r/breakingbad • u/Old_Community_5128 • 1d ago

Fring’s house

I remember seeing children’s toys in Gus Fring’s house. From what I recall it’s the first time we see his home. What up wit dat?

Just part of the ruse? A storyline that was to have him be a father or grandfather but changed? Production oversight?

3 Upvotes

56% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

20

u/SBCrystal 1d ago

When Walt goes, there are toys everywhere. When Jesse goes, no toys anywhere to be found. I think it was definitely a ruse. Though Jesse actually was the one who was soft on kids. But I guess with Walter it was more to pretend to be a family man like him, the irony that they were both not family men at all.

4

u/Cobbljock 1d ago

Jesse also goes in S4, while Walt goes in S3, so I’m not convinced it was initially intended as a ruse (they fleshed out Fring a great amount in S4), but it definitely works as a ruse, if they decided to retcon somewhat and disguise it. The BB writers were absolute masters of tying all of their loose ends together in a way that makes it feel like it was the plan all along.

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u/leadwithlove222 20h ago

Assuming that detail is intentional, by the time Jesse goes to Fring’s house (season 4), Tomas has been killed under Fring’s orders and Jesse is in a state of homicidal fury over it. seeing children’s toys in his home would probably be a major trigger for him and Gus would know that. I believe the children’s toys when Walt goes is 100% meant to make Walt thinks he can relate to him as a family man which, as the above commenter pointed out, neither of them were at all.

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u/Cobbljock 4h ago

That’s an interesting detail about the toys, I don’t remember whether I noticed that initially. I don’t know that it gives us any insight into the intentionality in S3, but it does seem in S4 to be something the writers were cognizant of, so at the very least, they recognized something in S3 they needed to account for in S4.

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u/leadwithlove222 2h ago

Yes, for sure! They might have initially wrote that detail before Fring’s story was fleshed out, but as we see in BCS it never comes back into play.

9

u/Lucky-Complaint2549 1d ago

Could have been the writers planned to have Gus be a family man hiding in plain sight like Walter but decided to go in another direction. The canon answer is that he was manipulating Walt to make him feel they are more alike than different.

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u/DeeezNutz3000 3h ago

I think this is it.

7

u/Cobbljock 1d ago

He mentions his children in that same episode as well (I think it was something about he loves paella, but his kids won’t eat it). My guess is that it’s just an abandoned angle for Fring that can be later excused as being a ruse to get Walter to find him more trustworthy, and something of a peer.

8

u/jpopimpin777 23h ago

I noticed that. But IIRC he says "the kids" not "my kids." I always assumed it was an uncle with nieces and nephews situation. Of course they never explicitly tell us in the show and it easily could be a ruse. No way to know for sure.

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u/Cobbljock 4h ago

Huh, I didn’t pick up on that. If he does say “the kids,” I probably just assumed it meant the same as “my kids,” and in any other show, I think they’d be interchangeable. But Vince Gilligan is detail-obsessed, so you could be on to something.

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u/Failure456Mil 1d ago

Part of the ruse, to lower Walt's guard.

5

u/lzahart Carol 🍊 1d ago

During Hermanos I kept telling myself oh he is married in the current timeline and his partner from back then is a stay at home hubby who we don’t meet.

Obviously that fantasy was not to be.

3

u/CptExolann 1d ago

He was manipulating Walt into thinking he's a family man just like him. When we see his house later when Jesse is invited, the toys aren't there anymore. The fact that all of this is a ruse is also reinforced by the fact that we know Fring to be gay 

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u/Mobile-Letterhead-72 1d ago

You learned he was gay when he and his partner went to Mexico to meet with the cartel.

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u/Practical-Purchase-9 19h ago

I’m not convinced that when the scenes with the toys appear it was known by writers to be a ruse, that is just the best explanation that fits in retrospect. Something about it makes me think they may have changed direction a bit as Gus developed into the next season and the viewer is left to conclude it is a ruse when it becomes clear he has no family.

Gus’s family situation is never discussed again and the deception is never alluded to by Walt, even when trying convince Jesse of Gus’s untrustworthiness regarding children later on. So seems a bit like the writers didn’t want to draw attention to a potential inconsistency as opposed to this being entirely intentional from the start.

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u/JamesHenry627 1d ago

Walt likely knew it was a ruse too. Gus wasn’t even wearing a ring at that point.

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u/UnicornBestFriend 9h ago

Always took it to be a ruse intended to help him sway Walt.

Gus’s house doesn’t feel like a house that raises kids. There are no drawings on the fridge, no crayon marks on the wall, just some toys sitting out.

With Mike and Walt, we get a glimpse of their family life. Both men are attached to the people they love—that’s their straight life.

With Gus, we get scenes of him managing Los Pollos and making public appearances. That’s his straight life.