Breaking Bad: Gus’s Backstory Explained

Of all the antagonists in television history, Gustavo Fring from Breaking Bad might be the best. On the surface he is the mild mannered owner of the fried chicken chain Los Pollos Hermanos. However underneath his unassuming appearance, Gus is actually a ruthless and calculating drug kingpin, responsible for the distribution of meth throughout the entire southwest.

Gus has been a fan favorite character since his inception, and one of the most intriguing things about him is his mysterious background. Throughout the show, we only get hints at his backstory, and his motivations for why he built his drug empire. Well in this video, I’m going to be breaking down everything we know about Gustavo Fring.

Now this information comes from both Breaking Bad and the prequel show Better Call Saul. So just know that I’ll be including spoilers from both shows if you haven’t seen them.

Gustavo Fring was born in Chile, though it’s highly probable that the name Gus Fring is just an alias. When Hank looks into his background, he can find no records of him in Chile. Now Gus claims that it is due to poor record keeping by the Chilean government, but we see in a flashback that Don Eladio says that he also knows who Gus really is, implying that the name is a cover. Either way though, I’ll continue to refer to him as Gus for now.

Gus was born to a very poor family, including two older brothers. When he was a child, he cultivated a fruit tree to feed himself and his family. When the fruit was eaten by a coati, he waited patiently and captured the animal and kept it alive to prolong its suffering in revenge. We get hints at Gus’s methodical and psychopathic need for revenge even this early on.

Now, we don’t know much about Gustavo’s time in Chile. However, we get hints that he was someone important. The reason Eladio lets Gus live is because he knew who he really was, but warned him that he was not in Chile anymore, implying that he was an important figure there.

It’s hinted that Gus may have been involved with the government of Augusto Pinocet, the dictator of Chile during this time. Hector Salamanca also refers to him as the “Big Generalissimo”, meaning General, implying that he may have been with the military.

Pinocet’s government was involved with death squads and other human rights abuses, which Gus may have been a part of. It might be why he was a known figure in the underworld, and why he would later cover up his true identity. He himself brings up these events on the show.

During this time, Gus met a number of people who would be important to him later on. First was Maximino Arcienega, a gifted chemistry student who’s education Gus paid for. Another was Peter Schuler, an international businessman. Peter and Gus were involved in a situation that had their backs to the wall, though we don’t know the details about what happened.

Lalo Salamanca describes a situation that happened in Santiago, the capital of Chile. Again it’s described in vague terms, but it’s implied to have been something traumatic. This may have been what made Gus leave Chile, as in 1896 he fled the country and moved to Mexico with Max at his side.

Together the two opened their first restaurant, Los Pollos Hermanos. The name, which means “the chicken brothers” in English, refers not only to their food but the close relationship the two had. Though the restaurant was considered a success, in reality it was front for their meth operation.

At the time, meth was considered a poor man’s drug, and the cartels were more interested in cocaine. However Gus realized that the synthetic nature of meth meant that it could be produced anywhere, and with a talented chemist like Max they could make a drug far more potent than cocaine. All they needed was the backing of the Mexican cartel to scale their operations.

Together Gus and Max met with Don Eladio, the leader of the cartel, along with his subordinates Hector Salamanca and Juan Bolsa. They pitched their idea, but feeling insulted that Gus went behind his back, Eladio ordered Max killed. Though they let Gus live because of his reputation, from that day on he would swear revenge on the cartel and begin a decades long process of avenging Max.

It’s heavily implied that Gus and Max were lovers. Hector Salamanca taunts the two, saying they like what they see when he pees in the pool. He also calls them “The Butt Brothers”, again referring to them being gay. Lalo also calls Max Gus’s boyfriend when referring to the incident. Though it’s never outright confirmed, Vince Gilligan, Peter Gould, and Giancarlo Esposito have all said that this was their interpretation of the characters as well.

After Max died, Gus did several things to honor his memory. He set up a fountain dedicated to Max in a small village that Gus owned. He also established a chemistry scholarship at the University of New Mexico in Max’s name. However this scholarship had an ulterior motive as well. It was a way for him to identify new and talented chemists, which he would need to continue his plans for a meth empire.

After immigrating to the United States, Gus moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico and began setting up his chain of restaurants throughout the American Southwest. He did this with the backing of Madrigal Electromotive, where his old friend Peter Schuler was an executive. He financed his logistical network with the plan of using it as a cover for a large-scale drug operation.

In order to conceal his involvement, Gus became a prominent member of the Albuquerque society. He became a philanthropist and a big supporter of the DEA in order to throw off suspicion. To the average person, Gus was a mild-mannered business owner, and one would never think that he was involved with anything shady.

Eventually the Cartel decided to get into meth after all, and wanting to remain close to them, Gus became one of their distributors north of the border. This caused friction between him and Hector Salamanca, who had his own operation. This rivalry was encouraged by Don Eladio, who thought that it was a good way to keep any party from growing strong enough to challenge him.

Eventually Hector suffers a stroke due to Nacho Varga switching his medication. However Gus refuses to allow him to die, as he is waiting for his chance to get revenge for Max. Gus ends up saving Hector’s life, but stops treatment so that Hector will be confined to a wheelchair and unable to speak. This is exactly like the coati from when he was a child, prolonging his enemies suffering for his own amusement.

With Hector out of the way, Gus became the main distributor for the cartel. Though the drugs were synthesized in Mexico, Gus had plans to eventually build his own superlab in secret and be able to cut the Cartel out of the operation.

A big chunk of Better Call Saul is dedicated to how Gus built the superlab and I don’t want to just recap the show, but I’ll just say that he was extremely secretive when it came to its construction. He brought in German engineers who weren’t even allowed to know where they were, just to make sure the information did not leak to the Cartel and ruin his chance at revenge.

To his end, he recruited Gale Boetticher to become his chemist. Gale was the recipient of his scholarship, and Gus identified that he would be able to trust him to be part of the operation. Gale set up the superlab, ordering all the chemistry equipment they would need. It was also Gale that suggested that they work with Walter White, who’s meth exceeded even his own. This would lead into the events of Breaking Bad, which I already covered in my Breaking Badlogs if you haven’t seen them.

Overall though, I hope I’ve helped unravel Gustavo Fring’s character. Gus is one of the most fascinating characters in all of television, but his backstory is only given to us in small pieces and across multiple shows, so it can be hard to piece together. Hopefully this video has helped with that, and you can expect more Breaking Bad analysis coming soon.

Now there is an open question of whether or not Gus has a family in Breaking Bad. When Walt goes over to Gus’s house for dinner, we see children’s toys around the room. He also says that his children won’t eat his favorite Chilean dish.

However when Jesse later goes over to his house, the toys are all gone, and there are no other references to Gus having a family. We also see in Better Call Saul that his house is really a cover, with an underground tunnel leading to a neighbor's house that acts as the base of operations. Again a family is nowhere to be seen in all of this.

It’s likely that Gus was just manipulating Walt with his references to being a father. Afterall he says that his kids don’t respect the food he likes, something Walt can relate to. He also plays up the role of a father when convincing Walt to cook meth again, so the whole thing was probably just a lie to further his objective. A family just wouldn’t have any place in Gus’s deep and longterm plans for revenge on the cartel.