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In Breaking Bad S04E12 End Times, at the end Gus walks towards his car at the hospital parking with his two bodyguards, with Walt watching from an adjacent rooftop. As Gus is approaching the car he stops dead in his track with a doomed look on his face and heads over to the railing. He looks around but is not able to see Walt or sense anything out of place (as far as the viewers can tell). But he still walks away from the rigged car.

How does Gus sense that there's something wrong with the car? Moreover, Gus is never shown to be paranoid or doing things over a hunch, so how is this explainable?

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    Gus could have seen Walt's glasses reflecting back at him. They were on top of his head at a perfect angle to reflect the sun's rays.
    – user6273
    Commented Sep 28, 2013 at 8:38
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    @Robert: That was my initial thought but then, we never see that being explained in the show. And absolutely nothing goes unexplained in this show!
    – Sayan
    Commented Sep 30, 2013 at 6:39
  • Maybe he saw Walt's head moving out of the corner of his eye. His brain registered it as a danger but his conscious mind didn't pick up exactly what was seen.
    – JoelFan
    Commented Feb 26, 2016 at 18:54

4 Answers 4

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From this source:

"Walt was right when he said that Gus is always 10 moves ahead. Gus didn't need to be right about his car being sabotaged; he was just smart enough to know that he was walking into what would be a perfect trap, and one he’d happily spring if the tables were turned. So he walked away."

Basically Gus wasn't sure if his car had been rigged to blow, but he knew if he was trying to kill someone it would have been a perfect way of achieving this.

He is clearly very good at reading situations and this lead to him being so successful in such a dangerous industry.

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    Also I'm pretty sure Jesse tells him about the poison. Gus knows he didn't do it and is therefore on edge.
    – Tony
    Commented Mar 5, 2013 at 18:32
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    Right; knowing that the poisoning (which he didn't do) drew him out to such an unfamiliar location, Gus (rightly) suspected someone (Walt or not) might have set-up this opportunity.
    – JoshDM
    Commented Mar 5, 2013 at 20:29
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    ok, but why was gus so stupid to have only 1 cook. what if jesse dies due to car accident or something, does he wants to shut down his millon dollar industry due to just 1 cook?
    – user6547
    Commented Oct 28, 2013 at 1:50
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    @user6547 because he had a really hard time finding Gale, then Gale died so he had to use Walt and Jessie. For whatever reason it was hard for him to find reliable, qualified cooks he could trust. I'm sure he wanted other cooks, but had trouble finding them.
    – charlie
    Commented Oct 17, 2014 at 6:27
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    Followup question: Why wouldn't Gus have left one of his men in hiding to watch his car?
    – Jamie Hanrahan
    Commented Nov 27, 2015 at 10:19
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As we know, Gus is an extremely careful and intelligent man and he is in fact always ahead of Walt and everyone else. And I think it was exactly the fact that Brock was poisoned (which we know Gus didn't do) that made him doubt the situation, which is told to him by Jesse during their meeting right before.

Jesse: He's not sick, he was poisoned.
Gus: How did that happen?
Jesse: The doctors, they don't know.

So he learns that Brock was poisoned by unknown circumstances. Gus might even guess it was Walt or not or that Jesse is in on anything or not, but what he knows is that definitely some kind of foul play was at the works and ultimately ended up bringing him here. So I think this was the primary hint that something was wrong with this whole hospital visit. And in fact after he is told of the poisoning he immediately gives in, lets Jesse stay in the hospital and leaves, though he doesn't seem to think about an actual car bomb until on his way to it.

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The entire situation (being lured to the hospital by Jesse,leaving his vehicle unguarded,etc) seemed rather odd to Fring. While he did make a serious tactical mistake (he walked to the edge of the parking structure and looked over, thus potentially exposing himself to a sniper) he seems to have gotten a bad feeling about things and decided not to drive away in his car.

Upon reflection, this actually is more a affectation of the narrative than a practical exercise as later (SPOILER) when Walt and Tio Salamanca use the same explosive device to finally murder Fring, it is clear that it’s explosive effect of the bomb would have been sufficient to seriously injure or kill Fring had he walked as close to his vehicle as he did. There was only a limited need (primarily for the sake of the series) for him to actually get into his car.

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    "had he walked as close to his vehicle as he did" - I don't think so. He stood at least like 5-10m away from his car and he stood right next (~1m) to Tio (and even that let at least "half of him" intact).
    – Napoleon Wilson
    Commented Oct 17, 2014 at 1:46
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    The explosion destroyed an entire room. It’s a certainty that coupled with the flammable liquid in the gas tank, an external explosion would have been significant enough to kill him.
    – Mistah Mix
    Commented Dec 16, 2014 at 18:24
  • I know this is nearly six years old at this point, but, c'mon. No way was that bomb big enough to kill him from there.
    – 2-bits
    Commented Jan 8, 2020 at 1:16
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Walt used the walkie talkie to detonate the bomb. When he turned it on Gus could hear the background noise's and Walt talking to himself.

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    I just rewatched the episode, and nothing in the scene suggests this. The accepted answer seems more probable.
    – Meat Trademark
    Commented Apr 7, 2014 at 9:52

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