah, I mean gale would have probably improved his product and process over time too , and Gus could have easily had the competition killed. Besides as brought up by many ppl in the shoe, you're essentially selling poison to some of the less picky customers in the market,
The fact that Pinkman, who had no background in chemistry, was able to also get a purity of 96% tells you what a great student he was and Walter a great teacher.
To me, this scene shows how Jesse has grown throughout the series. Gale says "I can guarantee 96%, I'm proud of that figure, it's a hard earned figure" Jesse was able to do 96% of purity by the end of the show. A guy with no education, no degree in chemistry, just 2 years of internship with the best, and he was capable of producing meth just as good as a trained chemist.
@L-silent that’s the lore of Heisenberg. Even the DEA was blown away. Heisenberg wasn’t just a good chemist who decided to be the best in the criminal underworld. He was one of the best chemists in the world, period. Gale was saying that it wasn’t a matter of tech or practice to clear that 3%, but that Heisenberg is a god among men.
Gale is the embodiment of what Walt always wanted: unbridled respect from his peers and a genuine notice of his genius. Gale was a guy that was not consumed with wanting constant affirmation of his genius. He was comfortable with who he was and lived within his means, something Walt was seemingly incapable of doing, and that bothered Walt more than Gale's almost equal talent as a chemist, which was also something he resented. He was devoid of self destructive ego, so much so that he insisted that Walt should be included in the fold. He fawned over Walt, and then he gets repaid with a bullet in the head. It's one of the sadder parts of Breaking Bad.
@@therealbs2000I'm not sure of that -- Gale has a humble, learning mindset. He's not scared to admit he can learn a thing or two from other people. If he's an A- and Walt is an A+, Gale makes it up to an A with his approach. Walt on the other hand has the superior intellect and skills, but is an ego-centric prick with a massive chip on his shoulder. Walt can't work in a team, and it costs him everything (this happens at Grey Matter and numerous times in his illegal dealings). Think of all of the times Walt dismisses Jessie's opinion about running the dealing side -- Jessie is admittedly nowhere near kingpin level, but still far more savvy than Walt. Walt's first couple of (very forceful) suggestions nearly gets both of them killed by Krazy8 and then Tuco. The things Jessie warns him about immediately happen. Walt learns nothing from this. Gale would've proactively learned and corrected his approach. I think there's trusting your own instincts about the things you're very good at, and then there's Walt -- he thinks he can be Gus, Mike, Jessie and Saul all in one package. Gale knows he's a good chemist and he can learn to be great. Walt thinks he can be the best at everything he turns his hand to and do them all simultaneously.
@MSimp2k6 there is nothing to disagree with your analysis. However, it rests on a few flawed assumptions. The first and most obvious one is that you assume walt does not or cannot learn from those who are superior to him in some way. The gale growth mindset is the neatly packaged one that all the HBR types like to talk about in the publications. But there is ample evidence that when walt actually meets someone who he respects as an equal, he is more than willing to learn and to exchange notes. Even in his interaction with gale, who might be said to make an inferior meth product, walt had no hesitation in remarking that gale brewed the best coffee he'd ever had. My suspicion is that if walt ran into someone making 99.5 or 99.9 pct pure meth, it might bug the hell out of him, but you can be sure he would be willing to figure it out. However, that is speculation, which is the point--we never know. What we know for a fact is that walt makes the best meth in the show and by extension the fictional brba universe. Which goes back to the original point. My only remark was that the gap between gale and walt was by gales own admission vast. This is a gap regarding the science. Not the soft skills, or the social mores, or the morality, or the ability to get along with others, or anything else that you made very good points about. For the purposes of the argument, they do not have any material effect on the claim that gale made, and that i substantiated.
@@therealbs2000 fair points, but I still don't think Gale's outlook held him back in his approach to science compared to Walt. If anything, I believe they make him a better, well-round chemist. Perhaps Gale had been ploughing a lone furrow and it held him back. He was early in his career, was still studying and had probably yet to work with a person better than him. Walt had already been surrounded by smart people who he could bounce off, and I think that's why Gale was so drawn to him as a mentor figure. Walt is also older and more experienced after Grey Matter. I agree that Walt _does_ occasionally learn from others (indeed, it's a bit of a trope that he 'absorbs' traits from people he has eliminated), but it's pretty superficial, all told.
