Never has a clip-on tie looked so sinister as when attached to the collar of fast-food king and drug lord Gus Fring. The enigmatic Breaking Bad favourite was last seen dropping to the ground with half his face blown off, but now he’s back, with his visage intact, in a new trailer for Better Call Saul.



The Breaking Bad spin-off has long teased the return of Gus with sly little easter eggs, but the new trailer goes further. It’s an advert for Los Pollos Hermanos, in which Gus Fring pops up at the end. We’ll admit, we thought his return to the Breaking Bad universe might have been a tad more dramatic than recommending curly fries, but, nonetheless, we’re thrilled to see him. Giancarlo Esposito was an immense presence on Breaking Bad and his backstory was left shrouded in mystery, so there are plenty of places for his character to go, even if we do already know his ultimate end. Here are all the burning questions about Gus that Better Call Saul should address.

What was his history?

He was originally from Chile, but left in the 1980s to go to Mexico, before eventually ending up in Albuquerque. Gus Fring is almost certainly not the name he was born with. This is all we know about him for sure.



But the stuff we don’t know is far more intriguing. In the one Gus flashback that Breaking Bad generously gave us, we learned that he was important enough in his abandoned homeland for the Mexican Juárez Cartel to spare his life. Whether it was out of respect or out of fear, we don’t know. Hector Salamanca once referred to Gus as “Grand Generalissimo”, suggesting a connection to Pinochet, though he left Chile during Pinochet’s regime. Did he manage to anger the dictator, somehow? And just how important was he?

Who was his business partner?

Back to that troublesome flashback. His business partner Max, with whom he approached the Juárez Cartel back in the 80s, was murdered by them on the spot. Gus spent the next 20 or so years working with the cartel and plotting his vengeance. This man does not go in for short-term gratification. If there’s one thing we know for sure, it’s that his forward planning skills are second to none.



But two decades is a long time to put into avenging a business partner. Clearly Max meant more to him than that. Were they friends or lovers? Max’s death was the only time we saw raw emotion on Gus’s face. Maybe we’ll finally find out why.

How did he and Mike come to work together?

Better Call Saul has already shown how Saul/Jimmy and Mike Ehrmantraut met. But in Breaking Bad Mike is an enforcer for Gus, trying to keep the peace between Gus and Walt. In fact, Gus is about the only person Mike doesn’t treat as though they’re an idiot (apart from his granddaughter, of course).

But how did Mike and Gus come to respect each other? When Gus finally makes his debut on Better Call Saul, I’d expect it to be via one of Mike’s storylines rather than Jimmy’s.

Does he have a family?

On Breaking Bad Gus claimed to have children, but they were neither seen nor heard. Does he have a family, either back in Chile or in America, or is that just a lie he spins to back up Los Pollos Hermanos’ family ethos? The advert in the teaser is certainly focused on the fast-food chain’s family credentials, so does that mean we’ll get some background on his family at last? At this point, we’d settle for finding out if he has any pets.



Just how does he put up with Saul’s lax business practices?

Gus is controlled, organised and rigid in his business endeavours. Saul Goodman, meanwhile, has an inflatable Statue of Liberty on his office roof. So how on Earth did they come to know and – more importantly – tolerate each other?

In Breaking Bad, Saul is rightly wary of Gus, and yet he does put Walt in touch with him. In retrospect, the idea that Gus would take a business recommendation from Saul seems highly unlikely. I would guess that Mike becomes the facilitator between the pair, someone who they both trust and respect. But watching these poles-apart businessmen meet for the first time has the potential to be flat-out hilarious.