Gus is also, obviously, very smart and cunning and meticulous. And when we met him last year, he didn't initially want to work with Walt because he viewed Walt, correctly, as reckless. And yet here this season he not only does the three-month deal with him, he then opts to continue working with him and builds his entire breaking from the cartel strategy around Walt. Why would Gus do this?
Gus is very smart, but he is not perfect. I think Walt's gambit of going to him in episode 9 - as most of our best moments are, it's borrowed from "The Godfather," the concept of "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" - his gambit of saying, "I know what's going on and let there be no misunderstanding between us. I know you were responsible for my brother in law getting shot, and I know why you did it, and I think it was a great play, and I would have done it myself" and saying he was basically fine with it, I think in that moment, Gus felt he had a real partner, a real equal, potentially. I think he's a very cautious man, very careful, but he is not infallible. I think that moment kind of did what Walt intended for it to do, which was to relax Gus a little bit, and make him think he's got a very worthy partner, or at least a worthy underling. That bought Walt some time. And, as we were speaking about a minute ago, that was the moment in the season where Walt went from being a day late and a dollar short to ahead of the audience - and even in that moment, ahead of Gus. That was the intention of that scene.