For anyone who hasn’t seen the TV series Suits, the actor who plays Gale has a role of a big shot corrupt corporate lawyer on the show, he’s an antagonist that attacks very similarly to Gus Fring. Very innocent looking, very professional, light voice so soft that you’d think they’d never hurt a fly, but for those who’ve seen Suits, you know that’s not the case. Giancarlo Esposito did an amazing job, nobody could’ve done it better, but it makes me curious to see what it would’ve been like to see Gale’s actor portray Gus, because it would’ve been just as legendary believe me.
Y’all better listen to these chemists man 3 percent is not a joke small figures mgs etc even mls of drugs etc can be enough to fuck u over 3 percent is a lot
Gale's dialogue and acting is incredible. Up until now all we have is the word of junkies and drug dealers that Heisenberg puts out a good product. Then we have Gale, a brilliant chemist with a multi-million dollar lab at his disposal. And the thing I love so much about the writing/acting is that Gale is not just impressed, he is literally in awe at how chemically pure Blue Sky is. The way he talks about the "tremendous gulf" between his product and Blue Sky is almost reverential. Amazing scene.
It is a massive gulf. Gale's best leaves 4% impurity. Walt's leaves 1%. In other words Walter can remove 75% of the crap Gale leaves behind. Walt is over twice as good as Gale at cooking meth
Gale can tell that his own 96% was on a good day and from the sound of it 99% was Walt on a bad day. Gale understands that and respects it. For that I respect Gale.
Everyone is saying Gus should have stuck with Gale, and he'd still be alive.... But he also had a chance to survive by not taking the side of his child killing dealers. It boggles my mind how many people solely blame Walt for the downfall of their relationship when Gus, and Jesse played a much bigger role.
Let’s be real here; Walt never wanted to be anything other than top dog. He had severe insecurities and disdain for authority, he always had to be right, always had to be in control, always had to be all-knowing and all-powerful and absolutely despised being told what to do. Regardless of what moral or ethical transgressions Gus did or didn’t make, Walt would sooner or later find a way to justify taking him out of the picture so that he could gain power. It was exactly like Mike said, Walt’s ego is what ruined everything. Walt knew Mike was 100% right and that’s why he was angered enough to kill him out of spite.
@@serendipitousslim1529 this is all hypothetical. From what we saw walt didnt act against gus until he absolutely had to. Walt was perfectly content doing what he was told until gus had the intention of killing and replacing him with gale.
@@serendipitousslim1529 imagine using hypotheticals to excuse what gus did. let’s see the list of what gus did. he used children in his operation killed said child tried to get walt to the laundromat to kill him killed victor (his top guy aside from mike) in front of walt tried to drive a wedge between jesse and walt threatened walt’s family and brother in law now, after hearing ALL OF THAT, how can you excuse what gus did?
@@marcusvergara6193 when or where did I excuse what Gus did? Assumptions make an ass out of you. Walt also; Poisoned a child to get Jesse to hate Gus in an attempt to kill him Let Jane die which did everything that it did Killed 9 people in a prison on the fear they may snitch Killed Mike for losing an argument Paid the neo-nazis to kill Jesse
Let's not forget that while Gale's admiration for Walt gets him and Gus killed, it also gets Walt in the end (a certain dedication in a certain book in a certain bathroom).
Gale wanted to see how it was done. Not to appease Gus or to make more money, he was genuinely curious as to how Walt was able to achieve something like that.
Gus is a man of focus, commitment and sheer will. I once seen him kill a man with a box cutter, a fucking box cutter . . . "The bodies he buried that day layed the foundation of what they are now."
...and Walt achieved 99% purity while using a chemistry set in the back of an RV. Just imagine how high the purity must have been while working from the super lab.
@@Watcherofprovidence The purity in this case is more complicated than it just being 99% Meth. Methamphetamine has a left + right handed isomer. Being able to produce 99% Dextro-Methamphetamine (the right handed isomer) without any Levo-Methamphetamine in it is tremendously more difficult, this is the purity they are talking about. Producing 99% Methamphetamine with say relatively equal amounts of Left+Right hand isomers isn't particularly difficult with the pure chemicals and equipment they are working with.
I don't know how obvious this is but having taken a bit of chemistry in college I like how he appreciates the difference between those purities. It's not just a difference of 3% it's more like doing all that work that was required to get to 96%, then removing another 75%. As with that it's not about the total amount but the relative amount. So of Gale's 4% of impurities, 75% of that was removed. Which could be very very difficult with how little there is left.
