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After Jesse killed Gale at the end of Breaking Bad season 3, Walt assumes that Gus is

  1. going to search for another chemist to replace him, and
  2. planning to kill him as soon as he found one.

His assumptions seem quite reasonable to me, but is there any evidence that they are actually true?

We know for sure that Gus was planning to kill Walt before Gale's death, but he might have changed his mind. Wouldn't Gus, as the professional businessman that he is, controlling his emotions, putting up with the situation, letting production run and just being careful not to let himself be killed by Walt or Jesse, also be possible? Or am I missing something?

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Gus is a business man and he knows that his business is based on Walt and Jesse's work. Gale was sent to work with Walt to learn from him and eventually replace his master in case of natural death (cancer) or in case he decided to leave. Then things changes, Walt becomes a threat to Gus and his organization and he decided to kill him and promote Gale. Unfortunately for Gale, Heisemberg is one step forward and he sends Jesse to get rid of him.

Now killing Walt and Jesse would be a disaster for Gus because their skill is unmatched and even knowing their formula others weren't able to achieve their results, he also cannot send somebody to learn from Walt because he wouldn't share his knowledge and finally the mutual trust is irremediably compromised.

There is a sort of stall situation between them, when Gus sees in Jesse the solution to both problems:

  • he is skilled as much as Walt but he doesn't have such a big ego;
  • he is "lost" and easily manipulable or at least controllable;
  • he is basically a good guy, an employee worth the trust.

So the plan is to replace Walt with Jesse, but Gus decides to just fire and scare Walt instead of killing him.

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  • What do you think about the time between Gale's death and Gus discovering that Jesse can properly cook Walt's formula on his own? It seems to me that he considered Jesse to be a worthless junkie at that time, so what do you think were Gus' plans back then?
    – MaxD
    Commented Nov 26, 2015 at 11:56
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    Gus at the beginning doesn't trust Jesse, but then he sees in him what Walt has seen from the beginning: loyalty. Mike also sees Jesse's potential and successfully build a trust relationship with him. All doubts are then cleared after the ambush to the Cartel, where Jesse saves both Mike and Gus, even if he had the chance to kill both.
    – user3574984
    Commented Nov 26, 2015 at 13:19

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