How Realistic Was Gus Fring Death In Breaking Bad?

The small screen provided us with many memorable deaths over the years from Omar Little of The Wire to Zoe Barnes of House of Cards to Jax Teller of 'Sons of Anarchy'. Most of the times, deaths are shocking, but sometimes they are a way to end the character arc in a definite way.

Breaking Bad is without a doubt the best TV show ever made, and it provided us with some iconic deaths over the years from Tuco to 'Andrea' to Walter, but nothing was as shocking, iconic, memorable and satisfying as the one which befalls 'Gus Fring'. In Season 4 of Breaking Bad Walter uses 'Hector Salamanca' as a human bomb and uses a pipe bomb to kill one of the most iconic TV villains.

Watch: The death of Gus Fring

Gus Fring was on the verge of killing Walter, but he went to Hector just so he can gloat, but that resulted in his demise. The reason this death is so memorable is because of the way it is portrayed on screen. As Hector used the bell on his wheelchair to activate the bomb, Gus realizes what is happening and tries to run, which is when the bomb explodes. But then after the dust settles, we see Gus walking out of Hector’s room as we look from the left side of Gus. But as the camera pans left to show the right side of Gus, we see one eye of Gus is missing, and the whole right side is burned. Gus adjusts his tie and then falls to the ground, to his death.

The reason the death is so remarkable and memorable is because Gus is such a smart character and an amazing antagonist when we see him walking out of the room after the blast, it felt like nothing could harm the drug kingpin of New Mexico. It felt like he was invulnerable and for a second we thought Walter was in big trouble, but then we are brought back to the ground, and we realize he is only human.

The reason we are talking about the death of Gus is after the episode aired and the amazing one-shot was over, there was one question on people’s mind, can a person walk away after suffering a similar injury?

As Hector is ringing his bell, Gus gets up to run to the door, but the bomb goes off. Since the bomb is behind Hector and under his chair, we are assuming Gus is being hit by the force of the bomb and not the bomb itself. Gus was facing Hector with his right side and when the bomb exploded the right side of Gus is burned off, and as we saw him outside there was no damage done to his skull, and he appeared to be in shock. As he walked out we also saw except for his eye there was no bodily damage except for severe burns.

Gus was in shock, and most of the motor function was still up and running for which resulted in him walking out of the room. That much is believable, but the character walks the unbelievable territory when he stands up and fixes his tie before succumbing to his injuries. The pain would’ve been unrecognizable to the body, so to the point of walking is believable, but the tie fixing is where the scene goes from scientifically possible to a dramatic statement.

Whatever the case the episode and the death of Gus are still iconic, and at this point, there are very few shows which can top that iconic death. The tie fixing is fun and solidifies the character as one of the most fiercest, but the scene was about portraying the dignified ending of Gus than providing the scientific answer to his last moment.