Not necessarily because meth crystallizes so there should probably be a rinse and repeat type process to reach increasing levels of purity with the right equipment. It would really come down to it not being with the time and effort to purify it to that degree, not that he couldn’t do it
I mean if only Gus dealt with those drug dealers for Jesse like he asked, then Jesse would shut the fuck up and do his job with Walter. Once Gus had his revenge he would definitely let Walter go and everyone would be better off in the long run. Gus was too desperate to jeopardize his income for his revenge.
@@masterzombie161 Not really. Walt was descending into a power trip madness during that period. Sure killing Gus pushed his ego into new heights, but it was inevitable Walt would not keep working under Gus for long.
@@masterzombie161 Gus ordered them to kill the boy. He did it to provoke Jessie because he wanted him gone. He didn’t anticipate Walt intervening though
Gus is a man of focus, commitment and sheer will. I once seen him kill a man with a box cutter, a fucking box cutter . . . "The bodies he buried that day layed the foundation of what they are now."
So many themes in this show. So deeply layered. Every characters motivations and the cause and affects of those motivations. Every character was a player in their own personal Greek tragedy.
To know that Howard and Lalo are both buried underneath that lab is a terrifying detail BCS gave us. “Empires built on the bones of our enemies and the unfortunate souls that perished along the way”
Gus is a man of focus, commitment and sheer will. I once seen him kill a man with a box cutter, a fucking box cutter . . . "The bodies he buried that day layed the foundation of what they are now."
02:24 the details of Victor’s footsteps getting louder approaching behind Gale, and Gale’s instant realization he may die right now because he can only do 96%….this show is the greatest
That's what most normal people want you to believe. In real life, hundreds of thousands of people have become super rich in the drug business. Producing, moving, securing, dealing, you name it. The highed ups get away with it A LOT. And even if you're a lower to medium level thugh, it's stil worth it. Lets say you make 40k a month. Not a crazy figure in the drug business. That's almost half a million per year. Lets say you get caught every 4-5 years. You have to sit for like 4-8 months, maybe less. Who cares to sit, if you're rich as fuck anyways when you get out again? The "gang war" and "turf war" thing doesn't happen that much honestly. Because of the hard societal demands on individuals, people need drugs. And because of that the demand for drugs is so high that multiple distributors can easily coexist in peace.
@@macinnocuous6702 I have a master's degree in criminal law and worked in criminal law for years, both on the government side and for clients ('criminals'). What I said is the reality. I would like to know which part of what I said triggered you to question my credentials
@@jminkvihubyb I'll second that. I've had people that I used to get weed from, go on to buy homes and businesses from that shit. Basically they achieved the Stringer Bell dream of using street money to go legit.
Gale has devoted his entire life to exploring and mastering a craft. To peel back the layers, to pierce the veils, to instinctually feel the mechanics of give and take, to know what is possible. He knows everything that is known about his craft. He is at the pinnacle of understanding. What he sees in Walt's product is Walt knows things that nobody knows. Walt is operating and dominating on a level no human being ever knew existed. If he tried to explain this to the top professors in the world, they would laugh at his attempt to bullshit them. He would laugh if anyone tried to convince him. But.. the proof is in his hands. It is concrete and irrefutable. He needs to meet and learn from this man. To be denied the opportunity to work with Walt would make his life a sick joke.
But the thing is any decent chemical or pharma company like Pfizer can produce 99.99%+ pure substances on the daily. Look at the labels haha. They even make methamphetamine.
Gus just cant help but to please his employees, he just cant . He is such an amazing manager. If a worker wants to work with someone, he makes it possible, if a chicken doesnt quite taste as well he gets you a new chicken if a worker steps out of line, he cuts the issue short before it becomes a problem
Gus is a man of focus, commitment and sheer will. I once seen him kill a man with a box cutter, a fucking box cutter . . . "The bodies he buried that day layed the foundation of what they are now."
2:35 can we just appreciate this moment? Gale was being honest (and a touch fearful, all things considered). He KNEW that Heisenberg, without even knowing him, was an artist of chemistry. Gus kept Gale because he was a professional of his craft, and Gale was proud of his work. Here, Gale being vulnerable, and Gus knowing him so long, that look Gus has says, "this man - whom I have had make quality work- is telling me this man is perfect compared to him. THAT is a problem."
