19

Obviously, when Walt shot two of Gus' trustworthy men in Breaking Bad, Gus wanted to kill Walt and have Gale replace him after learning his formula.

However, around the time Gus offers Walt '3 million dollars for 3 months of your time', did Gus plan to continue doing business with Walt after these 3 months, or was Walt just a disposable source of money? At this time, Walt wasn't seen as much of a threat (he wasn't as much of a liability as is in series 4).

So, is there any evidence to suggest that Gus planned to kill Walt (or not) from the start?

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13

I think Gus' initial plan was to sweeten the deal enough for Walt to become his chemist.

While extremely distrustful of him to begin with because of Jesse, Gus takes a risk and accepts Walt into his trade and even gives him the lab at the behest of Gale encouraging Gus that purity means more money.

Assuming everything went smoothly and certain events didn't occur, it is plausible that even after learning Walt's connection to Hank that it would still be beneficial to Gus to keep him on as long as he survived due to the extra money Gus could make and the monetary incentive for Walt.

Judging by the series as a whole, Gus only intended death for Walt after he ran over his dealers, breaking the peace to save Jesse's life, who was still considered a lowly junkie by Gus.

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  • These actions very much portrayed Walt as a dog without a leash (from Gus' perspective as Walt's boss). Until then, Walt seemed a civilized and educated man, and his "bad manners" could have been attributed to hanging around with Jesse (which, as far as Gus could have known then, could have been a necessary evil that Walt suffered to become an established meth cook). Walt refusing to let go of Jesse could then also be construed as well-meaning loyalty, and is not directly indicative of Walt's bad character. Killing the dealers does prove that Walt does not respect the chain of command. – Flater Jul 19 '17 at 12:16
1

Remember when Jesse was talking about how unfair the deal was at the lab on season 3 episode 8. He says in the middle of a a sentence,

and like what happens at the end of the three months?

the Walt looks up for second looking concerned. Why would Gus just give up money after three months. You don't stop working for Gus, you work until you are killed by him.

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  • It's also possible Gus figured after 3 months he would have gathered enough data on Walt's process to apply the technique to any chemist he finds. – Kai Qing Sep 18 '18 at 23:15

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