The reason Gus killed Victor at the start of season 4 instead of Walt and Jesse wasn’t fully explained by Breaking Bad, and the explanation tells a lot about the tough monster. When Gustav Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) made his Breaking Bad season 2 debut, Victor (Jeremiah Bitsui) played his go-to guy.
Similar to Jonathan Banks’ Mike Ehrmantraut, Victor acted as a brutal guardian of Gus’ drug empire, ensuring that everything ran well for his employer. Gus, the man Victor of Breaking Bad worked for and trusted with his life, sadly ended up cutting his throat.
Breaking Bad is full of unexpected situations and murders, and a lot of them are caused by Gus Fring. That didn’t lessen the shock factor, though, when Gus killed Victor in “Box Cutter,” the first episode of season 4. The iconic scene from Breaking Bad between Gus and Victor is renowned for its graphic depiction of violence.
This, however, barely touches the surface of Gus’s true motivation for killing Victor. When I think back on the scenario, it sticks out as a turning point in Gus Fring’s life and solidifies his status as the best villain in the Breaking Bad world.
Why did Gus Fring kill Victor Instead Of Jesse?
Given their past, Gus’ murder of Victor in Breaking Bad is all the more horrifying. Victor was employed by Gus long before the events of Breaking Bad, as was disclosed in the Better Call Saul prequel series. As part of Gus’ enterprise, Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse worked at a meth superlab that Victor was keeping an eye on by season 3.
Walt feared he would be killed and replaced by the newcomer when Gale Boetticher (David Costabile), another chemist, joined the group.
Gale was the only person in charge of the meth cooking, so Walt came up with a plan to kill him, but Jesse ended up performing the grunt work. Before Victor could stop Jesse, he shot and killed Gale at his apartment. Walt and Jesse were kept as hostages in the Breaking Bad season 4 premiere, “Box Cutter,” so that Gus could exact revenge on them.
Victor prepared his batch of meth to demonstrate that he had studied Walter White’s meth recipe as he waited for Gus to get to the lab. Gus entered and used a box cutter to sever Victor’s throat before instructing his staff to return to their jobs, instead of going after Walt and Jesse.
Gus was not thrilled that neighbours had seen Victor at the scene of Gale’s death, therefore jeopardizing the operation as a whole. But in the end, there was more to Gus’s killing of his enduring ally, Victor. It was a cold, premeditated move, as is typical of everything Gus Fring does.
Why did Gus murder Victor so viciously? After Victor was executed on Breaking Bad, Gus didn’t have to threaten Walt or Jesse directly. The true reason Gus killed Victor so brutally was to give the two guys a very clear message: if they jeopardized the enterprise, Gus wouldn’t think twice about killing them both.
Even though Jesse was the one who fired the gun, killing Gale, Victor foolishly and carelessly allowed himself to be associated with the crime. Later that season, Gus saw a composite sketch of Victor hanging in a police station, which solidified in his mind the determination to kill his old comrade.