Gus really was the best judge of character. He knew Walt was trouble, and had to be convinced by everyone else that the money and the product was too good to pass up.
Losing Gale was my final heart-shot from this show. He was so pure of mind and spirit despite manufacturing drugs for a kingpin like Gus. He was in it purely for how well he could make the chemistry go not necessarily for the money. A bit odd and eccentric? Yes but then again some of the best people on the planet are.
A perfect example of a REAL scientist. No ego, just passion of his own work, great work ethic and accurate acknowledgement of facts/data. He KNOWS the other cook is better than him (the results/data speaks for itself) and he simply wants to work/learn from them.
As much as Walt shits on him in the first episode, Jesse had made a name for himself on the local meth scene with basically no formal education. He definitely had aptitude.
I love this scene, because Gale is shock that there is someone who is better at synthesizing than himself. If Walt never worked for Gus it would have killed Gale that there was someone out that can synthesize at 99% without having expense equipment. In the end it still would have been the end of Gale. His love for chemistry was the ultimate cause of his death.
The difference between 50 and 60 percent purity is peanuts compared to the difference between 95 and 99, that’s what gale is trying to convey. The higher the number, the more difficult it becomes to attain purity. And what Walter has accomplished is unheard of. That’s why gale is so adamant.
and that is just math about relative quantities, if you take into consideration the dificulty involved on reaching high levels of purity then you know that Gale was right when saying that the diference is tremendous.
It’s like blackjack: Sometimes the correct play on a hand results in a loss. Over time that correct play pays off. If you change it based on emotion or recent results you will lose over time. Gus and Gale made the right call, they just got the shit end of the stick on variance.
Everyone’s talking about gale persuading Gus into their deaths, which is true, but without the blue stuff Gus wouldn’t have grown into a position to destroy the Cartel/Salamancas, which was the only thing that gave his life purpose. Dying didn’t matter to him once he saw Hector go first
Gus is a man of focus, commitment and sheer will. I once seen him kill a man with a box cutter, a fucking box cutter . . . "The bodies he buried that day layed the foundation of what they are now."
Never realized until now that at the end of the scene he picks up the box cutter that Fring later uses to kill Victor. That's some insane attention to detail.
Basically despite Gales nerdy behavior, he's exactly the type of dude you would want. Would anyone look at Gale twice as anything but some nerdy guy, no they wouldn't. Wouldn't think really anything about him, you might snicker about him as the weird friendly guy in the apartment, its was kinda refreshing that it was gale and not some other guy that might stand out.
It's kind of a hilarious irony that Gale being almost an inversion of Walt in so many ways beyond their shared expertise, he still talked Gus into something Walt couldn't. He set in motion something that would take out Gus, Walt (ultimately), Mike, and so many more... all without even knowing it. Gale in some ways really was the perfect other side of the Walter White coin. Less a foil to him than Jesse, but arguably far more connected to his origins as simply a chemist in love with the chemistry, sans the ego.
I love the little detail where gale goes over and grabs the boxcutter at the end of the scene, probably the same box cutter from *that* scene the night he dies
Im a chemist who specializes in Gas Chromatography, and this is exactly the kind of talk we have when observing aberrant results. We wonder, what happened? Where did it come from? Only the Validator and Director is allowed to see the full patient file from the doc and the police, they provide a possible scenario explaining what we analyzed. True chemistry detective work.
correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't gas chromatography make literally zero sense for methamphetamine? I'm an undergraduate student but I thought gas chromatography is only usable for volatile liquids.
If your meth is 65% pure to 68% then it doesn't matter as much, but they're talking about perfection here close to being 100% pure and Walt just achieve it by a long great margin (99%) inside of an RV with p2p pseudo while Gale spends a lot of time inside a professional lab with funding only to get 96%.
@@idkidkidk7112 it wasnt with pseudo. The whole point of switching to P2P was to avoid pseudo. They made phenylacetone (Phenyl-2-Propanone) in a boiler tube then used reductive amination to swap out the oxo for a methylamino group, yielding methamphetamine, 4 lbs.
Well, it's like this. The purest ethanol you can get out of a bottle is 95.6% - your Everclear and the like. Removing the final 4.4% of water from the ethanol, to get pure 100% anhydrous ethanol, is much more difficult than producing the 96% ethanol (at least, if you want to be able to drink it). It's a big deal!
